Bringing balance in discussions on such issues will require recognizing the emergence of new ‘religiophobia’, especially against Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs, just as Christianophobia, Islamophobia, and anti-semitism. That was India’s position at the UN on Tuesday.
T S Tirumurti, India’s Permanent Representative to the U.N, said at the International Counter-Terrorism Conference held by the Global Counter-Terrorism Council on January 18: ‘In the past two years, several Member States have been trying to label terrorism into categories such as racially and ethnically motivated violent extremism, violent nationalism, and right-wing extremism. According to him, the ’emerging threat’ concept is ‘basically a way to categorize terrorism and violent extremism conducive to terrorism, based on the motivations behind such acts’.
Tirumurti called it a ‘dangerous’ tendency, since it ‘opposes some of the widely accepted principles agreed to by UN Members in the recently adopted Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, which clearly states that terrorism in all its forms and manifestations should be condemned and no act of terrorism can be justified’. The actions he cited would bring us back to the ‘pre-September 11 era’ of identifying terrorists as ‘my terrorists’ and ‘your terrorists’ and ‘erase the collective gains we have made over the last two decades’.
In democracies, Tirumurti asserted that ‘right and left’ are part of the polity primarily because they represent the will of the people and because democracy by definition includes a broad spectrum of ideologies and beliefs. There is a need to be wary of providing a variety of classifications that could diminish democracy. Such labels are being given ‘to so-called threats that are specific to national or regional contexts,’ adding that ‘extrapolating these national or regional narratives into a global narrative is misleading and erroneous’.
The UN has ‘highlighted some of the religious phobias over the years, such as antisemitism, Islamophobia, and Christianophobia – three Abrahamic religions identified in the Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy,’ said Tirumurti, who will lead the 15-member counter-terrorism committee for 2022 beginning this month. He noted that ‘the emergence of new phobias, hatred, and bias against other major religions, especially those held by Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs, must also be taken seriously’. The UN and all members states should consider addressing this threat.
Despite considerable progress made during the last two decades against terrorism, Tirumurti noted, ‘we are witnessing a resurgence of terrorist activities both in their scope and diversity as well as geographical range’. Regarding Afghanistan, Tirumurti warned that terrorists and radical groups are closely watching developments in Afghanistan from within Africa.
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