SENTINEL WATCH September 12, 2005 Issue

THE WAR ON SELFISHNESS

TONY LOBL

A COMMENT FROM an Indian Londoner took me by surprise following the second (failed) terror attack in London. He said that because of his appearance, he would leave his rucksack at home when traveling by Underground or bus because the recent attacks on the transport system had been carried out by rucksack-carrying bombers who looked similar to him. His reasoning? He didn't want to cause unnecessary anxiety among fellow travelers.

His unselfishness moved me. It would have been easy—even understandable—for him to complain about the injustice of appearing suspicious just because of his ethnicity. Instead, his first thought was for how he could act in a way that would promote the well-being of fellow Londoners of all ethnicities.

By contrast, a third-generation British Muslim quoted in The Christian Science Monitor was frustrated by what she views as the selfishness of the suicide bombers: "All [the bombers] were thinking is that they, personally, were going to heaven," she said. "They'd been brainwashed for a larger cause, but individually they were completely selfish. They need to figure out what true Islam is" ("Struggle for a British Islam," by James Brandon and John Thorne, July 28, 2005).