Skip to content
quotesby

The idea of a terrorist attack that assaults innocent human beings in a building or a mall or a restaurant is bad enough. Yet the terrorist mind that looks at a passenger plane and sees the fuel and the intensity of the blast, and sees the rocket engines that will carry it into the heart of destruction like a cruise missile, but who does not see the humanity of one single soul on that airplane, is the chilling truth of what we're up against.

Alan Keyes#18

TerrorismHumanityDehumanizationPeaceViolence

About this quote

What does it mean?
Terrorism dehumanizes victims by focusing on destruction over humanity.
In plain terms
Terrorists see destruction, not human lives.
What can you take from it?
Recognize humanity in every individual.

Where it applies

  • conflict analysis
  • peacebuilding
  • media literacy

Putting it to work

  • humanize the other
  • reject dehumanizing narratives

Questions to consider

  • How does dehumanization start?
  • Who do we see when we look?

Another view

This view may oversimplify terrorist motivation.

More from Alan Keyes

  1. Harden our hearts to the innocents in the womb, and we have hardened our hearts to the need for compassion, and mercy, and fellow-feeling, and charity, and dec…

    Permalink to quote #17
  2. Every leader, and every regime, and every movement, and every organization that steps across the line to terrorism must be banished from the discourse of civil…

    Permalink to quote #19
  3. Black Americans make up 10 or 11% of the population, but they account now for something of 40 to 45% of all the abortions. This is a privileged position that I…

    Permalink to quote #16

Related quotes

  1. There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people for a purpose which is unattainable.

    Howard ZinnHoward Zinn quote #3
  2. Victims of the violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown. They are most important of all, human beings whom other human be…

    Robert KennedyRobert Kennedy quote #11
  3. Victims of the violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown. They are most important of all, human beings whom other human be…

    Robert F. KennedyRobert F. Kennedy quote #11