Author:
Publication: Sify News
Date: August 31, 2007
URL: http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14519996
[Introduction from the Hindu Vivek Kendra:
One would get an impression that in this whole four days only one person spoke,
namely one Maloy Dhar! On a serious note. It is people like Maloyji, identified
as "former joint director of the Intelligence Bureau", who make
it difficult to have a serious attempt to deal with the problem of Islamic
terrorism. One would get an impression that the motivation of these terrorists
is the same as the hippies!]
Youth and terrorism make for an explosive
mix. What inspires youngsters to take up arms against the system? What steps
can be taken to check the increasing alienation of today's youngsters? These
were the questions raised at a four-day conference at the Ramada Rajpark in
Chennai last week. Janani Krishnaswamy reports.
"You had everything you wanted. Your
Mercedes wasn't enough, you brats. Your golden necklaces weren't enough, you
snobs. Your trust funds weren't enough. Your vodka and cognac wasn't enough.
All your debaucheries weren't enough. Those weren't enough to fulfill your
hedonistic needs. You had everything."
These were the words of Cho Seung-Hui, a young
student who gunned down 32 fellow students and teachers in Virginia Tech campus
on April 16 before committing suicide. It was the deadliest shooting in modern
US history.
Cho could have been speaking for millions
of youngsters; particularly those on the wrong side of the have and have-not
divide.
'If the expectations of young people are not
fulfilled in time, it results in frustration, making them deviate from the
mainstream,' believes Maloy Dhar, former joint director of the Intelligence
Bureau.
Addressing a conference on 'Youth at Risk,'
co-organised by Commonwealth Youth Programme Asia Centre and Rajiv Gandhi
National Institute of Youth Development in Chennai from August 22-26, he said
young people around the world generate two powerful emotions in our minds
- fear and hope. The fear, that they would disown and destroy all our civilization
values, and the hope that they could revive, enrich, recreate and carry forward
all the positive aspects of our collective heritage. These fears, hopes and
frustrations are growing each day.
Nearly a million people worldwide kill themselves
each year. There are an estimated 10 to 20 million attempted suicides every
year. Many of them are youngsters unable to cope with these emotions. Many
others rebel, and youngsters are constantly in conflict with law. Add terrorism
to this mix, and you have a million disasters waiting to happen.
The Chennai conference, which had young -and
some not so young --representatives from India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Malaysia,
and the Maldives - was an attempt to understand these linkages and arrive
at some solutions.
In his address, Dhar explained how and why
young people resort to militancy. Youth militancy was a pattern of behavior,
which has various stages, and it starts with change in attitude, frustration,
anger and ends in militancy. It depends on social, environmental, political
and economic conditions and the attitude towards life. However, he clarified,
taking up of arms alone cannot be considered as militancy, and went on to
cite the following instances wherein youth unrest brought about major social
transformations:
* The uprising of Black youths in support
of Martin Luther King paved way for the onset of a new political and economical
order which ensured equality to Black community.
* Charu Mazumdar, a brilliant student from
a good family of Presidency College, Kolkata, spearheaded the Naxal movement
to fight against the prevailing socio-economic order, and brought a permanent
change in West Bengal.
* In India, when emergency was imposed in
1975, a large number of youngsters rallied behind Jayaprakash Narayan's movement,
which finally forced Indira Gandhi to call elections, which she lost.
"Would you categorise any of these activities
as terrorism?" asked Dhar.
The word "terrorism" was first used
in reference to the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution - the first
public display of violence against the aristocratic class. A 1988 study by
the United States Army found that more than one hundred definitions of the
word exist and have been used. The lack of agreement on a definition of terrorism
has been a major obstacle to meaningful international countermeasures. As
the saying goes, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.
However there is an academic consensus definition
given by a UN committee which says: "Terrorism is an anxiety-inspiring
method of repeated violent action, employed by semi-clandestine individual,
group or state actors, for idiosyncratic, criminal or political reasons, whereby
- in contrast to assassination - the direct targets of violence are not the
main targets. The immediate human victims of violence are generally chosen
randomly (targets of opportunity) or selectively (representative or symbolic
targets) from a target population, and serve as message generators."
The participants then evolved a simple linear
equation to understand how a cheerful youngster turns into a terrorist: Expectation
- Frustration - Loss of faith - Deviation - Resistance - Armed Militancy.
Reiterating that the expectations of the youth
are not being met in time, Dhar noted that taking up arms alone should not
be attributed to militancy. Quoting an example, he said the Hippie movement,
that radically altered global cultural values, was a result of the unhappiness
of the youth about the prevailing social order.
The Hippie movement was a subgroup of the
counterculture that began in the United States during the early 1960s, becoming
an established social group by 1965, and expanding to other countries before
declining in the mid-1970s.
Hippies rejected established institutions,
criticised middle class values, opposed nuclear weapons, opposed the Vietnam
War, embraced aspects of Eastern religions, championed sexual liberation,
were often vegetarian and eco-friendly, promoted the use of psychedelic drugs
to expand one's consciousness, and created intentional communities. They used
alternative arts, street theatre, folk music, and psychedelic rock as a part
of their lifestyle, and as a way of expressing their feelings, their protests,
and their vision of the world and life.
Recent trend studies on terrorism reveal shocking
facts. Terrorists at will and with chilling regularity have hit various parts
of the globe. Outside of Iraq, 20,781 people were killed in terrorist violence
between January 2004 and March 2007, according to data available from the
Worldwide Incidents Tracking System (WITS) of the US National Counter-Terrorism
Centre (NCTC).
Afghanistan has seen 2,405 lives being lost
while more than 1,000 each have been killed in Pakistan and Nepal. Sri Lanka
has had 866 terrorism-related deaths and Bangladesh 158. Bhutan and the Maldives
are the only South Asian nations not to have lost lives to terror in this
period. India alone lost 3,674 lives over the same period of three years and
three months.
In response to another question, Dhar said
'World leaders, political and religious, have not taken major steps to contain
the militant trend in the youth, but instead have consciously promoted its
growth for personal gain.' For instance, when the US wanted to pin down the
USSR, Muslim youth from all over the world were mobilized to fight the Russian
army on the soils of Afghanistan, Kosovo and Chechnya.
But not all terrorism can be blamed on external
forces.
The latest data shows that there has been
an increase, though marginal, in overall incidents of Naxal attacks across
India. While 971 incidents involving Left-wing extremism were reported between
January and July this year, the figure for the corresponding period last year
was 967.
Attributing this trend to the frustration
of young people with societal, economic and governing rules, influx of refugees,
lack of agrarian and industrial reforms and the indifferent attitude of law
enforcing authorities, Dhar expressed concern and urged the government to
takes immediate steps to curb it, as it might lead to 'serious consequences'
later.
Religious fundamentalists also capitalize
on the weakness of youth to a great extent. They brainwash them into believing
that they are working for a noble cause, so that they turn into religious
fanatics.
In Bangladesh, there has been a serious exodus
of young skilled workers, manual labourers and illegal immigrants to India
and other countries due to the government's to tackle the problem of population
explosion and the lack of economic infrastructure. The growing expectations
of the youth pose a major problem to the government. 'The youth of Bangladesh
are at crossroads and there are religious fundamentalists waiting to take
leverage out of the frustrated youth who are on the verge of an uncertain
future,' warned Dhar.
Similarly, in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad,
the army was called in to flush out armed militants from the Lal Masjid, a
clear sign that religious fundamentalists were motivating the youth to fight
against innocent countrymen. 'The spurt in Islamic militancy is due to the
conviction of the youth that the West has been pursuing policies which did
great injustice to their countries, particularly during colonial rule disintegration
of states took place in reshaping of boundaries and today, these young people
want to take revenge,' Dhar said.
Dhar also blamed the fact that the youth have
not been educated enough about their potential for excellence. Parents and
peers unfortunately mislead them by equating their intelligence with their
capacity to make money. And naturally the youngsters eternally chase 'more'
money.
The upward mobility of youth from the lower
middle class to upper middle class is a new trend due sparked by the growing
number of MNCs and BPOs. The expectations of the young are growing by the
day, and this had serious ramifications. Calling for a coordinated action,
Dhar said 'Education systems do not match the market requirements and hence
more educated youth end up being unemployed or underemployed. In rural areas,
lack of unemployment lead them to migration to urban areas. These migrants
do some service to the urban people and they often emulate urban lifestyles.
When they cannot afford to do so, they indulge in criminal activities.'
But what is the solution to all this? What
will be the future of the next generation if this trend continues?
A participant from Bangladesh had an interesting
solution. Let 'the government spend less money on military and divert the
same in bridging the inequalities between the rich and poor. This will definitely
put an end to terrorism,' she felt.
But no government or anti-terrorist outfit
is likely to agree with her.