Isil is not separate from Islam, says Archbishop

Terrorist atrocities show urgent need for people to understand motivation of extremists, says Welby

CLAIMS that the atrocities of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant have “nothing to do with Islam” are harming efforts to confront and combat extremism, the Archbishop of Canterbury has insisted.

Religious leaders of all varieties must “stand up and take responsibility” for the actions of extremists who profess to follow their faith, the Most Rev Justin Welby said. He argued that unless people recognised and attempted to understand the motivation of terrorists they would never be able to combat their ideology effectively.

It follows calls from a series of high profile figures for people to avoid using the term Islamic State – also known as Isil, Isis and Daesh – because, they say, its murderous tactics go against Islamic teaching and that using the term could help to legitimise the group’s own propaganda.

But the Archbishop said it was essential to recognise extremists’ religious motivation to get to grips with the problem.

He also said it was time for countries across Europe to rediscover the “Judaeo-Christian” roots of their culture to find solutions to the mass disenchantment which led to the Brexit vote in the UK and the rise of anti-establishment leaders on the Continent and beyond.

The Archbishop’s comments were made during a lecture at the Catholic Institute of Paris, as he was awarded an honorary doctorate.

Although he voted for the UK to remain in the European Union, his lecture contained a scathing critique of “centralisation, corruption and bureaucracy” in the EU.

He said millions of people in Greece in particular were suffering because of the actions of European decision-makers who had urged it to join the euro on a “false prospectus” and ultimately turned the entire country into the “biggest debtors’ prison in European history”.

He said a series of terrorist atrocities, notably in Paris, showed there was an urgent need for people across Europe to understand religion. “If we treat religiously motivated violence solely as a security issue, or a political issue, then it will be incredibly difficult – probably impossible – to overcome it.

“A theological voice needs to be part of the response, and we should not be bashful in offering that.

“This requires a move away from the argument that has become increasingly popular, which is to say that Isis (Isil) is ‘nothing to do with Islam’, or that Christian militia in the Central African Republic are nothing to do with Christianity, or Hindu nationalist persecution of Christians in South India is nothing to do with Hinduism.

“Until religious leaders stand up and take responsibility for the actions of those who do things in the name of their religion, we will see no resolution.”

‘If we treat religiously motivated violence solely as a security issue, or a political issue, it will be incredibly difficult to overcome it’