A Sane Middle Ground?

For as long as I could, I avoided writing about the proposed Islamic Center near Ground Zero. For starters, on a personal level, the subject is uncomfortable. As a writer who has the great privilege of working with moderate Muslim-Americans and heroic moderate Muslims in the middle east and elsewhere, I reject the idea that Islam itself is inherently the problem, since I know first hand that many Muslims–yes, including those who practice their religion–are good citizens, good neighbors, reformers, and heroes.

I also know that in recent decades, at various locations around the world, including Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, London, Paris, The Netherlands, Madrid, Bali, Argentina, Mumbai, Egypt, Israel, Sudan, Bangladesh, Texas and right here in New York City–violence has been, and in some of these places is presently being–committed against innocent people–Christians, Jews, moderate Muslims, and others–by Muslim extremists, often in the name of Islam. Indeed, some of my journalistic sources and my friends–including moderate Muslims–have been direct victims of this horror. To bury my head in the sand, and to deny these harsh realities out of political correctness, I will not do.

While I think it is phobic to believe that every Muslim wishes to dominate and harm every non-Muslim, I do not believe it is a phobia, or prejudiced, to recognize that clearly Islam is being used in many places around the world to incite violence, to intimidate and to dominate others. Something toxic is being promulgated by Islamist extremists in many places around the globe, and it is legitimate and vital to ask questions and examine this deadly trend so that the free world can combat it  – without prejudice against a group of people or a religion as a whole.

Which brings me to the Ground Zero mosque controversy. To me, one of the salient issues is, who exactly are the leaders of this project and what values will they impart? While it is vital to uphold freedom of religion, it is another matter if there are grounds for suspicion that this Islamic Center will be used as a house of recruitment for, or justification/incitement of, violence.

Because of the terrible actions of the few, the moderate majority of Muslims must make their position clear: do they support violence against civilians in order to achieve a political or religious objective?

It may seem unfair for people with no criminal history to have to disassociate themselves from actions they had no part in (like the attacks of September 11th and terrorism against innocent people elsewhere) in order to obtain the trust of their fellow Americans to move forward on a project like the proposed Islamic Center. However,  given the frightening nature of terrorism, and the shadowy nature of its architects, this expectation–that peaceful Muslims make their views very clear–is not unreasonable.

Let’s say Jews had committed acts of terrorism against their fellow Americans that claimed 3,000 lives. I can’t imagine hesitating to clearly condemn such atrocity with my whole heart and mind, as a Jewish-American. That is how I speak of the actions, for instance, of Baruch Goldstein, a crazed Jewish-American who went to Hebron and, in a rare but undeniable act of terrorism by a Jew, shot and killed 29 Palestinian civilians in cold blood as they prayed. His cruel, revolting act of terrorism shames and deeply saddens me, and I condemn it.

Regarding the need for peace-loving Muslims to clearly express peaceful values: for no one is this expectation more reasonable than for a group who wishes to build a mosque near Ground Zero. Understanding the trauma that Muslim extremists inflicted there, recognizing the pain of the victims’ families, it seems to me that any sincere member of the clergy would want to reassure the area’s residents that they pose no threat, and unequivocally condemn the evil perpetrated in the name of their religion.

Until this week it was not clear to me who the proposed builders of the mosque were and what they stand for. But their unwillingness to meet with the Governor of New York, David Paterson, to discuss the possibility of moving the proposed center in deference to local sensitivities, and the emergence of tape of the project’s leader, Imam Rauf, speaking in 2005, have swayed me against this project.

In his taped speech, Rauf equivocates a good deal regarding the ethics of suicide bombing, and spouts a lot of nonsense as to the causes of this phenomenon, at one point analogizing it to ordinary suicide due to personal disappointment over not receiving tenure. Sorry, but from a guy who wants to situate a mosque in the place where 3,000 Americans were viciously slaughtered in the name of his religion, that is not good enough.

David Paterson, governor of New York, has emerged as a voice of reason here. While he recognizes the legitimacy in raising questions about this proposed Islamic Center and its leadership, he has also responsibly cautioned that reason, not hysteria, should prevail in this discussion.

This entry was written by Heather Robinson and posted on August 26, 2010 at 1:57 pm and filed under Blog. permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Keywords: terrorism. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL. */?>