Most of us in Australia woke up on 24th Mar to the news of another terror attack in London. I have lived in the city, so I do have an affinity towards the place. It is another horrifying act of violence. I feel religious terrorism is pervasive and not isolated to just Islam. Islam has become its poster child but other religions like Christianity, Judaism, Sikhism, Hinduism, Buddhism are causing enough damage through terror. They are doing it in a way that doesn’t get as much coverage and the biased media is helping their cause.

The recent attacks showcase the grave reality of the modern world. These attacks are from the citizens of the respective countries. Some of these people have recently been converted to Islam. Most of them were moderates till a few months back. Further, they haven’t used any major weapon. The world today is more vulnerable than the last century. People are using domestic knives and cars to cause more damage than a bomb might. We cannot use traditional methods to handle this new age problem.

For the sake of this blog, I want to focus on terrorism under the name of Islam. I want to provide my unbiased view on the situation to the best of my ability. I would like to do this by first breaking the back of the popular opinions and then providing a view of my own. Most of these popular opinions have some facts backing them but they are fairly unidimensional.

Common Left Wing views

Absolve Religion

All of us would have heard or seen the below quotes everytime there is a terror attack.

“Islam is a religion of peace.”
“Terrorists don’t have a religion.”
“Don’t blame the religion. It is just a few individuals.”

These statements can help moderate the reaction but they are not factual.These statements are meek attempts to address Islamaphobia and people have started looking through these.

One can remove Islam and replace it with any other religion and it is still not true. There is no religion of peace. All religions give enough levers for people to justify violence. Be it Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism etc.

Blame Geo-politics

There is a lot of cause-effect relationship between most global issues and foreign policies. I acknowledge and condemn the western imperialism. However, blaming Geo-Politics alone as a reason for this masks the truth totally. For example, the last few terror attacks on western nations have all been conducted by the respective citizens. They are not directly impacted by the foreign policies but for their religious views.

Common Right-wing reactions

Divisive policies against Islam

Right wingers are waiting to come up with divisive strategies to further their dirty interests. They blame it on Islam. It is peculiar considering people don’t associate terrorism to the Christian extremism in Russia and Africa, the Hindu extremism in India, Judaism in Isreal or the Buddhist extremism in Burma and Sri Lanka. Pauline Hanson said a yesterday that “Islam is a disease and we need to vaccinate”. The problem with this approach is it tells the world that we believe only one religion is like this. It alienates moderates who are needed to reform the idea. I sincerely believe all religions are part of the same disease but isolating one over the other will not help us win the war on faith. Further, divisive strategies like this are detrimental and gives opportunity to further the divide

Pauline Hanson said a yesterday that “Islam is a disease and we need to vaccinate”. The problem with this approach is it tells the world that we believe only one religion is like this. It alienates moderates who are needed to reform the idea. I sincerely believe all religions are part of the same disease but isolating one over the other will not help us win the war on faith. Further, divisive strategies like this are detrimental and it gives an opportunity to further the divide.

Invasion

Invading countries hasn’t helped till date to handle terrorism. It has resulted in creating more extremist outfits and has destroyed families of people who were supporters of our way of life. I am not a pacifist. There are instances which demand targetted military strikes to ensure a specific mission is accomplished. For example, I am all in favour of siding with PKK to fight ISIS. Further, it exposes the hypocrisy. The government is Isreal or Saudi Arabia does nothing different from some of the other terrorist states. However, no one takes any concrete action against either of the nations.

Secondly, an invasion exposes the hypocrisy of the western world. The government of Isreal or Saudi Arabia does nothing different from the terrorist nations. However, no country ever takes action on these.

My Views on the causes

One cannot attribute the expansion of terrorism to just one reason the religion. Islam has existed for more than 13 centuries now. Terrorism of some form has existed through history and there has been a need to fight them. Here are the most concrete reasons.

Here are the most concrete reasons I can think.

1. Islam is the latest religion to join the bandwagon of global extremism. They follow Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity and Judaism to use force to spread their views. Islam is fairly new and it’s ideologies haven’t transformed yet. I look at it like like early earth. It needs time to think and calm down. The extremist views of Islam are no different from other religions, just that it hasn’t settled down yet.
2. Economic anxieties and inequalities in wealth distribution results in the rise of fundamental behaviours. You need not go beyond rural parts of the developed nations to see an evidence of this. When people outside the USA think of the country, they only think of the east coast or California. Do people know the state of rural Mississippi? The economic issues in the state have resulted in people becoming more conservative and hold strong religious views. It has only helped the place go backwards. Most countries which act as a source of terrorism are ridden with these issues.
3. There is a lot of anguish and disgust as people see the evidence of destruction caused by the continuous invasion of the Islamic nations. There have been atrocities committed in the past, however, it has taken years if not centuries for information to spread. Now, it is a matter of minutes. The damage caused by the wars have been captured and played repeatedly into the minds of the vulnerable. There hasn’t been a positive story to showcase the effects of the western world. This has impacted the image of the western world. The distressed people now have a way to vent their frustrations through these terror organisations.
4. Insensitive, stupid and callous moves from the right wing parties of other religions add to the cause. When an anxious group is given weapons and more reason to be worried, they go back to the roots of survival. Comments made by people like Donald Trump, Pauline Hanson are massive triggers to the extreme group. Isolation has never created peace.
5. Status of Women in any society determines the sustainability of any development. If you look at these nations, women are subjugated. There is no freedom of movement, speech or expression for these women. The education level amongst women is low and even when they are educated it is controlled and limited to only religious education. Every religion has empowered men and given them powers to enslave women. This has to change and in this aspect, slow change is not acceptable.
6. The left wing and the liberal Muslim media have shied away from exposing these. They have spent most of the time defending the rights of the rest and less on the atrocities committed by the terror organisations. Television channels like Al-Jazzerra for example, haven’t done enough to expose and drive change in the Muslim world. The same media bias is true with the terrorism caused by the other religious groups.
7. The rise of Saudi Arabia has a direct correlation with the rise of Islamic Terrorism. The Wahabi movement, an extreme form of Sunni Islam was started by   Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. This was adopted by Saudi King Abdul-Aziz Ibn Saud in the early 1900s after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. He used that to further the power of his autocracy. This was contained till Saudi discovered oil. Post that discovery, the western world through all its trade deals kept pumping money into Saudi Arabia in return for oil. As Saudi grew richer so did their Wahabi philosophy. They used the money from oil to spread their dangerous philosophies which not only impacts the non-Muslims but also other sects of Muslims.

How to we handle this?

Stop bombing countries under the name of liberation

The NATO forces are currently intervening the seven sovereign countries. Most of these countries are not democratic but not all cultures are ready for democracy. If you want to liberate any group, empower them to fight the battle without actually being involved in the war.

The NATO forces combined have some of the most powerful weapons the world has seen. These cause immense damage to the civilian population and that builds more resentment to the allied forces.

The world hasn’t built a war strategy to handle Gorilla warfare. There is a reason why Che Guevara believes it to be the most evolved form of warfare. You cannot defeat it without resulting in massive collateral damage. The war in Afghanistan has lasted for 15 years but it hasn’t still successfully eliminated Taliban.

Get more moderate Muslims into the mainstream

London has a Muslim mayor now. The result is the fellow members of the community listen to him and he is seen as an example of what Muslims can become in the society. The western society needs more such people in the field of politics, public discourse and media.

Build positive stories of investment in the Muslim world

The media needs stories of west building schools and hospitals in the Muslim world. They need better infrastructure, education, jobs for both men and women. As such stories spread it will solve both the refugee crisis and above all eliminate the source of terrorism, which is videos depicting western damage. In doing all this, it is important to ensure the benefit goes to the local population.

Formulate policies for empowerment of Muslim women and education of children

It is extremely important to have local policies where Muslim children receive education and the women are empowered. The more independent the women are, the better they will be able to drive their society. These policies are intergenerational plans and the impact will be slow but steady.

Reduce dependency on Saudi

The source of the Wahabi terrorism is Saudi Arabia. They are also the reason why the western world in Anti-Iran. The funding for this comes from oil and the world needs to move away from dependency on Saudi Arabia. This will cut off the key artery for the terror funding and will organically reduce the impact.

Take UN actions against both Saudi Arabia and Isreal

It is a lot easier to acknowledge the state terrorism in  Saudi Arabia than it is Isreal. The history of persecution of Jews makes everyone feel guilty. However, I look at antisemitism and questioning policies of Isreali government as two different entities. The governments of the world have to acknowledge the impact of the Isreali occupation of the Westbank and take necessary actions to pressurise them. It should also stop providing intelligence support to both the countries. Isreal has created as much damage to the rest of the secular world through its policies as Saudi Arabia has.

Encourage and support the debates within the Muslim world

The best way for the Muslim world to learn and understand is when people come out and have healthy debates in the public space. We need to encourage their leaders to come out and discuss. This will expose both sides of their world and make people reflect on the shortcomings.

Showcase the positive impact of the Muslim community

One key item which gets ignored by the media is the positive impact caused by the Muslim community. This includes people who have dedicated their lives to public works, arts, science and social development. This inverses the present state and will go a long way in eliminating Islamaphobia.

In conclusion, faith is evil in general but the society cannot progress if we start blaming one religion over the other. I am in favour of eradication of all religions in general. Only education and empowerment of women will accelerate the extinction of this stone age belief system.

One of my friends spoke about how his Grandmother can never look beyond what happened during the partition of India and Pakistan. It takes a very long time even generations and huge effort to go beyond those horrors. Like the Solitary Reaper, the memories lingered long after the incident.

I find this consistently true and cry for social empathy. There are quite a few examples of the same I see globally, from Immigration Crisis, Civil Wars to war-shattered economies. I want to particularly concentrate on the current Modi fervour in India and the Gujarat riot of 2002.

I am strictly looking at this from the eyes of the victims and the impacted. I do not want to consider the viewpoints of people who have scavenged on the misery of the victims to make a name for themselves. I recently read posts where people from rest of India, especially the young folks want people to get over this issue. I also see people using that to dismiss everything that Narendra Modi has done post that. There is less merit in both these cases. Let me take the first point.

Can’t get over the issue

The victims are still living the life that they didn’t imagine. This was a politically motivated riot exploiting the religious divide in people. Most of the victims irrespective of their religion were actually not in favour of violence. I can say this because they were innocent kids. Most of them were regular fathers, mothers, uncles and aunts we meet every day. They were brutally killed in this political struggle. Modi who was then the Chief Minister of the state didn’t do much to prevent it. Even if his claim of innocence is true as far as instigating and perpetuating this, it is definitely not true as far as being inept at handling such a situation. It is not a line item expected in the CV of an able administrator as he is portrayed. For rest of India, this was a news flash. I can say this with confidence as that is how Tamil Nadu looked at it. We were more bothered about the failure of Rajini movie Baba than the Gujarat riots. It is not for anyone to ask the victims or his detractors to forget or forgive Modi.

Dismiss everything that Modi does

The systemic flaws in the India government mean it depends on an able administrator to lead the country. At present, there is no one visible who is able to provide stability and leadership other than Narendra Modi. There are policies where I agree with him and there are policies where I don’t, but that is at a policy level and not at an individual level. There are policies which actually benefit the people and bring economic growth to the bottom 20%. The pundits and journalists will dismiss that at their own peril. As rational human beings, we need to fight policies and the situation now. India needs to create more leaders so that we can replace Modi with someone better. No other party is doing that and that is exactly why the Modi’s party is winning some big states. The families of the victims get this point and they have just learnt to live with that burden. The burden of seeing the person who wrecked the lives flourish.

Overall, it will be insane to expect the impacted to ignore or forget what happened in Gujarat. It is worse to ask victims and their sympathisers to forgive. Rest have to share their feelings and acknowledge the situation. At the same time, it is of no use trying to dismiss the current actions using past results. It will not help the victims, it will only give a short term boost to your image.