Anybody seeking a perfect example of making a mountain out of a very harmless molehill need look no further than the supremely silly "Park 51 Mosque Controversy" dominating the US media nowadays.
Rumours of a vague plan to erect a mosque on Ground Zero - the site of the World Trade Center buildings - have even reached India. It sounded rather unlikely, and I was disinclined to pay much attention to the matter. After all, the US media is always roiled by some storm in a teacup or another, unlike India where we only discuss issues of the greatest import. :)
All this changed when I ran into an old friend, Ameena, on Facebook, after several years.
What follows is a guest post by my sister, Bisakha Sen, written after I reported my e-conversation with Ameena. Read on, and contemplate the idiocy of the human race.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Musings on Park51
Maybe I should have titled it "Banning Unitarian Universalist churches because you hate Pat Robertson"?
If there is a God that specializes in irony.....this whole mess must surely be laid at His altar !
Till recently, the whole Park51 'Mosque at WTC' was a matter of principle to me, not much more. I have no particular fondness for ANY organized religion, including Islam. However, there are certain religious freedoms in USA. Those religious freedoms cannot be denied to Muslims. And anyway, the site is a few blocks AWAY from WTC, in an area where strip clubs and bars abound -- so its not exactly 'desecrating hallowed ground' to begin with. Plus there are mosques in that vicinity already.What changed things was an email from my brother, a few days ago with a subject line screaming 'UNBELIEVABLE'."Can you believe
it, this is AMEENA'S community mosque that all these (unprintables) are going loony over !"
Ameena. My lovely friend. Looks like a sylph and has a spine of steel. Writer, fashionasta, feminist, passionately progressive, gay-rights advocate, generous-to-a-fault. Who has been known to march out of 'traditional' mosques with her three daughters in tow because the imam had spouted some typical nonsense of 'good women should be meek and subservient' during service! Who can destroy every stereotype you held about Muslims in about 15 minutes of conversation. Who is a dedicated Sufi Muslim herself. Part of a Interfaith community full of free-thinkers of every stripe. My brother visited Friday services at this mosque when he first visited Ameena. He was absolutely enchanted -- "Sis, we had the BEST dancing with chants......sooo much fun". He assured me he had greatly enjoyed conversations with New-age artistic free-thinking types from every background as well, but clearly it was the dancing that truly impressed him ! (side note, this is a community mosque where men and women not only pray together, they dance together !!!).
When we last visited Ameena in New York, we met El-Farouk Khaki at her place. Brilliant, impassioned, extravagantly tattooed and as flamboyant as they come -- El Farouk Khaki is a Canadian activist for Muslim LGBT rights and founder of the 'Salaam', one of the biggest suport groups for gay Muslims in the west. He'd been a guest at the community mosque earlier. We all chatted deep into the night over an endless supply of kabobs -- starry-eyed social liberals imagining days when ALL organized religious groups would be welcoming to all, when imams and priests presiding over exchange of vows of gay/lesbian couples would be a norm, not an exception.
As I now hear the cacophony about this community's mosque, I can't help but wonder -- is THIS why Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin and the rest are up in arms against this community and their mosque ? Are they worried that a progressive interfaith Muslim group that is pro-gay rights will dent their cherished construct of Muslims uniformly being more 'socially backwards' and 'anti human-rights' than Christians of their ilk ?
Ameena wrote to us saying: "Traditional Muslims don't like us because we're hippy New Age types, and now Fox News says we're jihadists dancing on graves of 9/11 victims !" Frankly, I'm struggling to get my head around the sheer scale of the irony ! That opposition to Al Qaeda and Islamist fundamentalism is now taking the form of opposition to a highly progressive Sufi group! What could be a possible parallel ? Opposition to Pat Robertson's followers resulting in demonizing Unitarian Universal churches might come close!
I fear that the average American protesting this community center is getting played for a fool, and Al Qaeda members are hooting with laughter! An article in this week's Newsweek confirmed today that the Taliban are DEFINITELY hooting with laughter (http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/30/taliban-using-mosque-controversy-to-recruit.html) -- it doesn't get better than this for them! Americans turn on Sufi Muslims --- whom both Al Qaeda and Taliban hate with a passion -- and in process of doing so, America projects an 'anti-Muslim' image around the world that helps Al Qaeda and Taliban to recruit !!!!!!!
I keep hoping for a happy resolution. Maybe the cacophony will die down a bit, and people will set aside those "9-11 taught me ALL I need to know about Islam" posters, and just be a LITTLE more curious ? Even asking "so who are the Sufis anyway" -- would be a good start! Now that its been revealed that the so-called 'shady Saudi Prince' who MIGHT have been helping with the mosque funding is actually Fox News's second largest shareholder (and among other things, has funded the George HW Bush scholarship at Phillips Academy, MA), maybe some of the anti-mosque protestors will take a small step back and reconsider the possibility that maybe they haven't *quite* been given the full picture ?
If nothing else -- maybe some people could at least start railing against this particular group of Muslims for more APPROPRIATE reasons, like they are "TOO darned" socially liberal, and therefore un-Real-American ?
I can think of no better way to finish this note than with a link from Ameena's own blog, where she talks about her own hope for Park51 leading to awareness and dialogue. Amen to that!
http://ameenameer.blogspot.com/2010/08/why-park51-needs-ayaan-hirsi-ali-and.html
Rumours of a vague plan to erect a mosque on Ground Zero - the site of the World Trade Center buildings - have even reached India. It sounded rather unlikely, and I was disinclined to pay much attention to the matter. After all, the US media is always roiled by some storm in a teacup or another, unlike India where we only discuss issues of the greatest import. :)
All this changed when I ran into an old friend, Ameena, on Facebook, after several years.
What follows is a guest post by my sister, Bisakha Sen, written after I reported my e-conversation with Ameena. Read on, and contemplate the idiocy of the human race.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Musings on Park51
Maybe I should have titled it "Banning Unitarian Universalist churches because you hate Pat Robertson"?
If there is a God that specializes in irony.....this whole mess must surely be laid at His altar !
Till recently, the whole Park51 'Mosque at WTC' was a matter of principle to me, not much more. I have no particular fondness for ANY organized religion, including Islam. However, there are certain religious freedoms in USA. Those religious freedoms cannot be denied to Muslims. And anyway, the site is a few blocks AWAY from WTC, in an area where strip clubs and bars abound -- so its not exactly 'desecrating hallowed ground' to begin with. Plus there are mosques in that vicinity already.What changed things was an email from my brother, a few days ago with a subject line screaming 'UNBELIEVABLE'."Can you believe
it, this is AMEENA'S community mosque that all these (unprintables) are going loony over !"
Ameena. My lovely friend. Looks like a sylph and has a spine of steel. Writer, fashionasta, feminist, passionately progressive, gay-rights advocate, generous-to-a-fault. Who has been known to march out of 'traditional' mosques with her three daughters in tow because the imam had spouted some typical nonsense of 'good women should be meek and subservient' during service! Who can destroy every stereotype you held about Muslims in about 15 minutes of conversation. Who is a dedicated Sufi Muslim herself. Part of a Interfaith community full of free-thinkers of every stripe. My brother visited Friday services at this mosque when he first visited Ameena. He was absolutely enchanted -- "Sis, we had the BEST dancing with chants......sooo much fun". He assured me he had greatly enjoyed conversations with New-age artistic free-thinking types from every background as well, but clearly it was the dancing that truly impressed him ! (side note, this is a community mosque where men and women not only pray together, they dance together !!!).
When we last visited Ameena in New York, we met El-Farouk Khaki at her place. Brilliant, impassioned, extravagantly tattooed and as flamboyant as they come -- El Farouk Khaki is a Canadian activist for Muslim LGBT rights and founder of the 'Salaam', one of the biggest suport groups for gay Muslims in the west. He'd been a guest at the community mosque earlier. We all chatted deep into the night over an endless supply of kabobs -- starry-eyed social liberals imagining days when ALL organized religious groups would be welcoming to all, when imams and priests presiding over exchange of vows of gay/lesbian couples would be a norm, not an exception.
As I now hear the cacophony about this community's mosque, I can't help but wonder -- is THIS why Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin and the rest are up in arms against this community and their mosque ? Are they worried that a progressive interfaith Muslim group that is pro-gay rights will dent their cherished construct of Muslims uniformly being more 'socially backwards' and 'anti human-rights' than Christians of their ilk ?
Ameena wrote to us saying: "Traditional Muslims don't like us because we're hippy New Age types, and now Fox News says we're jihadists dancing on graves of 9/11 victims !" Frankly, I'm struggling to get my head around the sheer scale of the irony ! That opposition to Al Qaeda and Islamist fundamentalism is now taking the form of opposition to a highly progressive Sufi group! What could be a possible parallel ? Opposition to Pat Robertson's followers resulting in demonizing Unitarian Universal churches might come close!
I fear that the average American protesting this community center is getting played for a fool, and Al Qaeda members are hooting with laughter! An article in this week's Newsweek confirmed today that the Taliban are DEFINITELY hooting with laughter (http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/30/taliban-using-mosque-controversy-to-recruit.html) -- it doesn't get better than this for them! Americans turn on Sufi Muslims --- whom both Al Qaeda and Taliban hate with a passion -- and in process of doing so, America projects an 'anti-Muslim' image around the world that helps Al Qaeda and Taliban to recruit !!!!!!!
I keep hoping for a happy resolution. Maybe the cacophony will die down a bit, and people will set aside those "9-11 taught me ALL I need to know about Islam" posters, and just be a LITTLE more curious ? Even asking "so who are the Sufis anyway" -- would be a good start! Now that its been revealed that the so-called 'shady Saudi Prince' who MIGHT have been helping with the mosque funding is actually Fox News's second largest shareholder (and among other things, has funded the George HW Bush scholarship at Phillips Academy, MA), maybe some of the anti-mosque protestors will take a small step back and reconsider the possibility that maybe they haven't *quite* been given the full picture ?
If nothing else -- maybe some people could at least start railing against this particular group of Muslims for more APPROPRIATE reasons, like they are "TOO darned" socially liberal, and therefore un-Real-American ?
I can think of no better way to finish this note than with a link from Ameena's own blog, where she talks about her own hope for Park51 leading to awareness and dialogue. Amen to that!
http://ameenameer.blogspot.com/2010/08/why-park51-needs-ayaan-hirsi-ali-and.html
I think there's a good summary of the issue here: http://greatbong.net/2010/08/24/the-ground-zero-mosque/#more-13135
ReplyDeleteI think that Great Bong, though he speaks against straw man arguments etc., does a little bit of the straw man thing himself when he starts likening retaliation to "mirroring" the behaviour of the enemy.
But he makes several good points. Why is Rauf so insistent on building a Mosque at the site where his religion caused a problem, when it's obvious this will cause tensions? It's almost like he WANTS to cause tensions and then win some sort of victory for Islam.
The separation between radical and liberal sects among Muslims is not very clear. As mentioned in the post by Great Bong, Sufis have been used as the proselytizing wing of hardline Islamic sects in the past.
I think Christopher Hitchens has a balanced viewpoint on this topic, articulated here: http://www.slate.com/id/2264770/ . He says, "Emboldened by the crass nature of the opposition to the center, its defenders have started to talk as if it represented no problem at all ... As Western Europe has already found to its cost, local Muslim leaders have a habit, once they feel strong enough, of making demands of the most intolerant kind." Hitchens also asks some pointed questions about Rauf's views.