Pathankot, Paris, Orlando, Istanbul, Brussels,Baghdad, Dhaka and now Nice. Hopes of an end to terrorism flicker like candles in the hands of hopefuls. The battles between Wahhabi-Salafi crusaders and state armies are likely to be protracted cat-and-mouse games. The enemies cannot be identified; they cannot be challenged on a battlefield. They are in disguise and hard to pick. It is an effective tactic practised successfully since the imagination of the Trojan Horse. The only encouragement is that such suicidal strategy is resorted to when the enemy is highly motivated, but essentially weak. It lacks numerical strength and firepower to engage in frontal warfare.

The ISIS in Syria is advantaged by dilly-dallies between oppositely-interested United States of America and Russia. But state armies in Iraq are making rapid advances to recapture territories from the poster boys of terrorism. A victory with bombs and bullets will, however, be a short one as the virus of savagery will be weakened only temporarily. It will continue to lurk in dark minds ready to return at the slightest lapse. And lapse there will be, because vigil cannot be eternal. Total security is impossible unless the world is ready to cage and monitor itself in a security apparatus.

So it is crucial that this virus of Wahhabism-Salafismis challenged. Once it was Al-Qaeda and Taliban, now it is ISIS and Boko-Haram. Wahhabism-Salafism is a powerful idea and guns will tire “because ideas are bulletproof”.

Ideas will have to be fought with ideas. They will have to be conceptualised, they will have to be fine-tuned, then tested and finally, deployed. The ideology of jihad and the caliphate will have to be countered by the ideology of coexistence and rights. It will be strategic to construct counter ideology in the cultural language of Islam because it is less alien to the practitioners of hate and kill. It is more likely to infiltrate their eyes and ears without evoking suspicion. Deception is key to gain access to closed minds. Without such access confrontation is impossible and without such confrontation there can be no long-term settlement.

The news media should step forward to play an active role in such positive propaganda. In recent weeks, at least two eminent personalities from the Muslim community – Irrfan Khan and Mir Afsal – have launched scathing attacks against terrorism. Their challenges to dogmatic interpretations of Islam should be promoted instead of news space to customary condolence, articulated by preachers here and there. Debates on the interpretation of Islam should be laid bare so that the likes of Zakir Naik are challenged. So far, it appears that Ghulam Rasool Dehlvi is digging a lonely furrow in India,but with great gusto nonetheless.

Reporting guidelines on terror attacksmust be developed. The responsibility to fight terror does not rest at the doors of state machineries. Civil institutions must also chip in.

Victims of terrorism are of two types – the dead and injured and the terrorised. Terrorists victimise the first directly and the second, indirectly. Unfortunately, news media is the unwitting ally in the second and more widespread process of victimisation. By broadcasting a localised disturbance that claims anywhere between 10 – 100 lives, the news media allows terrorists to intimidate an exponentially larger number of people around the world. By transmitting images of the dead and the despair of their relatives, it is the news media which ultimately strikes terror. The news media did not help the terrorists only when it telecast live security operations during 26/11, it has continued to do so.

Does that mean the news media should not report terrorist attacks? Of course, it should. If it does not then the public cannot judge the performance of governments in counter-terror operations. But the nature of the reportage must change fundamentally. First, a blackout of any image from a terror scene. Second, a gag on audio from a terror scene. Third, information about on-going terror attacks should be put out only in words (minus music) and only the necessary – where, when, who, and how – should be outlined. Fourth, telecast dos-and-don’ts to educate viewers about how to react to being caught in a terror attack, enable the public to be alert, rather than terrorised. Such guidelines exist on airplanes and skyscrapers, it is high time to forge one for public eventualities.

To reiterate, the freedom of news agencies to record terror attacks must not be questioned in any way. What is to be rethought is the impact of its transmission and who it helps.

That said, images and sounds of terror attack are posted on the social media. Already there is ethical outcry against it and social media giants have even faced lawsuits. Legal actions against media enterprises are undesirable but they should pay heed to the misuse of their revolutionary platforms. The obstacle to the control of terrorism on social media is more philosophical than technological. It is hard to believe that the best innovators of the world cannot outsmart murderers whose fantasies are dominated by blood and gore.

While the jury may still be out on how to prevent social media from empowering terrorists, the expectation from news media is as clear as daylight.