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Paris when it sizzles

By Anuradha Bhasin Jamwal. Dated: 11/22/2015 9:45:55 AM

When Paris sizzles, it shakes the world. But would Paris allow the world to burn itself or become a turning point with world leaders seizing the moment as an opportunity to finally rid the world of this cult of violence and hatred with pragmatism and make the world a more secure place to live in. That should be the goal in our immediate and long term response to the macabre dance of death in Paris.
Our immediate reaction to Paris attacks must be one of unequivocal and unconditional condemnation. There is no other way to view or describe heinous bloodshed and such a gory dance of death. But what next? Our long term response to the moment, however, needs to be marked and tempered with a sense of rationality, history and understanding of ground realities. That is if the aim is to create a peaceful world, not just seek some kind of a machismo inspired vengeance. Revenge breeds contempt. It moves in a vicious circle, Justifying ultimately the very violence it claims to oppose and becomes the root of more lethal violence, the kind that Paris saw, or the kind that Lebanon and Syria have seen in run up to Paris.
There can be no ifs and buts in our condemnation and our deepest concerns. The attacks need to be contextualised indeed, but not at the risk of legitimising and justifying them on grounds that the western world was asking for it owing to its unjustifiable tyrannical actions. It would be indeed important for peace loving Muslims, more than anybody else, to come out and strongly oppose such cults of violence perpetuated in the name of Islam. World peace has been held to ransom for long because of an excessive campaign, propelled by vicious propaganda, against Islam and Muslims. Right thinking community members would do well to come out of their shells and dispell these myths that are exacerbating Islamophobia. At the same time, it would be important for the right thinking people in the global community to desist from linking the violent attacks to Islam. The attacks need to be linked to a pernicious ideology that opposes the essence of humanism and humanity. It would be a folly for peace lovers across the world, who by far outnumber the small number of hate mongers and hatred inspired violent blood thirsty beings, to further sharpen the faultlines on religious, regional and ethnic lines. There should be no ugly comparisons of who is more responsible for violence and for the discourse that seeks to see different massacres differently. Our concern should be unanimous and our future response should not keep the world divided and clashing between what George Bush inspired to do by creating a concept of two civilisations.
To recognise that ISIS terrorism is one of the greatest threat of the times to humankind is not enough. Two things are extremely crucial - to understand the genesis of the IS and to understand their strategy and ambition. The IS is a culmination of religious radical sentiments spread through propaganda and hatred inspired by the discriminatory and unfair policies of the developed western world followed in the Muslim world and against Muslims. The strength of the former is directly proportional to the scale of ruthlessness of the latter and thus irrationality of the west suits the hate soaked agenda of the former. The IS dangerously flourishes on this ruthlessness and the consequent insecurity of Muslims across the world; with a perfect mix of educated youth, sense of dejection and ignorance about the real essence of Islam, it uses religion to inject the poison. The ISIS aims to militarise and divide the world to expand its own base. To defeat these nefarious designs of the ISIS would require concerted action from various quarters. Muslim liberals would be required to oppose intolerance and help dispell myths about Islam. But a greater onus lies on the liberal non-Muslims of the world, and more than that on the major political powers of the world. The first thing that non Muslim liberals can do is to help reduce the ugly attempts to divide the world into two civilisations and stop this demonisation of Islam and Muslims. America and its allies should stop espousing the cause of phenomenon like IS by promoting more violence. It must immediately stop its air strikes in Syria, other suspected bases of ISIS and other terror outfits. It must instead begin by plugging the funding of ISIS.
To defeat ISIS, one needs to deprive them of funding and weaponry for starters. US must shun its hypocrisy of fighting against liberal powers and leaders in the Muslim world, instead befriending the conservative Saudi Arabia (which is also supporting the IS cause and funding), and still claim to fight battle of justice against terrorism by pounding vast chunks of lands across countries and turning huge parts of civilised world into rubble and humans into bones and ashes. Such bloodshed, terrorism in its own right, cannot be condoned in the name of collateral damage as such policies can only contribute to greater terrorism. Cessation of hostilities should be followed by attempts to democratise the world in the real sense of the word. The US and its allies can play a major role by facilitating and strengthening liberal groups and spaces and democratizing the Muslim world rather than getting tempted into retributive action against collective Islamic world and Muslims living in the West as the likes of Donald Trump have been quick to suggest.
There is need to re-think strategies and make a transition towards a new global world order, by altering the very way in which the world thinks, behaves and acts. The need is to focus on cleaner politics and cleaner economic agenda which is neither focused on pandering to interest of lobbies of arms manufacturers or greed for oil. A new socio-political and economic world order where democracy and liberal ideas is the norm and where benefits of global policies are all inclusive can be the best and only way to fight this culture of terror. Otherwise, the world is doomed to move around in vicious circles of one terror against another.