Denial, deflection, and demonization

Charles Hoskinson writes in the Washington Examiner that Obama kept reform Muslims out of his recent summit on violent extremism. Hoskinson links to a story in the Daily Beast by Muslim journalists Asra Nomani and Hala Arafa in which they wrote:

we need to own up to our extremist theology instead of always reverting to a strategy of denial, deflection and demonization.

Hoskinson writes:

The refusal of Obama and his officials to name their real enemy is referred to among reformers as the "Voldemort effect," after the villain in the Harry Potter books whose name could not be mentioned.

Hoskinson quotes Maajid Nawaz, co-founder of the Quilliam Foundation, an anti-extremist British think-tank,

Nawaz told CNN on Wednesday that refusing to address the Islamist ideology directly puts all Muslims at risk of being blamed for the actions of a tiny minority — the exact opposite effect of what Obama intended by his approach.

..."Islam is a religion like any other with all the various sects and denominations. Islamism is a desire to impose Islam over society. And that is a very theocratic extremist desire. It can manifest itself violently. When it does, I call it jihadism. But it can also manifest itself politically. It's still a problematic ideology because any desire to impose anyone's faith over anyone else is inherently flawed and must be challenged," he said.

Another reform Muslim is Zuhdi Jasser, a doctor and former Navy officer who leads the American Islamic Foundation for Democracy. Jasser told the Washington Examiner in November:

"This is a Muslim problem that needs a Muslim solution."

Hoskinson writes:

many so-called mainstream Muslim groups that Jasser has criticized have documented extremist ties. Sympathies with the Muslim Brotherhood, an Egypt-based Islamist movement, landed two U.S. groups, the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Muslim American Society, on the list of terrorist organizations banned by the United Arab Emirates.

Though both groups vigorously deny extremist sympathies or ties, there is ample evidence that CAIR was founded by supporters of Hamas, the Brotherhood's Palestinian branch and a banned terrorist organization in the United States, and that the Muslim American Society is the Brotherhood's U.S. branch.

Read more here.