Terror has no religion or origin. It can come in all colours, shape and regions. The very fact that it is propagated to be restricted to a religion or a country is a fact that gives many terrorists the license to operate under the guise of lone wolf, mentally unstable, odd one out individuals that have become so prevalent that they have outdone organized crimes and murders. Like all else, this menace has to be treated with some rules without exceptions. As long as studies and plans keep on compromising on the cause and effect the impact of terror control will be temporary and sporadic.
The questions that are you born with these traits of terror or do you acquire them remains the 64 million dollar question. Scientists and sociologists give interesting readings. Scientists argue that human behaviour is influenced by genetic inheritance as well as biological factors. Are people born with attributes that predispose them to becoming terrorists? It has been argued that individuals with psychopathic tendencies or antisocial behaviour are more likely to become terrorists due to their aggressive, reckless and manipulative nature. But though psychopaths lack empathy, their general personality is inconsistent with the personality of terrorists.
Some behaviourists believe that at birth, the mind of a human being is a "blank slate" which is filled with information acquired through learning and experience as the child develops from infancy to childhood. Other social scientists believe that aggression - a characteristic of terrorists - is learnt from the environment through observation and imitation. Biology like genes does have an influence too. With all these complex factors it is difficult to standardize or categorize a terrorist- a mistake that today's world policy makers and analysts have done many times.
Categorization is dangerous as it narrows the domain to a particular profile allowing many non-profilers to operate without being identified. Historically, we have seen anti-west, anti-black and anti-Islam propagators make that exact mistake. They have pinned down those who are from a particular value system or race or religion to be the harbingers of trouble and have thus taken upon themselves to exterminate the whole category either individually or as a state policy. This narrowness of mind and category has in turn harmed rather than helped the cause. This mindless labelling has made existence of the innocent people in that category suffer unjustified victimization resulting in resentment and reaction that has made matters worse than better.
Let us take the present case of the recent Islamophobia in the west. Islamophobia is the fear, hatred of, or prejudice against, the Islamic religion or Muslims generally, especially when seen as a geopolitical force or the source of terrorism that will destroy non-Islamic forces. Islamophobia was reported by the Runnymede Trust's Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia (CBMI) titled "A Challenge for Us All" (1997). The introduction of the term was justified by the report's assessment that "anti-Muslim prejudice has grown so considerably and so rapidly in recent years that a new item in the vocabulary is needed".
Unfortunately, any phobia is dangerous. Phobias are diagnosable mental disorders. A phobia is a type of anxiety disorder that causes an individual to experience extreme, irrational fear about a situation, living creature, place, or object. When a person has a phobia, they will often shape their lives to avoid what they consider to be dangerous. The imagined threat is greater than any actual threat posed by the cause of terror. The question is: Are we born with phobias? The answer is 'No'. Thus the answer to the question whether terrorists are born is also 'No'. That means terrorists are made. That also means that the factors that enable terrorism can be identified and reduced.
The finding that terror is now coming from all sources and backgrounds is worrying and complex. Terrorists are no longer Muslim, illiterate, bearded, tribal guys, but are many times non-Muslims, educated and fairly better off persons. The recent spate of killings in the USA and New Zealand all prove many pre-assumptions wrong. Last year in the US there were 8 university shootouts in 6 months. The explanation given by the US of these being acts of violence as individual digressions rather than group actions like ISIS, etc, is also proven untrue. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the number of hate groups in the United States has grown for four years, from 784 in 2014 to 1,020 in 2018. The number of gun violence deaths in the last four years has increased above 52,000.
This just proves that terrorists are not born but are made. They can be unmade or prevented from being made. The way the recent Muslim shoot out in New Zealand is being dealt with raises hope for a global reawakening of the need to develop a common strategy to protect humanity. The long-term strategy involves developing strong educative materials, laws and penalties for such extremist behaviours in the national policy domains. Countries must realize that terrorism anywhere is terrorism everywhere. Some urgent actions needed to combat the dangerous spread of this worldwide phobia. Three steps need to be initiated immediately are: 1. Countries must develop a Global Code of Conduct to respond to terror incidents - Call a terrorist a terrorist, condemn it, standby the victims in a nondiscriminatory manner. 2. Develop Celebrity interfaith ambassadors who empathize with the other faiths and communicate peace and respect strongly as soon as an incident happens.3. Stop and punish hate mongering when such incidents happen.
This is a defining moment for countries, leaders and societies. Those who revert to tit for tat, teaching a lesson mode will fuel the blazing inferno of hate and violence and eventually get consumed by it. But those who act with restraint, peace, kindness will defeat the very purpose of an act of terror, i.e., develop a phobia for more terror and violence. Martin Luther King said: 'Hate cannot end hate, only love can, war cannot end war, only peace can."
(The writer can be reached at [email protected])