Terrorism is a major threat to any civilized society as it undermines peace, and stability and disturbs the level of social development. No country or region has immunity to the impacts of terrorism. Nothing provides justification for terrorism, but we have to acknowledge that unless we evaluate and address its internal and external root causes in a coordinated way, nationally, regionally, and internationally, we would not unilaterally succeed in the eradication of terrorism from our society.
We as Muslims believe that Islam is a religion of peace. We are law-abiding citizens, respect others’ religious beliefs, and lead a normal life. Our interfaith activities are guided by verses of the holy Qur’an.
“Invite all to the Way of your Lord with wisdom and beautiful preaching; and discuss with them in ways that are best and most gracious”
There is no compulsion in Islam, but extremist believe that Islam is religion of peace on their terms, based on their own misinterpretation of the holy book and the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him. They are willing to kill others, mostly Muslims who disagree with their philosophy. They thrive on terrorizing the public—locally and internationally.
Islamic history shows that Muslims and non-Muslims have coexisted together for more than thousand years in peace and harmony. Two treaties are very important in the earliest history of Islam that show tolerance and respect of Muslims to other religions. One of them is the constitution of Madinah, the second holy city of Muslims located in Saudi Arabia.
The Constitution of Madinah was prepared under the leadership of the Prophet Muhammad in 622 AD, to meet the needs of people of different beliefs, and was put into practice as a written legal contract. Different tribes and communities of different religions and races that had enmity with each other for more than 100 years became parties to this pact and ultimately could actually live together in total peace and tranquility.
According to the Constitution of Madinah, everyone was free to observe and practice the belief, religion they believe in. Everyone was free to exercise his own justice system. However, anyone who committed a crime would not be protected by either side
It has been four decades that a small segment of the society has horribly shaped the peaceful image of Islam as the religion of violence extremism and intolerance. Holding territories and using social media for their atrocious crimes, they have been somehow succeeded in their devil intentions to challenge our shared values of peace, justice and human dignity.
We firmly believe that the peace loving people of my country, the region and the world need to focus on comprehensive approach, not only through the security-based counter-terrorism measures but also through systematic preventive steps to address the underlying conditions that drive individuals to radicalize and join violent extremist groups.
Comprehensive and collective efforts should be made to deter and defeat terrorism. The collaboration of the world community would be helpful to achieve the desired goal. Cooperation among the neighbouring and regional countries and international organizations is essential for tackling terrorism. All counter terrorism policies must be based on the balanced implementation of the four pillars of the Global Counter Terrorism Strategy and should not associate terrorism with any religion or culture or nation. Overall consensus and multinational collaboration is needed to reject double standards and geopolitical interests to foster dialogue among different civilizations and religions. Terrorism is directly linked to severe deficits in development, security and governance and should be addressed at its source.
Addressing the conditions conducive to the spread of terrorism, focusing on non-provocative measures to prevent and combat terrorism, building states’ capacity to prevent and combat terrorism, ensuring respect for the dignity and territorial integrity of the counties, avoiding civilian casualties, human rights violation must be considered as the fundamental basis for the fight against terrorism.
Our slow progress in tackling extremism and countering terrorism is the attribution of our hesitancy to recognize and address the root causes of extremist ideology and lack of financial sources to upgrade the living standards of our society.Our reluctance to identify, recognize and address the root causes of extremist ideology have marked negative impacts on our anti extremism and anti-radicalism campaign.
Beyond the external motivation and lower level of education, the root causes of spreading extreme mind-set can be summed up in social, economic, political and security measures:
1- There must be adequate focus on equitable and well-balanced development opportunities in the vulnerable society and regions that are supposed to be victimized by extremism .
2- The improper understanding and application of religion and its teachings must be addressed by empowering the moderate and qualified religious scholars, taking their suggestions and appreciating their social services in encouraging communities to respect and fully comply with local laws and consider national security as religious obligation and their life.
3- The law enforcing authorities and judiciary need to go beyond their normal attitudes, which is normally focused on harsh attitudes towards criminals. The extremists unless commit crime should not be dealt as criminals. They must declare custody centers as training institutions for the extremist elements. There are confirmed reports on spreading extremist ideas in prisons as a result of torture and deliberate humiliation.
4- Misusing the social media expose young people to receive and deliver messages motivating youth to incitement and extremism. There is severe need for monitoring and controlling social media to prevent spread of detestation activities among different cultures and civilizations.
5- Committing atrocities and launching hostile military operations in the whole areas where terrorists are reported to be hidden and mixed up with common people in my country have badly failed to achieve the desired objectives. The civilian casualties are vibrantly reported published and proliferated by terrorists while their own losses are hidden. The outcome is anger, deprivation and growing grievances among the common people and consequently the community adopt extremists’ mindset.
6- The unintentional civilian casualties destruction of worship places and houses during the short term military operations and considering all religious scholars as extremists have resulted undesirably and created opportunities for terrorists to launch media war against the justified struggle.
7- Main economic causes of extremism and radicalism are the variation of economic development rates, poverty and severe economic decline, concentrating the state’s resources in certain institutions and the widespread of unemployment. Economic causes can be summed up in the lack of economic and social opportunities, and the variation of economic development.
8- The political and social causes include bad governments, absence of rule of law, corruption, social injustice that enforce laws against the weak, with immunity to special individuals and groups.
9- The existing and potential threats posed by extremist ideology are mostly the outcome of the unrealistic translation of the religious imperatives, grievances, deprivation, unjustifiable detentions, unemployment, poverty in different sections of the society have practically paved the way for expanding extreme ideologies leading to growing threats to for potential extent of violence in Afghanistan.
10- The external causes include the intervention of other countries or organizations and their constant insist to apply their own cultural values and traditions, under the title of human rights and democracy in the countries suffering from conflicts which can be applied in stable and educationally upgraded communities. This gap must be considered as the main reason for the failure of United States and NATO. They badly failed to convert its military invasion in Afghanistan into a political victory.
It is clear that every community has its own values traditions and customs. The perception of values of ever nation differs. For example, the concept of woman rights, human rights and democracy has separate meanings with the variety of sensitivities. So it must be unrealistic and unjustified to apply and practice the exact context of western values for human rights woman right and democracy in Afghanistan and the cultural perception in Afghanistan would be in contradiction with western point of view. We strongly believe that the west was trying to do something it couldn’t do, and it was trying to do something it didn’t need to do.
