I’ve been thinking too much lately, and I can’t help but think that the use of airplanes in terrorist plots have a deeper significance, or not, you decide.
One element of Islamic reaction is a more or less a conservative reaction that even conservatives in the west can identify. One of the greatest features of the western world is mobility, most dramatically represented by air-travel and airplanes. One of the most active agents in change is mobility. Change in a culture that suppresses individual initiatives and freedoms, in favor of religious dogma and enforced religious rituals would have to resist any mixing of ideas and people, mobility is the enemy. This is exactly the same for both the west and islam. The funny thing is neither side understands this. And reacting to this, or even trying to prevent this mingling of cultures is the one change in the world that neither side can prevent.
What it means to us, the public who have to live in the real world, and not some religious fantasy of a pure ethnic nirvana. Is that all the elements that make our modern world work are under attack in the misbegotten belief that change can be stopped. The one thing the rest of us can do, remove the conservative fanatics on both sides of the equation.
What means is that the West and Islamic moderates will have to eliminate their respective far right fundamentalists from positions of power. And start talking to their opposite number.