The recent controversy over the Islamic cultural center in New York in many respects epitomizes the distance from reality American political discourse has entered 10 years after the “American century,” a name coined due to the prominence of the United States in everything from culture to international events in the 20th century. As stated before, recent controversy focuses on the building of an Islamic cultural center two blocks away from Ground Zero of the 9/11 terror attacks.
Many see the building of such a center to be an insensitive affront to 9/11. The leading cleric at the center though, says he wants to do the opposite.
“We want to push back against the extremists,” Iman Feisal Abdul Rauf said.
However, comments such as these do not assure many on today’s political right, including Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and others. Today, many are quick to wrap themselves in the rhetoric of the Founders to oppose the building of the center, saying things such as it breeds intolerance and works to undermine the American heritage of freedom.
Let us examine some of these claims. Many on today’s political right who like to use such rhetoric, forget the Kingdom of Morocco (an Islamic nation) was the first foreign state to seek out international relations with the United States government.
There is also the Virginia Declaration of Religious Toleration in which Thomas Jefferson wrote, “in proof that they meant to comprehend within the mantle of its protection the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo and infidel of every denomination.” Jefferson even participated in a Muslim ceremony Iftar, the evening meal during Ramadan, with the ambassador from Tunis in 1809.
Clearly, our Founders were not the anti-Muslim hardliners of today’s American right. My opponents will retort that this time is different as we were attacked on our own shores by these Muslims. Indeed, Islam is a religion that has grown exponentially since 1776 and has become one of the largest religions in the world. However, terrorist bombings are by no means the norm of Islamic life, just as abortion bombings are not the norm of Christian life.
For one thing, I would point out no one advocating these views has probably examined University of Chicago professor Robert Pape’s book “Dying to Win,” in which he exhaustively collects data on suicide bombers and their motivations.
Of particular interest in his work is the question of which group came out of top in numbers of suicide bombings. Hamas? Perhaps another Islamic terrorist group? No, the answer is the secular Marxist-based Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. According to Pape, the major issue in almost all suicide bombings is a drive to get other countries to stop occupying some stretch of land. Religion plays a role as well, though it is nowhere near as large as many believe it to be.
The big problems come when in addition to having a different religious view, there is a force that occupies another’s land. This is not to say that destruction of property via bombing is not bad – it certainly is. But it is sad that instead of working towards a resolution, the interested parties bunker behind slogans like “They hate us for our freedom.” Then they move further away from rational discussion, which leads to some of the worst acts in modern history.
Now one will ask, “Isn’t the tolerant and pacific American left doing their best to bring reason into this conversation?”
The short answer is no. For instance, Senate majority leader Harry Reid thinks the center in New York should be built elsewhere. President Barack Obama has given some words of support for the First Amendment, however he quickly said he wasn’t commenting on the wisdom of the cultural center.
(I suppose it is similar to his position on habeus corpus two years into his presidency and the fact that Guantanamo is still open.)
The situation is further emboldened by those on the right who continue to label the cultural center a mosque, for that is not what it is.
It is predominantly a cultural center that also serves to house overflow from the mosque near the current site where Imam Feisal is the spiritual leader.
This issue has been blown out of proportion by our media and many who seek to demagogue this issue for their own political gain.
In fact, here in Starkville we have an Islamic cultural center, so the concept isn’t as alien as many would like us to think.
Just to add a broader context there are also Shinto shrines located near the site of Pearl Harbor, but it seems that those sites are just not useful to political grandstanding, that is if we wish to follow this absurd logical reasoning to its natural conclusion.
The sophistry coming from both the left and the right on this issue is truly disheartening. But, if we inform ourselves more and seek out answers independently and open dialogue with those on all sides we can arrive very far from what we thought we knew.
I will end by giving my simple opinion on this matter. I think it is an issue of private property, and the owners of this property (i.e. the cultural center) should do with it as they please, and I think it would be hypocritical especially of today’s conservatives to say different. I can’t think of a more American solution.
Alex Habighorst is a junior majoring in political science. He can be contacted at [email protected].