FEMI ABBAS ON
The writing of this article was motivated by two major tragic factors with which the world is now agonizingly grappling by force. One of those factors is an invisible Corona virus pandemic codenamed COVID 19 which is mercilessly ravaging the livelihood of mankind and recklessly rendering millions of people lifeless across continents. The other is a one word solo song that is universally being chorused with unlimited reverberation. That word is TERRORISM. A chunk of this article is culled, as an excerpt, from a lecture which the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), under the leadership of Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, prevented yours sincerely from delivering at Nigerian Interreligious Council (IREC)’s meeting in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, in January 2013.
The Juggernauts’ Focus
Perhaps the world is aggressively restive today because some juggernauts do not agree with the above quoted axiomatic poem. Today’s global juggernauts who constitute the topmost twig on the tree of life, are hardly convinced that the food which sustains and keeps them aloft on that tree is supplied by the roots of the same tree hence their trampling on those roots.
The Qur’anic Position
The Almighty Allah who created the entire universe and everything in it tells us in Qur’an 49:13 thus: “Oh mankind! We have created you as males and females and classified you into races and tribes that you may interact (and benefit from your diversity); surely the best of you are the ones who fear God most”.
The Tree of Life
On the tree of life, there can be no foliage without stem just as there can be no stem without roots. The fact that the roots of the tree of life are buried beneath the earth while the stem stands tall above the earth does not make the roots inferior. As a matter of fact the stem subsists above the earth because the roots hold forth for it beneath the earth.
It will be parochial and self-deceptive for any sensible person to think that the current trend of terrorism around the world is all about religion. That kind of thinking can arise only from the agents of the Lucifer who are benefitting from the largess of terrorism through religion. There are indications that the hub of that devilish thinking is the Southwest of Nigeria from where the smoke of blackmail and propaganda is constantly polluting the country’s peaceful weather.
Reminiscence
From the available historical facts, it can be confirmed that the factors which initially gave rise to terrorism clearly transcended religion. Other prominent factors such as political, economic, social and cultural ideologies, which had been the bones of contention for centuries among nations, are, by far, more attributable to modern terrorism than religion.
If violence is what constitutes terrorism, then, it never emanated from religion though religion has mostly been used as a cover up and blamed for it as often demonstrated by certain religious adherents.
First Act of Terrorism
At the time when the first act of terrorism was perpetrated by a Jewish Zealot group, over 2000 years ago, neither Christianity nor Islam had taken any firm root. And Judaism, in practice at that time, was more of business struggle than religion.
Although Prophet Isa (Joshua) who the Greeks renamed Jesus had just come and gone by then, his divine mission had not reached the Gentiles who named that mission Christianity and spread it to other parts of what is now known as Europe. Also, by that time, Muhammad (SAW), the Prophet of Islam, had not been born.
Therefore, the seed of terrorism planted by those Jewish Zealots’ in year 6 AC was rather a violent expression of resentment for domination of the Jews by the Roman gentiles than a fight between two religions.
International Terrorism
Tragic and condemnable as it is, international terrorism only accentuates the bitter resistance of certain cultures to the domination of others especially as exhibited by the relationship between the West and the East. In modern time, the origin of bomb detonation as an instrument of that resistance which came to be called terrorism today goes started 1939.
How it began
In August that year, a German American physicist Albert Einstein sent a letter to the then U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt to hint him of the possibility of discovering a powerful explosive device through the fission of uranium and warned Roosevelt against the danger in allowing other nations to precede the US in developing that device. In response, the U.S. government hurriedly established the top secret Manhattan Project in 1942 (three years after receiving Einstein’s letter) to develop an atomic device. The leader of that Project was a U.S. Army Brigadier General Leslie R. Groves whose team worked in several locations but largely at Los Alamos, New Mexico, under the direction of American physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer. The team designed and built the first atomic bomb which was test-exploded at Alamogordo, New Mexico on July 16, 1945.
The Power of the Bomb
The energy released from that explosion was equivalent to about 20,000 tons of Trinitrotoluene (TNT). And towards the end of the World War II, precisely on August 6, 1945, the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima killing about 60000 to 70000 people within minutes. And another was dropped on the city of Nagasaki three days later on August 9, 1945, killing about 40000 people. Most of the people killed by those bombs were on their beds sleeping as the bombs were dropped on them in the nights.
The Effect of Atomic Bomb
The single atomic explosion on Hiroshima destroyed 68% of the city and damaged 24% of what remained.
As a result of that unprecedented calamity, Japan which fought the war on the side of Germany was forced to surrender unconditionally to the allied forces on August 14, 1945. Thus, in less than one week, America conquered Japan with the help of atomic bomb thereby sending a frightening signal to other countries on the side of Germany.
From the Hiroshima/Nagasaki experience, atomic bomb became the darling weapon of all rival powers and the race for acquiring it thus began. If that was not terrorism what was it? Yet, it was with that historic calamity that competition for marketing weaponry around the world evolved.
Audacious Declarations
After the World War II, the United States and seven other countries openly declared, with a tone of marketing, that they possessed atomic weaponry and they have since conducted one or more nuclear tests to demonstrate their capability. Those other countries include: Russia which first tested her own in 1949 under the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR); Britain (1952); France (1960); China (1964); India (peaceful test in 1974 and nuclear weapons test in 1998); Pakistan (1998); and North Korea (2006).
Other Nuclear Nations
Besides those listed countries, Israel is generally believed to possess atomic bomb, although she has not formally owned up to that fact since she has never openly conducted a nuclear test like others. Thus, the total number of countries generally recognised as possessing nuclear weapons, including Israel, is nine.
A tenth country, (South Africa), has also admitted that it developed a small arsenal of nuclear weapons which she completed in 1977, but which she claimed to have dismantled in the early 1990s.
Break up of USSR
When the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, three of the 15 newly independent countries, in addition to Russia, had nuclear weapons on their territories. By the mid-1990s, however, the three countries: Belarus , Kazakhstan , and Ukraine had transferred all their nuclear weapons to Russia. Of the nine states recognized as possessors of nuclear weapons today, only five have developed advanced nuclear weapons known as thermonuclear arms. They are the United States which first tested it in 1952; Russia (1953); Britain (1957); China (1967) and France (1968). The five countries have since constituted themselves into super powers having created monopoly for the device. One noticeable fact, however, is that some other countries are believed to have secretly developed thermonuclear weapons but refused to test them in order to avoid drawing negative global attention to themselves unnecessarily and thereby attract UN sanctions.
Non-Proliferation Treaty
The fear of proliferation of nuclear arsenal has compelled the so-called super powers to initiate the idea of Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty which was signed in 1968. By that initiative, virtually all countries of the world besides the known nine nuclear nations have since formally pledged not to manufacture those weapons. The pledge was made under the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons policy, which came into force in 1970. Meanwhile, that treaty was ratified by 187 non-nuclear weapon states.
However, efforts to curb nuclear proliferation have faced a series of new major challenges. For instance, the nuclear smuggling network established by one Abdul Qadeer Khan (a Pakistani nuclear expert) has shown that proliferation can be actively assisted not only by national governments, as in the past, but also by private, non-state persons and organisations that have access to key knowledge and equipment. Following the arrest of Khan, a UN Security Council Resolution 1540 was passed in 2004 to further emphasize the importance of non-proliferation Treaty. This Resolution is expected to encourage countries like Pakistan and Malaysia to better control activities related to weapons of mass destruction within their borders and to prevent improper exports.
Uncertainty
The effectiveness of this new element of the non-proliferation “regime” however remains uncertain.
The original treaty which is still in force has five nuclear weapon state members and 187 non-nuclear weapon state members. India, Israel, and Pakistan never joined the treaty, thereby reserving the legal right to develop nuclear weapons. North Korea which was a party to the treaty in 1985 renounced it in 2003 to enable her exercise her rights under the treaty’s withdrawal provisions. North Korea’s action highlighted one of the treaty’s major limitations.
The problem concerning terrorism here is neither about the signing or breaching the treaty per se, nor about armament reduction. It is rather about some nations’ determination to balance power with rivals. This was the factor that led to the invention of atomic bomb by the US in the first instance. And this factor has now advanced into balance of terror not only among nations but more between those perceived as oppressors and the non-state groups that feel oppressed as the knowledge of developing nuclear weapons keeps spreading.
It was for this reason that the US turned herself into the policeman of the world tormenting countries like Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya and other Middle East countries that can pose any threat to Israel.
Policing the World
Policing proliferation as is the case now is a mere euphemism for policing the entire world which can never ventilate a peaceful coexisting atmosphere for mankind. It will rather aggravate the existing conflict situations. The fact that the US and China or India and Pakistan have not been able to use nuclear weapons against each other despite their open hostilities and tight suspicious diplomacy is simply because they all possess such weapons.
From Militancy to Terrorism
Terrorism often begins with unfounded allegations and baseless suspicion leading to militancy. But when the threat of state power is intensified against the militants, an all-out violence becomes the necessary weapon with which to freely counter what those militants consider to be state terrorism. Thus, to those called terrorists, violent activities are only a means of countering State terrorism.
Nigeria Under Watch
If Nigeria had been a nuclear nation, the US would not have listed her as a nation under terrorism watch as she did in 2009 on the account of an isolated case of attempted terrorism by one single Nigerian. After all, an American citizen, Timothy McVeigh, committed a devastating act of terrorism in the US City of Oklahoma on April 19, 1995 killing 168 people at once and the US did not, as a result, list herself as a nation under terrorism watch. The worst that happened to McVeigh was a trial that earned him a death sentence in 2001. But thereafter, we were not given the privilege of knowing what happened to that terrorist as par the judgment that earned him death sentence.
Internal Terrorism
As for internal terrorism which is far more dangerous than the external one, only good governance and people’s patriotic devotion can safeguard it.
Nigeria is terribly wrecked today because the so-called leaders since 1999 have sold all that were considered national assets to themselves in the selfish belief that by virtue of being in government, they owned the country and could do anything to take possession of it. Now, after massively empting the national treasury to convert the country into their private property, they came to realize how futile such vainglorious efforts are and decided to block any credit accruable to those who can expose them.
In a country like Nigeria where the wind of multifarious terrorism are forcefully and incessantly blowing with an active clandestine role of certain religious vampires who are feeding exploitatively on the blood of the masses and are sponsoring terrorists to cover up their evil acts how can individual or group terrorism be stemmed? Well! We can only pray God to save Nigeria.