Very often when you turn on the TV and the only news you can here are just terrorist attacks and lots of wars and tragedies of innocent people killed as result of known or unknown circumstances. So, this sentence sounds so simple so ordinary, isn’t it? Actually, that world “ news” that is presented in that sentence above has a lot to do with globalization, but what should we say and how should we define this terrorism word and how connected they are gives the main idea of this paper. We cannot determine when one or the process started so we cannot say for sure if one was born as result of the other. When it comes to defending the terrorism we have the same definitions that we can agree or disagree with. Nowadays the most well know and the most widely accepted definition is the one given by CIA putted in this way:
“The term Terrorism premeditated, politically motivated violence prepared against noncombatant targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience”
But what confuses me here is the controversial thing if this definition is true or they just want us to think that way that this is the truth. In this modern global ere these influences can be spend easier than ever. Usually this is the main argument that the terrorism and globalization are linked the most in that perspective.
First of all, terrorism cannot be easily defined because is meaning strongly depend on its usage or putted in other words, it depends on the fact who is using it, why is using it and in what context it is used. It is just word but it contains many other meanings (ex. Psychological, means to achieve goals est.)
What is more important to me is not to find perfect way to define them, but to show how they link with each other, even though it is difficult task to do because both of the processes are so complicated itself and even more when linked. For most of us the vital this is the security of the country we live in. Security was defined as multi-dimensional, traditional national border-setting type of security perception that is not capabl of recognizing new threats that trances the national borders. But nowadays is not just in border issues, but global issues as well. Fast spread of information and the ability to see in any moment what happened to some other country on the globe and the treat what tomorrow could bring to our homelands made nations to start thinking of terrorism in a different way and that made nations to fight together against it.
Many terrorist attacks and the result that they give are example to the similar problems worldwide. For example we can talk about independence issues. Kosovo case for one is something that shouldn’t happen at all, but for the rest it is considered to be the achievement of something that people wanted for many years.
All of this happening nowadays is not something that occurred today. It was an issues raised during the time of the Yugoslavian Federation. In 1974, Tito gave autonomy to the northern providence of Vojvodina and the southern province of Kosovo. Even though a regime, Titio made the Yugoslavian Federation very strong; the Yugoslav passport was veiled everywhere, technology was developing and parallel to this the economy was improving as well. People remember this time as the best time of their enter lives and as something that can never be achieved once more by any other system or any other leader. After on this kind of case will serve as an example to the rest of the similar problematic regions or putted in other context the one who are willing to achieve the same goal.
There are various issues for Kosovo issues but the most influential one are the religion and ethnicity differences among people in that area. From a religious prospective Kosovo is “the crucible on which Serb nationalism was famous battle fought more than 600 years ago…its memory has been keep alive by Serb nationalism down the centuries” says Bill Schiller expert who wrote a book on Serb national identity.
It is Serbian holy land and on its ground many Serbian Orthodox Christians Churches, monasteries and gravesides are located which makes this a special place for Serbs: Mecca: The Holiest City in Islam, Jerusalem for the Palestinians, Jerusalem and Masada for Jews and Bunker Hill, Independence Hall and Arlington Cemetery for the Americans. That’s why according to Carl Raschke, a religious study professor from University of Denver, taking Kosovo from Serbs is same as taking national identity and he adds that “ the Serbs are likely to let the country be destroyed before they give it up”.
Serbs have adopted religion as a part of their national identity. For them these are an inseparable thing, which is totally different for example for American for who have pointed religion as something personal and documented this in the First Amendment. The ethnic and religious divisions in Kosovo in 1999 looked like this: 1.89 million populations from which 81% is Muslim, 10% is Serbian Orthodox, 9% Roman Catholics and they were 90% Albanians, 10%Serbs, 3% Roma (Gypsies), 1.5% Turks. Today Serb presence in Kosovo is less than 5%.
According to one article published on religious Tolerence web side, a “contact group” consisting of U.S. and Europe countries made the Rembouillet Peace According for Kosovo that was not acceptable for both sides because:
• The Serbs would not let Kosovo gain and allow NATO troops to enter there and maintain peace.
• The ethnic Albanians in Kosovo wanted just full independence and nothing less then that. So, NATO attacked Yugoslavia in order to pursue the government to accept this agreement. The bombing was reduced after a period of time and NATO succeeded the ultimatum in 1999 by which:
• Serbs troops were to withdraw from Kosovo
• NATO overtook peacekeeping in the region
• Albanians were beck in Kosovo As a result of this Serbian and other small minorities left Kosovo because they were scared for their personal safety.
But a “globalization engine’ as United States became the target of terrorism and this can be viwed as a result of the information availability, people experiences and fear of this to happen in their homeland territories which they consider to be different and globalization as something not in their interest.
Same time globalization as a process brought to people new way of thinking about democracy, freedom of speech and spread of human rights. Those are the elements that give people the right to express their dissatisfaction and protect their rights, fight for them and follow the example of someone in the past who achieved that. But the issue is how to implement all of this and still remain human in the real sense of that word.
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Is war and killing the only way to achieve the goals and to draw the attention in order to be heard by government and the world? Can we justify this? Or, considering the other side, the people feeling suppressed should just put their head down and walk quietly through their entire life just in other peace, order and the security of the community to be protected?
In my opinion this is debatable and the answers depend pretty much from the natural of the conflict, its origins as well as depending on the culture of the one explaining this and his personal life experience. Terrorism can be compared to disease, firs we need to know its symptoms and then to determine the diagnosis for it. In other words we have to know all of the details about the conflicts and then to find a way how to solve it, because media does not always tell us the truth, especially when we take in consideration something related to politics and government.
Historically we know about many war, holocausts and massive killings in many countries during the past, but nowadays mostly if someone starts to talk about terrorism one of the first things that would come to our mind would be the terrorist attack of 9/11. “September 11 gave a message that the target was the main leader of globalization, the United States”. Even if media/ globalization is not responsible for this attack, it explains how an attack is managed to be organized and performed. In this case a plane was transformed in weapon. All of this problems made nations gather and decide to start the “war against terrorism” So, this means force(terrorist) fighting with strong force (state or international intervention) or punishing the terrorist with even higher or stronger level of terrorism.
We can leave it to see in future who will be written as terrorist and who will became the freedom fighter. But still we cannot continue in this way. The people are arguing who is right and who is wrong for long time now. That required lots of blood and nowadays people are even under the threat of global terrorism. Was that the plan when we were establishing the common village idea or the belonging? Was the aim to spread what somewhere something happened to the rest of the world? As stated in Security of Globalization article, which terrorist also use the positive points of globalization for their actions and as an example was given ability to spread the fear around the world through the media.
Also as they say “terrorist use globalization of transformation, communication, information, technology and finance”. But there is another side of this and that is globalization process will go to that border that we would all become same and the world would really become flat so we would all have same views on what is negative and what is positive for all of us, it is early to say.
But this is impossible to achieve because people simply cannot same and think in same way all around the worlds. The last variant for solving is some compromise to be made. In a way a balance between this differences, observation and stereotypes among the people belong to different cultures. Let’s hope that nowadays we are witnessing the “beginning of the end of terrorism”, winning it unified together.
