What makes a terrorist?
Returning to Arundhati Roy’s The Algebra of Infinite Justice once again, the Foreword written by John Berger is pretty entertaining. He waxes lyrical about Roy’s essays but makes one or two observations of his own. On the issue of terrorism he contends that what makes a terrorist is despair; a level of despair that few in the First World can imagine. This despair Berger describes as ‘the sense that your life and the lives of those close to you count for nothing. And this is felt on several different levels so that it becomes total’. He cites living for decades on a refugee camp as an example.
‘The search each morning
to find scraps
with which to survive another day
The knowledge on waking
that in this legal wilderness
no rights exist
The experience over the years
of nothing getting better
only worse
The humiliation of being able
to change almost nothing
and of seizing upon the almost
which then leads to another impasse
The listening to a thousand promises
which pass inexorably
beside you and yours
The example of those who resist
being bombarded to dust
The weight of your own killed
a weight which closes
innocence for ever
because there are so many.
These are the seven levels of despair — one for each day of the week — which lead, for some of the more courageous, to the revelation that to offer one’s own life in contesting forces which have pushed the world to where it is, is the only way of invoking an all, which is larger than that of the despair’.
John Berger (in Roy 2002, pp. xxi-xxiii)
Terrorism is shown here as resulting from despair, and sacrificing one’s own life as well as others in its cause is the only way out to correct the path of this world. This is nothing short of ridiculous.
Book authors have phenomenal powers with intelligentsia, with their implied powers of moral suasion. While freedom of speech is all right as a principle, when it is misused in this manner to instigate the ordinarily intelligent folks to support terrorism, it loses sight of its purpose.
Terrorists sure have a cause in pursuing their goals. We definitely need to look at the creation of new terrorists at birth, especially in places like Palestine, which could be out of parental despair that nothing much could be achieved out of the normal living except to sacrifice one’s life to avenge for past crimes by the oppressors. United Nations, for instance, can be the agency which could analyse this phenomenon around the world, and come up with some generic solutions with the support of the leading nations of the world.
However, I could not agree with the philosophy that terrorism, whether based on despair or religion or beliefs, can be a vehicle to achieve political purposes. In effect, it decimates a nation, or community, into a high degree of disrepute and non-trustworthiness, and leads it into oblivion in a time span of a generation. No political party can be a party to the creation of a military outfit, which uses terrorist principles to tackle the society’s ills.
It should be the collective responsibility of the comity of nations to tackle terrorism, not by sheer force, but by constant engagement with the society which creates terrorists. This means that the past principle that one does not negotiate with terrorists or terrorist nations need to be reviewed, as there is always a reason for the manner in which people act in a society. This has been acted out in a recent example in India, where the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, in the context of the newly started negotiations with a terrorist outfit in the state of Andhra Pradesh, commented “”They are our own people and if we do not talk, how will peace return?”
For the relevant context here, please read
http://news.allindiansite.com/allindianews.asp?newsdate=20041112&record=2.
Killing of terrorists, once for all, is not a permanent solution, as some nations believe. Terrorists are also sons, daughters, and brothers/sisters, and their brutal elimination will necessarily create more terrorists where they came from. Hence, an approach based on a mix of display of power, the ability to use the same when needed, and negotiation on a balanced ground, would be the way to go.
To continue my ruminations after a cup of strong coffee, it is clear that terrorists take away freedom of life from unsuspecting victims, when they try to carry out their acts of terrorism in the name of their cause, trying to attract the world’s attention to them. In this scenario, they stand to lose the sympathy of the well-meaning citizens of the world, who might otherwise be interested to go into the depths of their “despair” and try to attack the root causes for the same.
The Irish Republican Army is a case in point. There are plenty of examples around. Terrorism cannot be equated with Robin Hood’s exploits. To involve the United Nations and the citizens of the world in their common cause, socio-political instruments serve a better purpose than terrorism. While this could take a longer time that what terrorists think it should take, the alternative of terrorism leads one nowhere. Look at the plight of the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, who are now at the cross roads between choosing the negotiation path led by the Norwegians, and returning to the path of violence. Sometimes it could get very discouraging, but the steadfastness, vision, and reasonably well-meaning compromises made by leaders with the power and moral courage, are what it takes to reach an amicable and peaceful solution. One needs to just look at the lost opportunity with Mr Arafat, who could have been in the position to lead the first Palestinian State, and reach a position of equality in the United Nations with the other nations.
I wish I shared your optimism about the role of the UN, Vijay, but I don’t imagine the Bush administration is about to stand aside and cede power to an institution that would likely erode US hegemony.
On the issue of despair as a motivating factor for terrorist acts, I wonder how many new terrorists will be created today when people witness the BBC film of the shooting of an unarmed and injured civilian in a Fallujah mosqueby a US soldier.
Hi Jeremy,
Great ASCILITE presentation, hope you get your plane in time :o)
Cheers, James
Terrorism has nothing to do with poverty or despair. It has everything to do with freedom, or to be more precise, the lack of freedom.
Statistics show that the vast majority of terrorism originates from illiberal and tyrannical states.
Furthermore, there is very little correlation between poverty and terrorism. Some of the wealthiest billionairres in the middle east are the chief financiers of terrorism (Arafat, Saudi royal family, Bin Laden, Hezbollah).
Terrorism is succesful because it works. It got the PLO Arabs a lot of attention and sympathy from the UN and European states.