From: : "R.R.Punyani" <bmrrpia@cc.iitb.ac.in>
Tackling The Terrorist Menace
Ram Puniyani
The attack on World Trade Center and other American buildings and places of major importance over a period of few hours, causing a loss of lives of thousands and loss-damage to billions worth of property will go down in the history as the most barbaric act by terrorists. It is a tragedy beyond words and American establishment's response at the moment is building up in a direction, which may be equally frightening. The preparations are on for a massive reprisal. At this time the major voice asking for restraint is that of Cuban President Fidel Castro. Castro not only calls for the restraint in this hour of severe retaliatory mood in the wake of shake up of American and world psyche, he also states that American establishment itself has given encouragement and even sponsored terrorist groups in different countries at different times.
America's antipathy to Cuban regime's 'Communism' is too well known. What needs to be recalled is that Cuba could survive as a nation against heavy odds despite the intimidatory tactics by American state. Also it is in very recent memory that to suit its ambitions and goals US had propped up Taliban to fight against Russian occupation of Afghanistan, it armed Iraq against Iran in the war between the two countries. And ironically later it turned against first Iraq and paralyzed it by an attack, and now it is planning to 'teach a lesson to Taliban'. American attack on Iraq and the consequent sanctions have crippled the Iraqi society in a serious way. Iraqi children are suffering malnutrition, and people at large are facing shortage of essential commodities, medicines in particular. Even Taliban, which was propped up by America, is facing sanctions and Afghani people are in a severe crisis due to shortage of essentials like food, clothing and medical aid.
The tale of Palestinians merits a severe introspection about the ways of the superpowers. It also gives insight to the 'rise' of militancy amongst particular ethnic groups. Jews, needed world sympathy due to the atrocities of Hitler's race based Nationalism, but they also had to be restrained when they themselves started practicing blatant racism against the native Palestinian people. Israel kept being supported against the Palestinians on various flimsy ground unmindful of the aspirations and human rights of Palestinians. And the highhanded Israeli actions, condoned by the superpowers did lead to the rise of militancy, which defied being controlled even by the super cops of the world. It is not that Muslims are the only victims of lopsided policies going against them in different parts of the worlds. Down south Sinhala highhandedness did lead to the rise of Tamil (Hindu) militancy and just a decade ago Indian state put all its might to finish Sikh militancy coming in the form of demand for separate Khalistan. Different ethic groups faced with diverse forms of repression and injustices have resorted to these inhuman responses to the repression of their rights.
With collapse of Socialist Russia the balance of power at global level has suffered an irretrievable set back. In this post 'collapse of socialist states' scenario, America has been behaving as a global super cop, ignoring the role of United Nations and many a times even forcing UN to toe its line by different bullying tactics. And as imperialism always needs an 'external' enemy' to maintain its military complex, Islam and Islamic fundamentalism was given this place by Uncle Sam. Islam has not only been demonized but also projected as the major threat to the world freedom. It is during this phase that miseries of Palestinians, Iraq, and Bosnia-Rwanda, Afghanistan came to the fore. US reduced UN's role to a helpless observer of the acts of commission by US.
Surely the present dastardly act of terrorists is a sad reminder that even disadvantaged groups, who are nowhere equal to the might of the most powerful nation can occasionally puncture the high handedness of bullies. Whatever be the slogan under which both these operate we have to strive for a just and humane society. In the charged atmosphere created due to the inhuman acts of terrorists, it is likely and one fears that particular group of people to which the terrorists belong may be hounded and intimidated for no fault of theirs. Terrorists do not represent any community. They are a cancerous growth on the body of society. Today world as a whole needs to introspect about the seeds of discontent, which have been giving rise to terrorists. It will be easy enough for American might to destroy a country or two in the act of retaliation but that will not give us back the precious lives lost during a period of couple of hours of terror by the disgruntled elements. Castro's advice of restraint is most timely. We need to put our UN house in order. Also UN has to be taken to a higher level of world authority, rather than its present position of a weak international body. And maybe all Nations irrespective of their limitations ought to exercise a moral control on the brute force of individual members in the quest for a just world order. Punishing the innocent individuals belonging to one or the other religion to which the terrorists belong will hardly solve the problem. The mass sentiments against particular community may cause uncalled for violence against innocent individuals. The guilty must be punished but innocents have to be protected from the wrath of mass hysteria.
The march of Humanity has to be towards peace, reconciliation and elimination of injustice from the face of the Earth. While joining the US in its hour of grief we do need to exercise caution as far as the 'retaliation' is concerned. While rushing to help the efforts towards relief and rehabilitation of the victims of the tragedy, we have to keep our cool and address the problem of global, cross border and other varieties of terrorism in a balanced manner.
(Dr. Ram Puniyani is Secretary of EKTA, Committee for Communal Amity, Mumbai)