For the second time this week (
see prior posting), President Obama delivered a major speech (
full text) on combating terrorism, with significant attention to the relationship of violent extremism and Islam. Yesterday, addressing an international Summit on Countering Violent Extremism held at the State Department, the President said in part:
[W]e have to confront the warped ideologies espoused by terrorists like al Qaeda and ISIL, especially their attempt to use Islam to justify their violence. I discussed this at length yesterday. These terrorists are desperate for legitimacy. And all of us have a responsibility to refute the notion that groups like ISIL somehow represent Islam, because that is a falsehood that embraces the terrorist narrative.
At the same time, we must acknowledge that groups like al Qaeda and ISIL are deliberately targeting their propaganda to Muslim communities, particularly Muslim youth. And Muslim communities, including scholars and clerics, therefore have a responsibility to push back, not just on twisted interpretations of Islam, but also on the lie that we are somehow engaged in a clash of civilizations; that America and the West are somehow at war with Islam or seek to suppress Muslims; or that we are the cause of every ill in the Middle East....
And finally, we have to ensure that our diverse societies truly welcome and respect people of all faiths and backgrounds, and leaders set the tone on this issue.
Groups like al Qaeda and ISIL peddle the lie that some of our countries are hostile to Muslims. Meanwhile, we’ve also seen, most recently in Europe, a rise in inexcusable acts of anti-Semitism, or in some cases, anti-Muslim sentiment or anti-immigrant sentiment. When people spew hatred towards others -- because of their faith or because they’re immigrants -- it feeds into terrorist narratives. If entire communities feel they can never become a full part of the society in which they reside, it feeds a cycle of fear and resentment and a sense of injustice upon which extremists prey. And we can’t allow cycles of suspicions to tear at the fabric of our countries....
Violent extremists and terrorists thrive when people of different religions or sects pull away from each other and are able to isolate each other and label them as “they” as opposed to “us;” something separate and apart. So we need to build and bolster bridges of communication and trust....
I’d like to close by speaking very directly to a painful truth that’s part of the challenge that brings us here today. In some of our countries, including the United States, Muslim communities are still small, relative to the entire population, and as a result, many people in our countries don’t always know personally of somebody who is Muslim. So the image they get of Muslims or Islam is in the news. And given the existing news cycle, that can give a very distorted impression. A lot of the bad, like terrorists who claim to speak for Islam, that’s absorbed by the general population. Not enough of the good -- the more than 1 billion people around the world who do represent Islam, and are doctors and lawyers and teachers, and neighbors and friends....
The world hears a lot about the terrorists who attacked Charlie Hebdo in Paris, but the world has to also remember the Paris police officer, a Muslim, who died trying to stop them. The world knows about the attack on the Jews at the kosher supermarket in Paris; we need to recall the worker at that market, a Muslim, who hid Jewish customers and saved their lives. And when he was asked why he did it, he said, “We are brothers. It's not a question of Jews or Christians or Muslims. We're all in the same boat, and we have to help each other to get out of this crisis.”
