By Meher Ahmad
<[email protected]>

In the post-9/11 world we live in, terrorism is forever an imminent threat. Last month, the United States looked back on seven years after the tragedy that was Sept. 11.

Since then, the suicide bombing has continued. Whether in the busy markets of Tel Aviv or in the metros of London, terrorism has grown and spread like unrelenting cancer.

Recently a suicide bomber detonated about 600 kg of explosives in front of the Marriot Hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan. It left a 50-foot crater in the parking lot and brought down two stories of burning metal and debris.

My aunt and her family were in the hotel eating dinner. Thankfully, no one was injured since they were in the back and the blast was in the front.

My aunt described to my mother the feeling of an exploding bomb. She was taking her young son, my cousin, to the restroom, and on their way out, the bomb detonated. She fell over from the blast and the room became engulfed in smoke and debris. She immediately began looking for her son who was crying a few feet in front of her. She then ran into the room where her husband and youngest son were standing, frozen in shock. Her shoes had fallen off her feet when she fell, and when she ran out of the building, the broken glass cut deep into her feet. Their car, parked in the back, had a broken windshield. Her husband, still reeling from the blast, kicked it out and they drove home in the shell of the vehicle.

My initial reaction to this news was typical of anyone who knew his or her loved ones were intentionally harmed: anger. How dare some ignorant infidel further tarnish the name of my country and hurt my family? How dare he make a mockery of the Islamic religion and prove the image of the Muslim world the media has painted?

Anger, though, I quickly realized, does not find solutions. Anger results in rash reactions, like invading whole countries on false allegations, or taking certain rights away from innocent civilians. Anger results in more bombings, both suicidal and planned by governments. Anger doesn’t solve the problem, it escalates it.

After thinking through the whole hotel bombing thoroughly, I thought of the man who did it. The man driving the truck, armed with explosives around his waist. He was probably illiterate, or at least brainwashed into believing that in detonating this bomb he would be given a free pass to heaven.

It is interesting to see the bomber’s perspectives and what drives men to such inhumane lengths. Critically acclaimed movies such as “Paradise Now” and “Syriana” show the journey of such men, from suppressed voices to pawns in a global battle.

The people who drive men to these acts are the real culprits, not the suicide bomber themselves. The only way the masterminds reach their ultimate goal is the same way priests did to crusaders: lying. Who is to question the word of an educated literate man when everyone else is illiterate?

Education is the true battlefield against terrorism. According to the CIA world fact book, the literacy rate in Afghanistan is a dismal 28.1 percent, with a shocking 12.6 percent for women. Pakistan’s overall literacy rate is 49.9 percent, which is still substantially lower than the 99 percent of the United States.

When the young men and sometimes women of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Palestine and other countries know for themselves what the Qu’ran says, they can think for themselves what their God would want. When they can read the effects of suicide bombings on society, they can feel a sense of responsibility and morality. They can make their own decisions, instead of listening only to the misinformed Mullah who feeds them.

Maybe it is idealistic of me to think that words and books and pens can stop this. It seems like a simple solution to a complex problem, as one of my teachers would say. But maybe this a simple solution that ought to have a chance, because after millions of innocent people dead, including civilians and suicide bombers, something has to change.