G.K. Rajapakshe Kandy Courtesy Island

November 24, 2015, 7:46 pm
The world is still caught in the hue of terror of the Paris attacks by ISIS and their outcome. The lost ones are mourned, the world shared the grief of Paris and there was no one that didn’t think the unsuspecting civilians would have been living their content lives if not for those attacks. This attack has been recognized as a terrorist act that has created a huge impact in the world

Terrorism is defined as ‘the calculated use of unlawful violence or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological’ by the United States Department of Defense. Attacking unsuspecting civilians would certainly create unrest and fear in society, and that seems to be a shared common strategy of LTTE and ISIS, through which they try to achieve their goals.

For 30 long years we Sri Lankans endured such terrorism on a daily basis. The terror waged by the LTTE made the news of bomb blasts in the capital, airports, and massacres of unarmed civilians, so frequent to us. The LTTE did, in fact, induce fear among civilians by their guerilla tactics.

As a result of that, many civilians claimed refugee status in other countries. Parents were afraid to travel in the same vehicle for fear of orphaning their children in case a bomb blast happens. School children were asked to carry transparent bags and no one dared to help a stranger. Everyone was on guard about each other. The commercial capital was not a safe place. Those who were already in the capital had to pray for loving family members to reach home without getting blown to smithereens in a bomb blast. No one knew if the day would end right now or later. The Syrians have faced similar and worse situations due to having a terrorist organization on deck.

There are sympathizers for these terrorist organizations, too. They help with funds and weaponry, believing those organizations are fighting for a worthy cause. However, the political, religious, or ideological reasons provided for those attacks do not validate murder. While the LTTE tried to justify their killings by showing ethnic discrimination as a reason, ISIS does it by putting forth religious reasons.

France has decided to retaliate and now they are at it. Though they advised us of peace talks when we were waging war, they did not consider it an option. Maybe, they learnt a lesson by taking Sri Lanka as an example. You can’t spoon-feed a grown lion when it tries to kill you. The condemnation of other nations and countries did very little to reduce LTTE attacks on civilians and the persuasion to have a ceasefire lead us back to war, after they used the short break to strengthen their fronts.

Military confrontation is a way a terrorist organization will thrive and gain more sympathizers and contributors of funds. The more effective their stunts are, the more productive they seem to be. If it cannot be defeated militarily or armed confrontation, then it would have to be stopped strategically by neutralizing the ideology behind them.

The confrontation of these reasons should come from those whose beliefs are adapted by these organizations. If a terrorist organization is run on a misguided religious belief, then the objection should come from its moderate believers. If Islamic believers protest ISIS which commits terrorist acts in the name of religion, it would question the core unit of the organization. Unless they speak up, the moderate believers would also get judged by the performance of those who pretend to commit murder in the name of the ideology that they put forth. Terrorism induces fear, and the fear will create suspicion in people, anyway.

Not only Sri Lanka, or Paris, most countries fall apart due to terrorism. We cannot dilute their violent activities by the justifications they offer. Acts of violence against unarmed civilians are unethical and create tension and suspicion and in turn disrupt civilian society. It is high time we set the social structure right in order to have a safer world, than what we have at the moment. In order to do that, everyone needs a motive and actively participate in achieving that. After all, we all have only one world to share.