Criticism
Critics have included Azzam Tamimi, Inayat Bunglawala, Ziauddin Sardar ― who formerly criticised Quilliam but has since sided with Maajid Nawaz during a debate with Tariq Ramadan broadcast on Press TV ― and Seumas Milne of The Guardian.
In an open letter to The Guardian, Anas al-Tikriti, Yvonne Ridley, Ihtisham Hibatullah, Ismail Patel, and Roshan Salih wrote:
We believe this is just another establishment-backed attempt to divert attention from the main cause of radicalisation and extremism in Britain: the UK's disastrous foreign policy in the Muslim world, including its occupation of Muslim lands and its support for pro-western Muslim dictators. The foundation has no proven grassroots support within the Muslim community, although it does seem to have the ear of the powers that be, probably because it is telling them what they want to hear. It is quite possible to be a politically engaged Muslim without wanting to fly planes into tall buildings. Yet the (Quilliam) foundation equates all forms of political Islam with extremism and terrorism. But those misguided few who are willing to cross the line into terrorism are not driven by disfranchisement or Sayyid Qutb's writings; they do it because they are furious about western foreign policy....
Seumas Milne argued that “all three are straight out of the cold war defectors' mould trading heavily on their former associations and travelling rapidly in a conservative direction”.
Read more about this topic: Quilliam (think Tank)
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“Good criticism is very rare and always precious.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Unless criticism refuses to take itself quite so seriously or at least to permit its readers not to, it will inevitably continue to reflect the finicky canons of the genteel tradition and the depressing pieties of the Culture Religion of Modernism.”
—Leslie Fiedler (b. 1917)
“When you overpay small people you frighten them. They know that their merits or activities entitle them to no such sums as they are receiving. As a result their boss soars out of economic into magic significance. He becomes a source of blessings rather than wages. Criticism is sacrilege, doubt is heresy.”
—Ben Hecht (1893–1964)