By Md. Vazeeruddin - Syndicate Features
Since 9/11 in the USA and 7/7 in Britain, the expression “Islamic terrorism” has gained currency throughout the world, as though terrorism is an offshoot of Islam. Surprisingly enough, nobody has bothered to ask if there was no act of terrorism before these two disgraceful incidents. True, both these outrages, and many in India too, were perpetrated by some Muslims in the name of Islam, but is that reason enough to trace their homicidal mania to their religion?
For instance, Hindu fundamentalists demolished the Babri mosque at Ayodhya on December 6, 1992, but could anyone in his/her senses call that an act of Hindu terrorism? On the contrary, more Hindus than Muslims condemned that outrage. There have always been worms in the heart of the Indian matrix, and worms profess no religion. By the same token, more Muslims than members of other communities condemned the outrages in the USA and the UK. Parenthetically, if those who indulged in acts of terrorism in the USA and Britain were true champions of Islam, why did they not spare Bali in Indonesia, a country which houses the highest number of Muslims in the world? But if someone still wants to argue that there is some basic link between Islam and terrorism, that worthy deserves to be ignored for more valid reasons than one, for ignoramuses deserve nothing better.
The logic of most Western countries runs thus: all Muslims are not terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims. The first part of the statement is nothing but a craven concession to realpolitik, in that the West needs to keep Muslim countries round the world in good humour; the second part betrays profound ignorance of the history of terrorism.
One week in September 1974, the Japanese Red Army stormed the French Embassy at The Hague. In Belfast, the Irish Republican Army assassinated two judges. In Paris, a rightist loner killed two persons and wounded 34 others with a hand grenade. In Buenos Aires urban guerrillas killed a businessman and kidnapped two others. Was any Muslim involved in any of these outrages? If none was, did anyone describe the first as Japanese terrorism, and the second as Irish/Christian terrorism?
In terms of grieving relatives and the sheer gore of bodies being blown apart, it would be hard to find anything to say in defence of the killers. But taken on the purely political level, terrorists argue, however wrongly, that there is a viable case to be made out for terrorism! The simple fact, palatable or not, is that terrorism does work, and often pays. But why does it do either? How is it that a handful of fanatics try to change the course of history? The answer is that violence as a form of political argument has come to stay. The sophisticated modern society is now more vulnerable to the threat of crudely manipulated fear. Advance of technology has enabled small groups or individuals to assume an unexpected significance denied to them by society. The big and powerful can be successfully blackmailed by the small. These facts should help to demystify the frightening cult that has been allowed to hypnotize us all.
Motivation:
Terrorists can be roughly divided into three groups according to their motivations: the crazy, the criminal and the crusading, the latter being the most typical variety. After all, criminal terrorists also want what most people secretly admit they would like, but the difference is that they are prepared to resort to anti-social methods to achieve their goals. Crusading terrorists claim they are idealistically inspired. They say they do not seek personal gain but prestige and power for a collective goal, believing, however wrongly, that they act for a higher cause. The categories may seem simplistic, and they admittedly overlap, but they are useful, and often necessary, for determining the varying courses of action for meeting or treating the terrorist challenge.
The crusading terrorists need to be broken up into several groups for examination of their motivations and methods. Modern terrorism is varied and does not follow a set global pattern. In South America it was directed at oppressive national governments. Basques, Croats, Armenians, Greek Cypriots, South Malaccans and the Irish fought for their image of national independence, and the Palestinians for a State of their own. Intellectual terrorists like the Japanese Red Army and former West Germany’s Baader-Meinhof group said they desired global liberation and a just society.
There are a host of examples of how organized terrorism can shape world events. If it had not been for the activities of the Irish Republican Army, the Republic of Ireland would never come into being. This is true also of Algeria, Tunisia and probably Israel. Former Israeli terrorist Menachem Begin became Prime Minister, and statues were erected in honour of Eamon de Valera, a former terrorist and the first Prime Minister of Eire. In 1974, Sean McBride, former IRA chief of staff, received the Nobel Prize for Peace and was instrumental in founding Amnesty International. Every terrorist blackmailer holds the olive branch in his hand and will deliver it when his demands, underscored by the gun grasped in the other fist, are conceded.
But how should society deal with terrorism? Contrary to the popular belief that yielding encourages terrorism, it is the publicly unyielding and hard-line approach that stimulates terrorists to choose their targets in such a way that the objects of their attacks cannot afford to reject their demands. The massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics Games is a fine example of this. A month after the Munich disaster, Black September comrades of the three surviving Munich terrorists hijacked a Lufthansa aircraft and demanded immediate extradition of their fellow terrorists jailed in Germany. The German authorities complied hurriedly. The prisoners were rounded up from various jails and were flown to what was then Yugoslavia on the hijackers’ instructions. The Munich affair ended only after a spiral of unrestrained aggression accompanied by escalating acts of retaliatory terrorism.
The Israelis, who had insisted on a tough no-surrender approach at Munich, bitterly criticized the Germans for their capitulation. Later they were to pull off a ‘coup’ of enormous proportions in their bid to show the world how to deal with international terrorists. That was the Entebbe affair when Israeli commandos freed more than 100 hostages held in Uganda. The Israeli message was clear: teach the terrorists once and for all that there are no more safe havens in the world and for the sake of national esteem retain the option to use such strikes at any time. The raid, which was criticized by some as an act of terrorism itself, sparked off immediate controversy at the UN when Israel was accused of violating Uganda’s national sovereignty. The raid also upset Kenya and several other African countries which had been providing Israel with intelligence reports on Uganda and yet had been kept in the dark as to the intended use of the reports. The fact that Uganda’s then leader, Idi Amin, was such a contemptible creature, it was argued by many, did not excuse the violation of his country’s sovereignty or Israel’s disregard for one of the basic tenets of international law. Other interventions, often disguised as rescue operations (as in Iraq right now) have occurred without the sanction of international law. Nazi Germany invaded Austria and former Czechoslovakia and Greek colonels invaded Cyprus. All these actions are examples of the worst kind of totalitarian oppression.
Media Fixation
The Entebbe episode brought into sharp focus the relationship between terrorism and the media. Like the crocodile and the bird which picks its teeth, the two live happily together.
The media has always glamorized terrorists and their activities, building them into super heroes, such as Palestinian woman hijacker Leila Khaled. The British Press soon transformed Leila into a Hollywood starlet, the sexy, sultry, gun-toting maiden of the skies. The terrorist Carlos, who ran a Paris clearing-house for an assortment of liberation movements, was dubbed “The Jackal--- the most wanted terrorist in the world.” The Entebbe material was instantly recognized as great for mass entertainment, to be told, retold, and reproduced with all the familiar ingredients of a heroic tale. One could hardly tell where the news reels left off and where the Technicolor big screen took over. And terrorism uses the media’s thirst for the sensational: it is the terrorists’ indispensable tool.
It, however, looks as though the world has as yet seen only the ominous beginnings of terrorism; its potential is as yet largely unexplored. No international covenant banning terrorism is possible as it is considered an internal affair of sovereign States. But limited agreements are feasible. The mere existence of the punish-or-extradite treaty between the USA and Cuba has done more to prevent hijacking between the two countries than all other measures put together. Because of the international nature of terrorism, every country is at times forced to negotiate with, and occasionally yield to, blackmailing terrorists, and most countries manage to do so without sacrificing their credibility.
One school of thought is that, in the absence of an international covenant, there is no alternative to negotiations at all times which, however, need not mean instant capitulation in the face of terrorism but that rigid commitments to face-saving, life-wasting approaches like Munich predictably cost the lives of the guilty and the innocent alike. Negotiating does not mean negotiating in name only; often, deliberations are used by authorities as a cover for strategies of deceit. Delay is sought and every imaginable trick pulled not to gain concessions but to stall the opponent until he can be subdued by force. Devious means, such as lying, false promises and dirty tricks are frequently condoned by the authorities in their uncompromisingly self-righteous stance. That is palpably wrong, to go by past experience.
- Asian Tribune -
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