Remarks
by
H.E. Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser
The High Representative for the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations
before
The Meeting on Advancing a Multi-Religious Response to Violent Religious Extremism
Abu Dhabi – December 12-13, 2014
Shaikh Abdullah bin Bayyah, President of Forum for Peace in Muslim Societies
Dr. William Vendley, Secretary-General of Religions for Peace
Your Eminences,
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen:
At the outset, I would like to thank Shaykh Abdallah Bin Bayyah and Dr. William Vendley for inviting me to address this important and timely forum on advancing a multi-religious response to violent religious extremism. The United Nations Alliance of Civilizations highly values the work of Shaykh Bin Bayyah in inter-religious dialogue and peace-building. I would also like to applaud Dr. William Vendley’s commitment to promoting shared and common values, particularly his constant engagement with the Alliance.
Let me begin by looking back at the events that have been shaping our world in the past few months. We see a rising wave of extremism and radicalization. Facing the scourge of violent extremism constitute a serious challenge to global peace and security. The United Nations recognizes the significance of the threat and has adopted its own strategy to deal with the issue. It would be stating the obvious to say that much of the worst terrorist attacks of recent years have been the work of religious extremists. But we should also acknowledge that terrorism can take other shapes and can be perpetrated by other ideological groups, states and other entities and individuals.
In September of this year, the Security Council of the United Nations unanimously approved a historic resolution aimed at stopping the flow of foreign extremists to battlefields around the world.
Resolution 2178 requires Member States to take specific steps to prevent suspected foreign terrorist fighters from entering or transiting their territories and to implement legislation to prosecute such fighters. It also calls on states to take various steps to improve international cooperation in this field, such as by sharing information on criminal investigations, interdictions and prosecutions.
Significantly, this Resolution was passed under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which provides the framework within which the Security Council may take enforcement action. Specifically, it allows the Council to “determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression” and to make recommendations or to resort to non-military and military action to “maintain or restore international peace and security”. Chapter VII also underlines the mandatory nature for UN Member States of those measures imposed and contains provisions that call for action to carry out the decisions adopted.
The seriousness of the Council’s actions reflects the gravity of the situation on the ground. The number of foreign terrorist fighters in the Syria and Iraq conflicts has grown to over 15,000 from more than 80 countries. We recently learned that of these fighters, up to 3000 are EU citizens.
Beyond the specter of these fighters returning home, to speak for a moment of the countries where violent conflict is ongoing, terrorist groups spurred by extremist ideologies — such as Da’esh and the Al-Nusra Front in Iraq and Syria, Boko Haram in Nigeria and Cameroon and Al-Shabab in Somalia and Kenya – continue to carry out brutal acts, wreak havoc, and cause untold suffering to civilians, including young children and women. In the case of all three examples, the perpetrators are using Islam to justify their actions.
With the rise of religiously justified violent extremism, as a tool of political debate in many different areas, we are witnessing a world in crisis. This poses serious threats to international law and order and global peace and security. Crucially, it also challenges the global agenda for the future of societies and sets back multiple indicators on the Post-2015 Sustainable Development Agenda.
While I believe that Resolution 2178 specifically and law enforcement more broadly, as a means of combating terrorism, must remain a priority, long-term success depends on strategic approaches to address the conditions conducive to the spread of terrorism.
A big part of this comes from, countering the ideologies that help justify and build support for terrorist causes. Ideology is a powerful mobilizing tool. It is no surprise that extremists usurp religion for their own political ends—or the very frameworks that human beings use to make sense of their lives on this planet and to inform their conduct thereof. Extremist organizations use perversions of religious tenets to organize internally, to justify their actions, and to mobilize popular support.
This is why the work of Shaikh Abdullah bin Bayyah in issuing a fatwa against Boko Haram in Nigeria in May 2014 and against Da’esh in Syria and Iraq in September of this year is absolutely vital. I totally agree with Shaykh bin Bayyah’s call for dialogue about the true tenets of Islam and his conviction that addressing extremism and radicalization will take time but that it is time worth spending because military action alone won’t work. This is precisely why we are all gathered here today.
As the international community, I firmly believe that it is incumbent on us to provide viable, meaningful alternatives to the perversions of religion that terrorists propagate.
For young Muslims, their personal practice of Islam should be a source of inspiration for being in the world in a way that both recognizes the interdependence at the heart of human existence, and marshals them to serve to improve the world and the lives of everyone around them.
This is why at the UN Alliance of Civilizations, the organization I lead, we work directly with young people to provide them with a platform to mainstream their voices in broader political discussions in the societies in which they live. We firmly believe that this is the most viable and effective way to provide an alternative to radicalization.
We also work with religious leaders in many different parts of the world, often through our longstanding partnership with Religions for Peace, to amplify their voices and more effectively disseminate messages of pluralism to their constituencies.
We also work with journalists. As an example, we recently held the first in a series of collaborations with Somali diaspora journalists from across Europe and North America on narratives that heal and narratives that harm their communities. This has been meaningful work, but as so much of our work is iterative, we are seeking constant improvement, and so we have found that there is more we can do.
But it is also crucial to remember that the issue is not just one of narratives and political mainstreaming of marginalized voices. Socioeconomic conditions within and across communities also matter. We cannot understate the relationship between radicalization-extremism-violence and economic and social development, where the absence of development can create the conditions for radicalization, and where the existence of violent extremism can impede advances toward development.
In other words, as the international community, our engagement programs with local communities must also generate real and effective solutions to their socioeconomic difficulties.
This fact is recognized in the eleventh and sixteenth goals of the Sustainable Development Goals, which speak to the relationship between violent conflict and sustainable development, and call for resources to be dedicated to building greater resiliency in communities.
Alongside religious leaders, governments must play a critical role in addressing these challenges through active prevention-oriented policies and an increased focus on stabilization processes where violence is recurrent; on the targeting of the drivers of extremism; and on allocating adequate resources justly across different demographic groups.
Finally, as the lead entity of the UN Secretariat in assisting countries to address global challenges with interfaith and intercultural dimensions, the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) stands ready to support Member States in addressing rising tensions that appear through the faces of radicalization, violence and extremism.
I thank you.