Terror !

The Mumbai terror attacks has been a wake-up call for the whole of India. It showed us our vulnerabilities in the most unflattering light. All of India was glued to the TV, waiting for the next development. It had over a few days become the national obsession. Emotions of various hues were displayed by our news channels. Everyone who was anyone spoke about it and showed fear, sorrow, anger and all the variety of reactions that define us humans.

The Pakistani government and media spoke and so did their Indian counterparts. The US and European Union countries had something to say also. The only ones who did not speak were the terrorists. They were nameless , faceless , speechless icons of evil. They were not a bunch of people with guns – rather they were symbolic of terror and their individual identities merged to become the “enemy”.

But what about them as individuals. Everyone among us knows about the making of terrorists. We know the dirty money that funds it. We know the religions that enshrine it. We know the people who are using it. We also know the people who are being used. However we actually don’t know about the people who work for peanuts and give up their lives in a futile attempt to glorify their religion.

Can someone live with the thought of killing so many innocents ? How as a human does a person reconcile himself to killing un-armed screaming innocent people ? What is that “pressure release valve” in their brains that malfunctions ? And what is the cause for so much pressure to build up that there is finally no choice but to blow up in self-annihilation ? Is it this anticipated guilt of killing innocents – that makes them wish to die ?

These questions need to be studied and satisfactory descriptions of the “terrorist brain” has to be solidified. Terrorism like any other career has a certain stereotype as its requirement. Social evolution will eventually club the “likely candidates” into the “proper religion/creed” so that they can give vent to their need for violence. A while back warring armies liked such a stereotype – the type who would give up their lives killing un-related individuals. The reason was “noble” – it was for the motherland.

Now we don’t have as many wars – and in any case the fatalities are minimized as far as possible. So where did that stereotype go after the war ? They started fighting smaller battles, for lesser reasons. Until up came a religion-based fanatical-tribal faction that had the right “job atmosphere”. They provided a reason to the warring individual and the warring individual found the justification necessary to be free from the guilt emanating from his actions.

What is sad however is how the media and the people in general comprehend this “individual”. There is no attempt to understand the mind that becomes a terrorist. They are nameless – and now even religionless – because their religious leaders have disowned them ! So what are they ? What part of the brain is built differently that such an individual can overcome such deep emotions as compassion and sympathy ? What is this psychosis ? Can it not be a form of mental disease – maybe even treatable ? Maybe some people are genetically geared towards violence – we know from our history that they were a highly necessary group of people not a long time ago (from the beginning of the first war ever fought by man !).

Every war has “collateral damage”. Mistakes that are at that point not too costly. Maybe a 100 innocents get killed while a bombing mission goes off-target by a few miles ! There are apologies extended by the errant army and the matter is forgotten. But the hidden cost of such mistakes is huge – its called terrorism ! These emotionally scarred innocent survivors built the most unbeatable mental defense system ever invented by man – the will to die ! A person willing to die cannot be reasoned with. Death is the end of any individual – and the love of it frees the soul from mortal fears. All our societies and systems are built on the premise that we will help each other survive. But what if we give sufficient reason to a person to make him wish to die ? He cannot fit in anymore – he becomes the outsider – the terrorist. A very ironical question that may be asked at this point is – can terrorists be terrorized into submission ?

The roots of terrorism cannot be found in religion. It is not in the “training camps”. Its not in the religious institutions where fanaticism is fanned into the populace. Its is not in the ideologue. Its not inside any country or in any society. The roots of terrorism are in two important facts that we haven’t analyzed sufficiently.

a) Our need for people willing to die for “sufficient reason” while killing the unknown enemy.
b) Our callousness in fighting our wars – where we neglect to heal the innocents who have suffered the emotional damage.

Without understanding the ramifications of the above we can never hope to solve the “terrorist problem”. We will keep fighting these “terrorists” as their brethren get further scarred and hence become more of the same. The society as a whole has to heal before “terrorism” goes away. And stupid wars fought for stupid reasons will make it much worse than it already is. I hope that in our future we are better aware if this reality and make amends for the millions of innocents killed in ideological wars.

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