New York Mosque Opponents Will Spur Islamic Radicalization
"The
fact that prayers are offered daily at the Pentagon, another September 11
target, or that dozens of Muslims also died when the Twin Towers were destroyed,
does nothing to persuade the bigots. … To withdraw the project because of its
proximity to Ground Zero is tantamount to holding every Muslim culpable for the
September 11 attacks. Let us fight this rightwing stigmatization."
Feisal Abdul Rauf, executive director of the Cordoba Initiative, has traveled the world to talk to moderate Muslims on behalf of the U.S. State Department. He now finds himself ensconsed in a fierce battle to prevent his initiative from being completed.
Projected through the "clash-of-civilization"
prism, "Muslims" and "the West" appear as two homogeneous, intellectually
uniform clusters. We are made to believe, particularly by mainstream media, that
the two act and react in unison. Hence, the burka is a "Muslim" issue.
Enlightenment, however, is presented as a monopoly of "the West." But
the other group, that not belonging to "the West," more or less
reduces this enlightenment to "vulgarity," and "vulgarity" can
be effectively countered only by the burka.
The fact is that, as such, neither
"the West" nor "Muslims" exist. Culture and history, the
class to which an individual belongs to, that person's education and political
environment - or lack thereof - are factors that shape varying ideological
currents and germinate differing political streams among both "Muslims"
and those in "the West;" and both are divided along ideological and
political lines.
After a year of hard work, the
dispute over "the mosque at Ground Zero" was carefully nurtured by
the American rightwing. The proposed building, Cordoba House, will be at least
two blocks from Ground Zero. To be built at a cost of $100 million, the nine-story
building will have a spa, auditorium, swimming pool, basketball court, classrooms,
an exhibition gallery - and a mosque.
It was conspiracy-mongering and
violently anti-Muslim blogger Pamela Geller, the
rightwing New York Post and the xenophobic Tea Party which, together, transported
the proposed Park 51 Project from Lower Manhattan to the former site of the World
Trade Center.
When Sarah Palin's infamous
tweet urging "peaceful" Muslims to "repudiate" the mosque
gained currency, and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani shouted "desecration,"
the multi-purpose project was reduced to a "mosque" built for "mischief"
and provocation. The fact that prayers are offered daily at the Pentagon, another
September 11 target, or that dozens of Muslims also died when the Twin Towers
were destroyed, does nothing to persuade the bigots gathered at Ground Zero to
oppose the project.
Those opposing the project
tell us: "Go and build churches in Saudi Arabia." But one absurdity
is certainly no justification for another. Bans on things like burkas and
minarets in Switzerland are justified in the name of European values threatened
by an alien religion and culture - precisely the same reasoning invoked by the religious
establishment in Saudi Arabia to prevent the building of churches there.
We must respect election
results, even when a majority of ballot papers favor Hamas in Palestine or FIS
in Algeria. If the Jylland Posten can run racist kitsch in the name of
free expression, a Muslim woman's right to her dress of choice must also be
respected.
Ironically, the attitude
adopted by liberals resisting the Ground Zero mosque is contrary to liberalism.
On the other hand, those liberals who are "for the mosque" have gone
in another extremist direction. It seems that in defending women's right to
wear burka, they have begun to actually advocate the burka. In their enthusiasm
for supporting the right of the Manhattan mosque to be built, they are busy
glorifying certain clerics and presenting the mosque as a sort of a Hide Park
absolutely vital for interfaith harmony. In many instances, both wings have
gone quite hysterical.
Building a mosque in
Manhattan or any other place is a basic right of Muslims, as long as the
building plan for it abides by the law. A mosque should be allowed to go up
even if it's a block from Ground Zero, not two, as is the case of the proposed
Cordoba House. To withdraw the project because of its proximity to Ground Zero
is tantamount to holding every Muslim culpable for the September 11 attacks. Let
us fight this rightwing stigmatization.
Abandonment of the project
will not merely hand the Tea Party a victory - it will be a gift to al-Qaeda. To
protect religious minorities (migrant Muslims in the West, non-Muslims in the
Muslim world) is to protect the working classes: their unions, parties, movements
and campaigns. At the same time, in our bid to defend minorities, we cannot
allow ourselves to play into the hands of the clergy.
When immigrant imams build
mosques, whether of the Wahhabi
or Sufi persuasion, they build
them in a bid to control the populations of the Muslim Diaspora in the West. Meanwhile,
the neo-liberal nations are assisting these imams by dismantling their social
welfare systems.
In Sweden, for instance, facilities
offering creative outlets (libraries, gym, theatres, youth clubs) are rapidly
disappearing. Instead of migrant populations being integrated into the economic,
political and cultural life of the country, "community leaders" are
instead appeased [by closing off these centers]. So with mosques fast becoming
the only available "community centers", opportunist imams are
emerging as "community leaders." The "clash of civilization"
is therefore only reinforced when imams become some of the few key community representatives.
