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Abdul Rashid Agwan
Islam and Muslims have almost become synonyms of terrorism since 9/11. The fundamentalist Christians led by the Bush administration, rightist organizations in Europe, India and elsewhere and the media, all united to generally dub Muslims as ‘terrorists’ or at least spawn suspicion thereof. Even many Muslim intellectuals, liberal thinkers, community leaders, policymakers have accepted the pretext seriously and have put on apologetic postures in response. Almost like an archaic proverb the myth got circulated around the world that ‘“All Muslims are not terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims”. However, the facts that are slowly coming to light say a different story.
Danio, an independent researcher and blogger of www.loonwatch.com, gathered extensive data on terrorist events in the USA and derived from the store of the facts that “only 6% of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil from 1980 to 2005 were carried out by Islamic extremists. The remaining 94% were from other groups (42% from Latinos, 24% from extreme left wing groups, 7% from extremist Jews, 5% from communists, and 16% from all other groups).”
He also collated data regarding terrorist events in Europe while relying on EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report for 2007, 2008 and 2009. He concludes, “The results are stark, and prove decisively that not all terrorists are Muslims. In fact, a whopping 99.6% of terrorist attacks in Europe were by non-Muslim groups; a good 84.8% of attacks were from separatist groups completely unrelated to Islam. Leftist groups accounted for over sixteen times as much terrorism as radical Islamic groups. Only a measly 0.4% of terrorist attacks from 2007 to 2009 could be attributed to extremist Muslims.”
The report of 2006 includes total 498 events; of which, only one in Germany could be alleged as ‘Islamist’, the major blame went to the European separatist groups who were found involved in as many as 424 terrorist incidents. In 2007, the number of total such events recorded in the report to be 583 of which one in Denmark could be labeled as ‘Islamist’. The following year there was only one ‘Islamist attack’ in the UK in 2008 which is almost negligible among the total 515 incidents in the continent.
The curious researcher quotes from page 7 of the 2009 Europol report, “Islamist terrorism is still perceived as being the biggest threat worldwide, despite the fact that the EU only faced one Islamist terrorist attack in 2008. This bomb attack took place in the UK…Separatist terrorism remains the terrorism area which affects the EU most. This includes Basque separatist terrorism in Spain and France, and Corsican terrorism in France…Past contacts between ETA and the FARC illustrate the fact that also separatist terrorist organizations seek cooperation partners outside the EU on the basis of common interests. In the UK, dissident Irish republican groups, principally the RIRA and the CIRA, and other paramilitary groups may continue to engage in crime and violence.” The recent arrest of an American informer in the well known 7/7 case of UK unleash doubts whether it was purely a ‘Muslim’ conspiracy.
Swaminathan S. Ankklesaria Aiyar, an independent researcher and columnist, says in his well circulated article, “Terrorism is not a Muslim Monopoly, “In sum, terrorism is certainly not a Muslim monopoly. There are or have been terrorist groups among Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, and even Buddhists. Secular terrorists (anarchists, Maoists) have been the biggest killers.” He traces back the history of terrorism to nineteenth century Europe and extensively provides information regarding terror groups in several parts of the world. Here, it will be important to remember how Dr Mohammad Hanif was wrongly implicated in a terror case in Australia. If the internal events and retaliatory actions of people of Afghanistan, Iraq and central Asian countries are taken as reactions and resistance to foreign conspiracies in those countries, even joined by several Pakistanis who are opposed to the Western interference in their country, which has been largely categorized by establishments and media as ‘terrorism’ then very little is left to qualify for that notorious category.
In India too, the infamous quote circulated for some time like a wildfire, demoralizing and demonizing the Muslim community a lot. The fair investigations of the great cop Hemant Karkare has toppled the situation and a number of cases have been gradually exposed wherein radical Hindutva groups are found involved, and not the alleged Muslims.
There is no doubt that while comparing total events of North East, Naxalites and LTTE with that of J&K and in other parts of the country, almost the same pattern as shown by Danio in the West will emerge in India too. It is said that there are about 174 terrorist, insurgent and extremist groups in India, many of them are little known. They operate across India. The Wikipedia.com mentions, “the maximum number – 40 - operate in Manipur, followed by 36 in Assam, 32 in Jammu and Kashmir, and 30 in Tripura. These figures are compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal. Punjab is home to 12 terror groups, Meghalaya houses four, Nagaland three, Mizoram two and Arunachal Pradesh one. The list also includes pan-India Left-wing groups like the People’s War Group and the Communist Party of India-Maoist, as also other extremist groups like the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and the Deendar Anjuman. The regions with long term terrorist activities today are Jammu and Kashmir, Mumbai, Central India (Naxalism) and the Seven Sister States (independence and autonomy movements).” It has been pointed out, as many as “232 of the country’s 608 districts were afflicted by 2006, at differing intensities, by various insurgent and terrorist movements”. The National Security Advisor of the country MK Narayanan has said in 2008 that there are as many as 800 terrorist cells operating in the country, obviously hailing from a cross section of society.
It is interesting to note that several bomb blasts previously considered as the acts of Muslim terror groups have now been found as the clandestine work of Hindu radicals whereas “the Indian authorities have carried out torture, arbitrary arrests and religious discrimination after wave of deadly bombings in 2008”, Human Rights Watch said in a report. The report brings forth the fact that in a number of cases Muslims were wrongly booked for terrorist cases. Even the ban on the most blamed SIMI on the pretext of terrorism could not be endorsed by any court of law. Rather, a high court judge Gita Mittal found it to be unjustified in 2008. The Supreme Court failed to dispense on as many as four petitions filed by the organization since 2002 seeking revocation of the ban orders. So, it cannot be said at this moment what is the propriety of calling it a terrorist organization. Although the Congress and BJP maintain that the SIMI has been involved in terrorist activities but several other political parties and Muslim organizations do not believe it to be true.
Almost all Muslim organizations and several civil rights groups have long been demanding for constitution of a national commission to inquire all terrorist events allegedly having involvement of Muslims so that the apprehension that the community has been unnecessarily targeted for terrorist acts could be removed. Recently, the home minister of India, P Chidambaram, has conceded that the investigating agencies have not done their work properly and a number of innocent members of the community have to suffer allegation of terrorism in the country. Some human rights groups have also joined such voices with the feeling that in most cases Muslim youths have been framed in false cases whereas the real culprits are still at large. This fact is proved by a number of court cases wherein it has been found beyond doubt that the alleged ‘terrorists’ were just framed in with dubious motives.
The above-mentioned facts prove it beyond doubt that the bogey of terrorism was created to persecute the Muslim communities in different parts of the world and tarnish the image of Islam for vested interests. A cursory look at these data would clearly establish absurdity of the proverbial statement circulated in media and concerned circles whose malice has stained the image of Muslim community at large.
Actually, the bogey of terrorism falls in the category of similar lies and stereotypes invented from time to time for maligning the community by hostile circles. There was a time when the community felt the heat of intellectual attacks charging Muslims of such ‘evils’ as polygamy, persecutors of women, population threats, barbaric, and the like but the reality when dawned upon humanity made it evident that such stereotypes were largely baseless, selective and concocted ones. There is no doubt that terrorism is also a sort of similar castigations which is contradicted by nothing but facts.
Now, it stands vindicated that the willfully spread dictum “All Muslims are not terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims” has been a perfect lie devised by some parochial forces at large and the chorus was joined by many a confused lots of the humanity, including several ‘liberal’ Muslim thinkers. It is time to feel pity for them all.
Islam and Muslims have almost become synonyms of terrorism since 9/11. The fundamentalist Christians led by the Bush administration, rightist organizations in Europe, India and elsewhere and the media, all united to generally dub Muslims as ‘terrorists’ or at least spawn suspicion thereof. Even many Muslim intellectuals, liberal thinkers, community leaders, policymakers have accepted the pretext seriously and have put on apologetic postures in response. Almost like an archaic proverb the myth got circulated around the world that ‘“All Muslims are not terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims”. However, the facts that are slowly coming to light say a different story.
Danio, an independent researcher and blogger of www.loonwatch.com, gathered extensive data on terrorist events in the USA and derived from the store of the facts that “only 6% of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil from 1980 to 2005 were carried out by Islamic extremists. The remaining 94% were from other groups (42% from Latinos, 24% from extreme left wing groups, 7% from extremist Jews, 5% from communists, and 16% from all other groups).”
He also collated data regarding terrorist events in Europe while relying on EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report for 2007, 2008 and 2009. He concludes, “The results are stark, and prove decisively that not all terrorists are Muslims. In fact, a whopping 99.6% of terrorist attacks in Europe were by non-Muslim groups; a good 84.8% of attacks were from separatist groups completely unrelated to Islam. Leftist groups accounted for over sixteen times as much terrorism as radical Islamic groups. Only a measly 0.4% of terrorist attacks from 2007 to 2009 could be attributed to extremist Muslims.”
The report of 2006 includes total 498 events; of which, only one in Germany could be alleged as ‘Islamist’, the major blame went to the European separatist groups who were found involved in as many as 424 terrorist incidents. In 2007, the number of total such events recorded in the report to be 583 of which one in Denmark could be labeled as ‘Islamist’. The following year there was only one ‘Islamist attack’ in the UK in 2008 which is almost negligible among the total 515 incidents in the continent.
The curious researcher quotes from page 7 of the 2009 Europol report, “Islamist terrorism is still perceived as being the biggest threat worldwide, despite the fact that the EU only faced one Islamist terrorist attack in 2008. This bomb attack took place in the UK…Separatist terrorism remains the terrorism area which affects the EU most. This includes Basque separatist terrorism in Spain and France, and Corsican terrorism in France…Past contacts between ETA and the FARC illustrate the fact that also separatist terrorist organizations seek cooperation partners outside the EU on the basis of common interests. In the UK, dissident Irish republican groups, principally the RIRA and the CIRA, and other paramilitary groups may continue to engage in crime and violence.” The recent arrest of an American informer in the well known 7/7 case of UK unleash doubts whether it was purely a ‘Muslim’ conspiracy.
Swaminathan S. Ankklesaria Aiyar, an independent researcher and columnist, says in his well circulated article, “Terrorism is not a Muslim Monopoly, “In sum, terrorism is certainly not a Muslim monopoly. There are or have been terrorist groups among Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, and even Buddhists. Secular terrorists (anarchists, Maoists) have been the biggest killers.” He traces back the history of terrorism to nineteenth century Europe and extensively provides information regarding terror groups in several parts of the world. Here, it will be important to remember how Dr Mohammad Hanif was wrongly implicated in a terror case in Australia. If the internal events and retaliatory actions of people of Afghanistan, Iraq and central Asian countries are taken as reactions and resistance to foreign conspiracies in those countries, even joined by several Pakistanis who are opposed to the Western interference in their country, which has been largely categorized by establishments and media as ‘terrorism’ then very little is left to qualify for that notorious category.
In India too, the infamous quote circulated for some time like a wildfire, demoralizing and demonizing the Muslim community a lot. The fair investigations of the great cop Hemant Karkare has toppled the situation and a number of cases have been gradually exposed wherein radical Hindutva groups are found involved, and not the alleged Muslims.
There is no doubt that while comparing total events of North East, Naxalites and LTTE with that of J&K and in other parts of the country, almost the same pattern as shown by Danio in the West will emerge in India too. It is said that there are about 174 terrorist, insurgent and extremist groups in India, many of them are little known. They operate across India. The Wikipedia.com mentions, “the maximum number – 40 - operate in Manipur, followed by 36 in Assam, 32 in Jammu and Kashmir, and 30 in Tripura. These figures are compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal. Punjab is home to 12 terror groups, Meghalaya houses four, Nagaland three, Mizoram two and Arunachal Pradesh one. The list also includes pan-India Left-wing groups like the People’s War Group and the Communist Party of India-Maoist, as also other extremist groups like the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and the Deendar Anjuman. The regions with long term terrorist activities today are Jammu and Kashmir, Mumbai, Central India (Naxalism) and the Seven Sister States (independence and autonomy movements).” It has been pointed out, as many as “232 of the country’s 608 districts were afflicted by 2006, at differing intensities, by various insurgent and terrorist movements”. The National Security Advisor of the country MK Narayanan has said in 2008 that there are as many as 800 terrorist cells operating in the country, obviously hailing from a cross section of society.
It is interesting to note that several bomb blasts previously considered as the acts of Muslim terror groups have now been found as the clandestine work of Hindu radicals whereas “the Indian authorities have carried out torture, arbitrary arrests and religious discrimination after wave of deadly bombings in 2008”, Human Rights Watch said in a report. The report brings forth the fact that in a number of cases Muslims were wrongly booked for terrorist cases. Even the ban on the most blamed SIMI on the pretext of terrorism could not be endorsed by any court of law. Rather, a high court judge Gita Mittal found it to be unjustified in 2008. The Supreme Court failed to dispense on as many as four petitions filed by the organization since 2002 seeking revocation of the ban orders. So, it cannot be said at this moment what is the propriety of calling it a terrorist organization. Although the Congress and BJP maintain that the SIMI has been involved in terrorist activities but several other political parties and Muslim organizations do not believe it to be true.
Almost all Muslim organizations and several civil rights groups have long been demanding for constitution of a national commission to inquire all terrorist events allegedly having involvement of Muslims so that the apprehension that the community has been unnecessarily targeted for terrorist acts could be removed. Recently, the home minister of India, P Chidambaram, has conceded that the investigating agencies have not done their work properly and a number of innocent members of the community have to suffer allegation of terrorism in the country. Some human rights groups have also joined such voices with the feeling that in most cases Muslim youths have been framed in false cases whereas the real culprits are still at large. This fact is proved by a number of court cases wherein it has been found beyond doubt that the alleged ‘terrorists’ were just framed in with dubious motives.
The above-mentioned facts prove it beyond doubt that the bogey of terrorism was created to persecute the Muslim communities in different parts of the world and tarnish the image of Islam for vested interests. A cursory look at these data would clearly establish absurdity of the proverbial statement circulated in media and concerned circles whose malice has stained the image of Muslim community at large.
Actually, the bogey of terrorism falls in the category of similar lies and stereotypes invented from time to time for maligning the community by hostile circles. There was a time when the community felt the heat of intellectual attacks charging Muslims of such ‘evils’ as polygamy, persecutors of women, population threats, barbaric, and the like but the reality when dawned upon humanity made it evident that such stereotypes were largely baseless, selective and concocted ones. There is no doubt that terrorism is also a sort of similar castigations which is contradicted by nothing but facts.
Now, it stands vindicated that the willfully spread dictum “All Muslims are not terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims” has been a perfect lie devised by some parochial forces at large and the chorus was joined by many a confused lots of the humanity, including several ‘liberal’ Muslim thinkers. It is time to feel pity for them all.
By Abdul Rashid Agwan
Islam and Muslims have almost become synonyms of terrorism since 9/11. The fundamentalist Christians led by the Bush administration, rightist organizations in Europe, India and elsewhere and the media, all united to generally dub Muslims as ‘terrorists’ or at least spawn suspicion thereof. Even many Muslim intellectuals, liberal thinkers, community leaders, policymakers have accepted the pretext seriously and have put on apologetic postures in response. Almost like an archaic proverb the myth got circulated around the world that ‘“All Muslims are not terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims”. However, the facts that are slowly coming to light say a different story.
Danio, an independent researcher and blogger of www.loonwatch.com, gathered extensive data on terrorist events in the USA and derived from the store of the facts that “only 6% of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil from 1980 to 2005 were carried out by Islamic extremists. The remaining 94% were from other groups (42% from Latinos, 24% from extreme left wing groups, 7% from extremist Jews, 5% from communists, and 16% from all other groups).”
He also collated data regarding terrorist events in Europe while relying on EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report for 2007, 2008 and 2009. He concludes, “The results are stark, and prove decisively that not all terrorists are Muslims. In fact, a whopping 99.6% of terrorist attacks in Europe were by non-Muslim groups; a good 84.8% of attacks were from separatist groups completely unrelated to Islam. Leftist groups accounted for over sixteen times as much terrorism as radical Islamic groups. Only a measly 0.4% of terrorist attacks from 2007 to 2009 could be attributed to extremist Muslims.”
The report of 2006 includes total 498 events; of which, only one in Germany could be alleged as ‘Islamist’, the major blame went to the European separatist groups who were found involved in as many as 424 terrorist incidents. In 2007, the number of total such events recorded in the report to be 583 of which one in Denmark could be labeled as ‘Islamist’. The following year there was only one ‘Islamist attack’ in the UK in 2008 which is almost negligible among the total 515 incidents in the continent.
The curious researcher quotes from page 7 of the 2009 Europol report, “Islamist terrorism is still perceived as being the biggest threat worldwide, despite the fact that the EU only faced one Islamist terrorist attack in 2008. This bomb attack took place in the UK…Separatist terrorism remains the terrorism area which affects the EU most. This includes Basque separatist terrorism in Spain and France, and Corsican terrorism in France…Past contacts between ETA and the FARC illustrate the fact that also separatist terrorist organizations seek cooperation partners outside the EU on the basis of common interests. In the UK, dissident Irish republican groups, principally the RIRA and the CIRA, and other paramilitary groups may continue to engage in crime and violence.” The recent arrest of an American informer in the well known 7/7 case of UK unleash doubts whether it was purely a ‘Muslim’ conspiracy.
Swaminathan S. Ankklesaria Aiyar, an independent researcher and columnist, says in his well circulated article, “Terrorism is not a Muslim Monopoly, “In sum, terrorism is certainly not a Muslim monopoly. There are or have been terrorist groups among Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, and even Buddhists. Secular terrorists (anarchists, Maoists) have been the biggest killers.” He traces back the history of terrorism to nineteenth century Europe and extensively provides information regarding terror groups in several parts of the world. Here, it will be important to remember how Dr Mohammad Hanif was wrongly implicated in a terror case in Australia. If the internal events and retaliatory actions of people of Afghanistan, Iraq and central Asian countries are taken as reactions and resistance to foreign conspiracies in those countries, even joined by several Pakistanis who are opposed to the Western interference in their country, which has been largely categorized by establishments and media as ‘terrorism’ then very little is left to qualify for that notorious category.
In India too, the infamous quote circulated for some time like a wildfire, demoralizing and demonizing the Muslim community a lot. The fair investigations of the great cop Hemant Karkare has toppled the situation and a number of cases have been gradually exposed wherein radical Hindutva groups are found involved, and not the alleged Muslims.
There is no doubt that while comparing total events of North East, Naxalites and LTTE with that of J&K and in other parts of the country, almost the same pattern as shown by Danio in the West will emerge in India too. It is said that there are about 174 terrorist, insurgent and extremist groups in India, many of them are little known. They operate across India. The Wikipedia.com mentions, “the maximum number – 40 - operate in Manipur, followed by 36 in Assam, 32 in Jammu and Kashmir, and 30 in Tripura. These figures are compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal. Punjab is home to 12 terror groups, Meghalaya houses four, Nagaland three, Mizoram two and Arunachal Pradesh one. The list also includes pan-India Left-wing groups like the People’s War Group and the Communist Party of India-Maoist, as also other extremist groups like the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and the Deendar Anjuman. The regions with long term terrorist activities today are Jammu and Kashmir, Mumbai, Central India (Naxalism) and the Seven Sister States (independence and autonomy movements).” It has been pointed out, as many as “232 of the country’s 608 districts were afflicted by 2006, at differing intensities, by various insurgent and terrorist movements”. The National Security Advisor of the country MK Narayanan has said in 2008 that there are as many as 800 terrorist cells operating in the country, obviously hailing from a cross section of society.
It is interesting to note that several bomb blasts previously considered as the acts of Muslim terror groups have now been found as the clandestine work of Hindu radicals whereas “the Indian authorities have carried out torture, arbitrary arrests and religious discrimination after wave of deadly bombings in 2008”, Human Rights Watch said in a report. The report brings forth the fact that in a number of cases Muslims were wrongly booked for terrorist cases. Even the ban on the most blamed SIMI on the pretext of terrorism could not be endorsed by any court of law. Rather, a high court judge Gita Mittal found it to be unjustified in 2008. The Supreme Court failed to dispense on as many as four petitions filed by the organization since 2002 seeking revocation of the ban orders. So, it cannot be said at this moment what is the propriety of calling it a terrorist organization. Although the Congress and BJP maintain that the SIMI has been involved in terrorist activities but several other political parties and Muslim organizations do not believe it to be true.
Almost all Muslim organizations and several civil rights groups have long been demanding for constitution of a national commission to inquire all terrorist events allegedly having involvement of Muslims so that the apprehension that the community has been unnecessarily targeted for terrorist acts could be removed. Recently, the home minister of India, P Chidambaram, has conceded that the investigating agencies have not done their work properly and a number of innocent members of the community have to suffer allegation of terrorism in the country. Some human rights groups have also joined such voices with the feeling that in most cases Muslim youths have been framed in false cases whereas the real culprits are still at large. This fact is proved by a number of court cases wherein it has been found beyond doubt that the alleged ‘terrorists’ were just framed in with dubious motives.
The above-mentioned facts prove it beyond doubt that the bogey of terrorism was created to persecute the Muslim communities in different parts of the world and tarnish the image of Islam for vested interests. A cursory look at these data would clearly establish absurdity of the proverbial statement circulated in media and concerned circles whose malice has stained the image of Muslim community at large.
Actually, the bogey of terrorism falls in the category of similar lies and stereotypes invented from time to time for maligning the community by hostile circles. There was a time when the community felt the heat of intellectual attacks charging Muslims of such ‘evils’ as polygamy, persecutors of women, population threats, barbaric, and the like but the reality when dawned upon humanity made it evident that such stereotypes were largely baseless, selective and concocted ones. There is no doubt that terrorism is also a sort of similar castigations which is contradicted by nothing but facts.
Now, it stands vindicated that the willfully spread dictum “All Muslims are not terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims” has been a perfect lie devised by some parochial forces at large and the chorus was joined by many a confused lots of the humanity, including several ‘liberal’ Muslim thinkers. It is time to feel pity for them all.
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