The terror attacks emanating from religious, fundamentalist and extremist ideologies have turned international in dimensions such that funding, arming and planning of focused attacks on specific target zones, distorting life in major cities of the world, have become their modus operandi. Organised terrorists use their anonymity almost like a weapon of convenience to kill innocent people as recently evidenced in Manchester, London and Melbourne. These have verily shaken the foundations of modern democratic culture globally.
Derivatively, such attacks also impact global economy quite profoundly. The citizens of these democratic countries, engaged in their routine business and other engagements, tend to get demoralised and disillusioned. The fear factor they confront more often than not, pushes and influences governance mechanisms in countries. They have to procure the latest and sophisticated range of gadgetry to counter these terror modules. But these ‘necessary’ measures rarely provide ‘sufficient’ alternative to confront modern ‘anonymous’ terrorists and their insidious connections.
Another distinctive feature of recent terrorist attacks, centring around high-profile cities such as Paris, London, Manchester, Berlin, Sweden and Antwerp, is relatively freer access to these cities by road, air and maritime means of communication. The fact that Britain, Sweden and Belgium have faced major terror strikes this year, and Germany and France last year, is indicative of the fact that luminaries in the global democratic arena, too, are under severe stress. Such sudden or sporadic outbursts of terror strikes impacting urban metropolises in Europe cannot in all probability occur in Saudi Arabia, China or North Korea where the political terrain is not democratic, and free access modes and points of entry are not available. Most vitally, the anonymity element that triggers terrorist depredations elsewhere is not available in these broadly-regimented polities and societies. So, episodes of terror are few and far between in these countries that are capable of asserting high degrees of control and comparatively terrorism-free; while Europe, capsuled in its democratic contours, is highly terrorism-prone.
On the June 3 London Bridge attack, British Home Secretary Amber Rudd in a rare public statement made clear: “All the main perpetrators were radical Islamist terrorists”, without indicating their nationality. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, echoing PM Theresa May, reinforced the sentiment that “the wells of tolerance are running empty, we will not allow anyone to disrupt our lives or our democracy”. Meanwhile, days before the attack in the British capital, over 90 persons were killed in Kabul in a suspected bomb blast, triggered by the IS. The IS may also be behind the Manchester and London attacks. The financially well off ‘network’ systemically thrives on the credentials of anonymity of its operational cadres round the world, a decisive edge.
The fact that the presence of over 8,000 American and 4,600 NATO soldiers in Afghanistan could not prevent such a major calamitous attack in the heart of the capital city and within the proximity of a number of embassies, leads one to wonder whether such options will ever workout. This argument lay substantiated in a recent issue of Time that reported: “More than 2,000 US troops have been killed in Afghanistan since 2001 and some 20,000 wounded, yet Taliban is resurgent and IS is taking root”. In Afghanistan’s timeless search for a solution to Islamic radicalism, interlocutors from Kabul would often wonder whether an “impactful military compact from China, India, Pakistan, Iran and Russia” would at all succeed where western military coalitions failed despite their superior military prowess. The clinching issue here is whether such a ‘coalition of contrasting ideologies’ can ever assume a realistic shape in the foreseeable future through the United Nations’ interventions in a presumptive peacekeeping mission.
Getting back to the factor of terror dimensions possibly aggravating in Britain and other European countries as well as prevailing uncertainties in Asia, Middle East and Africa over IS proliferation, it is high time that the UN leadership contemplated a special General Assembly session of global leaders to examine a range of options to counter grim probabilities in this regard. One elephant in the room that tends to get sorely ignored in this context is the overriding and reinforcing fact of youth unemployment across the world. The main feeds to IS recruitment perhaps emanate from the reserves of the unemployed youths across national barriers which in turn reflect the failure of governance systems in democratic and non-democratic regimes.
UNGA should focus on this issue and prudently come out with a range of useful suggestions. This session could be dedicated to youths of our world and their future.
Mohan Das Menon
Former additional secretary, Cabinet Secretariat
mdmenonconsulting@gmail.com