Sv: Massacres and dates

[Celso Alvarez Cáccamo]

Dear Mustafa Hussain,

Thank you for your information.

At 16:44 12-03-2004 +0100, Mustafa Hussain (U of Roskilde, Denmark) wrote:

>Your effort to make some sense out of insanity by connecting days, dates 
>and holy calenders does not make much sense to me. Teorrorists are 
>terrorists no matter what creed, faith or ideology they tend to be the 
>custodian of.
>. . .
>My suggestion would be to let call a spade for a spade and let terrorism 
>and religious identities be remained as two different domains of inquiry.

Of course. But some historical dates may have meanings for religious 
fundamentalists. Some Fascist Catholics in Spain, for example, celebrate 
January 2 as the anniversary of the expulsion of Muslim Arabs from Granada 
in 1492. The Spanish Inquisition perpetrated its tortures with a Bible in 
hand. The Abu Hafs Al-Masri Brigades make reference in their letter to the 
Christian Crusades. I was simply asking if 20th Muharram had any special 
significance for Islam in general in religious or historical terms. I see 
this is not the case.

At this hour, the Spanish government continues to insist on the hypothesis 
of ETA as the main suspect, even though other evidence exists (an audio 
tape with Koran verses found in a van with explosives, a letter by the 
so-called Abu Hafs Al-Masri Brigades where they claim responsibility for 
the attacks). A few minutes ago a man purporting to belong to ETA called 
the Basque Television to deny any involvement in the massacre. I posted my 
message in order to understand public words being said about this tragedy.

Best,

-celso
Celso Alvarez Cáccamo
lxalvarz at udc.es