What Is the Solution?
“IT WAS the only solution,” EgyptAir pilot Hani Galal said of the commando storming of his hijacked plane. Yet, is it really a solution when even innocent passengers are killed or seriously injured?
Actually, nobody involved knows a solution to the problem of terrorism. It can take so many forms and occur in so many places. “Terrorism is like the mythical monster Hydra,” notes Brian Jenkins, an expert on terrorism. “Everytime you cut off its head, two grow in its place.”
A few persons, or even one, can terrorize millions. The recent planting of poison in Tylenol headache capsules in the United States, called “an act of terrorism pure and simple,” is an example. Authorities simply have no way of dealing with what has become a revolt against organized society.
But why this revolt? What is responsible for terrorism? People feel oppressed and frustrated by injustices, and see terrorist acts as perhaps their only recourse. The hijackers of TWA Flight 847 last summer signed their statement: “The oppressed of the earth.” And, indeed, the TWA pilot told a television interviewer: “These people have a just cause.”
At Rome’s airport last winter, one of the slain terrorists had a note on his body addressed to “Zionists” that read: “As you have violated our land, our honor, our people, we in exchange will violate everything, even your children, to make you feel the sadness of our children. The tears we have shed will be exchanged for blood.” The note was signed: “The martyrs of Palestine.”
But are these Palestinians martyrs or terrorists? What about the United States-supported guerrillas in Nicaragua—are they freedom fighters or terrorists? Indeed, one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.
Yet, regardless of labels, hardly anybody today can feel safe from terrorist acts. And security measures—even the spending of $5 billion by the United States on security for its official buildings abroad—are no real solution. These measures do nothing to root out the causes of terrorism. But there is a solution. And while it is beyond human power to provide, it is not beyond God’s power.
The solution for the oppressed of the earth is not in resorting to acts of terrorism but in the fulfillment of God’s sure promise: “The upright are the ones that will reside in the earth, and the blameless are the ones that will be left over in it. As regards the wicked, they will be cut off from the very earth; and as for the treacherous, they will be torn away from it.”—Proverbs 2:21, 22.
This promise of God will soon be fulfilled. His ruler, the resurrected Jesus Christ, will see to that. A Bible prophecy says regarding this One: “With righteousness he must judge the lowly ones, and with uprightness he must give reproof in behalf of the meek ones of the earth. And he must strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; and with the spirit of his lips he will put the wicked one to death.”—Isaiah 11:4.
Yes, God’s Son Jesus Christ will soon eliminate all injustice, as well as those responsible for it. In God’s righteous new system, terrorism and violence of every kind will be things of the past. Then everyone on earth will live in security, free from fear of any harm.—Revelation 21:3, 4.