ISLAMABAD, June 26: Former prime minister and Chairperson of Pakistan People's Party Benazir Bhutto has called upon the youth of the world to reject the message of hate and embrace the message of peace "as the biggest blessing from God is the blessing of peace".
She said this while delivering a keynote speech at a seminar on "International peace and the role of religion" in London on Friday. A large number of intellectuals, religious scholars, academia and youth were in attendance.
Stressing the need for separating terrorists from the underlying causes of discontent, she said from time to time in history, religion was used to obtain political results. The Spanish inquisition is one example, The Crusades another. "Resistance to the British colonial rule in the subcontinent was articulated as Muslim subnationalism. Communism in Central Asia was met with religious resistance in the form of Mujahideen during the Afghan Jihad."
The PPP chairperson said the Madressahs founded during the rule of military dictator Ziaul Haq taught war to Afghans in the name of Islam. In India the recent resurgence of the Hindutva ideology changed the secular nature of that country to redefine nationhood in terms of religion, she said.
"The Zionist ideology led Israel to justify violence to protect hold of territory. The anti-Zionist ideology unified Islamic militancy. The splinters from the Afghan war reorganised and joined Middle Eastern militarism.
The challenge in addressing the issues of peace is therefore to separate the terrorists from the issues they adopt to gain a wider audience."
Regarding dictatorship in several Muslim countries and the western support for them, she asked the western countries to understand that the anger of the militants was equally directed towards their own governments.
No democracy will have militants spilling over, as is now happening in dictatorships. This is especially the case in Pakistan where militarism is equally directed at the state, as it is towards the Western world.
She said that each country with a military past, including Indonesia, The Philippines and Pakistan, had a problem with terrorism. Terrorism and extremism go hand in hand with dictatorship. Unless democracy returns to Pakistan, the fear is that civil war could break out.
The involvement of military in first raising militants under one dictator and subsequently seeking to crush them under another dictator has culminated in attacks on the armed forces themselves, she said.
Talking about the need for inter-faith harmony and democracy, the former prime minister said there were two pillars of a world at peace. The first was of inter-faith dialogue and the second was of promoting democracy.
Democracy can permit the flowering of a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society where races, religions and genders co- exist peacefully, in harmony to the mutual benefit of all, she said.
Warning against rise in extremism, she said extremist groups were rising in all the key civilizations, in the Muslim world, in India and in America. They spew hatred against Muslims, or Jews or Christians. The extremists are united in hate, in intolerance and in sparking religious wars where they can prosper, she said.
It is by dictating the agenda of understanding, as you are doing today through this inter-faith seminar that we can build a better world.
We can prevent the clash of civilisations from taking place by marginalizing the voices of the extremists.
Expressing concerns over the increasing terrorist activities in Pakistan, the former prime minister said Pakistan Army chief was helpless to protect himself and his commander.
She said order can be restored for which army must go back to the barracks. Professional armed forces under an elected government enjoy prestige because it is the political government that absorbs the criticism of policies.
She said a democratic and political government respecting human rights was the best guarantee of inter-faith understanding, of brotherhood and harmony, the very building blocks of peace, progress and prosperity.
