Eliminating terror

By Naguib Mahfouz

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"How do we eliminate terror in the world?" the Japanese journalist asked me. We will only eliminate terror once we have justice around the world, I replied. When each and every nation feels that it is getting what it wants out of life, no one will resort to terror. Terror is borne of injustice, of the feeling that one has been wronged. This applies to the international scene as well as the domestic. Any group in society that feels wronged, or feels that the entire society is wronged, may turn to terror.

"Equality in injustice is justice," goes the common saying, but I disagree. Injustice is wrong, even if equally distributed. Citizens need to be treated with dignity both at home and abroad. This does not mean that we should abandon security precautions. The security services must keep tracking down terrorists and bringing them to justice. But we cannot stop at that. We mustn't treat the symptoms of terror and forget its causes.

"What of the staging arenas of the war on terror?" the journalist asked. I said that terror is a universal phenomenon, not one limited within certain borders. War is not the cure, for it only accentuates the injustice done to certain nations.

Based on an interview by Mohamed Salmawy.