A Las Vegas police officer was asked by CNN on October 3, 2017 on why the gunman, Stephen Paddock, who killed about 50 people and injured more than 500 was not tagged a “terrorist” and he said that it’s because the “motive” of the gunman was not yet ascertained.
My question is, were the ‘motives’ of previous gunmen and attackers also ascertained first before they were called “terrorist” or more notoriously, ‘Muslim terrorists”?
Remember that the gunman that attacked a gay party was attested to be Islamically unreligious and even a gay himself, but the media maneuvered its way to link him to the so-called Islamic terrorism. Who asked whether he was just retaliating cheating from a gay partner or something? What a world!
This reminds me of a column of the learned writer Dr. Jideofor Adibe titled “IPOB is an Insurgency, not a terrorist organisation” published by Daily Trust on the 28/9/2017. He sets down the conditions that persons must satisfy to be regarded as terrorists in that column. Even though, IPOB satisfied all those conditions, the learned, respected writer concluded that they are not “terrorists”, but “insurgents”. I must say that Dr. Adibe is one of the Nigerian columnists that dare to speak their minds without fear.
However, I remember in his column of 21/9/2017 on the same newspaper, titled “Nnamdi Kanu: the morning after “, he said that he himself and other Igbo writers who dare to speak against IPOB were threatened by IPOB and their apologists to a point that one of his friends named “Okey Ndibe” had to suspend writing on his column for fear of the unknown. Therefore, one may humbly conclude that Dr. Adibe might have been visited by more dangerous threats that made him to prefer playing safe in his recent article.
If we agree to see reason why Adibe will choose to write a rich and analytic column with a contradictory conclusion, who could have possibly threatened the Las Vegas police or by extension the American Government to state that they have to ascertain Stephen’s ‘motive’ before they call him a terrorist, since the old Stephen is even dead? So, unlike the respected Dr. Adibe, the American conclusion was based on ‘motive’.
OK! Now, come to reason with me on the world forsaken Rohingya Muslims. Do you know that when the leader of Myanmar Aung Suun Su Chi met Prime Minister Modi of India on the state of her nation she said that she’s “fighting terrorism”. My God! This are people that are maimed and killed- men, women young and old; their women also raped; and ultimately chased out of their lands in hundreds of thousands, but they qualified to be shamelessly referred to as terrorists by the person who ought to protect their lives and under who’s watch they are dehumanized. Unlike IPOB or Stephen, they killed no soul; they carved no territory they call theirs in treason; they scared or stand as threat to non, but they qualified to be called terrorist by the definition of a so-called Nobel Laureate like Aung Suun Su Chi?
If language is anything important, the 8th Edition of the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary’s definitions of terror and terrorism cover Boko Haram, IPOB, ISIS Stephen Paddock, Myanmar military forces, and all other criminals that instill fear and cause actual harm to law abiding people.
However, Since we are now in a world that offers many definitions and decisions on who should be regarded as terrorist, including that which called the killed, the maimed and the brutalised Rohingya Muslims terrorists, do you think it will be out of place if I wipe my tears and shout on top of my desperate voice to ask the world “who is a terrorist?”
Hussaini Hussaini,
Abuja, [email protected]
