WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama laid out on Thursday a multi-pronged vision to confront violent extremism. It advocates fighting violence with democracy and prosperity.

In both his speeches at a White House summit on the issue, Mr Obama reminded the international community that military action and law-enforcement alone could not defeat terrorism. He reiterated his stance that Islam was not the cause of terrorism and that extremists did not represent Islam.

He also stressed the need for taking immediate steps to break the cycle of sectarian conflicts and for changing the perception of religious minorities and Muslims.

Addressing delegates from more than 60 countries on the second day of the three-day summit, Mr Obama said the international community needed to address ‘grievances’ that terrorists exploit, including economic and political issues.

“We can help Muslim entrepreneurs and youths work with the private sector to develop social media tools to counter extremist narratives on the Internet,” he said in an earlier message.

But Mr Obama clarified that “poverty alone does not cause a person to become a terrorist, any more than poverty alone causes someone to become a criminal”.

He noted that there were billions of people who were poor and were still law-abiding, peaceful and tolerant.

“But when people — especially young people — feel entirely trapped in impoverished communities … that feeds instability and disorder, and makes those communities ripe for extremist recruitment,” he warned.

“We have seen that across the Middle East and we’ve seen it across North Africa. So if we’re serious about countering violent extremism, we have to get serious about confronting these economic grievances.”

President Obama also urged US security agencies to improve their relations with the Muslims living in this country.

“We can’t “securitise” our relationship with Muslim Americans — dealing with them solely through the prism of law-enforcement,” he said.

“When we do, that only reinforces suspicions, makes it harder for us to build the trust that we need to work together.”

President Obama also said that no single religion was responsible for violence and terrorism and emphasised the need to lift up the voice of tolerance in the United States and beyond.

The two speeches, like his earlier statements on Islam, irked Republican lawmakers and media commentators who criticised him for “going out of his way to please Muslims.”

They also censured him for suggesting that creating more jobs for Muslim youths could help address the terrorism crisis.

Fox News collected an opinion survey and claimed that 68 per cent voters want Mr Obama to be tougher on Islamic extremists.

But this did not deter President Obama from projecting his opinion that extremists, and not Islam or the larger Muslim community, were responsible for terrorism.

“Al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS) … try to portray themselves as … holy warriors in defence of Islam … propagate the notion that America -- and the West, generally -- is at war with Islam. That’s how they recruit. That’s how they try to radicalise young people,” he said.

“We must never accept the premise that they put forward, because it is a lie. Nor should we grant these terrorists the religious legitimacy that they seek. They are not religious leaders -- they’re terrorists.”

President Obama said that Muslim communities also needed to reject the terrorist narrative that “the West and Islam are in conflict, or modern life and Islam are in conflict”.

He pointed out that al-Qaeda and ISIS drew selectively from the Islamic texts to support their claim and only Muslims leaders could refute their claim effectively.

“Of course, the terrorists do not speak for over a billion Muslims who reject their hateful ideology,” said Mr Obama, adding that no religion was responsible for terrorism.

“People are responsible for violence and terrorism.”

The president also noted that respected Muslim clerics and scholars around the world had rejected the extremists’ interpretation of their faith and were preaching peace and justice.

Mr Obama pointed that the Holy Quran “says whoever kills an innocent, it is as if he has killed all mankind” and this message represented the belief of over a billion people around the world.

Mr Obama acknowledged the notion that the Muslim world had suffered historical grievances was “sometimes accurate” but it was wrong to blame the West for all the ills in the Middle East or other parts of the Muslim world.

“We’ve got to be able to talk honestly about those issues.

We’ve got to be much clearer about how we’re rejecting certain ideas,” he said.

“So just as leaders like myself reject the notion that terrorists” like ISIS genuinely represent Islam, Muslim leaders need to do more to discredit the notion that our nations are determined to suppress Islam, that there’s an inherent clash in civilisations.

President Obama urged Muslim leaders to “speak up very clearly that no matter what the grievance, violence against innocents doesn’t defend Islam or Muslims, it damages Islam and Muslims.”

Mr Obama told the international community that the extremists were doing more harm to Muslims than to any other religious group.

“Pakistan’s Taliban has mounted a long campaign of violence against the Pakistani people that now tragically includes the massacre of more than 100 schoolchildren and their teachers,” he said.

Published in Dawn, February 20th, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play