(KampalaSDN)today i want to focus my remarks on terrorism but first let me address one point someone suggested that by holding a strategic defense and security review Britain s somehow retreating from an activist role in the worlds and that is opposite of the truth Britain will continue the nato 2% target for defense spending budget Britain we will still have the fourth largest military defense budget in the world and at the sometime we are putting that money to better use focusing on conflict prevention and building a much more flexible army. That is not retreat it is hard headed every decision we take has three aims in min.
1 to continue to support the NATO mission in Afghanistan
2 to reinforce our actual military capability chancellor miracles government is showing here in Germany what matters is not bureaucracy which frankly Europe as nations and allies that we can deliver in the field
3 we need to make sure that Britain is protected from the various treats that we phase that is why we are investing in a national caper security program that i know William huge talked about yesterday and we are sharpening our readiness to act a counter proliferation.
But the biggest threat that we face comes from terrorist attacks some of which are sadly cariedout by our own citizens. It is important to stress that terrorism is not linked to any exclusively one religion or group my country the United Kingdom still faces threats from dissident republicans in f Ireland arnicas attacks have occurred recently in Greece and Italy and of course you in Germany are long scat from the red army faction. Nevertheless we should acknowledge that this threat comes in Europe overwhelmingly from a young man who follows completely perverse interpretations of Islam and who are prepaid to blow themselves up and kill their fellow citizens. last week a divorce i rang lamp and for Europe to recover its economic dynamism and today though the subject is complex my message on security is equally stack we will not defeat terrorism simply by the action we take outside our borders Europe needs to wake up to what is happening in our own countries of course that means strengthening as Angela has said the security aspects is our response on tracing plots stopping them on counter surveillance intelligence guttering answer we have got to get to the root of the problem and we need to be absolutely clear on where the origins of these terrorist lies and that is the existence of an ideology Islamism extremism and we should be equally clear what we earn by this term ad we must distinguish it from Islam , Islam is a religion observed peacefully and devotedly by over a billion people Islamism extremism is a political ideology supported by minority s at the furthest end those who back terrorism to promote their ultimate goal an entire realm governed by interpretation sharia move along the spectrum and you find people who reject violence but who accept various parts of the extrimist world view including real hostility towards democracy and liberal values. it is vital that we make this distinction between religion on the one hand and political ideology on the other time and again people equate the two they think whether someone is an extrimist is dependent on how much they observe the religion do they talk about the modern Muslims as if all devote Muslims must be extremism this is profoundly wrong. Some can be a devote Muslim and not be and extremism we need to be clear.
Islam extremisms and Islam are not the same thing. this is my lights i think a significant problems when discussing the terrorist threats that we face there is so much model thinking about this whole issue on e one hand, those on the hard right ignore this distinction between Islam and Islam extremism and just say that Islam and the west are irreconcilable that there is class of civilizations so it follows we should cut our selves off from this religion whether that is true or false repatriation favored by some fascists burning of some new mosques as is suggested in some parts of Europe theses people fuel slamaphopia and i completely reject that argument this if they want an example of how western values and Islam entirely compatible can be. they should look at what happens in the past view weeks on the streets Tunis and Cairo 100 of thousands of people demanding universal right5s free election and democracy because the point is this ideology of extremism is the problem Islam invatically is not picking a fat with the later will not help us confront the former on the other hand there are those on the soft left who are also ignore this distinction they lamp all muslins together compiling a lifts of grievances and argue that only governments address these grievances the terrorism will stop . So they point to poverty that is so money Muslims living get rid of this injustice and terorsm will end. but this ignores the fact money of those found guilty of terrorist defenders in the uk and elsewhere have even graduates and offend middle class they point to grievances western foreign policy and say stop writing rod sheds over Muslim countries and terrorism will end .
But there are money people Muslim and non Muslim alike who are angry western foreign policy who don’t resort to act terrorism. They also point to the perfusion of an elected leader to the Middle East and say stop propping these people up and you stop creating the conditions for extremism to flourish. but this raises the question if it is the lack of democracy that is the problem why there are so money extremists in free and open societies i am not saying that these issues about foreign policies are not important of course we must tackle them of course we must tackle poverty yes we must resolve the sources of tension not least in Palestine and yes we should be on the side of openness and political reform in the midlist on Egypt opposition we must see the transition to a more proudly base government with a proper building blocks of a free and democratic society .
simply don’t accept that there is somehow a dead end choice between the security state on the one hand and Islamism on the other. let us not foul ourselves these are just contributory factors even if we sorted out all of the problems that i have mentioned there will still be this terrorism and i believe the root lies in the existence of these ideologies and i would argue and important reason that so money young are drown to it comes down to a question of identity what i am about to say is drawn from the British experiences but5 i believe there are general lessons for assault in the uk there are some young men has to identify with the traditional Islam practiced at home by their parents whose customs can seem instead when transplanted to modern western countries and these young find hard to identify with Britain too because we have allowed weakening collective identity under the doctrine of state multy cultureless we have encouraged different cultures to live separate lives apart from each other and apart from the mainstream we fail to provide a vision of society to which they feel which to belong we have even tolerated the segregated communities behaving in ways of run completely counter to a values. When a whitheperson racist views for instance we rightly condemn them.
Ai Ahmed khadar boqor2010@gmail.com
Wariye khadarbitijoor@hotmail.com
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