Silver linings
TABISH KHAIR
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The attacks, despite the magnitude of the tragedy, are also an indication of the desperation of the terrorists.
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Today, if India and Pakistan are to come into conflict, the only groups that will gain will be the Islamist terrorists holed up between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Photo: Vivek Bendre
Emotional response: People voicing solidarity after the attacks.
The series of terrorist attacks on Mumbai in November 2008, which targeted public spaces, backpacking cafes, five-star hotels and a venerable Jewish centre, have been thoroughly condemned by every sensible person in the world. In a world reeking of gunpowder and filling with the screams of the innocent, the Mumbai strikes stand out as exceptionally indefensible, inhuman and senseless.
Let alone governments, non-Muslim groups and secular Muslims, the attacks were so shocking that a growing number of religious and semi-religious Muslim organisations have condemned it too. Some have condemned it in secular terms and some in religious ones, such as by quoting lines like these: “Whoever kills a person unjustly… it is as though he has killed all mankind. And whoever saves a life, it is as though he had saved all mankind.” (Qur’an, 5:32) In general, as the smoke settles in Mumbai and we learn to cope with our losses, there is a rising feeling of bewilderment. Most commentators seem to have trouble understanding the logic of the act, for, it was not only brutal but also senseless.
And yet, such is the perverted logic of terrorism that one has to look at the tragic event again in order to ascertain the motives of the criminals who perpetrated it. To fail to do so would be to play into the hands of terrorists.
A binary view
That terrorists traffic in violence is a fact one has to bear in mind to begin with. It is not just that they inflict violence and suffering; their experience of the world is framed by violence and suffering. The evil of terrorism rises from the fact that their conviction makes them blind to the sufferings of others. Moreover, there is a tendency among militants to see the world in a binary fashion: “you are either with us or against us”. The terrorism of militants succeeds by inflicting this world view on others. The more they manage to divide the world into us and them, the more they manage to propagate their empty ideology.
I called their “ideology” empty after the 9/11 terror strikes in U.S., and I repeat the statement now for similar reasons. Before 9/11, a radical protest movement was building up globally against U.S. hegemony, neo-liberal economies and institutions like the World Bank. For the first time since the 1960s, the global youth was on the march, protesting strongly and democratically, picketing world economic summits, asking awkward questions. Then came 9/11, and it forced the democratic radical agenda on the back foot for years. The only people really helped by Bin Laden’s murderous attacks were Bush and neo-liberalist policy-makers, both of which were allowed to go unchecked until they led to the economic downturn of 2007-8.
Similarly, the attacks on Mumbai came at a time when India seemed poised to be the first country to come out of global recession. The consequence of this would have been positive not just for India, but for all of Asia, Africa and South America. It might have dented the global order dominated by the U.S. and its allies. If the attacks retard this development, the terrorists involved in it would have done more harm to Asia and Africa (including its millions of Muslims) than anything they can blame on the U.S.
These might seem to be general statements, but they have to be borne in mind before we move on to specific comments about the Mumbai strikes. The litany of hate that terrorists preach — and induce by their criminal acts — has to be resisted first of all, and at all levels. The imbecility of their thinking has to be noted along with its inhumanity.
More specifically, the Mumbai strikes — despite the magnitude of the tragedy — do indicate some silver linings in the clouds of terrorism that have grown on our horizons in recent years. For instance, they might have been carefully planned, but they indicate desperation by terrorists. The fact that they committed some of their most trained and convinced men to such a senseless suicide attack is one indication of it. The other is the fact that they hit Mumbai. Islamist terror (and please call it Islamist, not Islamic) is largely hemmed in and unable to strike “first option” targets, like the U.K. or the U.S. Even in India, places like Delhi are difficult to hit. Mumbai was vulnerable. That it happened once does not mean that it can happen again. Perhaps we did not read the future in time, but now I am sure the Indian authorities have learnt from the past — and I hope various political parties do not muddy the waters by turning this into an electoral issue.
In the same boat
And here India has to be careful to two developments. While elements in Pakistan and ISI are probably involved in the Mumbai strikes, at least indirectly, India and its politicians should hesitate to point an easy finger at the government of Pakistan. Pakistan is close to imploding. There is no doubt about it. Its government is also faced with attacks by terrorists of a similar feather. Today, if India and Pakistan are to come into conflict, the only groups that will gain will be the Islamist terrorists holed up between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The limited pressure that Pakistan has been able to put on them will evaporate in an effort to counter Indian pressure elsewhere. And if Pakistan implodes, India will have an Afghanistan on its borders.
Similarly, it is vital for Indian politicians to unite and continue to build up India’s image as the country most likely to recover from the current economic crisis. If India and Pakistan can combine to fight Islamist terror and if India can prove that the Mumbai terror was just a hiccup on its path to economic recovery, then not just the subcontinent but the world will have cause to celebrate. And that would be the soundest answer to the criminals who killed 200 people in Mumbai, and the best memorial to innocent victims.
Tabish Khair is
Associate Professor,
University of Aarhus, Denmark.
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