Ah, A Solution!
"State funds will be offered to help with a relocation"The public outcry over the planned installation of a mosque and community centre two blocks from Ground Zero in New York has engaged the attention of everyone imaginable. From the agitated pain of the families of those who lost their loved ones in the horrible collapse of the World Trade Center buildings, to American Muslims who feel slighted that their faith is held responsible for the slaughter - and just about everyone in between, from politicians to pundits.
The one circumstance that remains clear is that the development's backers are firm that it is their right, set in stone by the American Constitution, as American citizens, loyal to the country - but ever more loyal to their belief in Islam - to freedom of religion. There is no ambivalence, they will not relent. It is not a privilege, to ask permission for, but a right, to assert themselves that they can and will build a house of worship to Islam wherever they wish to do so.
The president of the United States, Barack Obama, has assured them that this is so. He too called upon Americans to stand behind the American traditions of freedoms and mutual respect and to accept that the Cordoba Initiative will proceed. Mayor Bloomberg has done likewise, characterizing the resistance against the mosque where its developer insists it will be built, as unworthy of the spirit of the United States' commitment to freedom and equality.
New York's Governor, David Paterson, having appealed to Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and the mosque developers to reconsider the site and look favourably into accepting an alternate site that the state would provide, had his well-intentioned recommendation turned down. And now, the governor has upped the ante, with an offer to use taxpayer funds to 'help with a relocation'. Planning to meet with the project leaders to discuss the matter.
The righteous indignation of Imam Rauf, the developer and the Muslim community backing the $100-million project, insisting that it is their right and confirmed intention to proceed with plans, in the face of growing objections by not only New Yorkers but the entire nation, calls into question the averring of American Muslims and their spokespeople and their clerics that Muslim Americans are loyal to the country and its values.
Simply by demonstrating that they are themselves sensitive to grave umbrage at any hint of suspicion or questioning of the wisdom of their plans, insisting that they be honoured and respected, while callously shifting attention from the incredulity of New Yorkers that this sacred ground of tragic memory where three thousand died in an Islamist terror attack, be dedicated also to Islam, speaks volumes.
About the casual contempt in which the sensibilities of other Americans are held.
There is no real need to insert into the discussion that Mecca is off bound on pain of death to non-Muslims. That the institutions of faiths other than Islam are held as insults to Islam in majority-Muslim countries. And that Christians, Hindus and Jews are fair game for insult and violent physical harm in majority-Muslim countries. Nor does it bear reminding that Islam is such a complex religion that its adherents find difficulty in fully understanding its peaceful parameters.
In that, for example, the most sacred of traditional holidays in Islam, Ramadan, religiously kicks off Islamist terror attacks within countries like Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Where 'insurgents' feel free in their frenzied cleaving to Koranic injunctions to jihad, to dedicate themselves to bloody violence and mass murder. Enacted against innocent Muslims. By al-Qaeda and its excitably-dedicated spawn.
Torontonian Maureen Basnicki, who lost her husband to the Twin Towers slaughter, travelled with a friend to attend a town hall-style meeting in New York with the mosque project's developer, Sharif El-Gamal, and with Daisy Khan, wife of Imam Rauf. "I went there with an open mind, but I don't feel the questions were answered satisfactorily - basic questions like where will the funding come from."
That is the basic query indeed, and the answer is not to be had; elusive denial is the response. Ms. Basnicki's trip companion, Raheel Raza, author of Their Jihad ... Not my Jihad!, were treated to obfuscating responses. Given Saudi Arabia's distinct role in funding Wahhabist madrassas world wide, and the jihadist messages conveyed therein, and the additional fact that most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis, little wonder that there is no admission of the funding source.
Raheel Raza was the beneficiary, moreover of a gentle reproof in the form of a telephone call from the project developer. Tarek Fatah, Canada's outspoken Muslim anti-Islamist political activist has recounted the gist of the telephone conversation which was concluded with the caution "May Allah protect you". Mr. Fatah helpfully explained for those not versed in Islamic parlance, that this phrase constitutes an indirect threat.
"He accused me of jumping into the meeting, but I said Maureen had invited me. He [closed by] saying, 'I'm an American, I'm a Muslim, may Allah protect you', at which point I hung up because he sounded threatening, intimidating and aggressive." Raheel RazaSocio-religious-political blackmail. With a decidedly sinister sub-plot. And the quiet triumph of bull-dozing non-Muslim Americans; conferring on them the gift of undecided anguish, levelling another notch up on the guilt-scale of the emotionally conflicted. Who will seek any measure to placate those who feel entitled to push them against the wall, including the largess of state funding to please, please, move the mosque somewhere else...
Labels: Human Relations, Political Realities, Religion, United States
posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, August 18, 2010
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