Think-Israel

THINK-ISRAEL

HOME November-December 2006 Featured Stories Background Information News On The Web

ON COUNTER TERRORISM

by Dr. TS Girishkumar

The menace of terrorism is in the increase all the world over in current times, and it used to be limited to few places and with limited scope in the past. Perhaps the time is over due for the world community to think in terms of some thing like a counter terrorism, and this, in fact, is in the dire need, that alone can facilitate the peaceful existence of all.

In the past, Jihadi terrorism was limited, and it did not develop this nasty face of killing innocents and creating terror in the minds of common people. None would have ever feared a bomb in an airplane, trains or in any such public spheres. Islamic fundamentalism was a phenomenon then for the Indians, where they were demanding separate space for their 'peaceful' existence, and there used to be killings of the Hindus by the Muslims out of hatred and dislike, and they destroyed Hindu temples, broke down our idols of worship, and put them on the steps of Muslim mosques for their believers to step, stamp on them, and go for prayers. During then, the Muslim problems had not evolved into what is now known as 'Terrorism', for the world community to directly see and know.

Mahatma Gandhi, the father of Indian nation is one of the foremost sympathisers of the Muslims, and indeed this used to be the Hindu attitude towards any minority. (This still is the case with us the Hindus, who had not taken very good lessons from History). Gandhi must have believed those Muslim intellectuals who artificially created the Muslim problem, and looked at things with the supposed Muslim eyes. He believed that they are indeed feeling insecurity among the majority Hindus, and the Muslims do not know that the Hindus do not mean any harm to any one, and though it is their ignorance in the Hindu history And goodness, these miserable ones do suffer.

And Gandhi did give into their whims; they took good advantage of the lenience and good mind of Gandhi. In any case, the division of India into Hindu and Muslim states was an inevitable thing, the Muslim intellectuals had been working towards it for more than two hundred years before the idea of a separate land for the Muslims ever became popular. Perhaps none could have avoided or stopped it, except a strong government, which was simply not there, and the colonial rulers were bent upon dividing India, firstly as a part of their policies, and secondly as their belief went in the directions of India falling into many fragments in the future to come, especially once the British had gone.

With the division of Pakistan, the Muslims got their land from India. One must remember, that most of the Muslim world was not much educated in other parts of the world, and the Muslim intellectuals chiefly belonged to India. Most of their new literature got written in the language of Urdu, which is actually the Hindi language written in Persian script. The Muslims always wanted to be distinct from others, and constantly were striving towards an identity of their own, at the cost of others and based on Muslim religion. Thus in India, the original invaders who came from Turkey, Persia, etc., had gradually lost their language, and the common ones were the first to adopt Hindi as their mother tongue, which was a spontaneous phenomenon. Even in the language, which they spoke, the Muslims wanted to be separate from Hindus, and for this purpose, they started using the script of the Persian language in place of the Vedic script of Devanagari.

During then, Urdu used to be the language through which all world Muslim ideas became expressed, for the simple reason, that the Muslim separatism had its beginning in India. Most of the Muslim writers and intellectuals were Indians, and they not only wrote out excellent pieces in fundamentalism and separatism, but also went around the Muslim pockets popularising their ideas, now better known and Jihadi ideas. It must be noted that separatist and fundamentalist ideas were the creation of the Muslim intellectuals, who published, and even run news magazines etc, not only from India, but also from Europe. The magazine, "al-uruwa-al-watiqa" published from Paris by Jamaluddin Afghani is one such example.

With the Indo Pakistan separation, Pakistan became the centre of activities for Islamic intellectual developments, and in the long run, the ideas of Islamic religious fundamentalism became stronger -- stronger and political -- which finally produced the evil fruit of terrorism in the world. Further, such ideas were supported by the Arab world, which were emerging as neo rich countries, on account of the oil boom.

Now it had become a world problem, and we are already late in thinking in terms of counter terrorism seriously. To my mind, these are some points in counter terrorism through which one could think in terms of eliminating terrorism from the world, or at least, estranging them from the main stream world.

An analysis of the terrorists shows that they give primacy to religion -- more than any thing else. This by itself may not be harmful, but when they try to view the entire world and others too through their Queran, it becomes a problem not only to themselves, but also to others. From this develops the anti national attitudes of such Muslims, within their respective nations. And therefore, it becomes impossible for them to belong to any nation at all, and wherever they are, they shall be continuously plotting and thinking against the countries where they live, so long as it is not an Islamic nation, that of their views and objectives.

Since this is the case, why should nations the world over continue to permit them to continuously hold their citizenships? When such a person does not want to have anything to do with your nation, why do you want to burden him with your citizenship? Obviously he doesn't deserve the rights and welfare indented for the normal and good citizens, of not only your nation, but also of any nation.

Thus my first suggestion shall be, that all identified and established terrorists ought to be de-citizenised by all countries in the world. They must not get protection of the citizenship of any nations, and if there is some one who wises to give citizenship to such terrorists, then that nation ought to be treated as a terrorist nation also.

Since these terrorists do not belong to any nations, and any nation's laws, we ought to make separate laws exclusively for them. Terrorists are countryless people, and they do not come under any laws of any nation, therefore, separate laws ought to be made for them.

Separate Judicial system, Prisons, Punishment executing agencies are all to be made for the terrorists, and all punishments are to be executed within a stipulated period of time. Since they themselves are inhuman, they do not deserve any human rights.

There ought to be an association of the world nations precisely for counter terrorism. This is not blowing up the terror from terrorism, but is founded on a reality that terrorism is going to be impossible and uncontrollable for the future world. An association of world nations exclusively for counter terrorism is going to have plenty of work at hand. Nations that might not join the Association out to be blacklisted, as they shall be the ones abetting terrorism and after some time, these nations are going to be uncontrollable.

To sum up, the world nations ought to come together to form an association of counter terrorism. We must then identify what is terrorism and terrorist activities. Further, all identified terrorists ought to be captured and imprisoned in prisons exclusively meant for them, in an identified space, which is meant for de-terrorising the world. It is only through such an association that we can think of a terror free world in the future to come.

As for terrorism, if it is not checked and countered, it is going to be 'the problem' for the future world. It is only common sense to understand the gravity of the problem and act, and act now. It is not going to be a problem for the Hindus or the Jews alone, even good Muslims are going to pay for it, and pay for it dearly.

Dr. TS Girishkumar is a Reader in the School of Social Sciences at Mahtama Gandi University, Kerala, India. His areas of expertise are Indian religions, politics and their interactions.