Deprivation triggers terrorism
Shaadaab S. Bakht
Shaadaab S. Bakht, who worked for famous Indian dailies The Telegraph, The Pioneer, The Sentinel and wrote political commentaries for Tehelka.com, is Gulf Today’s Executive Editor.
- 02 Sep 2021
It is hard to believe that a young man blows himself up just to go down as a martyr. Permit me to state that the lure of martyrdom doesn’t have that kind of depth.
In my humble opinion, the trigger is paucity. No food, no roof, no joy.
At the micro-level deprivation leads to petty crimes and at the macro-level terrorism. The only difference is that the former doesn’t use the smokescreen of ideology, the latter does.
A large number of studies has argued, and with definite figures, that all violent clashes — religious, ethnic, economic — take place in the lower middle-class sections of society.
An absolute lack of material vigour and a forced plebeian lifestyle and its attendant, but unadmitted frustration, are primarily to be blamed for the rabid spread of terrorism in our times.
‘We can’t deny that a well-fed man will never prefer the bullet to the bread.’
Mosques, churches and temples do not give birth to rebels. They are only dragged in by them to give immediate respectability to their so-called war, to their way of getting even with the world, which they think has wronged them.
A Romanian leader couldn’t have been more right when he once asked the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe foreign ministers to pay more attention to the role played by poverty in fomenting international terrorism.
Opening a summit of foreign ministers, he had said the security and human rights body needed to devote more energy to economic issues.
“The gaps between the states in their economic developments are a major source of instability and a threat to security anywhere in the world,” he had said.
Picture used for illustrative purpose only.
The United Nations food body’s “Foodcrops and Shortages” lists 15 African countries, 12 in Asia, two in Europe and two in Latin America, under the heading “countries facing exceptional food emergencies.”
By far the most serious case is Afghanistan, which is threatened with mass starvation, the report argues.
I am sure if the millions in that country get to eat enough we will definitely discover that the gun had been taken up, not for a cause, but out of frustration.
We can’t deny that a well-fed man will never prefer the bullet to the bread. We can’t deny a well-fed man will never prefer the dusty lair in barren hills to the comforts of a family.
The report also highlights India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka as countries facing serious food shortages. And expectedly all the three have been battling terrorists.
Instead of condemning bloody rebellions day in and day out, instead of introducing new laws to shackle their own people, the leaders of the countries, damaged permanently by the scourge of terrorism, should seriously consider the root of the problem: economic hardship. Our enemy is not the terrorist. Our enemy is deprivation.
