Why Bombay?

This piece in the New York Times by Suketu Mehta ponders the question.  Among points offered is:

 

What They Hate About Mumbai

My bleeding city. My poor great bleeding heart of a city. Why do they go after Mumbai? There's something about this island-state that appalls religious extremists, Hindus and Muslims alike. Perhaps because Mumbai stands for lucre, profane dreams and an indiscriminate openness.

Mumbai is all about dhandha, or transaction. From the street food vendor squatting on a sidewalk, fiercely guarding his little business, to the tycoons and their dreams of acquiring Hollywood, this city understands money and has no guilt about the getting and spending of it. I once asked a Muslim man living in a shack without indoor plumbing what kept him in the city. "Mumbai is a golden songbird," he said. It flies quick and sly, and you'll have to work hard to catch it, but if you do, a fabulous fortune will open up for you". The executives who congregated in the Taj Mahal hotel were chasing this golden songbird. The terrorists want to kill the songbird.

When the Twin Towers were bombed, I, too, pondered why that target was chosen. 

Some of the motive, I suppose, was envy. The Twin Towers were tall buildings, and much bigger and much more impressive than anything the terrorists' home culture could build.  But then, the oil-rich countries can pay to have impressive things built for them.  Maybe that's enough, or maybe that merely rubs in the fact that they can't do for themselves what they hire foreigners to do for them.

 

I think another, more important reason for the target is what goes on there.  The World Trade Center is about trade.  It's about making money and conducting business.  And it's based in an insight expressed by Adam Smith around the same time the United States were founded.

 

In order for a voluntary trade to take place, each participant in the trade must believe he's getting the better deal. If either side of the trade decides it's not worth it to carry out the trade, it doesn't happen. Trade happens, business is conducted, and fortunes are made, because people freely choose to trade.  The golden songbird sings because people are free to choose.

 

This is anathema to many.  In particular, there are people who believe there is an ideal way that things should be run, and it's all set out in the words of a prophet.  Perhaps this prophet is Karl Marx, or Mao Zedong.  Maybe the prophet is Muhammed.  But in any case, the existence of free markets must be an outrage to those who would see the will of their Prophet done, not free will.  That infidels might be allowed to make their own decisions is an outrage; that this outrage yields happiness and prosperity adds insult to injury.

 

Mehta winds down with:

But the best answer to the terrorists is to dream bigger, make even more money, and visit Mumbai more than ever. Dream of making a good home for all Mumbaikars, not just the denizens of $500-a-night hotel rooms. Dream not just of Bollywood stars like Aishwarya Rai or Shah Rukh Khan, but of clean running water, humane mass transit, better toilets, a responsive government. Make a killing not in God's name but in the stock market, and then turn up the forbidden music and dance; work hard and party harder.

Keep your freedom and choose what you will.  Living well is the best revenge.