ISIS Attacks and Their Aftermath

A series of terror attacks by the ISIS – killing 128 people in Ankara, bringing down a Russian passenger aircraft, killing 43 in a Beirut suicide bombing and 18 in an attack on a funeral in Baghdad, and the shock-and-awe style massacre of 130 people enjoying a Paris evening – have shaken the entire world. On the heels of these attacks has come the hostage crisis followed by killing of over 20 people in a Mali hotel by an outfit said to have al-Qaeda links.

If the ISIS shares a vicious ideology of hatred and genocide with many others across the world, its scale of operations and its penchant for graphic displays of spectacular violence certainly set it apart. The ISIS attempts to justify attacks on innocent civilians in France as retaliation to French air strikes in Syria, or more generally to justify its whole existence as an answer to wars by the US and Western powers in the Middle East must be squarely rejected. Nothing can possibly justify such heinous massacres of innocents.

At the same time, there can be no evading the grim questions posed by history. The ISIS (and earlier, the al-Qaeda) are not, as some would have us believe, cultural by-products of Islam as a religion. Instead, these terrorist outfits are very much political products of a historical process for which the Western powers are squarely responsible. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair admitted as much in a recent interview, when he conceded that had he and Bush not waged war on Iraq in 2003 on false pretexts and toppled the Saddam Husain regime, the ISIS would probably not exist. Similarly, the role of the US in funding and arming Saudi-backed militants in Afghanistan in creating what eventually became the Taliban and the al-Qaeda is widely recognized. Even today, the US and Western powers continue to back and legitimize the regime in Saudi Arabia, that is not only highly regressive and repressive to its own citizens but also instrumental in the survival of terrorist outfits in the region.

Western powers have meddled in the Middle East – either to bolster up repressive regimes and crush protests, to sponsor regime-change, or to wage wars, bomb civilians and back occupations – to suit their own geopolitical interests and pursuit of oil. Such meddling and even opportunist sponsoring of terrorism has helped destroy or weaken democratic institutions and affected the balance of powers in the region, and has undoubtedly helped the terrorist outfits take root, fill vacuums, exploit disaffections and resentments and grasp power.

To recognize these facts is not to justify the ISIS or the al-Qaeda or accept and endorse the terrorists’ own rationale of retaliation. Rather, acknowledging these facts can shape our response to the present situation and prevent a repeat of the mistakes of the past. US, French or Russian policy of bombing Syria, in turn claiming lives of beleaguered Syrian civilians, or of offering military backing to either Syrian rebels or the repressive Bashar-al Assad regime, has proved disastrous – and the response to the Paris attack simply cannot be more of the same. It is to draw attention away from this reality that Western leaders ranging from Obama to Hollande to Putin peddle the rhetoric of ‘pitiless war’ and identify terrorism with Muslims.

Obama, for instance, said that while Muslims worldwide might not condone the ISIS, they are ‘not as willing to challenge some of the extremist thoughts or rationales for why Muslims feel oppressed.’ Such a statement is calculated to brand any critique of systematic Islamophobia as a rationalization of ‘extremism.’ The truth of course is that Islamophobia and wars affecting vast masses of civilians in the Middle East, especially since 9/11, as well as legacies and continuing policies of colonialism and racism (in France for instance) are very real and grave concerns. The ISIS or Taliban or al-Qaeda do not seek to deter or resist Islamophobia or racism, rather they thrive on it. But by seeking to associate any expression of those concerns with rationalization of terrorism, the US President seeks to get a license to continue those disastrous policies.

The Paris attacks have, for instance, provided a pretext to US and European politicians and governments to justify the sealing of borders against Syrian refugees. This is of course outrageous, given that the refugees are fleeing the horrors of the ISIS back home! The intensified racist and Islamophobic rhetoric and the declaration of a prolonged Emergency and ban on protests in France are reminiscent of the US response post 9/11 – and the consequences are likely to be as counter-productive and disastrous.

India’s foreign policy too has been, for the past decade and a half, embedded in ‘War on Terror’ serving Western strategic interests. With the Modi Government, the Islamophobia that seeks to tar all Muslims with the brush of terrorism while condoning and encouraging Sanghi terrorism has intensified alarmingly. Modi’s appeal, in the wake of the Paris attacks, to urge the international community to ‘give a definition of terrorism’ and reject spurious distinctions between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ terrorism, is in glaring contrast to his own Government’s policy of weakening bomb blast cases in which Sangh elements are implicated. It is imperative for India’s own interests that we condemn all forms of terrorism and slaughter of innocents, and remain alert to reject any attempt to fan up communal hatred on the pretext of the IS attacks.

The Turkish bombing of a Russian fighter jet on the Syrian border is another ominous reminder that the war on Syria is not going to stay confined to Syria. It is already escalating and spilling over into Europe – and presenting a threat to peace in the whole world. There is an urgent need for de-escalation and for an unsparing review of the policies pursued by the US, France and Russia in Syria and the Middle East.

The ray of hope lies in the growing voice of popular protest that combines the condemnation of terrorism with rejection of Islamophobia, racism, suspension of democracy at home and war in the Middle East. In France for instance, it is heartening that some 15,000 people marched in Toulouse in defiance of the Emergency. The marchers responded to efforts of France’s largest public sector education union among other groups, and raised slogans of ‘Their wars, our death!’, ‘For freedom and peace, against the barbarity of coalitions’, and ‘Against the state of emergency, let’s intensify our fight’! In the US too, many have spoken up in protest against the attempt of Republican leaders to call for profiling and ‘registration’ of US Muslims or allowing entry only to Christian refugees while denying asylum to Muslim ones.

The peace-loving people of the world must unite to resist the ideologies of hatred, terrorism of all hues.

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