Leading Iran

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In the wake of terrorist attacks in Paris, a lot of concerns have been raised among political leaders of the world.

In this regard, the second letter of Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Khamenei to the youth in the Western countries, reflects how tired our terrorized world is from war and organized crime.

Terrorism and organized crime are the concepts that have recently prevailed in the literature of political sciences. When a grouping of highly centralized individuals engage in criminal and illegal activities at local, regional, national or international level based on a common motivation such as political ideology or economic interest then a network or an organization emerges that uses different ways from theft, fraud to assassination in order to realize its objectives.

In spite of controversial debates among scholars, terrorism in general terms refers to different motivations including political orientation, ideological belief, religious extremism that inspire individuals to organize a community for promoting their ideas through terrorizing activities. Different types of crimes against humanity, coercive measures, violent actions, assault, bombardment, arms trafficking, smuggling, cybercrimes, etc. are common characteristics of the terroristic activities that have become the main concern of our globalized world.

According to the recent statistics published by Global Terrorism Index 2015[1], “93 countries experienced a terrorist incident in 2014, up from 88 in 2013”. In addition, the data driven from Statista 2015[2] highlight that in 2014, the number of terrorist attacks more than doubled to 13,463 attacks, compared with 6,771 attacks in 2012. These statistics along with other data reflect the contagion effect of terrorist activities which have infected majority of the world’s countries –notably Iraq and Afghanistan, war-torn Middle-Eastern countries. It is clear that the victims of these terrorist actions are mainly innocent civilians, as mentioned by Global Terrorism Index 2015, nine times more people were killed by terrorism in 2014 than in 2000 (see figure below[3]).

 So these organized terroristic activities are considered as a security threat not only to the sovereignty of nations, but also to the life of ordinary people. Although “the majority of deaths from terrorism do not occur in the West[4]”, the war against terrorism is a common worry between West and East, as noted in the recent message of Ayatollah Khamenei to the youth in Western countries due to the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris[5]. The Leader believes that any human being, either Muslim or non-Muslim, “who has benefited from affection and humanity is affected and disturbed by witnessing” the murder of children, women and men in the presence of their loved ones, “whether it occurs in France or in Palestine or Iraq or Lebanon or Syria”.

Terrorist activities in Paris provide the evidence for the aforementioned point that the organized crime is not limited only to a specific region of the world. The virus of terrorism has infected all parts of our world; in other words, our world is terrorized. Focusing on this point, it can be argued that nurturing and arming extremist groups and insisting on religious labeling of the dehumanizing terrorist acts is not the way to reach a viable solution for these organized crimes against humanity, as mentioned also in the Leader’s message which is the reminder of an old proverb “war brings war, not peace”.

Considering the main security threat of our terrorized world, called DAESH (aka ISIS or ISIL), all people need to organize a concerted effort against terrorism. Since violence brings violence, “peace brings peace”, thus the first peace-building step toward these organized efforts is acquaintance to true Islam, the solution suggested by the Leader “lay the foundations for a correct and honorable interaction with the Islamic world based on correct understanding, deep insight and lessons learned from horrible experiences”.

Finally, as long as the cards of innocent lives are being exchanged in these games of terror, the solution of war is leading to nowhere. To address this dehumanizing terrorist acts, people of the world from the East and the West need to be united and do their best to create a peaceful world.


Source: Mehr News Agency


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