The nation system

Terror attacks all over the world in the last 10 years, have made me think about the reason behind the existence of terrorism.

I do not deny that the major backing to terrorism is from people and countries who do it for politics, power and money, yet, the people who kill themselves in these attacks are motivated by a personal cause which they very strongly believe in. These could be their feeling of oppression by another country/religion from which they want to gain independence. Be it Kashmiris in India, LTTE in Sri Lanka or Chechnya guys in Russia.

If we look at the history of human civilization, we have moved from anarchy in the hunting/gathering pre-historic times to reign by tribal lords through force to peaceful monarchies to national invasions and colonialism (by British, French etc) to the most recent system of independent nations after World War II. Yet, this system too is not the ultimate solution. Terrorism, I think, is one of the signs of an inertia towards many-small-and-independent-countries system with multi-lateral cooperation between neighboring states. We are seeing the same model bring great development and prosperity in Europe. Would the region have been so peaceful, if it was just one nation and not so many small nations? I strongly doubt it. History shows that there is a deep resentment among people from the various countries of Europe, namely between the English, French, Germans etc. In fact, the internal feud between the various regions of "United Kingdom", shows that people of different culture find it very hard to live together.

Despite all the development in technologies which connect people, I do not see any sign of people from different cultures merging into one peaceful culture/nation. There isn't any tendency to secede in the US, because the culture here is very homogeneous throughout the country. Whereas in countries like India, there is a separatist movement in almost every part of the country.

Therefore, even though I am neither pushing for it nor assuming that it would ever happen, I think, the current nation system is pushing towards a new system where, instead of few large nations, there are many small countries, each of which is homogeneous in itself in culture, and who cooperate which each other very extensively to form a economy where none needs to be self-sufficient and yet in collaboration each is prosperous.

In the end, I would like to leave you with two questions.
1) Since every country's boundaries where defined mostly by force during the history of its creation, like India's integration during 1947-1950, or Unites States forceful acquisition of southern states like Texas and California, what reason is there in claiming that people of a region have no right to secede if they so wish based on cultural differences. To start with, the formation of the country was not caused due to great unity among the people of its different regions. The only reason is that the stability and peace of a country will be disturbed. Yet, if this desire itself become the cause of pain to the entire country, is it not better to just let the people be at peace on their own lands.

2) By what logic do we call these people terrorist and hate them, when we call participants of violent independence struggles of present countries to be revolutionaries and freedom fighters? At the time of these struggles many of them killed not just officials of ruling countries but also their families. And yes, they were actually called terrorists by the then foreign governments, in writing.

Terror

We have all heard the page-3 people and common people, instigated by the press, screaming against the politicians in the wake of Mumbai terror attacks recently.
To me, it sounds very artificial. Here I present my view on the incident, the response seen and the response required.

The terror attacks could take place because we have a lax security and intelligence system. Our self-interested politicians are more busy in petty politics. Our administrative system has not been developed to handle such complicated situations. Our intelligence agencies have little coordination and not enough financial support to keep up a constant effective vigil.

But crying hoarse of the politicians is a practice that the media has supported with full vigor because it gives them spicier sound bites, a more agitated audience and hence bigger viewership. Criticizing someone who is already in the dock as it would be hard for him to defend himself because of his fallen image is a very common trick. Children do that in school to offload a possible accusation on them over to an infamous kid even if he wasn't even present at the crime scene.

These attacks are a result of the overall failure of the system. Weak laws, defective election procedures and most importantly, the lack of will to call this country our own.

What do we need now ?
1) A well developed crisis management team and rules/laws.
2) A new federal intelligence agency for internal and partly external intelligence gathering with huge funds.
3) A warning to Pakistan that the patience of India has run out, and the next such incident would invite direct strikes on the terror camps in PoK.

What we can do about generating the same feeling of nationalism and pride in our country that US has, I do not know.