You are barking up the wrong tree......
If you look closely, the root cause of terrorism, is simple.
The root cause is always, territorial, nationalistic, political,
conflict.
That is the primary reason.
As you can see the Palestinian and various other middle-eastern
Arab terrorists, they are basically having a land dispute. Namely,
there is a dispute of a territorial, nationalistic, political,
nature.
The same can be said with Chechen terrorists. Again,
territorial, nationalistic, political, root is the cause.
They wanted to make their own country.
This case, Mumbai attack, same again, these people are
sympathizers and supporters of Kashmiri independence.
In each and every one of these so-called terrorism cases, the
root cause is always one of territorial, nationalistic, political,
nature.
When you look and focus on their religion or religious ideology,
you are just looking at the secondary factor. It is not the primary
reason. You forgot the real cause.
I would like to remind you that ETA and IRA in the past, also
employed terroristic tactics, and they are not Muslims at all.
However there is a similarity, and always there is this
similarity. ETA and IRA had a dispute of a territorial,
nationalistic, political, nature.
Another example, in 1970s there was a group of Japanese
terrorists, forgot the name, and they were not Muslims either.
So you see.
So the commonality of all these terrorism factors, is one of
territorial, nationalistic, political, nature.
In some cases, when the protagonists and the belligerents got so
desperate, they are willing to inflict a cost and a damage to the
other side, without paying due regard to proper conduct of a
gentleman warfare. They resort to terroristic tactics. They are
desperate, filled with hatred, pushed to corner, and dont care
anymore.
Some of them will use justifications of an ethnic nature or a
personal nature or ideological nature, or perceiving their acts as
a rightful revenge, some of them will look deep into their
philosophy and religious teaching to find justification and
courage.
Of course, all acts of terrorism is wrong, I agree with that.
There is no moral grey area in this regard. It is absolutely wrong.
However when you look only at their secondary soul-searching or
self psyching up by searching deep into their religious beliefs,
and then you point at that, and blame that, I think you are being
rather short sighted and you miss the real reason altogether.
So whether they are ETA, IRA, Japanese terrorist, Kashmiri
terrorist, Chechen terrorist, or all sorts of terrorist acts do not
have a religion as a commonality, rather, the commonality is a
conflict of a territorial, nationalistic, political, nature.
Meat Pao
I truly wish what you had claimed are the roots of terrorism -
killing and terrorizing of innocents. Oppression, discrimination,
repression with political or socialogical aims are issues of which
we can always debate and obtain compromises as solutions.
Pepertrators who kill can be easily brought to justice with only
a minority sympathisers, and be brought to justice. Strikes,
protests, melee fights between males and riot squad or armies is an
acceptable norm.
But when religion is used as a tool to achieve political ends,
there can be no discussion or compromises, simply because the deity
do not hold discussions or meetings! 'Talk to the holy book' is the
classic answer to any queries or enquiries.
The holy book holds all the answers and solutions to any
problems one faces, even if one has to suspend logic and reason in
acceptance.
To challenge its teachings is to defy an all mighty supreme
being. No King, President, PM or society is higher in encompassing
authority than an interpretation by flawed men, at times even
village idiots posing as mullahs or imans, from that book.
The masses had always been manipulated by a scheming minority of
men to achieve objectives, such as small scale type like performing
jobs, to high end stuff of replacing seats of power.
Religion thus is the perfect tool to manipulate simple folks,
who had been taught since childhood not to defy or challenge its
teachings. Worse still if it teaches religious chauvinism,
for it grant its believers life and afterlife, and only death to
non-believers, a very powerful motivator to encourage killings of
innocents, in the hands of evil scheming men.
a.) You had just been fired from your dream job. You are pissed
and decides to kill your boss. You storm into his office, points a
pistol to his head, finger on the trigger.
b.) Your loved ones had been murdered. Your home destroyed. Your
future is ruined. Your country lay wasted. You and a group of your
friends travel to the country that had caused you harm and
destruction.
You see a farmhouse. Inside a family is sitting down having
dinner. You storm inside and pull out your sub-machine gun and
point at them. The stunned family looks at you in horror, and then
in tears as they plead for you to spare their lives and deny any
partaking in the destruction of your home and life.
The frightened children stares at you with their innocent
tearful eyes. Your finger is on the trigger. One long burst and
they would be cut down.
c.) Same situataion as (b.), but this time, you had been told by
your leaders and religious mullahs/imans that it's ok to kill them.
They are only non-believers and deserved death anyway. You are
helping your religion. Your finger is on the trigger, ready to
unleash hell.
It is easy to talk. 'Killing' is easy. Just pull the trigger. As
in example (a.), most in anger or rage would only go so far -
fantasize, and then laugh it off when sanity returns.
But when yopur finger is on the trigger to end another's life,
most will seek a strong valid reason to do so, more so if the ones
to die are innocent. Some allow their rage to overcome their
natural instinct to respect life, and then to kill.
Even in war, soldiers were known to hesitate before killing
another life, because we were brought up never, ever, even dream of
killing another human or committing murder, no matter what they had
done or whatever religion, since childhood.
Thus, even in example (b.), you may but largely, will not pull
that trigger.
But in (c.), its a no-brainer. You would not even hesitate one
second and will even exclaim and proclaim your deity is great with
glee as precious blood continues to flow from your victims.
Therefore, ideology is the root. Ideology that everyone else is
an infidel and deserved of only death is evil. Remove it now, or
generations will suffer. The moderate Islamic faiths must do
something to their teachings now. This i plead.
