Carnage in Istanbul

The reason appears to be terrorists' expression of anger against President Bush's state visit to Britain and Bush-Blair's war against Iraq. But the results of the bomb blasts have been the deaths of all innocent people. The dead and injured in Istanbul blasts never participated in Iraq occupation war, if the terrorists wanted to put forward any justification at all for the ill-conceived deadly attacks. Therefore, the attacks were utterly wrong and deserves total condemnation.

Unfortunately, these terrorist groups have generally been using the name of Islam to gather support for their attacks. Often they name their organizations by cunningly using some attractive Islamic words like Hizbullah which means -The party of God.. God never asked them to organize a party in His name and fight wrong people in a wrong way. Often these groups act in the name of religion though these acts are forbidden by the religion -Islam.

The people of Faith -- whether Jews, Christians or Muslims -- believing in the Unity of God (i.e. One God and God alone) - know that occupation of others' legitimate Homes by force is wrong and against the basic principles of all religions. Therefore, fighting the enemy who are in the battle-field in the act of occupation should be considered legitimate for regaining illegally and illegitimately occupied homes. But no religion, let alone Islam, ever allows any one to kill innocent people in the name of fighting such occupation or subjugation.

The instructions of Islam is very clear on this.

...... Take not life, which Allah
Hath made sacred, except by
Way of Justice and law:" (Sura Anam -Quoran)
".....We ordained
For the children of Israel
That if any one slew
A person - unless it be

For murder or spreading
Mischief in the land -
It would be as if
He slew the whole nation:" (Sura Maida - Quoran)

In view of all these specific instructions of the Quoran, the followers of Islam should condemn all these terrorist acts in Istanbul and elsewhere. It must be accepted that the persons who were killed in Istanbul bomb blasts never participated in anything that these terrorists have been fighting against. Moreover, they killed scores of fellow Muslim too, who were obviously fasting in the month of Ramadan.

The terrorists apparently targeted British interests in Istanbul as Blair government was a party to Iraq war in collaboration with Bush administration. But they utterly failed to show any respect to the views of huge number of Britons who demonstrated against Bush's state visit to Britain and indeed 38 percent Britons were against Bush's visit. Therefore, it was utterly wrong to target British interests as such because a large number of Britons were and still are against Iraq war and occupation. Similarly, it is absolutely wrong to target any American interests as all Americans do not support Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld policies and militarism. Even many in the State Department of Bush Admin do not support White House on such matters.

Earlier in the week they destroyed Synagogues in Istanbul and killed several Jewish worshippers. They apparently targeted synagogues because of Israel's brutal policies and actions against the Palestinians. But they again ignored the positive contributions other Israelis and particularly the "Peace Now" activists have been making towards peace with the Palestinians. There are also people like former Justice Minister Belin and his supporters who are followers of late Ishaq Rabin who have been making all efforts to find a peaceful solution with the Palestinians. Indeed, Belin earlier said that if he were in power he would have withdrawn all Israeli troops from the occupied territories and dismantled the settlements in the occupied areas. Such a solution would have stopped all violence in no time. Indeed, the main cause of violence is occupation. If occupation ends, violence would also end.

Therefore, it is terribly wrong to go for mass killing of innocents because a particular country's administration is involved in wrong doing. It is possible that things would be quite different once such the government changes. The example is already there. When Clinton was President, Arafat was invited to the White House and discussions were held in a very cordial atmosphere, but with the arrival of Bush Arafat became a terrorist because Sharon calls Arafat a terrorist. Everything depends on who is in charge, but this does not make a country bad.

Therefore, terrorism as such against a country or it's people because of the wrong policies and actions of a particular government at a given time is terribly wrong and can have no support from any religion even though they do it in the name a particular religion. Let's hope that Bush Admin would also take these into account seriously and change its mind set against a particular religion. Indeed, as the present situation stands, Bush Administration's policies appear to cast doubts on all Muslim names and obviously that leads to going after their antecedents and such policies divide the people in terms of religion. The result is, more people get antagonized. This is bad for America. A country that openly and rightly boasts of its freedom must abandon such discriminatory policies based on religion before things go out of control.

For combating terrorism the international communities will have to look into the roots of terrorism and make determined efforts to remove them as soon as possible. Terrorism cannot be stopped by force. The terrorists are too dangerous and extremely widespread. The end of all forms of Israeli and American occupation of Middle Eastern countries seems to be the only way to substantially curb, if not remove altogether, the present wave of terrorism.

Muslehuddin Ahmad is a former Secretary and Ambassador and founder president of North South University