Obama and Hope

A Closer Look at the Term 'Islamist' – The Takeaway. Playwright, attorney and commentator Wajahat Ali joins the program to help us pinpoint how the term "Islamist" is used and misused. He's also the lead writer of a Center for American Progress report titled "Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America."

Muslim Woman Sues Religious-Freedom Commission For Discrimination – The Daily Beast. One of the more explosive claims in the suit comes from an internal email that said hiring a Muslim to investigate religious freedom in Pakistan was akin to “hiring an IRA activist to research the UK twenty years ago.”   … In response, USCIRF commissioners claimed they were within their rights to base their decision on her religion, arguing that the anti-discrimination clause of the 1964 Civil Rights Act did not apply to the commission.  Strangely, the commissioners weren’t entirely wrong. Indeed, it’s possible that Ghori-Ahmad’s suit would not…

Where Were the Tunisian Islamists? – NYTimes.com. The Tunisian revolt helps clarify a reality about Arab life: The terrorism we’ve seen over the past few years, with its utopian millennialism, doesn’t stem from the real societies of the Middle East. More Islamic radicals are to be found in the West than at home.