Timely meditations on radical left ruminations on Charlie Hebdo terror attack

"if one of the people whose relatives died in a ship sinking at Lampedusa or was shot off the shore of Spain, was to bomb me, who am I to condemn them."

This is the position of some radical leftists, justifying in principle terrorism as an apt retaliation for historic injustices, committed by the neo-liberal imperialist West.


This is an intriguing position. It says: since A did not assist B (without it being established that A had a strict duty of assistance to B on terms given by B herself), this gives B a full-fledged right to bomb A and indefinite number of others along with A.

According to the standard liberal theory, there is a duty to assist: if A was near the drowning B and could save B without excessive risk to her own life, A has a duty to save B from drowning.

But the journalists were not nearby the drowning B and, by implication, had no duty to save B.

Even less do the radical left establish that the proper response to A failing to fulfill her duty to save B is terrorist attacks at others rather than A herself. The standard theory would hold accountable A for failing to fulfill her duty, for sure, but short of defying her right to life.

Notice that even those not near the drowning A, also have a duty to assist her - but, again, failing to fulfill their duty of assistance does not trigger a right of retaliation - even less does it trigger a right to terrorize innocent people, who might or might not have a duty of assistance. The existence of this duty of assistance should be established in each case separately. There is no general duty of assistance to all those who believe they have a right to assistance.

So, we do have a duty to assist those dying or drowning at the borders, as in the radical left position quoted above holds. (But notice that the two brothers - terrorists who attacked Charlie Hebdo killing 12 innocent people, were neither).

Yet this duty and the very pertinent question about what actions it requires and what measures are necessary to motivate often very self-interested people to undertake those actions, have very little to do with the atrocious acts of terror against innocents.