By Cory Emberson, Co-author of
Pursuing Liberty: America Through the Eyes of the Newly Free
Cordoba House, the Islamic center/mosque proposed for the former Burlington Coat Factory building two blocks from New York's sacred ground - Ground Zero - has touched off a firestorm of debate in New York City and across the country. While Cordoba Initiative founder Imam Feisal (who will not call Hamas a terrorist organization), New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and a suddenly religiously tolerant left push ahead in their support of this thirteen-story mosque, they seem surprised by the intensity of the opposition.
Americans are a generally tolerant people, and while New Yorkers waited for the outcome of the Landmarks Preservation Commission hearing - they denied the building at 45-47 Park Place landmark status, allowing the permit process to move forward. But wait! Parts of United Flight 175's landing gear smashed through the building, landing on the empty selling floor. The building was, blessedly, vacant. This is not just another building.
Since the attacks of 9/11, a stateless declaration of war on the United States, the sensitivity game has been waged as a large-scale chess match. Politicians have made a point of articulating America's unique legacy of tolerance, even in the face of reciprocal intolerance. Want to bring a Bible to Saudi Arabia? Sorry. Got a problem with the red crescent-shaped Flight 93 memorial design? How could you reject such outreach? Is the construction of a mosque only a few blocks away from Ground Zero (and another mosque) a slap in the face to those who perished, their families, and the survivors? Just ask a New Yorker.
Our inalienable right of dissent has been tarred as hatred; our objections badly mischaracterized as a phobia; and we are pressured to ignore history and radical Islam's penchant for symbolism. Alyssa A. Lappen writes in
Pajamas Media:
"Even Cordoba Institute's name telegraphs the organization's deceptiveness. Cordoba (also the name for Chautauqua's proposed new Muslim house) was the seat of the Islamic Caliphate that ruled most of Spain from Tariq ibn Zayid's 711 invasion through 1248, and controlled parts of Spain until its full liberation in 1492. However, neither the Umayyads (who ruled monolithically until about 1031), nor the particularly vicious Almoravids (who swept over the Atlas mountains and, in 1080, into Spain) ruled non-Muslims kindly. While Islamic harshness varied, it remained unquestionably ever-present."
Rick Lindstrom and I wrote
Pursuing Liberty: America Through the Eyes of the Newly Free as both an intimate portrait of those who fled tyranny for American liberty, and as a historical record of how those countries descended into oppression. It was no surprise when we found Neda Bolourchi's powerful op-ed in Sunday's
Washington Post: A Muslim victim of 9/11: "Build your mosque somewhere else":
"The Iranian revolution compelled my family to flee to America when I was 12 years old. Yet, just over two decades later, the militant version of our faith caught up with us on a September morning. I still identify as a Muslim. When you are born into a Muslim family, there is no way around it, no choices available: You are Muslim. I am not ashamed of my faith, but I am ashamed of what is done in its name."
Neda's mother was on United Flight 175, the second plane to smash into the World Trade Center the morning of September 11, 2001. She witnessed her mother's murder on live television. To this day, she is torn, and carries the anguish of that day:
"I still have great respect for the faith. Yet, I worry that the construction of the Cordoba House Islamic cultural center near the World Trade Center site would not promote tolerance or understanding; I fear it would become a symbol of victory for militant Muslims around the world."
Those militants who would cheer the destruction of the United States in favor of a worldwide caliphate ruled by sharia law have no problem telling us exactly what they intend to do. Why don't we believe them? And while the Cordoba Initiative's mission statement is to "improv[e] Muslim-West relations," it seems that sensitivities only exist on a one-way street.
We support New York construction worker Andy Sullivan's principled refusal to work on this particular site, as articulated during his interview on Fox & Friends on August 10: "It's not about religion - it's about human decency." Sullivan cited the "Muslim tradition of placing mosques on conquered territory," and is appealing directly to his rank and file colleagues. He was asked whether he would refuse paying work on the Cordoba Project, in that location, out of principle - even in a recession-wracked city. "Absolutely."
As fair-minded Americans, we find it difficult to operate outside the rule of law. While disallowing such a project on legal terms is vastly more in our character than rejecting it on emotional terms, sensitivity toward the mosque's opponents' pain - and a voluntary withdrawal of the project - truly would demonstrate their stated goal of goodwill toward the West. Just because it's legal to do something doesn't mean you should do it.
