November 19 , 2010

Reflections on Terrorism

 

Rarely a day passes without the media reporting on an act of terrorism occurring in some part or the other of the world.

American scholars, who have studied in depth this phenomenon and published voluminous works on it, are agreed that it is ubiquitous and not confined to any particular area, ethnicity or creed. It would therefore be a folly to think that only those few states (mostly Muslim) that are on the US list of terrorist states are usually the sponsors of such acts.

Jafee Center of Strategic Studies of Tel Aviv University lists more than 600 terrorist groups spread all over the world. Prof. David Long, in his well-researched book “The Anatomy of Terrorism” lists over two dozen such setups in South America and half a dozen separatist groups among the Sikhs in India and abroad.

Considering the dominating position of the US in world affairs as the sole super power, considering its most intimate relations with Israel, every time there is a terrorist act, it is attributed, largely as a knee-jerk reaction, to an outfit in one of the states on the US list. Implicating one of the Muslim states on the list has become a stereotype. For instance, the very first report on the bombing, April 19, 1995, of a federal building in Oklahoma drew attention to a similar terrorist act of a Middle Eastern group a few years earlier. Those who listened to this report, including the present writer, were thus led to believe that Islamic militants were behind the act.

The real culprit, Tim McVeigh was, just by chance, caught and a court of law subsequently convicted him.

One cannot but be a great admirer of the sense of justice, fair play, concern for human life and concept of equality and brotherhood of man in the US. But these laudable values appear to go out of focus when the Palestine problem is viewed by US authorities and media through the Israeli prism.

Another issue drawing considerable media attention in the US is that of the terrorist acts of the setup, Al-Qaeda, of Osama Bin Laden, a Saudi dissident who had been provided a haven in Afghanistan by the former rulers - Taliban. Being fanatics and far removed from the realities of modern times and adhering to obscurantism in interpreting Islamic precepts, they constituted a throwback to a primitive, antiquated society.

The Taliban came under American wrath primarily because they played host to Osama. Their loyalty to this controversial figure was embedded in all probability in the Afghan tradition of protecting one’s guest at all cost. The tradition is known as Pakhtoonwali.

There is no consensus among thinkers and writers as to what exactly is terrorism. A task force on combating terrorism appointed in 1986 by the then Vice-President, George Bush, has defined terrorism as “the unlawful use or threat of violence against persons or property to further political or social objectives.”

Robin Wright, a scholar of substance and author of a book on terrorism, “Sacred Rage”, argues that terrorist attacks are “not from love of violence, but from expression of rage and frustration over an inability to achieve some form of freedom or independence.”

Many a time, the perpetrators of terrorism hardly foresee the possible dimensions of their acts. When Czar Alexander II was bombed to death by an extremists’ revolutionary group, the process set in motion led directly to the Russian Revolution. When Gavial Principe mortally wounded Archduke Ferdinand at Sarajevo, he did so merely to give vent to his nationalism. Little did he know that his act would ignite the conflagration of World War I, destroying empires and dynasties.

Whereas a criminal, a murderer for instance, has a personal gain or revenge in mind, a terrorist resorts to his act in pursuance of a political goal. In a murder there is almost always a link between the criminal and the victim. But, in a terrorist act there is seldom such a link. The objective of terrorists is to get onlookers to see their actions in motivational terms, to look at and be swayed by the merit of their cases, rather then be turned away by the brutality of their methods.

Carlos Marighella, the father of terrorism in South America, once remarked: “The urban guerrilla does have one enormous advantage over the conventional soldier and the policeman: he is defending a just cause, the cause of the people.”

To counter the possibility of such an interpretation, the media managers in many advanced countries launch campaigns tarnishing the image of guerilla groups. To demonize the cause of Palestinians in Israel, they were labeled “Islamic fundamentalists”, whatever its objective meaning. It was repeatedly used as a derogatory term till it came to be accepted as such.

The same media, when supporting the cause of the anti-Soviet Afghan rebels, called them Mujahideen, freedom fighters. At that time when Afghanistan’s hard-line Islamists visited the White House, President Ronad Reagon went to the extent of calling them the Muslim world’s “moral equivalent of our founding fathers”.

The intelligence agencies of the Western countries successfully turned the Afghans’ struggle into a pan-Islamic Jihad. Once the Soviet Union decided to withdraw from a losing war, these very Mujahideen, these very soldiers of Islam, came to be called “rebels” and subsequently “terrorists”.

Some of these motivated youths, hailing mainly from the Middle East, found themselves and their cause left in the lurch, abandoned without any thought as to its repercussions. Some went berserk and even resorted to heinous acts of terrorism.

Most of the indigenous Afghan fighters turned against each other in quest of pelf and power. A new breed, the Taliban, took over from them bulk of the country and put an end to the earlier mayhem of death and destruction. A disillusioned Saudi multi-millionaire, Osama bin Laden, took over the guerrilla training camps and produced terrorists for operations against the US worldwide.

As for the Jihad in Kashmir, the freedom-fighters, the Mujahideen of that state are labeled by India as terrorists sent there by Pakistan. The fact of the matter is that the struggle of these Kashmiri freedom fighters has continued unabated for over two decades despite some 100,000 of them being killed by the Indian forces who number over 700,000 now.

Indian propaganda mandarins have not succeeded in selling the idea that the Kashmiris’ struggle for freedom from Indian shackles is but a form of terrorism sponsored by Pakistan to grab a territory. To win the sympathy of the West, the US in particular, it is some times contended that the fighters are the disciples of Osama bin Laden and were trained in his camps in Afghanistan. The fallacy of this contention is self-evident. How can a handful of guerillas trained in a far off land maintain, for so many years, the struggle that an army of 700,000 is unable to control?

Fortunately, a conciliatory attitude has developed on both sides of the border and direct talks between the leaders of India and Pakistan appear quite possible. The leaderships of both India and Pakistan provide the best bet to come to a settlement and sell it convincingly to their respective people. Only a solution acceptable to the people of Kashmir will work.

One sincerely hopes that the US efforts to pacify the people of Afghanistan succeed, the writ of Hamid Karzai prevails over the entire country and the warlords are replaced by elected civilian authorities so that the root causes of terrorism in Afghanistan are pulled up.

The current spate of drone attacks has eliminated many Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders. But the monster keeps replacing itself like the mythical snake, which grew a new head in place of the one chopped off. Missiles and money do not win the hearts and minds of the people. Elimination of their grievances does. The current corrupt leaderships of AfPak, lacking the trust of the people, can hardly achieve the objective.

Unless the root cause of terrorism in Iraq is attended to, episodes of violence in that area too are likely to continue sporadically.

arifhussaini@hotmail.com