The challenge of extremism

In his memorable speech, Dr King, who was later assassinated by a bigoted White gunman, asserted: “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal’. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.”

When Blacks were accused of being ‘extremists’ resisting an institutionalised system of White racism, the prominent Black Muslim leader, Malcolm X, retorted: ‘Extremism in the cause of justice is no vice.’

While Blacks have won the battle for racial equality in the United States, the irony is that a new kind of racism, one that judges people not by the colour of their skin but by their religion and their national origin, now seems to be influencing the direction and contours of US foreign policy.
This racism, which has led the United States to violate the fundamental rights and civil liberties of even its own Muslim-American community as well as those held in Guantanamo Bay without any charges, trial or access to lawyers, is now running rampant particularly in the aftermath of 9/11.
What is worse is that this racism is spawning the very extremism that the United States is harnessing all its energies to defeat, and, in the process, it is complicating its relations with most Muslim countries.



Compounding this racism is a mindset that seems driven by military might, as if bombs and missiles are enough to reconstruct and reform an already destabilised Middle East.

Although it is now fashionable to view ‘extremism’ as the root of all problems in the Muslim World, with strategies being drawn on ways and means to combat it, the fact is that the new racism after 9/11 is equally to blame for extremism in the Muslim World as are policies of Muslim regimes that rely on repression.....

http://www.hipakistan.com/en/detail.php?newsId=en36744&F_catID=&f_type=source

...well-said! I sure wish those words could make some headway with the current American GroupThinkers. Thanks for this post.

He is a Senator in Pakistan.