The phenomenon of franchise terrorism

Besides developed nations, developing nations like Bangladesh is also facing inhuman terror attacks

The present world order seems to be spinning dangerously out of control and a sense of chaos is reigning into the minds of the people of Europe. To begin with, Brexit was alone a great shock, as nobody was expecting such decision Britain took, the war in Syria is bleeding continuously into a refugee crisis pushing a good percentage of population on the extreme right-nationalist track, in USA a white cop kills two innocent blacks followed by a black killing five white police men, the heinous truck attack in France, then it’s a man with an axe on a train in Germany, and last Friday, it was a shooting in a mall in Munich again in Germany.
What is actually going on? Who is or who should be held responsible for all terror acts that are taking place in soil of Europe also of the USA? Besides developed nations, even the developing and a  underdeveloped nation like that of Bangladesh is also facing many such hazardous and inhumane terror attacks and  it is the IS that took the responsibility for all most all the attacks.
The tough and the riddle-ridden question that is running through the heads of the security-experts of all these countries, is, how then to tackle the situation, how to stop this violence and safeguard the life of the common innocent men and women?
Everybody is bewildered, as nobody has a clear picture of the quality of the recent terror attacks, because it does not follow any pattern.  Attack in Nice (France) has perplexed everybody. A simple man, Tunisian immigrant, having no past record of violence, no past record of being connected to any of the terror organizations, comes up, goes mad, and what is important here to emphasize that, he uses the given logistic as a deadly killing weapon and kills more than 80 men, women and children, who came to celebrate the day of French Revolution.
As it seems, today we are stuck with a totally new form of violence, not only the form but  the content is also a new one : The classical form of  terrorism that can be traced back in to the nineteenth century, was dictated by a concept of "social/ national revolution"  and the target of violence was carefully chosen to be somebody from the ruling, elite class, - in fact this  constituted the secondary target -  primary being to evoke inspiration/motivation into the minds of the "interested third" who is  then expected  to join in the  "revolutionary   process"  to change  the given sociopolitical foundation of the society, Mao Tze Dong can be named as the forerunner of this concept of revolutionary, or otherwise also called as  "progressive" violence, followed later by Che Guevara and Charu Majumdar of Latin America and India
respectively.
In the classical form of the terrorism, the act of violence was carefully planned and targeted against a small number of highly valued "agents" of the system that was to be destabilized and carried out by a small number of educated, ideologically motivated young people in a way so that no one from the class of the " interested third" was affected, in order to win/recruit them in to the elementary process of the intended destruction of social-political or national power structures.
Whereas that, what is being termed taday as Jihadi or IS- Violence, it follows a very different concept: Their target can be anyone (today a three months old child and tomorrow me, a 63 years old man: can be a Muslim or a non- Muslim, it does not matter for them) because the target of their violence is intentionally chosen amongst men, women and children on the streets/shopping mall or a restaurant etc., anyone of us can turn in to a object of their killing any time. So, practically nobody is safe. That is what is panicking. They want to terrorize the whole population, the whole country, the whole continent. It seems they have decided for an all out war against the rest of the world. And the war should be as brutal as it can be. This message could be read out of every step they walked since the day one when the IS made its appearance visible.
IS offers everybody whosoever can come up with any sort dreadful action, a good amount of money and support, and promptly accepts the responsibility of such atrocious activities. It means any one can avail the franchise of IS Terrorism and become a member of the IS. Through this tactics,  the IS does not need to recruit potential terrorists, rather, anyone who is unsatisfied with  the society where he lives in, or not in position to deal with his/her own life, a life dipped in identity crisis, such a life can then be ended  with a ‘heroic’ act :  IS offers them a ‘better’ way to die.  In this way the IS ‘creates’ or invites millions of unorganized “sleeper” or as they call “sleeping wolves” to become active. This tactics of IS has made the borders of Europe and America practically fluid.
The situation has become literally intolerable, out of which a right-wing aggressive political trend is coming up in all the societies of developed nations. A political chaos is apparently in the offing in these nations, both in Europe and in North America.
Turkey, the gateway to Europe, in lieu of a good amount of concessions from German PM Angela Merkel, has come to the rescue. Erdogan has taken up the job of holding back the immigrants at its border. Since then only few have been able to cross in to Europe.
The primary root of today’s violence, as per Naomi Klein, the author of  “The Shock Doctrine” lies in the Neo-Liberal Economic Order : Liberalization, Deregulation and Privatization were the cardinal instruments of the shock economics.  At the end of the four decades of “Shock Economics”, the world economy is now in hands of few thousand families who command over more than 85% of total world’s wealth. On the other hand,  the other part of the story as Josef Stieglitz, the former head of the World Bank and also a Nobel laureate in economics, has found out, that the wage has remained as low as before 40 years. For the last 40 years there were no increases in wage.
The world is experiencing a devastating war for more than a decade or more specifically said, one war after another: Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and now Syria. This prolonged war has fragmented and changed the constellation of power: Before Europe could make any move to manipulate the situation in the Middle East to their favor, Russia moved in. Russia, in spite of a long-drawn-out provocation by USA will in no way, as it seems, let Syria and Iran fall.
A new coalition of the combined West has apparently become impossible: USA is not interested to get into this chaos anymore out of two grounds: USA is trying to minimize the costs of war, will give herself satisfied, if the pressure on the IS can be kept onwards and internal security strengthened so that, terror acts are minimized and secondly that, she does not need too much bothered about the security of Israel, as she is now in an apt position to defend herself. Brexit has proved that Britain is not ready to share the cost of the mess created by the post American Middle East. Turkey an ally of the West is not interested to fight the IS, as her interest lies in the suppression of the Kurdish Movement, which indirectly can only strengthen the IS.  Saudi Arabia another ally of the West has remained tight lipped, as Wahabism somehow connects them with the IS. Europe due to many reasons is also divided from within. If at all there is a coalition against Syria and IS, it is believed that it shall be at the highest a half hearted coalition.
The fundamental question in this fragile power situation is, how Europe can defend herself against the IS terrors, especially the “sleeping wolves”? The immigrant question has already made the internal situation considerably volatile, popular protests are coming up – a rightist political shift, that tend towards a “Renationalization”- program, meaning a roll-back of globalization, accruing enough political  pressure on the ruling governments  in Europe.

The writer is an economist

The phenomenon of franchise terrorism

Besides developed nations, developing nations like Bangladesh is also facing inhuman terror attacks

The present world order seems to be spinning dangerously out of control and a sense of chaos is reigning into the minds of the people of Europe. To begin with, Brexit was alone a great shock, as nobody was expecting such decision Britain took, the war in Syria is bleeding continuously into a refugee crisis pushing a good percentage of population on the extreme right-nationalist track, in USA a white cop kills two innocent blacks followed by a black killing five white police men, the heinous truck attack in France, then its a man with an axe on a train in Germany, and last Friday, it was a shooting in a mall in Munich again in Germany. What is actually going on? Who is or who should be held responsible for all terror acts that are taking place in soil of Europe also of the USA? Besides developed nations, even the developing and a underdeveloped nation like that of Bangladesh is also facing many such hazardous and inhumane terror attacks and it is the IS that took the responsibility for all most all the attacks. The tough and the riddle-ridden question that is running through the heads of the security-experts of all these countries, is, how then to tackle the situation, how to stop this violence and safeguard the life of the common innocent men and women? Everybody is bewildered, as nobody has a clear picture of the quality of the recent terror attacks, because it does not follow any pattern. Attack in Nice (France) has perplexed everybody. A simple man, Tunisian immigrant, having no past record of violence, no past record of being connected to any of the terror organizations, comes up, goes mad, and what is important here to emphasize that, he uses the given logistic as a deadly killing weapon and kills more than 80 men, women and children, who came to celebrate the day of French Revolution. As it seems, today we are stuck with a totally new form of violence, not only the form but the content is also a new one : The classical form of terrorism that can be traced back in to the nineteenth century, was dictated by a concept of social/ national revolution and the target of violence was carefully chosen to be somebody from the ruling, elite class, - in fact this constituted the secondary target - primary being to evoke inspiration/motivation into the minds of the interested third who is then expected to join in the revolutionary process to change the given sociopolitical foundation of the society, Mao Tze Dong can be named as the forerunner of this concept of revolutionary, or otherwise also called as progressive violence, followed later by Che Guevara and Charu Majumdar of Latin America and India respectively. In the classical form of the terrorism, the act of violence was carefully planned and targeted against a small number of highly valued agents of the system that was to be destabilized and carried out by a small number of educated, ideologically motivated young people in a way so that no one from the class of the interested third was affected, in order to win/recruit them in to the elementary process of the intended destruction of social-political or national power structures. Whereas that, what is being termed taday as Jihadi or IS- Violence, it follows a very different concept: Their target can be anyone (today a three months old child and tomorrow me, a 63 years old man: can be a Muslim or a non- Muslim, it does not matter for them) because the target of their violence is intentionally chosen amongst men, women and children on the streets/shopping mall or a restaurant etc., anyone of us can turn in to a object of their killing any time. So, practically nobody is safe. That is what is panicking. They want to terrorize the whole population, the whole country, the whole continent. It seems they have decided for an all out war against the rest of the world. And the war should be as brutal as it can be. This message could be read out of every step they walked since the day one when the IS made its appearance visible. IS offers everybody whosoever can come up with any sort dreadful action, a good amount of money and support, and promptly accepts the responsibility of such atrocious activities. It means any one can avail the franchise of IS Terrorism and become a member of the IS. Through this tactics, the IS does not need to recruit potential terrorists, rather, anyone who is unsatisfied with the society where he lives in, or not in position to deal with his/her own life, a life dipped in identity crisis, such a life can then be ended with a heroic act : IS offers them a better way to die. In this way the IS creates or invites millions of unorganized sleeper or as they call sleeping wolves to become active. This tactics of IS has made the borders of Europe and America practically fluid. The situation has become literally intolerable, out of which a right-wing aggressive political trend is coming up in all the societies of developed nations. A political chaos is apparently in the offing in these nations, both in Europe and in North America. Turkey, the gateway to Europe, in lieu of a good amount of concessions from German PM Angela Merkel, has come to the rescue. Erdogan has taken up the job of holding back the immigrants at its border. Since then only few have been able to cross in to Europe. The primary root of todays violence, as per Naomi Klein, the author of The Shock Doctrine lies in the Neo-Liberal Economic Order : Liberalization, Deregulation and Privatization were the cardinal instruments of the shock economics. At the end of the four decades of Shock Economics, the world economy is now in hands of few thousand families who command over more than 85% of total worlds wealth. On the other hand, the other part of the story as Josef Stieglitz, the former head of the World Bank and also a Nobel laureate in economics, has found out, that the wage has remained as low as before 40 years. For the last 40 years there were no increases in wage. The world is experiencing a devastating war for more than a decade or more specifically said, one war after another: Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and now Syria. This prolonged war has fragmented and changed the constellation of power: Before Europe could make any move to manipulate the situation in the Middle East to their favor, Russia moved in. Russia, in spite of a long-drawn-out provocation by USA will in no way, as it seems, let Syria and Iran fall. A new coalition of the combined West has apparently become impossible: USA is not interested to get into this chaos anymore out of two grounds: USA is trying to minimize the costs of war, will give herself satisfied, if the pressure on the IS can be kept onwards and internal security strengthened so that, terror acts are minimized and secondly that, she does not need too much bothered about the security of Israel, as she is now in an apt position to defend herself. Brexit has proved that Britain is not ready to share the cost of the mess created by the post American Middle East. Turkey an ally of the West is not interested to fight the IS, as her interest lies in the suppression of the Kurdish Movement, which indirectly can only strengthen the IS. Saudi Arabia another ally of the West has remained tight lipped, as Wahabism somehow connects them with the IS. Europe due to many reasons is also divided from within. If at all there is a coalition against Syria and IS, it is believed that it shall be at the highest a half hearted coalition. The fundamental question in this fragile power situation is, how Europe can defend herself against the IS terrors, especially the sleeping wolves? The immigrant question has already made the internal situation considerably volatile, popular protests are coming up a rightist political shift, that tend towards a Renationalization- program, meaning a roll-back of globalization, accruing enough political pressure on the ruling governments in Europe. The writer is an economist