On the Seminar on spirituality & counter terrorism, I believe most people may not understand exactly what the seminar was all about. Possibly, it was due to the common understanding of the word "spiritual". Basically, it is about non-kinetic aspect of the fight against terrorism and insurgency. It is also in recognition of the fact that you can use brute force to kill a terrorist but it is difficult to kill the misconceived ideology through such means. Therefore, there is where the "spiritual" aspect comes in. A lot of Islamic scholars had done so to the point of loosing their lives, people like late Sheikh Jafar Adams and Albani and many other unsung Islamic scholars in Borno. The essence is to correct the erroneous impression or wrong interpretation of religious text by terrorists to justify their atrocities. Take for example, it is wrong for any Muslim to commit suicide by any means; whether through suicide bombing or outright killing of oneself. Whenever a terrorist carried out suicide bombings, he has committed variety of sins; he committed suicide and he will certainly go to hell, he has killed others and also destroyed properties. This is the perspective the seminar is projecting, not that kind of spirituality. Although that aspect is also important. For instance, one has to be spiritually pure for his acts to be accepted. Therefore, it is good to adhere to religious beliefs that promote good, justice and equity. That is why the criminal justice system has to be revisited because it is accusatory. Sometimes some of the "terrorists" were victims too as they were forced into it and and had no idea of that they were doing. Therefore, the security forces must identify that and treat it differently. In most cases the leadership of the terrorists don't tell their followers the truth. For example, some of the suicide bombers were told that they were being released to their parents, they were going home. But because there was no means of knowing the truth, they were often cajoled into killing people. The seminar is also against extremism by religious scholars and even the security forces. You must adhere to the rules of engagement.
This is also referred to as "Counter-narrative" a part of CVE in which religious scholars are used to counter extremists narratives. Using the correct or known phrase would have oethsps avoided the controversy. Most people give "spiritual" its direct connotation rather than the military par lance in counter-narrative.
Brig Gen SK Sani (rtd) mni
Former NA Spokesman
On Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 20:29 Okey Iheduru <okeyiheduru@gmail.com> wrote:
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