The Next World Order
By Gurcharan Das, the author of India Unbound (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 02/01/09):
China and India are in a struggle for a top rung on the ladder of world power, but their approaches to the state and to power could not be more different.
Two days after last month’s terrorist attack on Mumbai, I met with a Chinese friend who was visiting India on business. He was shocked as much by the transparent and competitive minute-by-minute reporting of the attack by India’s dozens of news channels as by the ineffectual response of the government. He had seen a middle-class housewife on national television…
From Munich to Mumbai
By Ami Pedazhur, a professor of Middle Eastern studies at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of the forthcoming book The Israeli Secret Services and the Struggle Against Terrorism (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 20/12/08):
Now that India and the world are over the initial shock of the terrorist attacks last month in Mumbai, efforts to understand what happened and prevent future calamities are being hampered in ways familiar to Israelis like myself, who have lived through far too many such events: pointless efforts to place blame, and a failure to put the attacks in the proper historical context.
First, contrary…
Caos y terrorismo en ‘el otro Oriente Próximo’
Por Robert D. Kaplan, analista político de la revista The Atlantic y socio numerario del Center for a New American Security (EL MUNDO, 15/12/08):
Las divisiones conforme a las que fue compartimentado el mundo durante la Guerra Fría se han venido finalmente abajo por culpa de los recientes atentados terroristas de Bombay. Desde ahora, no vamos a considerar nunca más el sur de Asia como una zona distinta de Oriente Próximo. En estos momentos hay un único y extenso continuum, que abarca desde el Mediterráneo a las junglas de Birmania, con todo un sinfín de crisis: desde el conflicto entre israelíes…
El hervidero tras los atentados de Bombay
Por Emilio Menéndez del Valle, embajador de España y eurodiputado socialista (EL PAÍS, 13/12/08):
Bombay (que hubo de pasar a denominarse Mumbai a causa de las presiones de los fanáticos hinduistas) quedará grabado en la memoria de la humanidad. Tras los atentados allí ocurridos, hay que resaltar dos factores. Uno, el terrorismo de los fundamentalistas islámicos está a la ofensiva. Dos, no habrá solución al gigantesco arco de crisis que va desde el Mediterráneo oriental (Palestina) hasta el Mar de China, pasando por Afganistán, hasta que se produzca un acercamiento real entre India y Pakistán. Tal acercamiento no será del todo…
Después de Bombay
Por Ignasi Guardans, diputado en el Parlamento Europeo (EL PAÍS, 12/12/08):
Hace apenas dos semanas, el destino y la costumbre personal de no cenar nunca en los hoteles en que me alojo me sacó del hotel Taj Mahal de Bombay minutos antes de que un grupo de terroristas asesinara a tiros a parte del personal de recepción al que acababa de saludar, iniciando así una orgía de violencia de cerca de 48 horas. Todos cuantos vivimos aquella noche, unos con peligro inminente y directo para sus vidas dentro de los hoteles, otros escuchando las explosiones desde nuestro refugio en lugares cercanos…
Bombay, 26 al 29 de noviembre: ¿estamos ante una innovación contagiosa en el terrorismo global?
Por Fernando Reinares, investigador principal de terrorismo internacional y director del Programa sobre Terrorismo Global del Real Instituto Elcano, y catedrático de Ciencia Política y Estudios de Seguridad en la Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (REAL INSTITUTO ELCANO, 04/12/08):
Tema: En este ARI se interpreta la serie coordinada de atentados ocurridos en Bombay: quién está detrás y cuáles son sus motivaciones, analizando lo que de innovador hay en los mismos y sus implicaciones en el devenir del terrorismo global.
Resumen: Lo innovador de la serie de atentados que se prolongaron desde la noche del miércoles 26 de noviembre hasta la mañana del sábado día…
Comparing Mumbai to 9/11 diminishes both tragedies
By Priyamvada Gopal, a teacher in the English faculty at Cambridge University (THE GUARDIAN, 04/12/08):
Every brutal massacre of defenceless innocents must draw from us a kindred horror, whether it is Hiroshima 1945, Deir Yassin 1948, Sharpeville 1960, Halabja 1988, New York 2001, Gujarat 2002, or Haditha 2005. But each also bears the imprints of its place and time and we must commemorate them accordingly.
The now familiar refrain describing last week’s attacks in Mumbai as “India’s 9/11″ diminishes both that carnage and the atrocity in New York seven years ago. The one is not a derivative of the other, though both…
Unos reflejos deplorables
Por Edward N. Luttwak , experto del Centro de Estudios Estratégicose Internacionales (CSIS) de Washington. Traducción: JoséMaría Puig de la Bellacasa (LA VANGUARDIA, 03/12/08):
India es, en efecto, un país democrático. De ahí que el ministro del Interior y responsable de la seguridad, Shivraj Patil, dimitiera con prontitud por los atentados de Bombay en los que un total de diez terroristas mataron a unas doscientas personas, hirieron a varios centenares y causaron notables estragos. En su declaración, Patil afirmó que asumía la “responsabilidad ministerial”; esto es, una responsabilidad en sentido formal, no sustantivo. Mejor que no hubiera abierto la boca: desde que…
The shadows of Mumbai
By Siddhartha Deb, the author of the novel An Outline of the Republic. He is writing a non-fiction book about India (THE GUARDIAN, 03/12/08):
It may be because I’ve never lived in Mumbai, but when news of last week’s horrifying siege began to filter through on television and the internet, I found it hard to reconcile myself to the idea that the Taj, the Oberoi and even Cafe Leopold are places that define everything Mumbai stands for.
I’ve never been to the Oberoi or Cafe Leopold, and although I wandered into the Taj lobby on one of my first visits to the…
India’s 9/11? Not Exactly
By Amitav Ghosh, the author, most recently, of the novel Sea of Poppies (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 03/12/08):
Since the terrorist assaults began in Mumbai last week, the metaphor of the World Trade Center attacks has been repeatedly invoked. From New Delhi to New York, pundits and TV commentators have insisted that “this is India’s 9/11” and should be treated as such. Nearly every newspaper in India has put “9/11” into its post-massacre headlines. The secretary general of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the leading Hindu nationalist political faction, has not only likened the Mumbai attack to those on the World Trade Center…
Fresh Blood From an Old Wound
By Pankaj Mishra, the author of Temptations of the West: How to Be Modern in India, Pakistan, Tibet and Beyond (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 02/12/08):
Midway through last week’s murderous rampage in Mumbai, one of the suspected gunmen at the besieged Jewish center called a popular Indian TV channel. Speaking in Urdu (the primary language of Pakistan and many Indian Muslims), he ranted against the recent visit of an Israeli general to the Indian-ruled section of the Kashmir Valley. Referring to the Pakistan-backed insurgency in the valley, and the Indian military response to it, he asked, “Are you aware how many people…
Flowers for the Taj
By Anosh Irani, the author, most recently, of The Song of Kahunsha (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 02/12/08):
As I watched the Taj Mahal hotel breathe fire, I remembered my grandfather, Burjor. For more than 30 years, he was the florist at the hotel, ordering roses flown in daily from New Delhi.
Like the Taj, his black Fiat, a broken dinosaur of a car, was a landmark in itself. Filled to the brim with cane baskets for his flower shop, and home to several brown cockroaches, he parked it in the same spot every day — right in front of the hotel’s main entrance.
I…
This was not global jihad. Its roots are far closer to home
By Misha Glenny, the author of McMafia: Crime without Frontiers (THE GUARDIAN, 01/12/08):
A perverse narcissism seized the British media last week, with several papers seemingly desperate to claim the Mumbai terrorists as British citizens. There was no evidence for this beyond a couple of unsourced stories in the Indian press, but it served to confirm the thesis that the whole operation was organised by al-Qaida and thus merely another manifestation of the cultural clash between Islam and its religious competitors.
The Mumbai attacks were not about global jihad. The attacks on foreign tourists at the Taj and the Oberoi, and on the…
We must not lose sight of the real enemy
By Bronwen Maddox (THE TIMES, 01/12/08):
Yesterday a Pakistani security official said that if India now put more forces on to the disputed Kashmir border, the Pakistani Army would do likewise. By the way, that would mean that Pakistan put less effort into fighting the Taleban on its western border, he added, in an unsubtle warning to the US and Britain. Pakistan understands only too well that for the West its border with Afghanistan represents the frontline in the war on terror.
On the Pakistani side priorities are different. As the calls go up for a clampdown on terrorists, Islamabad’s most urgent desire…
¿Choque de civilizaciones?
Por Samuel Hadas, diplomático, primer embajador de Israel en España y ante la Santa Sede (LA VANGUARDIA, 30/11/08):
Los trágicos acontecimientos de Bombay, el corazón de la mayor democracia del mundo, uno de los más sensibles puntos de encuentro entre musulmanes y fieles de otras religiones (en India viven 150 millones de musulmanes, numéricamente la segunda comunidad después de la de Indonesia), obliga a dedicar nuevamente la atención al flagelo del terrorismo. No se trata solamente de otro trágico episodio en la vida de un país. Sus ondas expansivas se sienten en todo el globo. Es un episodio que nos recuerda…
Delhi’s blunders in fighting terrorism
By Sadanand Dhume, a Washington-based writer and the author of My Friend the Fanatic: Travels with an Indonesian Islamist (Text Publishing) (THE TIMES, 30/11/08):
As the story of the carnage in Mumbai unfolds, it is tempting to dismiss it as merely another sorry episode in India’s flailing effort to combat terrorism. Over the past four years Islamist groups have struck in Delhi, Jaipur, Bangalore and Ahmedabad, among other places. The death toll from terrorism – not counting at least 195 killed in Mumbai last week – stands at over 4,000, which gives India the dubious distinction of suffering more terrorist casualties since…
Larga noche en Bombay
Por Eva Borreguero, directora de Educación de Casa Asia y profesora de Ciencia Política en la Universidad Complutense de Madrid (EL PAÍS, 29/11/08):
Vuelve el megaterrorismo a India, tras dos años de una intensa oleada de atentados que han azotado a todo el país, ciudad por ciudad. Una organización yihadista de probada ejecutoria ha dado una vuelta de tuerca más al culminar la cadena de atentados precedentes y llevar a cabo una acción espectacular y novedosa, de grandes dimensiones en cuanto a recursos y medios, que evidencia el crecimiento exponencial del terrorismo antisistémico en India. Con el asalto nocturno y simultáneo a…
Forgotten Lessons From 9/11
By Anne Applebaum (THE WASHINGTON POST, 29/11/08):
As I write, the world’s security experts still have no idea which organization carried out this week’s terrorist attacks in Mumbai, and I have no idea myself. The Indian government suspects Pakistani groups, but some eyewitnesses have said the gunmen spoke Hindi, which could mean that they were of Indian origin. The attacks, carried out on several targets simultaneously, reminded some of al-Qaeda, but the gunmen were not suicide bombers and they did not use standard al-Qaeda technology. A group calling itself the “Deccan Mujaheddin” has claimed responsibility, but no one has heard this name before.…
What They Hate About Mumbai
By Suketu Mehta, a professor of journalism at New York University and the author of Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 29/11/08):
My bleeding city. My poor great bleeding heart of a city. Why do they go after Mumbai? There’s something about this island-state that appalls religious extremists, Hindus and Muslims alike. Perhaps because Mumbai stands for lucre, profane dreams and an indiscriminate openness.
Mumbai is all about dhandha, or transaction. From the street food vendor squatting on a sidewalk, fiercely guarding his little business, to the tycoons and their dreams of acquiring Hollywood, this city understands money and…
Bound by sorrows
By Mohsin Hamid, the author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist (THE GUARDIAN, 29/11/08):
In the rush to blame Pakistan for the terrorist atrocity in Mumbai, a dangerous mistake is being made. The impulse to implicate Pakistan is of course understandable: the past is replete with examples of Pakistani and Indian intelligence agencies working to destabilise the historical enemy across the border.
But it is too soon to know who is behind the current attacks. Some or all of the attackers may indeed come from or have supporters in Pakistan. Equally, some or all may be Indian. The desire of some in India to ascribe…
