Merchants of violence

On the eve of Thanksgiving in America, a car travelling from the US to Canada sped up at the border crossing and exploded. While other media groups showed restraint and refused to call the incident a terrorist attack, Fox News ran a marathon transmission suggesting otherwise. Did I mention that in the Western media, the word terrorism is used almost exclusively as a shorthand for incidents involving Muslims? Make a mental note. It will prove helpful later. But suffice it to say that it is highly likely that the couple travelling in the vehicle, whose identity is withheld and who died in the explosion, must look Muslim, and the gentleman might even sport a beard. Caucasian men and women are seldom identified as terrorists in such reporting.

Terror-wise, it makes little sense for someone to travel from a country of high population density to a nation with a sparse population just to terrorise people. Incidentally, the event the couple was allegedly travelling to attend had already been cancelled. But Fox News, which is known to boldly go where no network has gone before in pursuit of xenophobia and hate, continued to pretend as if America was under attack. When, after hours of shoddy coverage, the New York governor dispelled the notion, it simply wiped the egg on its face and made an omelette of it. The details are still hazy, and we will wait for more before reminding everyone that Canada is under diplomatic fire for calling out a nation’s intelligence services for plotting the murder of Canadian citizens.

Now, let us come back to the question about the use of the word terrorism only in cases involving Muslims. Is it not true that whoever seeks to kill people to terrorise the public deserves to be called a terrorist? Apparently not. In fact, the then Premier of New Zealand, Jacinda Arden, faced an almost global rightwing pushback when she referred to the Christchurch shooting as an act of terror. Likewise, to this day, Yigal Amir, the assassin of Israeli PM Yitzhak Rabin, is called anything but a terrorist. The Indian rightwing outrage machine has also retrospectively worked its magic and airbrushed the word terror out of any reference to Nathuram Godse, the assassin of Mahatma Gandhi, India’s founding hero. In fact, India’s ruling BJP lost its marbles whenever the Congress party referred to the episodes of Hindu-influenced acts of terror as saffron terrorism.

But why would that be? Two reasons. One, the distinction came in handy in racial profiling in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, even if it ended up promoting Islamophobia. Two, in some cases, spreading Islamophobia was an end in itself. I have already mentioned above two major players other than the US in the war on terror. Long before 9/11, India and Israel were using the term almost exclusively to describe the acts of violence involving Muslims. Later, we will see how their own history played a role in this choice and why it was so useful to them. But for now, let us just point out that only innocent moderates bear the brunt of discrimination and paranoia emanating from the cavalier use of this term and not the violent extremists.

I think I have already mentioned Spencer Ackerman’s brilliant book, Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump, in explaining how the cruelty on display in the fight against terror turned inward and unhinged the US. Let me also introduce Brendan James and Noah Kulwin’s brilliant “Blowback” podcast series to my readers. The podcast, which began by chronicling the US mistakes in Iraq in its fourth season, now focuses on similar foibles in Afghanistan.

But I want to go a bit further and highlight some cottage industries which have flourished in the 9/11 era and which continue to destabilise the world. Please do not think for a second that I want to underplay the existence of violent extremism within Muslim communities. We have paid a heavy price as a nation at the hands of such elements. I, however, want to remind you that non-violent moderates and cultural Muslims have suffered the most as a result.

The first cottage industry elevates and promotes non-entities as the biggest challenge to humanity. As time progresses and attention grows, these non-entities acquire lives of their own and become formidable foes. On the eve of 9/11, a bunch of cave dwellers in Afghanistan were presented as the biggest threat. In Gaza, it is entities like Hamas. As the dominant parties in the resulting conflicts fail to vanquish the other, a co-dependence emerges between the extremists on both sides. Hamas is what it is today due to Netanyahu’s backhanded patronage, who refuses to accept the PLO as a legitimate party.

The second cottage industry is the normalisation of cruelty as a state policy. Visuals of cruel acts appeal to the baser instincts of a segment of society and can radicalise even the moderates.

The third is the monetisation of fear, paranoia and suffering. Israel has perfected its surveillance and counter-insurgency technology to such an extent that it now exports it to the world. And we are supposed to believe that it all failed on October 7. That’s the real cost. Not just the death and destruction of the enemy but the pain and suffering of your own people. At times, deliberately.

The fourth is the dehumanisation of the enemies. Everything is collateral damage and an acceptable cost.

Now, let us examine the role of Israel and India in framing the post-9/11 narrative. They were using the term ‘terrorism’ long before September 11 because the British authorities, before their independence, accused their militants of being terrorists. Look up the King David Hotel bombing. Hurt people hurt people.

Since 9/11, India and Israel have been the biggest cheerleaders of the war on terrorism, its biggest beneficiaries and America’s biggest liabilities. Whatever America did by mistake or grudgingly in desperation became a licence to kill for these countries. They wanted to do all that on purpose. The US had to keep bribing them heavily to keep them in check. And they constantly abused and exploited their diasporas to get the worst form of concessions.

But look at the results. Both countries sold their souls to the devil and are now overrun by extremists. They are so toxic now that they are causing too much pain to their diaspora and also seek to manipulate political outcomes in their most loyal allies like the US. I will go out on a limb and say that if the incumbents are in power in both nations on Election Day in the US, the American people are in for another unpleasant shock.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 25^th, 2023.

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