The 9/11 mosque: A republican's perfect nightmare (From Asian Image)

The 9/11 mosque: A republican's perfect nightmare

7:46pm Thursday 19th August 2010 in

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President Obama has recently come out in support of the Cordoba House project, an Islamic community centre to be built a mere two blocks from Ground Zero, the site of 9/11, Islam's darkest hour, a nightmare still vivid in the memories of Americans.

The harmless project has, as you might expect, been vociferously opposed, mainly by loud, angry, baboon-like right-wing Fox News personalities who clamour to condemn any provocation of anything which hasn't got the star-spangled banner on it. A more temperate critic of Cordoba House might postulate that, while of course there is nothing wrong with the creation of an Islamic community centre, building it a stone's throw away from the site of the deadliest example of Islamic terrorism is a tad distasteful. My response: it shouldn't be. Subscribing to this view insinuates that all Muslims are, if not directly responsible for, supportive of what happened on 9/11. It should be seen as an outstretched hand, a shake-and-make-up type thing, a restorative plaster to stick over the wound, an opportunity to show Muslims nationwide that America isn't embittered. No hard feelings.

But, of course, there are hard feelings. Rock-solid feelings. America is embittered. Very. Angry protests, criticism abound. America is dangerously close to totally alienating its small but increasingly aggravated Muslim minority. Fort Hood is testament to this. One of the most outspoken, or at least the most famous, and therefore the most important, critic of Cordoba House has come in the gun-toting, moose-slaying manifestation of Sarah Palin, vice presidential nominee in 2008, and the least intelligent woman in the world to sport glasses. She shrills her ugly, eye-narrowing views on homosexuals and immigrants at whoever might listen like a shrieking harpy, a bible-bashing demagogue, whose detrimental bumper-sticker political populism has called to arms the rednecks of America, puffing up the bottom end of society, the impoverished whites, the lowly “trailer trash”, the old woman who holds in disfavour “those Mexicans on my street”, the Cletuses and Billy Bobs, rattling the cages of the backward-thinking, uneducated, bigoted and the, frankly, un-American.

Americans need to tread carefully. Subjugating and demonising Muslims, homogenising them as a great big cohort of exploding holy warriors, America is in danger of inciting serious tension. At present, 33% of Americans believe all Muslims should be barred from running for President. America needs to get along with its Muslims. 'Muslim' is treated as a dirty word in America, a grimacing negative quality – Obama was slandered and bizarrely accused of being a Muslim during the presidential race of 2008, and instead of being written off as a pointless, self-destructive xenophobic slur, this genuinely lost Obama support and disillusioned many potential voters, who wouldn't dream of voting in someone of Muslim descent. Heavens, no! He'd start converting churches into mosques and put a burqa on Lady Liberty. Assimilation and friendliness is America's best bet.

Scandal, horror, calamity. What an affront to America! But the Republicans are presumably loving this, simply milking that perilously swollen udder of the big, fat cow of nationalist sentiments, staring at this story almost with arm-pinching disbelief. It permits them to harp on about 9/11 like dodgy CDs, something which they never think twice about doing, and allows them to spin the image of Muslims as morbidly insensitive, disloyal anti-Americans, while simultaneously slagging off Obama and making him look unpatriotic. They can weave up evocative illusions of minarets looming out of the dusty aftermath of 9/11, built on the remains of 3,000 fallen heroes, like a great salute, a rallying gesticulation of victory to Muslims nationwide. An irksome excuse to flout their hateful lack of intelligence and jingoistic paranoia.

A protest was staged near the Cordoba House site, which I imagine was like a get-together of all the erstwhile guests on the 'Jerry Springer Show', a gaping vacuum of any thought, a violent backlash from reason. An angry female protester stood in front of the proposed site, standing not just for herself but for a contemptibly sizeable portion of Americans, with a mixture of inconsolable rage and teary nationalism, brandishing the slogan “Islam builds mosques on the sites of its conquests and victories”. Certain Americans have this elaborate view of Cordoba House as a monument commemorating some sort of victory, a triumph. Americans should dissent from this view.

And this is the most important point: 9/11 damaged Islam far, far more than it damaged America. The smoke clears away, and America brings in bulldozers to tidy up the wreckage. Islam's image and reputation has irrefutably been damaged, and damaged badly, punched straight through; when confronted by the irate, Muslims have to bear the brunt of the actions of a handful of self-justifying, un-Islamic maniacs, who claim to represent their religion but absolutely, irrefutably do not.

And one bright spark came up with, “You can build a mosque at Ground Zero, when we can build a synagogue at Mecca” - which is a statement so vacuous and hollow, they might as well just say “blaaahabblalahlah”. Firstly, the mosque isn't being built at Ground Zero. Secondly, I don't quite understand the links drawn up between Mecca, the core city and centre of Islam, with Ground Zero, a big crater carved out by an act of terrorism. That might make sense if Ground Zero and Judaism were linked, but they aren't. Americans who also happen to be Muslims have every right to build this centre, and this right should not be jeopardised by the distant laws of an appalling absolute monarchy, which happens to be Muslim. This shows, if anything, that America is sinking to the levels of Saudi-style intolerance.

Islam is a missionary religion (like, I hasten to add, Christianity) in that it is not familiar and insular like Judaism, like one big happy family; it seeks to convert and expand and proliferate. Perhaps this is what, although any suspicions are totally unfounded, intimidates people? With groups dedicated to the prevention of America's “Islamization”, there are still people sitting around, scratching their heads, wondering why Muslims are so disaffected. Public events such as “Burn a Koran Day” at a church in Florida, far from isolated sparks of xenophobia, just go to show the innate racism which still festers in the nooks and crannies, in the country with a black President, who looks more and more like an empty gesture, a token of non-existent forwardness. A statue without its plinth. I would argue that America has longer way to go than it might think.

Americans need to wake up and smell the roses. Muslims aren't all part of a subversive conspiracy to undermine Christianity in America, uniting secretly, forming pacts behind the locked doors of mosques, plotting the creeping conquest and downfall of the country which was just too damn naïve.

Ramadan, the holy lunar month of Islam under way currently, is a time for Muslims to reflect. Unquestionably, both sides should be doing some reflecting.