President Barack Obama was right on the mark when he asked the world not to grant terrorists the legitimacy they are seeking by labeling them as Islamic. He was addressing the summit on Countering Violent Extremism held at the White House on Wednesday. He acknowledged the fact that Al-Qaeda, Daesh and other religious extremist groups selectively draw justification for their acts from “Islamic texts”. This is how they recruit young, uninformed and vulnerable minds to run their campaign of violent hatred against anyone disagreeing with them. This makes it clear that there is a need for a counter-narrative to defeat these religious extremists. Everyone talks about confronting the ideologies that are radicalizing Muslim youth across the globe, in both the East and the West, but no one has come up with a counter-narrative to prove them wrong. Instead, we see some influential politico-religious personalities and parties buying into the extremists' propaganda and declaring them as “martyrs” fighting for a just cause. You will even find some of these people devising conspiracy theories to suggest that the extremists are proxies of the West, but when it comes to condemning their acts of terror in clear terms, we hear apologies for the terrorists along with a lots of “ifs” and “buts”. It is a well-known fact that we cannot win the war against religious extremists by military might alone, we need to confront and defeat them on ideological grounds. Yes, the regional and world powers are uniting to militarily confront the widespread cancer of Daesh, but who will provide a counter-narrative? If defeated today, they may emerge tomorrow with a new identity but with the same agenda. Needless to say, it should be the top priority of governments, religious scholars, historians, sociologists, educationists and jurists to nullify the terrorists narrative with counter-texts and historical references. Where is the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)? Why can't it coordinate and compile a counter-narrative? Once done, that should be the only narrative to be taught in schools and seminaries across the globe. But I know nothing is going to happen and we will continue to be engulfed in this vicious cycle of hatred and bloodshed. And that's what these extremists are hoping to achieve.
