The question looks pretty simple doesn’t it!! But do we have the necessary answers, I think we don’t have any answers and the fact that we are democracies (I mean all real democracies) it becomes all the more difficult to get the answers.
The only democratic country that seems to have taken terrorism head on and in-fact ‘won’ against Islamic terrorists is Isreal, The Americans had no credible deterrent against Islamic terrorism until the WTC blasts(not 9/11) and they have created their own method of fighting terrorism (which of course has its criticisms), The Brits are where they are and Old Europe is far behind and clueless and India just a step behind old Europe.
The question is why do plural & multicultural democracies need to change or rather adopt different techniques to fight Islamic Terror? The answer would be that
Democracy is young, it’s a recent phenomenon and it has never faced anything like what it is up against and the social,economic,political,legal and security structures that are prevalent in democracies have no answers to this menace. This is something that we have to accept (In a democracy its difficult even to get this accepted).
Only two countries have so far accepted this fact but to varying degrees, Isreal and America. Isreal is a real democratic society by all counts sitting in the center of Middle east which cannot think beyond the 2nd century, The important thing about Isreal is that their fight against terrorism is independent of their government(left or Right) and that makes Isreal more successful.
Isreals success lies in the fact that it puts the lives of its citizens as the top priority and enforces this philosophy, while other democracies also ‘claim’ to do the same, infact they cant for different reasons and the biggest failure of a state failing to protect its citizens is India.
Most Democracies have at heart the “rule of law” in letter and spirit, all institutions follow are bound by the rule of law, in cases of aberrations to the rule of law these institutions act to bring the offenders to book and provide the “victims” justice. Note that institutions themselves still have to act within the law. In most cases this has worked perfectly well we have examples where Murderers, robbers and cheats are brought to book, during the cold war the system also took care of people who acted against national interests. The crucial question is why is that it has failed against Islamic terrorism?
In most societies, The cultural and moral upbringing plays an important role in acting as a deterrent to crime followed by law and legal punishment. The mostly unsaid and undocumented “right & wrong” imparted in childhood plays a very decisive role in general crime rates and provides the bedrock for the successful functioning of a democratic society and crimes that do take place are for Human greed and Human motives (Corruption and Killings for gain etc). Our laws are usually well equipped to handle and even prevent these crimes, the point is Islamic terrorism does not fall into this category.
The motivation of an Islamic terrorist is something that is encrypted there are multiple layers of motivation at the surface it could be economic, it could be regional, it could be an International grouse, It could be plain hatred towards non-muslims but as we peel each layer of motivation and get underneath them we find one single startling fact and that should make us rethink our entire way of fighting Islamic Terrorism..
An Islamic terrorist is one who is indoctrinated about the fact that he has to change the system and in-fact violently, all his grouses are mostly imaginary and nothing at all to do with local issues, its not about jobs, economy or linguistic issues or issues over land, its about some fantasized idea that our system and society cannot comprehend and no system can fight something that it cannot comprehend and hence our systems fail in preventing Islamist violence.
Most social advocates maintain a typically leftist or the more politically correct “socialist” thought “Get to the root of the problem” to once and for all to rid ourselves of the threat from an Islamist, for once I don’t disagree with that, but my disagreement starts at the first steps, How to get to the root of the problem? Can I define the root, Can I identify the root? Can I address the root issue(s) to everybody’s satisfaction? Can I ensure that if injustice was done, that Justice should be done and also that Justice should also be shown to be done?
Most studies in this direction have pointed to one very clear fact, the typical Islamic Jihadi is something our system cannot comprehend. But people can and what the right thinking people comprehend is too horrific and hence the society at large lives in self denial about it. Self denial leads to delusion and the society starts hating and labeling the right thinking set as right wing ‘extremists’, what the society seems to miss is the fact is that this ‘right’ is telling them something that they don’t want to hear.
What is that they say is so difficult to digest and so terrible that we usually don’t want to hear? The fact is these ‘right’ thinkers have obtained answers (nope not answers) but clarity for all the questions and have proposed no solution at all, we don’t want to hear this clarity because then we will have to look for a solution and social solutions are not easy but societies will have to confront them one day or the other and those societies and cultures that don’t will see a rather tragic end. This has been repeated multiple times in history but some societies will never learn.
Coming back to the “root” of the problem. What’s the root cause Islamist Violence, What the ‘right’ has been saying all along is ‘Culture’ and that my dear readers is the most explosive ‘C’ word and now do you why the ‘left’ does not want to hear about it
Did the answer shock you? Well It did not shock me for the fact is that I always believed that Jihadi violence is intricately linked with Islamic culture, but so did most people. The only thing that prevented people from talking about it was the fear, Ok I know the root cause of the problem but how will I handle it?
This gets us back to the basic question we started with How best can democracies fight Islamic Terrorism?
All real democracies such as American the European and Indian ones are plural and secular, There is a clear separation between the Religion and state and the state and its institutions have not interfered with cultural issues and will not interfere even in the near future.
When the systems here cannot and will not interfere with cultural issues and culture of a minority is the root cause of Jihadism, I am still in utter confusion as to how democracies can protect themselves?
In enlightened societies “Democracy” is also a “culture” ,it’s a cultural heritage passed on from generation to generation, my parents imbibed in me a strong respect for democracy and democratic institutions and the rule of law, I am Hindu, I have absolute pride in saying that I marry two different cultures the Hindu Culture and the “Democratic” culture, I promise that I will pass on the same cultural traits to my next generation, That is the reason why a nation stuck in “artificial poverty” surrounded by hostile basket cases (Pakistan and Bangladesh) and also nations that belong to a different civilization (mostly somewhere between 2nd century and 9th century) with a billion plus population (most of them HINDUS) remained and continues to progress as a Democracy. It is no secret that India remains a democracy because of Hindus and in spite of Muslims.
The same can be said of USA,Isreal and most of Western Europe.
The problem has arisen because the minority (Muslims) don’t want to marry both these cultures Islamic and Democratic, but want the benefits of a democratic society and want to live ghettoized cultural life.
This actually creates your friendly neighborhood “Jihadi” who cannot tolerate the fact that we are richer by the fact that we marry the democratic culture along with our “native” culture that we cherish, enjoy and celebrate our freedom that we fight to protect our freedom which his/her monotheist culture has denied to him/her.
This intolerance actually needs to complete erosion of their self esteem resulting in absolute hatred to all people who are not his/her co-cultural passengers, check it out its only the Islamic culture that has a very derogatory name for non-muslims “Kafir” do we have a Christian, Jewish , Buddhist or a Hindu equivalent to it? I don’t think so.
I asked a Muslim acquaintance of mine to list and provide me the scientific contribution of the Muslim world to our world, He was apologetic trying to get around the question, but he understood the root of the question and gave up, but he said this question is usually asked in various forms in internal conversations but the Muslim society at large has shied away from answering but instead when any youngster asks this question, elders point fingers at everybody around the world for their inherent cultural failure
Democracies have a strange problem is that they have an obligation not to interfere in Cultural issues but when Culture itself becomes a ‘problem’ how would it fight the problem.
To this day no country has come up with the correct answer, but a day of reckoning is quite near when all of us have to answer this.
Your views are welcome.
The series will continue with how our societies can still fight this disease......