Often I wonder why what mostly appears in the press from the Muslim world appears to be either business as usual (the hajj is starting now) or the latest threat from some extremist or other, or of course the press’s favorite angle on either of those (hotel collapses during hajj or terrorists kill x people). All those things are legitimate news, and I’m glad that ordinary things do go on as usual. But where are the voices opposing the extremists?

Here’s one, from Iran. Former president Mohammed Khatami says:

Since the aggressive voice within the Islamic world is very loud today, and the poser circles in the west, too, try to further aggrandize it, we need to clarify that there is another voice within the Islamic world," Khatami was quoted as saying.

"In order to clarify which version of Islam we are talking about, there is no need to represent a nation, or a government, but we need to clarify that our voice is clearly heard in the Islamic world and accepted," he said.

— Iran’s Khatami calls for "another voice" in Islamic world (Xinhua) Updated: 2006-01-07 09:22

For that matter, why does this story only seem to be carried on two Chinese news agencies and a couple of middle eastern ones? Does the western press have no interest in a reasonable  voice from the middle east? Maybe it’s too busy carrying the latest not-so-reasonable diatribe from the current president of Iran and ex-president Khatami’s reasonable voice doesn’t fit the current press template for Iran; I don’t know.