The attempt of the mainstream media to incite feelings of subjugation among Muslims by purportedly portraying Donald Trump as some kind of ‘Lecturer on Islam’ caused a mixed reaction among Muslims and non-Muslims alike. [1] Making this speech of the US President Donald J Trump at the Arab-Islamic-US summit a much-anticipated one, his speech was uncharacteristically measured, for the most part at least, unlike his usual self. Was this due to suffering a political blow from his country’s senate? With members of his own Republican Party arguing over his ‘mental state’ before he fled for his first foreign visit?[2] Or was this a typical businessman-like move as he surveyed everyone in the room as a potential source of billions of dollars in income for a free-falling US economy that can hardly cater for the basic health care necessities of its citizens?
This speech was not without its controversies and it was arguably self-contradictory. “Drive them out of your places of worship” said Trump in an implicit statement to denote that terrorists may be in Masājid, echoing the Islamophobic remarks of the populist Islamophobes. In an earlier remark during the speech, he underlined that “Terrorists do not worship god, they worship death”. [3] So, one might ask, how could you find terrorists in Masājid?
These remarks did not go unchallenged, however. King Abdullah II of Jordan went on to assert;
“Terrorist groups employ a false religious identity. Their aim is to mislead and polarise our societies and peoples. Let us state here, clearly: Terrorist groups do not inhabit the fringes of Islām they are altogether outside of Islām; they are khawarej, outlaws of Islām.” He further stated, “Intolerance and ignorance will only aid terror groups. It is vital to help everyone, everywhere, understand this.”[4]
Though it may have been unclear whom he referred to as terrorists and Khawarij, the discussion in this summit was centred around the presence of Daesh and Iranian-backed militias in the region. In the opening address of the summit, King Salman of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia said “the Iranian regime has been the spearhead of global terrorism since the Khomeini revolution until now”, he also asserted the “respect and appreciation [held] for the Iranian people, we do not hold people responsible for the actions of their regime”. [5]
Considering this, let us not give credibility to a well-known Islamophobe by referring to this speech as a “speech on Islām”. It was a summit where leaders of many countries attended and delivered their respective speeches.
Who are the ‘terrorists’?
Other attendees of the summit maliciously included some grassroots popular Muslim organisations in the list of so-called ‘Terrorist’ organisations such as the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the most successful grassroots Muslim organisations enjoying success in democratic elections in many lands.
“Extremism” does NOT cause terrorism
This mixed with the fact that the vacuous term “extremist” is applied routinely to Muslim activists all over the globe due to a neoconservative agenda exported from the US itself, it is little wonder that very few if any mainstream Muslims will lend their support to such initiatives to “fight extremism”.
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Source: www.islam21c.com
Notes:
| [1] | The Washington Post, “McMaster: Trump to give speech on Islam in Saudi Arabia,” The Washington Post, 16 May 2017. [Online]. Available: https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/world/mcmaster-trump-to-give-speech-on-islam-in-saudi-arabia/2017/05/16/99df1760-3a50-11e7-a59b-26e0451a96fd_video.html. [Accessed 21 May 2017]. |
| [2] | M. Sampathkumar, “Donald Trump’s mental health ‘keeps getting worse’, Washington insiders claim | The Independent,” Independent, 18 May 2017. [Online]. Available: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-mental-health-president-getting-worse-joe-scarborough-washington-claims-a7741121.html. [Accessed 21 May 2017]. |
| [3] | Channel 4 News, “President Trump: Full Saudi speech on Islam and combating extremism – YouTube,” Channel 4 News, 21 May 2017. [Online]. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_gphbkZC6w. [Accessed 21 May 2017]. |
| [4] | K. A. II, “Jordan News Agency (Petra) |King participates in Arab-Islamic-American Summit,” Jordan News Agency (PETRA), 21 May 2017. [Online]. Available: http://www.petra.gov.jo/Public_News/Nws_NewsDetails.aspx?Site_Id=1&lang=2&NewsID=303028&CatID=13&Type=Home>ype=1. [Accessed 21 May 2017]. |
| [5] | Al Arabiya, “King Salman’s speech at the Arab-Islamic-American Summit – YouTube,” Al Arabiya English, 21 May 2017. [Online]. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zwXONh6vYE. [Accessed 21 May 2017]. |
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?
Donald Trump, in his inaugural address as President of USA, said that he would work for complete eradication of ‘radical Islamic terrorism’ from the surface of the earth.
What is Radical Islam he is referring to? Does it include ‘terrorism’, as he mischievously implies?
History is witness to an extraordinarily shining example of Radical Islam set by none other than Prophet Muhammad (peace on him) himself! For 13 long years, his own people at Makkah had relentlessly harassed the Prophet just because he declared, ‘There is no god but Allah!’ Then they – the Makkans – had sent armies to eradicate the nascent Islamic State at Medina, á la our Donald now, from the surface of the earth, but without success of course! And when the Prophet later marched triumphantly into Makkah, he pardoned all his arch enemies there!! There was no mass massacre, no raping of women on a massive scale, and no massive destruction of public properties, as routinely done by modern national armies when they conquer neighbouring territories!!!
That was the true exhibition of Radical Islam! Peace, mercy, goodwill, justice towards one and all!
But it is too much to expect Donald Trump to sincerely study what Radical Islam is! Like any Tom, Dick, and Harry, he goes by common perception. And the common perception among a large number of non-Muslims is that Islam is an evil religion!
It is true that terrorism in Britain is at the moment overwhelmingly a Muslim problem – of the 143 people in jail for terrorist offences in December 2015, 139 identified as Muslim – but it’s just as true and much more important that this figure represents less than one in 200,000 British Muslims, and the overwhelming majority have nothing to do with terrorism, and want nothing to do with it either. To study a whole religion through the lens of security policy damages both social cohesion and, in the long run, national security as well.
Please tell me the difference between a bunch of Muslims killing innocent civilians, and drones sent by the West massacring entire families in Pakistan and Afghanistan. When ‘they’ kill, it’s terrorism, when ‘we’ kill, it’s necessary in order to ‘protect our way of life’. Blatant hypocrisy.
When a native Brit goes to Middle East, he is called a voluntary fighter. When a Muslim goes there he is called a terrorist. Double standard by the British society. Also lot of British Jews went to Israel to fight but on their return no action was taken against them.
I am sick reading that the world is unfair because we assume that terrorism is Muslim. Absolute and utter childish nonsense:
Please know that we are in the fight against terror, together.
Many in the West cite terrorism as a top domestic worry, but that’s perhaps because they underestimate just how deadly other forms of violence are. From 2001-2013, 406,496 people on US soil were killed by firearms, while during the same period 3,030 died due to a terrorist attack – the bulk of them thanks to the events of 9/11. In 2011, when 12,533 people the world over died due to terrorist attacks, Mexico saw more than 27,000 people die due to gun violence alone. For the US, 2015 saw around 13,000 people lost to gun violence, or about 2,000 fewer than the global terrorism death toll.
I don’t think that the main cause of terrorism is “too many immigrants.” Terrorists are such a minute proportion of the population that this is a very peculiar way of looking at things. The problem is not Muslim terror. It is Christian terror. State sponsored murder. The Christian armies of USA and UK have killed thousands of innocent Afghan men women and children. Why? Please explain the justification for killing thousands of Afghan men women and children by British and Amer…ican forces.
IA
http://www.londonschoolofislamics.org.uk