Nothing conveys as much of terrorism as the nature of the targets. The Twin Towers of New York city stood for modernity, future, optimism and more recently globalization. There is something on these symbols that of course attracted terrorists’ attention. The same happens in the Middle East: Palestinian terrorists’ favorite targets are not religious schools, synagogues or most significant the settlings in besieged territories after the 1967 war but attacks against stores, discos and international fast food chains such as McDonald’s. Hatred for modernity.

In fact, the most recent events reject the thesis of one of the most influential books on the political thinking of the past years, Samuel Huntignton’s ‘The clash of civilizations’. According to Huntington, the future conflicts will no longer be among nations but among civilizations, ideas and cultures. The thesis is highly powerful and attractive but recent events tend to reject it. The nature of the terrorist attacks and the multiple reactions risen around the world suggest that confrontations will occur less among civilizations pointed by Huntington than within themselves. Just as marked differences exist in the West over the issue of globalization (otherwise, we would never experience the globaliphobic expressions every time there is a relevant international meeting), the same differing points exist in the Islamic world. The contrasting points between a modern, progressive view and a medieval conception are not events that only occur in our culture.

In the face of the current situation, there are two ways of considering the future. One admits the clash of civilizations and foresees a US (and Western) brutal reprisal against everything perceived as different or contrary. Many Americans, understandably affected by the recent terrorist attacks embrace this view. However, it is remarkable how after the initial responses other perspectives are appearing.

These acknowledge the complexity of the phenomenon and its inherent hues and the fact that the problem is not solved by destroying individual freedoms or breaching the rights (including life) of innocent people and societies but the other way about, by strengthening the legal action and democracy, solving long-running problems like poverty and inequality and enhancing the value of life. Neither criminality nor terrorism will be eradicated by affecting people or breaching their rights. Many analysts believe the contrary effect is closer to the truth: abusing rights tends to multiply the seeds of terrorism and criminality.

The call for revenge by most of the American people is fully explainable and justifiable. Americans feels violated, attacked and abused. Considering proportions, the same feeling is experienced by victims to kidnaps and related crimes who call for death penalty of perpetrators unless they turn to more expedite solutions (lynching)

Punishment to terrorists and criminals should teach a lesson. However, it should not be conducted at the expense of destroying values cherished by the Western culture such as freedom, legitimacy and democracy, that stand for a vital pillar to the American people. But the reason for this is not only moral but also practical: the best way to feed hatred and nihilism present in terrorism and criminality is by answering with more hatred in the form of destruction, violation of people’s dignity and negligence of the most fundamental due process of law or strictly abiding by the law, which is precisely what differentiates autocracy from Rule of Law. An innocent person whose life has been destroyed by police abuse or excessive revenge to a terrorist attack is prone to become a criminal or terrorist.

Unlike criminality, the purpose of terrorism is not only to destroy and demoralize but also wreak chaos. It intends to dismantle the spine of a society, mining its values and creating forces willing to sacrifice the democratic nature of society to face a common enemy. All terrorists have a political goal building on terror to advance in their cause in a rational manner. Nobody has admitted masterminding the attacks against the US. As vividly illustrated by the fierce and violent fight among modernizers and those claiming to return to the Medieval times in Algeria (and less violently in Egypt) internal rifts are bigger than those among different civilizations or cultures. The wish is to exterminate it and not feed it by using the wrong weapons.

The same applies to the criminality harassing Mexicans. Some decades ago, the way in which it was combated –pure violence- showed the preservation of peace and stability at the expense of the gradually destroying society’s ethical fabric, one of the factors that encourage criminality at present. Many criminals of today learnt from the past: they watched and experienced in flesh and bone police abuse, torture and arbitrariness every time an operation allegedly intended to banish criminality. No wonder the police have been hated while criminals emulated. The fight was effective while it last. Therefore, it is vital not to violate rights systematically and indiscriminately because from that abuse crime and terrorism stem.

Not all societies have developed and consolidated a democratic and liberal culture. In fact, except for European and American models, very few societies around the world have managed to become fully modern, placing respect for individual rights as the reason d’etre of democracy and growth. This view could be Eurocentric and deterministic anchored in the Western model, and perhaps it is. However, anyone who has observed the existing disputes in societies like the Egyptian or Indonesian, Chinese or Indian, Mexican and Argentinian, will end up admitting that none of them hold a unanimous view of the future. That is, not all Saudi Arabians share the same values or view of development just as not all Mexicans do. In all societies cultural and philosophical cultures exist. The question is, from a liberal perspective, how to strengthen similar cultures to slant the result of those fights, whether peaceful or violent.

The problems of open and democratic societies are not new. Decades ago, renowned philosopher Karl Popper wrote a masterful essay about the problems faced by liberal societies. In ‘The Open Society and its Enemies’, Popper argued that liberal societies always have traces of the tribal communities they come from and that the shock of that process of change leads to reactionary movements that intend to destroy the civilization and return to tribal life. The dispute around globalization clearly shows the existing tensions in several Western societies both those fully consolidates as well as those advancing in that direction. But the same happens in other cultures around the world, where disputes reflect the same tension between modernity and return to the origin. The fanaticism that moves a terrorist may well be explained in these tensions.

In the fight against terrorism and criminality it is easy to attack indiscriminately everything that looks criminal. Our history is full of cases where innocent people ended up confessing anything just to be relieved from the torture they were subject to. However, if we want to be a modern, democratic and liberal society we must act differently within the Rule of Law to consolidate it. The debate in the United States over how to respond to terrorists has moved in that direction: at first everyone wanted revenge at any price. But little by little, people thought about the risk of destroying just what they wanted to preserve –the liberal society. The same must be done with criminality. The fight against terrorism and criminality must be waged straightly but with the right weapons. As renowned Harvard Professor John Womack clearly put it, ‘democracy by itself does not produce a decent way of living; decent ways of living produce democracy’.