In my haste of being a frequent flyer I once in while come across some foreign-looking youngsters with heavy rucksacks in Turkish airports. I always assume they''re U.S. soldiers who''ve left Iraq en route for home leave, using Turkey as a transit point. Lately, especially after the 7/7 bombings in London, I''ve become skeptical about the world: "What if they''re not what they seem to be, but something else? None other than a lone envoy, somebody who''s going to perform his duty of conveying his message by shedding our blood?"
Does this sound implausible? Why, may I ask? Recently two foreign visitors entering Turkey were caught red-handed with weapons and ammunition they had no right to be carrying . The Turkish authorities discovered that they were really what they were pretended to be: U.S. soldiers from Iraq going home on leave, only with an eye for antiques. Furthermore, people who commit themselves to a cause and have no qualms about using violence as a means to make their point are most probably products of Iraq or are people influenced by developments in Iraq. In a third country it''s not easy to differentiate between an off-duty soldier and an on-duty terrorist.
I wasn''t surprised when I heard that two co-conspirators of the 2003 Istanbul bombings are in Abu Ghraib Prison which is under the U.S. in Baghdad. I wouldn''t have been a bit surprised if those two men have been the instigators of the London bombings, but, thank God they weren''t. The citizenship of a "foreign fighter" and his place of residence are not that important since they can easily disappear into thin air by changing passports and using disguises. They may spend their spare time in their home country preparing themselves for operations abroad or undergo on-site training in current battles in Iraq or Afghanistan.
The war against terrorism has turned our world into a great battleground and nowhere and no-one is immune. The warriors in this battle and its victims are not necessarily conscious participants as we could easily become victims as a passenger on a train or as a passer-by in a neighborhood chosen by the terrorists as a target. People who are involved in terrorist attacks may know only part of the plan, and that part may not place them in the category of terrorist in their eyes.
There''s a very thin line between an act of terrorism and an act initiated for a cause, and that line is becoming thinner and thinner. After each desperate terrorist act, experts'' reactions are usually positive, claiming that the terrorists are losing moral ground and that their numbers are diminishing. Added to which, it''s claimed that people affected by their acts are uniting and, as a result, are limiting the terrorists'' sphere of action. The reality is just the opposite: Every successful terrorist action paves the way for new recruits in the terrorists'' camp.
"Hitting back at terrorism at its roots is the best way to combat it." This argument is a fallacy. "When we hit it at its roots, we''re blocking it before it strikes us where we are." This is an even a bigger fallacy. Terrorism in our time has no respect for countries and it doesn''t recognize boundaries for its chosen targets. It can strike anywhere and everywhere, whether it''s a sacred area such as the Hejaz in Saudi Arabia, where Islam''s holiest sites such as Mecca are, or any everyday area full of "infidels." It may take the shape of a certain religion but its religiosity transcends affiliations and it can easily shift its spoken language into a secular one. If we''re stuck with a certain aspect of terrorism in any given time-frame then we ignore its relevancy to modern times.
Oh yes, the terrorism we''re encountering now is a modern phenomenon. We could solve this modern illness if we had a magic wand to turn the wrongs of our times into rights, to end injustices committed worldwide, to force ourselves to stop talking about the superiority of one way of life over others, and to make us renounce our crusader/jihad reflex each time we''re confronted with criticisms directed at our understanding of any given religion. The war against terrorism will not be allowed to hide the ugly side of war itself. Terrorism is, no doubt, undesirably unseemly but war is also undesirably repulsive.
Some commuters on three underground trains in central London on that fateful day weren''t lucky. Thus, they''re unable to share their feelings with us now; what they felt when they saw a youngster with a rucksack sitting right across from them. The hunted and the hunter shared the same fate: They died.
Yet, some commuters on the train from Leeds to London on that fateful day were sitting across from four youngsters with rucksacks unaware of the deadly explosives they were carrying. Those commuters were lucky. They didn''t lose their lives because the heinous acts weren''t planned for that train. Did they see or hear anything to make them suspicious about the intentions of the four passengers they shared the car with? Did they take the young terrorists to be one of them: Ordinary guys, commuting to work or going for job interviews? Did they suspect anything at all? What a dreadful occurrence!
How come we create monsters and cold-blooded murderers out of ordinary folks, who, as human beings, deserve to live happily ever after, and whose actions can only advance deadly deeds we swear to wipe from the face of the earth for good?
To be or not to be, that''s the question.
From The New Anatolian, July 19, 2005
