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BaKhabar  Download pdf
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have a Pressure Cooker and I Am Not a Terrorist: A Take on Boston
Marathon Blasts … By Ms. Asma Anjum Khan*
First of all as I belong to a religion which raises eyebrows and prison doors each time a bomb goes bang anywhere in the world, let me condemn the latest in the series, Boston Marathon Pressure Cooker blasts. So never mind how many of my fellow citizens of the world have condemned the violence in Gujarat or Iraq or Afghanistan. Why does the world find it hard to accept the fact that like everyone else we the Muslims too are severely opposed to any kind of violence against the innocents? We are also; for a fair trial against an accused as he/she is to be taken innocent until proven guilty. But as we all now well realize, there seems to be a pattern to this madness. The moment some insane person commits a blast, all fingers are pointed in one direction, Muslim and Islam. And this Muslim doesn’t know where to hide his face and goes on a condemning spree, lest he is done ‘in’ too. This is a fierce Psychological war that is going on post 9/11, with the Muslim minds. It was reflected in the universal Muslim prayer, after the Boston tragedy Oh, God, let it not be a Muslim, this time! While the world was waiting for the details of the blast, we were fervently praying that may the culprit/s not be one among us. Bad luck, this time too. Slayers of innocents, be they of any hue, are slayers of humanity, our Book asserts. Neither we are terrorists nor do we want to atone for someone else’s crimes. Send him to hell if he is guilty, we don’t care. The terrorist is simply just that, a terrorist. Never mind bombing Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan brings you Noble Peace Prizes and Presidential libraries. This whole psycho-warfare is repeated once more now. It begins with how the Muslim youth is becoming radicalized, how his religion makes him an extremist and leads to the racial profiling of the worst kind. This never happens when an Anders Breivik [Germany] or an Adam Lanza [Sandy Hook] commits mass murders as heinous as done by the Tsarnaevs. TV shows abound with details of how the elder bomber went to the mosque each day,[ the younger Dhzarkov Tsarnaev never did] how he asked his women, his mother and his American wife Katherine Russell[ who converted to Islam], to cover themselves as per the Quranic edicts and his religious training during the Dagestan trip. As the telecast of the tragedy began on Television, the journos and anchors were competing with each other to blame the eternal suspects. With each piece of freshly arriving info in the media, we held our breaths and said a prayer for peace. A well known Muslim journo finished off that fateful day tweeting, Today the world goes to sleep at peace in Boston but we do not know what the morning will bring about or what the future holds for us. How Israel Deals With Terrorist Acts: There are admiring reviews for the so called impeccable handling of the entire Boston affair and how the police culled out the real terrorists from millions of thousands of photos taken at the spot. Reportedly the handicapped man at the wheelchair had given exact description of Tsarnaev brothers who had put those backpacks at his feet that day. But a few Doubting Thomases have expressed their reservations about holding the entire Boston city to ransom for more than 24 hours,to the extent of asking each Bostonian to be indoors with the instructions to not answer any door call! Yaakov Katz, a military affairs correspondent for Jerusalem Post with a rich experience of covering many terrorist attacks is surprised at the US, over reaction, the shutdown of the entire Boston. He says he understands the rule of better safe than sorry, still asking people to shelter and holding five million people to ransom for a 19 year old boy! Oh boy, he calls it allowing terrorism to win ! It was unprecedented and exactly what the terrorist wanted, to terrorize and frighten the people, he informs us. In Israel, he had seen, people sipping coffee and waiting for buses from the same line that had just exploded. He also questions why since Monday when the blasts took place until Friday, with two terrorists on the loose there was no thought of a lockdown and with one terrorist dead and another on the lone run, you suddenly shut the shop? That American town paralyzed itself completely, he concludes. America proved Noam Chomsky right, again who has said that, America is a frightened country. This professor of Linguistics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology says that, this is very ironic, because the level of security America has is such that no one else could dream of. The theme is we’re about to be destroyed by an enemy…….[today]it is Muslims…and [the ]paranoia is very real, he does not forget to add. This paranoia keeps reflecting here and there; an episode Family Guy from the famous cartoon series Simpsons’ is said to have predicted the Boston Marathon Blasts. The very next day the clip of that particular episode was pulled out by Fox Television from its website. There have been well documented cases of the Federal Bureau of Investigation ensnaring the young unsuspecting Muslim youth into the terrorism trap when it were the covert security officials who led and encouraged them to join the terror outfits. Very recently a young Muslim man Abdella Ahmad Tounisi 18, was arrested in Chicago when he, under an allegedly FBI trap tried to recruit himself as a candidate for an Al Qaeda group fighting the Syrian government, through an online web portal. To quote words from the report on Aljazeera, The critics have said the use of such sites raises questions about whether authorities are overreaching, wooing impressionable youth to contemplate crimes that otherwise wouldn’t cross their minds. Need it be said that all this was unethical on FBI’s part; the real terrorist doesn’t have to go online for contacts, the real terrorist has real contacts. But come a terror strike and the Muslim minds get scared, burqas and beards begin to tremble. Muslim ki dadhi mein permanent tinkaa! No need to scratch your absent beards; if you are not a Muslim, you need not worry at all. You and your faith is safe and pure as the snow. The Powerful Role of Social /Mainstream Media: Talking about the role of the social media and how powerful it has become can be gauged from the fact that within a minute of the blast an eye witness Dan Rampareillo [@Boston_to_a_T] uploads a picture on twitter and eight long minutes’ later it was re-tweeted by Reuters social media editor Anthony De Roas[@AntDeRosa] tweeting, Photo captures explosion. A few moments later another tweet arrived, The whole world is witness to those peaceful blasts by the religion of peace. Prejudice at its extreme. This prejudice this discrimination is the New Apartheid of the New World Order. It is a crime to call a black, a black or nigger but you can say anything about the Muslim. Subtle and blatant maligning of Islam remains unabated on the media. Peter T King of New York, the Republican chairman of the House Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, called for an increased surveillance of Islamic communities in the US; more police, more surveillance as the threat is from within. There are numerous such examples of Muslimpartheid and hate crimes. Sadly the Muslim World as a whole doesn’t speak against this atrocity. You won’t find M 8 to take care of our concerns. Fighting against Muslimpartheid is a lonely battle. Contrast this with the banning for life of the Greek footballer Giorgis Katidis for doing a Nazi /Hitler style salute to celebrate his winning goal. Stoking fears about minority communities especially the Muslims is good for sales, the media men know this well.The nonstop filthy campaign against Islam on social and mainstream media is akin to putting the Muslims everywhere in those very Pressure Cookers as were said to be used by Tsarnaevs. The radicalization of the Muslim youth is the hot topic. It is quite revealing a story about the eldest brother Tamerlane Tsarnaev, 23 who had won two consecutive titles as the Golden Gloves heavy weight boxing champion of New England in 2010 but was barred from the national tournament championship as he was not a US citizen. The rules had changed only that year, shattering all his dreams of representing America and from then onwards he took to the dark road of fanaticism. Until then he was said to be a normal guy who loved partying, playing piano and violin and had an email id like, The_professor@real-hiphop.com How Do Muslims Deal With Fanaticism: That fanaticism is censured by the Muslims is evident from the fact that Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was driven out of a Boston mosque by his own people for foolishly objecting to the Imam’s call for emulating Martin Luther King Junior. This alone shows that Boston Muslims were alert to the extremist tendencies in the community. One must admire Imam Suhaib Webb, the Boston revert cleric for his exemplary role after the tragedy. I too am witness to an event where the local cleric denounced the working women to hell and for driving bikes; the speaker was rightly taken to task, by those present. I am witness to another out of the ordinary instance of fanaticism when in a program, an Islamic televangelist reprimanded the children for, hold your breaths, Clapping! Clapping is haram he said ; not practiced by the Salaf and now the kids had a real hard time. As they were used to putting their little hands together to commit the haram act of applauding the moment a child received a prize. It led to a funny situation where the bewildered kids clapped and giggled together. Last month in a Gulf city, in a religious congregation, some of the audience staged a dramatic walk out when a famous Islamic speaker talked about Imam Ghazali, the eminent Islamic philosopher. This I believe is an extreme reaction to a simple problem. That’s why these days I say a little prayer before clicking on anything related to films on my Face book wall as recently I was attacked by my, ‘FB sisters’ for clicking, like on an interview of film actor Farooque Shaikh. I was into a major sin, they said. From asking you to never wish your Non Muslim friends a Happy Deepawali or a Merry Christmas to condemning Ghalib for being an un-Islamic poet, the list may be long. This is our own internal Pressure Cooker and mind it, we are keeping a tab on it, trying our best. But is the Media Pressure Cooker ever going to give us, a happy whistle of relief? Till then, I am watching Simpsons.. -------------------------------- * Ms. Asma Anjum Khan is the chief editor of BaKhabar, apart from being a social reformist. |
Will
the biases about terrorists remain permanent?
... By Ram Puniyani*
 We have witnessed number of acts of terror in India, during last two decades. While those involved in the acts of terror have been coming from individuals of different religions, the net outcome of the actions of investigation agencies and police has been to arrest Muslim youth, to put charges against them and in most cases to release them after the charges are not proved on any ground. This pattern had a ‘mini-break’ for sometime after the Malegaon blast of 2008. The professional, unbiased and meticulous investigation of the Malegaon blast by the then chief of Maharashtra ATS, Hemant Karkare came as a big step in getting to the terrorists. Due to this; starting from Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, Swami Dayanand Pandey, Swami Aseemanand and many others belonging to the ideology of Hindutva nationalism are currently cooling their heels in the jails. Investigations into Malegaon and many other blasts are showing the imprint of these Hindutva groups and people. One thought that this major breakthrough into acts of investigation will change the mind set of police authorities and they will overcome their biases and do a more professional job in investigation into the acts of terror.  Alas that was not to be and guided by Pavlovian reflex, in a knee jerk fashion, police continues to repeat its pattern of giving statements immediately after the acts of terror in which the organizations like Indian Mujahedeen. Lashkar and others continue to be being named without a thorough probe. This is followed by the usual arrests and framing them. Recently first in the case of Hyderabad twin blasts on 21 February 2013 in which 17 people died and over hindered were injured. These bombs were kept on a bicycle and Indian Mujahideen were blamed for this dastardly act. Later in Bangalore on 17th April a bomb exploded 300 meters from the BJP office. For this blast a motorcycle was used. In this blast around 16 people were injured. It was propagated that the blast took place near BJP office! As usual Indian Mujahedeen were blamed. In this blast again there was an additional factor about propaganda that blast took place near BJP office, when in reality the blast was 300 meters away from the spot. Congress spokesperson Shakil Ahmad said that this blast and the propaganda of its being near BJP office will benefit BJP in the forthcoming elections, while another Congress spokesperson and BJP countered the statement of Shakil Ahmad.  In Bangalore blast, the preceding incidents are very disturbing and revealing. Just ten days before the Bangalore blast, on sixth April in Kannur (Kerala) a blast took place from the motorcycle and RSS swayamsevak A. V. Dileep Kumar who was carrying four kilograms of explosives died. One recalls that the RSS associates also got killed in blasts in Nanded, Kanpur and many other places. This Kannur incident was underplayed and not much is known about the investigation so far as such. It is interesting that police authorities who immediately named Indian Mujahidin have been totally silent on the Hindutva connection of probable terrorists, as by now the nation knows the involvement of Hindutva groups in many acts of terror. The real loser of these biases held by authorities and common people is the country as a whole. The real reason being that if we don’t nab the real culprits and remain trapped in the usual prejudices and biases, the real culprits will continue to carry on their nefarious work over and over again.  As such apart from other things on this trend of Muslim youth being arrested a good amount of documentation and people’s investigation has been done by various human rights groups. ANHAD held a people’s tribunal and published it report, ‘Scapegoats and Holy Cows’. Lately a significant report by Jamia Teachers Solidarity Association led by Manisha Sethi has published 'Framed, Damned, and Acquitted’. This report in a analytic way tells us the stereotypical manner of police investigation and actions and the plight of those who were arrested particularly by the Delhi Police Special Cell on charges of these youth being part of terrorist outfits. In most of these cases they were acquitted by courts. This report as such should have created awareness about the police methods and a pressure on police to mend its ways. The report also points that the biased atmosphere has been created as media is publishing the police version uncritically. This is in contrast to the journalistic ethics where the official versions have to be checked, cross checked and examined critically before publishing them. The human rights groups also have been struggling for getting compensation to these victims in good measure but to no avail so far. And then the question comes up as to what about the police officers who are guilty of these acts of wrongful investigation and implicating innocent youth, ruining their life in a serious way? Should they not be punished? The pattern of police reporting is also very stereotypical and needs to be seriously criticized. The question is what the senior leadership is doing in the face of findings of these reports. Is it not important for the policy makers to take cognizance of such important reports and respond to them in the form of policy change for the investigation authorities? Amongst others another human rights group, Rihai Manch from Uttar Pradesh is also campaigning on this issue and trying to get the innocent youth released. UP Government had appointed a Nimesh Commission to investigate these cases, but for reasons known to itself the government is not releasing the report and is doing some patch work here and there.  While UP Government is dodging over the issue of implicating the Muslim youth, one of its ministers is having the taste of these biases in United States, where he was detained at Boston. While he is blaming Indian External Affairs Minister for this, he is forgetting that these biases against Muslims are equally widespread and before him, people of the stature of ex President Abdul Kalam and the celebrity like Shah Rukh Khan have faced similar situations. Is it not an indication enough for the UP minister to set his own house in order as for as the implication of Muslim youth in acts of terror are concerned. The real worrying point of all these incidents is the way biases against Muslims are becoming rooted more and more. What efforts are needed to counter this stereotypical nature of understanding security agencies and perceptions at popular level needs a serious course correction on urgent basis. ------------------- * Ram Puniyani (born 25 Aug 1945) was a professor in biomedical engineering at the IIT Bombay. He is involved with human rights activities, for communal harmony, has taken initiatives to oppose the rising tide of Fundamentalism in India. He is a pillar of secular and democratic initiatives like All India Secular Forum, Center for Study of Society and Secularism and ANHAD. His write-ups appear in reputed Indian newspapers, regularly. He can be contacted on ram.puniyani@gmail.com |
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