Back in December, no one cared. People asked were in favor of it, including a family member of one of the victims. Even Laura Ingraham was for it!
quote:Dec. 21, 2009: Conservative media personality Laura Ingraham interviews Abdul Rauf's wife, Daisy Khan, while guest-hosting "The O'Reilly Factor" on Fox. In hindsight, the segment is remarkable for its cordiality. "I can't find many people who really have a problem with it," Ingraham says of the Cordoba project, adding at the end of the interview, "I like what you're trying to do."
While there were some grumblings here and there, it wasn't until rabid anti-Muslim blogger Pamela Gellar single-handedly hammered it into the news (specifically, the always-ready-for-a-controversy New York Post) and launched it into the undeserved spotlight for terrified people everywhere to cower before. ("The terrorists will have pools! And exercise programs! They'll be toned!")
Glad to see journalism being committed every now and then.
[ August 16, 2010, 03:58 PM: Message edited by: Chris Bridges ]
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Isn't trying to argue against the opposition to the mosque by pointing to the person who first made an issue about it kind of ad hominem-y?
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It's not so much the "who" as the "how." When the story made national media before, including conservative media, it was no big deal. It was only when someone saw an opportunity to leverage it into a nontroversy that it became a big deal with all the players taking their assigned roles. People became offended when they were told it was offensive.
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I'm not arguing against the opposition to the mosque, although I'd be happy to if you like. I'm pointing out an article that went a different direction from all the others. I'm also enjoying seeing, for once, a fairly clear lineage of hysteria-building that I usually only see on the Daily Show, and I'm glad to see it can still happen.
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I would argue that it is the "who" and not the "how.
The "who" in this case being the man that wants to build it and his radical views. Saying that Osama Bin Laden was created in the USA and that America was an accessory to 9-11, as well as saying he wants Sharia law here in the US doesn't exactly promote tolerance and understanding.
If the mosque was being built by a person that was actually known for teaching peach, equality, and tolerance, I would not have a problem with the mosque at all. I know others would still have an issue with it though.
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I have no problem with people saying US was an accessory to 9-11. I view it similar to my daughter and one of her friends. She will take a toy he wants, mock him for a while and then he will whack her. Both end up in time out, though the hitter gets a worse punishment. She did not deserve to be hit and that was an unacceptable response, but it wasn't like he was the only one in the wrong in that situation. Her actions were part of what led to that end result. I don't excuse her friend for hitting- that was wrong. But I don't deny the part she played in the escalation. And looking at US foreign policy, it really isn't surprising that a lot of Muslims feel like the US was screwing with them. I don't think that what the terrorist was right, morally acceptable or anything but reprehensible. But it wasn't like the US govt was behaving like angels either.
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quote:The Kuwaiti-born Rauf, 52, is the imam of a mosque in New York City's Tribeca district, has written extensively on Islam and its place in modern society and often argues that American democracy is the embodiment of Islam's ideal society. (One of his books is titled What's Right with Islam Is What's Right with America.) He is a contributor to the Washington Post's On Faith blog, and the stated aim of his organization, the Cordoba Initiative, is "to achieve a tipping point in Muslim-West relations within the next decade, steering the world back to the course of mutual recognition and respect and away from heightened tensions." His Indian-born wife is an architect and a recipient of the Interfaith Center Award for Promoting Peace and Interfaith Understanding.
quote:If the mosque was being built by a person that was actually known for teaching peach, equality, and tolerance, I would not have a problem with the mosque at all.
I submit that you have made little to no effort to learn anything about the gentleman in question or the community center being built beyond what conservative muckrakers have told you.
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Yeah, everyone else ignored it, but this is straight-up bigotry.
Bigotry, incidentally, that is almost wholly uninterested in dealing with the facts of the Park 51 project.
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Juxtapose, some of us didn't ever watch it (sorry, Lisa posting something connected to the middle eastern makes me think certain things about content- I think I once went to a link and it was like someone blowing up or something very unpleasant and so I don't watch her links anymore).
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Yup. And if those buildings had been laying damaged and unusable for the past 9 years because pieces of terrorist plane fell on them on 9/11, I'd object to having mosques there as well. What's your point?
Going by distance alone is a cheap rhetorical tactic. The places he shot those photos weren't smashed on 9/11.
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The building isn't actually being built in the rubble, just nearby- two and a half blocks away from ground zero. It just sounds a whole lot catchier to talk about it as ground zero- even if that is a load of crock.
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Yeah, everyone else ignored it, but this is straight-up bigotry.
Bigotry, incidentally, that is almost wholly uninterested in dealing with the facts of the Park 51 project.
Of course it's bigotry. It's Lisa. Why would you even click on one of her links and not expect ugly bigotry?
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quote:Originally posted by natural_mystic: I can't view that at work; what's the gist?
quote:Hello America. I'm just a few hundred feet from Ground Zero, where a group of Muslim terrorists crashed two planes into the World Trade Center killing close to 3,000 people. Nine years later, two groups of Muslims, the Cordoba Center and the American Society for Muslim Advancement, are planning to build a massive thirteen story mosque right here behind me.
Now understandably, many people here in the West are concerned that this isn't an attempt to honor the families of 9/11, as the Muslims here are claiming. Instead, it may be an attempt to build a symbol of Islamic victory. Now I have the same concern, but mine is slightly different. My concern is based for the most part on a photograph I saw while I was still in college. When I was in college, my best friend was a Muslim named Nabil Kareshi. Nabil showed me some photographs shortly after the September 11th attacks, and I found them quite surprising. Muslims were passing these photographs around and Nabil thought that they were absolutely hilarious. The first photograph was of George W. Bush as a Muslim. And I have to admit that one was actually pretty funny. George W. looked like he had joined the Taliban. The second photograph wasn't so funny. It was a photoshopped picture of the Statue of Liberty covered in a full veil. Now this one bothered me a little bit. It was the Statue of Liberty, a symbol of freedom and justice, covered by a full veil, a symbol of oppression and shariah law.
Now these two pictures actually worked their way around the internet, so lots of people are familiar with them. The third picture is the one that really disturbed me, however. It was a photoshopped picture of New York City covered in mosques and minarets. In the bottom corner it said "New York City 2006". The idea was that the terrorist attacks had cleared the ground for the construction of new mosques.
Now when I asked Nabil why he found this photograph so funny, he said, "Am I the only one who's dealing with this tragedy through humor?" But that really didn't work. People who dealt with 9/11 through humor made fun of the terrorists. They didn't joke about terrorist attacks clearing the way for a new Mecca. So this was when I first realized -- this is when I realized for the first time -- that there are two forces at work within Western Muslims like Nabil. On the one hand, Nabil was born and raised in the United States, his father had been in the US military, he loved America. But on the other hand, even though he came from the most peaceful sect of Islam, there was something in Nabil that allowed him to smile when there were terrorist attacks.
He goes on to show verses from the Qur'an which direct Muslims to show a different face towards unbelievers. To smile in their faces and hate them in their hearts. He also points out that it's Muslim practice for the past 13 centuries to build large mosques and shrines atop the holy places of areas they've conquered. Like the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, for example. And that while the US doesn't have holy places like that, it does have spiritual centers, and New York City is probably the biggest one.
Agree with him or disagree with him, he makes a lot of good points. And dismissing him as a "racist" or a "hater" is just a way of saying, "I don't want to think about that."
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No, Tom, you may not. Because I'm 99.99% sure you know why. And if you don't, you haven't thought about it.
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I have thought about it. And unless you think the center is somehow intended to be a testament to the attacks itself, which is frankly bigoted beyond belief, I can't see any reason why it would matter.
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There already is a mosque 2 blocks from the site. This mosque is 2.5 blocks away. So, if the goal is to build a shrine where they "conquered" in NYC, they could already check that location off.
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I think what Tom means is, why is it a sufficiently relevant distinction to trump the first amendment and to enshrine in our government firm opposition to Islam?
I can't imagine a measure that would more decisively indicate defeat for the United States. Now, if the question is, "Should this be built," from a moral and philosophical standpoint, that's a different discussion, and a potentially interesting one. Should our government stop it from being built? Absolutely not. Frankly it's a disgrace that elements of our government are even considering stopping it from being built, but I suppose that's the kind of inevitable disgrace that comes of having high ideals mixed with ordinary people.
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quote:Originally posted by scholarette: There already is a mosque 2 blocks from the site.
IIRC, that mosque pre-dates the World Trade Center. So if that was the goal, they would really still need to build another one to really drill the point home.
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: I think what Tom means is, why is it a sufficiently relevant distinction to trump the first amendment and to enshrine in our government firm opposition to Islam? ...
I'm not sure it has to. Ban *all* religious buildings in the required radius as a compromise. That should relieve your government of having to take sides Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Should our government stop it from being built? Absolutely not. Frankly it's a disgrace that elements of our government are even considering stopping it from being built
posted
Okay, the way this whole thing is being handled, by both sides, is a testament to how poor the political dialogue in this country has become.
There is enough insensitivity on both sides of this debate in all arenas to show how so much of this country has completely abandoned any attempt at trying to understand each other, and instead just villifies their opponents.
In this thread, and all over the internet, we're seeing people point to the worst examples of the anti-Islamic bigots who are against the mosque.
Yes, they're there. And they're being terrible. I don't need to point more fingers at them because fingers have been pointed in this thread.
But stop and think about whether that's really the arguement you want to use. That would be like the people on the other side saying, "Well, the actual terrorists themselves would be happy the mosque is going up, therefore everybody who wants to build the mosque supports terrorism."
Everybody's going to have extremists on their side, and in the age of the internet it becomes easy to find those folks, link to them, and say "This is what you think." That was the whole purpouse of the Salon article.
But it's intellectually dishonest and lazy to simply assign the opposition the opposite motives of your own. If my motivation is a desire to be tolerant of the religion of islam, the motivation the other side can have is an intolerance of islam.
That's not seeing the world as it is, that's projecting the world out the way you want to see it. Even finding links to people who DO have that as their motivation doesn't actually make that the way the world is.
If you're having trouble figuring out what people could possibly be motivated by besides predjudice, imagine this analogy:
Imagine someone, affiliated with the US Air Force or not, decided to build a US Air Force Memorial dedicated to the triumphant heroism of the US Air Force in Hiroshima, within two and a half blocks of where the bomb fell. Not dedicated to World War II, per se, but just to the Air Force.
Even among Japanese citizens who loved the US, can you see how that might be seen as insensitive? As a little uncaring and unsympatetic towards the people who lost family and loved ones in that bombing?
Both sides are actually feeling the same thing, here. One side is feeling like people are being unsympathetic towards all the members of Islam who did not participate in the 9/11 attacks. The other side feels like these members of Islam, who did not participate in the 9/11 attacks, are being insensitive towards those who experienced loss that day.
And all of us, as a nation, experienced loss.
And then it all balloons out from there, mostly from everybody starting to assign crazy motives to the other side.
Then, when the other side so grossly distorts what one side knows to be thier position, they become more sure their own grossly distorted position is correct. And next thing we know, one side is sure the other is a bunch of bigots and the other side is sure the others hate America.
Welcome to discourse in the 21st century.
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quote: Imagine someone, affiliated with the US Air Force or not, decided to build a US Air Force Memorial dedicated to the triumphant heroism of the US Air Force in Hiroshima, within two and a half blocks of where the bomb fell. Not dedicated to World War II, per se, but just to the Air Force.
That's a pretty poor analogy for a whole lot of reasons. The simplest being that even if you equated Hiroshima and the WTC exactly on all counts except for location and date, there is an enormous difference between a monument honoring a specific organization, unique and very easy to pinpoint, and a religious building constructed by a given group of something like 1.5b< Muslims across the planet, if I'm not mistaken.
Can I understand why some people don't like the idea of a mosque going up there? Sure. That's easy to understand, though not if one actually becomes informed about the particular group in question, to agree with. But this is America, and we're Americans. We are not supposed to say to a particular religious group, "You can't do that here just because you're you." We're not, in fact, supposed to say that to anyone for that reason. We're supposed to have reasons for saying that, concrete provable reasons such as 'you didn't pay taxes' or 'you killed someone' or 'it's not your land' or something. Not 'we're uncomfortable with your religion'. Which is what it boils down to.
quote: Both sides are actually feeling the same thing, here. One side is feeling like people are being unsympathetic towards all the members of Islam who did not participate in the 9/11 attacks. The other side feels like these members of Islam, who did not participate in the 9/11 attacks, are being insensitive towards those who experienced loss that day.
Well, no, that's not right either. On the one hand you object to a binary framing of this problem, one side vs. the other, but here you're speaking as though there were two sides. First things first, there are not just two sides. There are at least three sides. Speaking strictly for myself, and whoever else is of like opinion, one side thinks: America=can't say no based on not liking religion. Fundamental. Other considerations irrelevant.
As an American, cold as it is to say, I don't care if someone thinks 'they're celebrating 9-11!' Or, to be more accurate, I am concerned about that, not because I believe it but because I think it's absurd, but I am far, far more concerned with the notion of our government saying 'no Muslims!' It's very straightforward. We're not supposed to do that here.
A bunch of slave-owning rich old white men over 200 years ago were smart enough to understand this idea, or at least the ideal. I think enough time has passed that we can stop skirting the issue and averting our eyes and pretending that it's somehow understandable that we're considering forbidding this. It's only understandable if we collectively slept through various civics classes and culture related to civics, or for some reason think they only count unless we're really upset about something as opposed to especially counting when we are.
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I think the people who own the property do have the right to build the mosque there if they wish, and no, I don't think the government should stop them from building it (unless in investigating where the funds for the mosque are coming from they do find some shady sources).
I do wish, though, regardless of when the controversy started and who started it, that the Cordoba project people would reconsider their choice of location. It's been less than ten years since the attacks, and however they wish the mosque/cultural center/what-have-you to be taken, there are a lot of people offended at the idea of it. I've seen several polls showing much more people opposing its construction than favoring it, so if the idea is to help build bridges between Muslims and non-Muslims, this might not be the best way to accomplish that. Sensitivity should not be a one-way street.
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Seriously, Rakeesh, if you think you have to defend your position to me, don't worry about it. I get it. My own opinion doesn't fall into one category or the other either.
That's the point.
I know your position isn't the one anybody would cubbyhole you into. Neither is mine. That's sort of the point of my post--whatever postion you want to cubbyhole the other side into, that's not neccessarily where they're sitting.
My analogy wasn't meant to be perfect and foolproof and convert anybody. It was just meant to give a glimpse into the way the situation could be seen in a different light. Some in this thread, and in other places online are doing a "pseudo-understanding" thing where they pretend to be really, really trying hard to understand, but actually "consider" the other side as dismisively as the other side "considers" them.
Seriously, my post wasn't about the mosque. Just about our absolute inability to see each other as people who could possibly have noble motives.
Same as, say, the issue of welfare. You get one side claiming that the "vast majority" of unemployment recepients are anxious for the handout. The other side claiming that the "vast majority" of unemployement recipients are anxiously looking for work. When the facts there's this huge spectrum of people who fit into all categories that are receiving unemployment, and every possible set of feelings about the whole thing are going to be present.
Same thing here. We have people whose own, personal values fall along all kinds of spectrums.
Sensitivity to the victims vs. Sensitivity to regular practitions of islam. Maybe that's an X axis.
As you pointed out, those who believe freedom of religion is absolute vs. those who feel land use issues regarding American historical sites matter. Maybe that's a y axis.
And there are z, w, and whatever else, too.
Everybody's going to fall somewhere or another on all of those spectrums. But they're all values. They're all valid.
The problem is when everybody dismisses the values that the other side is acting based on, and just inserts a flipped-around anti-my-values agenda onto the other side.
Then it degenerates into "I'm fighting you because you see me as the bad guy." And that's the position both sides end up taking. And when the arguement is over who the bad guy is instead of what a solution is, we will never come to an agreement. Because neither side will ever, ever admit they're the bad guy.
And in this case, there are probably bucketloads of solutions that all sides could be happy with, if they'd all just stick to caring about thier positions instead of being so all-fired desperate to have the other side be really, really evil.
Edit: Because I hadn't seen daventor's response when I posted, so I made it more clear who I was responding to.
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quote: Imagine someone, affiliated with the US Air Force or not, decided to build a US Air Force Memorial dedicated to the triumphant heroism of the US Air Force in Hiroshima, within two and a half blocks of where the bomb fell. Not dedicated to World War II, per se, but just to the Air Force.
But people who think this is what is being done are idiots. This is a stupid analogy. It simply does not apply.
Honoring that dumb analogy by pretending it should apply just because some people are dumb enough to think it should does no one any favors. Why should I pretend that they're entitled to be idiots?
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quote:Here's the analogy I want to try out. Imagine a suburban street where three kids in a single family were molested by a Catholic priest, who was subsequently transferred by the archbishop to a faraway parish, and never prosecuted. Nine years later, a devout Catholic woman who lives five or six doors down decides that she's going to start a prayer group for orthodox Catholics -- they'll meet once a week in her living room, and occasionally a local priest, recently graduated from a far away seminary, will attend.
Even if we believe that it is irrational for the mother of the molested kids to be upset by this prayer group on her street, it's easy enough to understand her reaction. Had she joined an activist group critical of the Catholic Church in the aftermath of the molestation, it's easy to imagine that group backing the mother. As evident is the fact that the devout Catholic woman isn't culpable for molestations in the Catholic church -- in fact, even though we understand why her prayer group upsets the neighbor, it is perfectly plausible that the prayer group organizers never imagined that their plan would be upsetting or controversial. In their minds (and in fact), they're as opposed to child molestation as anyone, and it's easy to see why they'd be offended by any implication to the contrary.
Presented with that situation, how should the other people on the street react?
The only reason for the community center to be offensive is if you associate all Muslims with terrorist acts, or if you have compelling evidence that this particular center will be used for terrorist activity. That's really it. What other reason is there?
Muslims also died in the attacks, Muslims also helped rescue survivors and dig out the dead. Muslims also mourn.
Asking to move the community center somewhere else utterly defeats the purpose, because it's a community center and for those to be effective they kinda sorta have to, you know, be in the community they're serving.
Personally, I'd like to see a massive interfaith chapel set up right at Ground Zero, on the grounds, the first thing you see. One of the big reasons we were targeted was for our tolerance of other religions. To me, that means we need to double down and be even more tolerant and accepting and inclusive.
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Daryl's follow-up to yesterday's blog with a photo of the location for Park51, and a map showing where he took the photos.
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posted
I wonder if the Park1 mosque has to do all of the studies, enviornmental impact, accessory use, traffic, septic, building codes, CEQR, and on and on and on.... I'm battling this currently trying to find a property and I am amazed how difficult it is to get approvals for a very small business, let alone a massive community center in Manhatten.
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quote:Personally, I'd like to see a massive interfaith chapel set up right at Ground Zero, on the grounds, the first thing you see.
Barring that, a giant monument carved with the words "If you're killing someone in the name of God, you're doing it wrong."
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quote:I wonder if the Park1 mosque has to do all of the studies, enviornmental impact, accessory use, traffic, septic, building codes, CEQR, and on and on and on....
You're lying. I say this because if you really wondered, at all, you could find out. All of that information is public.
posted
Not lying, just lazy. Or musing out loud. Lying would be "but they don't even have to do all the studies, environmental impact, etc etc". I wonder a lot of things I don't care enough about to look up.
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I did do a quick search "nyc zoning permit to build park 51 mosque" and didn't find the information I was looking for so I was still wondering and not lying. Thanks for still being you, TD, you are a peach.
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posted
"In this thread, and all over the internet, we're seeing people point to the worst examples of the anti-Islamic bigots who are against the mosque."
Yes. Because the only possible reason to be against the mosque, and the only one that has been expressed, ANYWHERE, is outright bigotry.
When you find someone who is opposed to the building of this Islamic Communinity Center who is not acting out of idiotic bigotry, you will have found the first.
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quote:Originally posted by Chris Bridges: ... The only reason for the community center to be offensive is if you associate all Muslims with terrorist acts, or if you have compelling evidence that this particular center will be used for terrorist activity. That's really it. What other reason is there?
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: I have thought about it. And unless you think the center is somehow intended to be a testament to the attacks itself, which is frankly bigoted beyond belief, I can't see any reason why it would matter.
What's bigoted about it? Or is it bigoted just because you don't like it? Is "bigoted" now a word like "fascist" that's empty of content but usable as a blunt instrument whenever you want to pummel someone?
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quote:Originally posted by scholarette: There already is a mosque 2 blocks from the site. This mosque is 2.5 blocks away. So, if the goal is to build a shrine where they "conquered" in NYC, they could already check that location off.
Stop with the distance nonsense. (a) That location wasn't effectively destroyed in the attacks on 9/11. (b) A 13 story building is a bit different than a storefront.
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: I think what Tom means is, why is it a sufficiently relevant distinction to trump the first amendment and to enshrine in our government firm opposition to Islam?
I can't imagine a measure that would more decisively indicate defeat for the United States. Now, if the question is, "Should this be built," from a moral and philosophical standpoint, that's a different discussion, and a potentially interesting one. Should our government stop it from being built? Absolutely not. Frankly it's a disgrace that elements of our government are even considering stopping it from being built, but I suppose that's the kind of inevitable disgrace that comes of having high ideals mixed with ordinary people.
Rakeesh, you tend to be a little more rational than some people here. You understand the difference between opposing something and trying to make it illegal, right? There've been demonstrations. Do you have a problem with that? There've been attempts, within the law, to have the place declared a protected location. Do you have a problem with that? How is that any different than zoning restrictions?
I'm not in favor of the government saying, "No. You may not build there." But I very much hope if they do build it, that Greg Gutman builds his Muslim-friendly gay bar next door. Because that's an exercise of freedom as well.
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quote:Originally posted by Paul Goldner: ... When you find someone who is opposed to the building of this Islamic Communinity Center who is not acting out of idiotic bigotry, you will have found the first.
Don't be silly. Here's Sam Harris who is normally viewed as one of the "nicer" New Atheists as compared to Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins.
Here's a statement statement from the ADL which explicitly "reject[s] appeals to bigotry" and details their opposition to the Islamic Center.
Here's one from PZ Myers who would oppose religious buildings in general around Ground Zero and cites Jeffrey Rowland as well.
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quote:Originally posted by Paul Goldner: "In this thread, and all over the internet, we're seeing people point to the worst examples of the anti-Islamic bigots who are against the mosque."
Yes. Because the only possible reason to be against the mosque, and the only one that has been expressed, ANYWHERE, is outright bigotry.
When you find someone who is opposed to the building of this Islamic Communinity Center who is not acting out of idiotic bigotry, you will have found the first.
I'm with Paul on this one. As a liberal who usually steers clear of incendiary threads. I'm sick of having to equivocate. I understand while people could be offended or believe it to be in bad taste. I support all their efforts to express this opinion in a way to convince the Cordoba Project to move their proposed community center. Insofar as the Cordoba Project follows all relevant laws, I support their right to not bow to the pressure.
I don't support fomenting half-truths (like the dedication date being 9/11/2011, or that it is a mosque) to force government to take action.
The major drivers of this controversy ARE bigots who are using untruths to convince busy, normal people to support their cause, because the busy, normal people don't have the time/knowledge to go on Google or Snopes or MediaMatters and find out that the outrage is being manufactured by insidious elements of our society.
I have yet to read anyone decrying the community center simply stating that it is in poor taste, and have it gain traction in the way "ground zero mosque" and "9/11/2011 inauguration/dedication date" have.
quote:What's bigoted about it? Or is it bigoted just because you don't like it? Is "bigoted" now a word like "fascist" that's empty of content but usable as a blunt instrument whenever you want to pummel someone?
Nah, it's more like statist, or progressive, or liberal, or socialist.
Lisa, see my text above. However, the people are being whipped into a frenzy to protest based on lies (like the dedication date).
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Good article -- thanks for the link.
