Argumentative Essay

War against Terrorism: Should it be a war against religion or war against terrorism?

According to the current scenario, there is hardly any region that is considered safe and completely protected from the acts of terror. Terrorists are challenging the peace of the world. Each day has its own story of acts of terror that kill and injure innocent people of all ages. Undoubtedly we live in an advanced world, but at the same time the present world has the worst ever peace situation.

Considering the current situation of Global Peace, the following writing discusses whether it is an appropriate way to link terrorism with religion and target a specific religion? Or there is a need to change our perspective about addressing the issues of terrorism so that all of us can understand that terrorism is not due to the teachings of any religion but there are a few who are involved in acts of terrorism using the name of a religion?

In the current situation, the world has become very unpredictable. People are killed with no reason what so ever behind their killings. If we think of the terrorist incidents in the recent two decades, we can see that every region of the world is attacked by the terrorists. If we look at the Middle East and Arab countries, we can see that Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Israel, Turkey and many other countries of the region were targeted by the terrorists.

If we look at other parts of the world, we realize that America and European regions are also not safe from the terrorist activities such as the incident of 9/11 in New York. American, which took thousands of lives and then the recent incident of Paris in which hundreds of people lost their lives (Post, 2015).

Similarly if we look at Asia, Pakistan, India and Afghanistan have not be spared by the terrorists. Just recently, the Taliban attacked The Army Public School Peshawar, Pakistan, and killed over a hundred school children as a revenge to what the Pakistan government has been doing against terrorism (Khalil, 2014).

All acts of terror are depicted to be carried out by so called Islamic extremists. As a reactionary response, Muslims, all over the world are targeted with negative sentiments. The involvement of Muslims in the acts of terrorism is highly exaggerated. According to Europe statistics, “Islamists were responsible for only 0.7% of terror attacks in Europe between 2006 and 2013”(Cousins, 2015).

Most of the terrorist attack are carried out in the Islamic countries. Such as, according to the Global Index 2014, Iraq was the major target of the terrorists followed by Afghanistan and Pakistan. Nigeria, Syria, India, Somalia, Yemen, Philippines and Thailand are ranked 4 to 10 respectively as the top countries targeted by the terrorists. (IEP, 2015).

According to statistics, Muslims countries are major target of the terrorism. Similarly, if we see the war commandments and teachings of Islam, we find that it is ordered by the Prophet Mohammad; to never attack first; do not kill the women, children, old or the sick people. Do not destroy the properties including buildings, worship places and houses. Moreover, it is said by Prophet Mohammad that, “whoever killed a single innocent person; has actually killed the whole of humanity” (KONSTANTINOVNA & PETROVNA., (2014).

If we compare the activities of the so called Islamist terrorist organization, we find that they, in no way, can be called Muslims. Therefore, the war against terrorism should not be linked to any religion because including Islam, there is no religion that supports such cruelty and disrespect of humanity. Therefore, there is a need to create awareness and explore the propaganda that has been used by cruel terrorists to destroy the peace of the world. In the war against terrorism, all people, nations and religions should work together for the sake of humanity and for the sake of the peace of the world.

After the 9/11 incidents Muslims all over the world were suspected as being on the side of the terrorists. They were discriminated based on the religion they believed in. In America, European countries and many other countries Muslims had to face many problems due to the environment driven by anger and disgust towards the Muslim community. After the recent acts of terror in Paris, all the mosques were sealed and Syrian Refugees were targeted who were themselves helpless and homeless (DAWN, 2015). There is a need to create tolerance and patience so that instead of blaming the innocents, the real criminals can be brought to justice.

Terrorism should be considered a war against humanity. It can be controlled with the cooperativeness of all the people of the world only. If we, humans, develop tolerance and patience for others, we can share better ideas that could be effective to encounter terrorism throughout the world. There is a need to understand that the terrorist are not loyal to any religion. They should be considering as the enemies of the world peace. Before we belong to any religion, we are all humans. It is our utmost responsibility to work for the betterment of humanity. Therefore, the war against terrorism should be fought together as a war against terrorism instead of war against a religion.