Terrorism? What it is?

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What is terrorism? According to Book Of The International Library Of Criminalogy, Criminal Justice and Penology : Terrorism by Conor Gearty, “ Terrorism consists of violent actions carried out for political or other social purposes, including some large scale mercenary purposes, by individuals or groups, having an aim which might be either good or bad, but carried out by means of :

1. Attacks on innocent or neutral or randomly chosen people.

2. Using means which involve atrocities eg.torture, cruel killings, or multilation of the living or the dead, committed against randomly or non-randomly chosen people who might be either innocent or not.

” Terror can occur without terrorism, and that terror is the key to terrorism. The suffix “ism” refers to a political philosophy, or a manner of acting or an attitude. Psychologists define the psychological condition of terror as extreme fear or anxiety. Though terrorism is real, not an imaginary danger. It is an unexpected danger. Terrorism affects the social structure and the individuals, and it may results in disorientation in our society. Terror is a constituent of many ordinary crimes. 

There are some potential causes of terrorism, which are the rising population, increased poverty and scarcity of resources, racial tension, inflation and unemployment, increased tension between the “have” and “have not” nations, waves of refugees shoved about by wars, immigrants moving from poorer states to wealthier place, rapid urbanization, the disintegration of traditional authority structures and many other causes. Terrorist groups have obliged corporations to pay them “taxes”, provide free food and medical supplies to the poor. In their mindset, they often over simplify complex issue to black and white. They have many pent-up concerns about an individual’s inability to change society. They believe in self-righteousness in their own rectitude. They are often lonely people who use religious or political ideals to interest political recruits. Terrorism always threats to person and property. They act in terror in many ways, for instances, hijacking, personal attack and intimidation, kidnapping, arson and sabotage, bombing, hoax bomb and so on. Now, the threats of cyber-terrorism are frighten. Information in many ways is the keys to waging this war on terrorism and probably to winning it. 

So, let us rethink about the issue of war against Iraq and the tragedy of attacks on America. The Bush administration is considering on attacks on Iraq, intended to end the reign of Saddam Hussein by involving 250,000 mostly American troops. The costs of invasion at anytime will be thousands of American casualties. There are two reasons for the war against Iraq, firstly is to disarm Iraq of the biological and nuclear weapons of mass destruction and secondly is the option that Saddam is a terrorist and a dictators and a crazy evil man. The US admits openly that it wants to seize control of the Iraqi oil fields and put in a caretaker government. However, Saddam believed in power and patronage. They could inspire terror but their ambitions are limited. In contrast with attacks on World Trade Centre in America on 11th Sep 2001, the warriors of al-Qaida is hatred and the movement is more psychological than religious or political. Osama bin Laden and his acolytes have taken suicide bombing. The bombers and the man who sent them on their mission were “true believers”, they did not allow idea of compassion or humanity, for themselves or their victims, to intrude into their mind. They use the violence as a “holy” end in itself. Poverty and oppression are often as reason why they act terrorism but why a group of essentially middle-class Arab men would embark on the biggest suicide mission? It was an ultimately pragmatic psychology, and an historian Michael Ignatieff has called the “apocalypticnihilism” of man with no political programme, only a desire for the destruction of their enemies in a war. They were educated and capable of studying and holding down jobs. They were able to present normal façade that their planning and preparation for the crime of “Tragedy 911” went entirely unnoticed. 

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The charisma of bin Laden had united these educated men. To them, he is a military or religious superstar. He teaches them that the mind of new “super terrorist” must be immune to pity and need not be concerned with political compromise or worries about the taking of human life. In the world and words of him: “In the name of retaliation there are no innocents.” He offered a simple solution to the humiliation and sense of injustice like giving them a reason to live, a reason to die, a cause and also a promise of paradise in the afterlife. He seeks a world rid of enemies. He does not seek an accommodation with his enemies but desires to kill them until they bend entirely to his will. This is what we call psychopathic behavior, which means that one man’s vision for the control of human destiny. He can present himself as a messiah for an oppressed and humiliated. He has forsaken wealth and power for an ecstasy of righteousness. These oppressed citizens of the Islamic world felt all these things and believe that American are the root of all international evils. His movement belongs in an anti-rational universe, where emotion triumphs over reason, a world where anything is possible in the name of righteousness. The childhood may shapes the minds of terrorist leaders. For instance, bin Laden was a son of his father’s seventh wife and many in the family group called her ‘slave’ wife. He were proving to himself repeatedly the extent of his worth. By other words, a man trying to control his world. Our formal prime minister, Dr Mahathir Mohammad mentioned that “Terrorist are not people who advertise their intention to commit acts of terror. They are not usually soldiers in uniform, although some can be. Usually they are unrecognizable until their terrible acts.” I am totally agree with that statement. Their evil deads have a purpose. They would not willingly kill themselves in the most horrible fashion on Sep 11 if is not because they believe there is a purpose for their suicide. Iran, Iraq and North Korea have been labeled as the ‘axis of evil’. It is time we rethink. Oppressing people or destroying their countries will not solve problems. We have to get away from our old culture and values and reinvent our civilization. The attack on the World Trade Centre on Sep 11 is not an attack on US alone. It is an attack on the whole world. 

What Malaysian government do? We did not just fight them with arms, or chase them into jungles and out of Malaysia. We carried out a campaign to win their hearts and minds of the people so as to ensure that the terrorists lost their civilian supports. We study the causes of the disaffection of these terrorist and their supporters and we took remedial action. The causes of the anger and frustration of the terrorist must be studied and action taken to remove these causes. Once the causes have been removed, support for the terrorist will be much reduced. I believed that if there is no Palestinian issue, if the Palestinian are not being oppressed and children being killed, the anger of the Arabs and Muslims would not be there or would be much less. Certainly there would not be willing to kill themselves in that horrible fashion on Sep 11. Those who hijacked and crashed the aircrafts are not fanatical illiterates, they come from the richer Muslim countries. They married and have wives and children. They knew the course they are taking would separate them permanently from their families, friends and a good life. And yet, they are prepared to die in a horrible fashion as they steered their aircrafts towards the World Trade Centre. We need to understand their mind and their mentality. We want to understand the reason why they did this. 

As a conclusion, we must determine who a terrorist is. A terrorist is a terrorist to all and everyone at all times, they are not regarded as noble freedom fighters by some others. We have to learn to understand their psyche if we want to deal with them, to counter and to eliminate them. We want to stop the terrorism. A terrorist should be outlawed by the world, hunted, captured, tried and appropriately punished, even if he is fighting against oppression, against terrorists themselves, using acts of terror.