Ideas We Need to Hear

Submitted by Sigmund Derman (United States), Jun 22, 2013 at 12:34

Dr. Pipes answers were excellent and it's too bad that we don't hear many such discussion sessions in the popular media. I was thinking about why we do not hear such views as his expressed more frequently and my thoughts immediately connect to something occurring right now at the university I am affiliated with, the University of Central Florida (UCF). Recently a professor of communications, Dr. Jonathan Matusitz, directed a seminar on communications and terrorism (an interesting combination of topics which seems to be the professor's research interest). In a portion of the seminar caught on video he asks the question ""Why do so many Muslims, relative to other religions, want to kill us?" He documents the assertion that many Muslims do want to kill us by quoting, among other things, an FBI study showing 96% of the acts of terrorism are done by Muslims. He goes on to say that he believes that it is the Muslim culture which gives rise to this.

I thought the views were pretty mild and rather sensitive to Muslim sensibilities because he did said that the culture rather than the religion per se caused the violence. So I would have thought that that Muslims would be OK with that discussion.

Well, I was wrong. CAIR is blasting him and demanding that he be fired. Fortunately the University is standing up for the professor's free speech and academic freedom rights. But readers of this blog may wish to inform themselves about this and, if possible, offer some support to the beleaguered professor (I won't post a link---it is easily found).

Going back to Dr. Pipes interview the connection to my feeling that we do not hear such views frequently enough is that no matter how moderate and well-reasoned they might be, such views are actively suppressed by organizations such as CAIR. I have heard that Dr. Pipes is sometimes "disinvited" to conferences and the same forces align against the rare university professor who offends certain Muslim sensibilities. Of course, CAIR has the right to say what it wants but so do the rest of us. We need to stand up and support those, such as Dr. Pipes and Dr. Matusitz, who are willing to give their interpretations of the threat we face from Islamic aggression.

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