Leaving aside technology for a moment, today’s news about hotel bombings in Amman, Jordan, remind me of my stay there a couple of years ago to attend a World Economic Forum meeting. I blogged about it.
I’ll always remember the very tight security they had in place with humvees all around the hotels, and the mysterious fire alarm in the middle of the night… I guess it was just a matter of time until bombings like today’s simply had to happen in Jordan — yes, the hotel I was staying at was one of those hit.
I guess I’m not intellectually capable of understanding what motivates anybody to walk into the lobby of a hotel and blow up the tourists or the wedding reception there. I do not comprehend how anybody could think that anything good could come out of such a thing. If you guys have legitimate grievances … anybody remember Gandhi? There is another way! (Or you will never get any sympathy from people like myself, never mind what exactly your grievances are; I don’t even want to find out if this is what your means are.)
My thoughts are with the Jordanians, the people who were hurt or killed, and in particular the Jordanian King Abdullah, who is one of the most impressive leaders I’ve ever met and who has set out his country on a very courageous course of education and bottoms-up empowerment — probably the very things that the bombers and their brethren hate about it. Let’s hope he can keep the situation under control and keep moving society moving forward.