Trawlers

Come election time
we would see those vans
crowned with loudspeakers
like wind vanes-

with a supply of their own
hot air. Their mission:
to catapult slogans in four directions
and four official languages.

No child throws stones at it.
And old women chew their curses
like betel leaves, tangy, unspat.
Woe be the motorist

trapped behind the hearse-crawl
of the harbingers of "good years".
Who says that lightning
never strikes twice at the same spot?

Here it comes again:
not so much a van as a trawler,
casting huge nets, not subtle hooks;
the only way one catches mouthless fish.

Published in One Fierce Hour (1998), by Alfian Bin Sa'at

 
What has porn industry got to do with suicide bombers?

Suicide bombers are not born to kill and die for their causes, but are instead manipulated by trainers who know how to trigger basic drives and emotions, said a US expert on human beings.

Dr Scott Atran said the United States was "barking up the wrong tree" with its war on terrorism and in making threats against Iraq. "I think these groups are able to manipulate innate emotions...in much the way the fast food and porn industry manipulate innate desires."

"(This manipulation) creates a sincere commitment equal to the one a mother feels when she sacrifices herself for her child."

Dr Atran, who has lived in Jerusalem and who did his own research as well as reviewed the work of others, noted that many suicide bombers are relatively affluent and well-educated, and so cannot be seen to be acting out of desperation.

Instead, they are manipulated by leaders who know how to tap into instincts on par with the need to eat and reproduce.

"President George W. Bush has been saying the way to fight terrorism is by raising education and fighting illiteracy, but he is just whistling in the wind."

It is also impossible to "sell" American values to these groups, Dr Atran maintains. He believes a better approach would be to sideline the extremists. "I think the United States and its allies should try to empower moderates from within the community," he said.

Taken from an article in The Straits Times, 8 March 2003