Thankyou for that information and the photograph. I heard on the TV news that some organisation called Indian Mujahideen (?) has claimed responsibility.

Tragic.

This characterises terrorism, doesn’t it - in warfare (regular warfare) hospitals and medical supplies/staff/personnel are (generally and not intentionally) not attacked. Attacking a hospital is just outrageous.

As Oscar Wilde once said that: ”Some people know the price of everything and the value of nothing” we could perhaps equivocate that some people are well educated but are still fundamentally ignorant ? Terrorism is here to stay and all manner of people will become involved. Tragedy.

Yes. I have heard some degree of compelling argument that the whole ”Taliban problem” was in some measure a brainchild of the ISI.

I fear that if non-muslims begin to hold grudges against (innocent) muslims for the crimes of the minority, things can degenerate into brutality and thoughtless recrimination very, very quickly. However, brutality is already afoot and the repercussions for your society and country can only be guessed at, at this point.

Perhaps people may align themselves with a local militant group for money and perhaps with all the forethought of one who decides to support a new football team; this underlies that those who claim that they are killing innocents for religious-ideological reasons are really just making ultimately cold and empty political statements with their violence. Terrorism has become a means of brutal self-expression.

A related article:
The Ethical Iniquity of Suicide Attacks.

Hey, I read it and I agree with what you say.

Most (or at least many) human beings are (or can be) quite mature. In terms of the brutality of political violence, I am reminded of a classic book.
”The Lord of the Flies” by William Golding, describes the way(s) in which a brutal and murderous potential lies just beneath the surface of any social group - there is more to it than that and it is specific to a specific fictional context but I feel that it is relevant. The order and seeming sophistication of our societies can so very, very quickly degenerate into vigilante mobs and murderous revenge.

”The Lord of the Flies” won a Nobel Prize for Literature. Political violence will win no prizes. I agree that being soft on such provocative acts will not be of much help, but simultaneously - one must be very careful not to begin a stampede of blind rage and retribution as some people just do not seem to be intellectually (or emotionally) equipped to understand what is (and what is not) appropriate in response to such acts of terror.

Graeme,
I read ’Lord of the Flies’ when I was very young. I remember, I was nervous for days and wondered if there was hidden hatred and anger within me too which will burst some day.
Around same time there was regional conflict in Bombay. Non-Maharastrians were being targetted by Shiv Sena. My neighbour had commented casually,”Today I am having tea at your house, I don’t know what I’ll do if my party tells me to attack your house.”
I will never understand dynamics of human hatred for other human beings.

I read somewhere of fundamentalism that:

Fundamentalism means not having to think. Fundamentalism means being unconscious.

All sides of this asymmetric warfare raging around the world as terrorism and it’s counterpoint - they all have their fundamentalist aspects.

____________________________________
On countering terrorism (in all it’s forms):

Battle not with monsters
lest ye become a monster
and if you gaze into the abyss
the abyss gazes into you.

- Friedrich Nietzsche

Indeed.

You said:

They are not normal human beings.

_____________

I say:

Humanity is not normal. Terrorism, fundamentalism, warmongering, hatred, vigilantism, mob violence - these are all expressions of a humanity that has gotten lost somewhere along the way and stumbles and falls like some demented blind child wielding an axe viciously at anything it encounters. Humanity is, in this aspect and context of asymmetric warfare/terrorism and it’s repressive countermeasures, a mess. Terrorism is a normal expression of an unhealthy world.

_______________

Perhaps...

I agree with your observations. When and how will world become healthy?
We have to just stand back watch the descent into abyss...
There was terror attack at Istanbul a while ago...

Although i do understand and agree with your fear of the mobs it is neither true nor appropriate, to my mind at least, to call them abnormal. If we follow your reasoning then similarly even ’we’ are systematically desensitised and taught to love. But i guess things are not as simple as that. It is as I am sure you would agree circumstantial growth of individual beings who then may become a part of a group indulging in anti-social activities. This again is a generalisation as even among these terrorists there are all kinds of individuals with their own understanding and motivations. But what is for sure is that such phenomenons could not be created without a market/human resource of honest feelings due to real or perceived injustice or misgivings. It is easy and also understandable for us to paint out a picture of them in accordance with our fears but it must have been a similar case for them at some point (at least some of them if not most). For the question to be answered is whether these people or any one for that matter would opt for this kind of life if they had a better life (both perceived and real).

And i disagree with your observations on humanity as one important assumption in it is that humanity was better (more peaceful ,less prone to violence) earlier. It take more than a revision of our history i.e. the history of humanity to negate that assumption. Many of us tend to many a times make this assumption though un found. Perhaps it is the good old days syndrome. But believe me things have improved from the hunting cave man to the medieval invasions to the world wars and to the last few decades.

...this was for Graeme.

Hi Abhishek,

yeah, the world has never been all that safe or peaceful and it is a very simple matter indeed to fall into the trap of thinking of the idealised past as some notional Nirvana free from the troubles we see everywhere around us.

I don’t think humanity was ever any better, or for that matter - worse. These are qualitative delineations, themselves as bound by a time, a place and a cultural relativity of perspective.

I realise that generalisations are unfortunate and that it takes many different kinds of people to make up a group or social (or anti-social) movement. Generalisations, while painful, are necessary for communication to exist at all.

Terrorism, or perhaps terrorisms, is a very contemporary phenomena as the actual horror of the event(s) is multiplied by the media and other communications systems. War is, and has always been, a savage and bloody affair. Asymmetric warfare of the kind we see now is unique in that the effect of the event/act reaches globally at an unprecedented speed.

I think that one thing many governments are looking at (if not actually acting upon) is the notion that developing communities is one way pre-emptive way of alleviating the burden of terrorism. However, terrorism and it’s political means and ends have donned the clothing of religion and revolution in various parts of the world - muddying the waters of interpretation for the average underprivileged citizen.

I have no solutions or dictates. Just observations.

:)

Fighting terrorism is like fighting an invisible killer. You see only destructions and footprints.
I don’t think there is any hope of ceasefire or peace negotiations in this war.
Terrorism and war on terror seem to be some flourishing business ventures.

No Acts, Laws, Rules, Legislations, etc. would help. They have not helped. Educating the people of the benefits of being good citizens of the countries they belong to and the moral depravity of being non-convinceable in matters of mutual safety and well-being may help.