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# The Brussels Attacks: Our pain and rage are immense, but we need reason and understanding more than ever
- URL: https://joshualore.com/inthemiddleway/the-brussels-attacks-our-pain-and-rage-are/
- Published: 2016-03-22T18:23:01.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-03T04:20:11.000Z
- Author: Joshua Lore
- Tags: Uncategorized, Belgium, Brussels, Brussels Attacks, BrusselsAttacks, politics, Terrorism, Terrorist attack, Violence, #Migrated-1788408094757, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-09-03 00:01

> ‘If you read the “biographies” of the Charlie Hebdo, the Bataclan, and the Brussels attackers, one similar fact keeps popping up: Their extreme and fast process of radicalisation started in prisons, not mosques. As such, it is time for us to address what Angela Davis calls the Prison Industrial Complex. The evidence is compelling that prison definitely does not “heal” people or help them re-integrate into a society that has often failed them. Quite the contrary. It is also time to look at the policies of European governments towards immigrant youth, who are very often, from the earliest age, vilified for every problem their societies face.  
>  
> 'We need to speak truth to power. We need to challenge our governments and the decision-makers every step of the way. For our own sake.  
>  
> 'If you look at what happened in France and Belgium, if you study all the footage and read all the media reports and analyses, you will realise most of them focus on “security”, “militarisation” “hitting back” and “war”. Only a few are concentrating on what the terrorists said or wrote. Why did they do it? What did they say while doing it? If you read these – not something you’ll find easily with a Google search – you will realise that all the attackers are talking the same language. They were politically educated out of the destruction of Iraq, the invasion of Afghanistan, the drones bombing in Pakistan, Yemen, the torture of Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib and the colonisation and occupation of Palestine. While most identified themselves as Muslims, they also said they were horrified by the ideological war the West has carried out against what it wrongfully calls “the Muslim world”. This is the main motivator behind them becoming killers. “Your wars, our deaths” became a slogan after the Paris attacks. It might not be totally accurate, and we definitely cannot simplify things, but there is a lot of truth in it.  
>  
> 'What is certain is that the people in power, despite telling us that they want to protect us, actually care very little about the safety of their citizens. The response of the Belgian authorities following the Charlie Hebdo and the Paris attacks was to put thousands of soldiers on the streets and raise the security alert. Despite this, and the massive and pretty much unlimited funding that the intelligence services enjoy, two of the most obvious targets for terrorists, an airport and the metro system, were hit. It can only be called what it is, an utter failure on their parts, both in their overall strategy and in the specific response they adopted to “defeat terror”.  
>  
> 'We know, for example, that the real people fighting ISIS at the moment are the Kurds in Kobane and other cities. We know that helping and supporting them, while cutting the route of ISIS’s oil to Turkey, would deal a huge blow to the so called Islamic State. Are we doing it? Not at all, quite the opposite in fact, supporting Turkey, a key actor, despite its murderous policies on the ground. We also know the role that Saudi Arabia, one of the most repressive states in the world, plays in the region, through its funding of corrupt and dangerous ideologies. Are we doing something against it? For sure we are, France just gave the future Saudi King, Mohammed Ben Nayef, its highest honour, the “Legion d’honneur” a few days ago. These constant double standards, and the lies our governments offer in their defence, need to be challenged. They create rancour and hate.  
>  
> 'This time, we are going to need more than demonstrations, we are going to have to do more than putting the Belgian flag as a profile picture on Facebook, we are going to need more that GIFs, tweets and petitions. What we need is a total, radical and deep rethinking of the way we see society, of how we see each other within it, of who makes decisions on our behalf. **In short, a spiritual and philosophical revolution is what is required**.’  

Please read the full, excellent article by Frank Barat at Ceasefire Magazine [here](https://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/brussels-attacks-pain-rage-immense-reason-understanding/?ref=joshualore.com).