Money-making opportunities in the Middle East
By: John Saccenti
If the sign I saw earlier this week on Route 130 is true, I can make up to $1,000 a week from the comfort of my home. I’m not sure what to do. I had committed myself last month to losing weight for money, as another sign boasted, and possibly making a fortune buying and selling real estate for no money down.
But then I read something else. It was about an opportunity to make $10,000 to $20,000 while getting the chance to travel and learn about new cultures. It sounded like easy money and made dollar signs roll in my eyes. The article, which I read in Newsweek, also mentioned that, if successful, I would also get my face on hundreds of posters and others would cheer me as a hero. How could I go wrong?.
Of course, there was one catch. If I wanted glory and money, I’d have to blow myself up, preferably in an area crowded with children and their mothers, the elderly, the infirm and anyone else who doesn’t look like myself. Yes, I’d have to become a suicide bomber.
Personally, I’d rather find a job stuffing envelopes.
But for others, it seems like suicide bombing is an opportunity that is just too good to be true. I guess $10,000 to $20,000 is worth a lot more in the Middle East than it is here, where working part time at the mall can easily net that, not to mention mallwide employee discounts.
Maybe the idea of instant fame is what motivates them. From what I’ve read, suicide sometimes is a person’s last play for attention. What better way to get attention than to blow yourself up. Recognition from peers and honors from Arab countries almost always follow. Add an article or two about your "motivation" in local and national publications or maybe a videotape and your average suicide bomber can say they indeed have "lived a very full life."
I guess.
It probably doesn’t hurt that these suicide bombers are being asked to kill people they don’t like. Maybe I’d have a different attitude if I was being asked to bomb the people who killed 3,000 innocent Americans on Sept. 11.
No. I still wouldn’t do it.
If I were to kill someone, I’d have to be real angry. Angry enough to make sure that I could keep killing. I’m thinking about something like, kill and live to kill some more. None of this one "one and done, rally around my death, gee, did you see what I did?" cop out that you see in so many of today’s suicide bombers.
Oh, kids today. What are we going to do?
And, don’t tell me that its all about being a martyr and dying for one’s religion. A selfless act ceases to be a selfless act once money is exchanged and praise is given.
So, maybe its about being a war hero, fighting evil teen-agers that eat pizza and dangerous senior citizens celebrating Seder. I can only assume suicide bombers know that when America mistakenly bombs civilians we are taken to task, vilified and called upon to punish ourselves. Given this, I guess we can cross "war hero" off the list of possible suicide bomber motivations, unless they don’t want to live up to the same standards they would like to hold us to.
So, why do they do it if not for religion or money or attention?
Maybe they’re just depressed. Makes sense given their name, "suicide bombers." Perhaps they reject drugs like Prozac on the grounds that they are a tool of American capitalism. Maybe they need therapy.
Or maybe they’re just too stupid to realize that blowing yourself and others up for $10,000 to $20,000 isn’t as worthwhile as, oh say, a part-time job at the mall.
John Saccenti is news editor of the South Brunswick Post. He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].