B K Karkra
Unfortunately, many countries are selective about terrorism—Pakistan and the U.S.A. among them, being the most conspicuous. After all, they are the ones who have given birth to the Frankenstein, called the Taliban. They seemed to believe that it was possible to put terrorism to strategic use. This is why the curse has not only been able to subsist, but has been able to spread its tentacles in all the continents of the globe, barring for the time being Australia and Antarctica. The latest to suffer the scourge has been France where the terrorists mowed down a dozen votaries of free expression by those who insist that only they knew how this life should be lived. The genie is out of the bottle now and it would require quite an effort at the world level to put it back into it. The work has to begin with a clear realisation that terrorism, for what reason so ever, is an ill wind that would never do anybody any good.
The gruesome killing of 150 innocents, mostly the young students and their teachers in the Army Public School at Peshawar on 16th of December yet again brought into sharp focus the nauseatingly ugly face of terrorism. This copious spilling of the innocent blood should have at least settled the debate over the good and bad Taliban. Pakistan army has since been going hammer and tong against the terrorists singeing the western wing of the country to bring some solace to the young souls pushed into the graves prematurely, but it still seems reluctant to discard the temptation of using some gangs of these marauders against India. India, on the other hand, has done well on this occasion by not playing any sort of politics over this ghastly crime against the humanity and by standing solemnly behind the people of Pakistan in their hour of agony. In fact, whole of India has reacted as if its own children have been killed.
However, some elements in Pakistan are not even remotely touched by these spontaneous outpourings of sympathy from India. In fact, Hafiz Saeed and General Pervez Musharraf have lost no time in hurling accusations of complicity in the tragic incident on the face of India. Such an eccentric reaction was though not entirely unexpected of them. Anti-India hysteria is after all the staple diet on which Saeed`s Jamaat-ud-Dawa has been feeding for a long while and the discredited General has chosen to take the ‘More bitter against India than thou” stance in a desperate bid to muster some cheap popularity to help him out of his troubles.
Their preposterousness on the issue could perhaps be better ignored. They do not reflect view of the common man in Pakistan who, at this point of time, wants more of peace and less of politics. By now it should be clear to all that the subcontinent would stay starved of peace as long as some awkward elements are allowed to keep the anti-India tirade alive. The Pakistan Government seems to have at long last realised that the terrorists of all hues are bad for the health of their nation. However, it is yet to make up its mind on the more difficult question; how else to deliver thousand cuts on India. It still seems to nurse the illusion that their terrorist would someday be able to wrest Kashmir from India. Pakistan Government and especially, its over-sized and out-of control army, have to understand that terrorists cannot be a strategic asset of any kind. If you rear snakes in the open, these would one day bite all and sundry, including them.
Prophet Mohammad, in his holy Quran, repeatedly refers to Allah as a gracious, merciful and benign being. He naturally expects every true Muslim to look at Him as a role model. Now what sort of grace and benevolence is involved in the mindless massacre of the young kids at Peshawar? Some perverts, however, claim: “We, in light of Islamic teaching, consider the killing of the children justified as they are not opposing the anti-Islam role of their parents and are committed to follow the path of their parents”. What a bizarre understanding of Islam! They need to learn that millennia back an Egyptian pharaoh also felt that Jews were getting far too many in number. He issued a decree that all newborn male babies of the Jews would be thrown in the Nile. Today, we find the Egyptian civilisation of the time vanished in the thin air, leaving behind just the mummies and the pyramids.
It also seems to be the right occasion to go a little into the genesis and history of terrorism in the world. The urge to dominate is inherent in every living being. When the creatures are unable to assert themselves through natural merit, they attempt to do so by securing submission of others through the instrument of terror. Terrorism, thus, has been a reality ever since life started blipping on this planet. However, when an intelligent animal called man evolved, a sense of wisdom gradually dawned that the free-for-all approach to settle contentious issues and even to secure justice, could, in fact, lead to injustice and chaos. Human societies thus needed to set up a system where other means could be found to settle disputes and deliver justice and equity without inflicting unnecessary caution and cost on the mankind. Unfortunately, some still seem to be living at the beastly level and believe that shedding of blood is the only means of ushering what they perceive to be the just order in the world. They are, in fact, the ones who often superimpose their own meaning over the message of their Prophets.
There was an underground Zionist movement going on in Israel against its Roman occupation in the times of Jesus Christ some two millennia back. The Jews then very much had a just cause to fight for. However, the movement had been infiltrated into by some criminal elements and their activities had degenerated in to some sort of terrorism. Jesus, therefore, did not approve of their half-baked violent struggle that was inviting strong reprisals on the local populace by the Romans. He made his mind known in no uncertain terms by opining that ‘those who live by the sword die by the sword’.
Guerrilla warfare tactics used during insurgencies are not in the same genre as terrorism. Violence here is directed at the enemy, rather than the innocent civilians. These tactics have been tried in China, Vietnam and elsewhere with telling effect. What Field Marshall Ayub Khan did in Kashmir in 1965 and General Musharraf in Kargil in 1999 were the covert military manoeuvres to wrest territory. These also do not fall in to the category of terrorism.
The present breed of terrorists justifies terrorism as a weapon of the weak. There is no dearth of riff raff elements wandering for bread and work in our part of the world. They can be easily indoctrinated to wear the suicide jackets for a bowl of mutton, some money for their kin and promise of seventy two heavenly damsels on their death.
The terrorism of the kind that we face today originated in Palestine that happens to be a case of a country being vacated of a nation to accommodate another. The first aerial hijack took place as early as 1934. However, it was the hijack of the TWA flight 840 from Rome to London on 29.8.1969 by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine that made the world sit up and take notice of the menace. The whole thing finally emerged as an exercise in using wrong means for a right cause. The PFLP, therefore, quickly abandoned the path of terrorism and decided upon an open fight for their cause. It should have been realised in the very beginning that the Jews are one of the oldest communities whose Prophets are respected by more than half the world. They also very much have a right to exist and have a home land. The rightful claims of both the Jews and the Palestinians would hopefully be settled someday.
Unfortunately, however, the fire of terrorism has since engulfed the entire glove and its epicentre has finally settled in Pakistan. It has achieved nothing so far and is not likely to achieve anything in future. If it has delivered a thousand cuts on adversaries, it has suffered many more wounds on itself. The fact of the matter is that a mad dog may be menace for a while but eventually it gets killed. This is the way the terrorists are likely to finally end.
(The author is former Commandant)
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