Boundaries.
Reader comment on item: Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts Promote Radical Islam

Submitted by Monte Gardner (United States), Oct 12, 2007 at 22:22

I wonder if we aren't beeing a bit over-cautious here. I mean, come on, its the Girl Scouts for crying out loud. If having a celebration of traditional, and inoffensive Islamic cultural norms such as respect for the Koran and the wearing of the Hijab is to be seen as "Islamist" or threatening in some sense, then what avenue do moderate Muslims have to celebrate their culture.

You're connecting of the dots based on a terrorist having a business card of such and such that was chaired by thus and such and etc seems a little bit strained. At the end of the day, integration must go both ways. This means that at the same time we firmly demand that Islamic immigrants become Americans by accepting American political norms such as secularism and equality before the law, we must also allow for at least the possibility that the US is going to become just a little bit more Islamic.

(Calm down folks).

By that I mean the same thing as what one might mean by saying the US has become just a little bit more Mexican, or just a little bit more Irish, or a little bit more LDS (Also an unpopular immigrant group at one time). If we criticize every act of cultural self-expression as "Islamist", then this integration can never occur. If radical Islam is the problem and moderate Muslims are the solution, then we must allow those moderates atleast a little bit of wiggle room to express their culture, even when it is different from our own.

---

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 for relevance, substance, and tone, and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome, but comments are rejected if scurrilous, off-topic, vulgar, ad hominem, or otherwise viewed as inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the Guidelines for Comments. For informational purposes, we identify countries from which comments are sent.