Opinion The benefit of doubt

Breivik’s documents,which became public when he was arrested last year,and his statement in court last week reveal a cold logic and a total certainty about what he must do. Indeed there is a sort of fake erudition which is common to many such fanatical thinkers. He has read history but from his own perspective. The eternal battle between Islam and Christianity is his treadmill,as it was Osama’s,and he intends to win as Osama did. Yet Breivik is not religious. His certainty is derived from his arrogant confidence that he is chosen to rescue Europe from the invading immigrants.

The Maoists are convinced that their struggle against the bourgeois feudal Indian State is bound to end in success since that is what their logic tells them. History is on their side. This confidence allows them to kill,capture and torture their victims with full confidence in the rightness of what they are doing. Of course,just as Osama was fighting for the Umma,they are fighting for the downtrodden masses. There is no selfishness among the fanatics. They are self-sacrificing,even ‘noble’ by some definition,willing to undergo hardship for the ‘cause’.

There was a time when many sane and good people were committed to the communist movement and obeyed the orders of the party in all respects. Comrades could be told that the party did not want them to have children,so could they please abort the foetus. They did everything the party told them to do because they were sure history was on their side and that the Revolution would come for certain and transform society and bring equality and justice. They gave up their life for their beliefs.

Extremism of every colour—green,red or saffron—shares one feature. It is certain of its aims and of its arguments. It has faith,be it religious or ideological. Given faith,the terrorist is willing to suffer any privation,any humiliation,any punishment cocooned by the certainty of his ideas.

Democracy on the other hand is beset by doubts. Democracies are never sure that they are right in punishing people who are out to destroy their democratic way of life. Democrats disagree and differ. They argue and they debate. No single person’s ideas survive intact once the debate starts.

Killing completely unknown persons in pursuit of a cause requires the arrogance of certainty. Democracies are slow,clumsy and uncertain. They have lengthy procedures and legal entanglements but these are designed to ensure that no one is left troubled by the decision to punish the guilty. We would rather let a thousand guilty go free than convict one innocent person. We are so unsure even about our democracy that when Maoists attack the bourgeois democracy as sham,there are many who nod in agreement.

And yet,the fanatics are wrong about the basic value they prize so much; their certainty,their faith that they know the future,that history is on their side or that God has told them what to do. Twentieth century witnessed the biggest battle between the doubters and the believers,between democracy and dictatorship and the doubters won hands down. The Nazis and the Bolsheviks bit the dust. The terrorists,whether green or saffron,will not win not because the democrats have superior force but because they lack the certainty of the fanatics. Doubt alone triumphs.