Mumbai

I walked into Yonhap News Agency today, like any other average day, a little out of breath from running from the subway station not to be late. As I was was eating my daily peanut butter and jelly sandwich and drinking my cold calcium-enriched soy milk, I heard the copy editors next to me talking about a shooting in Mumbai. A shooting in Mumbai? My ears perked, since I have several friends with connections to that city, the hub of finance and tourism of India.

What I saw while browsing through the NY times, CNN, and the BBC was far more horrifying than the "shooting" I had imagined in my head. It was a massacre. As I sorted through hundreds of photos and eyewitness accounts of the terrifying incident, I felt chills running up my back and cold sweat dripping from my forehead. Young boys, aged 20 to 25, spraying rounds of ammunition from their AK47s with completely emotionless expressions on their face. Almost a look of content and entertainment. A complete, inescapable nightmare.

I guess being American, I couldn't help but be struck by the fact that the attackers were singling out people with US and British passports. If I had been in that crowd, I could have probably passed for being Korean, but still, the situation made me wonder what motives were behind their particular selection. What explanation was there for their incredible hate and deploration of Americans and Britons? Even after hearing several hours of news reports concerning this attack, I'm not sure whether the terrorists were planning on killing the hostages or not. But if they weren't, perhaps their goal was to keep them for ransom, or perhaps even a spit in the face of two supposed superpowers.

While thinking about this attack, I realized that the tactics of military power and hegemonic rule of the US had once against met its match--the untrackable, intangible, transnational strategies of terrorists who challenged the state's monopology over the use of violence. More force and military hard power's not going to fix the problem. It will only create greater strife and violence. So what's left for the world to do?

I guess that's the problem left to our generation to find out.