Causes of terror remains poverty

The Coalition Forces, led by the U.S., have successfully crushed the Taliban and have almost gained full control of Afghanistan. The fight against international terrorism has been won, though those who had allegedly master-minded the attacks on the World Trade Center (WTC) and Pentagon remain at large.

The victory would be more real for the Coalition Forces if they had bothered to pay some attention to the root causes, which led to such extreme actions in the first place. What ideology do these terrorists follow? To crush an ideology seems to be an impossible task unless it is openly known what the root causes are.

In appearance, the communist ideology has been destroyed in many countries, including Indonesia. In reality though, it is living in the hearts and minds of many people in the West and in the East and among the Taliban ranks, although under a religious veil. Once again, the root causes are undoubtedly linked to the unfair distribution of global wealth, among and within the world's nations. In other words, unless world poverty is replaced by a semblance of normal human existence, where there is no more misery among the poor, extremism will always appeal to the starving millions.

Osama bin Laden is now a legendary figure among many of the Muslim poor (including one captured U.S. Taliban supporter) who may have thought wrongly that the destruction of the WTC or for that matter, the Western capitalist system, would improve the fate of their children. To us, this is a false impression because there are still many people outside Afghanistan who are deprived of basic human rights.

Poverty has not been successfully eliminated, there are hungry people even though there have been thousands of caring individuals in the past.

One would hope that the saints in heaven would be willing to descend to earth and that the prophets would join them in looking for a lasting, peaceful and brotherly existence among men and women.

I fear that even then there would still be extreme elements who refuse to listen to the most heavenly advice. As the year 2002 approaches the laughter of the devils seem louder and more audible than the chorus of the angels.

GANDHI SUKARDI

Jakarta