My friend Cory posed a question about the Muslim Community Center in NYC on Facebook & sparked a debate. Then it became a very ugly argument over religion.
This is my input to the discussion trying to take the ugly out of it & bring it back to a rational debate.
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I recognize that this is a very emotional issue. And I can respect that.
But there are some right-wingers who do not offer the same respect. There were Muslim-Americans who also died in the WTC by 9/11 terrorist attacks. And these right-wingers minimized the deaths of these Americans who happened to be Muslim, who were also attacked by saying something like “They only consist of 1% of 1% of the Americans who died on 9/11.” Implying that their deaths are insignificant.
If one American dies under terrorist attacks regardless if that person is Muslim or not. Then that is one American too many. It doesn’t matter if the person is Muslim-American, Christian-American, or a Hindu-American. They all are still American.
I am curious of the intent of the property builders of the Muslim community center. Were they just looking for available real estate in the downtown area with no interest or concern of how close it is to Ground Zero?
Or did they intentionally wanted to be close to Ground Zero in some sort of clumsy attempt of a peace offering & blatantly ignoring people’s sensitivities & the political misperceptions of the situation?
I have worked on Wall St at the NY Federal Reserve near Ground Zero. For lunch, I would get a middle-eastern falafel on the corner & sip my Korean bubble tea with my falafel sandwich. That’s what makes NYC so great, its incredible diversity.
Then after lunch I would go back to work with my fellow coworkers, who consist of Hindu Indians, Christian Indians, Jewish Russians, Pakistani Muslims & the typical White Americans & Black Americans.
We all worked together to build something for the Federal Reserve & for our country, the US of A.
Y’know there are other mosques in the same vicinity, a couple more blocks down. And those mosques are way more Muslimy than the proposed community center. Should we tear down those mosques too?
As I understand it, the community center is like the Muslim version of the 92nd Y community center on 92nd St. So the proposed community center is open to everyone, not just Muslims. And if you are Muslim, you don’t have to be a good Muslim. You can be a pork-eating Muslim & the community center will still let you in because it is open to everyone.
The proposed location is not in front of Ground Zero; it’s a couple of blocks down that you can’t even see Ground Zero from the location.
I am so tired of right-wingers whining, carping, & riling people up over superficial issues. This unnecessary hoopla is wasting everybody’s time. I can respect people’s passions over the issue; & their emotional sensitivity. But goddammit! Can’t we use all that passion, that time & energy more constructively instead of destructively?
Our country desperately needs it. Instead wasting time & energy tearing down fellow Americans’ community center that happen to be Muslim; use that time & energy to build something. How about building something at Ground Zero? It’s been 9 yrs & it’s still a hole in the ground. Don’t tell me it can’t be done in a timely matter. While right-wingers are riling people up over superficial issues & terrorizing innocent Muslim-Americans, a foreign Muslim country has built the world’s tallest building in 6 yrs, the Burj Khalifa Tower in Dubai. The tower is about twice as big as the Sears Tower in Chicago. If we continue to argue over superficial arguments, as Americans our country will lag behind on the world stage as we bicker over unnecessary hoopla.
The right-wing’s favorite capitalistic intellectual, Ayn Rand, (Or is it Ann Rand? I get mixed up sometimes), escaped Communist Russia to live freely in the US. She was so impressed with America & the American spirit. She was impressed with NYC with the skyscrapers standing tall reaching for the sky for prosperity & growth.
During her time, what was the tallest building in the world? It was the Empire State building in NYC, USA. And we did it again with WTC being the tallest buildings in the world. And the US did it again with the Sears tower in Chicago as the tallest building in the world. Now, the tallest building in the world is in Muslim foreign country, Dubai, twice as tall as the Sears tower in Chicago.
What would Ayn Rand say about this? That the American spirit to be constructive & the desire to build is not in America anymore, but in Dubai. Nowadays, Americans waste time squabbling with each other destructively instead of constructively.
I like to thank my friend Cory for his attempt to elevate the discourse & he offered a very sound argument. Muslim-Americans have a right to purchase property for a community center, & people in the community have a right to protest the construction. Just as Cory says a community would protest to a construction of a strip club. Just as Cobb County citizens protest & denied a construction of a Wal-Mart in their community. The right to protest is the essence of American freedom.
You don’t have that right in Communist China; go ask the Chinese guy who stood up to the military tank in Tiananmen Square. However the community center is not a strip club associated with illegal behaviors such as drugs, violence, & prostitution. The community center is not a Wal-Mart that may harm local small businesses. The community center is there to build a better community, just like the 92nd Y community center founded by German-Jewish folk but is open to all races & religions.
This community center is open to all races & religions but founded by Muslim-Americans who denounced terrorist attacks at the White House. (That fact always seemed to be overlooked by the critics)
But the cause of all this friction is because the community center is Muslim & they do not advocate terrorism. But they are still being judged because they are Muslim.
That right there is very, very intolerant, & very Un-American. It is in the US Constitution that we as Americans have the freedom of religion & there is also the Establishment Clause, which states that the government shall not establish a national religion over another religion. It is these constitutional principles that make America free & great.
And for those who say we shouldn't build the community center until Saudi Arabia builds a church. We are not Saudi Arabia. We are Americans & we are better than that.
Why do innocent Muslims always have to prove to someone else that they denounce terrorist attacks? Maybe we should force all innocent, peace-loving Muslims to wear T-shirts on a daily basis that say “I denounce terrorist attacks.” That’s how we can distinguish the good ones from the bad ones. They may be Muslim-Americans, but they are still Muslims & they can’t be trusted. We should presume them to be guilty until proven innocent.
Y’know we don’t have such a demand of proof of denunciation with other groups. Other groups such as the architects of the Iraq War of the previous administration. Over 3000 US soldiers’ lives were lost over Weapons of Mass Destruction that wasn’t there in first place.
Did Iraq War architects take responsibility of this glaring mistake?
Did they apologize for this mistake?
Did they denounce the mistake at all?
No, they actually got medals & rewards for their mistake. But hey, the Iraq War architects are mostly Christian with no Muslims, so we should presume them to be innocent until proven guilty. So I will give them the benefit of the doubt. Who knows? Maybe hanging in their closets are T-shirts that say “Oops. There were no WMD’s, after all. My bad.” They just don’t wear them on a daily basis.
Now we can all agree we were attacked my Muslim terrorists. But what happens if you start grouping all Muslims together as terrorists. You get overwhelmed by emotion & trigger happy that you invade a country that nothing to do with 9/11 attacks looking for WMD’s that wasn’t there in the first place.
I’m a naturalized citizen. That means me & my moms had to study & pass a citizenship test in order to be proud US citizens that we are.
I don’t want to hear that this is not my country because I’m a Hindu.
I don’t want to hear that this is Christian country.
We have a majority Christian population, but according to the US Constitution’s freedom of religion & the Establishment Clause, this is not a Christian country because the US government cannot establish a national religion. I know what I’m talking about, I had to study & take a citizenship test, which is more than other Americans do who were born here, I’ll bet their grades in history class were dismal.
And if I do hear crap like that, I will smack you in yo’ face.
Wait, I would like to apologize & denounce my violence tendencies. I am a Hindu. Genetically speaking, Hindus are more prone to violence. Just look at Gandhi. Before the Nobel Peace Prize & hunger strikes, he smacked people left & right. So I do apologize. We Hindus can’t help ourselves, it’s in our nature.
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