The government has been very consistent in its claim that our terrorism is home-grown. Let there be no doubt that terrorism is also politics — be it practised either in the name of religion or as revolutionary ways.Those whom we call terrorists have a goal certainly, though utopian and that is to establish Islamic Caliphate of a kind. So, to treat terrorism as a grave crime to be ended by police action is misleading. It cannot be right. We are not fighting foreign terrorists. However, and whatever way they are killed and whoever killed them, they are our children. It is important to distinguish between deadly violence and terrorism. Isolated cases of violence is not terrorism. It can happen anywhere, any time. Terrorism is part of a violent and insistent course of action. Oxford dictionary defines terrorism as use of violent actions in order to achieve political ends. So matching killing with killing is not the answer to terrorism. We must not deceive ourselves if we want to save the country from growing menace of terrorism destroying our lives, ruining our economy and paralysing our future. More time is taken to deal with it rightly, more chances will be for our home-grown terrorism to be internationalised and go out of our hands. We must not allow it to be internationalised to convert Bangladesh into another Syria where 400,000 people have died, 600,000 are starving and millions have been forced to leave the country. Already, the international community is warning us about the influence of ISIS.According to a report published in the media yesterday quoting police source that the police would seek help from Interpol to trace out 13 missing youths who allegedly left the country to join the terrorist group the Islamist state. It is revealed that these boys are missing for the last six months.Interpol has too many other preoccupations to pay attention to our request. The Interpol may ask our police in turn to let them know our conditions within the country to find out the causes of fleeing their own country.The international terrorism exploits and grows in a situation of public alienation and anarchy. They have strongholds in Iraq and Syria for the anarchy and lawlessness found there. Our incidents of traceless disappearance, extra-judicial killing and indiscriminate arrest of young ones cannot continue without consequences of resentment and anger. The Interpol will be right to say that the fight against terrorism has to be more responsible and more judgement based.Unlike terrorists, the people’s life and freedom must matter to the government. Growing terrorism which is creating panic and fear of insecurity for the whole country is not a testament of success for the government.As a measure of preventing the university going students from being misguided by terrorist leaders, the government has asked the teachers and parents to keep a vigil on their activities.What we want to emphasise is that grown up boys are more influenced by the country’s situation in which they live and see dreams about their future. Public leaders have to be good examples for the young ones. The atmosphere of reckless plundering and endless lies all around them is depressing and unpatriotic.The young ones are by nature angry rebels. If the country’s conditions are unjust and the leadership is oppressive and corrupt then they have their own minds to react. No amount of watch or control exercised by the teachers and their parents will desist them.The report of the young ones missing and going out to another country should be proof enough to understand that what is more important than controlling them is to control our internal situation.The young ones are not feeling secure that they will not be arrested under false pretexts as terrorists. Once arrested there will be no bail for them and no urgency to prove them guilty. They are terrorists because the police say so under wrong policy guidance of the government.The government’s abrasive use of police power has failed to contain terrorism rather terrorism has become more dangerous and widespread. Our young ones are getting in touch with international terrorism, as is clear from the Gulshan terrorism operation. When the government is clear that the origin of terrorism is our country itself then it is imperative for it to examine what is going wrong in our country. Then the men in power will be able to know how to fight our home-grown politics of terrorism. They have to change their politics of alienation from the people under the guise politics of development.Only the leaders who enjoy public trust in the people can unite the people to fight terrorism. To use terrorism to divert attention from the root cause of political crisis will surely internationalise the home-grown terrorism.We strongly believe terrorism is not yet a big problem beyond our control, but the politics of no change is the toughest hurdle of our newly home-grown politics. We must not prove that as a nation we cannot save our country and people from the ruthless scourge of terrorism and live in peace and harmony.
