Letter to the Editor: Moderate Muslims must be encouraged

Letter to the Editor: Moderate Muslims must be encouraged

by By Eugene B Kogan
Financial Times
August 24, 2005

Sir, Martin Wolf is correct that Muslims must take a stand on Islamism in word and deed ("How Islamism challenges Muslims", August 17). What he does not mention is that the west must encourage moderate Muslims to assume this crucial responsibility.

Specifically, leaders of the western world must make clear to moderate Islamic leaders that they have the biggest stake in the success of the war on terror. First, they will be preventing Islam from being used in the service of terrorism by the likes of Osama bin Laden. Second, they will be heeding the lessons of present-day Iraq where foreign terrorists, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, are daily killing Muslim and western civilians alike.

Progress in the war on terrorism will be made when moderate Muslims come to understand their stakes in the success of this campaign. The west must help them understand what those stakes are.

Eugene B. Kogan,

Senior Political Analyst,

Americans for Informed Democracy,

New Haven, CT 06513, US