The Motive behind Terror

On a rainy Friday evening, I found myself at a local cafe with a friend discussing the events surrounding the execution Yakub Memon. Despite being good friends, we are almost always on the opposite side of the spectrum both ideologically and politically. Hence what begins as discussion soon devolves into a debate that devolves into an argument.
 

“You know if it wasn’t for the riots, the blasts would never have occurred” said she.

“I didn’t know you were representing the Memons this evening” said I.

“No I am emphatically not, this is a well-regarded fact, Justice Srikrishna himself said this, read this article in the Indian Express” said she as she passed me the paper.

“More justification?” asked I as I skimmed through the article.

“Plain reasoning does not mean justification. The terrorist said this too that the blasts was the reason. Read the book or watch the film Black Friday” said she.

“So you are taking the words of a terrorist as gospel. Do you also believe a terrorist when says he killed people for his religion. Do you then accepts that his religion is the source of the problem?” asked I.

 “He would be wrong, his misused the principles of religion to perpetrate terror and hence we must not believe him” said she.

“So you believe them when you want to and ignore them when it doesn’t suit your worldview?” said I.

“I remember a few month back Sean Penn blamed President Bush for creation of ISIS. He is absolutely right. The Bush administration led invasion of Iraq led to a power vacuum in Iraq that led to ISIS” said she.

“No! The intervention was followed by the divisive leadership of PM Nouri-Al-Malliki that fueled the armed uprising of the Sunni population that allowed the ISIS to seize control and wreak havoc.” said I.

“But the invasion of Iraq that you call intervention led to the chaos. Not invasion, no Al-Malliki, no ISIS” said she.

“No intervention, you would still have kind old Saddam in power brutalizing his people. The beheading and brutalizing is done by ISIS and nobody else. Blaming somebody else again is making excuses and exonerating ISIS” Said I

“How about assassinations? Do you accept the cause there” said she

“Let’s take the assassination of Indira Gandhi. The killers said that assault on the Golden Temple led to this. They eliminated the person they thought was responsible for ordering the assault. That in my humble opinion is a cause we can accept. But emphatically not endorse.” said I.

“So you are saying based on the act, the cause can be ‘accepted’ or ‘rejected’. Is that your argument?” she asked rather condescendingly. 

“Yes it is. Now would you say that the killings of Sikhs after assassination of Indira Gandhi was a reason? Not it wasn’t, the perpetrators had to have had a proclivity of violence and this so called reason only gave them an excuse to brutalize and massacre thousands of innocent people” said I.

“The pogrom of Sikhs was dastardly but the cause was the assassination of Indira Gandhi, I don’t support the cause but that is the truth” said she.

“For me it is simple, any act of wanton violence that kills innocent people can never have a cause’. If you accept the cause, you legitimize it” said I.

“But I know for sure that that many of the commentators, pundits and experts in both news and electronic media used the ‘riots caused the blasts’ narrative in the discourse. Are they all wrong?” asked she.

“Yes they are. Do you think you can they walk up to a victim of the blast and say “your dad or brother or sister was killed because of the riots” said I.

“Nobody would out of human decency” said she.

“But by saying that on TV, that is what they are doing. What the terrorists did to Mumbai that day showed nothing more than blatant hatred for the country and want to cause loss in every way. If a cause is attached to this mass murder you are subscribing to their twisted and addled worldview and in turn justifying their acts.” said I

“Sounds like the ‘you are either with us or against us’ doctrine” said she.

“A simple solution is to say or write “the terrorists claim that the riots was the cause of the blasts”. Simple, it is their truth but not indisputable fact.” Said I.

“We are talking semantics now” said she.

“The usage of words matter, how often have we seen words such as ‘alleged’ skipped or ‘accused’ and ‘convicted’ user interchangeably? The rights words are the building bricks for fact telling.” said I.

“I give up. You will never learn will you” she said sighing in dismay.

“The enlightened do not need to learn” said I.

So did either of us make any sense or are we staunch ideologues refusing to acknowledge the opposite sides’ perspective? Did the truth lie somewhere in the middle as it always does? What should the media do when they cover the cause of a terror attack? Is the acceptance of the cause proclaimed by the terrorists an endorsement? You decide.