Between Columbine and 9/11
I am already getting tired of reading and hearing that the terrorist attack on Mumbai was "India's 9/11." While I have no doubt that Indians have been traumatized, I think the comparison is overblown and it is dangerous.
The comparison is overblown because of the orders of magnitude in difference when one compares the level of casualties, particularly relative to total population. Of course quantities do not necessarily measure qualities, and I do not want to cater to American exceptionalism, but it is important to compare apples to apples.
The term "9/11" is also dangerous as it is increasingly a mechanism to justify a form of emergency rule in democratic societies. To say that an event is a country's 9/11 is to say that it is the final straw, the gloves are coming off, cliche, cliche, cliche... The phrase helps to justify all manner of unconstitutional and belligerent behavior. While I firmly believe that India should act with determination in brining the criminals who helped to organize the terror atattack to justice, it should also continue to act with restraint.
From a more sober perspective, the horrific attacks in Mumbai are closer on the sliding scale of horror to the Columbine and Virginia Tech massacres in the United States than to the multi-city attack carried out on 9/11. The perpetrators in Mumbai used assault rifles and grenades, not hijacked airplanes. The solution to protecting against this form of terrorism is actually far more challenging than the type of terrorism perpetrated on 9/11, because the targets used such low-tech weapons and basic strategies.
In other words, equating the Mumbai terrorist attacks with Columbine or Virginia Tech should not be viewed as a "demotion" of the relative scale of horror but an elevation of the challenge that India now faces. Guarding a metropolis against another Columbine is much more daunting than focusing in on guarding major airports.
The comparison is overblown because of the orders of magnitude in difference when one compares the level of casualties, particularly relative to total population. Of course quantities do not necessarily measure qualities, and I do not want to cater to American exceptionalism, but it is important to compare apples to apples.
The term "9/11" is also dangerous as it is increasingly a mechanism to justify a form of emergency rule in democratic societies. To say that an event is a country's 9/11 is to say that it is the final straw, the gloves are coming off, cliche, cliche, cliche... The phrase helps to justify all manner of unconstitutional and belligerent behavior. While I firmly believe that India should act with determination in brining the criminals who helped to organize the terror atattack to justice, it should also continue to act with restraint.
From a more sober perspective, the horrific attacks in Mumbai are closer on the sliding scale of horror to the Columbine and Virginia Tech massacres in the United States than to the multi-city attack carried out on 9/11. The perpetrators in Mumbai used assault rifles and grenades, not hijacked airplanes. The solution to protecting against this form of terrorism is actually far more challenging than the type of terrorism perpetrated on 9/11, because the targets used such low-tech weapons and basic strategies.
In other words, equating the Mumbai terrorist attacks with Columbine or Virginia Tech should not be viewed as a "demotion" of the relative scale of horror but an elevation of the challenge that India now faces. Guarding a metropolis against another Columbine is much more daunting than focusing in on guarding major airports.
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