Source: USA Today
WASHINGTON — President Obama said Thursday he doesn’t use terms like Islamic extremism because doing so would promote the false idea of a Western war with Islam, which would help extremists recruit more terrorists.
“No religion is responsible for terrorism — people are responsible for violence and terrorism,” Obama told delegates at the White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism.
Obama also said military force alone will not defeat terrorism, and the nation must work with local communities to reduce the influence of those who advocate violent extremism.
“They are not religious leaders,” Obama said. “They are terrorists.”
He also said: “We are not at war with Islam — we are at war with people who have perverted Islam.”
The summit — in which officials from cities in the United States and across the globe discussed their attempts to dissuade young people from embracing hateful ideologies — takes place as conservatives criticize Obama for avoiding the term “Islamic extremism.”
In his summit remarks, Obama cited the “fair amount of debate in the press and among pundits” about the words that used should be used to “describe and frame this challenge” of violent extremism.
Groups like the Islamic State and al-Qaeda “try to portray themselves as religious leaders, holy warriors in defense of Islam,” Obama said, but “we must never accept the premise that they put forward, because it is a lie.”
Obama also said Muslim communities have responsibilities to confront the abuse of religion.
“Of course, the terrorists do not speak for a billion Muslims who reject their ideology,” Obama said. “They no more represent Islam than any madman who kills innocents in the name of God, represents Christianity or Judaism or Buddhism or Hinduism.”
Categories: Counter Terrorism, Highlight, Terrorism, The Muslim Times
No religion is ever responsible for any evil.. Religion is a cure and not the cause of illness. But it is the institutionalized religion which is the culprit and all the bloodshed..
Chapel Hill was a terrorist attack by a Atheist against Muslims, this parking dispute is just a bullshit cover up. And while the Chapel Hill police have claimed that the triple homicide of these young Muslims was the result of a parking dispute, the friends and family of the victims claim that their deaths were the latest gruesome manifestation of Islamophobia – and it comes on the heels of close-by Duke University reversing a plan to have the MuslimVillage.com call to prayer being recited from the historic chapel after coming under pressure from Christian groups. A poll by the Pew Research Group showed that Muslims are the most disliked religious group in America.
The West has never been at ease with Islam since the Crusades. It is unfortunate that huge oil supplies lie under the Arabian Deserts. It is the West that stirred the trouble that led to 9/11. That attack was a desperate act of by men prepared to lose their life. We need to get to grips on who is the terrorist? On 24 November 1963, Lyndon Johnson said, “the battle against communism… must be joined… with strength and determination. Some three million lives were lost in the consequential battles. The US had to pull out due to Public Opinion. Communism lived on. So who was the terrorist?
The British establishment is wrong in thinking that Imams are to blame for extremism. Imams are not solution to the problem for extremism. Extremism is nothing to do with Imams. Extremism is not created from abroad, it is coming from within. Britain fails to help Muslim communities feel part of British society. Race trouble is being predicted by the Daily Express, because of an ethnic boom in UK major cities. Muslim communities need imams for the solutions of their needs and demands in their own native languages. Muslim parents would like to see their children well versed in Standard English and to go for higher studies and research to serve humanity. The fact is that majority of Muslim children leave schools with low grades because monolingual teachers are not capable to teach Standard English to bilingual Muslim children. A Muslim is a citizen of this tiny global village. He/she does not want to become notoriously monolingual Brit.
Terrorism and sexual grooming is nothing to do with Masajid, Imams and Muslim schools. Those Muslim youths who have been involved in terrorism and sexual grooming are the product of western education system which makes a man stupid, selfish and corrupt. They find themselves cut off from their cultural heritage, literature and poetry. They suffer from identity crises and I blame British schooling.
Terrorism, the use of violence against civilians is not new and it is not unique to Islamic extremists. Though we are hyper-aware of this threat from groups that view themselves as the only true Muslims, let us not forget that assaults on civilians have been used widely throughout human existence and was a widespread occurrence in the last century. Dresden, The Holocaust, Biafra, Rwanda, Cambodia, Oklahoma City… None of these had anything to do with Islam. The problem is not that Islam harbours fanatics, that Europeans allow Muslim immigrants to dwell in impoverished ghettos, or that the Western Nations support despots to ensure access to the oil of the Middle East, though all are true. The problem is that people, and states, are all too willing to use violence to advance their own self-interest. Until we eschew violence, it will always be a weapon easily adopted by the least among us to strike at the privileged.
Charlie Hebdo is a disgusting, racist and bigoted satirical publication that has been inviting such a tragedy for many years. What is the point of humour at the expense of others beliefs? The reason we’re not allowed to depict our Prophet graphically is through his own instruction. He did not want to be “idolized” in any way. He even said himself “i am just a man”. These terrorists have done the exact opposite – they have idolized him by claiming a false “vengeance”. Still, i despise Charlie Hebdo. They were asking for it knowing full well the state of extremism in the world today. Islamic terrorism has nothing to do with Islam, it has to do with societal problems. That makes sense. That is why we see so many non-Muslim, poor Latin Americans, Africans and Indians resorting to terrorism as a means to vent their anger, right?
In Islam there is no commandment to kill people by making such allegations against them. The cartoonists had exercised their freedom of expression, and freedom of expression is totally allowed in Islam. Even during the Prophet’s time there were several instances of ridicule, however the Prophet and his Companions neither punished such persons nor asked anyone to do so. On every occasion of this kind, the Prophet’s Companions always tried to positively disseminate the message of Islam. They never tried to punish these people. The killing of those people who had published the cartoons is a gravely un-Islamic act in the name of Islam.
None of 7/7 bombers and British Muslim youths who are in Syria and Iraq are the product of Muslim schools. They are the product of British schooling which is the home of institutional racism with chicken racist native teachers. It is absurd to believe that Muslim schools, Imams and Masajid teach Muslim children anti-Semitic, homophobic and anti-western views. It is dangerously deceptive and misleading to address text books and discuss them out of their historical, cultural and linguistic context. It is not wrong to teach children that Jews are committing the same cruelty in Palestine what German did to them before or during Second World War. It is not wrong to teach children that anti-social behaviour, drinking, drugs, homosexuality, sex before marriage, teenage pregnancies and abortions are western values and Islam is against all such sins. This does not mean that Muslim schools teach children to hate westerners, Jews and homosexuals.
The demand for Muslim schools comes from parents who want their children a safe environment with an Islamic ethos. Parents see Muslim schools where children can develop their Islamic Identity where they won’t feel stigmatised for being Muslims and they can feel confident about their faith. Muslim schools are working to try to create a bridge between communities. There is a belief among ethnic minority parents that the British schooling does not adequately address their cultural needs. Failing to meet this need could result in feeling resentment among a group who already feel excluded. Setting up Muslim school is a defensive response. State schools with monolingual teachers are not capable to teach English to bilingual Muslim children. Bilingual teachers are needed to teach English to such children along with their mother tongue. According to a number of studies, a child will not learn a second language if his first language is ignored.
Indiscipline, incivility, binge drinking, drug addiction, gun and knife crimes, teenage pregnancies and abortion are part and parcel of British schooling. These are the reasons why majority of Muslim parents would like to send their children to Muslim schools with Muslim teachers as role models during their developmental periods. Only less than 5% attend Muslim schools and more than 95% keep on attending state and church schools to be mis-educated and de-educated by non-Muslim monolingual teachers.
IA
http://www.londonschoolofislamics.org.uk
بسم اللہ الرحمن الرحیم
The Brief Speech of the President Obama is full of Wisdom and truth, no Religion is Responsible for the Terrorist, it is the Political Clergy of Nations, who have their vested interest, political Agenda, and their own ex to grind and derailed people and illiterate people are their prey to follow them.
Other Head of the States and Head of the government should follow the example of the President Obama and to eradicate terrorism and not to Islam, which is the beacon of light and peace. Islam Zindabad and President Obama Zindabad.
Zarif Ahmad