Americans the Loser If Mosque is Built
Shortly after the attacks of 9/11 many Americans found themselves unable to resume the daily lives they had before the attacks. Needless to say, many lives were changed forever. Aside from the victims, their families and the first responders, many citizens also had their lives changed. Some stopped traveling, some stayed home more, some had nightmares, some cried themselves to sleep and many looked at Muslims with suspicion in their minds. In NYC streets we saw police terror exercises and military people on a daily basis. This anxiety and constant surveillance became a necessary component of daily life in NYC. This is what gave many of Americans the feeling that the terrorists were winning. So, during that first year after 9/11 happened the expression “if we live with such fear than the terrorists have won ” circulated around the public and media. The result was a bolstering of American morale and an uplift of the country out of fear to be strong and fight back.
With this in mind, Michael Daly of the NY Daily News evokes the same argument as defense of the Ground Zero Mosque. He recently wrote that: “I cannot help feeling that if we block this mosque, we will be doing exactly what Osama Bin Laden wants.” He continued with: “We have glorified Al Qaeda in the same way, but to reach its ultimate goal, it still needs us to convince the majority of Muslims that the war on terror is really a war on Islam. We are only helping the bad guys if we declare that the religious freedom at the core of our democracy does not apply to a mosque too close to Ground Zero.” (Link: www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/08/15/2010-08-15_its_salt_in_my_pals_wounds_but_if_we_block_plan_the_terrorists_win.html)
This argument seems to be a poor choice by Daly as it is a defense filled with naïve notions of how the terrorists function. Believing that being opposed to the Mosque will give the terrorists what they want is just a foolish thought in this issue…and being in favor of this Mosque for only that reason is ridiculous. Fueling the anti-American sentiment has been the easiest thing for the terrorists and anti-Western governments to do. There is so much control and censorship of the Muslim media that propaganda and false information have always played well in the hands of the Muslim clerics and political leaders. No matter what we do the stories about America are always turned against us. This mosque will be no different. If Americans are ignorant enough to believe that building this mosque will enhance the chances for peace they are truly living on another planet. The only difference this mosque will make is that there will now be a huge center of operations for radical Islamists to infiltrate in a very strategic area of NY. For our enemies to have one more reason to kill us, or one less, just doesn’t change the fact that they still want to kill us. We need to be proactive in the defense of our country.
The fact that we have hundreds of mosques in America, with more being built, is proof enough that Americans are not against the religion of Islam. Mr. Daly should actually be asking: “What will Osama and his followers actually win if this Mosque is built?” The answer is simple: Everything! They win no matter how you look at it because they will spin it in their favor. We are the grand losers.
Anyone can join.
Anyone can contribute.
Anyone can become informed about their world.
"United We Stand" Click Here To Create Your Personal Citizen Journalist Account Today, Be Sure To Invite Your Friends.
Please Help Support BeforeitsNews by trying our Natural Health Products below!
Order by Phone at 888-809-8385 or online at https://mitocopper.com M - F 9am to 5pm EST
Order by Phone at 866-388-7003 or online at https://www.herbanomic.com M - F 9am to 5pm EST
Order by Phone at 866-388-7003 or online at https://www.herbanomics.com M - F 9am to 5pm EST
Humic & Fulvic Trace Minerals Complex - Nature's most important supplement! Vivid Dreams again!
HNEX HydroNano EXtracellular Water - Improve immune system health and reduce inflammation.
Ultimate Clinical Potency Curcumin - Natural pain relief, reduce inflammation and so much more.
MitoCopper - Bioavailable Copper destroys pathogens and gives you more energy. (See Blood Video)
Oxy Powder - Natural Colon Cleanser! Cleans out toxic buildup with oxygen!
Nascent Iodine - Promotes detoxification, mental focus and thyroid health.
Smart Meter Cover - Reduces Smart Meter radiation by 96%! (See Video).
| Online: | |
| Visits: | 1,599,457,616 |
| Stories: | 8,139,281 |
Whistler Blowers, Insiders
The Implications of Calling Cordoba House a “Mosque”
Islam did not attack America on Sept. 11 — terrorists did. Peace-loving, law-abiding American Muslims suffered losses as great on 9-11 and in the months that followed as any honored with the moniker “9-11 families.” Not only did Muslims lose loved ones in the towers and as passengers on the planes that crashed that fateful day, but they also suffered the psychic trauma of all Americans. Furthermore, their losses were compounded by the absurd demonization of persons perceived to be Muslim, which resulted in a dramatic rise in random hate crimes, racial profiling, indiscriminate detention, and extraordinary rendition. Now, nine years later, American Muslims suffer by being branded unworthy of First Amendment rights because murderers once perpetrated unspeakable acts in blasphemy of the Muslim faith.
All the hoopla over the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque” is yet another example of right-wingers’ ability to “mis-name” people, places, and issues to effectively advance their own agendas. A mosque isn’t being proposed for Ground Zero; more accurately, the Cordoba House is a community center, to be built at 51 Park Place (multiple blocks away from Ground Zero) by an organization currently located across the street at 45 Park Place that has been serving that community for years. Yet because of some persons’ ability to ‘mis-name’ people, places, and issues to advance their own agendas, these very real facts have become matters of dispute. So much so that the web editorial staff of Sojourners and I had to reinvestigate and come to terms with the veracity of my simple claim that what’s being proposed is not actually a mosque.
Our research uncovered that in English “mosque” is used to connote any Muslim place of worship, whereas in Arabic a distinction is made between the size and function of mosques. So true to the stereotype of being generally uninterested in how other cultures speak of themselves, English-speakers seem to have conflated all places Islamic for linguistic convenience. It’s equivalent to calling all places having to do with Christian prayer — i.e. gardens, chapels, retreats, convents, monasteries — “churches.”
It’s not altogether inaccurate in each instance, but there is value in more precise language. Moreover, we discovered that Park 51, the name of the community center under dispute, is a multi-purpose facilitate that will house a gym, an auditorium, a restaurant and culinary school, a library, art studios, child care, prayer/contemplation/worship space and a memorial for those who lost their lives on 9-11. All facilities will be open to the public, not just Muslims. We also found that the man behind Park 51, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, is the furthest thing from an opponent of Western culture, arguing in his most recent book that America is what an ideal Islamic society would look like because it is pluralistic and peaceful.
All this was great information to have, but as Jeannie (web editor for Sojourners) and I discussed the matter, it occurred to us that the facts weren’t getting us any closer to the truth. The truth is that the real damage done by those so adept at ginning up such controversies is that they succeed in taking perfectly innocuous (yea, even noble) terms like “mosque” and defaming them to the point that the mere mention of the word conjures up anxiety. The real issue is not what the prayer facilities of Park 51 are called, but rather that by making so much of it, the very word “mosque,” and by extension, anything having to do with Islam, become disqualified and despised in the public square.
Thankfully, America has a Bill of Rights that protects against such erosions of liberty. Yet the underlying nativist renegotiation of our nation’s best intuitions as articulated in this debate and the one over the Fourteenth Amendment is troubling. If Americans allow ourselves to be led any further down this road, we may find ourselves in such an emotive and irrational place that good sense and common decency can’t redeem us. As Keith Olbermann pointed out:
“‘They came first for the communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for me, and by that time, no one was left to speak up.” [Quoted from German theologian and Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoller.] … Niemoller was not warning of the Holocaust; he was warning of the willingness of a seemingly rational society to condone the gradual stoking of enmity towards an ethnic or religious group or more than one; warning of the building up of a collective pool of national fear and hate; warning of the moment when the need to purge outstrips even the parameters of the original scapegoating, when new victims are needed because a country has begun to run on a horrible fuel of hatred magnified, amplified, multiplied by politicians and zealots within government and without. Niemoller was not warning of a holocaust: He was warning of the thousand steps before a holocaust became inevitable.
We pray often, “God bless America,” but if we spurn those blessings — the blessings of our best intuitions, the blessings of each other — with what are we left?
by Melvin Bray 08-18-2010
http://blog.sojo.net/2010/08/18/on-religious-liberty-and-the-american-experiment/
Mosque Controversy Tests Our Convictions, Civility
By: Mitch Carnell
With the dialogue concerning the construction of a mosque near Ground Zero heating up, I am reminded of a quote from Jonathan Swift: “We have enough religion to make us hate one another, but not enough to make us love one another.”
The idea to construct a mosque in that location is insensitive to the feelings of the vast majority of Americans, and there is no doubt that a more suitable location could be found.
As an American, I am about as patriotic as one can get. I get excited by the sight of our flag floating in the breeze, the playing of our national anthem, even the singing of “America the Beautiful.” As a Baptist, I am very deeply troubled by the implications of a denial to build the mosque near Ground Zero.
It has not been very long in the march of history since Baptists were the ones denied a seat at the table. Our forebears were beaten, fined, jailed and driven out of Massachusetts because of their beliefs. We were and are ridiculed for our theology. We were the ones who fought hard for religious freedom both for those who believed and for those who didn’t. The fact that we struggled for the rights of those who do not believe is often forgotten.
In the current political scene, candidates are forced to claim some kind of acceptable religious persuasion. Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith brought harsh criticism from other religious groups. In South Carolina, the Republican candidate for governor, Nikki Haley, was targeted because of her Indian parents’ Sikh faith. Even former president Jimmy Carter has had to defend himself against charges of anti-Semitism. The religious wars are never far beneath the surface.
Both as Americans and as Baptists, we should know that an infringement on religious freedom – no matter how “justified” at the time, no matter how slight such an infringement appears to be – sets off an alarm that should not go unheeded. Today the issue is a mosque. Tomorrow it could be a synagogue, a Mormon temple or a Baptist church.
We must never sacrifice our hard-won religious freedoms for the expediency of the moment, nor should we find devious means to deny others those same freedoms. The separation of church and state is a tremendous safeguard for both the church and the state. Each has benefited from the separation, and we should not use the state to disallow a religious institution.
In the long term, if we allow the mosque to go forward, we will preserve those freedoms, and the world will come to see that we truly do believe what we claim to believe.
Religious freedom requires hard choices and eternal vigilance. As the sides divide for and against the proposal, let’s make a real effort to remember who we are. Those of us who call ourselves Christians need to remember that our actions, including our language, must be Christ-like.
We should expect to find disagreement within our circle of friends and in our congregations, but we must resist the temptation to demonize those with whom we disagree. Because the potential for disharmony is so great, we need to think through how we will respond to those with whom we disagree so that our witness for Christianity and our relationships are not compromised.
Mitch Carnell is a consultant in organizational and interpersonal communication. He is the editor of “Christian Civility in an Uncivil World” and an active lay member of First Baptist Church of Charleston, S.C.