GOP distrust of Muslims reaches boiling point
Posted on Sunday, August 15, 2010 at 10:30 AM
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In America it seems there's no problem, no matter how complex or intractable, that can't be solved by a braying lynch mob. It's as familiar as apple pie, if not quite as reassuring.Take the controversy over the proposed Islamic cultural center at Ground Zero. Critics of the plan have been saber rattling for weeks now: 'Building a 15-story mosque at Ground Zero is a deliberately provocative act that will precipitate more bloodshed in the name of Allah,' wrote Debra Burlingame, co-founder of 9/11 Families for a Safe & Strong America.
Burlingame believes that the real plan is for triumphalist Muslims to rub our noses in it. How she knows this she omits to say. It's safe to assume she hasn't noticed how provocative her own words are. In fact Burlingame believes we're witnessing a clash of civilizations.
'What just happened is like spraying swastikas all over a Jewish memorial,' said Andy Sullivan, a construction worker at Ground Zero during 9/11. Well no in fact it isn't, Andy, and it's quite important to point that out.
First of all, it isn't a mosque, it's an Islamic cultural center which, although it would include a mosque for prayer, would be 15 stories tall with a swimming pool, an auditorium and other amenities that make it more like a YMCA than an militant Madrasah.
Sullivan has fallen for the same knee-jerk depiction of Islam as a single monolithic form of faith, inherently violent and extreme, and of all Muslims as incapable of being moderate. At times it seems the objections to this center are largely driven by the same nativist sentiments we hear about in the Tea Party.
According to Politico Republicans have shifted completely away from the Bush administration line on relations with Islam and they've obviously made the political calculation that bashing Islam and Muslims is a winning issue for them. Blame the Tea Party, it has done a sterling job of releasing the inner bigot in people.
'George Bush made every attempt to reach out,' said Congressman Peter King, a leading critic of the mosque project. 'The Muslim community did not reciprocate, did not respond.'
So how, amidst all this rage, will religious tolerance make an appeal? Mob rule, however well intentioned or passionate, shouldn't trump the American constitution or the bill of rights - simply because we're dealing with an unfavored minority. Either we are who we say we are or we are not. Difficult choices like this give us the chance to really be who we say we are.
This proposed Islamic center is planned as a center for moderate voices. We should be strongly encouraging them to speak up, not sending them packing to triumphalist applause. In New York, in any case, these people are our friends and neighbors, they are not shadowy militant cells who no one knows and who know no one, plotting our or anyone's demise.
Despite what some critics are hatefully claiming, this Islamic center wasn't planned as an insult to the memory of 9/11; the people who run it are not the Taliban. It will be located over two city blocks from the 9/11 site. There already is a major and historical Christian church located within blocks of the ground zero and no one is calling for its dismantling, as yet.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg had it right when he praised the president, calling the comments a clarion defense of the freedom of religion. 'This proposed mosque and community center in Lower Manhattan is as important a test of the separation of church and state as we may see in our lifetime,' Bloomberg said in a statement.
Al Qaeda, not Islam, attacked New York on 9/11. In fact al Qaeda has killed more Muslims than people of any other religion. But this is the kind of complicating detail that lynch mobs hate, which is why it bears repeating.
'This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable,' said President Barack Obama on Friday. 'The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country, and will not be treated differently by their government, is essential to who we are. The writ of our Founders must endure.'
That commitment must be absolute, or it's meaningless. Like George W Bush before him, the president has taken a measured and clear thinking line on Islam as a religion of peace. Bush was not pilloried for it by the pundits, neither should Obama be.
UPDATE: As Josh Marshall noted today in Talking Points Memo: 'We're in a midst of a spasm of nativist panic and raw and raucous appeals to race and religious hatred. What effects this will have on the November election strikes me as not particularly relevant. What's important is compiling some record of what's afoot, some catalog for understanding in the future who was responsible and who was so willing to disgrace their country and their principles for cheap advantage.'
107 comments
IrishAndProud | Aug 20, 2010, 12:57 AM EDT
...and here's one from former Clinton advisor Dick Morris, in his article 'Ground Zero Mosque - The Real Issue' [BEGIN QUOTE]: "Politically, President Obama’s defense of the mosque and his efforts to make it a First Amendment issue are incredibly self-destructive. They raise questions about his political sanity. It is hard to believe how tone deaf he must have become to take such a position. He has now embraced two positions that are anathema to two-thirds of all Americans — the mosque and opposition to Arizona’s immigration law. Neither was a controversy that sought him out. He waded into each one voluntarily with flags flying. He had no role in the Arizona law but his lawsuit to invalidate it made it his fight. He does not sit on the New York City Planning Commission, but his endorsement of the mosque puts him squarely in the center of controversy. What is he using for brains these days?" [END QUOTE] Now, either the stuff Morris said is true, or it's not. If not, how?
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IrishAndProud | Aug 20, 2010, 12:55 AM EDT
Same sentiments here toward YOU, sean. Yeah, one man's terrorist is another man's 'hero.' And you're apparently trying to use that position, in classic left-leaning fashion, to nuance and 'gray up' any opposition from Americans toward Islamist terrorism as being 'no different' than anyone else with a gripe. What are YOUR gripes, seanny? Maybe YOUR heroes are ANOTHER person's/group's terrorists. If you want to play this game it can be spun right back onto you...so it gets you nowhere. To a 'progressive,' there ARE no absolutes (even though that statement is in itself a laughable contradiction), and no right and wrong, right? Oh btw add Howard Dean to the rapidly-growing list of Democrats who oppose the Ground Zero Victory Mosque...
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seanomelbourne | Aug 19, 2010, 08:36 PM EDT
2Bornot2b! You fail to get the point (as usual).
Let me simplify it for you in another way, "one man's terrorist is another mans hero".Now 2b that means regardless of which side you support you will be defined by different groups as supporting hero's or terrorist's.God!! I wish i could use a blackboard to explain the "bleeding obvious" to some of you bloggers and that includes you IandP.
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LinLinisme | Aug 19, 2010, 01:13 PM EDT
Why does a person of low mentality have a job like this
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2BorNot2B | Aug 19, 2010, 02:48 AM EDT
How's this for crazy comment: **Terrorism like beauty is in the eye of the beholder** Yeah, tell us that when someone flies a plane into your house and kills your entire family.
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seanomelbourne | Aug 19, 2010, 01:07 AM EDT
Terrorism like beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
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shidoobe | Aug 18, 2010, 01:15 PM EDT
No mosque near ground Zero what is so hard about that?
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IrishAndProud | Aug 18, 2010, 02:23 AM EDT
No, seanny...I have eyes, ears, consciousness, the internet and the news. The bulk of all wars being fought on earth today are being waged by Muslims against others (including their own people), and the majority of terrorists are Muslims. And the moon is not green cheese, water has dampness and the Democrats are in trouble.
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seanomelbourne | Aug 18, 2010, 01:49 AM EDT
IandP has a world list of terrorist I wonder how cockeyed his list is?
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IrishAndProud | Aug 17, 2010, 09:55 PM EDT
kathrynk, not all Muslims are terrorists -- but most terrorists in the world today are Muslim. That means something, you know. That couldn't be MORE relevant.
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2BorNot2B | Aug 17, 2010, 04:59 PM EDT
Reviewing The numbers, Manhattan has a population of around 1.537 Million people.-- Lower Manhattan can NOT have more than 117,187 residents, of which no more than around 3,516 could be ‘North African or Arab’ and perhaps of those, not all muslims. -- So really, in order to build an fill a 13 story monstrosity that would hold 4000 to 7500 individuals at any given time and call it 'a mosque to serve the community’ they'd need to have a population of over 85,000 muslims South of Canal St living in residential neighborhoods. That for now, and even in the fairly distant future, is IMPOSSIBLE! -- Which then brings into high relief the fact that the stated purpose for this place is nothing more than to erect a triumphalist muslim building. -- In fact, for muslim terrorists to achieve this feat is an 'obvious moment,' similar to the flag posted by USMC on Iwo Jima after taking that beach. -- Furthermore, any cynic would conclude that at this time it would be surprising if there were even 280 LEGAL Mid-Eastern residents in NYC south of Canal Street.
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2BorNot2B | Aug 17, 2010, 04:55 PM EDT
Regarding the construction of a mosque, to serve the islamic community of Lower Manhattan, the information of those who actually know the area is the following: It is well known that the Real Estate in that particular area is dedicated to office and commercial space, NOT residential; then, whatever residential space is available, it's NOT inhabited by a concentration of muslims, or people of arab descent. -- There are likely to be more transient druggies around that area than muslims, therefore, the excuse that the proposed mosque has the purpose of serving the muslim community of Lower Manhattan is totally bogus.-- Actually, ‘The Community of Lower Manhattan’ is everything South of Canal St – ‘Right in the Middle of Chinatown’ and, again, it's doubtful there are even two dozen arabs or muslims anywhere in Chinatown. ---
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ALyons3960 | Aug 17, 2010, 10:07 AM EDT
To anyone who calls us members of a "braying lynch mob," I would ask you if you were in New York that day. Everyone in this town knows someone who lost loved ones on September 11. It was a day of horror that will live in my heart forever.
Downtown Manhattan is a very congested area. A building that is a few blocks away from Ground Zero is not far away at all. To have a mosque so nearby is indelicate.
There are many sites in New York City where an old crumbling building may be replaced by a new one. Why not use one of those sites? We do have a beautiful mosque on the Upper East Side. Out of respect for the suffering we New Yorkers still feel, please build the mosque elsewhere.
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kathrynk | Aug 17, 2010, 08:30 AM EDT
To say that all Muslims are terrorists is a totally ignorant statement. Thats like someone looking at the KKK or American Nazi groups (many who claim the identity of Christian) and deducing that all Christians are terrorists. You need to do some studying about Islam, which is an Abrahamic, an a peaceful religion. There are always people who claim to be a member of a particular religion who in no way represent what that religion is about, i.e. those who claim to be Christians yet every word our of their mouths reeks of hate. I do agree that it is probably not a good idea to have the building in that particular place because it causes such responses in many people.
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