The Friday killing in Paris of innocent people driven by a twisted ideology has darkened the skies of the world. Once again, humanity faces shock, confusion, fear, anger, grief and defiance. It is clear the terrorists are now bent on instilling fear into any people anywhere in the world.
Terrorists on a murderous rampage killed people, as if they were birds for gamers to shoot at, in multiple attacks in Paris on November 13. Like lightning strikes out of a blue sky, explosions and gunfire erupted suddenly, confusing people who were in a theatre or sipping coffee in a café or playing soccer in a stadium. To perpetrate a wholesale devastation and ensure maximum possible human losses, attackers even tossed explosives at the hostages.
Today, in an arc that stretches from the Far East through the Middle East to the streets of cities in Europe, Asia and America, the world faces a scourge that has been taking innocent lives, scaring communities and destabilising countries. It is a threat that is constantly evolving, growing and mutating, a constant peril that is hanging over people like the sword of Damocles.
Official death toll in the Paris carnage has risen to 132, with 352 injured. ISIS has claimed responsibility for the coordinated assault that spanned six locations and involved at least seven terror suspects of whom six were suicide bombers. It was the deadliest violence Paris has seen since World War II. The attacks come just about a year after 16 people were killed in twin attacks at the Paris office of the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and a kosher grocery store outside the city.
French President Francois Hollande called the attacks an "act of war" and vowed a "merciless" response. United States President Barack Obama said the coordinated attacks in France were a strike on the "civilised world".
It is hard to describe panic, shocks and horror that have gripped the French nation and traumatised the whole world. We can only express our deepest sympathy for the families and friends of those killed and injured and our solidarity with the French people and we must pledge to annihilate the terrorists wherever they are.
We from a safe distance are only trying to guess what happened in Paris. The scenes and images that we can conjure up have eased their way into our minds as appalling. The shocks will pain us for a few days, or a few weeks at best, and may gradually fade away with time. But those whose friends and relatives have died and those who have somehow survived the massacre will live with the horror for a long, long time, the faces of the terrorists sneaking into the deepest and darkest parts of their minds and occasionally churning their brains in the middle of the night to prompt a fevered inner dialogue: Is there someone crouching in the corner of the room to spray bullets? The bone-chilling and nightmare-inducing scenes will keep creeping and crawling into their psyches throughout their life.
With Paris now enduring this second major bloodbath unleashed by terrorists in about a year and one of the attackers being smuggled to Paris in the guise of a Syrian refugee, questions are now being asked about how much long Europe's open border system and the vision of a tolerant, multi-cultural society can survive. This Paris attack may harden the attitude of the European and other Western nations towards millions of refugees from Syria and other war-afflicted Middle Eastern countries eagerly waiting for safe refuges in the West.
European nations, however, should hold their nerves and embrace their values of tolerance, faith and religions. World leaders should keep in mind that ISIS would love to see Muslims are persecuted everywhere, there are attacks on mosques, and a warlike ambience prevails in the western countries, because the more Muslims are hounded, the more Muslims will be motivated to join ISIS, pick up arms and fight in the world to unleash horror and terror.
Why do terrorists kill innocent people? There are many answers. The most related answer to my own opinion is psychological: "They want to be powerful enough to draw global attention through occupying headlines on television and in newspapers." They think force is the most direct way to achieve their goal or to take revenge upon an injustice they befell. Such terrorists practise their killing habit first by attacking soft targets until they are massively empowered when they hope to achieve their desired political influence.
Terrorists know, it is difficult for any nation to protect all targets. So they inflict maximum terror with the hope that the civilians out of desperation will demand that their state end the horror by any means, including giving in to the terrorists.
Terrorists believe that they can kill innocent people because they think they are in pursuit of a more important goal, especially when they are presented an order from their religious leader saying their deeds would be rewarded in the heaven if they die in their pursuit to establish a cause. Terrorist attacks, especially those suicide-attacks, are not driven only by religion. Their attacks in most cases have a strategic objective to compel a regime to hear their voices or aliens to leave the territory that they view as their homeland. To seek an explanation for terrorism is not to excuse the terrorists' monstrous attacks on innocent civilians. But understanding what motivates them to kill could help find ways to reduce terrorism.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has overthrown a democratically elected government led by Mohamed Morsi and managed his courts to award death sentences to most of the leaders of the ousted government. Among those who are victimised or being marginalised in Syria and Egypt, ISIS obviously found its potential recruits.
Many of the suicide bombers are men and women whose relations or friends were tortured or killed by local or foreign oppressors. From Syria to Iraq to Lebanon to Sri Lanka to Chechnya to Kashmir to the West Bank in Palestine, every major suicide-terrorist campaign has had its central objective to punish a local suppressive regime or to compel a foreign power to withdraw its armed forces.
Then, how to bring an end to terrorism? It depends on dealing with the root causes of extremism. Lack of education and absence of true democracy are the primary reasons that give rise to fertile soils in which the terrorists plant the seeds of hate. Give back the people of Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Yemen, Palestine and other hot spots in the world their basic rights to freely choose their own governments and see how amazingly ISIS and other terrorist organisations are starved to death!
Extremists are good at jumping on the back of political grievances and justify killing sometimes in the name of God. Every killing is a human tragedy as are political oppressions that cause a chain reaction of bitterness and hatred that paralyses normal life and pushes people against and away from each other. The need to respect a neighbour who is not like you or a political opponent who does not subscribe to your own views is much greater. At the same time, however, the scope to identify certain quarters as enemies is also no less important.
There is no doubt that Islamic extremism is breeding terrorism and terrorism has been appealing to those who are ignorant, who can easily be beguiled into believing that their death will buy them a ticket to heaven if they die in a suicide mission. Extremists are filling young minds with the belief that anyone who disagrees with them is God's enemy. There are of course extremist acts perpetrated against Muslims as well because of their religion, and today there are fanatical Christians, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists who disfigure the true nature of their faiths.
It is time for all nations to think outside the box on how to address terrorism by ways that will elevate security. Pundits and thinkers believe nullifying terrorism's roots instead of chasing all over looking for terrorists hiding behind the bushes is the wisest way to reduce the risk of the incidences of terrorist attack.
Today's challenge is to show the young people, especially young Muslims, who are vulnerable to appeals from terrorists that there are better paths of having their voices heard and a more meaningful way to engage with the world. Muslims need to be mobilised to defeat extremism and all governments must take seriously their responsibility to educate young people to accept and respect people of different faiths and cultures.
Truly religious Muslim Imams and erudite scholars on Islam, except a very few who are pathologically myopic, schizophrenic and narrow-minded, condemn terrorism all the time. It is heartening to know that Muslims around the world have profoundly been saddened and shaken by the Paris attacks and stood in solidarity with the people of France. They are saying in louder voice that terrorists are not Muslims and are wondering if those terrorists are even humans.
Gloom pervades not just Paris but also other capitals of the world including Dhaka, where recent killings of foreigners, free thinkers, publishers and police and attempts to hit the soft targets augur something very ominous Bangladeshis were not prepared to face and did not ever confront in the past.
The world will be safer from terrorist attacks only when leaders have earned trust of their own people, when nations have earned respect of all other nations, and when people would esteem all other peoples' values. Voices of peace must now be louder than the voices of terror.
maswood@hotmail.com
Voices of peace be louder than voices of terror
Maswood Alam Khan from Maryland, USA | Published: November 17, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 17, 2015 11:54:31
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