West playing terrorism card for own interests: Activist

Press TV has interviewed Hazem Salem, a political activist in Cairo, to discuss the remarks made by Egypt’s top Sunni cleric Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, saying terrorism is a disease, slamming the claims that Islam is to blame for terrorist attacks such as the November 13 carnage in Paris.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: What do you make of Sheikh al-Tayeb’s perspective, his views and will it make a difference in him saying this?

Salem: Well that is a very valid point and it is very consistent in itself but the idea is that the West wants the Muslims to say this and the West is still playing with the idea of terrorism and the rhetoric of the war on terror in order to serve its own interest.

The West is the one that initiated the call for clash of civilizations despite many activities by the Muslims and many initiatives, including President Khatami at one time for the dialogue of civilizations, the West has not been sincere about that and the West has been celebrating the terrorism in order to serve the western hegemony and the western more engulfing of the Muslim world and the third world under the pretext of war on terror.

The war on terror by the West is terrorizing the Muslims in the West and killing Muslims in the Muslim countries. Sheikh al-Tayeb is putting it in perspective and I think that only the very sound and very rational intellectuals in the West will understand that but the western politicians, they do not care and they still play on the notion of war on terror.

Press TV: So with this situation right now as you said in the West, many people are constantly basically demanding that Muslims distance themselves from this and apologize. We saw on one of the mainstream television stations recently where a Muslim was grilled basically and said why don’t they stand up and make their voices louder being heard and be more adamant that they are against terrorism and against these acts and the individual said, ‘well, they have nothing to do with me to begin with.’ What needs to be done on that side of things, in your perspective?

Salem: We have to unlock the Western manipulation of the situation and the Western manipulation of the discourse. The first thing is to say that there are Westerners who know that Muslims, the majority of Muslims are already distant from that terrorism and that violence.

We need to say that there are people in the West that know that the West is to blame for playing the card of terrorism and when it hits they play more the card and escalate more violence. We have to say that the West has got rational people, intellectuals - we can name Noam Chomsky and many others who believe that the West creates terrorism, pushes young people to become terrorists and then play with this card.

And this needs the intellectuals both in the Muslim countries and in the West to work together and weave a joint discourse that says to the West you have to abide to your all notions like democracy, pluralism, multiculturalism and things like that instead of manipulating the war on terror which began since George Bush or even earlier. So do not replicate George Bush again, do not replicate that again because you lost these wars of Mr. Bush and you will lose any other wars like that led by any Western leader. 

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk