Abu Dhabi: The General Authority of Islamic Affairs and Endowment (GAIAE) with the support of the Ministry of Presidential Affairs, organised on Monday a forum titled, ‘the Emirates Encircles Extremism’ with the participation of a large number of preachers and thinkers from across the Arab countries.
The forum was aimed at bringing to light the most misleading issues and concepts propagated by extremist organisations to polarise and lure young people to their ranks.
In his speech, Hussain Bin Ebrahim Al Hammadi, Minister of Education, said that the ministry is leading the way in instigating authentic and righteous values in the young generation.
“The UAE wise leadership, under President His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, has introduced an integrated educational system to prepare savvy Emirati generation aware of its current situation and working hard for attaining a bright future,” Al Hammadi said.
“We consider protecting the educational system against the extremist organisations and spreading the values of tolerance and moderation as a religious and cultural obligation.
“Rolling back the culture of extremism and hatred can only be achieved through good curricular, spreading the culture of tolerance in our educational environment and building active partnerships between the educational institutions and the competent entities.
“This forum, organised by GAIAE as part of the programmes of the President’s guests during the Holy Month of Ramadan, is part of the UAE strategy aimed at unifying the efforts of the public and private institutions for cornering the extremist ideologies that forced our young people into areas of conflicts, anarchy and destruction.
“The UAE realised in early stage the danger posed by the strategies of extremist organisations to make use of the educational institutions as means for recruiting the young generations.”
Al Hammadi shed light on the ‘Moral Education’ initiative, launched by His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, for fighting extremist ideologies.
He also spoke about the ‘Emirati School’, the ‘Teacher’s License’ and the ‘Improving the Islamic Curriculum’ initiatives.
Dr. Mohammad Matter Al Kaabi, Director-General of GAIAE, said that the forum is aimed at making use of the ideas and views of scholars and experts to develop an effective strategy for countering extremism.
He also spoke about the authority’s strategy to fight extremist ideologies, spreading the values of moderation and training preachers and assessing their competencies on the regular basis.
The authority also organised a book show on the sidelines of the event.