Response to "Islamists remain America's clear and present danger"
featured in Detroit News, Saturday March 17, 2007
View the article: http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007703170313

Kathleen Parker’s assessment of “Islamists” as a clear and present danger to America, is one in a long series of doomsday opinions that will result in nothing but an increase in the atmosphere of fear that has currently gripped the nation. And her claims that radical Islamist terrorists have an “insidious peaceful component” that is now present in the United States will serve to only increase the rise of Islamophobic sentiment that is so prevalent today.
Even though she makes a disclaimer that “not all of Islam is dangerous …but Islam as distorted and hijacked by radicals”, her claim that “Islamists” are the real danger begs the question: Who exactly is an “Islamist”? Who is dangerous? Will the average American be able to make the separation of a bearded Muslim man, or a Muslim woman who covers her hair from this insidious Islamist? American Muslims already feel that their religion is under siege, but now the idea that they may be viewed as an underground terrorist using “our laws of tolerance against us” can only do more harm. Ms. Parker’s views are also a form of extremism – extreme paranoia. She does not only harm the Muslim American community but adds fuel to the anxiety experienced by the American people as a whole. I agree with Ms. Parker that there is a clear and present danger to our society, but that danger is not Islamism but extremism – in any religion, shape or form.

Ruqaya Ali