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:
“It is from the womb of art that criticism was born.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)
“The critic lives at second hand. He writes about. The poem, the novel, or the play must be given to him; criticism exists by the grace of other men’s genius. By virtue of style, criticism can itself become literature. But usually this occurs only when the writer is acting as critic of his own work or as outrider to his own poetics, when the criticism of Coleridge is work in progress or that of T.S. Eliot propaganda.”
—George Steiner (b. 1929)
“As far as criticism is concerned, we don’t resent that unless it is absolutely biased, as it is in most cases.”
—John Vorster (1915–1983)