The French philospher Voltaire once said that “if we believe in absurdities, we shall commit atrocities.”
Indiscriminate killing of self and innocent others, ostensibly in the name of some religion, is among the most absurd of beliefs. And rather than ceasing, the spiral of violence appears to know no end. There appears to be no locus, and no focus, beyond random killing.
In 2007, an op-ed in the International Herald Tribune argued that you “gotta have faith in the U.N”.
The simultaneity presented by the outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus on one hand and militant barbarism ostensibly in the name of Islam on the other present the international development community - particularly the United Nations and international NGOs – with challenges, as well as opportunities.