{"id":18576,"date":"2015-02-24T12:30:31","date_gmt":"2015-02-24T01:30:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=18576"},"modified":"2015-02-25T06:02:38","modified_gmt":"2015-02-24T19:02:38","slug":"islam-and-terrorism-should-our-leaders-be-linking-the-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/islam-and-terrorism-should-our-leaders-be-linking-the-two\/","title":{"rendered":"Islam and terrorism: should our leaders be linking the two?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Iib89Zy_8rM<\/p>\n<p>Terrorists operating against Western targets claim their acts are inspired, and in many cases required, by Islam. But should\u00a0our leaders be openly linking Islam and terrorism or is it better if they publicly deny any such links?<\/p>\n<p>In his <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pm.gov.au\/media\/2015-02-23\/national-security-statement-canberra\" target=\"_blank\">National Security statement<\/a> on Monday (video above) Prime Minister Tony Abbott made it clear where he stood on that question:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u2018I\u2019ve often heard Western leaders describe Islam as a \u2018religion of peace\u2019. I wish more Muslim leaders would say that more often, and mean it. I have often cited Prime Minister Najib of Malaysia, who has described the Islamist death cult as \u2018against God, against Islam and against our common humanity\u2019. In January, President al Sisi told the imams at Egypt\u2019s al Azhar university that Islam needed a \u2018religious revolution\u2019 to sweep away centuries of false thinking. Everybody, including Muslim community leaders, needs to speak up clearly because, no matter what the grievance, violence against innocents must surely be a blasphemy against all religion.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><!--more-->John Hudson at <em>Foreign Policy<\/em>, <a href=\"https:\/\/foreignpolicy.com\/2015\/02\/17\/inside-the-fight-over-obamas-terror-summit\/\" target=\"_blank\">writing<\/a> about last week\u2019s White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism, noted that neoconservatives \u2018blasted the White House for not focusing exclusively on radical Islam\u2019, while civil-rights groups pointed out that incidents of extremist violence attributable to Muslims are\u00a0only a fraction of those carried out in the United States.<\/p>\n<p>Our political elites aren\u2019t experts on the Islamic religion. They won\u2019t have much credibility disputing Muslim scholars who point to Islamic sources that reject terrorist behavior. But does that then require them to keep silent on the issue of any links between Islam and terrorism? There\u2019s a strong argument that Islam, like Christianity, is neither a violent nor a peaceful religion: it contains texts that legitimize both, (although there\u2019s no Islamic equivalent of a Pope who can rule on those controversies.)<\/p>\n<p>Publicly saying there\u2019s a link might be self-defeating: it could stir up trouble with moderate Muslims who oppose terrorism. And most political leaders will want to avoid being open to the charge that they&#8217;re somehow at war with Islam. It\u2019s a sensitive and complex debate. But I\u2019d side with Thomas Friedman\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/01\/21\/opinion\/thomas-friedman-say-it-like-it-is.html\" target=\"_blank\">recent take<\/a> on this issue:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u2018When you don\u2019t call things by their real name, you always get in trouble\u2026I am all for restraint on the issue, and would never hold every Muslim accountable for the acts of a few. But it is not good for us or the Muslim world to pretend that this spreading jihadist violence isn\u2019t coming out of their faith community. It is coming mostly, but not exclusively, from angry young men and preachers on the fringe of the Sunni Arab and Pakistani communities in the Middle East and Europe.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Friedman cites with approval Asra Q. Nomani, an American Muslim born in India. \u00a0She argues that there\u2019s a loose, well-funded coalition of governments and private individuals \u2018that tries to silence debate on extremist ideology in order to protect the image of Islam.\u2019 Nomani <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/meet-the-honor-brigade-an-organized-campaign-to-silence-critics-of-islam\/2015\/01\/16\/0b002e5a-9aaf-11e4-a7ee-526210d665b4_story.html\" target=\"_blank\">says<\/a> this coalition<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u2018throws the label of &#8220;Islamophobe\u2019\u2019 on pundits, journalists and others who dare to talk about extremist ideology in the religion\u2026The official and unofficial channels work in tandem, harassing, threatening and battling introspective Muslims and non-Muslims everywhere\u2026The bullying often works to silence critics of Islamic extremism\u2026They cause governments, writers and experts to walk on eggshells.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It\u2019s clear from\u00a0Tony Abbott\u2019s remarks on Monday that he\u2019s not about to be bullied by critics. On Sunday <a href=\"http:\/\/islaminaustralia.com\/2015\/02\/19\/muslim-community-rejects-abbott-governments-demonisation-and-condemns-moves-to-silence-legitimate-criticisms\/\" target=\"_blank\">a statement<\/a> signed by 64 Australian Islamic organisations (including Hizb ut-Tahrir) and 42 community and religious leaders was released. It stated they opposed Abbott&#8217;s \u2018politically convenient\u2019 threats to crack down on Islamic groups who have been bold enough to speak out about his stance towards Muslims. I\u2019m looking forward to seeing this collection of individuals and groups issue a statement on terrorism, al-Qaeda and ISIL, making it clear that they won\u2019t tolerate those who try to impose their values on others by killing people.<\/p>\n<p>In this context, it was encouraging to see what occurred <a href=\"http:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/norwegian-muslims-form-human-ring-around-oslo-synagogue-102527616.html\" target=\"_blank\">in Norway<\/a> over the weekend: more than 1000 Muslims formed a human shield around Oslo&#8217;s synagogue, offering symbolic protection for the city&#8217;s Jewish community and condemning a recent attack on a synagogue in Denmark.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/about-aspi\/aspi-staff\/executive\/anthony-bergin\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Anthony Bergin<\/em><\/a><em> is deputy director of ASPI. Video courtesy of YouTube user <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Iib89Zy_8rM\" target=\"_blank\">Liberal Party of Australia<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Iib89Zy_8rM Terrorists operating against Western targets claim their acts are inspired, and in many cases required, by Islam. But should\u00a0our leaders be openly linking Islam and terrorism or is it better if they publicly deny &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":18613,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[155,276,420,895,127],"class_list":["post-18576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-al-qaeda","tag-extremism","tag-islam","tag-islamic-state","tag-terrorism"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Islam and terrorism: should our leaders be linking the two? | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/islam-and-terrorism-should-our-leaders-be-linking-the-two\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Islam and terrorism: should our leaders be linking the two? | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Iib89Zy_8rM Terrorists operating against Western targets claim their acts are inspired, and in many cases required, by Islam. 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