Is terrorism reversible?

Salman Rushdie responded to the article by Arundhathi Roy here .

His argument regarding the issues paraded by terrorists is this:
''Ask yourself the question that if the Kashmir problem were resolve tomorrow, if Israel-Palestine reached a lasting peace, do we believe that al-Qaeda would disband? Do we believe that Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad would put their guns down and beat them into plough-shears and say we would now be farmers because our job is done.
I mean the point about is that is laughable, right? And the point about that is that that is not their project. Their project is power. This is a power grab by the most obscurantist, revanchist, old-fashioned, medievalist idea of modern culture that attempts to drag the world back into the middle ages at the point of modern weaponry ...''


There is a problem here. Of course the terrorist outfits will not disband because these are solved. But the terrorism will lose its impetus once the Palestine- Kashmir- Iraq- Iran issues are solved. These outfits are headed by madmen who dream about ruling the world. But they are successful in convincing people. As long as these issues are bleeding actively, there will be people ready to be convinced to become suicide bombers. Because its not very difficult to show that some unfair things are happening in these places.
There are hundreds of cults in the world. Many of them advocate mass murder or ethnic cleansing.(Remember the infamous cult in Japan which released poisonous gas in a subway?)
Why suddenly the current terror outfits enjoy a popularity and power that none of these are able to procure? Its because terrorists are able to capitalise on some genuine suffering that has been going on. Even If you are able to remove that, the leaders will go on preaching. But they wont be enjoying the same following any more.

Odyssey

Can you imagine what the feeling will be like if someone is dragging himself on without knowing the latitude and longitude? Not knowing whether one will survive the next storm of uncertainities lurking in the horizon? Awaiting another ambush of pirates of different denominations? Expecting another mutiny from within?
Were you thinking about Christopher Columbus?
Actually I was talking about analysing the statistical data for my doctoral thesis.

The question of going abroad

'I don’t want to go abroad because I want to serve my people. I don’t want some other nation to enjoy fruits of my hard earned education.'
'I will never get what I am worthy of here. Unless the bickering beurocrats and self serving politicians stop doing what they are doing what's the use wasting my life?'
I bet you have heard both these arguments in some form in your life. My problem with these arguments is not about the arguments in itself but the usual hypocrisy that accompanies both of it. One may be going abroad because he wants a good quality of life. One may be staying back because he don’t want his life to be too stressful with a rigorous professional life or be away from his relatives. But almost every one ends up with either of the two arguments I stated above . The sad part is that those are not entirely invalid reasons either.
What should be the real reason for going abroad or staying back? Is there a good reason and a bad reason for doing that?
No. But among all the reasons I guess there would be a true reason.