Daily Times

The massacre of dozens of Muslim immigrants in a relatively serene part of the globe exposes the fragility of peace in our troubled world. The tragedy is also indicative of our deceptive and shallow comprehension of extremism and militancy. The us-led global war against terror has caused much damage to multiculturalism in western world while sharpening cultural and religious differences between settlers and natives. The propaganda tools employed by states to achieve their foreign policy objectives in the aftermath of 9/11, have contributed to the rise of Islamophobia in the west. Therefore, in order to protect peace and progress, the world needs to detach extremism from religion and retrace the fault-lines between communities in this globalized world.

Almost half a decade after Peshawar Massacre in Pakistan’s northern province, mass murder of innocent worshipers in a mosque in New Zeeland exhibits that little is accomplished to ensure durable peace. The incident uncovers the persisting vulnerability of ‘soft targets’ in the face of rising extremism across the globe. Friday bloodbath was a display of skilful use of technological resources in order to complete nefarious designs. Nevertheless, the world has witnessed the shocking capacity of an extremist mind to play havoc with the tranquillity of an otherwise harmonious society. Thus, more important than the gun is the mind that controls it and it is, therefore, necessary to re-comprehend radical tendencies to wage an intellectual war against extremism.

In the past few decades, a tendency to tie up all extremism with Islam has been popularised — chiefly in the western world. This misleading tendency is the direct consequence of propaganda used by states, media houses and right-wing politicians across the developed world in order to keep the domestic public opinion in line with military extravagance in Muslim territories. Resultantly, ethnic, economic and cultural intolerance was equated with religious extremism. Billions of peaceful practitioners of a religion are stigmatized for the crimes they have never committed. This created rifts between communities on one hand and lessened our ability to understand extremism in an objective way on the other.

The world now finds itself on crossroads of history. We have to decide whether individuals will be kept captive of hyper-nationalism and ethnocentrism or a more inclusive policy, both domestic and international, will be adopted

Foreign policy interest articulation through the propagation of doctored narratives always leads to adverse consequences. Pakistani people are still paying the price of inventing Islamist Jihad, of course in partnership with the US, decades ago to deal with communist bloc. In the same way, Islamophobia will haunt us for years as a result of anti-Islam rhetoric employed during the global war on terror. The inevitable results of this massive complexity are intolerance and radicalism as opposed to multiculturalism and peaceful coexistence.

Prime Minister of New Zeeland has rightly termed the carnage as terrorism and promised to do justice with the families of the deceased. She further said that such violence and its perpetrators have “no place in New Zeeland and in the world.” Does the wider world support her opinion on the issue and view this incident as explicit terrorism and gross violation of human rights? Do the world leaders join forces to condemn the violence in the same way they would have, had the perpetrators belonged to some Islamist organization? The answers to these questions will determine the fate of world peace.

Today, when the Afghan war is heading towards its end, no party to the conflict is in a position to claim victory. However, the defeated are surely the unarmed people who have paid the price with their blood. This conflict, which has claimed thousands of lives and caused waves of violence and destruction throughout the world, speaks volumes about the repercussions of relying upon engineered narratives for the achievement of foreign policy objectives. The world now finds itself on crossroads of history. We have to decide whether individuals will be kept captive of hyper-nationalism and ethnocentrism or a more inclusive policy, both domestic and international, will be adopted. Surely, a foreign policy based on facts with cautious use of propaganda can provide surer basis for peace and prosperity of the world.

The writer is a freelance contributor

Published in Daily Times, March 18^th 2019.