A global strategy to reduce terror
Rami Khoury, editor of the Lebanon-based Daily Star newspaper, writes in this article of the need for a global strategy to reduce terror. His essay appears in the wake of the horrific attack on a Russian school in Beslan last week, and other appalling recent incidents of terror, such as the late-August bus bombing in Be'er Sheva, Israel, that left 16 Israeli civilians dead and as many as 100 wounded.
Khoury writes that terror must be understood, paradoxically, as obeying market forces. Where there is a demand for terror, there will be those whose interests lie in supplying it. To combat such trends, he argues, we need to study the specific conditions of alienation and dehumanization that have bred active local terror markets in certain places and under certain pressures. Khoury contends that Arab societies must come to terms with the fact that in recent years the most stunning acts of terror (although not the greastest quantity -- that dubious distinction probably goes to South America) have arisen from within due to "root causes [that] are almost totally local and indigenous."
At the same time, Khoury points out that the militaristic responses of powerful nations such as the U.S.A., Russia and Israel have by and large contributed to fomenting more terror, rather than quelling it. This is because these powerful nations tend to respond to terror as a straightforward military threat, rather than understanding that its roots are in social, economic, and political problems that must be addressed first and foremost in these arenas.
Khoury's analysis makes sense, but it is, as he acknowledges, a point of view that is difficult to absorb -- not least, it may be said, because his concept of a global strategy to reduce terror requires patient and consistent efforts to build democracy, increase human rights and political freedoms, and to redress economic inequities. Such efforts are not easily sustained by those whose power offers the opportunity for furious -- if ultimately ineffectual -- reaction. --Lincoln
Khoury writes that terror must be understood, paradoxically, as obeying market forces. Where there is a demand for terror, there will be those whose interests lie in supplying it. To combat such trends, he argues, we need to study the specific conditions of alienation and dehumanization that have bred active local terror markets in certain places and under certain pressures. Khoury contends that Arab societies must come to terms with the fact that in recent years the most stunning acts of terror (although not the greastest quantity -- that dubious distinction probably goes to South America) have arisen from within due to "root causes [that] are almost totally local and indigenous."
At the same time, Khoury points out that the militaristic responses of powerful nations such as the U.S.A., Russia and Israel have by and large contributed to fomenting more terror, rather than quelling it. This is because these powerful nations tend to respond to terror as a straightforward military threat, rather than understanding that its roots are in social, economic, and political problems that must be addressed first and foremost in these arenas.
Khoury's analysis makes sense, but it is, as he acknowledges, a point of view that is difficult to absorb -- not least, it may be said, because his concept of a global strategy to reduce terror requires patient and consistent efforts to build democracy, increase human rights and political freedoms, and to redress economic inequities. Such efforts are not easily sustained by those whose power offers the opportunity for furious -- if ultimately ineffectual -- reaction. --Lincoln
posted by Lincoln Z. Shlensky at 6:20 PM
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