Dear Editor,
This is in response to Tarik Shah's Nov. 14 Viewpoint. In the Viewpoint, Mr. Shah was shamefully irresponsible in attacking The Primary Source, and his claims merit a response.
Full disclosure: I am a managing editor with The Primary Source, and I participated in writing the Elephant section in question.
The apparent impetus for Mr. Shah's Viewpoint came from the Nov. 1 issue of The Primary Source.
In that issue's Elephant section, the Source criticized Rezwan Khan. Mr. Khan had written a Nov. 16 Viewpoint decrying free speech when exercised in means disagreeable to Muslims like himself (and, Mr. Khan quickly added, to people of other faiths).
Were Mr. Khan's point simply that it would be nice if people were nice to one another, that would have been one thing. But that was not all that Mr. Khan had to say.
As the Elephant blurb explained, he claimed to be "totally against" any "controversial portrayals of the prophet Muhammad or any other religious figure in popular media."
Mr. Khan later explained, "I believe there is a term called 'political correctness' that prevents just that."
Mr. Shah takes issue with the following line from the Elephant item: "Are we finally free to think of the average Muslim as an illiberal putz?"
But that was taken out of context. The full sentence was, "Meanwhile, if Rezwan is really 'your average Muslim guy,' are we finally free to think of the average Muslim as an illiberal putz?"
Sure enough, Mr. Khan had claimed to be "your average Muslim guy," and had come off as rather illiberal and somewhat of a putz.
The Elephant remark was aimed not at Muslims; that is, Mr. Shah is wrong to say that there was a "defamation of an entire religious group."
The remark was aimed at Mr. Khan himself. Surely Mr. Shah understood this before he wrote his Viewpoint; surely he did not quote a sentence of which he had only read half.
The only conclusion is, he purposely took a quote out of context in order to attack the Source. Now who is the illiberal putz?
Daniel Mencher, seniorManaging Editor, Primary Source
