India got bombed today - AGAIN. Multiple cities have been bombed with impunity in the past few weeks and the so called success against the Indian Mujaheddin in Delhi has not caused innocent lives to be saved. During my chat conversation with friends regarding bombings, the common refrain often is - 'What can you and I do sitting from here?' or 'Oh, thats sad. How is everything else?'.
How is everything else? Are you serious? People are getting bombed in my city and you're asking me how my weekend went? The more I think about it, the more disgusted I feel about how the cliched statement - 'In America, out of sight is out of mind'. But really, what can you and I do? My take on it is - we can prepare. Most of us cannot hunt terrorists but we can read and talk about it. We cannot be with the victims from so far but we can feel disgusted about it. We cannot convince everybody but we can try and build national consensus against terror.
Which brings us to the question - how long can we, the common man in India, continue to avoid the reality that the War on Terror is not for America to fight for us, that it is not for the our brave men and women in the armed forces to clean up, the fact that it is not too far away from home and for someone else to worry about. Quiet contrary, the civil society as we know it is under attack. The fact that innocent lives are being lost (including folks from the same religion as some of these bombers claim they are protecting) is of little concern to the killers.
However, the greater challenge is to realize that we, the civil society, is being asked a question - and a tough one too. We cannot answer it without stooping down to the level of these barbarians - and destroying our own value system in the bargain. If we do get down to their level to answer this challenge, its a propaganda victory for them. If we don't, we are doomed to die. The interesting part is that they are the ones who have set the rules of this game (suicide bombings and innocent killings) and we have no choice but to relinquish our values to survive. Either way, the war cannot be won without a cost. And the fundamental fraud foisted on the public is to claim we can have war without horror, conduct an intelligence war without dishonesty and cunning and obtain victory without sacrifice. Our dilemma reminds me of some dialogues from the latest Batman flick - the Dark Knight - which in my opinion demonstrated the human behaviour brilliantly:
"Alfred Pennyworth: A long time ago, I was in Burma, my friends and I were working for the local government. They were trying to buy the loyalty of tribal leaders by bribing them with precious stones. But their caravans were being raided in a forest north of Rangoon by a bandit. So we went looking for the stones. But in six months, we never found anyone who traded with him. One day I saw a child playing with a ruby the size of a tangerine. The bandit had been throwing them away.
Bruce Wayne: Then why steal them?
Alfred Pennyworth: Because he thought it was good sport. Because some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.
[later in the film]
Bruce Wayne: The bandit in Burma, did you catch him?
Alfred Pennyworth: Yes.
Bruce Wayne: How?
Alfred Pennyworth: We burned the forest down."
"Batman: What did you do?
The Joker: I took Gotham's white knight, and brought him down to our level. It wasn't hard. Y'see, madness, as you know, is like gravity. All it takes is a little...push."
How true and how easy. Just a little push...question is how do you resist it?
