Why we should build the proposed Islamic center in Lower
Manhattan
By William Saletan
August 16, 2010, at 8:28 AM ET
http://www.slate.com/id/2264046/
Are we at war with Islam?
That's the central question now in the debate over the
proposed Islamic center near Ground Zero. On Friday,
President Obama entered the debate, defending the right of
Muslim-Americans to worship where they choose. He was then
chastised by Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, House Minority
Leader John Boehner, and other Republican leaders. Yes, they
conceded, the project's sponsors can legally build it at the
planned site, two blocks from Ground Zero. But that isn't
the issue. The issue, they argue, is propriety. As Palin
puts it: "We all know that they have the right to do it, but
should they?"
Confronted by that question on Saturday, Obama ducked it. "I
was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of
making a decision to put a mosque there," he said. "I was
commenting very specifically on the right that people have."
So let's answer the question. Should the planners of the
Islamic center move it somewhere else? Consider the
arguments for doing so.
1. The project is a statement of Islamic conquest. This is
Gingrich's position. "The ground zero mosque is a political
statement of radical islamist triumph," he tweeted Friday in
response to Obama's speech. Debra Burlingame, the co-
founder of 9/11 Families for a Safe and Strong America,
issued a similar statement: "Building a 15-story mosque at
Ground Zero is a deliberately provocative act."
These are flat-out lies. The project isn't a "15-story
mosque." It's a community center with a library, gym,
auditorium, and restaurant. Yes, it will include a mosque.
It will also host events to facilitate "multifaith
dialogue." It isn't at Ground Zero -- it's two blocks away,
in what used to be a Burlington Coat Factory.
Deliberately provocative? Radical triumph? Hogwash. Go watch
Faisal Abdul Rauf, the imam behind the project, as he
outlines the project to a local community board: "It will
establish this community as the place where the moderate
Muslim voice condemns terrorism and works for new, peaceful,
and harmonious relationships with all New Yorkers." Or
listen to Daisy Khan, the imam's wife and executive
director, as she explains to radio host Brian Lehrer why
they're planning to build the project near Ground Zero:
Imam Faisal has been leading a congregation for the last
27 years in Tribeca, really only 10 blocks from Ground
Zero. . We, the members of the Muslim community, want to
be part of the rebuilding process. And we feel a special
obligation. And it's also our way of giving back to this
great city that has given us so much. So we're coming at
it from the point of view of wanting to contribute to
our society and to take that tragedy of 9/11 and turn it
into something very peaceful and hopeful for all of us.
2. Any mosque near Ground Zero is offensive. Responding
yesterday to Obama's speech, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas,
said, "[I]t's unwise . to build a mosque at the site where
3,000 Americans lost their lives as a result of a terrorist
attack."
I'm sorry, Senator: Did you say it's unwise to build a
mosque near the site of a terrorist attack?
Others have put the equation more subtly. Rep. Peter King,
R- N.Y., says, "It is insensitive and uncaring for the
Muslim community to build a mosque in the shadow of ground
zero." Marco Rubio, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate
in Florida, says, "It is divisive and disrespectful to build
a mosque next to the site where 3,000 innocent people were
murdered at the hands of Islamic extremism." All these
objections rest on the premise that the 9/11 hijackers, by
committing mass murder in the name of Islam, made Islam a
religion of mass murder. To accept this equation is to give
them the power to define the religion of 1 billion people.
That -- not the rise of pro-American Islamic pluralism -- is
the conquest the masterminds of 9/11 sought. Don't let them
have it.
3. Ground Zero is sacred. Palin, rebutting Obama, asks why
the project's sponsors are "so set on building a mosque
steps from what you have described, in agreement with me, as
'hallowed ground.' " Her question assumes that the presence
of a mosque would defile the sanctity of the site. In other
words, unlike Obama, she believes in the kind of sanctity
that excludes Islam. That's exactly the kind of sectarian
thinking al-Qaida wants to attribute to the United States
and cultivate among Muslims.
4. By persisting in the face of opposition, the project's
sponsors prove their hostility. King says the project's
planners are "abusing" their rights by "needlessly
offending" the 9/11 families. Burlingame says, "No one who
has lived this history and felt the sting of our country's
loss that day can truly believe that putting our families
through more wrenching heartache can be an act of peace."
Palin asks: "If those who wish to build this Ground Zero
mosque are sincerely interested in encouraging positive
'cross-cultural engagement' and dialogue to show a moderate
and tolerant face of Islam, then why haven't they recognized
that the decision to build a mosque at this particular
location is doing just the opposite?"
Note the sleight of hand. First, opponents stirred up
discomfort about the project by claiming that its sponsors
were radicals and that any mosque near Ground Zero was
inherently inappropriate. These claims, as explained above,
are false. But that no longer matters. What matters is that
people now feel discomfort about the project, and for that
reason alone, it should be relocated. The same argument
could be made against anything that upsets a local majority:
same-sex marriage, Jews in restricted neighborhoods,
Christians in Mecca, blacks sitting in the front of the bus.
If you can't justify your discomfort, it merits no respect.
5. Terrorists will see the mosque as a triumph. This
objection, a Gingrich favorite, has now been taken up by
Burlingame. She says of the mosque:
Those who continue to target and kill American civilians
and U.S. troops will see it as a symbol of their
historic progress at the site of their most bloody
victory. Demolishing a building that was damaged by
wreckage from one of the hijacked planes in order to
build a mosque and Islamic Center will further energize
those who regard it as a ratification of their violent
and divinely ordered mission: the spread of shariah law.
This is another derivative and dangerous argument. On this
view, the nature of the Islamic center and the motives of
its sponsors don't matter. Nor do the perceptions of
ordinary Muslims around the world. What matters is al-
Qaida's perception. If al-Qaida thinks it's a statement of
conquest, we should oppose it. In this way, we make
ourselves al-Qaida's slaves.
In short, the arguments against building the project at its
planned site are wrong, fallacious, and self-destructive.
Obama made the essential point in his speech on Friday:
Let us also remember who we're fighting against, and
what we're fighting for. Our enemies respect no
religious freedom. Al-Qaida's cause is not Islam -- it's
a gross distortion of Islam. These are not religious
leaders -- they're terrorists who murder innocent men
and women and children. In fact, al-Qaida has killed
more Muslims than people of any other religion -- and
that list of victims includes innocent Muslims who were
killed on 9/11.
That's what we must never forget about 9/11. This was never
a war between us and the Muslim world. It's a war between us
and al-Qaida. The central battleground in this war isn't
Iraq, Afghanistan, or Lower Manhattan. It's Islam. That's
the ground al-Qaida is fighting for. It's the ground Imam
Rauf wants to take back. He wants to build an Islam that
loves America, embraces freedom, and preaches coexistence.
Let's help him.
[William Saletan is Slate's national correspondent and
author of Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion
War.]
