by Wakeley Paul; published March 29, 2004
Those described by their enemies as ‘Terrorists’ who are engaged in a struggle for Independence from foreign domination, have often wound up as international heroes. Some obvious examples are Jomo Kenyata who defied the British in Kenya, Nelson Mandela who suffered imprisonment and humiliation at the hands of the more powerful white South Africans and the black Rhodesians who fought their white superiors to exercise their right to rule themselves. They were all branded as radical terrorists in their time by their detractors.
Organizations such as the IRA & the ETA and the LTTE, which have been accused of repugnant acts of violence in the past, are all regional struggles with a higher goal in view. The goal is to rid themselves of the strings that tie them to discriminatory regimes, which are also accused of horrible acts of violence against their citizens. The aims of organizations such as the IRA, ETA and LTTE are to attain peace, harmony and an orderly society at the end of the rainbow; not to sow disorganization and fan fear so that terror can survive indefinitely. Restoration of the rights & rehabilitation of their people’s fates, homes, lands and businesses is their hope and their objective. They, in the ringing phrase of President Kennedy, “Do not fear to negotiate, but do not negotiate through fear.” They are fully cognizant of the reality that one cannot effectively negotiate a satisfactory result from a position of weakness. They are equally alive to the reality that, where democracy fails, an armed struggle to overpower the repressive forces of government is vital to their success.
There is a wide divide between that and the current Islamic international terror that plagues governments and their citizens everywhere. As someone aptly said, “such terror cannot end with decapitation nor with ordinary politics of negotiation and compromise” that today’s diplomats are familiar with. Their aim is more general – to change society from the ground up – and their geographical interest is wider because Islam is an important religion in so many parts of the globe. Their aim is to sow fear and insecurity among nations and their people in order to create the ideal atmosphere for what we consider extremism and fundamentalism to flower. The average citizen is made to associate the ‘crush hour,’ the subway, the commuter train and his office as constant objects of terror. His pulse rate races with every normal move he makes. The freedom fighter, by contrast, has no such goal. His idea is to resist and fight off government terror with occasional incursions into the government’s territory to unnerve and weaken the governments that terrorize the freedom fighter’s people.
The difference in attitude could best be summed up in the simple phrase ‘We love life, they love death.’ They are at war with the modernity and its power structures. They do not have hopes of catching up with the modern world. Their gory aim is to destroy it, with no early expectable end in sight. The aim of the freedom fighter is to uplift the rights and life styles of their people.
El Qaeda may well be on the way to extinction, but they have spawned a tributary of terrorist groups with the same mindset, who are well beyond central control.
There is a new breed of terrorists who are impressed by their ability to control elections, as they did in Spain. They calibrate future events with an eye on the political calender. While Al Qaeda is on its way out, there are new forces who have taken up their banner. They are here, there and everywhere, with no single central body to control them. They are becoming increasingly hard to find and preempt. Freedom fighters by contrast are both identifiable and localized.
Governments everywhere, including India, where there are more Muslims than even in Pakistan, are all in need of protection from the international terrorist commitment to fuel disruption and disorganization wherever they go. How this will help them achieve the ultimate goal of Islamic superiority throughout the globe remains a mystery. Whether they have any idea of how that will be achieved is doubtful, but fanning fear and insecurity is the current avowed objective. Freedom fighters have a more noble goal to serve.
While International governments are becoming increasingly understanding of our aspirations; they are by the same token, increasingly committed to suppressing, and if possible, undermining international terror. The two movements have no parallel. They are separate and distinct phenomena. Fortunately, the world is gradually becoming aware of this.