A Mosque at Ground Zero?

Thomas Huxley once said, "It is not who is right, but what is right, that is of importance. " 

As we approach the 9th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in Manahattan, I find it a uniquely American experience that we should be embroiled in the issue of the appropriateness of a thirteen story Mosque near “Ground Zero.”  It is also an issue that should be of concern to all of us here in Broad Channel as well.  We lost one of our own (Theresa Munson) on that horrific day and several of our Broad Channel vollies who had rushed to Ground Zero narrowly escaped with their lives when one of their emergency vehicles was destroyed when the towers collasped.  Additionally, I am sure that many of us living here in the channel lost relatives and friends on that terrible day.  I know I attended the funerals of nine firemen and police officers in the months following the attacks.

Some see the proposed 13 story mosque and community center as bridging a cultural divide and an opportunity to serve a burgeoning and peaceful religious population. Others see a painful reminder of the religious extremism that killed their loved ones. 

Proponents of the Mosque view it is a strictly legal (constituional) question while others question the morality of the decision to build the Mosque at Ground Zero.

Our President and Mayor have both weighed in on this issue focusing strictly on the constitutional right of the Muslim community to build a Mosque

But by focusing on constitutional rights and not on the “wisdom” of the decision, as he put it, the President Obama and Mayor Bloomberg are both missing the point. The question is not what is legal--we all know it’s legal to build on private property, and to worship freely--but what is appropriate.

We try to teach this to our kids all the time: that what the rules allow is not always what is best. Just because something is legal doesn’t make it a good idea. We try to teach our children to be sensitive to the situation, to what is appropriate, to what works best for everyone. That’s a hard thing to teach, and many times adults fall short themselves. That’s why this situation is so difficult. People are falling short on both sides.

What’s making this mosque question so controversial is the difference between legal and moral, between good and bad judgment. I think that’s what opponents of the project are saying:  that this is a debate about sensitivity, about respect, and the gray area between right and wrong.

Location matters. Especially this location. Ground Zero is the site of the greatest mass murder in American history -- perpetrated by Muslims of a particular strain of Islamist orthodoxy in whose cause they died and in whose name they killed.   Of course that strain represents only a minority of Muslims. Islam is no more intrinsically Islamist than present-day Germany is Nazi.

Nevertheless, when we speak of Ground Zero as hallowed ground, what we mean is that it belongs to those who suffered and died there -- and that such ownership obliges us, the living, to preserve the dignity and memory of the place, never allowing it to be forgotten, trivialized or misappropriated.

That's why in 1993 when Disney proposed building an American history theme park near the Manassas Civil War Battlefield in Virginia the proposal was defeated by a broad coalition that feared vulgarization of the Civil War.

That's why the commercial viewing tower built right on the border of Gettysburg was taken down by the Park Service to avoid denigrating the lives of the soldiers lost there.

That's why Pope John Paul II ordered the Carmelite nuns to leave the convent they had established at Auschwitz. He was in no way devaluing their heartfelt mission to pray for the souls of the dead. He was teaching them a lesson in respect: This is not your place; it belongs to others. However pure your voice, better to let silence reign.

The backers of the Mosque state that the location is two blocks away from Ground Zero.  Sharif el-Gamal, the Manhattan property developer behind the project has stetd that the proposed location is "... two blocks north of the World Trade Centre site. In New York City two blocks is a great distance.We are nowhere near the World Trade Centre site.

A fact that is widely ignored by the media is that the proposed site for this Mosque is the old Burlington Coat Factory building which was damaged when the landing gear of one of the two planes, intentionally flown into the World Trade towers, crashed through the buildings roof.  In my estimation, that makes it part of Ground Zero.

I fully recognize the legal right of the Muslim community to build a Mosque on private property in accordance with local laws and regulations and I also fully understand that it would not be right for the goverment to intervene in this process.

That being said, I also recognize that the decision to build this Mosque at Ground Zero is an affront to all those who lost their lives on 9/11 as well as their families and friends. 

If this really was about reconciliation, the backers of the project would realize that if anything, they’ve set back the cause of reconciliation by 10 years. They’d realize that the feelings they’ve stirred up among New Yorkers are still too fresh, too raw, to continue right now. We haven’t even built a memorial to the victims yet!

I may be wrong but if the true feelings of all New Yorkers is that this Mosque should not be built at Ground Zero, then we do not need the government to intercede on our behalf.  I cannot envision any union bricklayer, carpenter, electrician, ironworker, steamfitter, etc., picking up his or her tools to build this Mosque until a more appropriate, respectful and saner location is agreed upon.