9/11 and meaning of democracy

by Mohan Nepali for Global Village September 11, 2011

Following the burial of Osama bin Laden in May by the American Army in Pakistan, the US Administration has tightened security across the country, especially in New York and Washington. As part of precautionary measures, the US Administration has deployed thousands of security officers in overt and covert forms. “To fortify New York and Washington on Sunday, federal and local law enforcement officials are piling security plans atop security plans,” writes the New York Times on Sunday.

“The defense portfolio includes thousands of New York and District of Columbia police officers, including divers, bomb technicians and counter-snipers; National Guardsmen; and F.B.I. intelligence analysts,” the newspaper further clarifies.

American officials seem alert-minded against any revenge attempt by Al Quaedans.

The 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attack combined with the killing of Laden is the primary cause for their high level precaution.

In 2001, Americans faced a national grief following the massacre of more than 2,800 people, most of them Americans, by Laden-led Al Quaeda.

Millions of Muslims had celebrated the massacre openly in the streets while the attack over America had dismayed rest of the world. Sunday’s security installations in the major cities of America appear to impress people that America, the ‘World Police’ and the ‘Money Machine’ in Noam Chomsky’s words, is really on defensive.

While US President Barrack Obama was expressing his fear to his citizens that the Al Quaedan threat remains there, FBI officials were saying no evidence of terrorists’ entry into America was available yet.

Security preparations to defend America began in May when the US Army discovered a message from Laden’s diary after the search inside the compound where he was killed. America has already captured Afghanistan and Iraq saying that it would lead to the end of terrorism in the world. After the US and European invasion in Afghanistan and Iraq, terrorism has quadrupled in the globe. Who is responsible for this? Can anybody answer this in a more logical way?

These days, a new logic is coming up on the Western front: after murdering Quaddafi, terrorism will end really.

But implementing democracy is not as easy as conducting the human carnage industry and profiting from it. Democracy is a humanitarian affair, not a bestial practice. As Gautam Buddha taught us more than 2500 years ago, thoughts implanted in our mind-soil grow up in the form of actions that bring us the consequences as per the nature of our thought-seeds. World war mongers and arms traders have implanted in our mindset the seeds of wars and conflicts that are now manifest.

Politicians, in general, are working as war slaves. In the name of democracy, they practice war. In the name of non-violence, they practice violence to protect their supremacy and feudalism.

This is the Age marked by information and psychological warfare. Physical invasions are only ultimate manifestations. Battles take place intra-personally.

Our intrapersonal communication is too limited: confined to eating up the world rather than seeking a higher meaning of life. Our day-dreaming, imaginations, calculations, analyses, guesses—all—are generally concentrated on developing our personal smartness to hunt and eliminate others. These very settings design us in a belligerent way.

But the world has far brighter prospects to work on. Re-humanizing the de-humanizing world, re-educating the educated, revitalizing the frustrated minds and organizing the grassroots population are the major strategies to build a better world. Education, journalism, movie industry and non-governmental advocacy have to be geared accordingly.

Ill-intentions of world supremacists are the major causes of terrorism. The most noteworthy underlying factor behind contribution by Muslim fundamentalists to global terrorism is the lacking exposure of Muslims to democratic and human rights atmosphere. Muslims brought up in a liberal atmosphere are the evidence of this statement. Counter-terrorism itself is a form of terrorism. It may have its own logic. But it has evidently been taking millions of lives. Producing more hatred and hostility, producing more weapons, producing more zealots and fanatics and wantonly massacring civilians cannot be a wise step at all. Healing the wounds, winning minds and orienting them can be better methods.

Nobody except autocrats opposes genuine democracy. People want to govern themselves. They pay taxes not for killing humanity but for a better life synchronized with the global village. Can I urge whom it may concern that it is futile to try to become world emperors; it costs a tremendous number of human beings.