What a fragile life
It's kind of a cliché, but stereotypes often come from some truth ; on Friday, November 13th, it was possible to undersand once again how much life was a poor little thing, that can be taken at any moment, by any fanatic. Those killed people were at the wrong place at the wrong time.
I personally was in the 10th district for a play this evening, that ("thank God"?) finished earlier than the events.
About life
This week-end I watched again the two wonderful movies of Kill Bill, by the genius Quentin Tarantino. Beatrix Kiddo, as her enemies, is not afraid of death. In these movies, life has no sense, and by all this violence and uncountable dead people, one could notice how life is an absurd thing ; we all make plans, but maybe in a few minuts, for any reason, it will just stop, and sometimes in some ridiculous ways (imagine that after all what you've achieved in life, someone just stops you from breathing, and there : you're dead). Humans tend to forget that they are only mortal people, and to have the humility to acknowledge it sometimes can do no wrong. It's even what we should understand, according to existentialists, not to be scared of living once we've known Death and its unlimited powers.
Beatrix Kiddo killing about 50 people in a few minuts
WHY ?
Then, the question must be : why? Why all those people died on November, 13th? As well as existentialist philosophers did not understand the meaning of World Wars, because maybe there was one only for sick minds, it's difficult to understand what makes some people believe that killing people will give them heaven and virgins, and the statuts of martyrs.
Are they resistance fighters, that Sartre or De Beauvoir would have defended? According to Michel Onfray, they are at least rational people, that act by revenge, responding to western attacks on their territories.
Gilles Kepel, specialist of Islam, explains how the notion of "jihad" has been instrumented by powerful Muslim States or organisms, and is a notion than can be interpreted in many ways. This could remind what #Nietzshe explained in the Genealogy of Morals about the values, and the use of language : words do not have meaning by themselves. The meaning only comes from interpretation, and because powerful people are powerful, they generally manage to impose their perception of good values, of Good and Bad. Then the world "jihad" that could mean initially an internal war to improve one's skills, synonym of effort, became the synonym of holy war, leading to the drift we know today, by a changing of the system of values. Because the ones that could be called the doctors of faith, and have the necessary legitimacy to announce Jihad, have used it according to their interests, this notion is instrumented from all the senses.
What they do : killing...
These people are no resistance fighters ; they are the pawns of a dangerous and powerful ideology. Even more powerful than the nazi one, that also led to consider some humans as beasts or monsters to be able to kill them easily ; because this one is linked with religious believes. This faith that was craziness for #Kierkegaard could even make people kill their own sons (hi Abraham and Isaac)...
Thus the most important seems to be to understand this ideology than denies life, and prefers death to it ; death of the enemies, but even death of the person involved, because the after-death is supposed to be much more interesting.
...killing, that must lead them to some place like this
Hi Maya,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your article (and i'm also a big fan of Kill Bill !!). But your version of the jihad (and aslo in the regard of nazism) left me with some concerns. Do you really believe that jihadists have a real ideology ? Because they indeed have a kind of plan to eradicate the "bad" on earth, but I wouldn't/couldn't talk about ideology. In fact they don't even build their plan on the religion but against it, this is a negation of islam. It just seems to me that they are the soldiers of the nothingness. And if they kill, this is not to have their virgin and to go to heaven, but to feel as if they were god. Because in religion only god give and take life.
Hi girls ! First of all, I would like to thank you Maya, for your post blog ! I thought it was really interesting and rather right. However, I would like to continue to reflect on this issue. I saw lots of documentaries and read some books about Islamic terrorism wich permit me to understand that "the 70's virgin", was a dated view of it. Nowdays, Islamic terrorists think they will straight sit down next to the Prophet. So, they are much more determined and dangerous. Furthemore, I do not believe there is a real ideology. Indeed, a "pseud-ideology" is used to convinced young mad lost people to commit murders, attacks, in order to divided Western societies as France. Maybe the goal of those who are at the top of Daesh is to spread chaos in our societies so as to extend their power, domination. The strict application of the Sharia maybe is a veil used by a powerfull and very well organized State. What do you think ?
DeleteHi girls ! First of all, I would like to thank you Maya, for your post blog ! I thought it was really interesting and rather right. However, I would like to continue to reflect on this issue. I saw lots of documentaries and read some books about Islamic terrorism wich permit me to understand that "the 70's virgin", was a dated view of it. Nowdays, Islamic terrorists think they will straight sit down next to the Prophet. So, they are much more determined and dangerous. Furthemore, I do not believe there is a real ideology. Indeed, a "pseud-ideology" is used to convinced young mad lost people to commit murders, attacks, in order to divided Western societies as France. Maybe the goal of those who are at the top of Daesh is to spread chaos in our societies so as to extend their power, domination. The strict application of the Sharia maybe is a veil used by a powerfull and very well organized State. What do you think ?
DeleteHi !
ReplyDeleteI think that the problem is not the extremist Islamists, nor the fanatics. I think that the real problem is the human nature. There will be always extremists and they can be Muslim, Christian, white, black... The problem is that the human being can be indoctrinated or influenced. From that, there will be always people who are going to indoctrinate other people with bad and hostile ideas, so it is inevitable to have fanatics in our society.
Hi !
ReplyDeleteI think that the problem is not the extremist Islamists, nor the fanatics. I think that the real problem is the human nature. There will be always extremists and they can be Muslim, Christian, white, black... The problem is that the human being can be indoctrinated or influenced. From that, there will be always people who are going to indoctrinate other people with bad and hostile ideas, so it is inevitable to have fanatics in our society.