War, an inseparable part of life, an activity in which every single living being irrespective of his size, shape, and power, participate. They indulge wholeheartedly in this, sometimes due to helplessness, sometimes because of habit, but eventually everyone participates in this, in one way or another. Even lord Krishna guided Arjun to the war. Though it is different that he guided him for the protection of humanity. But in our world, people occasionally fight, sometimes to portrait themselves as superior than others, and sometimes for materialistic things like land, and natural resources.
When Europeans spread out to conquer the world, they brought one big change in our history. They changed the pattern of war from war for expand of religion to war for resources, which proved to be less violent. Though war for religion existed then too, but Europeans shrank it to meagre level. But as soon as Europeans left their colonies, the war for religion again started blanketing world, this time with more pace. Invention of modern weapons proved to be more devastating way than all others, and radicals saw it as an opportunity.
Terrorism, a more sophisticated kind of war has taken thousands of lives since the independence of third world only. But assessing it only on the number of deaths have been taken by it would be injustice for those who are suffering badly due to this malicious activity. Plus, fear due to terrorism related activities also needs to be taken into account.
But how terrorism has become so big that the death toll is rising every year, and no one is capable of holding its bridle. There are multiple reasons behind the spread of terrorism. Migration of refugees from terrorism effective/host nations, not setting of accountability for such acts are some major reasons.
According to Global Terrorism Index report, researchers studied since the last two decades, pattern of terrorism has changed a lot. Earlier, before 2000, middle eastern and north African nations were worst affected, but after 2000, spread of terrorism occurred in those regions where terrorism was not before 2000, like western world. Though middle east and north African nations are still on the top preference of terrorist outfits, but loss due to such acts in western world is now emerging as a matter of deep concern. As per the GTI report 2019, around 63 nations lost at least one life because of terrorist attacks, and 17 nations lost more than 100 deaths due to the same.
Over 27 nations experienced attacks either by ISIS or by its affiliate.
Eastern Sunday bombing in Sri Lanka cause 266 deaths and left over 500 injured. Responsibility again taken by the ISIS.
If we take a look on the terrorist activities recorded by GTI only, from 1970-2019 more than 170,000 events have been recorded. Every year almost 21,000 people die due to this, peaked in 2014 with 44,000 deaths.
Economic cost of terrorism is also a matter of emerging tension among the nations. Financial cost was staggering USD 26.4 billion (₨ 1,924.5 billion) in 2019, 25% lower than prior year (2018), and 77% lower than (USD 80 b) 2014. it means the financial cost of terrorism would be USD 80 billion in 2014, when indirect losses are not included. Now, just imagine the total cost nations are bearing just because of this vicious activity.
Now let’s think about the driving factors behind this.
The first factor is, not setting of accountability of people actually responsible. It is 100% true that Muslim world is paying highest price due to terrorism, but one should not forget that they were the nations who opted this way in their past. When Soviet Union attacked Afghanistan in 1979, Afghanistan took help from various terrorist outfits, and Lunatic like Osama Bin Laden rose. Arab-Israeli war, Israel-Iran war, Israel-Palestine war are some more examples when nations stood by terrorist outfits to defeat their common foe. First they (terrorist outfits) help their host nations fighting common enemy, and as soon as they see opportunity, they strike on these nations to form Sharia government. Iraq, Jordan, Pakistan, Afghanistan are example of some nations who fell into the hands of them.
Most of the terrorist are coming from Muslim nations, mainly from middle eastern, but no one from these nations are taking relevant actions to resist it, because it doesn’t attract their interest. Majority of these nations are happy to represent terrorist as their hero. They respect them, follow them blindly as followers, pick up weapon on their single call, and gather in thousands when they die. Here are few pics of people attending funeral of some hardcore, coldblooded, lunatic terrorist with grave emotions.
There are some shocking pics of protest of Muslims when Osama got killed by the hands on American forces. How the process of burning American flags started soon after his assassination. Muslims portrayed him as a hero. Same sort of videos surfaced when Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi slayed by American forces. We do not have to remind what were the repercussion of the action taken by the France against radical Islamic terrorism after a teacher got beheaded by a guy, who took shelter in France when he was 6. How Muslim leaders spit poison about rest of the world, and how much they get respect from their followers, everyone knows. It all makes one thing crystal clear, in the depth of their hearts, there is a love and passion for those whoever tries to spread Islam over the world, doesn’t matter in which way. And they show it with proud.
But if we talk about rest of the world, they always isolate themselves from speaking firmly against these vicious acts being committed by Muslims on regular basis. They do not make them accountable for such activities. But we forget, “Bad cannot be good by avoiding bad elements, though strengthen devils.”
Nations need to contemplate that until these nations are not taking responsibility to eradicate such elements from their society, actions by external nations are not enough.
The second driving force is easy migration. Migration from Islamic nations to non-Islamic nations. According to some latest GTI reports, it is said that the concentration of terrorism has changed since last few years from middle eastern and north African nations to those who weren’t in grip of terrorism earlier, mainly where large number of Muslim migrants took shelter. It may sound very disturbing to us, but it is proven true. 2020 Paris attack on Charlie Hebdo, 2016 Berlin lorry attack are couple of examples conducted by those who entered nations either as refugee, or by other means.
Though it is correct that millions fled from Islamic nations do really need help, but this also cannot be denied that terrorists/anarchist have successfully infiltrated such migrations. Violent protest in Sweden when rumours about burning Quran spread, thousands gathered on roads, pelted stones on police, set ablaze, shouted objectionable slogans, and many more. According to New England Journal of Public Policy-2018, only 3,024 refugees were allowed to enter US in 2017 which reduced to only 11 in 2018, when they were scrutinized for 2 long years. Their reason behind it was as same as many of other western nations. They gave the reason behind it was “Safety of their people and nation”, and above given incidents of terrorist attacks in nations prove their excuse.
So these are the vital reasons behind the spread of terrorism in other nations. Some might feel it too disturbing to agree, but this is a truth needs to be spoken out clearly and loudly, and Muslim world must contemplate before saying that world is becoming “Islamophobic”.
