UNIPATH STAFF
Her Majesty Queen Rania Al-Abdullah of Jordan called on the world to unite against the scourge of Daesh.
“I think to confront them, we have to identify the enemy, and the enemies are the extremists, they are the collective enemy,” the queen said. “But that’s not what they want us to think. They want to pit the West against Islam, and Muslims against the rest of the world because for them, the more the world is divided, the more there’s a chasm and a distance between us, the more space they have to maneuver and the more ground they gain.”
Destroying such terrorists will require a collective effort, the queen said.
“I think we need to redraw the battle lines and understand that this is a battle amongst all of us: Christians, Muslims and Jews against the extremists — all of us moderates who are fighting for our way of life and our values against a group of people,” she said.
The battle can’t be won with weapons alone, she said. In addition to military action, Queen Rania called for an ideological campaign.
“Although we need to confront them very aggressively, militarily in the battlefield, this is also an ideological war and you can’t kill an idea with a bullet — the only way you can kill an idea is to propose a better one.”
She also reiterated the importance of education to suppress recruitment among the young.
“These groups, they exploit hopelessness; they live off desperation and division, and we can’t give them that.”