People's Democracy

ISLAM IS NOT SYNONYMOUS WITH  TERRORISM: MILLIE COUNCIL

ALL-India Millie Council (AIMC) has roundly condemned the notion that Islam stands for terrorism. This is very wrong and the very notion whether expressed in public or nurtured as a mind-set, harms inter-community feelings, creating mutual distrust and hatred. The well-attended convention was held recently in Kolkata.

Biman Basu, Left Front chairman and senior CPI(M) leader stressed that terrorism must be condemned, opposed, and struggled against - by all means. However, it would be very wrong indeed if one indulges in the feeling that a particular religious community, or, for that matter, a linguistic group, or a regional set, represents terrorism per se.  Biman Basu drew attention of the large assemblage to the State terrorism being unleashed on the world arena by the forces of US imperialism and its underlings.

In the 1970s, after the US had been kicked out of Vietnam, the arch-imperialist, John Foster Dulles, was fond of saying that the US now had two principal, and one implacable enemy. They were the USSR, the People's Republic of China, and the NAM.

A series of leaders of the Left and Communist persuasion in the developing countries were cruelly murdered at the behest of the US secret services in the 1960s - like Mohammad Mossadeq in Iran, and Patrice �mery Lumumba of the Republic of Congo, both in covert CIA operations known in their cryptonym form as 'Ajax.'  Many more such dastardly murders followed, setting a malodorous example of what State-sponsored terrorism was, in practice. Biman quoted el commandante Fidel and said that the US had set up over 40 terrorist outfits across the globe, and these 40 'core groups' have spawned 500 more such groups.

'INFILTRATORS'

The Millie Convention also fulminated against the recent development in India where anybody speaking the Bangla language and professing the faith of Islam were dubbed as 'Bangladeshis,' and declared to be persona non grata, heavily hinting at their being 'terrorist infiltrators,' (in the RSS-BJP's uniquely chosen phraseology.)  

Muslim craftsmen originally from various districts of Bengal were driven out of Gujarat and from Mumbai, after dubbing them as Bangladeshi infiltrators.  This should be sternly condemned, declared Biman Basu.  In this regard, Bengal continues to flourish as a tolerant, peace-loving haven in a nation often badly affected by inter-religion and inter-language, even inter-region strifes.

India's foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee spoke against all forms of terrorism and pointed out that the term 'Islamic terrorism' was coined by the US after the Twin Tower bombings of September 11.  He also stood opposed to dubbing all Bangla-speaking Muslims as Bangladeshis.  Pranab Mukherjee condemned BJP leader L K Advani's dictum that any Muslim coming over from erstwhile East Pakistan - later Bangladesh - should be called 'infiltrators.'

Other speakers at the convention included Rajya Sabha's deputy chairman, K Rahaman Khan, AIMC president Maulana Qazi Fazlur Rahaman, chairman of the state human rights commission, Shyamal Sen, MP S Malihabadi, Dr Maulana Shah Qadiri, and Mohd Aftab who was wrongly detained as a 'terrorist' by the Uttar Pradesh police, tortured, and then later released, having been unable to produce proof of any sort to press charges.

(B P)