Ter-ror-ism
If you look it up in the dictionary, this is what it says about terrorism:
~noun
1. the use of violence and threat to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes.
By G. Krishnan
2. The state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization.
3. A terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government.
The government and the media can refer to the bombings of the churches and the most recent attack on the Sikh temple in Sentul as arson, stone-throwing, or whatever other euphemism but there is no getting around the obvious.
These are acts of terrorism.
And we are dancing around, tip-toeing, walking on word egg-shells, so to speak, because we don’t want to confront the obvious: the government’s ploy of repeatedly politicizing religion has brought us to the point where terror is now being deployed by certain parties to achieve their political ends.
Terror, as defined by the dictionary above, refers to “the use of violence and threat to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes.” Which part of this definition and description do the media not understand?
Terrorism has become part and parcel of how political intimidation now occurs in the country. There was a time when politicians made tacit threats and warned minorities in their speeches. We regressed, for example, to mobs on the streets, which would intimidate others from hosting perfectly legitimate and legal forums to discuss human rights issues. These mobs would be protected by the police and allowed to force the legal forums from being conducted.
In other words, those using intimidation were allowed to prevail.
Read more at: IMAGINE…
