{"id":2300,"date":"2010-08-20T07:46:37","date_gmt":"2010-08-20T11:46:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nicholsclan.com\/tinblog\/?p=2300"},"modified":"2010-08-20T08:01:21","modified_gmt":"2010-08-20T12:01:21","slug":"mosquing-your-true-feelings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/2010\/08\/mosquing-your-true-feelings.html","title":{"rendered":"Mosquing your true feelings"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Muslim-Crescent\"<\/a>
Photo by Steve Evans<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The ongoing debate over the Islamic Community Center to be built over two blocks from the WTC site in New York City continues to spiral out of control.<\/p>\n

While many loud voices are out there claiming such, there can be little defense for opposing the construction of this building in a land whose Constitution guarantees religious freedom, and whose laws support the right of citizens or groups to own property and build on that site within legal building codes and regulations.<\/p>\n

What’s more concerning is the number of people who accept that this effort should not be illegal, but are expecting sympathy on the statement that for a Muslim group to construct the center so close to “ground zero” this soon is at least insensitive and in poor taste.\u00a0 That it is somehow disrespectful to those who died there.<\/p>\n

It’s tempting to ask when such a structure wouldn’t be too soon given that 9\/11 happened a decade ago.\u00a0 For perspective, that’s like opposing any notion of Japanese heritage or culture in Hawaii in the mid-1950s.\u00a0 Or maybe the question is, how close is too close?\u00a0 There is already a prayer room four blocks away, so it seems that must be okay.\u00a0 But who decided anything less than four blocks is an insult?\u00a0 And an insult to whom?\u00a0 There were Muslims who died in that tragedy as well.\u00a0 And many 9\/11 families have come out in support of the project.\u00a0 Do we take a vote?\u00a0 Who gets to vote?\u00a0 Or is it just that as long as anyone is offended, then this isn’t okay?<\/p>\n

Yet putting all those questions aside, the very essence of the notion that anything about this project is remotely insensitive is predicated on equating Islam with terrorism.\u00a0 Think about that.\u00a0 There is zero evidence this Muslim group is in any way tied to any terrorist organization.\u00a0 The imam leading this group, Feisal Abdul Rauf, was vetted and deployed by George Bush to promote America to the Muslim world after 9\/11.\u00a0 Unless you hold that all Muslims are at some level responsible for terrorism, then there is no way for this group or their plans to build a gym, pool, culinary school, prayer room, and meeting center to be a threat or an insult to anyone.<\/p>\n

Finding this project insensitive requires that you hold over a billion people responsible for the acts of dozens.\u00a0 Even if you allow for one million Muslims worldwide to be terrorists, a number that seems pretty darn large, you are holding all of them accountable for the acts of less than 0.1%.<\/p>\n

If your child were killed by a person who looked like you, and was part of your culture and religion.\u00a0 One who claimed he was on a mission from God.\u00a0 You would hate him and want justice and maybe revenge.\u00a0 But you wouldn’t then hate the others in his church or in his community because that’s your group too.\u00a0 You’d have to blame yourself.\u00a0 Yet when someone different commits an atrocity, it’s all to easy to conflate your hatred for the individual with a hatred for, or fear of, the group as a whole.<\/p>\n

Consider that when you talk about this project showing Muslim insensitivity, perhaps what you really mean is that you find them being insensitive to your bigotry.\u00a0 Then ask yourself if that’s really the position you want to lead with.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For a Muslim group to construct the center so close to “ground zero” is insensitive. Yet the notion that anything about this project is remotely insensitive is predicated on equating Islam with terrorism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2300"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2308,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2300\/revisions\/2308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}