TERRORISM IS NOT ISLAMIC

Islamic terrorism, that is what they like to term it everytime there is a violent episode of public massacre carried out by terrorists who happened to be Muslims. In the wake of Mumbai massacre at the Taj Mahal Hotel, Oberoi Hotel, the Jewish centre and the train station, which should be condemned in the strongest term by every individual regardless of race and religion, the media are so quick to call it Islamic Terrorism equivalent to 9/11 in New York in 2002.

Why is the media love to use the term so much, and associates the religion to the act of terrorism when Islam never teaches its followers to do such a violent act especially against the innocent public? Why were the IRA were not called Christian Terrorists, or Sri Lankan Tigers called Hindu Terrorists. Why only Islamic Terrorists? I think the term used is an injustice to Islam as it implies that Islam is a religion of violence and every Muslim is a possible terrorist.

There are over a billion Muslims in this world who came from so many countries and from so many races. China has more than 30 millions Muslims, more than the whole population of Malaysia of 27 millions. Indonesia has more than 200millions Muslims, then there are Bangladesh, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Arab countries, Russia, Albania, Bosnia, Turkey, Philliphines, Nigeria and so many more including the United States and Great Britain. In the US, Islam is the fastest growing religion nowadays.

The term which is popularly used by CNN and BBC, has created a phobia against Islam intentionally or not. In the US, the 9/11 and the continuos emphasis on the term Islamic Terrorism, has made their citizens so scared of anybody looking like Arabs. A lot of the arrested suspects believed to be Arabs extremists turned out to be Sikhs from India. This is the result of stereotyping certain look to certain race and religion, generalization that Muslims are terrorists, Muslim countries are terrorist states. I wonder who created all these to suppot their narrow agenda?

I think the act of violence by those who happened to be Muslims are part of their struggles related to the issues of freedom, independence, politics and vengence in their countries, the act has nothing to do with Islam. The only way to fight terrorism is to find the root causes of disatisfaction or anger, and remove it by offering amicable solutions.

We could trace most of the violent acts by the Arabs regardless of their countries to the issue of occupied lands by Israel, and the injustice toward Arabs in occupied territories. The US has not done enough on this issue through so many peace process and keep failing because the solutions offered were lopsided in Israel's favor. By supporting Israel in terms of moral, monetary and military technologies, the US is seen as the enemy by certain groups of etremists.

The massacre in Mumbai is related to land and independence of Kashmir which is sandwiched between India in the south and Pakistan in the north. India and Pakistan has fought three wars over this mountainous land over the last few decades. The terrorists who were killed in Mumbai last week were believed to have originated from Kashmir according to the Indian intelligence. They also used the act as a vengence against the US, Great Britain and Israel for all the involvement in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan, hence why they were very specific in looking for the tourists who come from these countries. The act as nothing to do with Islam as a religion!

Malaysia used to fight terrorism from after the Japanese left right up to 1986 in the form of Malayan Communist Party. The majority of the guerillas were chinese who subscribed to the ideology tied to Peking eventhough they came from rural towns in Malaysia. Majority of them were Buddhist, but the British back them never called them Buddhist terrorist because it was not proper and will reduce support from the local chinese who did not subscribe to MCP ideology. The British and their Malayan counterparts had launched the heart and mind campaign, introduced steps that removed the reason for the arm struggle among the people and eventually eliminated the threat of communism totally in 1986 via a peace treaty signed in Thailand.

The world should learn from the Malaysian experience in fighting terrorism instead of creating more Islamic Phobia by associating a terrorism act to a religion, instead of the nationality of the terrorists. They should investigate deeply into the root cause that managed to turn a group of young kids into a group of ready-to-die terrorists. Most of them requires permanent political solutions from the related governments.

There is a saying that goes " one man's terrorist could be another man's freedom fighter". Hopefully,we do not have to deal with both versions if we all could solve our differences amicably at the table with a cup of tea and a lot of smiles.