LONE WOLF, GRAY AREAS.(updated)

 

 Religion Based Terrorism.

By K P PASWAN

Credit goes to FBI for coining these two terms, before defeating ISIS. Defeated but not out and still active as this ISIS is a philosophy espoused by a handful of religious lunatics and encouraged by autocrats of Middle East.

Lone wolf denotes a terrorist acting on  his own aided by his friends or family members, while Grey area includes whole of Europe America and a few other countries excluding India. Recent spurt in terrorists activities is universally attributed to radicalization of Islam, but views differ on this point. The great holocaust which witnessed slaughter of Jews is not religious based terrorism. In 1913 under Ottoman empire, the Armenians who are mostly Christians were systematically killed in large number, but it was declared as Genocide only in 2017, much to the charging to the contemporary Turkish politicians in  power  who are bent upon refuting such allegations.

There are certain group of people appearing on TV debate and declaring "Terrorists have no religion. They are wrong, every terrorist live and die for his religion", this is an universal truth.

RADICALIZATION.

Radicalization has aroused  massive public interest and is starting to resemble the anguished  debate all over the world. It is said that radicalization of Muslims began with the formation of Israel  and reached its zenith with Iranian revolution in 1979 Truth lies in between them. The late Ayatollah Rohilla Khumanie  stayed in France for a long time, enjoyed the hospitality of exiled Iranians  and prepared the ground of bloody revolution. Some of the world's dreaded terrorists have been nursed and trained in  countries like Great Britain, France Germany and the USA, whatever the precise reasons for growing radicalization of a section of Muslims, the row has unveiled tension in the West.

 MODERN EDUCATION. After the collapse of colonization, western system of education played an important role in the social life of Muslims of a few countries. Kemal Ata Turk was the first Muslim leader who completely westernized Turkey by replacing Sharia with western system of jurisprudence and kept tight control over Mosques and refused to submit to the whims of the Clerics of his time. Jawaharlal Nehru, the greatest of Statesman of his time and as the prime minister of India was greatly influenced by his philosophy.

RISE OF DICTATORS.

Rise of dictators like Munawar Gadhafi in Libya and Saddam Hussein in Iraq inspired the Muslims youths to become more and more radicalized, but here we don't see  the rise of terrorism in the present form, Qaddafi and Saddam Hussein were devoted Muslims, but not communal, they had their own political philosophy based on their religious belief  and stuck to them till their end.They never indulged in killing of Yezidis or people belonging to other faith. Opponents of these dictators were mostly Muslims who were killed with callous brutality by Saddam Hussein and Gadafi.Even though Qaddafi was involved in Lockerbie air attack, but he never encouraged terror attack, as we see today.

RISE OF AL QAEDA AND ISIS BOKO HARAM.

Much has been written on Al Qaeda and Boko Ha ram, so our subject matter here is ISIS. After the US intervention in Iraq, seeds were shown for the up rise of ISIS. Iraq is predominantly a Shiite state with minority Sunnis always in limelight for wrong reasons.Saddam Hussein was an avowed Sunni  ruled Iraq with an iron hand. Sectarian divide was crushed with merciless cruelty. With the toppling of Saddam Hussein and the humiliation meted out to him after his capture, prepared the fertile ground of the emergence of ISIS. The trained soldiers of Saddam Hussein and his  Bath party occupied large swathe of territories belonging to Iraq and Syria. They snatched large oil fields from the US backed Govt of Al Nurie, the new PM of Iraq.

 One highly educated Islamic Sunni preacher Abu Bakr Baghdadi declared himself as Caliphate, but he needed a capital, which was impossible to build up in Iraq so they  turned to Syria, another country with mixed population. Roqqa a small city in Syria bordering Iraq is a strong hold of Sunnis, it is also known as Drug peddling center.. Rise of ISIS or DAESH is interesting as unlike Al Qaida which unleashed a reign of terror against the USA, culminating in dreaded attack on twin towers in the USA, ISIS has a well coordinated and long term planning to unite the entire Islamic world.

ROQQA.

Roqqa made a prefect capital for the self appointed Caliphate Baghdadi, who was initially helped by USA, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other small autocrats of the middle east. With so many oil fields under its control, the ISIS became the richest terror organization in the world. In 2015 the total wealth of ISIS was estimated as 2 Trillion pound generating 2.9 billion pound per year. Such terrific wealth attracted the notorious arms dealers of the West and the USA. The result was that the ISIS Jihadist  had in their possession more deadly killing machines than the combined armed forces of Iraq and Syria. Daesh was regarded as the most brutal radicals receiving support from oil rich countries. Saudis are famous for patronizing the extreme form of Wahhabi, which constitute  the fundamental ideology of the ISIS. Abu Al Bakr Baghdadi was notorious for living a romantic life, but such a life in a fast lane proved fatal to him. With systematic elimination of  ISIS,Baghdadi"position  became a football being kicked out from  this end to that end, but the death of Baghdadi has not seen any substantial reduction in terror attack.

SUPREMACY OF SCRIPTURES.

There is no logic  for discussing the basis of theology  with the Radicals, that put stress on revelations and its tenants are not open to reinterpretation. There are Islamic theologians who are uncompromising in their attitude  like Salafi and Wahhabi and are responsible  for the radicalization of innocent Muslims youths from Sunnis majority states. Bellicose utterances of some of the hard core preachers  of Salafi ideologue  has created enough rancor in  Central Asia. Without generous funding no radical groups can flourish and  ISIS is the product of such funding. But sooner or later the so called Arabic Spring is going to have negative impact  upon the political system in the middle east.

 Revenue from oil also known as petro dollars cannot be the fundamental of an emerging economy. Crown Prince,  MSB of Saudi Arabia, attempt to invite foreign investment is a right step to boost economy. But any attempt to democratization of oil rich Saudi Arabia and other countries  with a dose of secularism cannot succeed unless Wahhabi and Salafism are either tamed or neutralised,the process has started as is evident from a series of social reforms under taken by the dynamic Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.

RESPONSIBILITY OF THE WEST.

It is wrong to assume that  oil exploration by the USA and the WEST led to the exploitation of Muslim youths. Barring exception all these  oil rich Islamic nations are being ruled by  self elected or self appointed autocrats and capricious monarchs, who as per their religious edicts are directly responsible to GOD.  Impressive infrastructures created  by the western powers in oil rich countries like Saudi Arabia,Libya,Iraq and other smaller Islamic states  failed in equitable distribution of wealth  among the poor Muslims of other Islamic nations  resulting in mass exodus of poor Muslims to the West. Growing unemployment in these Islamic countries contributed to a rise in  crimes,drugs trafficking and other social evils and made Muslim youths vulnerable  to the appeal of religious extremism. Since  Emirs and political elites in these countries are corrupt there was enough scope for the western powers  to meddle in internal politics of these Sheikhdoms. Any talk of social reforms  were resisted by the fanatics for whom these reforms meant weakness

NEW LIBERALS.

Doubts were raised about true teachings of this great religion like the status of women in Islam. As a result,  a large number of Muslim scholars belonging to Egypt, Algeria and other countries commented brilliantly and these commentaries in the form of books were made available to  the general public.These revelations resulted in healthy debates, and are not liked by certain orthodox clerics as their views run contrary to the interpretations of these great scholars. 

AN ERA OF CONFLICTS

The liberals are publicly outraged, but privately pleased to paint Saudi Arabia as intolerant zealots, seeking to impose  poison of Wahhabi upon the non believers. There is no escape from religious based terrorism. Liberal democracy with liberal society in the West  are the source of inspiration for these radicals. Preachers of hate can grow in countries like Great Britain,France,Germany,Netherland and a few others but not in a Sunni majority or a Shiite majority state.

 Whatever the precise reasons  for growing radicalization of a section of  Muslims , the row has unveiled tension in the West. Under Joe Biden the USA is likely to come closer to Iran and a furious Saudi Arabia  may go to any extent  to preserve its supremacy over other Sunni majority countries Saudi Arabia and its allies cannot afford to sustain prolonged Sunni- Shiite conflict  in the face of a formidable challenge from a Shiite Iran. In absence of a central authority, Iran is calling the shot while Saudi Arabia is engaged in fruitless war with Yamen It is Iran and not Saudi Arabia which is calling the shot.

Saudi Arabia as defender of Islam.

Saudi Arabia has declared itself as the sole defender of Islam, but it also means discarding old values and helping poor Muslims of other countries. Much to the dismay of Pakistan and Turkey, the young Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia has taken certain steps to attend these problems. Islamic nations need leaders like Al Sisi of Egypt, King of Monaco, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia and Crown Prince of UAE. Sunni majority states also need to  discard opportunists like Erdogan of Turkey for preaching hate and Imran Khan of Pakistan for preaching the virtue of Pakistan's nuclear a

 Donald Trump was right in saying 'The world was a safer place with Qaddafi and Saddam Hussein. There is no justification for blaming West and USA for the rise of radical Islam. USA  has always been interested in toppling unstable, democratically or undemocratic ally elected Govts. Think about Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and prolonged sectarian killing in the middle east and internal bickering among the family of autocrats. The ISIS kidnapped a large number of persons belonging to the family of the ruler of Qatar and released them after receiving huge ransom.Boko Ha ram is engaged in kidnapping of school going girls for exploitation and releasing them  after getting handsome ransom. Democracy and Autocracy are poles apart but surprisingly need each other to flourish.

FINAL THOUGHT Islamic concept of universal brotherhood  has to be preserved and respected by people of different faiths.Liberal Muslims are  the greatest challenge to the army of fanatics who are faraway from pragmatism of  modern scientific era and are doing great harm to their faith. 

LAST WORDS.

We have to learn to stay with the Lone Wolf. Electronics media,Internet,Facebook Twitter etc. are enemies to radicals, they cannot go to Gray Area to spread the poison of hate and terrorism.Lone Wolf is like a variant of mutation of Corona virus, mutate and get killed.