Cross Talk
Terrorism can't be terrorised
STATISTICS didn't bleed, but they frightened us last week when a handful of terrorists went on rampage across Mumbai. Nine dead and one captured, the ten terrorists gutted three ritzy hotels, killed 181 and wounded over 300. The dark episode was a stark reminder that terrorism can't go out of business, because the return on investment is astoundingly high.
In May 2002, the National Center for Policy Analysis estimated the cost of 9/11 attacks in the United States. Counting the lives lost, property damaged, and lost production of goods and services, losses exceed $100 billion. Counting the loss in stock market wealth the cost approached $2 trillion.
What was the cost of 9/11 to the terrorists? The total cost of the operation, which required four hijacked aircrafts and meticulous planning, perhaps ran to six figures. The average cost of other major attacks has been much lower.
A UN calculation shows that the cost of major al-Qaeda attacks falls below $50,000 each. The attacks in Madrid cost about $10,000. The blasts killed 191 people. The nightclub bombings in Bali in 2002 killed 202 people, and the cost was less than $50,000.
So, the rational expectation is that unless terror is made costly for the terrorists, the business is going to thrive. In fact, it will become increasingly popular as a means for the weak to exact retribution on the strong at an usurious price. Since the Sicarii, a first-generation Jewish group, murdered enemies and collaborators to oust the Roman rulers from Judea, terrorism has been adopted by revolutionaries to expedite the pace of revolutions across the world.
In 1881, Tsar Alexander II was assassinated by a Norodnaya Volya bomb in St. Petersburg. But terrorism has evolved since then. It no longer targets the ruling class for the emancipation of the ordinary people. Instead, the attacks are aimed at symbols of power where ordinary people pay the price for the sins of their rulers.
How can terrorism be made costly to the terrorists? Israeli Defense Force conducted a survey on Intifada in 2004, which revealed that since the Israeli government initiated Operation Defense Shield and tightened security measures, the number of successful attacks dropped, but number of attempted attacks increased. And when one particular tactic was mastered by their adversary, the terrorists found new ones to replace it.
Bush's wild-goose-chase in Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11 is going south for the same reason. While the terrorists have been diverted from American soil, they have been dispersed all over the world. And since we live in the global village, who understands it better than the terrorists? They know the world is their stage, and if they act in one corner of it, it gets the attention of the whole world. The Americans may be safe in their own country, but they have made rest of the world the bull's eye for terror.
The world has to ask whether it's possible to terrorise the terrorists. How can it frighten the fearless, threaten someone who is ready to give up his life? One way is to torture and kill, but Mathew Alexander recently wrote that the main reason foreign fighters flocked to Iraq was the abuses carried out in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. Torture and death ignites martyrdom, which maginifies the cause and multiplies the propensity for vengeance.
Then how do we deal with terrorism? Terrorism has become and shall remain a powerful tool in the hands of those who feel exploited and oppressed. Terrorists are barbarians in the worst sense of the term and, in the best sense, revolutionaries whose grievances, like their ghastly tactics, transcend national barriers.
One thing is certainly in flux. The covert power of the victim will increasingly match the overt power of the victimiser. If today's terrorism dons a religious mask, tomorrow's might be a mask of class struggle, economic exploitation, territorial conflicts, even linguistic or cultural differences. This is not meant to praise the terrorists but to grapple with the new reality.
Terrorism is a vicious disease which gets aggravated if treated with further terror. If threatened with death, the suicide bomber is further strengthened in his resolve to die. Since 9/11, that has been the most poignant lesson.
Terrorism in the Muslim context started in Palestine, then targetted US imperialism, complicated by the attack on Afghanistan and invasion of Iraq, coalescing into a bitterness that threatens to hold Muslims against the rest of the world. Someday, al-Qaeda might be destroyed and the terrorists flushed out of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
But that will kill the smoke, not the fire. Terrorism will still exist until the world gives a more lucrative offer against oppression. Because the oppressed, irrespective of his cast, creed or colour, won't give up the chance to magnify his retribution at an affordable price.
Mohammad Badrul Ahsan is a columnist for The Daily Star.
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