Overcoming The Logic Of Terror

By Rajan Hoole -May 31, 2014

Rajan Hoole

The 1990s: The Culture of Untruth and a Perilous Vacuum – Part 9

More than a decade after the JVP insurgency the country remains trapped in the logic of terror. Instead of evolving means to surmount it, the tendency in activist circles has been to dissemble and play games with it. When terror is part of our environment, ordinary and average people often take on roles they never dreamed of. The causes may be alienation from the ruling class, a feeling of inferiority, desire for revenge, being already compromised or simply, misplaced nationalist sympathy. Being aligned with the party of terror makes them feel bigger, powerful and able to taunt and threaten others. Often they do this using the cover and privileges of civil society, while advancing its destruction.

In turn, this leads to an inescapable logic of counter-terror. Others feeling angry and threatened by those playing the terror game, are drawn into using terror in response or simply using state structures that would do the job. This is a reality. Few living in the North or the South could say truthfully that they did not feel this way sometime. The result is an ugly and heart- rending catastrophe for the society as a whole. This happened throughout the country. The task of human rights activism is to rise above the logic of terror and challenge it rather than become part of it.

Paradoxically, the notion of ‘political correctness’ advanced by left-liberal sections in the West has frequently the effect of fortifying terror rather than challenging it. In a case like Sri Lanka, they could easily identify the evil of state repression and the resulting alienation. This leads them to a lenient view of a group like the LTTE. They refuse to see that such groups, while using this sympathy to challenge the State, do in fact stand for an order that is exceedingly more inhumane and archaic than what obtained. Although very vocal in their anti-racism, the arrogance of some of these left- liberal sections is more insidious than racism paraded openly.                         Read More