When Mayor Bloomberg trotted out to the podium in front of the Statue of Liberty to wallop everyone across the face with a new Ground Zero reality, he was doing so to teach the less tolerant among us, a lesson about religious freedom.
His photo-op was not addressing any meaningful controversy. Up to that speech, the cultural center was approved unanimously. If there were rumblings, Bloomberg could simply have issued a statement correcting popular misconceptions.
I wish I had learned of the so-called "Ground Zero mosque" differently. I did not understand that the poorly dubbed cultural center was in fact not at Ground Zero, but two city blocks away, and around the corner, out of sight.
If the mayor had simply corrected people's impressions, he could have nipped the whole false "Ground Zero mosque" meme in the bud before it ever got so out of hand.
Instead he dragged Lady Liberty into the picture and gave everyone a good scolding. His timing couldn't have been worse for the 9/11 community. 9/11 Responders had just lost their hospital money from Congress. Here they were thinking that politicians don't give a damn about them, and what does Mayor Bloomberg do? He begins the 9/11 Commemorations of 2010 with a defense of the rights of rich Muslims to build their version of a YMCA downtown when no decision-making authority was saying they could not. In fact they had full permission.
On 9/11, politicians shed crocodile tears for the Joe Blows, but wail like banshees on behalf of a hundred million dollar organization with 13-story plans in lower Manhattan. I have nothing against Muslims, and wish them all the best with their center which has nothing to do with Ground Zero.
Bloomberg's news conference confused me, to be frank. By the time I understood the Ground Zero mosque was no such thing at all, I wrote this clarification. My first reaction was written up in this essay.
The words that went out across the airwaves were "Ground Zero mosque" and "mosque at Ground Zero."
I absolutely object to a "Ground Zero mosque" or a "mosque at Ground Zero." Any American, including Muslims would, because it would interfere with the monument. It would force one monument on top of another monument. It would create competing narratives on one space, which might be interesting artistically, but would not be right for that reason. Either of those ideas on sacred ground would be inappropriate, and that's what the cultural center is being made to seem like. I support the building of the cultural center two blocks away, out of sight from Ground Zero, because I have no reasonable objection to pre-existing projects on private property which is no way designated as part of Ground Zero.
There was no national controversy until Mayor Bloomberg made this into a cause on behalf of religious freedom. It was not at Ground Zero. The defense he put-up made it seem like it was.
Instead, the defense was itself , the slap in the face. It was as though if you did not come to this already thinking it should go up, you were somehow un-American. You have to work me up to this mosque idea, and make sure I don't get what's happening wrongly. Nope. No such effort was made. It was as though the opposite effect was hoped for--a good big controversy over nothing at all.
The mayor's little galant speech on behalf of religious freedom that was under no threat whatsoever, has sparked a cause. Just before the 9/11 Commemoration next month, a fiery American style debate has erupted about a whole lot of nothing. And right on the heels of a denial of funds for 9/11 Responders by Congress.
Sickened by the pretentious lack of understanding, a movement has been sparked to make sure the speech-makers who were so eloquent on behalf of a hundred million dollar center, don't forget their own---the everyday Americans who not only got slaughtered on 9/11, but were so traumatized by that event that they went off to get slaughtered in Iraq and Afghanistan after that, and soon, amidst all this powder-keg controversy over mosques, off to get slaughtered in Iran.
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Switch to the desktop site to post a comment.Monsoonman | Aug 21, 2010, 06:14 PM EDT
Shidobe is pointing out the hypocrisy of the lefts gun grabbing philosophy, when they themselves have concealed to carry permits and have armed body guards. But they want the rest of us to depend on 911 for protection. To me .45 is much faster and effective than 911.
BrendanPKeane | Aug 19, 2010, 12:10 PM EDT
shidoobe: "As a lifetime NRA Member," I bet you're a Bloomberg supporter, pretending to be mad that Bloomberg is a "thorn in the NRA's side." That is such obvious hack talk, I really can't believe you're an authentic NRA guy. Maybe you are. Please explain what you said has anything to do with anything above?
shidoobe | Aug 18, 2010, 01:17 PM EDT
As a lifetime NRA Member , Bloomy is out of touch with reality. He has armed bodyguards protect them yet he is a thorn in the NRA's side. NO MOSQUE NEAR GROUND ZERO... PERIOD!!!
DennisQ | Aug 18, 2010, 03:37 AM EDT
Media people won't tell you is back when a government agency built the World Trade Center, they chose that location to restore economic vitality in a somewhat rundown area. However, in the nine years since the attack, the blight that the towers were intended to remove has returned. There isn't enough foot traffic to support retail businesses, and one after another, store fronts are being boarded up. Even when these stores had the foot traffic from the Trade Center, they weren't thriving.
It is silly to squawk about an Islamic cultural center going up in that blighted area. At least somebody is interested in locating there besides seedy bars and discount retailers. A new building in that location represents some sort of urban renewal.
Like everywhere else, New York is on a downward curve. The "99'ers" - people who've exhausted their 99 weeks of unemployment benefits - held a rally last week to remind the rest of us how many of them there are. These people are not sitting around refusing work because they're finicky. They are the working class who have been pushed to the margins by economic collapse.
Mayor Bloomberg deserves credit because he doesn't want to contribute further to New York's downward spiral. The last thing we need is the perception that foreigners are unwelcome in New York. This is a port city; it's always been a port city. The area around the World Trade Center is already depressed, but at least it's not full of criminals. New Yorkers don't dismiss the real possibility that those days will return.
The Islamic cultural center will help stabilize an area that is sliding. People who squawk about the insult to the memory of the dead are generally tourists from nondescript little places west of the Hudson.
willieboy | Aug 17, 2010, 08:09 PM EDT
His comments show such stupidity i am not even going to comment...
Monsoonman | Aug 17, 2010, 09:53 AM EDT
It's 500' from ground 0.
jamieLM | Aug 16, 2010, 09:49 PM EDT
Part 2 would be the Muslims screaming that the Methodists (Christian infidels) were trying to "kill" Islam.
McNabb1966 | Aug 16, 2010, 06:54 PM EDT
Thanks Jamie. And regarding the latest distortion, namely the "it's two blocks away from Ground Zero" meme... Anybody who knows lower Manhattan knows that it is a very closed in neighborhood. "Two blocks" in that neighborhood is not a significant distance. In fact, the Burlington Coat Factory at 51 Park was seriously damaged by debris on 9/11. So to pretend that the Cordoba House is "not at Ground Zero" is not accurate. The backers of Cordoba House are locating it as close as they possibly can. And it's not an accident.
jamieLM | Aug 16, 2010, 06:37 PM EDT
Right on target, McNabb1966. If some radical Methodists blew up a mosque/Muslim rec. center in NYC and killed alot of Muslims, do you think the Muslims would object if the United Methodist Church wanted to build a big church/rec.center within a block or 2 of the site???? Wouldn't the Muslims be demanding that the Methodists be "sensitive" to their losses??? Oh, would the Methodist bldg. be ok with the Muslims as long as it was "out-of-sight" from the death site? I can hear the protest all the way to California.
McNabb1966 | Aug 16, 2010, 05:50 PM EDT
Nobody is suppressing the right of Muslims to practice their religion. Nobody is advocating the suppression of religious freedom in this country. To say otherwise is a distortion of the issue. And that's the real story here. It's the cynical use of this controversy by the Left to further a political agenda of portraying Conservatives and the GOP as religous bigots. It's a talking point that is part of a larger, dishonest strategy.
DennisQ | Aug 16, 2010, 05:23 PM EDT
Republicans are still in denial about the inadequate response to the attacks of September 11th. The war in Iraq - sold to us as a way to get back at the people who attacked us - is a total failure, as we withdraw from that country with our tail between our legs. The war in Afghanistan - also sold as a response to the 9/11 attacks - is similarly going nowhere.
What's left? We can still stand foursquare against Islam, as if that were a worthy response . . . and it's not. As a people we don't stand against anyone's religion - we don't do that. It's not our values, nor is it a good idea to become like the enemies whose values we disdain. As difficult as it is, we either respond directly to the September 11th attacks, or we do nothing. An indirect response, or an attack on people who neither attacked nor threatened to attack us, is an inappropriate response, and it's unAmerican.
The Moslems want to take possession of an old building in a blighted area and build an information center. Stopping them from doing that does not lessen what happened on September 11th; if anything, it adds to the evil of that day. I'm glad that Michael Bloomberg has the guts to do what's currently unpopular and say what needs to be said. We do not suppress other people's religious freedom. That is not what America is about.
BrendanPKeane | Aug 16, 2010, 04:29 PM EDT
ciarrai: The cultural center project pre-dates 9/11 and so it's really a slur on all Muslims to twist the center into a triumphant mosque, especially considering that 200 Muslims died on that day as victims. Still, maybe it is too close, the Burlington Coat Factory was hit by debris from the planes, and I'm not sure you wouldn't be able to look down on Ground Zero from 13 stories. Another point I had not considered, and learned later, is that the mosque was proposed at some point to be incorporated into the 9/11 Memorial. If that is the case, then this mosque/center is being built with 9/11 in-mind, and with the deliberate attempt to impose a selective interpretation on the hollowed ground. That would not be fair to other groups that won't have this auxillary representation at the Memorial. So the argument that it be built less conspicuously near Ground Zero might yet makes sense. The details matter on this, and I'm finding it hard to make a definitive stance without all the facts about the organizers motivations. Are they trying to squeeze up on the 9/11 Memorial? It might just be better organizers of the center take the higher ground and accept the Governor's offer to relocate. It just ensures no one is offending anyone where there need not be offense. Why use Ground Zero to make a point about religious freedom? GanAinm: If the mosque is really out-of-sight and not really part of the Ground Zero space as it feels to me down there as you describe, then it's not fair to make up a rule barring Muslims from a private property purchase. It sets a bad precedent in a land where freedom is protected by rigorous adherence to the bill of rights. Maybe the Muslims are being a wee bit slef-righteous in asserting their rights so close to a space that shouldn't highlight one group 13 stories over other groups.
ciarrai | Aug 16, 2010, 04:04 PM EDT
We aren't a Christian country. Money is our God. The proposed mosque could be built in the Bronx. Why the desire to stick it right next door to the site of the attack? Bloomberg is being a pc Jew and Obama is being stupid getting everyone pissed off at him. My moslem friend, Yassir, thinks it is an unnecessary provocation and agrees it could be built in the Bronx or way uptown Manhattan. Wouldn't the cause of Islam in America be better served by a new location for the project?
GanAinm | Aug 16, 2010, 01:43 PM EDT
Brendan, I find your point that the site is "out of sight" to be a very good one, which I have been mulling over myself and no other commentator has made. Non-New Yorkes may not appreciate that the lower tip of Manhattan is a warren of narrow streets, the ghosts of the original village of New Amsterdam, and then old New York. I worked in offices at both Two World Trade Center and on Park Place, and can tell you that the descriptions of the mosque being "two blocks from" or "in the shadow of" Ground Zero are meaningless in light of the reality of life "on the ground" downtown. If it wasn't for the current and artificial controversy, a future visitor to the reconsructed Trade Center and the Memorial would not know, or have opportunity or reason to see the mosque at its proposed obscure position on Park Place. There could be 10 mosques within a few blocks of the memorial and you wouldn't see them unless you set out specifically to visit them. Same is true for Catholic church on, yes, Church Street, or the Episcopal one on Broadway,although a visitor on a pilgrimage to Ground Zero would do well to visit both due to their honorable rolls in the sad events of 9-11.
GanAinm | Aug 16, 2010, 01:28 PM EDT
Brendan, I'll never get my head around your assertion that the Mayork should not have spoken publicly or that because he mentioned the obvious Constitutional question that he made it a personal moral issue, or that his speech in August created a controversy which was swirling since May.
BrendanPKeane | Aug 16, 2010, 12:16 PM EDT
The New York Times described Mayor Bloomberg's motivations as being personally rooted. It's not awful to hold a particular Constitutional right dearly. I for example enjoy freedom of speech especially. Mayor Bloomberg should have told everyone, chill out, it's not a mosque at Ground Zero, it's out of sight, and it's a unanimous decision from the Community Board, it's happening, let's just keep things in perspective. Instead he created a moral issue where sides were to be drawn and now we're going to enter in 9/11/2010 under a cloud of anti-Muslim debate over a Ground Zero mosque that isn't a mosque and isn't at Ground Zero.
GanAinm | Aug 16, 2010, 11:51 AM EDT
Brendan, you come up with the stangest assertions and then to support them you insist on twisting the facts to the point where they are totally unrecognizable. Again, this matter was a "cause celebre" long before the press conference; it was made so by right wingers screaming, inaccurately, that a mosque was going to be built "at Ground Zero" (you joined them, but very, very late in the game). The Mayor made it a "pet" Constitutional issue?? That pet has a lot of other owners who point out the truism that the First Amendment forbids NYC and all other governmental entities from barring the construction of a place of worship. Those owners include the President of the United States and, oh yes....... YOU. So how does it become the Mayor's "pet" issue??? And how, exactly was the Mayor of the City of New York supposed to be able to remain silent?
JamesMurphy | Aug 16, 2010, 10:47 AM EDT
This non-story has become a yawn. Get over it, Keane, and all your fellow travellers. Grow up and educate yourself.
LinLinisme | Aug 16, 2010, 10:46 AM EDT
WE ARE A CHRISTIAN COUNTRY. ALL RELIGIONS ARE GOOD, EXCEPT WHEN THEY TRAMPLE ON THE RIGHTS AND LIVES OF ANY MEMBERS OF SOCIETY. WE ARE SO BUSY BEING "correct" THAT PEOPLE ARE NOT THINKING FOR THEMSELVES.
retiree62 | Aug 16, 2010, 10:28 AM EDT
A tempest in a teapot. We have more important things to address than Mayor Bloomberg's love of the camera.
BrendanPKeane | Aug 15, 2010, 07:57 PM EDT
GanAinm: like I said, Bloomberg could have put everyone in perspective with a memo. Instead he made this mosque a cause celbre of a pet Constitutional issue. The net effect is the predictable anti-Muslim rhetoric leading up in the weeks before 9/11. Completely unnecessary. The project had unnanimous go-ahead. The Statue of Liberty press conference set this whole thing off.
GanAinm | Aug 15, 2010, 07:29 PM EDT
Short reply: Huhhhhhhhh??????? Personal reply: Brendan, why don't you stick to music? This blog is under the "entertainment" section after all. As I pointed out to you back when I was apparently the one who told you that the mosque was not "at Ground Zero", you keep on making the most tortured and connections; they keep coming out like: "Two plus two equals apples." I ask again: "Huhhhhh?????" I don't know where to begin with a deeper analysis. You are blaming the Mayor for starting the mosque controversy by making a statement weeks after it started??? Huhhhhh??? You are implying that the Mayor of New York should not have made a statement over a controversy in his jurisdiction that the whole world was already debating before me made the statement? Huhhh???? I'm no great fan of the Mayor, but his statement was one of his finest moments, greatly heightened, btw, by the presence of the wonderful Franciscan, Fr. Brian Jordan, OFM. Yes, the Mayor can come off as seeiming to hector and lecture the less enlightened sometimes, but guess what? The less enlightened among us who mistakenly think the Mayor or any other branch of government can or should repress whatever is the unpopular religion de jure needed that lecture. I'll finish with a few matters of chronology: the Mayor was hardly beginning what you call the "9/11 Commemorations of 2010 with this statement early in August. In addition, the Mayor's first widely pulbicized statement taking the position that government could not constitutionallyt block the erection of the structure took place on May 28, 2010, when the Know Nothing yahoos were already in full whine.