Terrorism: A Political Cancer
By Ram Puniyani
22 May,
2008
Countercurrents.org
The
blasts in Jaipur (13th May 2008), have once again
brought to fore the grim reality of global and local
political scenario. In a short span of time close to
hundred innocent lives were lost. What was
heartwarming was the calm with which the society
handled this grim tragedy. The amity with which the
post blast situation was handled certainly needs
million respectful salutes.
But political
parties are what they are, taking
advantage of such tragedies to bake their political
breads. The BJP leadership was quick enough to say
that the blasts are taking place as the central
government is weak, the withdrawal of POTA has given
rise to a situation where terrorists can make merry.
Most such criticism is aimed at scoring brownie
points, forgetting that during BJP led NDA regime with
POTA in operation, the attacks on Parliament, Red fort
and many other acts of terror were very much there.
Despite Advani's lie that he did not know about
foreign minister accompanying the terrorists to
Kandhar, there were acts of terror a plenty when he
was the Home/deputy prime minister and was trying to
cultivate the image of an iron man. Also the argument
that BJP ruled states with glorious strength are free
from terrorist acts also comes to a naught with this
tragedy.
Petty political
thinking apart, the world today is
gripped by this insane phenomenon, which like a cancer
has spread over a period of last two decades. The
analogy of cancer for terrorism is very apt as many
features of this are matching with the behavior of
cancer in human body. Cancer has multiple etiologies
(causative factors) and same is true of terrorism.
First, it is due to the indoctrination of minds, like
Al Qaeda by CIA sponsored madrassas in Pakistan. The
Al Qaeda was used as a proxy for American army to
fight against Russian army in Afghanistan. Here the
indoctrination of Muslim youth was done through the
syllabus developed in Washington. The goal of course
was control over oil wells in the region. They did
these insane activities in the name of religion.
Presumably for the glory of their religion! Similarly
the indoctrinated Bajrang Dal workers, who died while
making bombs in Nanded April 2006, also were
indoctrinated in the RSS ideology prepared to lay down
their life presumably for their religion.
The second
major cause of terrorism is a spontaneous
response to injustices done to a group of people,
generally in places where the democratic norms are
compromised. Recently (December 2007) the acts of
terror done by Adivasi National Liberation front
resulting in blast in the Guwahati Rajdhani express
exemplifies this. This blast was in the wake of group
of Adivasis being beaten and their female companion
being molested. This was the triggering point for the
acts of terror being done by that group. Similarly the
Mumbai blasts in 1993 and in 2002 were in the
aftermath of Mumbai riots and Gujarat carnage after
which some Muslims played in the hands of elements out
to do such acts as a revenge, in the name of their
religion. They forget that no religion worth its
spirituality teaches to kill the innocents. Here the
feeling of frustration, the feeling of taking revenge
is paramount in the minds of these terrorists.
The third major factor leading to acts of terror
relate to the injustices done in the name of
nationalism, the suppression of ethnic, regional
aspirations, Khalisthani, Kashmir, North East (ULFA
etc...) LTTE and Irish Republican army fall in this
category.
Cancer
in the human body spreads by multiple
mechanisms, physical extension, and through blood
vessels etc. The one spreading through blood and
getting lodged at a site distant from the original one
is called Secondary metastasis. Al Qaeda was the
primary cancer and what we witness at many other
places is either secondary metastasis of that or is
being done by those who have ulterior political
motives. In current times this is the major type of
terrorism and is the one where the indoctrination
designed by US administration and propagated by US
media disguised its lust for oil resources. The
indoctrinated mind is the most lethal weapon in the
World. It then becomes supra national and is beyond
the realm of usual controls. The goal of US was to
politically control oil zones through concocted
pretexts, leading to attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq.
And these were projected as a part of clash of
civilizations. Here the propaganda is that the
backward Islamic civilization is the threat to the
World so attack Afghanistan on the pretext of catching
hold of Osama bin Laden or attack on Iraq on the
pretext of saving the sovereignty of Sheikh of Kuwait,
to defend the world from weapons of mass destruction
hidden by Saddam Hussain. This surely is one of the
biggest hoaxes of contemporary history.
Imperialism,
the domination of poor countries by the
more powerful ones', has assumed different languages
during last several centuries. Initially when the
Britain, Portugal and France etc. went on to colonies
the World for their material gains, they projected
this exploitation of colonies as the 'Whit man's
burden to civilize the barbarians'. Then came the era
when national liberation movements were being
undertaken by different colonies, many of which were
influenced by socialist ideas. This period of history
was dominated by two superpowers, US and Russia. US
led camp tried to retain its hegemony on colonies or
as a continuation, adopted policies to exploit these
colonies through other economic mechanisms. To prevent
the colonies becoming economically autonomous,
imperialists tried to hegemonies global politics and
the language used by them was, 'defense of freedom and
democracy'! With demise of socialist states the
language being used is the one related to
civilization, 'the threat of Islam'.
The difference
in the current times is that since a
religion and a religious community are demonized and
targeted the impact becomes much more deep and
retrogressive in the cultural arena. It starts
polarizing the communities along religious lines. This
clash of civilizations theory is operative worldwide.
In India the problem is further compounded due to the
rise of communal politics, politics around issues of
religious identity, which has changed the language of
social discourse and has worsened the situation
further. So far, communal violence has been polarizing
the nation along the lines of religious communities.
Now due to this propaganda Islam and Muslims have been
linked to this phenomenon, and the Muslims all over
the world and more so in India have been uniformly
demonized. The result is that the acts of terrorism
are projected, investigated and propagated in a biased
way, totally conforming to the global and local
propaganda about Islam and Muslims. The attitude of
semi-communalized state machinery and communal parties
further polarizes the society.
While these
acts of terror are acting as the divisive
factor, in a way they are playing the same type of
role which communal violence has played so far,
polarizing the communities. Despite the fact that
communities are responding with amity, somewhere deep
down the demonization of minorities is worsening. The
investigation pattern so far has been to link the acts
of terror to the Pakistan based groups, now Bangla
Desh based groups. The main pattern has been the
arrest of huge number of innocent youth. The social
hysteria against them has been so bad that sometimes
lawyers, in violation of their professional ethic
refuse to take up their cases. In such cases, the
dictum that one is innocent till proved guilty, has
been put upside down or it is asserted that if someone
belongs to the wrong religious community he has to be
a terrorist! In this scenario the fatwa of Deoband
that violence against innocents is un Islamic has
given a very powerful message to the society. The
multiple seminars being held, to say that Islam and
Muslims have nothing to do with terrorism are good but
are restricted to the Muslim audience and not able to
achieve the desired result. These messages have to be
taken far and wide, involving all religious
communities.
Some social
groups and communal parties are subtly
intensifying these misplaced perceptions and weakening
the nation. It is time that while improving our
investigation methods we need to desist from
politicizing and communalizing these tragic events.
The seeds of this cancer were sowed by the global
super power so just being shortsighted to blame the
neighboring country and the religious community is
counter productive. There is a need to cultivate amity
and trust and that's possible if we see that
essentially it the secondary metastasis of the Al
Qaeda clones, very difficult to control by superficial
means. Better intelligence, better policing and a
deeper understanding of the phenomenon will go a long
way to overcome this suffering of the country.
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