Islamabad, Sep 13 (IANS) The fallout of 9/11 ‘continues to poison the atmosphere’, taking a daily toll, said a Pakistani daily.
‘As the commemorative days pass and the tears dry and the event that changed the world for all of us fades once more into the background; the fallout continues to poison the atmosphere,’ an editorial in the News International said Tuesday, two days after the tenth anniversary of the Sep 11, 2001 terror attacks in the US that left nearly 3,000 dead.
Comparing it with the nuclear bombing during the Second World War in Japan, the newspaper said: ‘In the same way that the radioactive residues of the atom bombs which exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki are still killing people today, the fallout from 9/11 takes a daily toll.’
‘Terrorism, its expansion as a global experience and franchise, is the best known toxic element that is a product of 9/11, but it has another, more insidious and perhaps in the long run more deadly poison that has affected millions – intolerance,’ it added.
‘Specifically it is religious intolerance that has grown over the last decade, and in particular the gap between the Islamic world and the West has widened to alarming proportions.’
It went on to say that intolerance has grown not just in the US but in many of the western states.
‘France has seen the rise of the far right, with Islam one of its principal targets. The UK, Germany, Italy, Holland and Spain have all seen a polarisation of young people of differing faith groups…
‘Intolerance, especially of America, has grown in some, but not all, parts of the Muslim world.’
The editorial said that little effort was being made in Pakistan ‘to produce a countervailing narrative…and the flames of intolerance are daily fanned by those who see merit and salvation in jihad’.
‘Both sides of the intolerance paradigm invest heavily in self-fulfilling prophecies, with terrorism the collateral fallout. Intolerance may take generations to abate, and we need to find ways of mitigating it with no less energy than we fight terrorism,’ it added.
