Re: The Net and Terrorism

[Arun Mehta <amehta@giasdl01.vsnl.net.in>]

At 19:52 02/07/96 -0500, John Deters wrote:

>Even so, there are a couple of problems with even attempting "to take away
>the root causes", not the least of which is the Constitutionally protected
>right to free speech.  I am allowed to teach my kid to hate anyone for any
>reason.  I can blame this or that group for this set of troubles, and that
>the best way to deal with this is not only to scare them away, but to kill
>as many of them as possible.  It may be morally repugnant, but it is
>protected speech.

I think we've all been exposed to awful teaching in some aspects of our
upbringing, but experience taught us otherwise. I love the anarchist poster
that says, "We are the people whom our parents used to warn us about." Just
because you were taught hate, doesn't mean you won't outgrow it. My mother
was active in the freedom struggle against the British, and told me enough
horror stories that I grew up hating them. But once I met some perfectly
decent specimens, it evaporated.

If the hate persists, there is likely to be reinforcement in the form of
injustices, further bad experiences, etc.

India is a large, diverse country with lots of injustice, poverty and other
problems. When we analyze what breeds terrorism, we find aspects such as:

- Severe neglect by the government (i.e. problems keep getting worse): For
instance, the north east (which is east of Bangladesh, and has a long
history of militant opposition) had to agitate for a long time to even get a
railway line to connect them to the rest of the country.

- Meddling by politicians: in Punjab, there was a Sikh regional party that
was quite strong. To erode its popular base, Indira Gandhi encouraged the
fundamentalists on its right. Similarly, Rajiv Gandhi's government helped
train the Tamil LTTE. Both paid for these blunders with their lives, at the
hands of the very groups they had once tried to foster.

- Disenfranchisement: In Kashmir, most elections were rigged, as the central
government pretty much admits now. Interestingly, some of the leaders of the
terrorists were polling agents at the time of the previous elections, and
were quite disgusted at what they saw.

>The countries that sponsor terrorists have not been noted for their
>successful educational systems.  And they certainly are not going to listen
>to Western discussions on how best to solve their "problems".

No, but give the people the conviction that they can get their problems
redressed legally, that they can win political power peacefully, and
basically not let problems fester for so long that all trust in government
is lost, and people will be far less likely to take to arms. 

Phoolan Devi (seen "Bandit Queen"? Great movie) was a dacoit, supposedly
responsible for serious massacres. She went to jail, now she is an elected
member of the federal Parliament. That is a great message to send to the
poor and deprived. The cynic in me sees this as a way of depriving the poor
suffering masses of their leaders, by co-opting them into the ruling elite.
But there is no shortage of followers eager and willing to take their place.

>The U.S. has a level of tolerance for diversity that I 
>only recently came to
>appreciate.  We hosted a foreign exchange student from Scotland (hardly
>culture shock to him), but he surprised me when he commented on how
>surprised he was that different groups of people were mixed together

I've had a similar experience. I was part of the Indian delegation to a
couple of Amnesty International International Council meetings. In this
organisation, multiracialism and multiculturalism are heavily promoted. But
if you looked at delegations from Europe, even from countries with sizable
racial minorities, they were typically all-white. The US delegation, on the
other hand, had blacks, different kinds of Asians, Hispanics... and not by
design -- the US section leadership is highly "mixed", so they did not have
to think about multiracialism, it just happened. Of course, given the
"melting pot" ethos in the US, this is hardly surprising.

However, every society has its blind spots. Communism is a real US phobia.
The way you treat puny Cuba I find truly amazing.
Arun Mehta Phone +91-11-6841172, 6849103 amehta@cpsr.org
http://mahavir.doe.ernet.in/~pinaward/arun.htm
The protestors of Tiananmen Square will be back. Next time, 
the battle will be fought in cyberspace, where the students 
have the more powerful tanks...