Terrorism is here to stay.
When Blinkymummy first told me about the London attacks, I didn't really feel anything. Here's what we said.

BM: 33 hv died
BM: (sad smiley)
AQ: aiyo
AQ: oh well
AQ: it just sort of fades into the background of appalling violence and senseless tragedies in the world today, doesn't it?

There are so many people dying in even more painful ways around the world that I have become rather blasé about it all. I think many people would perhaps be surprised by my attitude, but come on, why do violent deaths deserve stronger reactions and more attention just because they occurred in cities such as London or New York? When genocidal wars are conducted in, say, a so-called "Third World" country, few people here ("here" referring to any "First World" country) would bat an eyelid, but a handful of people die in a "First World" country and, because we're "First World" people, we make a big fuss over it? I'm sorry, and kiss my ass if you don't like it, but that sort of attitude just doesn't make sense to me. You can either be outraged by every incidence of violence that occurs in any part of the world, or you can choose to ignore them all. Otherwise, you're just being a hypocrite if you condemn terrorists for not respecting the "sanctity of human life". I mean, excuse me for thinking that a "Third World" life is just as valuable as a "First World" one.

When Blinkymummy subsequently told me in that same conversation that some guy on the radio just confirmed that it was the work of terrorists, I thought: well, of course it was the work of terrorists. It was an act of terror and hence, the perpetrators would have to be terrorists by definition, now, wouldn't they? Terrorists, especially suicide bombers, scare the crap out of me, to be honest. I mean, can you think of anything more irrational to do than to strap explosives to yourself and blow yourself to oblivion along with others?

Presumably, terrorists do what they do because they feel that they have been wronged in some manner and that someone is making their lives miserable. I would fight someone who was making my life miserable too, but I certainly wouldn't kill myself doing it. What would be the point? Surely the whole point of fighting the people oppressing you would be to make life better for yourself? If you lose your life doing it, doesn't that defeat the purpose of fighting? There's a very clear difference between risking your life for an ideal and actually deliberately making a decision to kill yourself over it. These people really frighten me, because there can be no reasoning with them. How can you reason with someone who hates you so much that he doesn't mind dying so long as he takes you with him?



I think that on some level, religion is to blame. Sure, many people may say that they would die for their loved ones, but if you take away the promise of an afterlife and give them the unchallengeable assertion that this life is all they've got, I think most people would think a whole lot more before putting their lives on the line. If I were God, I would re-flood the Middle East. Drown all the fucking fanatics and wash away all their "holy" lands. Of course humans, being the wretched creatures that we are, will eventually find another reason to slaughter each other, but at least they would have one less excuse to do so. Better yet, after the flooding, I would erect a frikking huge stone tablet about a kilometre high there. Something like this.



Of course, in a few generations, people would start to argue over what the message on the stone tablet really means and start killing each other over it.

However, I am not God, although I am moderately stupendous, so I cannot provide a miraculous solution to the problem of terrorism. In fact, it should be obvious to anyone with eyes to see that God, if such an entity exists, has more or less washed His hands of the whole affair.

We're on our own, guys.

So, is there anything we humans (I use the collective term "we" loosely) can do about this problem? Well, there are a few things that I have been thinking of. Firstly, we should stop seeing the terrorists as "evil" and us as "good". Whatever the media and the government tell you, the terrorists are not evil incarnate. They are merely people with grievances against us, and they have resorted to the taking of "innocent" lives only because they lack the power to combat us openly. It is easy to be gracious when you have all the chips, isn't it? I'm sure that their leaders feed them the exact same crap that our leaders feed us. We are probably portrayed as demons or devil-worshipers or some shit like that. It's easy to be nasty to people if they aren't people, isn't it? As Terry Pratchett might have said, terrorists probably think of themselves as freedom fighters.

Actually, I do not have the faintest idea what their grievances are against us, because I am a pretty selfish person, and I do not really care. I only care about all this insofar as I, or someone I love, may someday also be the random victim of another act of terrorism. The thing is, there must have been some grievances that sparked all this hatred, right? Since our leaders are unwilling to actually listen to their grievances and maybe solve them, I think that it is clear that violence is the only solution here.

If we really want to stop terrorism once and for all, we should stop pretending to be the "good" guys and recognise the situation for what it is. Us against Them. Now it becomes much simpler, doesn't it? Forget about all the morals and recognise that the only way to meet extreme, unreasoning violence is head-on, and with more firepower. We do have more firepower, we just seem to be too much of pansies to actually use it to end the fucking conflict. Let's examine the situation here.

1. The terrorists recruit their members from people who are, shall we say, unhappy with us.


2. Even if we manage to kill all the terrorists alive in the world today, the problem will recur, because the people dissatisfied with us will just end up hating us even more, especially after we make martyrs of all their freedom fighters.


3. Terrorists, or at least those who do the actual fighting, believe that they're fighting for their people or their God. The terrorists at the top, I suspect, are doing all this shit for power, as usual.

So you see, killing or capturing terrorists is just dealing with the symptoms and not the cause of the problem plaguing us. To actually stop the terrorists forever, we could do this.

Find out where these terrorists come from, and for every bus or building they bomb, we nuke one of their cities.

There are two reasons why this might work. First, they believe that they're fighting for their people and country, right? When they see that their actions are resulting in the deaths of their people by the fucking thousands and also turning their country into a radioactive shit hole of a wasteland, they just might stop. Secondly, they would run out of recruits. Since everytime we kill a terrorist, the people they recruit from will just hate us more, and be ever more willing to give their lives for the cause, it's like trying to kill the Hydra. It's a vicious cycle. Even if we got Bin Laden, the problem would not go away. I mean, if someone kills your hero, you would just hate those fuckers more, right? Let's face it. We kill one Bin Laden and ten more will rise to take his place.

The only sure way of getting rid of this massive amount of hate would be to get rid of the people doing the hating. Instead of sitting in our beds fearing the terrorists, why not go out there and terrorise the terrorists? It's obvious that the only way they will stop is if they fear us more than we fear them, right? I think that it would probably take only two or three cities for them to get the idea. From a larger perspective, maybe this would be a worthwhile price to pay for peace?

Naturally, this will never come to pass, because we tend to like to think of ourselves as the good guys and good guys don't nuke civilians (though we have done that before, haven't we). But we aren't, really, because if we were, we wouldn't be trying to crack down on the terrorists. We would be trying to find out what would make so many people so unhappy with us and with their own lives that they're willing to strap explosives to themselves, walk into a crowd, and blow themselves to kingdom come. We would be trying to make them less unhappy.

So you see, nothing we're doing now will actually end terrorism. Isn't that just sad? And I think it's only a matter of time before they get their paws on nukes and one day, a suicide bomber may take out a lot more than just a single bus or a goddamned building.

Oh, and seriously, you singers and actors out there. You're not helping things at all by holding fucking concerts. I mean, get the fuck out of your million-dollar homes and smell the fucking roses, for fuck's sake.  ¶
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