AFP Eid Iftar embarrassment: why authorities insist to deal with extremists..!!!

We have no other choice but to continue laughing at authorities insisting to embarrass themselves when it comes to dealing with Muslim communities. The authorities are insisting to extend the hands of cooperation with the wrong people in Muslim communities, for the last decade. These wrong decisions that resulted in the current high level of radicalisation, resulted in reaching high level of terror alert.

Authorities insisted for the last decade in dealing with Muslim communities to consult and cooperate with loud extremists claiming to represent our diverse communities. The latest round of consultation about anti-terrorism measures last year which saw major boycott by self-appointed leaders (mainly extreme elements) was not enough for our authorities to understand the real situation in the communities.

Today’s announcement of AFP cancelling its Eid Iftar because some invited “leaders” vowed to boycott the Iftar is latest funny embarrassment for our authorities.

When authorities started to consult, invite for events and invite for funding rounds for programs to fight against radicalisation, I discovered that authorities had miserably failed to choose the right people. In these rounds of invitations, the authorities failed to invite: representatives from Shia community, no representative form Alawis and secular Muslims considered by authorities to be infidels and not Muslims. Surprisingly, anti-terrorism campaigners in Muslim communities were largely ignored.

It seems to many of us (myself and many active members in the community) that to be qualified by authorities to be “Muslim leader”, we should be:
- Extremists with large beards, short pants and no moustache.
- Extremists that advocated participating in terrorist activities in Syria.
- Extremists advocating to fight against authorities moves to stop radicalisation in the society..

The authorities’ insistence to adopt extremists’ definition of the “good Muslim” is detrimental at all levels. By doing this, authorities are causing deep disappointment among many anti-extremism Muslims. The voice of these moderate and anti-extremism activists and leaders will be weakened further each time authorities embarrass themselves with extremists.

In recent meeting with Liberal MP, he admitted that the decision of PM to invite extremists for consultation (and the subsequent refusal of them to attend these consultations) was wrong decision based on wrong advice. But it seems that authorities are not ready to learn from mistakes until major terrorist activity happens.

We, as active anti-extremists Muslims, are not waiting for authorities to cooperate with us to continue our work. In fact, in the last 5 years we conducted our anti-extremism campaigns without any help from authorities. At many stages, our campaigns were weakened by authorities’ lack of cooperation and at some stage request for us to be silent and let extremists do whatever they want.

For 5 years, authorities were on the wrong side of the campaign. They dealt with the wrong side of Muslim communities. And it seems they enjoying being on the wrong side.

If our warnings were taken seriously for the last 5 years, we would not have this high level of radicalisation in our society. We start to question whether authorities have some gains to make in keeping blind-eyes on radical elements in the community!!!

Otherwise, why authorities are refusing to cooperate with elements that are keen to act on anti-extremism steps???

Questions need urgent answers....

I will circulate soon more detailed assessments with concrete facts.