Terrorism
And Muslims!
By Ram Puniyani
08 August, 2006
Countercurrents.org
In
the aftermath of 7/11/06 Mumbai, a prevalent formulation that all Muslims
are not terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims is doing round on
the SMS circuit. Of course the same understanding is also a part of
the social common sense as it has got strengthened after 9/11 attack
on World Trade Center.
This formulation is catchy
enough to make an imprint on the gullible common sense, though it has
nothing to do with truth. The terrorism is a political process resorted
to by a section of people whose democratic rights are strangulated,
who perceive that the injustice which has been perpetrated on them will
not get justice in the times to come and that revenge is the only option
in such a situations. It is a political process and religion or a religious
community has nothing to do with it. Neither any religion teaches to
kill the innocents (that is what the terrorists do) nor are the terrorists
the people chosen by that religious community to undertake such ghastly
acts on their behalf.
The definition of terror
is also not well formulated, the person appearing as terrorist, for
some may sound as freedom fighter for anther set of people. The examples
of Bhagat Singh, the Kashmiri militants and LTTE are few such. We have
seen the ghastly terrorist acts by Khailstanis, the ULFA, the likes
of Timothy McWeigh; who dropped a bomb on Oklahoma out of frustration,
we also know of a Jewish bomber dropping a bomb on a Hotel in Cairo
in 1942 and Buddhist monks indulging in such violent acts in Srilanka
and Thailand. The backdrop of these countries will tell us the political
nature of the acts and that these are not meant to serve any religion.
Why is this myth capturing people's psyche? Due to this psyche hundreds
of innocent Muslim youth are apprehended and made to rot in jails. The
trajectory of terrorism in which some Muslims have participated has
roots in the oil politics at global level, in the Kashmir problem and
in the rising communal problem in Indian context. The formation of Al
Qaeda by U.S. to drive away the Russian armies from Afghanistan is too
well known by now. The Kissinger doctrine, 'Asians should fight Asian'
was employed to train Al Qaeda by CIA to fight the Soviet occupation
of Afghanistan.
Special Madrasas were set up, which indoctrinated a section of Muslim
youth in to Jihad. The meaning given to this word was that jihad is
killing of non believers, communists in this case, an innovation which
worked wonder for US policy. The Muslim youth were dangled the carrot
of 72 virgins in Jannat once they lay down their life in pursuance of
the US goal of capturing Afghanistan after evicting the Soviet armies.
The demonization of Islam
and Muslims began with the US propaganda in the wake of Ayatollah's
revolution in Iran and it was systematically built up with every US
intervention in the West Asia, attack on Iraq, the occupation of Afghanistan
the occupation of Iraq and also after the Al Qaeda attack on WTC. The
demonization of Islam and Muslims has been a very systematic process
akin to demonization of communists in the cold war era, McCarthyism
and the accompanying propaganda. Noam Chomsky explains this doctrine
as 'manufacturing consent' for the goals of US foreign policy, which
are achieved by US administration through various mechanisms, media
being the central key to this doctoring of mass consciousness. This
and other means employed by US administration to demonize Muslims has
been outlined very well by Mahmood Mamdani's 'Good Muslim Bad Muslim'
and by Tariq Ali in 'Clash of Fundamentalisms' and 'Bush in Babylon',
where both these researchers have given the details of US policymakers
documents and the mechanism to demonize the targeted country and the
people.
The earlier goal of offsetting
the Soviet influence and to keep hegemony on the world was achieved
by all methods of propaganda where by Communists who were fighting for
various anti-colonial, anti imperialist goals were presented as the
enemies of democracy and freedom. Now in pursuance of the goal to dominate
the West Asian oil zones, anti Muslim, Anti Islam has become the central
point of propaganda. The 'ideological' foundation of this was laid by
Samuel Huntington who in his book Clash of Civilizations puts forward
the thesis that the backward Islamic civilization is the real threat
to the advanced and democratic western civilization. This global anti
Islamism of US finds its supplement in the RSS ideology. Incidentally
when US was hunting communists, at that time RSS chief was writing to
the home minister in his mercy petition to seek release from the jail
in the aftermath of Gandhi's murder by RSS trained swayamsevak. The
Sarsanghchalak of RSS that time wrote that if he is released from jail
he will give all the cooperation to the Govt to fight against the communists.
Today again, the US designs of anti Islamism match very well with the
RSS designs here in India.
The popular psyche is shaped
by multiple factors. There is not much time to get to the roots of the
issues and so the superficial incidents form the basis of judgments
and understanding of the people at large. While those with motives and
agenda for dominating the world/ society play their games from behind
the curtain, an Osama or a Kashmiri militant is visible as holding the
AK47 or RDX in his hands, and here the popular understanding takes a
full stop unable to see that Osama is the creation of US, or a petty
terrorist is insanely avenging the stifling of democracy or violation
of the treaty of accession in Kashmir, or a volunteer of Gujarat Muslim
Revenge group is insanely avenging the genocide perpetrated against
his community. Interestingly in this discourse there is no place for
the bomb makers of Bajrang Dal, the RSS affiliates, in Nanded and so
the powers that be prefer to sleep on the issue and keep arresting hundreds
of Muslim youth, as by now the popular psyche, Government machinery
and more particularly police has imbibed the myth that Islam promotes
terrorism and that all terrorists are Muslims!