Is it good or bad to forget about terror attacks ?
Since I wrote this post day before yesterday on what YOU can do to stop terror attacks in which I claimed that we keep getting attacked only because we forget past attacks so quickly, I have received a number of (friendly) emails from some of my dear Readers pointing out that there are some benefits to forgetting about terror attacks. I will address this issue in this post.It is true that we don't want to stay AFRAID of terrorists, and not be able to go about our day-to-day business, keeping our economy running, keeping our schools, colleges, offices, and factories running.
We want to get back to enough normalcy that we can go about our daily business and keep our country running.
But we don't want to get back to so much normalcy that we forget about the terror attacks altogether, like we have been doing so far.
While America still remembers everyday the terror attacks that happened on 9/11 five years ago, Indians have difficulty remembering the Varanasi blasts that happened as recently as March 2006, or the blasts that hit Jammu and Kashmir as recently as May 2006.
Some of you have (rightly) argued that it is wrong to compare a large-scale terror attack like 9/11 in which more than 3000 people died, with the comparatively a bit smaller-scale attacks like those that have been happening in India, in which a few hundred people die on an average.
However, you should consider that UK has not forgotten the 7/7 London blasts in which only 56 people died. Spain has not forgotten the 3/11 train bombings in Madrid in which 192 people died.
The London blasts of 7/7 were called "UK's 9/11", just as the 3/11 blasts were called "Spain's 9/11". Neither country will forget them anytime soon, even though "only" 56 and 192 people were killed in them respectively, far fewer than the 3000 people killed in America's 9/11.
In contrast, we Indians have suffered so many terror attacks that we would not know which one to call our 9/11.
Each time one attack happens, it becomes our latest 9/11, but only till we forget it completely, and then it becomes time for ur to suffer a new 9/11.
Thus, my argument is that WE NEED TO REMEMBER. In each of our attacks, the victims and their families remember forever, because they lost their eyes, limbs, or their near and dear ones in those attacks. The rest of us, the non-victims, forget too quickly and move on.
We, the non-victims, need to take these terror attacks seriously enough not to forget them the next week or the next month after they happen.
I am not saying we should cower in fear of terror strikes. We should boldly do our daily work and keep the country running. But we must ALWAYS REMEMBER the victims and their families. We must ALWAYS REMEMBER the DATE on which the attack happened, like USA remembers 9/11, UK remembers 7/7, Spain remembers 3/11.
We HAVE TO REMEMBER the attacks.
We have to constantly talk about the attacks. We have to keep the attacks fresh in our memory all the time.
Not a single day goes by in USA when 9/11 is not mentioned.
We must not allow a single day to go by in India when the Mumbai blasts, the Ayodhya blasts, the Ghatkopar blasts, the Varanasi blasts, the Nagpur attacks, the Parliament attacks, the Delhi Diwali blasts, the Srinagar blasts, the Srinagar Assembly attack etc, are not mentioned.
These outrages must always be in public memory, mentioned in the news, talked about in our daily conversations.
Only then will our society be able to signal to our doddering and stupid "leaders" that this issue is important to us, and some real progress needs to be made in catching the culprits.
So far, they have taken only token steps each time -- they round up a few hundred poor slum-dwellers each time and let them go the next day.
No terrorist has been arrested and convicted for most of the terror attacks I have mentioned above.
No concrete steps have been taken to prevent future attacks.
Dawood Ibrahim, Maulana Masood Azhar, and other well-known terrorists sit in Pakistan, plotting and carrying out attacks, and the Indian Government has not done anything to show Pakistan that it is serious about bringing them to Justice.
All this is our fault. We have allowed our "leaders" to take terrorism casually, not seriously, because we forget these attacks within a few weeks or months ourselves.
We must change our behavior, or we will keep getting attacked.
You may be lucky enough to escape the bombs all your life, but your child, or your grand-child will fall victim to Islamic terror someday, mark my words.
Let us change the direction in which our society is headed. Let us work together.
Together, we are indomitable, and invincible. Nobody can prevent us from attaining a glorious future for ourselves and for our children. If we work united.
My dear Reader, I invite you to join us.
Help us wake up all our people and tell them what we have to say. In return, I will give you an India your children can be proud to inherit.
If you believe in what I have said above, tell all your friends and family about this.
The time to act is now.
By the Grace of God, we shall succeed.
Vande Mataram.
posted by Harsh Vardhan @ 4:34 pm
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