Remarks at the National Stakeholders Roundtable on Partnership on
Strengthening the Role of Religious Experts and Scholars in Countering
Violent Extremism in Nigeria Held at NTI Kaduna.
Organised by Office of the National Security Adviser between 19th and 21st January 20, 2015.
Let me begin by congratulating the offices of the National Security
Adviser and SSA on Islamic Affairs on the thoughtfulness of organizing
this important and timely workshop. It is highly commendable to bring
various shades of opinions and diverse stakeholders together to
brainstorm on issues pertaining to our collective interest and security.
I am of the opinion the more opportunities we have to sincerely plan,
brainstorm, strategize and even socialize, the better for us because
communication is one important way of peacemaking and confidence
building.
While appreciating the organizers, it strikes me that
the programme falls within the same time the American Embassy is also
inviting a couple of Muslim activists to a programme of the same
thematic concern. I then wonder if the Government and the US Embassy are
working in concert in this all-important regard or it is just a mere
coincidence. Curiosity is the key to knowledge and I think if the former
case were the situation, a joint programme would have been much better
and cost-effective. More importantly, it is relevant and appropriate
that we collectively discuss counter-terrorism.
The fundamental
purpose of Shariah, which means “divine guidance” but popularly
construed as “Islamic Law”, (a more fitting interpretation of its
component, “fiqh”), is security. This security operates on five levels,
otherwise referred to as maqasid shariah, which are the security of
life, of property, of mind, of progeny and of honour. These are basic
necessities for existence in every human society and every society is
duty-bound to protect these necessities. Counter-terrorism is a
contemporary security mechanism for the protection of these basic
necessities of existence and it is crucial it is given serious
attention. We need to re-orientate the mind of the enraged to the
Quranic prescriptions against unwarranted hate-speech against Islam and
the Prophets. Allah told Prophet Muhammad "exercise patience on what
they are saying" This should be our message.
Mr Chairman, on the
other hand, while it is desirable and essential to discuss
counter-terrorism against the backdrop of what our world has become
especially with reference to the preponderance of guided weapons in the
hands of unguided/misguided people, I would suggest the approach to the
subject is more encompassing. For security and counter-terrorism
measures to be robust and effective, they should address the root
causes. The root is always there but we often deal with the branches.
Two of these root causes are unfairness and injustice and expectedly,
fairness and justice will counteract them.
Let me be specific
here. There is freedom of speech but we also know that freedom is
constrained by law when it infringes on personal integrity, state or
national security. There is defamation law to protect individuals from
slander and libel. In Nigeria as a state, no one is free to run his
mouth wild and ask that a foreign country should topple a democratically
elected government because that is a felony.
Speech can do more
damage than physical torture and that is why there are legal safeguards
against defamation and felony. Oppression or violence is done also by
speech, among other ways, and both the Glorious Qu’ran and the Holy
Bible are unequivocal in this regard. According to the two sources,
“oppression is even worse than killing” and “oppression makes a wise
man mad”. Prevention is also better than cure as we can actually
counter-act many problems by guarding against oppression in speech and
in deed.
Few issues can be used to illustrate this and one thanks
the Pope for the recent statement he made that free speech has its
limits. According to the Pope while in The Philippines last week, if his
good friend “says a curse word against my mother, he should expect a
punch in the nose,” adding “It is normal. You cannot provoke. You cannot
make fun of the faith of others.” It is the faith of about two billion
people in the world that some people have turned to the butt of jokes
and highly offensive and inexcusable caricatures all in the name of
freedom of expression. When a cleric issued a fatwa that such a person
ought to be sentenced to death, the highly hypocritical western world
cried out as if the cleric too had no right to freedom of speech.
Intolerance of Islam led to the blasphemous pronouncements/presentations
to which an intolerant group also reacts.
Whereas, it is the
same campaigners of freedom of speech that arrested someone for hate
speech, after supporting the attack in France. It becomes glaring that
freedom of speech exists to insult a religious group while there is no
freedom of speech to express one’s thought to the country. The limit of
freedom of expression should be all-encompassing, not parochial. This is
unfair and it is lack of fairness and the oppression that it engenders
that makes people mad in the world, to paraphrase the Bible, including
those that would have expected faith to have made wise.
The
insight in the quoted words of the Pope would be lost to many,
especially those who constitute problems to the world. The implication
of its profundity is that it is natural one reacts when one is provoked.
It is, therefore, sheer hypocrisy to always be blaming reactions rather
than address the (in)actions that precipitate the reactions. Negative
reactions are reactionary; they are not justifiable but the point being
made is the need to dig deep and address root problems so that we make
the world fair and just.
To cite another example, if a person
puts a green leaf in-between his teeth, it is an ordinary thing. But
when that is done in the presence of the deaf in our culture, it is
provocative and there is a spontaneous reaction. It is unreasonable to
blame the deaf for reacting while ignoring the person who puts the leaf
between his teeth. Since it is not food, why must the agent provocateur
put a leaf in his mouth to taunt or provoke the deaf in the first
instance? This is the situation the world is facing. Muslims are being
deliberately taunted, heavily maligned, collectively provoked and then
roundly blamed for reacting as naturally as one would punch a person’s
nose for insulting one’s mother.
Prof. Is-haq O. Oloyede, OFR, FNAL,
Date Published: Friday, January 25th, 2019
No comments:
Post a Comment