Bangkok Post: US Muslim Council Urges True Teaching
Religion does not condone terrorist acts
By Achara Ashayagachat
(08/12/2003) Islamic education needed proper attention to prevent more people becoming extremists in Thailand and other Southeast Asian nations, the public affairs director of the Islamic Supreme Council of America said yesterday.
Hedieh Mirahmadi emphasised that terrorism and Islam could not be seen as one and the same, saying ``We must help governments in the world understand the differences between Islamic extremists and overall Muslims.
``This region, culturally and historically, is not violent in nature, but external educational initiatives, financing and other links with international terrorist movements have imported this problem,'' she said, referring to the Bali bombings last October and the Jakarta blast last week.
What remained [in the region] after the fight against colonialism might be separatist movements, but they were distinctly different from terrorism movements, she said.
For example, she said, the Jemaah Islamiyah network, which allegedly masterminded the Bali and Jakarta suicide bombings, was not a home-grown movement.
``We need to take care of education, to prevent schools being manipulated by certain courses of Islamics that cause young people to turn to violence,'' she said.
``Wrong education'' that was exported around the world and affecting Africa, the Americas and Southeast Asia needed correcting, she said.
Traditional, moderate and tolerant societies in Southeast Asia, like Thailand, needed protection.
She agreed that extremist movements were growing because ``people are increasingly disenfranchised and struggling from the lack of expression''.
Such people were told of a pan-Islamic world and given economic promises by extremists.
``So we have to find other ways for these people to resolve their problems,'' Ms Mirahmadi said.
Solving the problem's root cause _ poverty _ would not be easy and ``we cannot completely ignore education''.
Ms Mirahmadi is on her first visit to Thailand, with US government sponsorship, to build ties between American and Thai muslims.
She is the third visitor of her kind in a project that has gathered momentum since the terrorist attacks of Sept 2001.
Ms Mirahmadi, a lawyer, is scheduled to meet academics, women's law groups, attend an Islamic peace conference in Pattani, and hold discussions with a whole range of non-government organisations in the South.
The council, a non-profit organisation that runs political and social outreach programmes in the US, is also working with Muslim organisations in Indonesia and Malaysia.
