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Paradox Paradise

Would you still call it nonsense, if sense exchanges its meaning with nonsense?

Monday, July 17, 2006

Sounds that were heard after the blasts

There has been a lot of noise between the short commercial breaks. I hope, the prime time rates would fall back after a couple days, and I will get to see celebrities partying and kissing as nothing has happened. Commercial news services have got more resilience than that they were tattooing on the affected society, which has no other option.

The sounds of explosive blame games are already dying down. The investigating agencies will come up with a few names soon. Then we can forget about the whole affair, till something else of similar nature happens in some place other than J&K. During the past few days we heard how bad is our internal security system, and how unsafe is our country to live in. Journalists from one News Channel carried fake bombs and hidden cameras into Delhi Metro service with its now beefed up security. It can be called alarming, as there is no feasible way to ensure security from the kind of attacks that happened in Mumbai.

Experts, especially the retired officials of our armed forces and intelligence agencies, are of the opinion that there should be stern action against the terror makers. Some wants to declare war against Pakistan, who is the root cause. The only available template for national security is that of the United States of Absurdities. One journalist even called up a Pakistani Minister to ask whether they would allow us to raid their slums too as an act of cooperation to eliminate terrorism. Suggestions were there to make the search operations more intensive, without worrying much on the inconvenience that could bring to thousands. All these were promptly approved by loud applauses from the invited crowd in the studio. They are people, who go to movie houses and travel by trains, hoping to get back home. But they don’t expect a knock on their doors after midnight to be thrown out for the good of the cause. And I feel uncomfortably numb to switch the channel.

Men, and women, in uniform around the world can be generalised almost accurately. This is because they are all trained with the same mission. The only difference between one group of them and another is their skill and the technology available to them. Apart from that they are more or less the same. The defence forces are trained to fight defence forces of another country. And the police are trained to combat criminals. Terrorists, unfortunately for these forces, don’t fall under any of the things they are taught to fight with. And that is what keeps terrorism alive, and what kills more civilians.

Terrorists are not like criminals. They are not like organised criminal outfits, like the mafia. They are not even like the hired mobs political parties bring to the road. A terrorist’s conscience is as clear as it is of a soldier. No good soldier is supposed to feel bad after a successful bombing mission. Neither does a bad terrorist, though he never gets to live or die like a soldier. But then, terrorism is not a career.

Extremism, in all its incarnations, is married to ideology of one kind or other. And what it brings up is of no huge difference. In one place it destroys ancient Buddha statues; a few hundred miles away, it demolishes an ancient Mosque. The terrorism the world has to deal with today is very different from IRA, KLF or LTTE. It has long stopped being a J&K issue for us, and Palestine for the rest of the world. The ideology that drives this particular brand of terrorism has nothing much to do with any geo-political identity. It is just about extremist retaliation to another extremist attack.

The ’93 blasts in Mumbai were provoked by the riots there, which were provoked by the Masjid demolition. The recent one is arguably provoked by the Gujarat riots. And the ways we use to fight these, in effect, are fanning the fire. The human right violations, which are considered inevitable during the operations by state forces around the world, are virile enough to give birth to more mercenaries. We have made it a fight of one wrong against another. That, by any definition, is not a right thing. Once the nations of the world are tired of mindless muscle bulging, probably they can start thinking. I expect a solution only after that day.

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3 Comments:

At Wed Jul 19, 02:44:00 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

What are you trying to say? i did not get any idea.. ha ha..

Oh! it is just a web log..

~*I will get to see celebrities partying and kissing as nothing has happened.*~
==>Why we have to stop partying and kissing? Are you telling that we have to remember what happend always?
Do you want to increase the security systems in india? how you test the strength of a string? when it break we know it only can withstand this much preasure.

Are you ignoring the news of dismantling or failure attempts of attacks?

Two-three months before there was an incident in Tirumala, i read it in (a very small two line note in 'Indian Express').(Sorry, i don't have the patience to find the link so i have to type the news.) There was a fire in the 'ghee' tank. Because of the awareness of the employes(yes, they are conducting fire evacuation drill every month strictly), nothing happend and it did not came into news. The news channels only interested in 'kumbakonams'.

i don't think, the concerned persons are sleeping.. as the media.. ha ha.. why we common people should have to know what is happening inside?

~*Terrorists, unfortunately for these forces, don’t fall under any of the things they are taught to fight with.*~
==> There are anti-terrorist groups in deffernce force. Yes, i'm not a statistician, so i don't have the data how much it is effective.

~*Terrorists are not like criminals.*~
==> how you difine criminals?

~*terrorism is not a career.*~
==> hmm.. i like it..

 
At Sun Jul 23, 03:27:00 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hitler's deputy, (dont remember the name) said during the Nurenmberg Trials that "When ten men die it is a tragedy, when ten thousand die it is just a statistic"

Josef Stalin went further and and is beleived to have said "No Man, No Problem"

Hitler and Stalin symbolise two sides of same coin. The followers of both were very much part of a supposedly pro people "establishment" ideology but when the establishment decides to put some of its own citizens as enemies, what would the deputies do? And this is happening when ideology is put ahead of people.

Ideology is just one facet of human existence, and it is important, but when that is declared as only identity of a human being, troubles start. That is when the sense of morality and ethics (that is imbibed into every human being in this world at birth) gets clouded. That is when we start saying "My Ideology right or Wrong...." And then, hell breaks loose.

 
At Thu Aug 10, 03:36:00 pm, Blogger Jubin George said...

Sebin: Your first statement negates everything after that. Or the other way around. :) [Read it when you are not drunk. I don't want to argue with you when you are drunk]

1. I got nothing against partying and kissing. I'm not particular about being kissed or killed either. Yes, I believe one should remember as much as one can, as there's no choice about forgetting. Diffused bombs and failed attacks don't have much importance to me. Because I am given the choice of dying only once. And as for the media, you can watch the newschannels, and I have Sun Music.

2. I know about Anti-Terrorist Squads. And they must have been trained to shoot sharper and run faster. That's not the training one required to fight terrorism of the kind we have to deal with. That's my whole point.

3. I define criminals by the law of the land. Who ever commits a crime is a criminal, and by that definition, terrorists too are criminals. What I was trying to say, was terrorist are not LIKE OTHER criminals. In their motives, and in their methods.

4. There are career opportunities in terrorism too. All the support systems from arms manufactures to the petty criminals who work as helpers, can be considered as career oriented. There are hired fighters too. I wasn't overlooking them. The terrorist i was talking about was the one blinded by his/her ideology.

DNAL: I agree with you except for your statement of ideology being 'just one facet of human existence'. My point of argument is the definition of an ideology. Everyone lives by one ideology or other. Invented, adopted, modified, or followed as percieved. The logical difficulty in secularism is of having too many rights and not having the balancing amount of wrongs. And ideologies are judged by the leaders/followers than the idea behind it. This enables leaders/followers use the ideology as a cover. It's been true for Nationalist Socialism or Communist Socialism. And when we call it Islamic Terrorism, we are helping the terrorists by giving them a good, divine protection. Thatis wrong.

 

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