The blasts in Jaipur (13th May 2008), have once againbrought to fore the grim reality of global and localpolitical scenario. In a short span of time close tohundred innocent lives were lost. What washeartwarming was the calm with which the societyhandled this grim tragedy. The amity with which thepost blast situation was handled certainly needsmillion respectful salutes.
But political parties are what they are, takingadvantage of such tragedies to bake their politicalbreads. The BJP leadership was quick enough to saythat the blasts are taking place as the centralgovernment is weak, the withdrawal of POTA has givenrise to a situation where terrorists can make merry.Most such criticism is aimed at scoring browniepoints, forgetting that during BJP led NDA regime withPOTA in operation, the attacks on Parliament, Red fortand many other acts of terror were very much there.Despite Advani's lie that he did not know aboutforeign minister accompanying the terrorists toKandhar, there were acts of terror a plenty when hewas the Home/deputy prime minister and was trying tocultivate the image of an iron man. Also the argumentthat BJP ruled states with glorious strength are freefrom terrorist acts also comes to a naught with thistragedy.
Petty political thinking apart, the world today isgripped by this insane phenomenon, which like a cancerhas spread over a period of last two decades. Theanalogy of cancer for terrorism is very apt as manyfeatures of this are matching with the behavior ofcancer in human body. Cancer has multiple etiologies(causative factors) and same is true of terrorism.First, it is due to the indoctrination of minds, likeAl Qaeda by CIA sponsored madrassas in Pakistan. TheAl Qaeda was used as a proxy for American army tofight against Russian army in Afghanistan. Here theindoctrination of Muslim youth was done through thesyllabus developed in Washington. The goal of coursewas control over oil wells in the region. They didthese insane activities in the name of religion.Presumably for the glory of their religion! Similarlythe indoctrinated Bajrang Dal workers, who died whilemaking bombs in Nanded April 2006, also wereindoctrinated in the RSS ideology prepared to lay downtheir life presumably for their religion.
The second major cause of terrorism is a spontaneousresponse to injustices done to a group of people,generally in places where the democratic norms arecompromised. Recently (December 2007) the acts ofterror done by Adivasi National Liberation frontresulting in blast in the Guwahati Rajdhani expressexemplifies this. This blast was in the wake of groupof Adivasis being beaten and their female companionbeing molested. This was the triggering point for theacts of terror being done by that group. Similarly theMumbai blasts in 1993 and in 2002 were in theaftermath of Mumbai riots and Gujarat carnage afterwhich some Muslims played in the hands of elements outto do such acts as a revenge, in the name of theirreligion. They forget that no religion worth itsspirituality teaches to kill the innocents. Here thefeeling of frustration, the feeling of taking revengeis paramount in the minds of these terrorists.The third major factor leading to acts of terrorrelate to the injustices done in the name ofnationalism, the suppression of ethnic, regionalaspirations, Khalisthani, Kashmir, North East (ULFAetc...) LTTE and Irish Republican army fall in thiscategory.
Cancer in the human body spreads by multiplemechanisms, physical extension, and through bloodvessels etc. The one spreading through blood andgetting lodged at a site distant from the original oneis called Secondary metastasis. Al Qaeda was theprimary cancer and what we witness at many otherplaces is either secondary metastasis of that or isbeing done by those who have ulterior politicalmotives. In current times this is the major type ofterrorism and is the one where the indoctrinationdesigned by US administration and propagated by USmedia disguised its lust for oil resources. Theindoctrinated mind is the most lethal weapon in theWorld. It then becomes supra national and is beyondthe realm of usual controls. The goal of US was topolitically control oil zones through concoctedpretexts, leading to attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq.And these were projected as a part of clash ofcivilizations. Here the propaganda is that thebackward Islamic civilization is the threat to theWorld so attack Afghanistan on the pretext of catchinghold of Osama bin Laden or attack on Iraq on thepretext of saving the sovereignty of Sheikh of Kuwait,to defend the world from weapons of mass destructionhidden by Saddam Hussain. This surely is one of thebiggest hoaxes of contemporary history.
Imperialism, the domination of poor countries by themore powerful ones', has assumed different languagesduring last several centuries. Initially when theBritain, Portugal and France etc. went on to coloniesthe World for their material gains, they projectedthis exploitation of colonies as the 'Whit man'sburden to civilize the barbarians'. Then came the erawhen national liberation movements were beingundertaken by different colonies, many of which wereinfluenced by socialist ideas. This period of historywas dominated by two superpowers, US and Russia. USled camp tried to retain its hegemony on colonies oras a continuation, adopted policies to exploit thesecolonies through other economic mechanisms. To preventthe colonies becoming economically autonomous,imperialists tried to hegemonies global politics andthe language used by them was, 'defense of freedom anddemocracy'! With demise of socialist states thelanguage being used is the one related tocivilization, 'the threat of Islam'.
The difference in the current times is that since areligion and a religious community are demonized andtargeted the impact becomes much more deep andretrogressive in the cultural arena. It startspolarizing the communities along religious lines. Thisclash of civilizations theory is operative worldwide.In India the problem is further compounded due to therise of communal politics, politics around issues ofreligious identity, which has changed the language ofsocial discourse and has worsened the situationfurther. So far, communal violence has been polarizingthe nation along the lines of religious communities.Now due to this propaganda Islam and Muslims have beenlinked to this phenomenon, and the Muslims all overthe world and more so in India have been uniformlydemonized. The result is that the acts of terrorismare projected, investigated and propagated in a biasedway, totally conforming to the global and localpropaganda about Islam and Muslims. The attitude ofsemi-communalized state machinery and communal partiesfurther polarizes the society.
While these acts of terror are acting as the divisivefactor, in a way they are playing the same type ofrole which communal violence has played so far,polarizing the communities. Despite the fact thatcommunities are responding with amity, somewhere deepdown the demonization of minorities is worsening. Theinvestigation pattern so far has been to link the actsof terror to the Pakistan based groups, now BanglaDesh based groups. The main pattern has been thearrest of huge number of innocent youth. The socialhysteria against them has been so bad that sometimeslawyers, in violation of their professional ethicrefuse to take up their cases. In such cases, thedictum that one is innocent till proved guilty, hasbeen put upside down or it is asserted that if someonebelongs to the wrong religious community he has to bea terrorist! In this scenario the fatwa of Deobandthat violence against innocents is un Islamic hasgiven a very powerful message to the society. Themultiple seminars being held, to say that Islam andMuslims have nothing to do with terrorism are good butare restricted to the Muslim audience and not able toachieve the desired result. These messages have to betaken far and wide, involving all religiouscommunities.
Some social groups and communal parties are subtlyintensifying these misplaced perceptions and weakeningthe nation. It is time that while improving ourinvestigation methods we need to desist frompoliticizing and communalizing these tragic events.The seeds of this cancer were sowed by the globalsuper power so just being shortsighted to blame theneighboring country and the religious community iscounter productive. There is a need to cultivate amityand trust and that's possible if we see thatessentially it the secondary metastasis of the AlQaeda clones, very difficult to control by superficialmeans. Better intelligence, better policing and adeeper understanding of the phenomenon will go a longway to overcome this suffering of the country.
By By Ram Puniyani
Source: http://www.countercurrents.org/puniyani220508.htm
Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.
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