Overcoming terror

New Internationalist, Oct, 2004 by Ian Hackett

Congratulations on an excellent issue (NI 370), particularly on the articles by Vanessa Baird and David Boulton. Boulton's identification of religion as 'the itch that can't be healed' and Baird's observation that 'useful religion can easily slip into dangerous religion' really encapsulate the way religiously inspired terror has been able to muddy the waters of our quest for global justice.

The people behind the terror are those who believe that they have healed their own itch and that if they scratch the rest of us hard enough they can heal the world as well. Such beliefs are only possible because of the widespread ignorance of the religions of 'the other' and of the histories of our own religious traditions. The terror will only be overcome when we start looking at the values behind other people's religions and at the flaws in our own.

Ian Hackett London, England