Queen Rania on Defeating Extremist Ideology
AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program from the United Nations. Now the U.N. refugee agency warns that 2016 looks set to claim a dubious distinction. The deadliest year on record for migrant crossings. While arrivals by sea are down, almost half to what happened last year, Syria means the flow won't stop any time soon. And Jordan is one of the front-line states hosting nearly 1.5 million refugees. It's an almost unbearable strain on a tiny country of 6.5 million people. Amid this, Jordanians voted in parliamentary elections this week, contested for the first time in a decade by the political arm of the Muslim brotherhood. And they are expected to do very well, indeed. Here at the U.N., Queen Rania joined me for an exclusive interview about the refugee crisis and about the battle against extremism.</s>AMANPOUR: You have said many times that the evil ideology of these extremists has to be defeated. Jordan has about 4,000 people who have joined the Jihadist in Syria. It's apparently the biggest per head per capita other than Tunisia in that region. And there is a new experiment in Jordan, we read, of a new sort of layout in mosques that imams have to be sanctioned. Their sermons, so to speak, have to be sanctioned. How is Jordan dealing with the radicalization of people?</s>QUEEN RANIA AL-ABDULLAH, QUEEN OF JORDAN: Well, when you say that there are large numbers, it's not surprising since we are very close to the ground zero of extremism. Just by physical proximity. We realize that the ideological battle is a battle that has to be led by us Muslims. It is our fight for our future as Muslims. And I think every element of society has to be involved in that fight. Not just mosques or religious leaders, but it has to be fought in every aspect of our society. In our media, community centers, schools and universities. We do not believe that these people exist on the fringes of Islam. We think that they are altogether outside of Islam. And that's why we call them "hawarish" (ph) or outlaws. And if you look at their records, many of them go back to the criminal cells and prisons. They are ex-criminals. So it is very important for us to reveal them for who they are.</s>AMANPOUR: Are you doing a good enough job at that?</s>QUEEN RANIA: I don't think any of us are doing a good enough job at that. We cannot contain this ideology, unless we confront it with courage. But in Jordan, we are trying to reveal them for who they are. They are a group of people who -- pick and choose, they cut and paste, they manipulate certain elements of Islam in order to come up with their own toxic brew. And there's a recent report that revealed that over 70 percent of their recruits hardly have basic knowledge of Islam, which makes them the ideal candidates so that you could manipulate them and have them fall for the twisted ideology.</s>AMANPOUR: Not to mention some we've heard about drink alcohol, have sex out of marriage. I mean, so many of them.</s>QUEEN RANIA: They're absolutely devoid of any religious or moral legitimacy. And that is something that we need to reveal. You know, as you know, their ability to succeed has depended on their ability to craft messages that resonate with the wide spectrum of people and to disseminate those messages far and wide. And we need to get better at doing that. And you know, their toxic ideology outlives and outlasts them. So you can kill the extremist, but the perversion, the poison persists. We really need to understand that we need to fight them on the Internet, in every element of society. So there needs to be a mind shift.</s>AMANPOUR: You're on fire, your majesty.</s>QUEEN RANIA: Let me say, you know, the most probably important thing is to really root out the causes of injustice in our world. Because that is where the vulnerability comes. You know, whether its prisoners who have been humiliated in Abu Ghraib, or the suffering families who have lost everything in Aleppo or in Afghanistan. You know, I think if we allow for the creation of a human being with nothing to lose, then that is probably injustice that we can inflict on another human being. And it is the greatest threat for the rest of humanity. So --</s>AMANPOUR: Blow-back.</s>QUEEN RANIA: Absolutely. We cannot allow for the creation of people with nothing to lose. It's just unfair.</s>AMANPOUR: And, finally, as a mother and as a mother of girls, you had an event with Michelle Obama, the first lady, about girls' education. And I think during that, you said never has there been a bleaker time in your region, that you remember. Tell me about that? How as a mother does all of this affect you?</s>QUEEN RANIA: People always look at the urgent issues, the political ramifications. What keeps me up at night is thinking what kind of future generations are we creating today? With so many children knowing nothing about a lifetime of war and terror. What kind of generation is this? Are they going to be consigned to poverty? To</s>AMANPOUR: Your majesty, Queen Rania, thank you very much indeed for joining us.</s>QUEEN RANIA: A pleasure. Thank you.</s>AMANPOUR: And after the break, we visit the, quote, "Conflict Cafe," crossing enemy lines to break bread together. We imagine that, when we come back.