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Find the Causes!

Two weeks after the September 11 attack on the US, Father Justo Lacunza—the president of the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies—expressed frustration with the tendency to identify Islam as the source of terrorism.

Interview by Antoine Soubrier

How did you react to the events of September 11?

Father Justo Lacunza: I was deeply moved and shocked by what happened. This was not an attack against the United States or against the West, but against humanity. Whether one person died or 6,000, this would still have been first and foremost an attack against the human person.

Moreover, the victims came from 80 different countries, from different cultures, and even from different religions. Violence against the person touches all of mankind, regardless of the number of victims.
Is there a danger, after these attacks, that Islam and terrorism will be equated?

Lacunza: At the moment, without having had much time for reflection, I would say that people are seeing these events in a false light. To say that terrorism is a crime committed by Muslims is really not just. When we try to understand the dynamic behind these actions, we discover that terrorists are not true Muslims.

This is not the first time that men have been tempted to make use of religion for their own ends. And one should not lay the blame on Islam, just because there are people who kill in its name. By the same token, just because some Christians in the past have done terrible things in the name of the Church does not mean that Christians are terrorists. When there is intolerance, or fanaticism, or hatred born out of extremist movements of any sort, these forces can sometimes use religion or nationalism as a basis for their support.

Who are the people who are really responsible, then?

Lacunza: As I see it, the people who are responsible for these attacks are the ones who carried them out, and the ones who were involved in the planning from the beginning. I do not accept the notion that a single person, with the help of a small group, could have carried out such an action. He must certainly have had help from governments or other political and financial institutions.

There are secret-service agencies that are set up to track down all threats to the security of civil society. How is it possible that no one in the world was able to discover the preparations for these attacks in advance?

Lacunza: I am convinced that this act was being planned for a long time—in an intelligent, diabolical manner. Now that it has happened, we should look for the roots of terrorism. And that search should cross all the frontiers of cultures and religions. I do not see what criteria would justify referring simply to “the West” as confronting Islam and terrorism.

Are you saying that the terrorists are not the only ones responsible?

Lacunza: Where did the money come from for these actions? The terrorists are only the final actors in a long chain of actions that allowed them to carry out their plans. We have known for a long time that they receive money from the drug traffic, from murders, from organized groups. Why was nothing done? We must identify the sources! Cut off the financial support, and terrorism will die of natural causes.

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