“[T]he all-too-human mistake…was that of allowing ourselves to believe there is something morally redeeming in the quality of victimhood itself. There isn’t. The very opposite is likely to be the case: the victims of cruelty or injustice are not only no better than their tormentors; they are more often than not just waiting to change places with them.
[We] turn to victimhood as a way out of our own helplessness…But victimhood is not a quality; it is a condition. Invariably it is a condition that diminishes both the victims and us who have not been hurt, but who write, and who make mistakes when we are consumed with outrage or shame. The danger is that one tends to forget, in such a charged emotional climate, that in a region like the Middle East, victimhood is a condition that may very well have touched everybody, including the victimizers.”
Kanan Makiya, Republic of Fear, Introduction to the 1998 edition, p. XXIX
[We] turn to victimhood as a way out of our own helplessness…But victimhood is not a quality; it is a condition. Invariably it is a condition that diminishes both the victims and us who have not been hurt, but who write, and who make mistakes when we are consumed with outrage or shame. The danger is that one tends to forget, in such a charged emotional climate, that in a region like the Middle East, victimhood is a condition that may very well have touched everybody, including the victimizers.”
Kanan Makiya, Republic of Fear, Introduction to the 1998 edition, p. XXIX
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