Boston tragedy and terrorism
S P SETH
When the news of the recent Boston bombings flashed
through multimedia sources, most people in the US, and many in the world,
feared the worst. The fear was that it was another of the al Qaeda plots or
some other like-minded Islamic jihadist group revisiting the United States on
the lines of the September 11 bombings that killed around 3,000 people. Even
after it seemed fairly clear that the new tragedy was nowhere near that scale,
people waited for more bombs to explode, not knowing how deep the tentacles of
this supposedly new jihadist plot were. When it was found that it was the work
of two brothers of Chechen/Dagestan origin who had spent over 10 years growing
up and educated in the US, the question the authorities would now like to
explore is: why did they do it? Of the two brothers, 26 and 19 years of age,
the older died in a shoot out with the police, and the younger was nabbed
hidden in a boat of a suburban house. Obviously, he would face lengthy interrogation,
as and when he recovers, to help the authorities fill in the gaps of this
terrible tragedy killing 3 people and injuring over 260.
The casualties by themselves do not convey the scale
of the tragedy but the accompanying scenario of what might have been a
terrorist plot, with international ramifications, tended to make it into a
hydra-headed monster. American people can live with their internal gun slingers
and crazy killers targeting school kids and the likes but put in a Muslim name
or names (in this case Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who has been killed, and Dzhokhar
Tsarnaev, who is seriously wounded) and you have a terrorist plot with al Qaeda
connection! Apparently, these two guys of Chechen/Dagestan origin, living in
the United States for over ten years, couldn’t be other than Islamic terrorists,
while the one who killed 26 people (20 of them children) at a US school, is just
a lone mental case with access to army-type guns and ammunition. When the two
pressure cooker bombs exploded near the finishing line of the Boston Marathon,
the immediate conclusion in many people’s minds was that it was bigger than what
it seemed with al Qaeda imprints and connection.
An immediate question would arise, and should have
been raised, that if it were part of an al Qaeda connection, which supposedly
is a global centre somewhere with all the resources, why would these two guys
be packing nails and ball bearings in a pressure cooker to create terror? They
would have done something much more dramatic and lethal. Couldn’t these two
guys be simply loners like other homegrown killers who simply got lost in the
vast American melting pot?
There is a difference here, though. The older
brother, now killed, seems to have turned to religion, with suggestions of
Islamic radicalism. He is said to have visited Dagestan and was turning to
watching videos of jihadist preachers. It is not surprising, though, that some
people turn to religion when they can’t make sense of things around them. Tamerlan is reported to have said at
some point that he had no American friends and really didn’t understand these
people. Which would mean that he was deeply alienated from his adopted country,
and was looking for a spiritual connection with his old religion and culture
that took him to visit Dagestan, where an on-off Muslim insurgency against
Russian rule goes on.
At that time, the FBI (then reportedly asked by
Russian authorities about Tamerlan’s antecedents) had given him a clean chit,
though the agency is now coming under intense criticism from some quarters in
the US for taking him off their radar. So far, there is no proof that the two
brothers were part of any internal or international terrorist plot. Indeed, the
regional umbrella group, The Mujahideen of the Caucasus, has denied any link
with the brothers saying that they (the Mujahideen) “are not fighting against
the United States of America. We are at war with Russia, which is not only
responsible for the occupation of the Caucasus but also for heinous crimes
against Muslims.”
But in the United States, since the 9/11 tragedy,
there is a tendency to tar a crazy or demented Muslim(s), prone to killing for
whatever reasons, with global terrorism. And there was even suggestion at some
political level, though thankfully rejected by the US authorities, that Dzhokhar
should be treated as an “enemy combatant” and locked up like the Guantanamo Bay
detainees. It appears that he will be charged with using weapon (s) of mass
destruction to create mayhem, which seems like resurrecting the Saddam era
non-existent weapons of mass destruction (WMD). How does two pressure cooker
bombs become weapons of mass destruction (WMD) is a little difficult to
comprehend? When it comes to any suggestion of terrorism, there is a tendency in
the US to jump to pre-ordained conclusion. But, at least, in the case of
Tsarnaev brothers, no such connection is emerging because there is none.
According to Thomas Menino, mayor of Boston, “All of the information that I
have [suggests] they acted alone, these two individuals, the brothers.”
It would, therefore, appear that they got lost somewhere
along the way in their lives, the younger brother, 19, greatly influenced by
his 26-year elder brother who got drawn to religion. Piecing together
Tamerlane’s narrative of his short 26-year life, moving from one place to
another within the Caucasus, in Kyrgyzstan and the United States, the New York
Times reported, “Wherever he went, though, he did not quite seem to fit in. He
was a Chechen who had never really lived in Chechnya, a Russian citizen whose
ancestors were viciously oppressed by the Russian government, a green card
holder in the US whose path to citizenship seemed at least temporarily blocked.”
In their search for some sort of identity and sense
of belonging, they turned to religion, which too failed them except in a creepy
sort of way of lunging out at their adopted country at the Boston Marathon.
This was a heinous crime visited on their adopted homeland that had given them
refuge from turbulent times in the Caucuses. With Tamerlane killed in a police
shootout and Dzhokhar awaiting justice, people of Boston have suffered
grievously. And worse in some ways, it has reignited the trauma of terrorist
violence, even though this act, on the evidence so far, had no link with al
Qaeda or any other Islamic terrorist outfit.
As the University of Michigan anthropologist Scott Atron
has written, “What we already know about the April 15 bombing does not justify
the disproportionate and over-wrought response, including the ‘global security
alert’ US authorities issued through Interpol for 190 countries.” He added, “By
amplifying and connecting relatively sporadic acts into a generalised ‘war’ or
‘assault on freedom’, the somewhat marginal phenomenon of terrorism has become
a primary preoccupation of the US government and American people.”
Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times
Contact: sushilpseth@yahoo.com.au
