I work two blocks from Ground Zero, plus I have my Five-Year New Yorker commemorative patch and lapel pin, which qualify me as an automatic expert on the topic of the planned and disputed Cordoba House.
Certain parties have made this An Issue in order to foster political debate and division. The thing drips with baiting and phobias of culture and religion. The mass media bleating continues to keep the story above the fold when it should have disappeared weeks ago. But here’s my crack at it. It’s nothing original but I felt like laying it down here.
First, it’s not a mosque. It’s an interfaith community center. Plans for this community center call for a prayer room. They also call for a swimming pool. Calling a community center a mosque is like calling JFK International Airport a church because it has a chapel.
It’s also not at Ground Zero. Its proposed location is two blocks away in an old Burlington Coat Factory. I work in an office building the same distance from Ground Zero. My office building is not called a Ground Zero Office Building.
Love or hate our billionaire mayor, he delivered a speech on this topic earlier this month. It was a very good speech. Here are five of its points:
- Cordoba House would be located on private property. (I thought this alone would be enough to settle the debate, but no.)
- Your religion is as valid as some other guy’s religion.
- Muslims were killed on 9/11.
- Muslims are a part of our city, melting pot, blah blah blah.
- New York endures. Political controversies dissolve.
I would add that the public parts of lower Manhattan (or any other public part of the five boroughs) are not hallowed ground. Things change constantly and there’s not enough room for that here. The most hallowed I’ve seen New York is when a bum christened a sidewalk with his own urine, which is the image I’d like to leave you with, should you take issue with the Cordoba House.
August 18, 2010 Update: Via Twitter, Jason Mustian notes: “In fairness, we’ve been building ‘ground zeros’ near Iraqi mosques since March 2003.” Ha ha!
Another August 18, 2010 Update: On a more serious note, check out this CNN debate from last weekend:
CNN anchor Don Lemon: Don’t you think it’s a bit different considering what happened on 9/11? And the people have said there’s a need for it in Lower Manhattan, so that’s why it’s being built there. What about 10, 20 blocks . . . Midtown Manhattan, considering the circumstances behind this? That’s not understandable?
Eboo Patel, Executive Director of the Interfaith Youth Core: In America, we don’t tell people based on their race or religion or ethnicity that they are free in this place, but not in that place --
Lemon: [interrupting] I understand that, but there’s always context, Mr. Patel . . . this is an extraordinary circumstance. You understand that this is very heated. Many people lost their loved ones on 9/11 --
Patel: Including Muslim Americans who lost their loved ones. . . .
Lemon: Consider the context here. That’s what I’m talking about.
Patel: I have to tell you that this seems a little like telling black people 50 years ago: you can sit anywhere on the bus you like - just not in the front.
Lemon: I think that’s apples and oranges - I don’t think that black people were behind a terrorist plot to kill people and drive planes into a building. That’s a completely different circumstance.
Patel: And American Muslims were not behind the terrorist plot either.
Yet another August 18, 2010 Update:
Whut?New York voters oppose by a nearly 2-to-1 margin plans to build an Islamic community center and mosque near Ground Zero in Manhattan, according to a new Siena Research Institute poll released Wednesday.
The same voters, however, overwhelmingly say the center’s developers have a constitutional right to build it.