{"id":89230,"date":"2019-05-22T22:46:57","date_gmt":"2019-05-23T04:46:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=89230"},"modified":"2019-05-22T15:17:22","modified_gmt":"2019-05-22T22:17:22","slug":"they-shouldve-called-it-the-christchurch-colombo-call-for-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/05\/22\/they-shouldve-called-it-the-christchurch-colombo-call-for-action\/","title":{"rendered":"They should&#8217;ve called it the Christchurch-Colombo Call for Action"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Tarek Fatah Courtesy Toronto Sun<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/postmediatorontosun.files.wordpress.com\/2019\/05\/nz-mosque-e1556835349126.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><figcaption>In this March 23, 2019 file photo, worshippers prepare to enter the Al Noor mosque a week after a mass shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand.Mark Baker&nbsp;\/&nbsp;AP File Photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Oscar Wilde once said, When good Americans die, they go to Paris.\u201d Maybe that is the reason there were no Americans at last week\u2019s Paris Summit hosted by President Emmanuel Macron of France and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand to curb online extremism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was there alongside Britain\u2019s embattled Theresa May and other liberal politicians of Europe who signed on to what they called the Christchurch Call to Action\u201d to commemorate the killing of 51 Muslims in a massacre at two mosques in the New Zealand city on March 15.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The coming together of Western leaders within two months after the horrific hate fest was welcomed by one and all. But between March 15 in Christchurch and May 15 in Paris, there were other horrific acts of genocidal nature in Asia and Africa, that went completely unmentioned in the Paris document.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Representatives of Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the UK all seemed to have etched \u2018Christchurch\u2019 on their minds, but could not recall the massacre a week later of over 250 Christians by Islamist terrorists in Colombo, Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Trudeau meets with New Zealand prime minister in Paris...\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Ic13rmGhO7c?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Jordan\u2019s British-born King Abdullah and ambassadors from Indonesia, India and&nbsp; Senegal joined their former European colonial masters in Paris, but they too didn\u2019t utter a single word in solidarity with those who died in Colombo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The question is, why didn\u2019t prime ministers Macron and Ardern invite Sri Lanka\u2019s Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe to the summit? With him at the table they could have named the summit the \u2018Christchurch-Colombo Call for Action,\u2019 but sadly they did not. As they say, it\u2019s all about \u2018location, location, location.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The president of Nigeria too was conspicuous by his absence as was the leader of Burkina Faso, two countries where many more than the Christchurch 51 have died at the hands of terrorists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Seems the narcissism of Ardern got in the way of her better judgment. It was irresponsible and hypocritical for the West\u2019s leaders to demand that hatred be eradicated from the internet, but not from the minds of people ideologically driven towards supremacy, be it White or Islamic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here is a sample of hatred that does not require the internet and social media. It\u2019s targeted at vulnerable Muslim youth, sowing the seeds of revulsion towards non-Muslims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>From a sermon at a Toronto mosque&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/torontosun.com\/opinion\/columnists\/fatah-mosque-sermon-calls-on-allah-to-slay-non-muslims-one-by-one\">a few years ago<\/a>: O Allah! Count their number, slay them [non-Muslims] one by one and make them a lesson to their likenesses. Oh Allah, Defeat them and make the ground shake beneath their feet, and show us in them the wonders of your Might, for they are weak before You, O Mighty, O Powerful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Stateside, the recent uncovering of a video&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.memri.org\/tv\/children-philadelphia-palestine-ummah-day-sacrifice-aqsa-chop-off-heads-eternal-torture\/transcript\">showing<\/a>&nbsp;Muslim children chanting at a Philadelphia Islamic event was shocking. We will chop off their heads, and we will liberate the sorrowful and exalted Al-Aqsa Mosque \u2026 We will subject them to eternal torture,\u201d chanted the girls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Elsewhere, earlier this year, Kuwaiti singer Monia Al-Hob&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.memri.org\/tv\/kuwaiti-singer-monia-hob-antisemitic-hadith-trees-rocks-jews-zionist-israel-muslims-judgement-day-hell-fight-kill\/transcript\">told a public TV network<\/a>&nbsp;that on Judgment day, we will kill all the Jews,\u201d adding that Jews will have a special gate to hell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Its quite likely this new breed of \u2018young and beautiful\u2019 leaders in the West have had little time to read anything of substance. It may help them to read up on hate-based killing from before both the internet and electricity was born. Two examples of the pre-Facebook and Twitter era may help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The 1971 genocide in Bangladesh by Pakistan and the 2002 genocide of Darfuris by the Arab Janjaweed. But unfortunately, they come with a Colombo stamp on them, not one made-in-Christchurch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tarek Fatah Courtesy Toronto Sun Oscar Wilde once said, When good Americans die, they go to Paris.\u201d Maybe that is the reason there were no Americans at last week\u2019s Paris Summit hosted by President Emmanuel Macron of France and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand to curb online extremism.\u201d Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-terrorism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89230\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}