Guterres warns against terrorism

It is the clearest statement to come from someone highly placed in the West, and that too from the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres. Addressing the customary end-of-the-year press conference he said in response to a question about the arrest of members of a terrorist organisation in Germany, the Reichsbuerger or Citizens of the Reich, “It has been demonstrated that the biggest of terrorism today in Western countries comes from the extreme right, neo-Nazis and white supremacy.” And he emphasised, “And I think we must be very clear and very firm in condemning every form of neo-Nazism, any form of anti-Semitism, anti-Muslim hatred. This is clearly a threat, and we must fight that threat with enormous determination.”

Ever since the terrorist attack in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001, the Western governments and the media spared no effort to identify every act of terrorism as that of extreme groups, and the Muslims became the target community through racial profiling. This had a negative impact in the sense that ordinary Muslims were made painfully aware that they belonged to a community that had unleashed terror in the civilised western world.

And on many occasions when there was no trace of a Muslim terrorist, the first suspects became the Muslims. This atmosphere of suspicion of suspicion and fear had alienated and antagonised Muslim migrant communities in Europe and in the United States. And many of the mentally-deranged elements in the white community got away even though the acts they committed were acts of terrorism.

It is good that Guterres had spelt out the troublesome elements in the white communities in the West. For 20 years now, the Muslims in the West were ghettoised, and normal young people were forced to adopt outdated orthodox ways as an act of defiance. First, there was the 2011 car bomb explosion in Oslo and the shooting at a workers’ youth camp at Utoya on July 22 of that year. Anders Behring Beivik, a lone-ranger, hated the modern, progressive society.

Then we have the example of 64-year-old Stephen Paddock who fired into a crowd of 1,000 from a hotel room in Las Vegas and killed 60. These two were not just freaks but they serve as a symbol of something simmering within the Western society. Guterres made it a point to pin down this destructive element deep within Western society.

This does not mean that there are no terrorist elements and organisations in some countries. It only means that singling out the Muslim extremists does not end the challenge of terrorism in the world. Guterres has dared to name the enemy from within of the Western society. The secret German society, whose members were arrested, wanted to overthrow the democratically elected government and establish an authoritarian government.

It can be called an unrealistic, loony concept, but there was the danger that people could be made to believe in the false ideology as it had happened during the Nazi era of the 1930s in last century, and Adolf Hitler spewed his anti-Semitic venom and proclaimed the racist Aryan theory of society and state.

It is true that the democratic traditions are deeply rooted in the Western polity and society, and the democratic institutions and processes are deeply ingrained. But it does not take long for a strong, evil leader to derail democracy, destroy freedoms and proclaim a dictatorship. Guterres has drawn attention to a lurking danger within the heart of Western democracies, and the need to fight this internal menace. It would be a folly to dismiss Guterres’ observations as mere rhetoric and of no real consequence.