Religious extremism bane of all societies

Hussein Guillet, the imam of the mosque in Quebec, Canada, in which a gunman opened fire last week, said in a recent sermon: “We have 17 orphans. We have six widows. We have five wounded. We ask Allah to get them out of hospital as soon as possible.”

He added: “Did I go through the complete list of victims? No. There is one victim none of us want to talk about, but given my age I have the courage to say it. This victim’s name is Alexandre Bissonnette. Alexandre, before being a killer, was a victim himself. Before planting bullets in the heads of his victims, somebody planted ideas more dangerous than the bullets in his head.”

What Guillet said in his mosque has become more important than exchanging racist statements. The world suffers from a crisis of sick ideas that have crossed seas, borders, languages and human values, taking advantage of technology, political climates and chaos. In Quebec, one man killed six worshippers, but there are millions fighting wars of hatred and incitement. This is unprecedented in modern history, and includes all communities.

What is the difference between Bissonnette, who gunned down worshippers, and Abdullah Al-Hamahmi, who traveled to Paris to commit a similar crime in the Louvre museum? Both are racist extremists, but they are also victims of an era of extremism and hatred.

Al-Hamahmi could have lived differently, as a moderate in every aspect of life. He could also have been a victim of extremist ideas as a nationalist, communist, leftist, racist, Christian, Jew or Hindu. People are a victim of their environment, and the global environment has become contaminated under international indifference to extremism in general.

As Guillet said in his eulogy to the victims, the ideas that were planted in the heads of both extremists are more dangerous than bullets and terrorist crimes. Extremist ideology has become far more malicious than all the world’s weapons. War now is totally different from past wars. Previous wars used to have slogans, leaders, governments, bargains, victory and defeat, unlike wars against extremist ideas and battles of hatred.

The international community is still confused about how to stop potential clashes between nations and followers of all religions. All countries blame one another, but every society is suffering from this crisis: Buddhists in Myanmar, Muslims in Syria and Iraq, and Christians in the West. The blaze of hatred is spreading as rapidly as the inciting messages via various means of communication.

What about the position of US President Donald Trump, who put himself in the middle of a whirlpool of ideas and conflicts? We cannot accept Trump’s decisions if they are hostile to Muslims, Arabs, or other races and religions.

However, as long as Washington limits its sanctions to countries with which it has political disputes, such as Iran, or to states whose authorities have collapsed due to war, such as Syria and Libya, we cannot consider such decisions as racist or hostile. Several governments in the Middle East deny entry to citizens from such troubled countries out of fear and caution.