Opinion of the proposed mosque near Ground Zero

[angus]

What do you think, Atlas?

I guess any group with the money to buy the land who wants to put a building there shouldn't have any reason not to.  Moreover, I can imagine that observant Muslims would want to build a mosque there to remind them to pray for peace, and for the souls of the victims of the attack.  It might be especially important since they may feel an ethnoreligious kinship with the attackers.  Brothers gone astray, so to speak.  It is reasonable that observant muslims, particularly if they are also arabs, might want to pray near the site of the WTC.

I imagine the protesters associate mosques with Islam, and Islam with radical Islam, and radical Islam with the destruction of life and property.  This mosque seems a little close to home for them, I'm imagine.  Every time they see the mosque they will be reminded of the attack.  And of death and destruction.  This is also understandable.  I think any group has the right to peaceably assemble and protest anything they want. 

Hadn't heard of any this till I saw the thread.  Then I googled a NYT article.  Interesting.  Neither the desire to build there, nor the ensuing protest that the plan causes, comes as a surprise.  This USAToday article also has a poll at the end: 

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2010/05/local-nyc-board-backs-plan-to-build-mosque-near-ground-zero/1

Wow.  Take a look at the results of the poll if you vote.

[angus]

I think there were several hundred Muslims killed in the WTC.  When I think of 9/11, I don't think, "Poor people, except for the Muslim ones."

I do understand people who object, but I strongly disagree with them.  Perhaps a true Muslim mosque will show everyone how perverted al-Qaeda is.

well said.

[angus]

It's not like Islam is the only religion which has killed people before.

Religions don't kill people.  People kill people.

And rats.  And fires.  And bacteria and stuff like that.  Maybe the hallucinogenic peyote button you ate in order to get a better vision of the gods was an overdose, causing brain aneurysm or acute myocardial infarction.  Maybe that kills you.  But it isn't the religion itself that kills you.

[angus]

It's not like Islam is the only religion which has killed people before.

Religions don't kill people.  People kill people.

And rats.  And fires.  And bacteria and stuff like that.  Maybe the hallucinogenic peyote button you ate in order to get a better vision of the gods was an overdose, causing brain aneurysm or acute myocardial infarction.  Maybe that kills you.  But it isn't the religion itself that kills you.

I didn't think you were one to fall for cheap slogans, angus, even effective ones. Sure, religion doesn't kill people, but that doesn't mean that people haven't been killed that would not have been killed had it not been for this or that religion. Nor that some people lived that would not have lived had it been for this or that religion. Human behavior is subject to all sorts of variables, and just because it's very difficult for social science to parse them out (especially for something as ill-defined and ubiquitous as Islam), it does not mean it has no effect.

I love cheap slogans.  Most people sing love songs in the showers.  I sing the Doublemint jingle and Oscar Meyer and other commercial lyrics.

Yeah, of course folks have been killed in the name of religion.  I just read La Malinche by Laura Esquivel.  I'd always studied her from the point of view of western historians, or from the point of view of Diego Rivera or other Mexican muralists.  But Esquivel writes from Malina's point of view.  Anyway, the history I already knew:  of course it was easy for Cortez to enlist the aid of the huastecs and zapotecs and others to overthrow Moctezuma and capture Tenochtitlán.  After a three or four generations of watching your cousins and brothers and father and grandfather having their still-beating hearts cut out in order to appease Lord Quetzalcoatl's thirst, you're ready for some payback.

Still, I just found the phrase "Islam isn't the only religion which has killed people" awkward.

And you didn't even like my little twist on the NRA slogan?  I thought it was rather clever.

[angus]

Yep, most mosques are pretty plain and dont particularly announce themselves.

...as long as you ignore the minarets, moorish arches, green banner with arabic script, and the little balcony on the second floor that they always seem to tack on when they open them up in strip malls.

I always think, "Hmmm.  That's either a place to get some kick-ass lamb kabobs and maybe a decent belly-dance show, or it's a place to pray, men only.  If only I could read arabic I'd know for sure.  I guess I'll look for a pile of shoes outside the door.  That should should tell me which it is."

[angus]

This is the closest one near my place in Fresno and it looks quite nice actually. Frequented mostly by Iraqis and well to do types. Boris said it felt more like a "church" than a "mosque".

Let's be honest.  People are weird about mosques.  And muslims in general.  My neighbor, a dentist, father, and generally humorous and well-informed nice guy was talking to me a couple of days ago.  We were making the block, my son on his Razor scooter and my wife and me walking.  (They finally built the last house on the block and now we can actually make the entire block on good sidewalks without having to cross the street.)  I was asking the guy about where his wife works.  She's a pharmacist.  He says she works in the place where the "old John Deere pharmacy used to be."  The way small town people talk to each other, especially when they forget that you didn't grow up here and have no idea about where anything "used to be."  ("...just go to where that dog's always a-chasin' that old cat out to where there used to always be an old abandoned blue ford pickup, you know where I mean, then you turn left there..."  that sort of thing.)  So I give him that look that says, "ummm, John Deere Pharmacy?"--not that I don't know that John Deere is the largest employer in this county.  If it weren't for John Deere my employer would probably be the biggest.  I think JD has something like twenty thousand employees.  It accounts for the fact that we have many foreigners on my block.  Indians.  Chinese.  Bengalis.  You don't normally find that in small towns in the upper midwest.  But they're all engineers.  And they all work for John Deere.  But in the three years that I've lived in Iowa I haven't heard the term "John Deere Pharmacy."-Anyway, I ask, just in case he didn't catch my seriously confused glance, what John Deere Pharmacy?  And he goes on about how John Deere used to have its own insurance, its own physicians, its own dentists, its own pharmacy, etc.  Then it got a contract with United Conglomerated-Megalo Nameless And Faceless of of New Jersey, or something like that, and now if you work there you just have normal insurance.  Whatever.  Anyway, at some point he says, "...you know, it's over on the corner of Greenhill Boulevard and Katowski, you know, where they're building that Moslem church..."  And looks kinda funny when he says "moslem church."  So I ask, "um, you mean a mosque?"  (Stress on "mosque.")  He says, "uh, yeah, a Moslem mosque, yeah, she works over where they're building that moslem mosque."  And gives me that look that says, "Dude, can you actually believe they're building a moslem church here in Cedar Falls?"  I didn't probe further.  Usually, because I'm always asking him for favors.  Watch my crib while I"m in Cozumel for the next two weeks.  Feed my fish.  Water my plants.  Make sure there are no thieves.  Stuff like that.  I just make friendly conversation and avoid public policy or whatever.  But you could tell how weird about muslims, and their mosques he was.  And this guy is not a high school dropout or a CIA officer or a hit man.  He's a regular good ole' boy.  A white-collar, six-figure dude who listened to his Mama and didn't move more than five miles from her when he decided to have his own family.  And he's from one of the five states where two men can legally marry.  One of the "progressives," so to speak.  And even he's all weird about "moslem churches."  

So does it surprise me that the average blue-collar ("youze guys are all a bunch of morons, I oughtta kill youze") mafia types from ground zero are against a mosque in their neighborhood?  Or a bunch of neocon pro-Israeli zionists?  Or a bunch of irreligious capitalist pig Wall Street tycoons?  Or any of the other New York stereotypes you want to discuss?  Should it surprise us that they're 85 percent against the mosque?  No, it doesn't surprise me.  Hell, even out there, a thousand miles from 9/11 and a zillion light years from anywhere, folks know about "moslem churches."

Ah, well.  At least nothing runs like a Deere.  (That's for you, beet.)