Islam versus the Islamists

A controversy brewing over at PBS about a film made for the series "America at the Crossroads" called Islam vs. Islamists: Voices from the Muslim Center. The film passed the voting process at the Corporate level but was, the author (the director Frank Gaffney) claims, censored at the local PBS level.

The article here via WashingtonTimes.

The film is meant to highlight moderate Muslims in America fighting more Islamist-symphatetic American groups. The film was deemed too "inflammatory" and PBS' own Robert MacNeil's film (of MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour) on an Islamic student college group--which Gaffney claims is taking money from the Saudis.

Gaffney writes:

In fact, thanks to the MacNeil-Lehrer film, the PBS audience soon will be treated to an apparently fawning portrait of one of the most worrisome manifestations of that Saudi-backed organizational infrastructure in America: the Muslim Student Association (MSA). The MSA's efforts to recruit and radicalize students and suppress dissenting views on American campuses is a matter of record and extremely alarming.

Here is an article supporting such claims by Gaffney.
Here the MSA's homepage.

I would like to see both films. I don't like censorship; I like ignorant views being beaten in public discourse. And generally given what we know of other issues, the tendency to multiculturalism/non-objectivity is strong in PBS circles around criticism of minority groups in America. So I could definitely see some censorship from within. Not to mention some over charge of Islamism from Gaffney-ites on circles like MSA.

tags technorati : american islamism

tags technorati : frank gaffney