This morning while going to work I noticed an unattanded bag lying in the middle of the bus on a seat. And all of a sudden the horrors of London and Madrid came crashing into my head. What if?
The bag was so innocent that I would not have given it a second look but if not forthe London and Madrid bombings. How many people had seen such a bag in the trainsand buses or how many had seen fellow passengers with bags similar to their’s and look the other way? What was going through the minds of such people? Didthey realise that their lives would be over in a few seconds? Or that theirlives would be changed forever?
It’s very hard to fathom what can drive a bomber to commit such a heinous crime. LTTE perfected the art of suicide bombers before it was taken up by other militants organisations. LTTE usually chose a victim of government’s anti-terror policies as the suicide bomber. The bomber-to-be was filled with idealogies of the LTTE and the suffering that the bomber-to-be went through because of the government and that’s how they got a live bomber. The most famous example being Dhanu who was raped by Indian soldiers during the Indian Peace Keeping Force exercises in Sri Lanka. She took the ultimate revenge by detonating herself while touching Rajiv Gandhi’s feet at an election rally. Rajiv Gandhi was largely considered to have been blamed for sending the IPKF force to Sri Lanka by the LTTE.
The recruiting tactics have not changed but the targetted bombers-to-be are increasinglynot the victims but rather who perceive their religion to be a victim. Discounting the suicide bombers from the Gaza strip, most of the suicide bombers of today are fellowmembers of a religion who think (and to a degree, are right) that their religion is under attack by the west. And to fight back they must hit where it hurts the most and that is the civilian population of the west. I cannot even imagine how a suicide bomber is recruited. I can imagine that to convert an 18 year old to do this horrendous jobis to play on his/her impressionable mind but for a 30 year old with a wife and kidto support….I cannot think why such a person would do it. Are our religions so powerful that brain washing a sane, educated person is possible? Have we as a populationbecome so dependent on religion that we would blindly follow a path chosen by otherswithout consideration to what the consequences are?
The London bombings proved to be more determental to the cause of the bombers thanif they had tried to show their fellow citizens on how to lead peaceful and loving lives. This just goes to show that what Voltaire said was true :-
“The first religion was created when the first fool met the first scoundrel”
Desi In Toronto 