Drop terrorist causes, and take centrist path
Every force for good is flawed at birth. All movements, ideologies and institutions throughout history—feudalism, socialism, communism and even capitalism—had/have their sell-by dates. Just as the sheen of gold dulls over time, democracy decays.
The vulnerable vein in the ore is liberalism. Democracy’s nature as we know is transmuting into another version, where intolerance, bigotry and misuse of state power is the accepted norm. Left liberalism, unable to combat terrorism is joining its rotting ranks, and is being hoisted by its own petard.
The undoing of Leftists is their fatal fascination for lost causes. By accident or on purpose, they identify with terrorists as a Justice League of the oppressed though they wouldn’t last a day in Yemen or Sudan; in their perverse Thesaurus, terrorist equals freedom fighter.
Let’s take Canada, the only Western country that willingly harbours terrorism. It is not Khalistani terrorism alone that has safe haven. Carleton University in Canada has hired Hassan Diab, a convicted Palestinian terrorist who bombed the Rue Copernic synagogue in Paris in 1980, to teach ‘Social Justice’. Diab’s bombs killed four Jewish worshippers and injured dozens.
An international arrest warrant is out for him, issued by the French. He has been sentenced to life in prison. Now 70 years old, Diab is teaching “social justice in action” in the university’s sociology department. Carleton has shrugged off calls from Jewish organisations to terminate his position. The danger of Diab’s anti-semitic invasive influence on gullible students needs no exaggeration.
The bigotry of the Canadian liberal establishment is blind to the intentions of people like Diab, whose ideology is contrary to academic freedom and aims to bring down Western democratic institutions and ultimately impose its stark, joyless reign on society. In short, the Canadians have legitimised terrorism.
In that context, India should not object to the creation of Khalistan, so long it is in Canada. The majority of Sikhs, neither in Canada nor Punjab, do not wish to have any truck with Khalistan and its stooges. Unlike in British, European and American mosques where radical mullahs rave against their host nations and jam for jihad, Canadian gurudwaras do not champion a separate Sikh state.
Canadian Sikh ties to India are too strong to evaporate, in spite of the 1984 Congress-sponsored riots that embittered a generation of Sikhs. A country that occupies nearly 10 million sqkm of the earth’s surface, Canada has only 40 million citizens; just four Canadians per sqkm. Therefore, there is enough space to establish Khalistan where Nijjar manques can live and rant alongside a Palestinian state where Diab and his fellow fulminators can teach social jihad.
Terrorism’s purpose is to undermine democracy. Its sword is death and its faith is bigotry. It glorifies mass murderers and wages war on the innocent. The PLO, Baader Meinhof, Neo-Nazis, Al-Qaeda and ISIS are eerie examples of this dark design. Progressives lament that democracy is being hijacked by authoritarian nationalists through the popular vote. Through democracy’s destructive disruption of itself, authoritarianism is now its terrestrial tenet.
Having said that, the only redemption for terror apologists is to find a sane balance; a middle ground where the oaks of reason throw their shade. Leftists could abandon their radical liberalism and take the moderate path, believing in the Centrist philosophy of action. Taking extreme positions for good or for bad brings only destruction. Liberals, it’s time to man up, or suck it up. The choice is yours.
Ravi Shankar
ravi@newindianexpress.com