GRACE BAZAAYA ANGERS MUSLIMS AT A PRESENTATION AT MAKERERE UNIVERSITY !!!!

National

Makerere official angers Muslims
Publish Date: Apr 19, 2015 Newvision,  Uganda.

By Eddie Ssejjoba

A Makerere University staff member angered Muslim students when she made utterances that associated terrorism with the Islamic religion.

“For us terrorism is Islam. We are appealing to you to talk to Muslims to be religious and help to create a sense of peace and brotherhood in them,” said Grace Bazaaya, a staff of the College of Computing and Information Science said while making her contribution during a public dialogue.

She said she was so worried about terrorism and the prevailing tension at the University after rumors started circulating around campus that terrorists ‘were about to hit’ the place.

Participants who were attending the dialogue on Religion, Insurgency, Terrorism and New World Order that discussed a topic on ‘Sharing Experience from Afghanistan’ were baffled when Bazaaya continued to say that some students had come to attend the dialogue ‘as agents of terrorism’.

Haron Aloko, an Afghan strategist and scholar was the guest speaker at the dialogue that was organized in solidarity with the students of Garissa University College in Kenya who were recently killed by Al Shabaab militants.  The meeting observed some minutes of silence for the fallen students.

“There was a general thinking here that terrorism is Islam, but we are telling students not to tag terrorism with any religion, instead we should find solutions to the root causes of grievances and try to open space for talking,” said associate Prof. Dr. Deusdedit R. K. Nkurunziza who was the facilitator.

Nkurunziza had to intervene to calm down angry students and other participants who complained that a senior member of the University had made direct attack on their religion.

“Let’s not lose tampers as people of academia, let us continue dialogue and find how we move forward and change mindset of our people on this topic,” Nkurunziza said.   

Some other participants asked Aloko to give answers as to whether it was proper to identify terrorism with Islam and why terror groups had chosen to work through Islam.

Muslim students who had been angered by the utterances read out verses in the Koran in a bid to explain that the faith promoted peace.

They said Islam was a religion of peace and brotherhood and there was no any reference to terrorism in the Holy Book.  

Katumba Salim, a student of social sciences asked whoever is concerned to make deep research on why terrorists had chosen to work through Islam instead of making ‘annoying conclusions’ about their faith.

Aloko however told participants that ‘nobody should be profiled or put under a cloud of suspicion simply because of their faith’.

He said there were many people affiliated with terrorism but were not followers of Islam and cited an example of the Islamic State group fighting in the several countries who he said had nothing to do with Islam.

He asked all stakeholders to concentrate on finding solutions to promote peace and dialogue and how to protect everyone.

“I know many people have pain inside and are seeking for answers. I don’t have the answers but let us continue to dialogue because the global players in terrorism don’t want this kind of debate, which they fear will give possible solutions,” he said.

A German educated Muslim, Aloko explained that he had lived with Christians, Jews and Muslims but every religion was for peace and said affiliating a particular faith with terrorism and extremism was not proper.

Extremists and terrorists, according to Aloko, use people who are hopeless, poor and desperate to achieve their political agenda.

Pastor Jerom Mugisha, a lecturer said the University community and Ugandans in general should instead mourn the killing of Christian students at Garissa and find solutions to terrorism instead of blaming it on religion.

“In history, Christians have killed more people than Muslims using crusades in Europe, but these were not doing it for religion although they used their faith to commit these atrocities,” he said.

Several students tasked the University administration to explain what they had done to guard them against possible attacks. They said apart from a few security personnel manning entrances to a few premises, the rest of the University remained open and prone to possible attacks.

Other participants asked authorities to pay more attention to sensitizing the youth on the negative impact of joining terror groups, saying since some attackers at Garissa were students, ‘everyone was a potential terrorist’.

A Somali student, Abdirisaq Muhammed Sabriye who said was twice a victim of terror attack said although the attackers in Kenya targeted Christian students; Al Shabaab terrorists had killed more Muslims in Somalia by attacking mosques.

He however complained that killings inside Somalia had attracted less World attention.

The deputy principal, college of humanities and social sciences, Prof. Abbas Kiyimba said the University community was the best suited to discuss and advise government on how it could deal with terrorism and promised to organize more dialogues. “The more we invest in dialogue the better for us,” he said.