Guest Voices: In defense of Peter King’s Muslim hearings – On Faith at washingtonpost.com
When I heard that Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) was going to hold hearings on the issue of radicalization inside our American Muslim community, I thought: It’s about time.As those hearings begin on Thursday, all of us need to grab a front row seat. This is a discussion we desperately need to have as a nation because for far too long we have lived in a culture of denial, fueled in part by Muslim community leadership that–like just about any community tends to do until prodded–denies our problems rather than admits them.
I arrived in this country in 1969 as a four year old from India and, after 42 years as an American-Muslim, I can say without a doubt: an ideology of extremism has crossed across our borders, and radicalization is a real threat inside our communities in the U.S., often times unchallenged because members of our Muslim community are intimidated to speak out against it.
