Dr. Khalid Al-Shafi
After the Paris attacks, we woke up to another brutal face of terrorism. The air is again thick with talks of rooting out terror. But this is a moral, humanitarian war that must not be given religious or racial colours. All those practising extremism, even if they claim to be true believers, are farthest from the faith. Therefore, the efforts of some in the West to link all Muslims with terrorism won’t serve any purpose, and will help neither West nor East.
The West must realise that Arab-Muslim countries have been victims of terrorism for more years, and these countries are struggling to fight this evil. The war against terrorism is not one between fanatic fundamentalist groups and the West, but between humanity and savagery, between enlightenment and darkness. There is a need for all sides to shun narcissism and negative outlook about one another. Arabs and Muslims must stop looking at the West with contempt, and similarly, the West must get rid of their narcissism and superiority complex and stop considering Muslims and Arabs as backward, undemocratic, who do not recognise freedom, who produce only oil and export terrorism.
Western governments must respect freedoms and human rights and not use the current situation as an excuse to violate values of democracy and spread hatred. The Paris attacks should not lead to arbitrary measures that will infringe on the rights of Arab and Muslim communities in Western countries. The world is still suffering from the impact of 9/11 which led to the invasion of two countries -- Afghanistan and Iraq -- and resulted in huge destruction, endless conflicts, emergence of more terrorist organizations such as IS which is more poisonous than Al Qaeda.
The world must stand united in this struggle. If terrorists today are hiding behind Islam, tomorrow they can hide behind other faiths. Terrorism has no religion, and is not limited to a place or time. Let the world be not divided into Islam and Christianity.
It’s also ironic to see presidents, leaders and heads of governments of more than 40 countries taking part in the Paris march after the death of 12 people, while no similar demonstrations have been organized to protest the massacre of around a million people in Syria by 12 people who have hijacked power there (the Assad regime).The Peninsula
