Beating the Terrorists

by Editor · August 7, 2016

The terrorists are winning in the West — and the West shares in the responsibility for that.

The aim of jihadist terrorism is to strike fear, prejudice and hatred into the hearts of Westerners. The more the West hates Muslims, the simple calculation goes, the more Muslims will be open to their particular conception of an Islamic holy war against so-called “infidels” and Muslims who seek peaceful coexistence with the West or subscribe to Western values.

A statue of St Francis with religious symbols at the entry to the Eremo delle Carceri sanctuary near Assisi. St Francis travelled to Damietta, in modern-day Egypt, to talk about peace with an Islamic leader. Such a dialogue is needed today.

Every act of anti-Muslim prejudice contributes to that jihadist programme of radicalising people, including those of Muslim background in the West who are already feeling marginalised and discriminated against by the society in which they have grown up.

When people are pushed to the margins and treated with suspicion and contempt, some will resort to radical reactions. It is no accident that three of the most prominent recent acts of jihadist terrorism in Western Europe — the Charlie Hebdo massacre and the attacks in Paris and Brussels — were committed by young men who had been raised in France and Belgium.
The malevolent programme of ISIS, al-Qaeda and their various offshoots is fed not only by an absurd distortion of Islam, but also by the hysterical prejudice that is being fostered against Muslims. The West’s military and diplomatic misadventures in the Middle East, not least the criminal invasion of Iraq in 2003, have given focus to a rejection of the United States and Europe among many Muslims worldwide.

The invasion of Iraq also helped give rise to ISIS, so the West is not an innocent party to the terrorism attributed to that evil movement — one that in fact targets Muslims even more devastatingly, especially in places like Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, than it does the West.
Western politicians and media tend to present the terror attacks in Europe in a vacuum. Yet their policies, propaganda and social structures are feeding the terrorism by separating Muslims from the mainstream of society.

This finds expression in the dangerous anti-Muslim rhetoric of US presidential nominee Donald Trump, which advocates discrimination against Muslims, or insanely fallacious statements like this from Fox News’ right-wing presenter Brian Kilmeade: “Not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims.”

It is also expressed by politicians and by the media when these react irresponsibly to mass killings. France’s President Francois Hollande was not in possession of the facts when, within hours of the act, he ascribed the horrifying Bastille Day killings in Nice to Islamic terrorism. Some media conflate lone-wolf acts with jihadist terror attacks, using themes like “Europe under attack”, as the US news network CNN did (ignoring that mass shootings in the US committed by people of Christian background are far more numerous than their equivalent in Europe).

And the reaction to irresponsible rhetoric and media reporting adds further fuel to anti-Muslim sentiments among people. But there are exceptions. In a bid to defuse the idea that the country was besieged by terrorists following the triple attacks in Bavaria in late July, Germany’s press and many politicians emphatically pointed out that these acts were committed by deeply disturbed individuals. This was proper and responsible.

Christians have an important role to play in meeting Our Lord’s call for us to be agents of peace. Christians need to stand in solidarity with Muslims when they are persecuted, even when we feel the solidarity is not reciprocated. Instead of posting dubious interpretations of the Quran on Facebook, Christians ought to seek exchange with Muslims to understand their faith and to find ways of cooperating against evil.

In this respect the efforts by the Catholic Church and the Muslim community in Durban serve as a commendable example.

Such contact, on every level and throughout the world, might also serve to alleviate prejudice against Christians among Muslims. And a show of unity would irritate ISIS more profoundly than any number of missiles.

People of faith must stand together, against both terrorism and prejudice. We must affirm our common humanity; we must be people of hope and peace, not of anger and conflict.
Muslims and Christians of goodwill, and all people of faith, must work together to reclaim from the terrorists the words that are used also by Arabic-speaking Christians: “Allahu Akhbar”— God is great.