A Terrorist In The Family

There is a branch of psychotherapy known as family therapy. Instead of focusing on a “problem individual”, the therapist counsels the person within the context of his or her not just to the one who seems to have a problem but to the rest of the family members as well. What shows up as a result, are the behavior and communication patterns which rule the family, which often aggravate the behavior patterns of the “problem individual”. Once these unhelpful patterns in the family become visible it is possible to change them and the new equations between family members often lead to a visible improvement in the behavior of the affected person as well.

Therapists also look at a problem faced by an individual not in isolation, but more in terms of a symptom - the result of some kind of imbalance within a setup. It makes me think of a rash which appears on your body, or a fever or cough triggered off by something in the environment or by the wrong diet. The unfortunate thing today is our tendency to focus on and to treat symptoms in isolation. Although results might show quite soon, the root cause is left untouched and there is every danger of the symptom recurring and the situation worsening.

Isn’t terrorism a bit like this? I don’t know how you see it but to me it seems that the human race is like a gigantic family or even like a single body (we are all supposed to have anyway emerged from the same source). What happens in one part of the world, what affects one part of the family or human body cannot leave the other parts untouched. What is happening today is that out of fear and our extreme reluctance to even think about let alone get involved in a situation which concerns us deeply, we maintain a safe distance from the so-called evil “out there somewhere” and try to sort out things through intellectual debates devoid of any empathy whatsoever, or we bludgeon our way through the mess with our judgmental attitudes and opinions.

In short we resort to the same attitudes to combat terrorism as the terrorists themselves are using against us. Our essential lack of interest in, and concern for the other side for example makes it easy to adopt draconian measures which true blue terrorists always manage to eventually circumvent, wreaking more havoc on the world each time. In fact you begin to suspect the whole thing is turning into a mindless and destructive game which both sides are actually enjoying and is perhaps even a way for our leaders to release their own pent up anger and frustration. The only sure thing about the game is that it increasingly restricts the movements of the average citizen and eats into whatever little freedom is possible for us to enjoy in life.

Travel before the days of terrorism – to give a small example - seems like a distant dream today. I can hardly believe the rules and regulations we air passengers are subjected to these days, having to remove your shoes to be sniffed out for hidden explosives, not even being permitted to carry necessary medication on board without a prescription, let alone a simple tin of face cream or body lotion in your handbag, to combat the drying effects of air travel.

Unfortunately it looks like these troubled times have come to stay for a while. Not only because the terrorists themselves are so entrenched in their own hatred and in the struggle for power which arises out of it – whatever the cause – but also because the rest of us “peaceful types” don’t really want to change the way we think or how we look at this crisis. Our own fear, our refusal to look deeper into the issue has us mouthing platitudes time and again, and more often than not we find ourselves embroiled in really stupid arguments and counter arguments about whether terrorism has to do with Islam or not and to what extent.

If you ask me, terrorism has to do with our innate love of terrorizing other people. Every two or three year old kid goes through this phase and the nicer ones somehow get out of it and manage to live as decent human beings. Somehow, modern day society which is relatively low on a sense of responsibility, seems to encourage us to remain stuck in this juvenile phase and although we look and try to act like adults the juvenile miscreant in us shows through in our tyrannical approach to life and each other. Is the American invasion of Iraq any more “civilized” than what terrorists are doing? Is the indiscriminate environmental destruction we are causing the world over, more excusable? Isn’t it that we are simply living in an environment today where we all have minimal regard for each other and for the world we live in?

Let’s face it. Something has gone wrong in the family of human beings. One could say that not only terrorism but a whole lot of problems we face today are the result of serious imbalances in the world, the outcome of living in a society where the gap between the rich and the poor, the so-called gifted and those who are not that gifted (which is mostly a case of the gift not being recognized) is ignored. It seems to me that the only way to bring back peace is to recognize the fact that in spite of our diversity (which is very welcome!) we are part of the same race, part of the same family, and that to clear up the mess we’re in, we have to somehow put our heads together to work out a solution rather than to point fingers at each other at every opportunity and use our misplaced feelings of superiority and self righteousness to justify the use of force at every step.

Uma

Comments

[bvn]

"don’t really want to change the way we think or how we look at this crisis." - well said, it is the inertia and the remaining violence from childhood.

[kaushik]

I really do see a lot of sense in this "Family Therapy" thing. Most dysfunctional families leads to dysfunctional individuals. Attacking the symptom is really no solution.

[Diogenes]

Content rich blog. Liked it here.

[Som Patidar]

I just read your article at ttp://citizenxpress.com/blog/view/3564/#comment

It's great solution-oriented approach. Meanwhile, am wondering how can it be possible to considered whole world as a family at one hand and recognizing diversity at other hand.

[Uma]

Why not? Even in a small family everyone is different. What's the problem with accepting and respecting individual differences?

[Som Patidar]

Uma Ji,

I do agree with your point. But, don't you think this approach is having less element of practicality.

It advocates for something Ideal but not achievable.

[uma]

Whenever we don't want to do something we say "it is not practical." My approach might sound idealistic but I think to deny it is to kill the very reason for living.

[som patidar]

I don't agree with you on above point. If we really want to do something, than we have to considers all things, better say barriers, which may come in our way.

If we have already made in our mind that it is the best way to do the things than it means we don't want to do something.