Political terrorism [Archives:2008/1195/Opinion]
Abdulaziz Al-Hayajim
Most probably, the world understands the concept of terrorism from a single dimension and in light of the September 11 Terrorist Attacks against the U.S., plus any preceding and following vandalistic acts that have been greatly related with the Al-Qaeda Organization and any approaches undertaken by extremist religious groups.
In Yemen, we suffered and still are suffering this kind of terrorism, based on violence, blasts and killing of innocent people under the guise of religious ideologies. Likewise, we suffered emergence of another form of terrorism based on ethnical, sectarian and racial visions.
However, what is eye-catching, new and not known by really democratic states is that of “political terrorism”, which irresponsible individuals practice under the cover of democracy, freedom of self-expression and human rights.
Risk of this kind of terrorism emerges from its not being in the form of groups, which are impossible for authorities to confront with force and violence. This terrorism targets security and stability of communities, lives of innocent people, interests and economy of the nation, as well as its reputation at the regional level and internationally.
“Political terrorism” is the kind of tendency to deal with realities of the political and democratic life in a way contradicting the simplest democratic values. It is a tendency aimed at deviating course of the democratic experience and transferring it from a means to reach a sublime end (represented by building the nation and enhancing its development) into a tool to fabricate crises and troublesome events that hinder development programs.
Extremist wills to create standoffs
These (troublesome events) transfer state's agencies and institutions from development and reconstruction programs into irrelevant and meaningless battles having trivial disagreements and disputes over trivial issues as their usually repeated titles. Such disagreements most often reach deadlocks, thanks to extremist wills to create crises and standoffs.
In many articles published in this paper, various Arab political party leaders denounced position of Joint Meeting Parties (JMP) that rejects any calls for serious dialogues to discuss any pressing issues in the nation with the purpose of suggesting workable solutions to them.
Many of these leaders said to JMP, “Thank God because you have an authority, and a president who invites you in person to dialogue. We always ask for dialogue, but no body responds to our request.”
At this point, we get surprised to see how events are taking place in many countries of the region and third world states where opposition parties usually suffer political terrorism practiced against them by authorities and ruling parties in their nations. In total contrast, opposition parties in our country are practicing their own political terrorism in order to abort any efforts for dialogue, compromise solutions and peaceful coexistence.
Such a notable difference between what happens in Yemen and what happens in other states may not be seen as a puzzle, except by those who don't know about intuition of the veteran President of Yemen, who favors dialogue to resolve any pressing issues in the nation, and promotes solidarity and peaceful coexistence for all the various social groups.
Regretfully, some people believe that repeated presidential invitations for dialogue and compromise are symptomatic of fears that other states and international organizations, concerned with democracy, may be dissatisfied with what is taking place in Yemen.
They don't know that there is nothing to prevent the government to adopt reasonable democracy like the rest of third world states where governments deal with the political life according to their own desires and wills.
Source: Al-Thawra State-run Daily
——
[archive-e:1195-v:16-y:2008-d:2008-10-02-p:opinion]
