Dear All,
At least 10 people have been killed in an explosion outside an underground railway station in Moscow on 31st August 2004.

Please see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3615970.stm for a news coverage.

On this website we read:
"An Islamist group has issued a statement claiming responsibility for the bombing and warning it would carry out further attacks.

The statement, said to be from a group calling itself the Islambouli Brigades, described the attack as "part of the wave of support and assistance to the Muslim Chechens".

The statement, posted on a website used by militants in the past, said the attack would be 'followed, with God's help, by more waves until we humiliate the state of heresy called Russia'."

In other words, there seems to be a logic, pursued by those perpetrating suicide attacks, that killing is a way to humiliate. One may ask what would be gained when Russia was indeed "successfully" humiliated. What would Russia do? Most probably, merely a cycle of humiliation is kept in motion and nothing is gained for anybody.

It seems thus not sufficient to merely condemn suicide attacks, as is widely thought of as appropriate response, or engage in a war on terrorism. What seems necessary it to probe the feasibility of its inner logic.

It seems that strategies to humiliate people are counterproductive to everybody, including those who apply this strategy. People who believe in its feasibility, have not thought through their own goals and the consequences of their actions and it seems timely to bring this insight to wider populations, who otherwise might be unaware.

Our group, Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies, aims at creating more awareness as to strategies of humiliating people and how they are not only morally and ethically to be condemned, but furthermore counterproductive even to those who believe in their feasibility.

Liberation from humiliating living circumstances is not gained by humiliation-for-humiliation; not least Mandela showed that liberation is best attained by more constructive means.

Sincerely,
Evelin