We shouldn’t forget that terrorism has been used by other movements as well, Tamil tigers, Punjab movement, IRA, Basque separatists and even US and Japanese home grown variety. As they say, one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. So what I was trying to say in the blog is that we have to beat the ideology that makes terrorism look like a freedom movement. I don’t know how to do it. I’m sure it is not so simple — otherwise they would have found it by now, right? May be it is education, may be it is a more fair and equitable access to the world’s opportunities and progress. What looks fairly obvious to me is that it is not through bombs and bullets.

I agreed with a lot of the stuff in your post about what won’t work, etc. – but I do differ about the ideology comment… Yes it is an ideological issue, but there’s no question about whether or not a better ideology exists -

These young kids have been brainwashed into believing the alternate ideology… Possibly in the name of religion and salvation…

My post on this (mainly about the lack of preparation)

http://rajatmukherjee.blogspot.com/2008/12/gateway-to-india.html

To fully understand the issue, I feel you have to have a deep appreciation of the history of Islam and of Islam itself. Islam is not like any other religion, there are almost intractable links between religion and politics which makes it impossible to talk about personal beliefs and ideologies without implicating the political nature of Islam. I grew up among Muslim friends and communities; without living amongst them for many years, I think it is difficult for anyone to understand their world view.

Islam has such complete and total dominance over its believers that it will be next to impossible for one to break out of its mental controls. It is not just a religion, it is a lifestyle, a political ideology, a collective belief system and the essence of a nation’s social fabric, all rolled into one.

Is there a more humane, reasonable and fair way to rid ourselves of these vicious cycles of violence and revenge? Besides Gandhi’s proposal of passivity, I think probably not.

Since I think the comments are insightful, I will post them here. Anonymously though.