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The futility of terrorism: in conversation with a Flight 253 passenger

Written by Jo Caird
Tuesday, 09 February 2010 12:12

On Christmas Day 2009 Israel-born American citizen Roey Rosenblith boarded Northwest Airlines flight 253 at Amsterdam’s Schipol Airport. He was travelling home for the holidays from Kampala, Uganda, where he runs Village Energy, a business that aims to bring affordable solar power to 20,000 Ugandan households.

This flight was the third and final leg of a journey that had passed without incident; all that changed however just 20 minutes before the Airbus 330 was scheduled to land in Detroit, when Rosenblith heard a commotion coming from the area towards the front of the plane.

‘I was watching a particularly bad in-flight movie when I started to hear screaming coming from the front. I distinctly heard someone say, “Let me off the plane!” Then there was the sound of a struggle and more shouts. I also saw smoke drifting from the mid-section of the plane. Suddenly a stewardess was rushing back, grabbing something that I later found out was a fire extinguisher.’

When, minutes later, a steward announced in a ‘very panicked voice’ that the ‘federally trained flight attendants’ had the situation under control and that the plane was preparing to land, Rosenblith’s worries were not put to rest. ‘It set my mind racing. Was there a mechanical or electrical failure? Had a fire started somewhere on the plane? The engines? Or worse, had someone tried to do something up front?’ Terror gripped him and he began to say the Shema, the prayer that Jews traditionally utter as their final words. ‘I was thinking: this is it.’

Rosenblith’s fear, it turned out, was not misplaced: 19 rows ahead of where he was sitting, Nigerian national Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a mechanical engineering graduate of University College London and the son of a wealthy and influential banker, had attempted to detonate what is thought to be an explosive device that he had concealed beneath his clothes.

It was only due to the swift and courageous actions of fellow passenger Jasper Shuringa, who leapt from his seat on the other side of the aisle from Abdulmutallab and restrained him, that Rosenblith and the 289 passengers and crew travelling to Detriot that day avoided being blown to pieces in the skies above Michigan. Abdulmutallab himself, Shuringa and one other passenger were the only people hurt in what had the potential to be a major disaster.

The flight was landed safely – prompting a spontaneous round of applause among the passengers according to Rosenblith - and Abdulmutallab was promptly arrested and charged on six counts including attempted murder and the attempted use of a ‘weapon of mass destruction’. If he were to be found guilty and given the maximum sentence attached to each of these charges Abdulmutallab would be facing over 120 years in prison.
Almost six weeks have now passed since Abdulmutallab’s botched attempt to blow up Northwest Airlines flight 253 and much speculation has been gone into about how this privileged young man came to hold such extreme views. What came out almost immediately was the fact that the 23-year-old’s own father, Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, had recently contacted US officials at the US Embassy in Nigeria to voice his concerns about what he believed his son might be capable of. A tape has also been released, allegedly a recording by al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, that refers to Abdulmutallab as a ‘hero’ and claims his group was responsible for the bombing.

Rosenblith, like the rest of us, can only guess at the truth of this claim. All he knows is that a stranger, under the spell of a set of dangerously radicalised beliefs, tried to murder him and several hundred other innocent people. Rosenblith would like the chance to ask Abdulmutallab what led him to attempt this act of terror and what he hoped to accomplish with it. ‘I would ask him, “Do you think there is any other conceivable way to get what you wanted? And if not, given the opportunity, would you do what you did again?” For me these are the burning questions.’

What troubles Rosenblith most about the choices Abdulmutallab made is what the young man threw away in the process. ‘He made up an elite group of perhaps 0.1% of the population. Not only did he study abroad, he studied to be an engineer. He could have come back to Nigeria and put his skills to use in a wide array of fields: agriculture, health, transportation, telecommunications, he could have created solutions that would help some of the poorest people on earth. Even if he didn't want to do that, with a wealthy family and well-connected father, the world was his oyster. Why would he throw all that away to follow this horrific path?’

Rosenblith has been working in international development since finishing university three years ago and hopes that his company, Village Energy, co-founded with Ugandan business partner Abu Musuuza, will succeed in bringing cheap electricity to 20,000 Ugandans who currently spend up to 20% of their income on kerosene lamps alone. The company’s system, which comprises simple, durable, long-life components, could save Ugandan households up to 80% when it comes to lighting their homes, running electrical devices and charging mobile phones, Rosenblith claims.

Growing up partly in Israel, Rosenblith is no stranger to the trouble caused when faiths and cultures clash. He mentions an injury suffered by his cousin when fighting for the Israeli army, relating it to ‘the sustained campaign of terror that Hezbollah has waged since its inception’ and recalls his grandmother’s membership of a ‘militant Zionist organization…[which attacked] British infrastructure including bridges, railways, radar and police stations in [its] pre-1948 war for Israeli Independence’.

‘Terrorism’, he is forced to conclude, ’will be a constant force in human history. There will always be a group that feels they cannot get their message across without resorting to violent means. How extreme these means are is correlated by the degree of freedom they have in their own societies to express what they want.’

But Rosenblith is not giving up hope yet. He believes that ‘the best way to combat terrorism…is to ensure that we have freedom and democracy in every country in the world. How we get there though, well that’s another discussion’.

For further information about Village Energy visit: www.villageenergyuganda.com/

For more of Jo Caird's work visit: www.jocaird.com/

See pictures of Roey's great work in Africa >>