THE BEGINNING OF A NEW ERA

A JOURNEY TOWARDS PEACE ~ 166 ~ Modern terrorism is thus a great and ongoing menace to our civilized world. Some powers of the world are engaged in crushing it militarily, but military action alone will not suffice to eliminate this phenomenon. The reason for this is that present-day terrorism is actually militancy supported by an ideology. So it is not simply an issue of gun-versus-gun. It is, in fact, an issue of gun-versus-ideology. A bomb can be countered with a bomb. But an ideology cannot be countered with a bomb. For this we require an ideology of peace. So we have to formulate such an ideology as will banish the notion that there can be anything acceptable about terrorism. This would call for total mental re-conditioning of the terrorists. That is, we have to rid the minds of the militants of the ideology which is activating them. This, in effect, would be like defusing a bomb. With this very purpose in mind. I have published three books, called The True Jihad, Islam and Peace and The Ideology of Peace, which aim at persuading Muslim extremists to accept more peaceful solutions. After our successful experience of nuclear disarmament, we must now proceed to open a front