Our authorities: We have no trust in you in fighting extremism

Suddenly, all Western authorities (that includes politicians, media and security agencies) had seemingly woken up to the imminent threats of terrorism. Everywhere around the world. And Australia is not exception. Suddenly, authorities are desperate to coordinate with community “leaders” and members. Media are running tens of stories about extremism in our backyard.

But the main question here: are they serious in ending extremism and possible terrorism?

The answer until now is definitely NO.

When you have no concrete information, you will depend on indications and results.

When the government woke up to the bell of extremism (and possible imminent terrorism), they sought meetings and consultations with the same “leaders” that conducted the fierce campaign to radicalise our youth and help them travel to fight in Syria, where they gained extensive experience in military terrorism.

And when Khaled Sharrouf’s shocking pictures shocked our nation, the media rushed to community members and “leaders” that brainwashed Khaled and helped him to commit his crimes, seeking comments and shy condemnation.

But was there any one practical step to fight extremism on the road to destroy it?

I can claim safely that the practical steps taken were not serious and definitely not up to the extreme challenge we are facing.

Yes, we have PM who gives regular fiery speeches about possible terrorism in Australia.
And yes, we have ASIO boss regularly updating us about some information about Australian participation in terrorism overseas (we know more than these information, already!).

And we have loud talks about “Australia team”, but the members of the team chosen wrongly.

I was contacted on several occasions, by community members and media figures, asking my thoughts on authorities’ seriousness to combat extremism. And until now, I think all authorities are full of talk but no real action.

Let me start here by stating that all our authorities will not be serious in combating extremism until they admit that they were wrong on their assessment of what is happening in Syria. They are not serious in combating extremism until they declare that Syrian “revolution” was the mother of global terrorism in post WWII era. The authorities are not serious until they declare that the Syrian army and Hezbollah were fighting on our behalf to destroy terrorism before it reaches all of us. Before doing this, our authorities will be seen by all (both good community members and extremists alike) to be only trying to make things looking better.

I can say clearly here that community members (from both sides: extremists and victims of extremism) have lost faith in the authorises. And they (authorities) need to take serious actions to regain this lost faith: by actions and not talks.

We will believe authorities seriousness in fighting extremism when we see them arresting extremist “sheikhs” and self-appointed leaders, and not consulting them.

We will regain some faith in authorities when we will start seeing them closing down centres used openly to breach hate, violence and encourage terrorist activities (even if in other countries: Syria, Iraq....).

They will rebuild some broken bridges when authorises start to crack down on free flow of funding to these extremists on both sides: from Saudi Arabia and Qatar to Australia and from Australia to Syria and Iraq.

We will be willing to work hard with them when we start seeing ABC and SBS describing things as it is: in both Syria and Iraq it is terrorism by same ideology.

We will start helping them with all our abilities when we start seeing media reports exposing the source of radicalisation in our community: even if they (sources of extremism) recently claim to receive unsubstantiated threats from fake Facebook or Twitter accounts.

We will believe that you woke up when media start to expose terrorists who travelled to Syria, had close association with terrorist organisation, visited their weapons factories and expressed vocal support, but still considered by our media as “humanitarian aid worker”.

We will have some faith when security agencies will start arresting people for hate sectarian speech; not dropping charges of people caught exercising hate violence or facilitating travel of “passportless” convicted terrorists.

To date, we (communities members who oppose Arab “Spring”) think that you are not serious in combating extremism (and imminent terrorism).

We will believe you when you start value the heroic actions by Syrian army by describing them as Syrian army and not Assad army. And we will believe you when you remove Hezbollah from terrorist organisation list and send letter of thanks to its leadership.

But until now: all what we are seeing is a JOKE.

Otherwise, what kind of authorities we have that blame the whole extremism and terrorism around the world on two Australians: Khaled Sharrouf and Mohamed El Omer. The joke will be over when we will be told how many Sharroufs and El Omers we have and who brainwashed and helped to make them terrorists....