Like many other Americans, I will never forget where I was the morning of September 11, 2001. I had received an unusually early, frantic phone call from a friend who could only say, “Turn on the television.” As the picture came into focus my dreams of a perfect, impenetrable America began to shatter.
We were at war.
New York became a city forever marred with an unbelievably horrific event. Pictures of the tragedy were everywhere, and the entire world seemed to stand still as everyone’s attention turned toward the tragedy. Just as soon as the terrorists believed they had won, Americans stood together and proclaimed that we were still a strong, united nation.
Fast-forward 10 years to the Manhattan project located near Ground Zero named “Park51.” Initially, the development was named Cordoba House, but under intense scrutiny the project decided to change its name to focus on the community center aspect. Park 51 has touted itself as a cultural center that will offer both full- and part-time jobs, culture and an “accessible platform for conversations across our identities,” according to the project’s website project51.org. So why all the commotion over an economic-stimulating project located in a part of New York which needs to rebuild and move forward?
Park51 is far from being just a community center; it is a proposed 13-story mosque which happens to also contain a community center (though they like to see it from the other direction). As expected, New Yorkers, along with countless other Americans across the country, are up in arms about an Islamic religious center being built within such close proximity to the site of such a tragic event performed by an Islamic nation.
While the battle is heated from both sides, it is difficult to choose a “right” side in this argument. Are we supposed to sit back idly while Muslims pray and worship so close to a sacred ground, the reminder of what brought us into this war and the men and women who innocently died due to fundamentalist beliefs? Or are we to become a nation that forces religions to hide in secrecy, an act that sows seeds of hatred and miscommunication between cultures? In true American fashion, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has openly supported the right for Americans to practice their religion without fear.
“Government should never, never be in the business of telling people how they should pray, or where they can pray,” Bloomberg says.
On the other side of the argument for many Americans is the question of why it has to be so close to the site of the 9/11 tragedy? The answer isn’t clear-cut and simple.
Many Americans have testified against the proposal calling it insensitive, and a dishonor to the memory of the attack’s victims.
While the center’s mission is to open an interfaith dialogue and help with the healing process, I can’t help but feel strongly for both sides of the argument. There is a part of me that is also up in arms about a mosque located so close to the nightmarish memories I have of September 11th; however, I also know that not every Muslim is a terrorist or sees our country as the “evil America” that Osama bin Laden has proclaimed it to be.
There is no right answer when speaking about something so close to every citizen of this country, but if we are going to become a country in which people are prosecuted and ostracized because they believe in something that isn’t popular, then we are slowly becoming a nation of oppression and hatred, just as we are trying to demolish oppression and hatred from the source of this war.
Kristen Martinez is an accounting junior and may be reached at [email protected]
'Religious' tolerance?
The privileges of being classed as religion should be withdrawn from Islam.
If Hitler had claimed that 'Mein Kampf' was dictated by God, would we be forced to tolerate the Nazi Party as a religion? Islam is first and foremost a mind-destroying, totalitarian political ideology that spreads through the Body Politic like a virus.
Winston Churchill gave the correct diagnosis over a century ago, when he compared Islam to a contagious virus or meme – 'as dangerous in a man as rabies in a dog' http://crombouke.blogspot.com/2010/01/islam-murde…
Consequently, Islam should be reclassified from 'RELIGION' to 'PUBLIC MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEM' – a virulent contagious mental illness. It could then be contained by the methods used to prevent the spread of typhoid and other lethal epidemics: enforced exclusion and quarantine of carriers, eradication of foci of infection, immunization of the susceptible population etc.
I think you should stop believing everything your country wants you to believe and start seaking the truth for yourself and you will see everything you say about islam is false. I could throw quote after quote at you from the Quran to prove islam is peaceful only problem is you would still twist and turn until you suceed in proving otherwise to yourself and others like you. A free thinking mind is what's needed and i fear you lost that a long time ago.
Arif, you yourself lost your mind ages ago, too. Moving the topic from a mosque several blocks from Ground Zero to "ZOMG, Jews and Zionists control de MEDIA, de Country, oh no!" is not indicative of a a "free-thinking" mind.
he never mentioned jews………..
Read his other post………..
Or maybe we can stop pretending that the so-called "religion" of Islam isn't a violent, genocidal cult set up by a 7th century pedophile in a turban who was the 7th century's equivalent of Warren Jeffs?
@Arafat – You could substitute several other religions in your first statement, like this:
Christianity is not a religion. It is a totalitarian, intolerant cult masquerading as a religion. Judaism would have worked too, several thousand years ago, as would several ancient religions. Which did I leave out?
Remember, there are at least 1,000,000,000 Muslims in the world. That means a proportionately larger number of moderately and extremely intolerant people. They affect the overall perception of Islam much more than, say, crazy Christians.
But at least the Christians progressed to a degree, you cannot argue the same of Islam. At least nowadays you don't see any (any sane ones anyways) Christians holding trials and condemning their own to death for being adulterous.
And last time I checked it wasn't radical Christians that crashed into the WTC, it was radical Muslims. A mosque so close to Ground Zero is simply in bad taste. It would be the same case if it were some other religion that committed the act and wished to build a place of worship there. End of discussion.
"At least nowadays you don't see any (any sane ones anyways) Christians holding trials and condemning their own to death for being adulterous."
No, just for being gay.
I said hold trials, ACTUAL legal trials. My point still remains. For example those Westboro nutjobs may be idiotic and poor-excuses for "Christians" but at least they aren't allowed to actually hold trials and have people legally sentenced to death for such things. That being said Christianity's worst in this modern day and age is still nowhere near as bad as today's more orthodox Muslims.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10545062
I rest my case.
How about the Lord's Resistance Army, which drafts child soldiers, rapes prisoners and wants to establish a 10 Commandment-based society? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord%27s_Resistance_…
Or how about the Ugandan anti-homosexuality law, which gained traction among far-right Christians in the U.S.? Just look at this World Net Daily video supporting it:
We can get into a pissing contest all day about which is worse. Hell, let's throw in Sinhalese Buddhists for oppressing Tamils, Hindu Tamils for starting suicide bombings and add Shinto extremists for influencing kamikaze pilots. The fact remains that virtually every major faith has its share of violent radicals — increasing and abating at differing points in history — and these strains seldom represent the larger picture. To associate strict, violent sharia interpretations (because fiqh — the collected body of Islamic law — varies widely among Muslims in its influence, interpretations and usage) with a Sufi community center is nonsense that displays a clear lack of understanding and nuance.
I never did associate the two. If you really want to try to get into a debate about religion then you're way out of your league, all organized religion is awful and deplorable in my opinion. However I'm not going to let such rubbish others spout about as fact stand. My original argument still stands: their religion refuses to progress to today's standards in comparison to Christianity and no sane Christians would commit such acts or be able to get away with said acts legally in this day and age. Iran's own government using, interpreting, and enforcing Islamic religious law at the degree they do is as bad as you can get as far as religion affecting life since it's the law of the land. Even here same-sex marriages are being allowed slowly but surely because this country isn't bound by religious law. To say Islam has progressed to the degree of Christianity in that respect is obviously utter nonsense and incorrect.
Like I said the fact remains, the mosque is simply in bad taste. It would be no different if another group affiliated with another religion committed the act and then a place of worship for the same religion were to be built there. End of discussion.
How is a Sufi mosque a threat? Do any commentators actually know anything about Sufism? Remember that Quakers derive their teachings from a book that praises a man for gathering enemy foreskins as tribute.
But have the Quakers acted out on such acts in this country to the same degree as radical Islamic terrorists? I think not. Try again dumb dumb.
No. The point is that Sufis are not Salafists are Wahhabis. They do not derive their teachings from Qutb or Zawahiri. Imam Rauf has worked with the FBI under the past two administrations and has videos on BeliefNet about love and forgiveness. The point is that his connection to radical Islam is about as tenuous as Quaker connections to abortion clinic bombers.
Here is what's happening, boys and girls: In case it slipped your mind, there is an election coming up in November. In the last few months the Republican party has been in the process of imploding (and it's been so much fun to watch, too!) As was I predicted over a year ago, the so-called "Tea Party" would end up being an albatross around their collective neck. Sure enough, the mindless extremism of these nitwits is starting to scare the hell out of that mysterious segment of the electorate who describe themselves as "moderate". What to do? Find an issue – any issue – that will distract the people. After a desperate search that must have taken them weeks, they finally found that issue last week in – of all places – lower Manhattan.
THE MUSLIMS ARE COMING! THE MUSLIMS ARE COMING!
They grabbed this non-issue and ran with it. Then the corporate media (you shouldn't be surprised) decided to play this story to death like Hotel California and Stairway To Heaven. And it worked like a charm. Very few of us are at present thinking about the utter mess that six years of Republican control of the executive and legislative branches of our government made of this country. Instead we're wasting precious time thinking about a non-issue. Just for a moment let's put our minds on the things that really matter:
The economy
War in Afghanistan
Massive unemployment
A multi-trillion dollar debt
The plunder of our national treasure by Wall Street
An environmental catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico….
….and what the hell are we talking about? A non-existent "mosque".
http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com
Tom Degan
Yes Arafat, I agree that Christ deilvered a message of peace, but many of his so-called followers have tortured and killed in his name and have felt completely righteous in doing so. While Mohammed's teachings are inherently more militant, that does not mean that all those who want to find inner-peace in the religion of Islam are all greedy, intolerant, power-hungry militants. Nor does it preclude other more "peaceful" religions from becoming just as militant and bloodthirsty.
Faith and spirituality should be personal sources of strength and inner-peace, not sources of division and hate. Organized religions, regardless of the NAME of the MAN associated with them, all promote division in one way or another by propogating the notion that "only we can be saved."
It is so important for us all to understand that the problem is not one religion over another. The fundamental problem is that religion is being used as a weapon by all sides. Pretending that this is not what's happening…that's the real fantasy!
Arafat,
Jesus might have been a man of peace, but Christianity went far from that. Very far. For hundreds of years Christians persecuted and murdered Jews and pagans. See this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_debate_on_…. Learn some basic history about your professed religion. It wasn't until the 1700s when this began to change. Just what fantasy world are we talking about? Yours?
Well if you fools still believe 9/11 was done by muslims then you deserve each other. You like to point the finger at the muslim as if he's the one that started all the trouble, how about you look at your own nations actions before you poke at the muslims who defend themselves from war-mongers like yourself. There is video footage and so much other obvious evidence to prove 9/11 was an inside job done by your own goverment to justify a war in oil rich countries Iraq and Afghanistan or maybe thier motivation could be something else. Just remember your country is run by jews and jews hate muslims more than anyone else. Don't think for one second muslims hate jews like you're taught to believe, remember it was the muslims who saved the jews from the chrsitians during world war 2 i.e the Turks and Palestinians who gave them a place to live in peace. I'm sure if you bang your heads together you will work out the rest of the truth. salams
Thanks Arif for letting people know about the ownership of America. I'll assume you're one of the soon-to-be extremist Muslims and ignore you, since I can't believe most Muslims dislike Jews like you do. The sentiment of your sentence contradicts your words. In fact, tomorrow I'll make sure to go up to the people at PGH (behind the 'Islam' banner) and ask them who they think runs America, whether 9/11 was an inside job, and whether they dislike Jews. Hopefully, most people don't think like you.
Yoyo, I think you probably misread what Arif wrote. I didn't read no where that he disliked Jews. It is true that Jewish people have power in this country and for obvious reasons they tend to discredit and misrepresent Muslims. Arif didn't said either that all Muslims share his opinion about who is responsible for 9/11.
You are correct, he didn't write it in. But it is in the sentiment. Why else would he randomly shift focus to Jews in America when it truly has no relation to the topic under discussion? Also, I would love to read about Jews discrediting and misrepresenting Muslims. Do you have any links or books I can go to for more information?
What open minded, informed students we have here! I'm just blown away by how well you guys are at thinking an issue through.
For those of you blasting Islam for its violence and praising Christianity for its peacefulness, read the holy texts. You'll find some very peaceful things in the Quran, and some very violent things in the Bible. And vice versa. Does it really matter? Obviously not, because there are crazy Muslims who blow things up, and there are crazy Christians who blow stuff up. There are Muslims who stone women for adultery, and there are Christians who fight to make sure that homosexuals will never marry.
You can't just go around blaming the religion itself. I'm really disappointed to hear opinions like this from my fellow countrymen.
Uh yeah they can. The countries that have people (and in most cases women) stoned for adultery do so because the laws of the countries permit it based off their interpretations of Islamic religious law. Last time I checked death was not equal whatsoever to not allowing same-sex couples to marry, let alone the actual legal factors behind both.
You are so ignorant! You know nothing about Islam. I'm not Muslim but I have studies about Islam and it is a beautiful religion. You should read and get educated before you said such insulting and hateful words.
It would be interesting for UH students to receive an ACTUAL education about the false religion of Islam, rather than the uninformed garbage that people like Caleb Rogers receive.
While it is true that there are "peaceful" snippets that might be pulled from the Koran, Islamic religious study has a number of things that you didn't know about. For starters, the concepts of "al-Nasikh wal-Mansoukh" (The Abrogator and the Abrogated) ; there are 114 chapters in the Koran, which is deliberately written out of chronological order to confuse the "kaffir" ("infidels"). Verses which are CHRONOLOGICALLY later "abrogate" the earlier verses.
Only 43 Sura (chapters) of the Koran are non-abrogated. The famously misquoted "there shall be no compulsion in religion", Sura 2:256, is abrogated by at least a dozen verses, including many in Sura 9 (the second-last, chronologically, chapter).
To quote one of the Hadith ("sayings of Mohammed") scholars:
"No compulsion" is a condemnation of compelling people to do evil generally, but compelling people in the truth is a religious duty. Does the infidel get killed for any thing except on the basis of his religion? The Prophet said: I have been ordered to fight against the people until they testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah. This Hadith is taken from the words of Allah 'Fight them on until there is no more tumult and religion becomes that of Allah.
If some one asks how can people be compelled in the truth when the mere fact of compelling indicates a the violation of the will of the one compelled? The first answer is that Allah sent Mohammad calling people to Him, showing the way to the truth, enduring much harm … until the evidence of Allah's truth became manifest … and His apostle became strong, He ordered him to call people by the sword … hence there is no more an excuse after being warned. The second answer is that people first are taken and compelled, but when Islam becomes prevalent … and they mix and make friends … their faith strengthens and finally becomes sincere."
And then there are the Islamic doctrines of "taqiyya" and "kitman", the doctrines of "holy deception" – the lesser lying by deliberately "omitting" certain facts (such as the scholarly discussion above) when trying to convert the unbeliever, the out-and-out lying to the infidels about the religion (such as claiming that Islam is "peaceful").
The fact remains: Islam is NOT a peaceful religion.
There exists a middle ground between, "NO GROUND ZERO MOSQUE! MUSLIMS ARE EVIL" and "Terrorism has nothing to do with the religion of Islam! We need to be completely tolerant of everything at all times!" The middle ground is called sanity.
Also, I feel it's important for people to remember that the words "Muslim" and "terrorist" aren't interchangeable.
Caleb,
I wish you had received an education on what Islam really says, because you obviously have no clue.
We shall start with the presence in Islam of the concepts of "al-nasikh wal-mansukh." This means, simply, that verses from the Koran which are *CHRONOLOGICALLY* later, abrogate (remove and replace) earlier verses.
That often-misquoted supposedly tolerant "there shall be no compulsion" in religion", Sura 2:256? Abrogated at least a dozen times over. Interestingly enough, the most violent of the Koran's Sura (chapters), Sura 9, is actually second-last chronologically: the Koran itself is arranged in a non-chronological order as a ploy to deceive the "kaffir" (infidels).
Out of 114 Sura in the Koran, only 43 are un-abrogated. Think on that for a second: when you are being fed a verse which Muslims are claiming in the al-taqiyya (holy lying by omission to deceive the kaffir) sense "proves" that their religion is peaceful, YOU ARE LIKELY BEING FED AN ABROGATED VERSE. Or else you're being fed the verse very out of context, or even a partial, mangled verse.