In the shoes of terrorists

When people think of terrorists, they think of mad, violent people. Let's put ourselves in the terrorists' shoes. Would you spend so much money on resources, to the extent of even risking your own life, to bomb without provocation? There must be a reason why they do what they do.

 

Imagine if you are under oppression and you have no money. Imagine if you have no human rights. You have no food for the next day, your families may be dying one after the other and you receive no aid and cannot even voice out your grievances.

 

Let's put it this way. There are currently superpowers in this world who support certain governments and politicians just for their own economic and political ends. There is even state-sponsored terrorism. This is when governments fund terrorists to kill their own people. Not intelligence, mind you. Terrorists.

 

Yet, terrorists have been dubbed "mad? They have been given a bad name. And through what? The media. Oh, and in case you didn't know, CNN is owned by the Americans while BBC is owned by the Brits.

 

Let's go on to a more benign topic about terrorism. The bombing of the Australian embassy by Indonesian terrorists. Link that to the past where Australians exploited Indonesians. Think about the Australia's involvement in Aceh and East Timor and the answer to why Australians are targeted may not be that far off.

 

Talking about Indonesians, there's an association of Muslims with terrorists. Islam has gained a bad name. Indeed, it cannot be denied that most terrorists are Muslims. Yet, scratch beneath the surface, and what do you find? This is not to debase Muslims in any way. However, most Muslims in the world are poor. And when people are poor, they have nothing to lose. When they have nothing to lose, they can do anything. And then, that is the basis of the "mad" behavior that manifest.

 

Of course, not all terrorists are poor. Osama Bin Laden is a very rich man, as all may know. Yet, when people who are rich and powerful see their own kind (whatever that means) suffer, it may induce in them a need to do something. He is not a stupid man, and terrorists are not easy to catch. This is because the structures of terrorist organizations are such that they are very loose coalitions. This makes them difficult to trace. Pakistan and Indonesia may be able to catch terrorists today, but how many more can they catch? You may catch all the terrorists today, but another may emerge, and another, and another. When will this end? How then, can we solve the problem?

 

In the short-run, the technique of force fights force is useful. Yet, it will not work in the long-term. Just look at the situation in Iraq. The key solution to battle terrorism in the long-run is to shape all policies internationally such that they minimize the amount of unfairness in this world. A utopian thought, it is true. Yet, this is the ultimate solution to the cessation of terrorism. A more practical application of this thought would be for nations-states to still serve their own ends (economic benefits) while minimizing injustice. Another thing to add is to be more transparency in political acts.

 

What the article is trying to do is to make the reader see from the view-point of the terrorists. For to know the enemy will give you a greater chance of eliminating them. I am not on the side of the terrorists and am not advocating giving in to them. Indeed, the appeasement tactic used on Hitler by the Americans didn't work. I am not saying that the world is not sympathetic towards trying to eliminate terrorism either. So much money was pumped into Palestine. Yet, what became of it? The last I heard, a lot of money was in Arafat's bank account and a substantial amount of money was always given to his wife living in France.

 

What am I trying to say is this-Treat the terrorism threat at the root. The power of force will only last that long. Period.