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Statement by KPS Gill,
September 11, 2001, Terrorist Attacks On The United States
The enormity of the events of
September 11, 2001, in New York and Washington, will have reverberations
across the world in the days and years to come, and will certainly transform
the attitudes of ambivalence towards terrorism that have been reflected
in policies and practices of the Western world till now. But there are,
equally, the dangers of over-reaction or of an undiscriminating response
as a result of the rising prejudice against what is clubbed under the
crude category of the "Islamic world", and this is something that needs
urgently to be guarded against.
We must, in this context, ask
ourselves why the dominant expression of Islam has taken this cruel
form? Why is it that the world, the moment such an event takes place,
and even before the bare facts of the incidents are generally known,
concludes almost automatically that this must be the work of Islamist
terrorists? And is this an image that the Islamic world seeks to project
of its Faith?
It is, of course, the case that
large numbers of Muslims across the world are as horrified by these
acts of catastrophic terrorism as are the Americans themselves, and
many of the conservative regimes of West Asia are in shock and feel
perhaps more threatened by the wave of fundamentalist violence that
could envelop their systems with even greater ease.
It is only through the complete
and surgical isolation of the extremist element within Islamic nations
and societies that a way can be found out of the tidal wave of terror
and hatred that is being built up through these acts, the inevitable
retributive violence that will follow, and the imitative carnages that
these will inspire and provoke. The hypocrisy and the dishonesty of
the nations that have found it expedient to sponsor and support terrorists,
to provide safe havens, training and the instrumentalities of mass murder,
must now be exposed utterly, and rejected without the equivocation that
has characterized the international and diplomatic responses of the
past.
It is interesting, here, to note
that the three swiftest and most vehement responses to the bloodbath
in America came from Pakistan, the Palestinians and the Taliban – the
three primary suspects in the incident. Indeed, the absolute cynicism
of Musharraf’s statement on Pakistan Television is remarkable. The world
has also been witness to images of men, women and even young children
rejoicing in the streets of Palestine. And while some of the Islamist
terrorist groupings have found it necessary and expedient to distance
themselves from the perpetrators of this latest and greatest outrage,
they have simultaneously couched their statements in the language of
justification and implied threat. Thus the spokesman for the Democratic
Liberation Front for Palestine, the group that first claimed credit
for the multiple hijackings and suicide attacks, while subsequently
denying the involvement of the group, at the same time said that the
US should reconsider its policies in West Asia, or risk provoking the
‘anger’ of the people of Palestine and of the entire "Islamic World".
Osama bin Laden, similarly, distanced himself from the perpetrators,
but said he supported their actions, which he described as ‘Punishment
from God’.
The impact of these appalling
attacks will be manifold, and the character and scale of retaliation
is already being hinted at by the US. President Bush has stated that
the perpetrators will be identified and ‘hunted down’, and that ‘no
distinction will be made between terrorists and those who harbour and
support them’. It is interesting that this statement of sweeping retribution
has not provoked the very voluble ‘human rights’ lobby to any expressions
of outrage which are its habitual response even to entirely justified
and legitimate state action against terrorism in India.
The US response is truly interesting
in view of the unending succession of terrorist
attacks in India that have conveniently been ignored for decades
by the West for supposed ‘want of evidence’. It will be interesting
to discover what quality of ‘evidence’ is eventually produced by America
to justify its retaliatory strikes against whoever it unilaterally identifies
as the perpetrator of these mass murders. It is also interesting, in
this context, to recall the hijacking and destruction of the Air India
passenger aircraft, the Kanishka;
the whole conspiracy in this case was hatched under the watchful eyes
of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who dutifully recorded the illegal
purchase of arms and explosives and their testing, the conversations
of the conspirators, and virtually the whole sequence of events till
the hijackers boarded the plane – but failed to lift a finger to prevent
that tragedy – which was the highest-casualty single incident before
the attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon. Indeed, the Canadian
government was more worried about what they claimed was a ‘fake encounter’
with Talwinder Singh Parmar, than with this act of terrorism that cost
as many as 329 lives.
The entire civilized world, the
world that has been painstakingly claimed by liberal democracy, must
now accept the inescapable and inevitable truth: there can be no compromise
with terrorism and its perpetrators. This is a lesson that India must
also learn in its fruitless and suicidal quest for a ‘negotiated solution’
with mass murderers, or with their state sponsors in Pakistan. The world
must understand, equally, that there is no geographical ‘locus’ of terrorism;
terrorism is not just a threat to the limited areas where it temporarily
finds the largest number of its victims. The American theory of a "shift
in the locus of terrorism" enunciated last year by the then US Secretary
of State and the State Department, fails to realize the unyielding truth
that a victory for terrorism anywhere in the world is a victory for
terrorism everywhere. The methods that succeeded in Afghanistan will
be applied to Kashmir;
what succeeds in Kashmir will, eventually target the US; and successes
in that country will replicate themselves in other countries of the
West. The insular cultures of many of the affluent nations of the world
live in a false cocoon of complacence that can be easily and suddenly
shattered by attacks no less devastating than the events of the tragic
Tuesday in America.
No longer can the world afford
the luxury of the false sociologies that have found a justification
for terrorist violence in a wide range of economic, social and political
‘root causes’. Political grievances will have to be clearly separated
from the acts of terror that are executed in their name, and a message
must be sent out across the world that, once a group kills innocent
civilians, it passes beyond the pale of all justification. The democracies
of the world cannot base their responses on an assessment of the proclaimed
objectives of terrorism. The norm is that, once innocent civilians are
intentionally targeted by a group – irrespective of its declared objectives
– its members are terrorists and nothing more, and immediately and automatically
invite swift and extreme retribution upon themselves.
K.P.S. Gill
President,
Institute for Conflict
Management,
Editor, Faultlines:
Writings in Conflict and Resolution
New Delhi
Septemebr 12, 2001
e-mail: [email protected]
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