Terrorism, though as old as the history
of mankind has become the most dreaded word of the twenty-first century, of
course, after the word Cancer. As I say age-old, what immediately strikes to my
mind is the assassination of Julius Caesar by Brutus and others in 44 CE.
Interestingly, here too, Brutus, perceiving himself as the indispensable man
for the preservation of Rome’s liberties, develops idealistic and patriotic
opposition to Caesar, and in that ‘motivated blindness’, instead of stalling
the ‘insurrection’, joining hands with the assassinators of Caesar , arrogate
to himself the divine right to take away the life of Caesar.
Looking at this “warfare by external
means”, a famous British journalist indeed called the current period of us as ‘The
Age of Terror’. Yet, there is no concrete explanatory definition of the word,
for each individual/agency has tried to define it from their own point of view.
We do, however, have a vague idea of what terrorism is. It is essentially perceived
as an effective tool in the hands of the weaker side in the conflict—be it
nationalistic, ideological, ethnocentric, social, political, transnational, or
religious conflict—to acquire power. Suffice to say that terrorism is simply
all about “the pursuit of power, the acquisition of power, and the use of power
to achieve political change.” Incidentally, some nation states too are found
engaged in what is called ‘state terrorism’. It is precisely for this reason
some scholars opine that terrorism is always associated more with politics than
with religion.
Terrorism has thus become synonymous
with ‘violence’ or the threat of violence that is resorted to in the pursuit of
or in the service of a political or even a religious aim. The Oxford English
Dictionary defines a terrorist as “Anyone who attempts to further his views by
a system of coercive intimidation.” The underpinning of this definition is that
terrorism is a planned and calculated systematic act—and an act undertaken to
thrust on the other party what he/she considers as right. It is often perceived
as “a game of psychological warfare”. And this threat transcends all countries.
Now, this posits a new question: Who is
this terrorist? Surprisingly, they, much against our normal expectation of being
‘wild-eyed’, ‘trigger-happy’ fanatics engaged in an irrational spree of killing
all and sundry, appear ‘normal’. Researchers aver that they are highly
articulate, of course, of their own ideology, and are extremely unselfish young
individuals. Importantly, they consider terrorism as a rational choice to set
the things right. These ‘normal’ looking people’s deliberate choice of a path
of mindless bloodshed and destruction is quite an enigma—an enigma that is
equally challenging to comprehend.
Recently, I had a chance occasion to
browse through an interesting paper—“Understanding
the Terrorist’s Mind”, written by Laurent
Metzger that addresses this enigma at length. He, tracing the history of
terrorism, has made an attempt to answer vital questions such as: Who are the
terrorists? Why do they resort to such extreme behaviour? Was there something
in their upbringing that led them to choose such destructive path?
Admitting that no clear-cut answers can
be provided to these questions, he argues that many of the Jihadis are young, usually aged between 15-35 years, bachelors hailing
from religious families, mostly “brought up in families without a father”, and
“do not have a popular political leader/intellectual to idealize or emulate.” He
also avers that “often terrorism runs in the families.” He further observes
that most of these youngsters “felt a kind of emptiness in their lives”, and
driven by poverty, anguish and humiliation, and frustrated by the injustice
meted out to them, often took to terrorism as an escape from the realities of
their lives. Examining the present-day Jihadis
who made their presence in Syria and Iraq in the recent past, Laurent Metzger
comments that they are mostly of self-made and are thus “more frightening as it
is difficult to detect lone Jihadis
who can be anywhere.”
Though the article runs mostly on
generalities, it does throw open new vistas for research on terrorism. For
instance, the author observes that the role of ‘emptiness’ stemming from
poverty, lack of education and the resulting unemployment in alienating people,
particularly, the youth from mainstream of life, needs rigorous examination.
Indeed, the role of the ills of ‘capitalism’—industrialization leading to
‘capitalism’ taking firm roots in Europe and America and the resulting ‘Luddite
riots’ in Great Britain—that he found playing a crucial role in alienating the
youth merits a systematic study.
Interestingly, Metzger drawing our
attention to the enigma, “Why do they [terrorists] hate us [Americans, indeed
involving all westerners] so much?” comments that no satisfactory answer can be
offered except to say that it is their policies which might have stirred
hatred. In this regard, he cites the example of Irish people fighting a long
war against the British under the banner IRA. Of course, Noam Chomsky
attributes this hatred to the “flaws of the US diplomacy, which may have given
way to a feeling of revenge by those who resented such policies.”
That said, we must also take cognizance
of the recent deeply encroaching phenomenon of ‘globalization’ that has boosted
the growth in the national GDPs, to evaluate if it had any role in the present crisis. For,
globalization has widened the gap not only between the rich and the poor
nations, but also between the already rich and the poor within the nations,
thereby causing deep distress among those who are left behind by this growth.
And, no wonder if this discomfiture between the two groups eventually transformed
into hatred breeding extremist groups. And America, being the votary of
capitalism and globalization, one wonders if out of this growing disparity
within the societies engendered natural
hatred towards that country in the minds of the Jihadis.
All this obviously calls for systematic
research through coordinated efforts between countries to understand how
terrorism is spreading across wider and wider geography and what needs to be
done by nation states and religious heads to arrest its growth if not to root
it out completely. No doubt, it’s a great challenge. But nations must muster
courage to face it.
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