Dear Pervaiz Sahib,

The violence, no matter what the driving factors or motives, is a human trait that exists in all of us irrespective of what religion we follow or do not follow any at all. Terrorism is simply another face of the violent human character. Many may not have noticed or may have ignored the fact that no universally acceptable definition of ‘terrorism’ exists. The reason for this difficulty is simple; the term is used by every one to advance their own point of view highlighting their own values to define right or wrong, which may or may not be supported by others.

In the post 9/11 political arena, CIA and Zionist funded writers have had an open season on Muslims to a point that the term terrorism has become synonymous with Muslims. It was a conscious and a deliberate exercise to achieve certain political gains. Such campaigns come and go depending upon the changing political circumstances of a country or a region.

The violent human nature has been noted at work against each other on the basis of religion, sects, language, nationality, color of skin and countless other excuses. The main driving factor is always a personal prejudice against others for whatever reason. When many individuals join together on the basis of some common denominator (religion, language, color etc), a synergetic phenomenon gets created. The individual’s personal prejudices assume a subconscious state but its very presence gives rise to a new collectively accepted motive that creates a mob like behavior, to act against others. The collective behavior is often referred to the group ideology keeping the group members under the same banner. They soon forget that fundamentally all the individuals are satisfying their subconscious prejudices, safely masked under the group behavior often referred to as the party ideology.

It is certainly worth repeating that violence or terrorism is neither the monopoly of any religion, nor any particular nation of country. The socio-economic, cultural and political environment creates and modifies such behavior.

Javed I.