Author: Tashbih Sayyed
Publication: The Washington Post
Date: April 26, 2003
URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39780-2003Apr25.html
Your paper opposes Daniel Pipes's
nomination to the board of the U.S. Institute of Peace because "Muslims"
see him destroying cultural bridges to the Muslim world ["Fueling a Culture
Clash," editorial, April 19].
This Muslim wishes to protest.
To begin with, "Muslims" are not
a single bloc. Yes, apologists for Osama bin Laden and Yasser Arafat take
issue with Pipes's work, but many other Muslims support it. To wit: While
your paper opposes his nomination, the California-based weekly that I publish,
Pakistan Today, endorsed him. Hence, this debate has little to do with
a "culture clash." It is rather a "politics clash," in which some Muslims
agree with Pipes and some do not. Ditto for non-Muslims.
At best, your editorial confuses
Pipes's opposition to militant Islam with opposition to Islam as a whole.
At worst, it reduces all Muslim opinion to an enthusiasm for a totalitarian
form of the religion. Fortunately, a broader spectrum of Muslim opinion
exists. Unfortunately, many anti-militant Muslims do not speak out, fearful
of retribution even in the United States.
For someone accused of destroying
cultural bridges to Muslims, Pipes sure has had an odd career. He studied
the Arabic, Persian and Turkish languages; lived three years in Egypt;
earned a doctorate in early Islamic history; has had books and articles
translated into languages spoken by many Muslims; handled Middle Eastern
issues in the State Department; spent three years overseeing the Fulbright
exchanges between the United States and Muslim countries; and sat on the
boards of the American-Turkish Council and the U.S. Committee for a Free
Lebanon.
The premise of the U.S. government
over the past decade has been that political activism on behalf of Islam
is or can be made moderate. Sept. 11 should have made clear the falsehood
of this assumption. Had the true nature of militant Islam been better recognized,
thousands of lives might have been saved; worse, we now jeopardize more
lives by not shaking off lazy attitudes, especially in such critical areas
as immigration policy and law enforcement.
I, for one, appreciate what Daniel
Pipes is doing because I fled my homeland of Pakistan to escape militant
Islam. The Senate should confirm his nomination to the U.S. Institute of
Peace.
(The writer is editor in chief of
Pakistan Today.)