The week begins on a grey not. Several events sit uncomfortably on the mind. The hanging of two elderly men in Bangladesh for war crimes ostensibly committed 44 years ago when the nation was East Pakistan seems excessive and chilling. The attacks in Mali only reinforce the opinion that militants of all types have taken the word ‘freedom fighter’ and twisted it to a permit for shedding blood. Do they even know half the time what exactly they are fighting for. And yet, the miasma of fear just intensifies.
What does cause special concern is the paranoia that every such attack breeds. The offloading of two passengers from a Southwest flight bound from Chicago to Philadelphia underscores the agony of normal movement for all brown people. Six others were asked to step out on a flight to Houston. Sikhs in the UK yesterday recorded their fear of being targeted because of their long hair.
The man on the street cannot tell the difference not that this is an encouragement to target anyone even if he could but running scared seems to be the only ‘ In France itself over a million Muslims and another half a million swarthy skinned people are afraid to walk out of their homes. In Paris there have been several incidents recorded both on misconduct with innocents and also writings on the wall warning Muslims to ‘watch it. Watch what? Ask the Turkish man in northern France who was standing near a kebab shop and was shot from a passing car that had a French flag hanging out of it.
With so many such incidents occurring through post trauma stereotyping it is only a question of time before some totally uninvolved father or son or mother or daughter or a child going to school is caught in the crossfire of suspicion and revenge.
When the world lives on a hair trigger the slightest pressure will set it off. Nervous policemen, stressed out security at airports, xenophobists, media organs that up the stridency of every incident, these are exactly the sort of responses the militants want. The more the fear on the ground level them ore successful their sorties.
It is customary to speak of missile strikes on strongholds and pledge to bring about an end to the strife and the conflict but with such a nebulous enemy the true danger lies in its ability to divide the world into us and them and let the common people do the fighting and the confronting...which is why it is so important to use the example of the man who stood on the street of Paris and said: I am a Muslim but I am not a terrorist, hug me if you agree.
It took courage and while people did hug, is this enough to control their prejudice...one thinks not. Unless the war in the human mind is not ended the terrorist will always have an advantage. And the first lesson we must learn is that there is no color to terrorism except that it bleeds red.
