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ISIS and attacks on Muslims in Burma and Sri Lanka

October 21, 2014 at 1:59 pm

There is no doubt that the extremism and terrorism which is shedding the blood of Muslims have given a golden opportunity for attacking Muslims everywhere. What is happening in Syria and Iraq under the pretext of establishing the Caliphate that will allow Muslims to control the world, which is an absolute myth and a huge conspiracy, is a prelude for attacking the blessed Al-Aqsa and all Muslims in general in Asia and Africa and within Islamic communities so the fruit of the large conspiracy would be expelling Muslims from Europe and America.

This is a real call and a slogan for extreme religious and political right wing groups in the West which stem from the theory that Arab Muslims, along with Ottomans, had invaded Europe with swords in the Middle Ages and then they invaded it again by immigration in the 1950s.

The West returned Muslims to their countries by means of the sword during the Crusades when they attacked the east for many centuries. Now they want to return them after all the political immoralities committed by their fellow Muslims in the name of religion.

On October 16, the New York Times published a painful story regarding this under the headline: Deadly Alliances Against Muslims, in which it discussed the Buddhist-Hindu alliance against Muslims in Burma and Sri Lanka. It said that Galagodaththe Gnanasara, the leader of the radical Sri Lankan Buddhist group Bodu Bala Sena (Buddhist Power Force), announced in a conference in Sri Lanka in September that an international Buddhist alliance against Muslims must be setup.

The prime minister of Sri Lanka ignored call by Muslims and Christians not to grant a visa to extremist Buddhist Ashin Wirathu, who Time magazine had called “the face of Buddhist terror” in July. The newspaper said the leader of the extremist Buddhist group held talks with the head of the right-wing Hindu group Rashtriya Swayam Sevak to setup a “Hindu-Buddhist peace zone” in South Asia.

Attacks on Islam and Muslims for the past decades, its recent escalation, have given Takfiris the political cover to attack and Muslims. This has also lead to Muslim minorities in various African communities being disregarded, where some African governments abolished Islam as a religion as long as its followers act in this way.

These governments also failed to protect Muslims from Christian extremists just as others were unable to protect Christians in Nigeria, for example, from the Muslim extremist of Boko Haram. This is the quickest way to belittle Islam and Muslims. So, what did Islamic organisations, governmental institutions and wise Muslims do to stop this sedition against Buddhist extremists in Asia and against Muslim extremists in the region and in Africa and to stop the bloodshed for everyone?!

The author is a former Egyptian ambassador and a professor of international law at the American University in Cairo.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.