RE: The Overblown Islamist Threat, by Marwan Muasher, the former foreign minister and deputy prime minister of Jordan, is vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/03/opinion/the-overblown-islamist-threat.html?_r=2
Dear Editor,
I think Marwan Muasher, the former foreign minister and deputy prime minister of Jordan, & current vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace gives us much food for thought with his essay "The Overblown Islamist Threat"... and I very much appreciate being able to read his perspective in the New York Times. I totally agree with him that the Islamists threat is overblown, but I am not so sure it is wise to use that fact to in any way empower or endorse or apologize for Islamists, even moderate ones.
Laying a bet on the hope that Islamists will do the right thing is a bit like laying a bet on Wall Street doing the right thing. Might happen- but it is much more likely to happen if we the people clearly identify and voice our objections to white collar crimes.... "Human beings are flawed and we all fall short in many ways, but moral failure in high places is more shameful and deserves to be censured and punished much more severely than moral failings among the poor, the powerless and the obscure." Walter Russell Mead The Madoffs: Shamed, Isolated, Disgraced
Here in America we have a free press, and fair and just laws which give us the ability to make more real our democracy- and bring more justice (and jobs) to more people. There is no such safe guard in the Middle East. Empowering Islamists who can too easily abuse religion for nefarious purposes, just as Maddoff did in targeting his co-religionists, is playing with fire.
Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab
American homemaker & poet
NOTES
"While there's no reason to think Islamists are in the process of consolidating absolute power anywhere, it's simply foolish not to recognize that they remain in every meaningful sense radical and retain their totalitarian impulses. That they would like to broadly and severely restrict the rights of individuals, women and minorities in the name of religion is obvious. It's hard to see them developing such unrestrained power, but there is also no use in kidding oneself about their evident intentions." Hussein Ibish- Jumping to conclusions on the Arab Spring The battle of Bet Shemesh Ultra-orthodox Haredi Jews gather at the gates of a local girls school, screaming abuse: " Since the state-funded religious-nationalist school of Orot Girls opened in new premises in September, groups of extreme Haredi men regularly gather at the gates, screaming "whore" and "slut" at the girls and their mothers."
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