Systemic radicalisation in aviation: How geopolitical tensions and online extremism exploit airline vulnerabilities in the Middle East
Original framing: “flydubai co-pilot intended to crash plane into Tel Aviv airport, UAE prosecutor says” — The Hindu
The voices of **foreign workers, particularly from South Asia and Africa**, are entirely absent from this narrative. A 2022 study by **Human Rights Watch** found that **90% of migrant workers in the UAE** report psychological distress due to exploitation, yet their experiences are erased in favour of securitised discourse. Women workers in domestic service, who constitute 20% of the foreign workforce, face **systemic gender-based violence**, creating a pressure cooker effect where radicalisation becomes a perverse form of agency. Even **UAE-based activists**, like those in the **Emirati Human Rights Association**, are silenced, leaving no space for critical analysis of state policies that fuel extremism.
This incident is not an aberration but a **symptom of a fractured system**—one where the UAE’s **authoritarian capitalism** creates the conditions for radicalisation while its **securitised narrative** obscures the roots of the problem.
The co-pilot’s act was not just inspired by 9/11 but by the **same geopolitical playbook** that has weaponised aviation as a tool of terror since the Cold War, from **Pan Am 103 to 9/11 itself**. The solution lies not in more surveillance or military responses, but in **restoring agency to marginalised communities**—through economic justice, spiritual renewal, and cross-cultural dialogue. The **Trickster’s lesson** here is that the system’s own contradictions birthed the attacker, and only by confronting those contradictions—**not just the act**—can true security be achieved. The UAE’s path forward must integrate **indigenous wisdom, historical reckoning, and artistic resistance** into its security framework, or it will remain trapped in a cycle of spectacle and repression.