Global Policy Forum

By N. Hassan Wirajuda

The Indonesian police are making progress in investigating the Bali terrorist bombings. They have now been provided with the legal powers that allow them to act decisively. A well-coordinated national intelligence and police effort to fight terrorism is on track.

The global threat of terrorism and the vigorous measures being taken to combat it were the focus of the ninth summit meeting in Phnom Penh last week of ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Long before the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center in September 2001, ASEAN had a program against terrorism and other transnational crimes. It is being enlarged and intensified to match the new stakes.

ASEAN is taking extra measures to choke the flow of terrorist funds while protecting the free flow of goods and people, which is the lifeblood of the global economy. ASEAN's anti-terrorist steps are being taken in cooperation with other countries that have close ties with the group, including the United States and Australia. At the summit meeting last week, Cambodia and Thailand joined the treaty between Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia to share intelligence and work together on border control.

Despite all the intelligence and police measures, however, there will never be an absolute guarantee that the guns and bombs of terror will be silenced forever. In the war on terror, we are not fighting a rational and visible adversary. This is an enemy that does battle by stealth, treachery and ruthlessness. It is a cowardly enemy that relishes horrific attacks on what it considers "soft" targets - innocent people going about their daily lives.

If the war on terror is carried out only through military action and police work, the best that can be achieved is a deadlock. We will round up a few terrorists but never enough; more innocent people will die. But if the root causes can be effectively addressed, there is a good chance of ending terrorism.

Of course, terrorism may have many forms. Yet they are all the dreadful offspring of the same seeds. Terrorism arises from ignorance and prejudice, from injustice and alienation. It is hatred born of helplessness and despair. Terrorism feeds on poverty. Therefore, its ultimate defeat is linked to the conquest of poverty.

It is true that many terrorists are by no means poor. Osama bin Laden is no pauper, but all the money in the world could not have bought him a rabid following if he had not been able to exploit ignorance, prejudice and despair, setting himself and his terrorist warriors as the avenger of grievances.

The grievances that built his following have causes, which can be changed. If they are imagined, they can be exorcised by education; if they are real, they can be redressed with social justice. Such remedies, though, are possible only in societies where there is a robust process of political, social and economic development.

Terrorists like nothing better than governments that fail to create social justice, that fail to deliver social services, and fail to nurture economies that provide jobs. Terrorist organizers step into the vacuum of failure with blandishments of a utopia that they promise to build on the ruins of the status quo.

The worst that can happen to terrorists is not arrest or even death, for they believe that will bring them martyrdom and paradise hereafter. The worst thing is to be deprived of their cause, to be disrobed of their moral pretensions, to become irrelevant to the lives of those whom they claim to champion.

That will happen when people are confident enough about their future that they have no use for utopias. It will happen when governments deliver social services and honest courts redress grievances, when businesses create jobs and people know that their children will have a fair chance for a better life.

That is the ultimate antidote to terrorism. And it happens to be a very large part of the ASEAN agenda. So while ASEAN must not relent in its fight against terrorist networks and cells, neither must it falter in the pursuit of economic integration within the region, and wider integration with its partner economies, especially those in Northeast Asia.

Integration is important because it brings real economic benefits. ASEAN must not stop its fight against terror; but neither must it stop fighting poverty or seeking a better life for its citizens.

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