By Lalo Jaiteh
Ebrima Sillah, Minister for Information Communication and Infrastructure (MoIC), has said that the alternative to peace is too dangerous to contemplate, citing that this makes it more important for everyone to jealously guide the peace at all cost.
Sillah, was speaking during 2nd International Peace Conference Africa organized by Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at The Gambia that brought together diverse religious faithful’s, academia, civil societies, state and local authorities in a bid to promoting and nurturing a peaceful society for all, under the theme: “Islamic Solution to world peace.”
“Peace is so much so priceless to be mortgage to unyielding forces. We have to be proactive and jealously protect and guide peace at all cost because the alternative is too dangerous to contemplate”, Information Minister warns at the Peace Conference.
Minister Sillah highlighted the longstanding relationship of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at and the Government of The Gambia that spans for more than fifty years ago, adding that government has recognized the involvement of the Jama’at in the area of education, health and agriculture and for standing by the people of The Gambia in actualizing its development goals.
He pointed out that this conference of inspirational people and change makers could not have come at a better time than this when the whole world is grip with fundamental and regrettable fear and insecurity covertly or overtly perpetuated by people in the name of religion.
According to him, the horrific images of suicide bombing targeted mainly at poor defenseless people and places of worship of people of different faiths are tacit reminders of what is needed to be done in strengthening global peace and tolerance, adding that in this era of the worldwide web that targeted mainly the young people has thus put more pressure on the security needs of countries around the world.
He said the persuasive use and misuse of the internet to spread hate messages and fear have direct bearing on collective peace and global security, revealing that the conspiracy theories on peace are now found in the internet as a rallying tool to target unsuspecting people who fell prey to their false propaganda which in some cases has cause unnecessary death and destruction of properties.
“It is not bad to try to make the world better than how we find it yesterday, better than it was an hour ago or even better than a minute ago. What is unforgivably unacceptable is to give into the tactic of blackmail by those bend on turning our collective happiness into a nightmare of anguish, despair and hopelessness”, Minister Sillah, argued.