The Specter of Terrorism & Cricketing Fears

by Prof. Michael Roberts

(December 19, Melbourne, Sri Lanka Guardian) Guided by existing evidence from the past two decades, in composing an article on 26 November 2008 I contended that “there [was] no evidence of any generalised targeting of Westerners” in the Indian sub-continent. The atrocities perpetrated by a band of Islamist militants in Mumbai, beginning from the night of 26 November, have shattered that conclusion.

BUT TO WHAT DEGREE, I ask? My answer is firm: the chances of Westerners and/or cricketers (of any colour) being in the wrong place at the wrong time are minute.

Laskar-e-Taiba and the Goals behind the Mumbai Raid

The rush to conclusions has been promoted by the hysterical media presentations of this event. We know now that the militants were from Lashkar-e-Taiba. They required a grand theatre to showcase their Kashmiri grievances and their commitment to the pan-Islamist cause. With the commodity-hungry tele-channels as their stage hands, LET provided the world with a tele-drama.

In brief, the incorporation of Westerners in their attacks was an instrumental move designed to widen the impact of their atrocities. But, in conjectural manner, I assert that this facet of their raid was secondary to their battery of primary goals.

It was even less significant within their minds than another secondary target: Nariman House, the centre of a Jewish evangelical enterprise. By attacking this building they were telling radical Muslim brethren in all parts of the world that they were at one with the global Salafi militants confronting both the “near enemy” (the Muslim regimes of the Middle East) and the “far enemy” (Western powers). Through this act, they were also working within their mindset and ensuring that their deaths were acts of shahada (martyrdom).

The secondary goals outlined above must be set within their main objectives, interlaced with each other as they were. In summary and in conjecture I assert that the intent was

1. To undermine if not destroy the developing rapprochement between Pakistan and India.

2. To de-stabilise India and its economy and to influence the outcome of the impending general elections as well as regional elections

3. To de-stabilise the present Pakistani political configuration.

4. To spark Hindu extremist groups, such as Shiv Sena and BJP, to extremist rhetoric and counter-violence; and thus to stimulate a spiral tit-for-tat violence over the long term that would strengthen the militant causes in Pakistan as well as India.

The Mumbai carnage must be placed alongside 9/11, the Bali bombings, the Madrid bombings, London 7/7, the abortive Strasbourg Christmas Market Plot of December 2000, and the abortive Singapore Bomb Plot of late 2001. Add to these atrocities the regional conflicts in Chechen, Sri Lanka, southern Philippines and, last but not least, that in the Levant between Israeli Jews and the Arabs around them. Put together, they point to a world dispensation that will be marked by intermittent eruptions of similar terrorizing strikes.


The Power of Polarity

In the decades to come we will be subject to the “power of polarity” – a force that has been with us for some time. By the concept “power of polarity” I refer to two forces at opposite ends of a political line who indulge in oppositional rhetoric and/or warfare. Over time, such hit-back feuding feeds the extremism within each pole. It also reduces the space for moderate political activity in the middle.

The power of polarity encouraged the partition of India in 1947 and has spasmodically promoted Hindu-Muslim struggles within India as well as state confrontations between Pakistan and India. From the 1950s it has exacerbated political rivalry between Sinhalese and Tamils in Sri Lanka. One could go on and on with examples, but the most pertinent illustration of such polar extremism is the so-called “clash of civilizations” and the “war on terror.”

If the “war on terror” was a response to Al Qaeda’s fearsome tactics, the Salafi thinking has many ideological roots. Among these currents, one goes back to the Islamic Brotherhood and the ideologue, Syed Qutb, in Egypt; while another, the most incendiary of all, has its roots firmly within the Palestinian question and Israeli state terrorism. In brief, one cannot understand Islamist fanaticism without reference to Jewish fanaticism. These two poles feed off each other. The whole world has been caught in the resulting turbulence for some time.

The problems faced by cricketing programmes today must be set within this context. Compared to the gravity of the present political situation in the Indian sub-continent, England’s Test Tour is trivia. But just as the Mumbai raid tells us something about Islamist martyrdom operations, the decisions taken by various cricketing establishments over recent years reveal the mindset prevailing in the Western and Caribbean worlds. But let me applaud the English cricketing establishment for their decision to play cricket in India. Given the peculiar mindset that dominates thinking in the West, this is a courageous act. However, in measured spirit I insist that the chance of any cricketers being at the wrong place in the wrong time is as improbable as infinitesimal. India and Pakistan are large spaces. Terrorist eruptions are spasmodic. Some intelligent proportionality is called for, not knee-jerk reactions. - Sri Lanka Guardian