The 2009 Christmas Eve plane bomb plot, the 2008 Mumbai Hotel Siege, the 2005 London Train Bombings, the 2004 Bali Attack, the 2003 Madrid train explosion, September 11 2001. The high profile nature of terrorist plots over the past decade has brought terrorism to the forefront of global violence, becoming for this generation what the two World Wars and the Cold War did for her forefathers.
But terrorism is not a recent phenomenon, before the last decade of sensationalist fundamentalist religious terrorism, there were less high profile acts of terrorism being perpetrated globally. Before Al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah became infamous, the Irish Republican Army (IRA), Basque Fatherland and Liberty (ETA), Ku Klux Klan, Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and Tamil Tigers already had far-reaching notoriety. What about the mistakes of Catholicism in the Crusades, or of the Spanish royalty in the Spanish Inquisition, or of Puritan England in the Salem Witch Hunts?
Apart from these systematic organizations of fear and organizations of peace that mistakenly create fear, there were also unaffiliated terrorist. John von Brunn, David Copeland, Alaa Abu Dhien, the members of the Gunpowder plot (such as Guy Fawkes)…
There is no accepted definition of terrorism, but going by the cases aforementioned, terrorism can be defined as the coercion through violence and threats into acquiesce of some particular objective.
By this broad definition, terrorism can be perpetrated be almost everybody. For the sake of this discussion, terrorism will be divided into two groups those conveyed by threat only and those with violence in tow.
What follows is an individual attempt to try and dissect the problem of terrorism.
Modus Operandi and the Vicious Cycle
The shared trait of either group is the chief weapon that is used – Chaos, chaos in the mind. The method of terrorist is to engage in fantastic events that intimidate the imagination and hatch fear in the heart. Callous as this reads, it is not so much the tragedy of the dead that matters to terrorists but the turmoil amongst the living. The dead people are mere statistics; numbers that the world grieves for but they are numb to.
The grief, shock, confusion, fear and utter chaos that such loud acts of violence generate in the mind are the source of exaggerated reaction. Even the most balanced person can have his reason overruled by a bout of emotion. Whether it is the despair of the loved ones or the dread in the rest of society, it is paranoia in the mind that engenders suspicion, doubt and distrust; and leads to overstated responses. The interconnectivity of human decisions, results in widespread uncertainty and causes disarray in society.
Humanity in general is not a bellicose species. It is evidently the hope of the terrorist that the fear of violence, the fear of being a victim of violence and the fear all the synonyms of violence leads eventually to a softening towards the stance of the terrorist. It leads to pacification and acquiesce to the demands of the terrorist. Eventually the terrorist arrogate and appropriate their unwarranted demands in exchange for concessions of peace.
Ironically, the nature of humanity is such that he soon grows tired of what he has and decides that he wants more to fill him. Terrorist are just as human as anyone else, and after some time begin to covet more concessions from the mainstream groups. Since the last time they achieved their objective was through violence and not the strength of their arguments, this leads to a vicious cycle of violent terrorism.
Rants of Rage and Radicalization
As mentioned in the previous paragraph, the strength of logic of the extremist opinion does not carry water, but are porous and cannot withstand the wave of reason. The arguments, just as the neo-Nazi oratory of Hitler, are carried by the charisma of their leaders. The rhetoric of terrorism thrives on the negative emotions; it is division that derives from diversity. The assortment of differences is exploited to allow the spreading of radical messages. These messages are always message of intolerance – intolerance of religion, race, nationhood, ethnicity, gender, sexuality etc…
Just as no religious heresies sprout from spiritual laxity; terrorism does not develop from charity. The lack of charity and acceptance, contrasted with the excess of malevolence and irascibility, combine to add layers of appeal to the insensible message of intolerance.
Hatred mushrooms most readily in situations of abject hopelessness. People who are poor, who have never known what it means to be rich – and have never seen those who live in comfort –, will be happy with what they have, for they know no distinction between their lives and another. People who live in poverty, and see others who live in affluence know that they are missing out. The inequity of the capitalist system and the imbalance of money create disaffection. When one lives in such desperation, and is preached the “Devil’s gospel”, he is indoctrinated against the system and the people in it. When he has nothing to lose, but everything to gain (or at least is promised) from the violent actions he commits, he becomes easy prey for radicalization.
But what about those like Farouk Umar Abdulmutalib – those who benefit from the system? While the reasons may be many, it seems most likely that the expressions of terrorism meld with emotional unhappiness (for many reasons – see The Bleeding Heart), producing in the hearts of the person a perverse attraction for the messages of hate, clouding rationality, leading to self-radicalization.
Going Underwater with a Boat
Obviously, no one has been able to eradicate terrorism in over 400 years. For where peace does not reign completely, there exists terrorism. Yet, do bombing terrorist training camps solve a long term problem? How does a myopic solution cure an enduring problem? It is akin to using an air-pistol to shoot an eagle, impossible; trying to submerge deep into the sea with a boat, the only way one will do that is by capsizing. Terrorism can only be defeated by attacking the emotions, since it is heart (and not the head) that require convincing.
The de-radicalisation of extremist terrorist is the first part of the solution. For example in Singapore and Indonesia it is understood that radicalised Muslims, terrorist are brought into jail cells under their countries Internal Security Act where theologians and reputed scholars will engage them on the flawed basis of their religious convictions.
The disenfranchised also need to be aided. While Farouk Umar Abdulmutalib is a rare exception to the norm of people recruited to such hatred fronts, more often than not, it is the materially dispossessed and emotionally deprived that are most susceptible to the conniving tongue of abhorrence. Hence great means must be made to ensure that those who cannot are not left to die in an overly cold and cruel world and are not left in the lurch. A capitalist society may be built on a dictatorship of ability, but this same dictatorship of ability when not benevolent is the exact force that can bring it down to its knees.
Thirdly, there needs to be vocal argument against the messages spread. The world needs charismatic, coherent and penetrating members of the government, literati and scholarly class to show up by all means of communications and linguistics the sheer foolhardiness of the point of hatred so that people become less vulnerable to the ideals of terrorism.
Yet even more pressing is the need to remove hatred from our midst. Where there is hatred there is violence and it begins at home. Recall that terrorism can be conveyed by word and action. Big trees grow from small seeds; the message of hatred must be wiped out in our homes and in our hearts. For what is violent terrorism but the extreme, physical manifestation of verbal hatred? If we allow the antonyms of peace to exist in our midst, then inadvertently, we contribute to the hatred and terrorism in the world.
