Yet a columnist disagreed, claiming terror to be "an issue which angers… unlike malnutrition, poverty and illiteracy [which are far greater threats and kill many more]" (Aakar Patel in Sunday Times of India, July 10, 2016). This is extraordinary, quite akin to saying that since malaria and other vector-borne diseases claim far more lives (but are curable with early detection) than cancer (which is often incurable despite early detection), cancer should not be called the gravest threat to life.
Devangshu Datta showed in these pages that casualties of terrorism are only a tiny fraction of those of conventional wars (Business Standard, July 9, 2016). Yet terrorism casts a pervasive and enduring miasma on all civil life, leading to a feeling of existence on the edge of precipice. That makes it the grave threat it is.
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Numerous nationalist and sub-nationalist movements have resorted to terror at various times. The Zionist Haganah and the Kenya Mau Mau movements used it freely against the British, but their leaders later became responsible heads of government of their respective countries. Fidel Castro in Cuba and the Sandinista in Nicaragua rode to power on the same route. The Palestinian struggle is based on extensive recourse to terror. The Tamil separatists of Sri Lanka, notably the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, used terror as much as conventional warfare in their campaign. Ideological extremism drove the Red Army Faction (popularly known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang) of Germany and the Red Brigades of Italy in the 1970s who thought militancy would usher in socialist nirvana. But despite the terror they caused, dissipated soon.
What now causes the world four-in-the-morning nightmares are altogether different kinds of terror groups completely innocent of any nationalist or ideological beliefs. Starting with the Taliban of Afghanistan and Pakistan, they now comprise Al Qaeda, the truly monstrous Islamic State, Boko Haram of Nigeria, al-Shabaab of Somalia and their sundry local variants. Their aim is waging a holy war in defence of their faith or seeking retribution for the real or imagined wrongs perpetrated against their co-religionists, who, of course, do not include the wretched apostates. Their rule in the territories they control is harsh and primitive; the only thing they promise is Edenic afterlife for the faithful.
The lesson these groups have imbibed is that high visibility targets and spectacularly gruesome executions attract carpet media coverage. This has been evident ever since the first politico-terrorist hijacking of El Al flight 426 by the Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine in July 1968 which lasted 40 days. Planes crashing into high-rises or blowing up in air, shattered gleaming modern airports or tony eateries, or decapitating or hacking victims create fear psychosis like little else does. The 9/11 attacks continue to haunt humanity 15 years on and received global coverage perhaps even greater than that of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Some sections of disaffected youth in poor and rich countries alike, both born Muslim and recent converts, fall prey to this perverse appeal. They include not only the undereducated lumpen who find little opportunity for meaningful occupation, as well as a section of the better-off, more educated scions of families and legacy they cannot abide by, much like the members of Baader-Meinhof Gang. The orotund televangelism based on false theology of the likes of Anwar al-Awlaki or Zakir Naik is anodyne to these troubled souls.
While death and destruction resulting from terrorism may not be greater than those following other natural and man-made calamities, the dislocations and disruptions in its wake are formidable in poorer countries. Syria, Iraq, Somalia and vast stretches of Nigeria and surrounding countries lie in ruins, for the most part due to the relentless terror that prevails there. The recent success of Bangladesh, predicated on garment exports and generous aid, is now threatened as the victims of the Dhaka attack included importers and aid consultants.
And despite all the armed might of global superpowers ranged against it, organised terrorism will not fade away any time soon. There is no deterrent for one who willingly embraces death, and so long as societies continue to alienate youth in large numbers, there would be an endless supply of volunteers to rain terror on the kaafirs. Much as we strive to conquer cancer, we are resigned to not finding a cure for it in our lifetime.
"I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending" the Lord said to Jesus when He revealed the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse - pestilence, war, famine and death. Millennia later, they are still with us, now joined by the Fifth one, the equally ferocious terrorism.
The writer is an economist who comments on current developments