Terror's fine print
By Rajvikram
Singhdeo '06
(Printed
with permission, TCU Daily Skiff.)
I am an
international student at TCU who has been in the United States for a grand
total of three weeks. This is my first trip to the United States, and
my impressions of this country are quite different from those I had before
coming here.
Like many
others before me, I came not only to get an education, but because I wanted
to come to a country where I can be who I am, be respected and be free.
In my country, India, we faced the problem of terrorism long before the
Sept. 11 crisis. Osama bin Laden has been responsible for terrorism in
our country for the past 10 years. More than the lives that he has taken,
it is the effect he has had on everyday life that is the most galling
to me.
I grew up
dreaming of the day when I could be like the person in cowboy movies wearing
torn denims, listening to Bruce Springsteen bawling ÒBorn in the USAÓ
and driving across miles of freeway. IÕve found that this country has
a lot more than torn denim and the Boss, but the day the U.S. government
becomes like our government back home and imposes curfews and martial
law and forces people to be afraid, terrorism has succeeded. The very
essence of terrorism is to make us afraid of what we are. That is how
I lived in India.
The Indian
constitution is very similar to its American counterpart, yet the prevailing
situation in our country is what will occur here should the curbs on civil
liberties be imposed. For the past 20 years, our country has endured terrorist
attacks from a variety of separatist movementsÑthe Khalistanis in Punjab,
the Bodos in Mizoram, the Harkat Ul Ansar and the Harkat Ul MujahideenÑall
of whom are financed by the same sources who masterminded the Sept. 11
attack.
Two security
laws have become infamous in India: the 1971 Maintenance of Internal Security
Act, which allows the government to arrest individuals without charging
them; and the 1985 Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act, which allows
the government to tap telephones, censor mail and perform raids. Both
were established to supposedly ensure quicker dispensation of justice,
but they have been used in times of war as a tool of extortion and to
target people who eventually turned out to be blamelessÑquite the case
of Òguilty until proven innocent.Ó
I have been
here for a short time, and I donÕt claim to know a lot, but I know thisÑ
the day that America, the last refuge of freedom, and its people are afraid
to live their lives the way they always have, people like me will have
no place of which to dream.
The way
of life that I have experienced here is something I could never have experienced
at home, and itÕs passing under the curbs imposed by the Bush administration.
Rajvikram
is a freshman international finance/marketing major from Calcutta. Contact
him at r.singhdeo@tcu.edu.
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