Terrorism - What's Under The Surface?

There is a good and a bad side to almost everything, when you think about it. Maybe this is part of life’s complexity, it occurs to me, especially in times of adversity. However, given the incalculable loss in human lives, destruction of property, and other resources could there be anything good about the fiesta of destruction on which ten young men from across the seas recently embarked, in which over 200 lives were lost and so much havoc was caused?

I look at this way. These are events, no matter how horrible, which give the rest of us a chance to think things over, to start life afresh, to wake up to changes that are crying out to be made. When you look at it in this light, at least you get the feeling that the lives which were snuffed out were not lost in vain. That the people who died, did so in order to give the survivors a chance to live differently, to improve their circumstances. One wishes there could have been another, less painful way but since we are so slow and so unwilling to open our eyes to reality perhaps this is the only way left to jolt us into waking up.

So what is it we really need to wake up to? Is it to the need to subject our already restricted lives to even more control? More policing? A huge announcement by one of our daily papers asks us to serve as the “eyes and ears of the nation” by reporting suspicious happenings wherever we go, pertaining not only to terrorist activities but to any “ills that plague society”. Just think of some of the possible repercussions if such a movement were to come into effect! Should we emulate countries like Israel (whose young visitors to India are so unpopular on account of their aggressive and crass behavior) - or the U.S. which so many of our fellow citizens have been citing as a prime example of a country which has fended off terrorist attacks since 9/11? Really? We should invade and destroy countries which we have convinced ourselves are the source of our problems and even risk the danger of nuclear war to make a point? Do we really think that military might or that turning India into a quasi police state is going to ensure us the health, wealth, safety and happiness we are all looking for?

Or could it be that events like the one we’ve recently witnessed are a call for us to wake up to, and address the gross inequalities in the world. Is not the violence which we are subjected to so often, ranging from city murders to wars, to acts of terrorism, inviting us desperately to redress the injustice and crazy distribution of wealth and the fact that there is a serious breakdown of values wherever we look, a dissolving of whatever it is that holds the community of human beings together? The horror which is unfolding before us everywhere, is it not begging us, among other things, to give back to the people who are slogging their ass off for the country, at a very concrete level, their dignity? Among others, our farmers, without whom we would not survive more than a few weeks at the most, the workers who put up our buildings, bridges and other constructions, or the coal miners who risk their lives to keep our electrical circuits running?

The lone terrorist to be caught alive following the recent onslaught – Mohammed Ajmal Kasab - according to newspaper reports, comes from a poor family in Pakistan. There are two reasons that seem to have motivated him to become a terrorist. One is, that his best friend Fayaz Ahmad who he believed was innocent, was killed in an encounter three years ago, by the Jammu and Kashmir Police. The other is that his father persuaded him to join the LeT in return for money, in order that the family back home might survive.

As long as there are people starving in the world, as long as a large number of deprived human beings continues to be not only confronted with existential problems but is simultaneously forced to watch crass indulgence by sections of the population, who ignore the basic needs of the poor, we can be sure of by being plagued by rebellion in various destructive forms since that is the only way apparently, in which the poor can make themselves heard. It is not enough to blame the criminal minds making use of the poor – be they slimy, mealy mouthed, manipulative politicians or hate filled, power hungry maniacs who brainwash and train frustrated youngsters to blow up public facilities and kill large numbers of people wherever it may be, leaving a trail of blood and gore behind them.

As far back as 1972 the disastrous consequences of our consumerist attitude and crazy way of life, was documented in a book called “Limits to growth”, published by the Club of Rome. Sadly, over thirty years later, when wars are actually being fought over oil, over water, and other natural resources in short supply, when the effects of the lopsided growth around the world is known to be leading to violence and destruction, we are still thinking in terms of the sort of growth which can only lead to further destruction and are hardly giving a thought to measures we need to take to save our resources and to use them in a way that benefits the maximum number of human beings in the world.

What is scarier than the terrorists is the fact that not enough people even now, seem likely to wake up to the urgent need for us to change the way we relate to each other in the world – politically, economically, and most significantly in the realm of personal relationships, which is where all transformation really begins. The fact that so many of us go through life like self satisfied zombies, indicates that by and large we are not leading happy lives, that we lack genuine fulfillment – because otherwise we would be longing to share our joy and to extend the sense of fulfillment to others – not to cut ourselves off from the world as we have done and to live in our own separate cocoons without caring about the rest.

Today I am wondering, who are the real terrorists? The people we think of as terrorists? Or is it all those who hold the world to ransom with their greed, their hunger for power, their exploitative attitudes? Are the real terrorists the men and women who have been seduced into joining criminal organizations in order to feed themselves or their families, or is it people who have unfairly amassed wealth and power and who now refuse to use it for the common good, to bring about a society which is peaceful and democratic in the true sense of the word?