“It’s not the first time America has tried to shield itself from dissenting opinions. During the Cold War, dozens of overseas artists, activists, and intellectuals – including British novelist Doris Lessing, Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, and Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez – were denied visas because of their left-leaning ideas. Today, though, the American concept of the ‘other’ has taken on a relatively new and specific form: the Muslim. America must face the reality that, in the West, many adherents to Islam demonstrate loyalty to democratic values through criticism.”

Tariq Ramadan writes in Newsweek, 29 March 2010