A deviation

Over the short history of this blog, I've rarely dealt with any issues of social importance.  This is probably a result of my general "cuss. care?  cuss." attitude towards arguments that really cannot be won.  Usually, The Stupids prevail because they're louder and more persistent, and the Critical Thinkers get bored and move on.  It's not the proverbial "Good men do nothing" scenario; good men try, I think, and get frustrated by the endless red tape and Controversy in accomplishing the Good they set out to do, and even in success their faith in concepts like The World and Moral Order is mitigated by the bastardization and/or dilution of their initial intent.  The Point is lost, and the path to The Result becomes so discombobulated that Progress can hardly be discerned from Regress.

So we come to the "Ground Zero Mosque" and "Ground Zero" itself, and I find myself compelled to join the fracas.

The arguments have been made, and I'm quite sure there is a Right and a Wrong here, so I'm not going to belabor too much the intricacies of the plot.  Here are the facts, as I see them, of the "mosque" that is proposed on Park Place in downtown Manhattan:

1)  It is not, actually, a mosque.  It is purported to be a "cultural center" that will have something of a religious worship chapel on an upper floor.  It is clearly not Christian, however, and there may in fact be people who speak Arabic that go there.  I have not personally reviewed the plans, but there may or may not also be an Al-Qaeda training floor in the sub-basement, along with the auditorium, theater, performing arts center, fitness center, swimming pool, basketball court, childcare area, bookstore, culinary school, art studio, food court, and September 11th memorial found throughout the building.

2) It is not, actually, at Ground Zero.  Is is a couple blocks away from what is a 10 square block site.  My apartment on 102nd street is a couple blocks away when appropriately zoomed on Google Maps, and is probably more dangerous.  Maybe we should move Harlem.  In any case, its proximity seems to "disrespect" the memory of the brave souls who died when the Nation of Islam attacked.

3) It may or may not be funded by "terrorists," whatever those are.  Similarly, Fox News, BP, and the New Jersey Nets may or may not be funded by terrorists.

This is about all I know about it, other than that a whole bunch of people seem to be really upset about it and how it "disrespects" the memory of those lost in 2001.  It's not all I have to say about it, though.  Here is what I think about those three facts:

1) It is not illegal or immoral or even in bad taste to build a mosque.  It is a protected right.  This isn't even a mosque, but if it were, the letter and spirit of the law suggests that anyone who wants to front the cash should be able to do what they want (pending Zoning, DOB, and Landmarks Planning Commission approval, of course.  Don't get me started.)

2) Ground Zero is a place where careful bureaucracy has resulted in the (ongoing) construction of a monolithic monstrosity that IS an affront to the memories of those killed that day.  As far as I'm concerned, put the damn cultural center on the top floor of the Fear Tower.  Instead, we're suggesting the Muslims ought to sit in the back of the bus, drink from the Arab fountain, repurpose the Negro lunch counter and move their culture to Jersey, since it would make us all feel better if they did.

Here's the thing about respect: it is, and always has been, a two-way street.  Should we deny Islam its right to exist, and subsequently deny its believers their rights to exist as citizens of this country and the World, then it is both a natural and perhaps necessary reaction for Islam to wish us ill.  The attitude of mutual disrespect will not end well for anyone.   And the greatest disrespect shown will be to the people who died on 9/11 if this cultural center is quashed, because its symbolic absence will affirm that in their death, so died America, now the land of the mostly-free, home of the xenophobic, insecurely afraid.

3) I'm just about tired of this whole "terrorist" thing.  Not all Muslims are terrorists, and not all terrorists are Muslims.  I'd guess very few are in either case.  I hope someday we are reminded and shamed of this sad instance in New York City history in which latent popular bigotry was allowed to masquerade as political discourse.  If anyone remembers, a couple of white guys blew up a building in OK City a few years back.  And a bunch of white and black and purple Americans are blowing up buildings all over the world right now under the guise of a war on "terrorists."  You and I are "funding" that for sure.

We are nearly ten years removed from the atrocities of 9/11.  We are NOT safer.  We in fact are significantly more vulnerable to the vitriol of others not like us because of our government's actions in the interim.  Not only is this result undesirable, but it was predictable and inevitable.  We may get Mayor Bloomberg and President Obama speaking out in support of this cultural center's right to exist, but their pleas fall upon deaf ears and dumb expressions, as they contradict the atmosphere that they themselves have cultivated for the past nine years.  One may observe that we are losing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but an equally sinister problem is the isolationist culture we have nurtured at home.  One wonders if the paranoid suspicion of all that is unfamiliar will eventually result in some sort of implosion as we look left and right and back left again and again until finally we collapse from exhaustion.

I know I'm tired. This is exhausting.  I had intended to write about the stupid building that is being built at Ground Zero, One World Trade Center, the ironically-nicknamed Freedom Tower.  That's going to have to wait until tomorrow. My frustration with the World as it Is, and an ongoing debate over a question with an answer so obvious, leaves me deep in the Pit of Despair.   I push on, though, through training and writing, with just a bit of Hope: that tomorrow, everyone will get It, and we can all concentrate on Moving Forward, and avoid falling Back.

In the meanwhile, I happened across a quote from the occasionally sage George Will which I think will set my tone for the week:

"The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised."

I hope to be surprised pleasantly one of these days.