Letters to the Editor
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Tariq Ramadan’s Visa
I wish to dissent strongly from the commentary by columnist Daniel Pipes, “Why Revoke Tariq Ramadan’s U.S. Visa?” [Foreign, August 27, 2004].
Mr. Pipes states that the recent intervention by the Department of Homeland Security to cancel Professor Ramadan’s visa and work permit granted earlier this year to take up a distinguished appointment as Luce Professor of Religion at Notre Dame University is a “good thing.”
In fact, it is a very bad thing. It constitutes a major step backward in intellectual exchange between the Islamic world and the West. Worse, it is contrary to America’s national interest.
Mr. Pipes’s position undermines President Bush’s intent, as described by the National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, in mid-August, to win the hearts and minds of the mainstream majority in the Muslim world.
The revocation of Professor Ramadan’s visa represents a significant defeat for America in the war against terrorism.
Professor Ramadan is a scholar recognized throughout the world for his labors on behalf of interfaith understanding and the building of peace as evidenced in his most recent book, “Western Muslims and the Future of Islam,” as well as his earlier “To Be a European Muslim.”
Unfortunately, Mr. Pipes has an established track record of seeking to prevent or discourage such moderate Muslims from expressing their views in America. As a partner for dialogue, Mr. Pipes might be asked: “If not Tariq Ramadan, whom?”
Today, the great need is for dialogue not with Muslims who are “already in our camp” but with others who have credibility in the Islamic world. Professor Ramadan has such credibility, and that is an especially important reason why we need to talk to him in America.
Mr. Pipes quotes Department of Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke as stating that Professor Ramadan’s visa was revoked under the Patriot Act that denies entry to aliens who have used a “position of prominence within any country to endorse or espouse terrorist activity.”
Where is the evidence that Messrs. Pipes or Knocke have to present for public scrutiny indicating that Professor Ramadan has ever endorsed or espoused terrorist activity?
Mr. Pipes gives a series of putative “examples” of Professor Ramadan’s contacts with terrorists. These examples are based on “suspicions,” speculation, or rumor, and are mixed with commentary on political positions that Professor Ramadan may have taken with which Mr. Pipes disagrees. However, Mr. Pipes provides no hard evidence for his unsubstantiated accusations.
There is scarcely any scholar, including Mr. Pipes, who has not at some time or other uttered a rash comment. However, what matters is the full weight of one’s professional writing, and the entire body of one’s considered statements on issues of moment.
Professor Ramadan is not the evil conspirator imagined by Mr. Pipes. In fact, he is the polar opposite. As his life, writings, and public statements indicate, he is a Muslim intellectual and leader, a professor in Europe and now in America.
The erroneous DHS decision to cancel Mr. Ramadan’s visa under mines America’s efforts at public diplomacy and its credibility in the Muslim world and therefore should be reversed immediately.
JOHN L. ESPOSITO
University Professor And Professor of Religion And International Affairs
Georgetown University
Washington, D.C.
This letter was signed by eight additional academics and public policy analysts.
‘Inna Kaminsky’s Ideals’
In regards to The New York Sun’s editorial, “Inna Kaminsky’s Ideals” [September 9, 2004], I assume it was a “throwaway line” when you said Russian voters have been moved by the “clubhouse contaminated Board of Elections.”
The fact remains that the polling places that had to be changed in the 46th Assembly District in Brooklyn were changed for legitimate reasons.
We will have a team from our Brooklyn office monitoring all the poll sites in that Assembly District to make sure there are no barriers put in place for any voters who wish to vote in that primary.
We at the Board of Elections have one message: There is no Democratic or Republican way to put on an election, only the responsible way.
JOHN RAVITZ
Executive Director
New York City Board of Elections
Manhattan
Hospital Infection Data
I certainly enjoyed reading “Group Demands Hospitals Come Clean on Infection Data” [Jill Gardiner, New York, August 16, 2004].
There is, however, a minor correction. The Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths is in the process of completing its nonprofit 501c(3) incorporation filing.
The article reports that the committee “intends to lobby for mandate disclosure.”
While the committee strongly favors the adoption of mandated disclosures of hospital infection rates, as a nonprofit, the committee cannot and will not lobby city, state, or federal policy-makers on this or other issues.
BETSY MCCAUGHEY
Founder Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths
www.hospitalinfectionrates.org
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