Keep that perspective coming, Daniel Pipes

Submitted by Dush Ramachandran (Switzerland), Jul 19, 2002 at 12:58

I had never heard of Daniel Pipes before September 20th 2001.

On September 12, 2001 I surfed to various Islamic bulletin boards on the www to try to gain an understanding of the worldwide virtual perspective from an Islamic point of view. I was intrigued by what I found.

Tales of discrimination, horrors of victimization, denial, blame, conspiracy, aggressive comments....and an occasional exchange of remorse and sympathy. Daily I took the pulse of these forums, occasionally asking a question -just to confirm that the virulent strains of anti-semitism/Americanism were real. It wasn't the boilerplate anti-semitism or American bashing that caught my attention however, it was the constant claims of discrimination of Muslims in American society that piqued my interest.

September 20th I surfed into an editorial on Yahoo news which cemented my new found interest in Muslim affairs. "Islam's American lobby," by Daniel Pipes immediately followed on danielpipes.org with "Are Muslim Americans Victimized?" from November 2000 painted an alarmingly different perspective from the grassroots attempts at organizing Muslim opinion -which I found so 'curious' on Islamic bulletin boards just days earlier.

"In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king". -Desiderius Erasmus, Adages

Keep that other perspective coming Daniel Pipes.

Dush Ramachandran

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".