From a moral point of view, there is no excuse for terrorist acts, regardless of the motive or the situation under which they are carried out.

After September 11, the European governments have completely failed. They are incapable of seeing beyond their own national scope of interests.

Some of those drawn into the holy war had been secular nationalists only a few years before. If one looks at the biographies of these people, remarkable continuities are revealed.

Disappointment over nationalistic authoritarian regimes may have contributed to the fact that today religion offers a new and subjectively more convincing language for old political orientations.

Perhaps September 11 could be called the first historic world event in the strictest sense: the impact, the explosion, the slow collapse - a gruesome reality literally took place in front of a global public.

Manhattan... capital of the 20th century, a city that has fascinated me for more than three decades.

Perhaps at a later point important developments will be traced back to September 11. But for now we do not know which of the many scenarios will actually hold in the future.