People have a tendency to show empathy by presenting themselves as fellow victims. This falls within the ambit of the Munchausen syndrome, where those affected feign disease, illness, or psychological trauma to draw attention and sympathy. It’s common in daily life, where people informed about a bad incident often react by saying, “Listen to what happened to me." India is currently having its “listen to what happened to me” moment.
Discussing the November 13 Paris terror attacks, Deven Bharti, the Joint Commissioner of the Mumbai Police, said: “Prime facie, the similarity [with 26/11] is the involvement of multiple targets, indiscriminate firing and the use of improvised explosive devices [IEDs].”
Pakistani daily Dawn cleverly insinuated that Pakistan was a fellow victim of terror: "Like the Mumbai attacks and the [December 2014] Peshawar school tragedy [in which 141 people were killed], there are some crimes that numb the mind for their monstrousness."
The Peshawar and Mumbai attacks might have been equally monstrous, but that is where the similarities end. The Peshawar attack was a homegrown enterprise, much like the Paris attack.
And though it may be emotionally satisfying to see similarities, the monstrosities perpetrated in Paris and Mumbai are entirely different beyond the scale of the carnage and the manner of execution.
Maximum impact
The attacks in Mumbai on November 26, 2008, were planned and executed by a foreign intelligence agency. The terror strikes were mounted from the comfort and security of foreign soil, minutely planned after a detailed reconnaissance of the targets for maximum impact. The attacks were monitored and micromanaged by Pakistani professional handlers from inception till the last jihadi was killed.
Let us also be certain of this: 26/11 would not have captured the world’s attention to the extent that it did had 166 Indians been killed in less prominent areas of Mumbai such as Byculla or Matunga.
The daring attacks were aimed at killing as many white foreigners as possible. The targeted sites were two five-star hotels, a restaurant popular with backpackers from the West, and a Jewish community centre frequented by Israeli followers of the orthodox Chabad-Lubavitch movement.
In all, 28 foreigners died in the Mumbai attacks along with 138 Indians. Nine of the attackers were killed and one was captured. This was almost the perfect execution of “propaganda deed” and Vera Zasulich, who first propounded the concept in 1875, would have approved. 26/11 was not a jihadi attack, but one by a rogue state that employs jihadis to carry out its political missions.
Fading sympathy
The only commonality between 13/11 and 26/11 is that the attacks were mounted to shock and have a searing impact on society. But beyond the "we are here" announcement, the attacks did not achieve very much. Countries do not wilt because of such attacks.
Against 166 killed in Mumbai, 129 people died in the Paris attacks. The monstrosity was compounded by the deaths of so many white people. As philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre famously wrote in his preface to Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth, there are people and there are natives.
More than 300 people died when Air India plane Kanishka was bombed in 1985. More than 250 people died when Pan Am Flight 103 was bombed over Lockerbie in 1988. The manner in which the families of the victims were compensated and the bombers hunted down differed greatly. While the Lockerbie bombing still finds resonance, the Kanishka bombing has faded from memory.
In the case of Peshawar, the attack tugged at heartstrings because so many children were killed.
French connection
At least five of the alleged attackers responsible for 13/11 are French. The rest, including lone survivor Abdeslam Salah, are citizens of neighbouring Belgium and of Arab origin. It’s still uncertain whether the attacks were launched by the Islamic State which is fighting to establish a caliphate in the Levant.
Nevertheless, ISIS had put on record its intention to punish France after Paris joined Washington in launching attacks on the group in Iraq and Syria in September.
In a recent statement, ISIS spokesperson Abu Muhammad al-Adnani called on the group’s recruits and supporters to target France and its citizens to punish Paris for its airstrikes against jihadist positions in Iraq. French President Francois Hollande then stated that Paris would neither give in to militants’ blackmail nor negotiate with them.
More than 600 young French nationals of Arab descent are believed to be in touch with ISIS. Of these, around 185 actually visited Syria and Iraq before returning to France. Undoubtedly, some of these individuals are determined to wage war. That leaves us questioning why young European-born or resident Arabs are motivated by jihadi extremism?
Western experience
All the attackers responsible for the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US were educated in Europe. The mastermind, Mohammed Atta, was born in Egypt in 1968. The youngest son of a lawyer, he was raised in a middle class suburb of Cairo. After earning a degree in Cairo in 1990, Atta studied at Hamburg Technical University for several years before completing his education in 1999.
During his student days, Atta traveled to Afghanistan where he trained with terror group al Qaeda. The rest of the group were Saudi nationals, but like Atta, they were from well-to-do families who could afford to educate their children in Europe. The 19 attackers were chosen because they were all well educated, could speak English, and had experienced living in the West.
To understand how such individuals are radicalised in Europe, one must turn to French scholars such as Myriam Benraad, a research fellow at the Center for International Studies and Research in Paris, and the Institute for Research and Studies on the Muslim and Arab World in Aix-en Provence.
According to Benraad, young Arabs grow up feeling stigmatised. They gravitate towards organisations such as al Qaeda and ISIS that promise to avenge the injuries of colonialism, Palestine, Iraq, and other past injustices.
Different motivations
Unlike the French Arabs, the killers who entered Mumbai from Pakistan suffered from no apparent stigmatisation. They were lower class youth who joined jihad seeking money for their families and social status. They were victims of their poverty and extreme circumstances. To that extent, they were mercenaries whose economic and social condition made them easy recruits, very unlike the attackers in Paris who were motivated by their sense of alienation.
The Paris and Peshawar attacks were counter-attacks by homegrown jihadi forces within the two countries, owing to the perception that their country was following policies and actions aimed at marginalising or eliminating them. However, India is not waging a war on jihadi Islamists within and outside. In fact, India is fairly benign when it comes to dealing with jihadis. Madrasas run freely, proselytisers function openly, and the fundamental rights all Indians equally enjoy also guarantee free brainwashing. A foreign power struck the blow at India, and we must not exculpate it by seeing similarities between Mumbai and Paris, or even Peshawar.
Discussing the November 13 Paris terror attacks, Deven Bharti, the Joint Commissioner of the Mumbai Police, said: “Prime facie, the similarity [with 26/11] is the involvement of multiple targets, indiscriminate firing and the use of improvised explosive devices [IEDs].”
Pakistani daily Dawn cleverly insinuated that Pakistan was a fellow victim of terror: "Like the Mumbai attacks and the [December 2014] Peshawar school tragedy [in which 141 people were killed], there are some crimes that numb the mind for their monstrousness."
The Peshawar and Mumbai attacks might have been equally monstrous, but that is where the similarities end. The Peshawar attack was a homegrown enterprise, much like the Paris attack.
And though it may be emotionally satisfying to see similarities, the monstrosities perpetrated in Paris and Mumbai are entirely different beyond the scale of the carnage and the manner of execution.
Maximum impact
The attacks in Mumbai on November 26, 2008, were planned and executed by a foreign intelligence agency. The terror strikes were mounted from the comfort and security of foreign soil, minutely planned after a detailed reconnaissance of the targets for maximum impact. The attacks were monitored and micromanaged by Pakistani professional handlers from inception till the last jihadi was killed.
Let us also be certain of this: 26/11 would not have captured the world’s attention to the extent that it did had 166 Indians been killed in less prominent areas of Mumbai such as Byculla or Matunga.
The daring attacks were aimed at killing as many white foreigners as possible. The targeted sites were two five-star hotels, a restaurant popular with backpackers from the West, and a Jewish community centre frequented by Israeli followers of the orthodox Chabad-Lubavitch movement.
In all, 28 foreigners died in the Mumbai attacks along with 138 Indians. Nine of the attackers were killed and one was captured. This was almost the perfect execution of “propaganda deed” and Vera Zasulich, who first propounded the concept in 1875, would have approved. 26/11 was not a jihadi attack, but one by a rogue state that employs jihadis to carry out its political missions.
Fading sympathy
The only commonality between 13/11 and 26/11 is that the attacks were mounted to shock and have a searing impact on society. But beyond the "we are here" announcement, the attacks did not achieve very much. Countries do not wilt because of such attacks.
Against 166 killed in Mumbai, 129 people died in the Paris attacks. The monstrosity was compounded by the deaths of so many white people. As philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre famously wrote in his preface to Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth, there are people and there are natives.
More than 300 people died when Air India plane Kanishka was bombed in 1985. More than 250 people died when Pan Am Flight 103 was bombed over Lockerbie in 1988. The manner in which the families of the victims were compensated and the bombers hunted down differed greatly. While the Lockerbie bombing still finds resonance, the Kanishka bombing has faded from memory.
In the case of Peshawar, the attack tugged at heartstrings because so many children were killed.
French connection
At least five of the alleged attackers responsible for 13/11 are French. The rest, including lone survivor Abdeslam Salah, are citizens of neighbouring Belgium and of Arab origin. It’s still uncertain whether the attacks were launched by the Islamic State which is fighting to establish a caliphate in the Levant.
Nevertheless, ISIS had put on record its intention to punish France after Paris joined Washington in launching attacks on the group in Iraq and Syria in September.
In a recent statement, ISIS spokesperson Abu Muhammad al-Adnani called on the group’s recruits and supporters to target France and its citizens to punish Paris for its airstrikes against jihadist positions in Iraq. French President Francois Hollande then stated that Paris would neither give in to militants’ blackmail nor negotiate with them.
More than 600 young French nationals of Arab descent are believed to be in touch with ISIS. Of these, around 185 actually visited Syria and Iraq before returning to France. Undoubtedly, some of these individuals are determined to wage war. That leaves us questioning why young European-born or resident Arabs are motivated by jihadi extremism?
Western experience
All the attackers responsible for the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US were educated in Europe. The mastermind, Mohammed Atta, was born in Egypt in 1968. The youngest son of a lawyer, he was raised in a middle class suburb of Cairo. After earning a degree in Cairo in 1990, Atta studied at Hamburg Technical University for several years before completing his education in 1999.
During his student days, Atta traveled to Afghanistan where he trained with terror group al Qaeda. The rest of the group were Saudi nationals, but like Atta, they were from well-to-do families who could afford to educate their children in Europe. The 19 attackers were chosen because they were all well educated, could speak English, and had experienced living in the West.
To understand how such individuals are radicalised in Europe, one must turn to French scholars such as Myriam Benraad, a research fellow at the Center for International Studies and Research in Paris, and the Institute for Research and Studies on the Muslim and Arab World in Aix-en Provence.
According to Benraad, young Arabs grow up feeling stigmatised. They gravitate towards organisations such as al Qaeda and ISIS that promise to avenge the injuries of colonialism, Palestine, Iraq, and other past injustices.
Different motivations
Unlike the French Arabs, the killers who entered Mumbai from Pakistan suffered from no apparent stigmatisation. They were lower class youth who joined jihad seeking money for their families and social status. They were victims of their poverty and extreme circumstances. To that extent, they were mercenaries whose economic and social condition made them easy recruits, very unlike the attackers in Paris who were motivated by their sense of alienation.
The Paris and Peshawar attacks were counter-attacks by homegrown jihadi forces within the two countries, owing to the perception that their country was following policies and actions aimed at marginalising or eliminating them. However, India is not waging a war on jihadi Islamists within and outside. In fact, India is fairly benign when it comes to dealing with jihadis. Madrasas run freely, proselytisers function openly, and the fundamental rights all Indians equally enjoy also guarantee free brainwashing. A foreign power struck the blow at India, and we must not exculpate it by seeing similarities between Mumbai and Paris, or even Peshawar.
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