No civilized person, no ordinary human being, regardless of where they are from, what their culture or religion, can be anything but revolted and sickened by the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. They are horrifying both in their scale of carnage and the evident calm (and ease) with which the terrorists carried out their murderous spree.
This was the doing of a group of people who are totally depraved, without any moral compass. Whatever their political aims it is beyond understanding how anyone can go on such a spree, shooting indiscriminately at men, women and children, to the extent even of attacking a hospital and murdering people there and yet imagine that they do so in some great cause. No cause can ever gain anything from such evil — and this was evil at its most absolute. How many now dare repeat that easy and convenient lie that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter?
In Mumbai, as in New York in 2001 and London in 2005, terrorism is seen in its real, unadulterated, murderous guise.
Despite some evidence that the terrorists tried to single out Americans and Britons at the Taj and Oberoi hotels, these attacks were not aimed specifically at foreigners. You do not indiscriminately attack railway stations or hospitals, as these terrorists did, if the aim is to hit foreigners. The overwhelming bulk of those killed and injured were innocent Indians and that was the intention.
This was an attack on India, the aim being to humiliate and intimidate it by wrecking maximum havoc in its commercial capital. But it is more than an attack on India; it is an attack on the whole of humanity. We are all potential victims of those responsible for this savagery, whether we are Indian, Arab, American, Muslim, Hindu or whatever. Anyone reading this paper, any members of our families or our friends, whatever their nationality or religion, had they been in Mumbai (and in the case of family and friends many must have been) would have been a target for these murderers. They made no distinction as to whom they killed. This was an attack on civilization. That makes it far worse, far more shocking, than the many other terrorist outrages that India has suffered in recent years — the attack on Parliament in 2001, the 2006 Mumbai railway blasts, those this year in Assam, Imphal, Delhi, Ahmedabad and Jaipur. This is India’s 9/11, its 7/7.
India is a great nation. The assault on Mumbai comes as a shock but it will not be weakened or damaged by it. It will not be deterred from moving forward, from growing and developing. Its democracy will not be hurt. Its growing prosperity will not be stalled. Business confidence — and the tourists — will quickly return.
Mumbai is a resilient city; people there will get on with their lives. Perhaps this resilience, not knee-jerk reactions or hysteria is the best defense against terrorists.
The world has rallied to India’s support. We can be confident too that Saudi Arabia will give whatever help is needed in crushing this scourge. We are indeed in a clash — but a clash between civilization and savagery. Every country, every society, and every individual who calls him or herself a civilized member of the human race is the weaker and the more craven if they do not stand up fully for the side of good against evil in this clash.
Today it is Mumbai. Where next tomorrow?
