The

world is witness to the terrifying images of destruction - as much to the

awesome precision of hijacked planes ramming into New Yorks symbols of power as
to Americas military might pulverizing pathetic mud hovels, the collateral damage
in both cases, innocent civilian lives paying for the arrogance and injured sensibilities
of vested interests. Why cant you understand our anger? asked an articulate
Muslim woman on British Broadcasting Corporations Panorama programme. The
Muslim editor of Newsweek International answered that saying it was not the time
to make allegations and counter allegations but question why the system of
democracy and justice is not working now. But the huge gap between the West and
the East yawned yet again when Richard Perle, Adviser to the Pentagon, glibly
repealed the official speak that is rapidly losing credibility all round, saying that in
this war as in previous ones, Americans will die in taking extra effort to avoid killing
innocent civilians.

The question that keeps surfacing in every discussion is: why Islamic terrorism? Why
is a struggle to gain power seen in religious terms? Is an acknowledged act of
terrorism to be answered by more violence? Even more pertinent, as Zakaria,
the Newsweek International editor, asked in the BBC discussion, what is the reason
that this culture is producing so many extremists and terrorists? Could an important
reason be that Arab countries, in the last 30 years, have been economically, socially
and politically a failure, and their rulers have failed by not delivering democracy to
their people?

The profile of the terrorist has changed but not the causes he holds dear;
technology has put new weapons in his hand but it is still drama and
rhetoric that give him a sense of empowerment, and the ignited passions
for punishment and vengeance are fanned by long-nourished grievances
with which are enmeshed complex feelings of hurt and anger at the unjust
distribution of the resources of the earth. As Juergensmeyer observes,
Through interviews with violent religious activists, I have come to see their
acts as forms of public performance rather than aspects of political
strategy. They are symbolic statements aimed at providing a sense of
empowerment to desperate people using religion to provide moral
justification for killing, he adds, and the images of cosmic struggle allow
activists to believe that they are waging a spiritual war, the religious
mores and symbols make possible bloodshed, even catastrophic acts of
terrorism. One cannot ignore here the images of might from the so-called
allies against terrorism, their own selective publicity or the troubling
similarity in the use of the drama of death raining from the skies supported
by the rhetoric of the spin doctors of the Pentagon and State Department
spokespersons.

The wide dispersion of extremists all over the world united by religious rhetoric
supporting the idea of preserving and protecting an endangered religion from the
infidel and the politically powerful not only reinforces this illusion of the cosmic
nature of the struggle but serves to sublimate earthly discontent into a quest for
otherworldly and eternal riches. It must be emphasized however, that it is an
extremist view that hijacks religion to its own narrow purpose and the cohesion of
its objectives and method of using religion to attract and sustain its members should
not lead one into the error of attributing homogeneity to all practitioners of Islam.
Just as drama and rhetoric have attracted attention to the extremist acts of violence,
their absence has kept the moderates inconspicuous, and often misunderstood.

A frightening profile emerges of the modern terrorist. Gregg McCary, a retired
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) special agent, is quoted on the American
Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) News webpage as saying that the World Trade
Center (WTC) suicide bombers were well-trained, focused and often had years of
experience and a particular expertise. Dr. Park Dietz, psychiatric consultant for the
FBI remarks that far from being crazy, in order to be chosen for such a mission,
they would need to prove themselves trustworthy, reliable and dedicated to a cause.
Experts add that commitment to that cause could be born of personal experience
with terror or violence, or a feeling of being persecuted. They do not display
depression, hopelessness and helplessness as suiciders generally do, but
commitment and determination in the accomplishment of an awful mission seeking
revenge and publicity. They are unlike serial killers who feel some connection to the
victims.

A year after the sarin nerve gas attacks in Tokyo, only 13 per cent of Americans
polled were worried about terrorists using weapons of mass destruction to attack a
U.S. city despite information on chemical and nuclear weapons being freely available
on the Internet. But today the daily panic and the long line of citizens testing for
anthrax mocks this misplaced confidence. If the world has reaped the rewards of its
shrinkage, it must learn also to practice the rules of living in a community of equal
nations.

If the exaggerated violence of September 11 was a vivid flare drawing our attention
to the savage retaliation possible from aggrieved and humiliated communities, it was
also a warning to all factions to turn from destruction to negotiating peacefully our
common and equal right to the worlds riches.