Mosque to be Built Near Ground Zero

This thread is moving faster than I am, but a big shout out to OssoBucco, I've missed seeing you and hearing what you have to say. See you soon, somewhere, hopefully, other than this thread.

The question doesn't interest you so you choose to ignore it?
Then what does what you wrote mean?

Foofie wrote:

Foofie, Why subtle? I've posted many opinions about the US concentration camps, and also about the AJA's who served in the US military during WWII.

How "you" interpret our experience, or what the consequences of what happened to AJA's during WWII is tokenism without much credence. I know more about our history than you'll ever know. I lived in one of those concentration camps.

Get over yourself.

This native versus homestead crap is vacant bullshit. Every city has transplants. Being a native of NYC does not make one any more entitled than a transplant.

Let us call this exactly what it is. Your argument as to why you can't stand this mosque being built is falling flat and so you're trying to call on some phoney sense of entitlement to reframe the subject and exclude other's input. It's quite cowardly.

As for your top class drivel, I pity you. Such desires are for the weak minded. You're going to have to deal with it: you're not one iota more important than the immigrant from China, India, Turkey, or Afghanistan.

Those bright lights you mention, they were built by people with island mentality.

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That depends entirely if the immigrant is a citizen or not. Also, it depends on who does the voting.

Even if they aren't citizens yet, you aren't more important. You may be able to vote, but not even the ability to vote let's you vote into place a second class citizenry.

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Bullshit...these people belong to which ever country they are citizens of, they are not second class citizens of America, they are not citizens at all. They should not even be covered by the Constitution of America, the fact that SCOTUS has said that they are is a problem that requires fixing.

But isn't that just the political correctness you abhore? Let's make sure everyone's feelings are protected. Let's ask people to voluntarily forfeit their rights, change all their plans, restart their entire effort so that everyone can have a warm fuzzy. I think that just about every project in NY stomps on someone's toes, but this one steps on 911 toes, so let's just be politically correct and ask them to move?

While we are at it we better fix the Declaration of Independence too..

How could anyone possible think this

parados, Perfect response: "all men are created equal." Foofie and hawk believe they are superior to all others, and they have the gall to call themselves Americans/patriots. Their kind of thinking belongs in another country where like-minded people believe as they do. Emotion and feelings are primary in their world view; everything else is secondary. Forget the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

September 5, 2010

American Muslims Ask, Will We Ever Belong?

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

For nine years after the attacks of Sept. 11, many American Muslims made concerted efforts to build relationships with non-Muslims, to make it clear they abhor terrorism, to educate people about Islam and to participate in interfaith service projects. They took satisfaction in the observations by many scholars that Muslims in America were more successful and assimilated than Muslims in Europe.

Now, many of those same Muslims say that all of those years of work are being rapidly undone by the fierce opposition to a Muslim cultural center near ground zero that has unleashed a torrent of anti-Muslim sentiments and a spate of vandalism. The knifing of a Muslim cab driver in New York City has also alarmed many American Muslims.

“We worry: Will we ever be really completely accepted in American society?” said Dr. Ferhan Asghar, an orthopedic spine surgeon in Cincinnati and the father of two young girls. “In no other country could we have such freedoms — that’s why so many Muslims choose to make this country their own. But we do wonder whether it will get to the point where people don’t want Muslims here anymore.”

Eboo Patel, a founder and director of Interfaith Youth Core, a Chicago-based community service program that tries to reduce religious conflict, said, “I am more scared than I’ve ever been — more scared than I was after Sept. 11.”

That was a refrain echoed by many American Muslims in interviews last week. They said they were scared not as much for their safety as to learn that the suspicion, ignorance and even hatred of Muslims is so widespread. This is not the trajectory toward integration and acceptance that Muslims thought they were on.

Some American Muslims said they were especially on edge as the anniversary of 9/11 approaches. The pastor of a small church in Florida has promised to burn a pile of Korans that day. Muslim leaders are telling their followers that the stunt has been widely condemned by Christian and other religious groups and should be ignored. But they said some young American Muslims were questioning how they could simply sit by and watch the promised desecration.

They liken their situation to that of other scapegoats in American history: Irish Roman Catholics before the nativist riots in the 1800s, the Japanese before they were put in internment camps during World War II.

Muslims sit in their living rooms, aghast as pundits assert over and over that Islam is not a religion at all but a political cult, that Muslims cannot be good Americans and that mosques are fronts for extremist jihadis. To address what it calls a “growing tide of fear and intolerance,” the Islamic Society of North America plans to convene a summit of Christian, Muslim and Jewish leaders in Washington on Tuesday.

Young American Muslims who are trying to figure out their place and their goals in life are particularly troubled, said Imam Abdullah T. Antepli, the Muslim chaplain at Duke University.

“People are discussing what is the alternative if we don’t belong here,” he said. “There are jokes: When are we moving to Canada, when are we moving to Sydney? Nobody will go anywhere, but there is hopelessness, there is helplessness, there is real grief.”

Mr. Antepli just returned from a trip last month with a rabbi and other American Muslim leaders to Poland and Germany, where they studied the Holocaust and the events that led up to it (the group issued a denunciation of Holocaust denial on its return).

“Some of what people are saying in this mosque controversy is very similar to what German media was saying about Jews in the 1920s and 1930s,” he said. “It’s really scary.”

American Muslims were anticipating a particularly joyful Ramadan this year. For the first time in decades, the monthlong holiday fell mostly during summer vacation, allowing children to stay up late each night for the celebratory iftar dinner, breaking the fast, with family and friends.

But the season turned sour.

The great mosque debate seems to have unleashed a flurry of vandalism and harassment directed at mosques: construction equipment set afire at a mosque site in Murfreesboro, Tenn; a plastic pig with graffiti thrown into a mosque in Madera, Calif.; teenagers shooting outside a mosque in upstate New York during Ramadan prayers. It is too soon to tell whether hate crimes against Muslims are rising or are on pace with previous years, experts said. But it is possible that other episodes are going unreported right now.

“Victims are reluctant to go public with these kinds of hate incidents because they fear further harassment or attack,” said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “They’re hoping all this will just blow over.”

Some Muslims said their situation felt more precarious now — under a president who is perceived as not only friendly to Muslims but is wrongly believed by many Americans to be Muslim himself — than it was under President George W. Bush.

Mr. Patel explained, “After Sept. 11, we had a Republican president who had the confidence and trust of red America, who went to a mosque and said, ‘Islam means peace,’ and who said ‘Muslims are our neighbors and friends,’ and who distinguished between terrorism and Islam.”

Now, unlike Mr. Bush then, the politicians with sway in red state America are the ones whipping up fear and hatred of Muslims, Mr. Patel said.

“There is simply the desire to paint an entire religion as the enemy,” he said. Referring to Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the founder of the proposed Muslim center near ground zero, “What they did to Imam Feisal was highly strategic. The signal was, we can Swift Boat your most moderate leaders.”

Several American Muslims said in interviews that they were stunned that what provoked the anti-Muslim backlash was not even another terrorist attack but a plan by an imam known for his work with leaders of other faiths to build a Muslim community center.

This year, Sept. 11 coincides with the celebration of Eid, the finale to Ramadan, which usually lasts three days (most Muslims will begin observing Eid this year on Sept. 10). But Muslim leaders, in this climate, said they wanted to avoid appearing to be celebrating on the anniversary of 9/11. Several major Muslim organizations have urged mosques to use the day to participate in commemoration events and community service.

Ingrid Mattson, the president of the Islamic Society of North America, said many American Muslims were still hoping to salvage the spirit of Ramadan.

“In Ramadan, you’re really not supposed to be focused on yourself,” she said. “It’s about looking out for the suffering of other people. Somehow it feels bad to be so worried about our own situation and our own security, when it should be about empathy towards others.”

They will belong as long as I draw breath. I will advocate for any minority and women who have not enjoyed equality in this country. I see all of them as my equal, unlike some who call themselves American.

No, My problem with PC is the willingness to degrade communication and the lack of allegiance to truth, my gripe is not the desire to protect others feelings. Protecting feelings should be done until and unless doing so harms something more important.

Foofie, As a New Yorker, where do you get your news? FOX? Your consistent lies about 9-11 families shows your bigoted position about race relations in America.

From allheadlinenews.com:

In this case, the principle of US freedom of religion is up against the feelings of a privledged class, 911 victims. I think that is a pretty important principle. The whole "protect the feelings of 911 victims" is a failure of allegiance to truth (truths like the proposed community center is not a "mega-Mosque" and not on the WTC site) and an attempt to stifle debate. This is all about campaign issues and anti-Muslim sentiment wrapped up in a PC wrapper to make it more palatable.

More straightforward response:

No, because the reason that most object is not in support of 9/11 victims, it is because we object. Now you could say that all of America is a victim of 9/11 and that we think that we should not be made to endure this planned obscenity. I don't think that you can fairly claim that the opponents of this project feel that they are a protected class, because clearly the majority agree that the project is legal, that there is no legal protection against it. The call to end the project is based upon the logic of good sense and understanding.....the Muslims should have enough good sense and understanding to not do this. If they push this through anyways they will generally thus be viewed as inferior, it is not in their best interests to continue.

hawk wrote:

Actually, it's people like you who "should have enough good sense and understanding" to stop your bickering when you offend Muslims everywhere with your sanctimonious rhetoric with no basis in logic, the law, or common sense. You attack the innocent as if they committed a crime. They have the US Constitution, the 9-11 (200) families, and the zoning commission of NYC on their side. Who's on yours? The teaparty?

The American people

You don't speak for the American people, Hawk. Never will.

Cycloptichorn