on freedom

The Editor

Dear Sir,

I believe a crucial factor seems to have been overlooked by most of the many commentators on the terrorist attack on New York and the Pentagon. I think it has already been suggested that the attack can be considered an attack on the entire free world way of life.

Apart from Islam’s opposition to Western foreign policy regarding Israel there is also, particularly on the part of the extreme fundamentalists, a fanatical ideological opposition to what they regard as Western moral, ethical, cultural and aesthetic decadence. They fear that, unless unchecked, it will spread to Moslem countries and undermine their Islamic faith. Hence they resort to their only available weapon, an undercover terrorist attack on the central base of the world capitalist system which, they believe, is the source of all our financial extravagance, self-indulgence and moral corruption.

The factor, I believe, that has been overlooked is the most important ideological or spiritual one which cannot be challenged by overwhelming military force alone. An idea that inspires extremists can be challenged only by a superior idea, and this involves a return to basic human moral values!

But the terrorism that disregards innocent human life to achieve an ideological objective still has to be pursued and destroyed with the utmost vigour.

The first great challenge to our Western way of life was communism, due to the great disparity between the extravagant rich and the working classes. This second challenge to our way of life, due to extravagant permissiveness, just has to take account of its ideological and spiritual aspects.

Yours sincerely,

Landon R Burch

Bowral