A Muslim victim of 9/11: 'Build your mosque somewhere else'

[boston bean]

snip - last four paragraphs

I know Ground Zero is not mine alone; I must share this sanctuary with tourists, politicians, anyone who chooses to come, whatever their motivations or intentions. But a mosque nearby -- even a proposed one -- is already transforming the site from a sacred ground for reflection, so desperately needed by the families who lost loved ones, to a battleground for religious and political ideologies. So many people from different nationalities and religions were killed that day. This site should be a neutral place for all to come in peace and remember. I believe my mother would have thought so as well.

The Iranian revolution compelled my family to flee to America when I was 12 years old. Yet, just over two decades later, the militant version of our faith caught up with us on a September morning. I still identify as a Muslim. When you are born into a Muslim family, there is no way around it, no choices available: You are Muslim. I am not ashamed of my faith, but I am ashamed of what is done in its name.

On the day I left Ground Zero shortly after the tragedy, I felt that I was abandoning my mother. It was like being forced to leave the bedside of a loved one who is dying, knowing you will never see her again. But I felt the love and respect of all those around me there, and it reassured me that she was being left in good hands. Since I cannot visit New York as often as I would like, I at least want to know that my mother can rest in peace.

I do not like harboring resentment or anger, but I do not want the death of my mother -- my best friend, my hero, my strength, my love -- to become even more politicized than it already is. To the supporters of this new Islamic cultural center, I must ask: Build your ideological monument somewhere else, far from my mother's grave, and let her rest.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/06/AR2010080603006.html

[pipoman]

1. Hear, hear..

[mwb970]

2. The key words are "ideological monument".

The planned cultural center, of course, is no such thing. This person's (understandable) overwhelming emotion about the situation makes him or her a less than impartial judge of the plan.

America was founded on the basis of religious freedom. I don't remember any of the Founding Fathers adding "unless we're really, really scared" (or even "very sad"). I thought this was the "home of the brave".

[Violet_Crumble]

4. That jumped right out at me too...

Of course she's going to have some pretty overwhelming emotions that cloud her judgement, but what I don't like is the way someone like her would be used by the anti-mosque bigots with something along the lines of: 'look at the Muslim! She doesn't want it either so that shows we're not bigots!!'

[aquart]

34. Because, of course, we have to be.

An easy and summary dismissal. Not an in-depth analysis but you all seem quite comfortable with it.

[pinboy3niner]

35. Is your objection to the mosque, or the reactions to the op-ed?

Most of us are very comfortable with rejecting statements supporting bigotry, whatever the source.

[Violet_Crumble]

3. Ideological monument?

The people who are politicising things are the RW anti-Muslim ones. She should go ask them not to politicise something that shouldn't have been political in the first place...

[activa8tr]

6. exactly! This mosque business is just part of an array of weaponry being

fired at liberals by the right wing fear machine.
Fox and Karl Rove and Sarah Palin and those folks cooked this up in their 2010 , wedge issue, polarizing factory!

Democrats are powerless against this kind of Palin-heralded insane mob paranoia. This is EXACTLY what the Republicans do to get ther slime elected.

[Turborama]

19. I have been thinking exactly the same thing. Republicans need to make their voters FEAR something

This is their latest *something*.

Have you seen this article that shows this is spreading across the country, yet?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8901467

The dangerous thing is that Faux' Islamaphobic fearmongering is viewed all over Pakistan, too. I seriously think they are a danger to national security but in different ways than most people think.
-

Where in the World is FOX?

=snip=

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From: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,184837,00.html

[aquart]

10. Are they really spending $100 million on this little community center?

I just read that in WaPo but it was the comments and surely that amount is incorrect. Does anyone know what it's supposed to cost?

[Violet_Crumble]

14. Don't know and don't care. Do you know how much was spent on the strip club nearby? n/t

[aquart]

32. Are they really spending $100 million on strip clubs these days?

When did it open? Gold poles?

[beam me up scottie]

39. Who said anything about it being "little"?

And do you really care how much it costs or are you just blowing another dog whistle?

[Dorian Gray]

41. I suspect the latter

(Dog whistle)

[beam me up scottie]

45. Ugly, isn't it?

I've been following the protests against the Islamic Community Center being built in Murfreesboro on the local news and I'm happy to report that liberal christians have been organizing counter protests.

They could say the same thing as the op, "I am not ashamed of my faith, but I am ashamed of what is done in its name".

But they don't need to, they're walking the walk. :)

[Dorian Gray]

49. I am so disappointed

in the people protesting this. It just seems like a whole bunch of racism. "Those scary Muslims" don't deserve any rights afforded to the rest of us.

I haven't been a part of the counter-protests, though it's something I feel passionately about. I just learned a prior friend of mine has been joining into these protests. (He's a gay male who converted to Judaism about 5 years ago.) We got into a bunch of arguments about his position. He keeps sending out hateful hateful emails about Islam and Obama. (He was a Democratic supporter up until Obama.) There is a lot of hatred and racism that seems to be coming out of him, and I've finally deleted him from my contacts and refuse to talk to him (as this is the only topic he seems to talk about these days.)

It's insane the level of hatred that this community center is bringing out in some people.

[dmallind]

5. So to be logically consistent

We must then have a radius that extends at least these two and a half blocks (how much further?) completely free from any building with any specifically religious or denominational or even philosophical intent, lest some of the relatives of those who died oppose any of those stances and get upset that they share in this "sacred" radius. No churches, Synagogues, temples, yoga centers etc.

And why is this writer pushing his idea of "sacred" places anyway - I am pretty sure that in a place like NYC there were quite a few atheists and materialists who died there. Is it not an insult to their memory to apply the trappings of superstition to the place at all? Such as considering it "sacred" and immune from...sacred things?

[aquart]

33. No, I'm pretty sure it only extends to a faith in whose name massacre was committed

On the site of that massacre. Oh, wait. I see your point. Probably shouldn't have any cathedrals in Paris, then. Eh, nobody cares about that anymore. Tell you what. Wait 400 years. Build what you want.

[dmallind]

47. It's 400 years since stormtroopers with "God is with us" beltbuckles took Paris?

It's 400 years since Dominionists blew up a tower in OKC where churches of that same faith doubtless exist nearby?

[aquart]

7. She lost her Mom on 9/11?

That's what makes me crazy. The people we lost that day were the ones doing everything right. They're the ones who got to work on time, hard workers supporting their families, doing everything we asked of them as humans and citizens.

Her best friend, her hero, like my Mom, who spent most of her working life a few blocks away on Warren Street. And whose favorite flowers were also yellow.

Wish I'd met her.

[sabrina 1]

25. We lost two of our neighbors. Both fathers of young children.

Yet, no one I know objects to the Muslim Community Center being built two blocks away from the site of the tragedy.

Tarring an entire group with the crimes of a few is called prejudice and should have no place in this democracy. But sadly, as this OP demonstrates, and contrary to your earlier claims, it is very much a part of it.

Someone else I know lost her pregnant daughter that day, her best friend whom she loved more than anything else in the world. Her grief is hard to describe, even still. But she has worked in her daughters name, to end this kind of bigotry and ideology which causes nothing but violence. She is building a far more important monument in their names rather than using the tragedy for negative purposes. It has given her a sense of peace she says.

I feel sad that this individual still harbors these discriminatory thoughts towards people who did her no harm. Only she can overcome those emotions and I hope one day she will.

[aquart]

31. So only approved proper grief is allowed?

Good to know. Pathetic that hatred and bigotry is all you got from Neda's honesty.

I am very impressed that you went to those widows for their opinions on the mosque at Ground Zero. I couldn't have.

[beam me up scottie]

40. Again, there is NO MOSQUE BEING BUILT AT GROUND ZERO.

I am so sick of bigots spinning this into a neo-crusade.

[Dorian Gray]

43. Of course grief is allowed

and if racist anti-Islamic thoughts are born out of that grief, that's a shame. Regardless, I don't understand, at all, why we as a nation or a city should ban the building from existing. Why should people's negative feelings impact a community which had nothing to do with the 9-11 attacks and keep them from building a mosque and/or a community center???

[sabrina 1]

51. What a completely non-sensical post.

No one had to go to anyone to get their opinions. Most of those directly affected that I have known, spoke voluntarily about not shedding any more blood or promoting any more hatred. Which seems like the most logical conclusion to anyone who really does want an end to the violence.

Since I myself have been in a similar position and could easily have taken the path of knee-jerk demands for revenge even on people who had no part in the tragedy, but chose to do the exact opposite, I can well understand that kind of thinking.

Next time read what people have to say.

I am not talking about grief, I am talking about justice. People's grief takes many forms, but it does not drive our constitutional system of justice for obvious reasons. If it did, victims would be on juries.

Your objection to my post demonstrates the hypocrisy of your position. You dismiss the non-discriminatory forgiveness of others and then try to twist it into something evil. While accepting the discriminatory, non-forgiveness of this woman.

All you succeeded in doing was to demonstrate why grief should not be used for purposes of discriminating against large groups of people who are completely innocent of any culpability in the crime that caused the grief, other than they share the ethnicity of those we are told are responsible.

All my post was meant to do was to show that grieving victims, if we are going to use their grief to try to manipulate public opinion, are like any other group of people. They will differ in their opinions of how to deal with their grief and for that reason are not relied on in our justice system for the purpose of dispensing justice.

[CBGLuthier]

46. No, she did not lose here mom on 9/11. She is just a bad writer.

Poor use of metaphor makes for confusing article.

She considers NYC to be her mother. Weird.

[uppityperson]

48. It seems her mother was on UA175 that hit the South tower. However...

From OP:
"On the morning of Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001, I watched as terrorists slammed United Flight 175 into the South Tower of the World Trade Center, 18 minutes after their accomplices on another hijacked plane hit the North Tower. My mother was on the flight. I witnessed her murder on live television. I still cannot fully comprehend those images. In that moment, I died as well. I carry a hole in my heart that will never be filled."

"I do not like harboring resentment or anger, but I do not want the death of my mother -- my best friend, my hero, my strength, my love -- to become even more politicized than it already is. To the supporters of this new Islamic cultural center, I must ask: Build your ideological monument somewhere else, far from my mother's grave, and let her rest.


Then don't politicize the fact that this Islamic Cultural Center will be built a couple blocks away, near another mosque, near strip clubs and bars. This is not an "ideological monument" but a place to bring community together.

[TreasonousBastard]

8. Look hard enough and you'll find all sorts of unexpected views...

Although I don't for a second doubt her sincerity or pain, I can't see why, or how, every individual view or plea can be accommodated.

Islam exists in the US, and we can not hide it behind screens or under rocks any more than we can hide Judaism or Catholicism-- two faiths we also feared and hid in the past.

Fear is a good thing when there is a real danger, but so wasteful when there isn't.

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[Violet_Crumble]

15. Well, it's clear she appeals to anti-Muslim bigots...

There's no 'kneejerk Islam cheerleaders'. What the hell is that supposed to mean? It sounds like you have problems with people opposing discrimination and bigotry against Muslims...

The other poster wasn't embracing rigid talking points...

[MattBaggins]

20. "kneejerk Islam cheerleaders"

This comment reveals a lot about you.

"Your embrace of rigid talking points is hardly an indication of independent thinking."
Right back at ya.

[Rabrrrrrr]

21. I have NO rigid talking points in my post. What are you reading?

I had no idea I was embracing talking points. What talking point is that - that Muslims should be free to construct things? That's the closest that I got.

And yeah, her mother died on the plane - very sad. I lost a friend AND my office that day, I'm not running around boohooing that a Muslim center, which is has about as much relation to 9/11 as my backyard grill has to Auschwitz, is being built somewhere near where I had a really, really shitty day once.

So I guess her hyperemotionalist lack of reasoned thought that makes her against the Muslim center because she has a tie to someone who died there is cancelled out by reasoned understanding that the people building the place had nothing to do with 9/11 since *I too* have a link to the terrorist attacks. In fact, my link trumps hers since I lost someone AND I was actually in it, so maybe my word should count for 20%, 30% more. Though you seem to be the judge of how much people's thoughts are worth based not on the idea but on the emotional tie they have to whatever they're spouting about, so I'll entrust you to do the calculus, since I prefer to judge thoughts on their own merit as thoughts, and not on the emotional state of the speaker.

And I am no cheerleader for Islam. Not sure where you got that bullshit, either.

[sabrina 1]

29. Excellent post and sorry you lost a friend that day. We lost two

neighbors but like you I don't see how that affects this totally unrelated building or how trying to stop it from being built would bring anyone back ... I think this kind of argument, playing on people's emotions, is the lowest kind of argument. And it doesn't work anyhow when people realize they are being emotionally manipulated.

[beam me up scottie]

38. "which has about as much relation to 9/11 as my backyard grill has to Auschwitz"

Thank you, Rabrrrrrr, you nailed it, as usual.

I am sorry for your loss.

[Dorian Gray]

44. +1

Sorry for your losses that day. It was truly tragic.

I agree with your post entirely.

[no_hypocrisy]

11. The proposed center is no more a mosque than the YMCA is a church.

One room will be used for prayers, like a hospital chapel.

[Little Star]

16. She seems to have some valid concerns in paragraph six.

Maybe some of the pro-mosque people should,in the very least,consider what she is really saying. She may just know something about her own religion that we do not know.

Personally, I am no big fan of ANY organized religion so I will not waste my breath fighting for the rights of this mosque.


Paragraph six of her writing:

"But a mosque near Ground Zero will not move this conversation forward. There were many mosques in the United States before Sept. 11; their mere existence did not bring cross-cultural understanding. The proposed center in New York may be heralded as a peace offering -- may genuinely seek to focus on "promoting integration, tolerance of difference and community cohesion through arts and culture," as its Web site declares -- but I fear that over time, it will cultivate a fundamentalist version of the Muslim faith, embracing those who share such beliefs and hating those who do not."

[pinboy3niner]

28. Paragraph six is nothing but smoke

The assertion that the existence of mosques in the U.S. pre-9/11 "did not bring cross-cultural understanding" is merely an unsupported claim thrown out without even any attempt to offer evidence for it.

The other element of the paragraph is a 'fear' that Cordoba House 'will' (not may or might, but 'will') become radicalized at some point in the future. Based on what? The exact same 'fear' could be expressed about any Christian church or Jewish temple in America. It's an attempt to indict based on a wholly imagined future possibility.

The only thing the sixth paragraph does is reveal a blatant attempt to pad an argument where evidence for it is nonexistent.

[Hannah Bell]

30. "She may just know something about her own religion that we do not know. "

Ooooh! what would *that* be?

[underpants]

17. What "mosque"?

is there a mosque in the community center like there is a chapel at a YMCA?

[Little Star]

18. This Mosque. A tower of as many as 15 stories that will house a mosque

"The city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission voted 9 to 0 against granting historic protection to the building at 45-47 Park Place in Lower Manhattan, where the $100 million center would be built.

That decision clears the way for the construction of Park51, a tower of as many as 15 stories that will house a mosque, a 500-seat auditorium, and a pool. Its leaders say it will be modeled on the Y.M.C.A. and Jewish Community Center in Manhattan."

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/03/mosque-near-ground-zero-clears-key-hurdle/

[provis99]

22. a bigoted Shi'ite opposed to a Sunnite Islamic center.

Color me surprised, not.

[JI7]

23. actually the lead guy is a Sufi

but now you mention the different sects you have to wonder what it really is about.

there are many examples of islamic extremism and she is complaining about some center with a swimming pool by some Sufi ?

[NutmegYankee]

24. "I am not ashamed of my faith, but I am ashamed of what is done in its name"

As a Christian, I know exactly how she feels... If only the evil dregs of society didn't use faith to enforce their hate.

I disagree with her opposition to the community center, but understand the conflict of emotions she feels.

[JI7]

26. so why isn't she speaking out against the bad that is being done rather than worry

about some center that will have a pool and stores ?

[Little Star]

27. Is she opposed to the community center or just the mosque that

is housed in the same building? When I read it I took away she is opposed to the mosque.

[NutmegYankee]

36. I think it was the mosque.

Granted it's really just an Islamic YMCA.

[beam me up scottie]

42. Yes, she only wants to use her influence to prevent other muslims from practicing their religion.

AMERICAN muslims.

In AMERICA.

[Orsino]

37. So they found a Muslim to help spread anti-Islamic bigotry?

Imagine that. I hear Michael Steele got a job with the GOP, too.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

50. Don't forget the Log Cabin Republicans. -nt