Watching the twin towers
crumble on live television
was the start
of my deep bond with America
that will endure the hate
Friday 9 September 2011
14.42 BST
Guardian.co.uk
Mona Eltahawy
This article was published on guardian.co.uk
at 14.42 BST on Friday 9 September 2011
For most of my life, the US was never anything more than
vacation memories. My family visited almost 30 years ago for a vacation that
marked the end of our years of living in the UK and which came just before we
moved to Saudi Arabia.
New York City dazzled, of course, and a road trip with an uncle and his family
from Wyoming through the Rockies to California where Mickey Mouse greeted us in
Disneyland, was a lesson in the sheer vastness that is the United States.
But then I fell in love with an American and I flew to NYC to meet him for the
millennium celebrations and even though we fought and I gave him back his
engagement ring, I agreed to marry him and I did what I vowed I'd never do: I
left my job and my home for a man.
The year after I moved to be with him in Seattle, early one Tuesday, his mother
called us from her home at the other end of the country – three time zones away
in Florida – urging us to turn on the television because something terrible was
happening in New York. I rushed to awaken my brother and his wife who were
visiting us.
That morning of 11 September 2001 as we watched the twin towers crumble on live
television, America and I would develop a bond that has proven deeper and more
enduring – for better or worse, through sickness and health – than the one I had
with my now ex-husband.
"If this is Muslims, they're going to round us up," I told him. He took the day
off work and we didn't leave the apartment for two days, worried that my
sister-in-law would be attacked for her headscarf. A drunk unsuccessfully tried
to set our local mosque on fire; the neighbourhood stood guard outside the
mosque for weeks afterwards holding signs that read "Muslims are Americans".
"What's it like to f**k a terrorist?" a group of young men asked the white
American husband of a Pakistani-American woman I knew.
I left my husband a year after 9/11. Not because he was an American and I an
Egyptian, nothing to do with culture or religion; nothing to do with 9/11. We
brought out the worst in each other. But before we separated we visited NYC one
more time together for a friend's engagement and we went to pay our respects at
the site of the attacks. I had no words. Just tears and prayers as we took in
the gaping hole, the makeshift shrines of teddy bears and notes desperately
seeking the whereabouts of loved ones.
Ironically, he now lives in Asia and I've stayed in the US. I stayed to fight.
To say that's not my Islam. To yell Muslims weren't invented on 9/11. Those
planes crashing again and again into the towers were the first introduction to
Islam and Muslims for too many Americans but we – American Muslims – are sick
and tired of explaining. None of those men was an American Muslim and we're done
explaining and apologising. Enough.
I stayed to give my middle finger to Tea Partiers who tried to intimidate a
group of us in 2010 because we supported the right of an Islamic community
centre to build near the site of the attacks. They came to bully us and I
bullied them right back. I wanted them to know Muslims will not be intimidated
so think twice before you try to bully another one.
I became an American in April of this year, almost 11 years after I moved here.
I could've become naturalised earlier but I realised soon after I took the oath
and we watched a video of President Obama congratulating us that if it had been
President Bush I would've probably run out, screaming.
Despite an appearance by Bush at a mosque after 9/11 to show he didn't hold all
Muslims responsible, his administration proceeded to do exactly that: military
trials for civilians, secret prisons, the detention of hundreds of Muslim men
without charge, the torture and harsh interrogation of detainees and the
invasions of two Muslim-majority countries.
And the latest stain on the US civil liberties record: an Associated Press
expose in August on ways the CIA and the NYPD are combining forces to spy on
Muslims in New York City. The thought that someone could be following me to my
favourite book shops or night clubs is as pathetic and sinister as when the
Mubarak regime tapped my phone and had me followed when I lived in Egypt.
And I will continue to stay in the US for my nieces and nephews. I have chosen
not to have children. I am a happy aunt to two girls and two boys between the
ages of three and eight. They were the first Americans in our family and the
thought that anyone could question either their nationality or faith – or demand
they choose between the two – enrages me.
Over the past 10 years, American Muslims have fought not just the hate and
stereotypes and the profiling from those outside the community, we've also had
major fights within the Muslim community. As a friend described it, 9/11 pushed
many Muslims to "come out" as liberals or progressives. For too long, huge,
conservative national organisations claimed to speak for all of us but there is
a much greater diversity of American Muslim voices now and that benefits
everyone. Conservative does not equal authentic.
People think I'm Brazilian, Dominican, Puerto Rican, anything but Muslim because
many people equate a Muslim woman with the wearing of a headscarf. So like
someone who's gay who might make sure to tell you soon after you meet, I try to
include within the first three sentences of a new meeting that I'm a Muslim.
Before 9/11, some Muslims lived quiet, uneventful suburban lives; the dentists
and the accountants and the attorneys. 9/11 robbed them of that boring
existence. But in struggling to become boring again, American Muslims have over
the past 10 years made our community here the most vibrant of any Muslim
community in the world, Tea Party and Bush legacy be damned!
We're your friends, lovers and spouses, America. We're your comedians, taxi
drivers, chefs, politicians and singers. And we're your doctors, like my brother
and his wife who were visiting me from the midwest in Seattle 10 years ago.
My brother, a cardiologist, was visited by special agents from the FBI in
November 2001 who asked him if he knew anyone who celebrated the attacks. His
wife is an obstetrician/gynaecologist.
One day she and I were watching one of those medical dramas when she told me an
anecdote that neatly sums it all up: "I was delivering a baby the other day and
the father was watching via Skype cam. He was a soldier in Afghanistan. And I
thought, here I am: a Muslim doctor in a headscarf delivering a baby whose
father is an American soldier in Afghanistan, a Muslim country."
Let's draw the curtain on 9/11 anniversaries after this 10th one. Every year on
11 September you can taste the grief in NYC. The wound will never heal if every
year we scratch the scar off and open the way to hate and prejudice.
Some of the earliest Muslims came to the US across the Atlantic on slave ships
from west Africa. Not far from where I live in Harlem, there's a west African
community complete with a mosque, restaurants and French-speaking people. 9/11
changed everything and 9/11 changed nothing at all. America – I'm not going
anywhere.
September 18, 2010
The New York Times
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Many Americans have suggested that more moderate Muslims should stand up to
extremists, speak out for tolerance, and apologize for sins committed by their
brethren.
That’s reasonable advice, and as a moderate myself, I’m going to take it.
(Throat clearing.) I hereby apologize to Muslims for the wave of bigotry and
simple nuttiness that has lately been directed at you. The venom on the
airwaves, equating Muslims with terrorists, should embarrass us more than you.
Muslims are one of the last minorities in the United States that it is still
possible to demean openly, and I apologize for the slurs.
I’m inspired by another journalistic apology. The Portland Press Herald in Maine
published an innocuous front-page article and photo a week ago about 3,000 local
Muslims praying together to mark the end of Ramadan. Readers were upset, because
publication coincided with the ninth anniversary of 9/11, and they deluged the
paper with protests.
So the newspaper published a groveling front-page apology for being too
respectful of Muslims. “We sincerely apologize,” wrote the editor and publisher,
Richard Connor, and he added: “we erred by at least not offering balance to the
story and its prominent position on the front page.” As a blog by James
Poniewozik of Time paraphrased it: “Sorry for Portraying Muslims as Human.”
I called Mr. Connor, and he seems like a nice guy. Surely his front page isn’t
reserved for stories about Bad Muslims, with articles about Good Muslims going
inside. Must coverage of law-abiding Muslims be “balanced” by a discussion of
Muslim terrorists?
Ah, balance — who can be against that? But should reporting of Pope Benedict’s
trip to Britain be “balanced” by a discussion of Catholic terrorists in Ireland?
And what about journalism itself?
I interrupt this discussion of peaceful journalism in Maine to provide some
“balance.” Journalists can also be terrorists, murderers and rapists. For
example, radio journalists in Rwanda promoted genocide.
I apologize to Muslims for another reason. This isn’t about them, but about us.
I want to defend Muslims from intolerance, but I also want to defend America
against extremists engineering a spasm of religious hatred.
Granted, the reason for the nastiness isn’t hard to understand. Extremist
Muslims have led to fear and repugnance toward Islam as a whole. Threats by
Muslim crazies just in the last few days forced a Seattle cartoonist, Molly
Norris, to go into hiding after she drew a cartoon about Muhammad that went
viral.
And then there’s 9/11. When I recently compared today’s prejudice toward Muslims
to the historical bigotry toward Catholics, Mormons, Jews and Asian-Americans,
many readers protested that it was a false parallel. As one, Carla, put it on my
blog: “Catholics and Jews did not come here and kill thousands of people.”
That’s true, but Japanese did attack Pearl Harbor and in the end killed far more
Americans than Al Qaeda ever did. Consumed by our fears, we lumped together
anyone of Japanese ancestry and rounded them up in internment camps. The threat
was real, but so were the hysteria and the overreaction.
Radicals tend to empower radicals, creating a gulf of mutual misunderstanding
and anger. Many Americans believe that Osama bin Laden is representative of
Muslims, and many Afghans believe that the Rev. Terry Jones (who talked about
burning Korans) is representative of Christians.
Many Americans honestly believe that Muslims are prone to violence, but humans
are too complicated and diverse to lump into groups that we form invidious
conclusions about. We’ve mostly learned that about blacks, Jews and other groups
that suffered historic discrimination, but it’s still O.K. to make sweeping
statements about “Muslims” as an undifferentiated mass.
In my travels, I’ve seen some of the worst of Islam: theocratic mullahs
oppressing people in Iran; girls kept out of school in Afghanistan in the name
of religion; girls subjected to genital mutilation in Africa in the name of
Islam; warlords in Yemen and Sudan who wield AK-47s and claim to be doing God’s
bidding.
But I’ve also seen the exact opposite: Muslim aid workers in Afghanistan who
risk their lives to educate girls; a Pakistani imam who shelters rape victims;
Muslim leaders who campaign against female genital mutilation and note that it
is not really an Islamic practice; Pakistani Muslims who stand up for oppressed
Christians and Hindus; and above all, the innumerable Muslim aid workers in
Congo, Darfur, Bangladesh and so many other parts of the world who are inspired
by the Koran to risk their lives to help others. Those Muslims have helped keep
me alive, and they set a standard of compassion, peacefulness and altruism that
we should all emulate.
I’m sickened when I hear such gentle souls lumped in with Qaeda terrorists, and
when I hear the faith they hold sacred excoriated and mocked. To them and to
others smeared, I apologize.
I invite you to comment on this column on my blog, On the Ground. Please also
join me on Facebook, watch my YouTube videos videos and follow me on Twitter.
I have been appalled by some of the angry rhetoric directed at Muslims in recent
weeks. American Muslims might take comfort in the knowledge that, fair or not,
they’re the flavor of the month. Soon enough, the right will find a new target
for its vitriol. It may be homosexuals, illegal immigrants or pro-choice
advocates. This is all part of the American experience.
I’m a Christian, but I can’t reasonably be held accountable every time someone
like the Internet evangelist Bill Keller claims to speak on behalf of
Christianity (rest assured, he doesn’t). Similarly, I don’t hold all Muslims
accountable for the actions of a few radical terrorists.
It isn’t always a smooth ride navigating the terrain of this wonderful but
flawed nation of ours, but it is eminently doable. And worth the effort.
Will American Muslims ever belong? I believe that they already do.
Scott Gibbs
Raleigh, N.C., Sept. 7, 2010
•
To the Editor:
The current ambivalence toward Muslims is fueled by xenophobic tendencies that
arise in times of economic and political turmoil. As an American Muslim, I am
not afraid of extremists who thrive on hatred of the other. No amount of
threatened book burnings can destroy the faith of a people.
The current hysteria reflects how much work needs to be done by Muslims to prove
that we really do belong.
Imran Contractor
Valley Stream, N.Y., Sept. 6, 2010
•
To the Editor:
Your article about the fears of Muslim immigrants reminded me of an encounter
with a Muslim student at the Chicago university where I teach. This young woman,
a headscarf framing her beautiful face, wore a pin that said, “I am a Muslim.” I
asked her if she had a spare pin and, without asking my religion, she took off
her own and gave it to me. I wore it all day and received only positive
reactions from students and staff members whom I encountered.
It occurred to me that non-Muslim women might like to wear headscarves in
solidarity with our Muslim sisters. I, for one, would be delighted to take part
— especially if someone would teach me the artistry needed to tie them. This
might be one way to show that we’re all in this together.
Gail Dreyfuss
Chicago, Sept. 6, 2010
•
To the Editor:
It was interesting to read “American Muslims Ask, Will We Ever Belong?” in
juxtaposition with the insightful column by Nicholas D. Kristof the previous day
(“America’s History of Fear,” Sept. 5).
It took generations for the Jews, Irish, Germans, Italians, Chinese and other
immigrants to find acceptance in America, facing down and overcoming unwarranted
bigotry. Muslims in America have the great advantage of recent
anti-discrimination laws to ease their way into American society.
It might help if moderate Muslims were a stronger voice against religious
intolerance and the poor treatment of women in Muslim countries.
Lawrence Deutsch
Sarasota, Fla., Sept. 6, 2010
•
To the Editor:
I am concerned by the opposition to the proposed Islamic community center near
the World Trade Center site. The rhetoric opposes religious diversity and
freedom, fundamental tenets of this country. A protester’s sign suggested that
building a mosque near ground zero “spits on the graves of 9/11 victims.”
As someone who lost a spouse in the North Tower, I know that she would be
disturbed by the suggestion. I, as do other family members, believe that the
presence of the Islamic center can promote dialogue among people. Religious and
cultural differences can be understood, maybe even accepted, or less feared, by
listening to others, not just our own shouts.
Yes, ground zero is a sacred place; my wife’s ashes are in that ground. But to
deny the opportunity to worship lawfully near there is denying what is most
sacred for all Americans: freedom.
September 11, 2010
The New York Times
By DAMIEN CAVE
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Terry Jones, the controversial pastor, said on Saturday
that neither he nor his church would follow through on plans to burn copies of
the Koran. In an appearance on NBC’s “Today” show, Mr. Jones said repeatedly and
emphatically that the event, originally scheduled to coincide with the
anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, was canceled and would not take
place at any time.
“We feel that God is telling us to stop,” he said.
Mr. Jones arrived in New York Friday night, after slipping out of his church
here without talking to reporters. He said that he was going to New York hoping
to speak with Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, leader of the proposed Islamic center in
Lower Manhattan, two blocks from Ground Zero. But Mr. Jones acknowledged that no
meeting was scheduled.
He said in his television interview that whether or not a meeting occurred, the
Koran burning would not take place. Without accepting any personal
responsibility for the international tension he created, Mr. Jones added that
the response to his now-canceled plans to burn copies of the Koran — including
riots in Afghanistan that left at least one person dead — helped him achieve his
goal of raising awareness about Islam.
“We feel that whenever we started this out, one of our reasons was to show, to
expose that there is an element of Islam is very dangerous and very radical,” he
said. “I feel that we have definitely accomplished that mission.”
September 10, 2010
The New York Times
By ROD NORDLAND
and SHARIFULLAH SAHAK
KABUL, Afghanistan — Numerous protests broke out in Afghanistan on Friday and
two of them turned violent in response to plans by a Florida pastor to burn
copies of the Koran, even after the pastor announced he had suspended those
plans.
In western Afghanistan, one civilian was killed and three were wounded by
gunshots at a protest outside a NATO base in Bala Buluk in Farah Province,
according to a hospital official there.
In northern Afghanistan, five Afghan protesters were wounded by gunshots, three
of them critically, when hundreds of men tried to force their way onto a NATO
reconstruction base in Faizabad, the capital of Badakshan Province, Afghan
officials said.
There were few details on what happened regarding the death in western
Afghanistan, except that it was the result of a protest over the threat to
desecrate the Koran.
Nasir Sultan Zada, the emergency room doctor on duty at the Central Public
Hospital in Bala Buluk, said four protesters were brought to the hospital
suffering from gunshot wounds, one already dead.
“We do not know who shot them,” Dr. Zada said. “Whether police shot them or
coalition forces, it’s not clear.”
He identified the dead man as Muhammad Daoud, 24, of Shewan, a village in Farah
Province.
In Faizabad, in addition to the five wounded protesters, four policemen were
wounded defending the NATO base from attack, officials said. Muhammad Amin, a
spokesman for the provincial governor, said earlier reports that a protester had
been shot to death there proved false.
Aga Noor Kentooz, the provincial police commander in Faizabad, also said that
although a mob tried to force its way into the base, no one was killed there. He
added that the wounded civilians were hit by shots fired from inside the base,
and the injured Afghan policemen were hurt by stones thrown by the crowd.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force disputed the reports.
“Reporting indicates no ISAF troops fired shots during any protests today,” said
Maj. Sunset Belinsky, a spokeswoman for the security force. “Initial reporting
does indicate Afghan forces fired shots, but I would have to defer” to the
Ministries of Interior and Defense for confirmation, she said. Officials from
those Afghan ministries could not be reached for comment.
In Faizabad, both Afghan officials’ accounts said the trouble came after several
thousand people left morning prayers for the Id al-Fitr holiday and attended a
peaceful demonstration against the plans for the Koran burning. Although the
Florida pastor, Terry Jones, said Thursday that he had canceled plans to stage
the event on Saturday, in commemoration of 9/11, his subsequent comments left it
unclear if he planned to go ahead or not.
After the demonstration in Faisabad broke up, groups of several hundred young
men, both on foot and piled into automobiles, stormed toward Airport Road and
the NATO reconstruction team base, which is staffed by German soldiers who are
part of the NATO-led international force.
After overpowering Afghan security forces on the outer wall of the compound, the
crowd, armed with sticks and throwing rocks, tried to storm the inner wall, the
Afghan officials said.
Commander Kentooz said “foreign security forces” inside the base then fired
warning shots, and when that failed to work they fired into the crowd. Mr. Amin
put the number of wounded at five civilians hit by gunfire, and four Afghan
security officers hurt by stones from the crowd.
The director of the Public Health Hospital in Faisabad, Abdul Mohmin Jalali,
said five civilians were admitted there with gunshot wounds; one was treated and
released, and three of the four who remained in the hospital were in critical
condition.
The police commander said protesters outside the German base were angered
because of reports that the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, had attended an
award ceremony in Berlin for the Danish cartoonist whose caricatures of the
Prophet Muhammad angered Muslims worldwide.
At the same ceremony, Mrs. Merkel denounced the plans of the Florida pastor to
desecrate the Koran.
Gen. David H. Petraeus, the NATO commander in Afghanistan, has warned that plans
for the Koran-burning put coalition troops at risk, and both President Obama and
Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates called on the Florida pastor not to go
ahead with his planned action.
Elsewhere in Afghanistan, there were numerous reports of demonstrations against
the Koran-burning in Kabul and the eastern city of Jalalabad, as well as in
Bamian, Kunar and Kapisa Provinces, but they were small and mostly peaceful.
President Hamid Karzai, in a message issued for the Id al-Fitr holiday marking
the end of the holy month of Ramadan, called on Mullah Muhammad Omar, the leader
of the Taliban insurgents fighting his government, to join the peace process.
Mullah Omar’s own Id message was uncompromising, boasting that American forces
were on the verge of leaving Afghanistan, and ignoring calls for peace talks.
The president’s remarks came after prayers for Id at the mosque on the
presidential palace grounds and a statement from his office said, “The President
once again called on Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban, and other angry Afghans,
to honor Id by joining the peace process and stop killing our brothers and
harming civilians.”
Mr. Karzai also criticized the plans to burn the Koran.
“Disrespect to this holy book will not harm this book because the Koran is in
every Muslim’s heart and mind,” he said. “I hope these people will stop this
disrespect.”
The demonstrations were lightly attended for the most part, although officials
in Kapisa Province said a crowd of 10,000 gathered there on Thursday. Television
footage, however, showed only a few hundred, and government officials there said
the protest was organized by people connected to the governor, who had earlier
been the target of an American-supported anticorruption investigation.
Mullah Omar’s remarks, in a message posted on jihadist Web sites Friday and
monitored in Kabul, were notably more confident than previous such messages from
the reclusive leader, who American military officials believe has been hiding in
Pakistan since the fall of his regime in 2001.
“The victory of our Islamic nation over the invading infidels is now imminent,”
Mullah Omar’s statement said. “All those who work in the stooge Kabul
administration should hear with open ears that the invading enemy is about to
leave Afghanistan.”
President Karzai’s message referred to his establishment of a High Peace
Council, asking the Taliban to cooperate with that organization. A peace jirga
in June agreed to create such a body for the purpose of negotiating with the
Taliban, but so far the decree creating the council has not been published and
its members, especially the chairman, have not yet been announced.
September 9, 2010
The New York Times
By DAMIEN CAVE
and ANNE BARNARD
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — First, Terry Jones, the Florida pastor who set the world
on edge with plans to burn copies of the Koran on Sept. 11, said Thursday that
he had canceled his demonstration because he had won a promise to move the
proposed Islamic center near ground zero to a new location.
Then, hours later, after learning that the project’s leaders in New York had
said that no such deal existed, Mr. Jones backed away from his promise and said
the bonfire of sacred texts was simply “suspended.”
The sudden back and forth suggested that the controversy — the pastor drew
pointed criticisms from President Obama and an array of leaders, officials and
celebrities in the United States and abroad — was not yet finished even after
multiple appearances before the news media on the lawn of his small church.
Mr. Jones seemed to be struggling with how to save face and hold on to the
spotlight he has attracted for an act that could make him a widely reviled
figure.
But Mr. Jones seemed to have been wrong or misled from the start.
Minutes after he announced the cancellation alongside Imam Muhammad Musri, a
well-known Islamic leader in Florida who had been trying to broker a deal, Mr.
Musri contradicted Mr. Jones’s account. He said that Muslim leaders of the
project in New York had not actually agreed to find a new location. “The imam
committed to meet with us but did not commit to moving the mosque yet,” Mr.
Musri said.
Even that may not be accurate. Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the leader of the New
York project, said in a statement that he had not spoken to Mr. Jones or Mr.
Musri, who said later that he received the pledge of a meeting from a staff
member in Mr. Abdul Rauf’s office.
The saga of Mr. Jones appeared likely to continue — with more pressure likely to
come as well. In just the past week, the list of his critics had come to include
Mr. Obama, the Vatican, Franklin Graham, Angelina Jolie, Sarah Palin, dozens of
members of Congress and Gen. David H. Petraeus, who was among the first to
declare that the burning of Korans would put Americans soldiers and civilians in
danger.
That risk of violence seemed to be rising, as large protests against Mr. Jones
were staged over the past week in Kabul, Afghanistan, and Jakarta, Indonesia. It
led the Obama administration to work furiously to end Mr. Jones’s plans.
On Thursday, F.B.I. officials met with Mr. Jones, and even Mr. Obama waded into
the fray, sharply criticizing what he called a “stunt” that would be a
“recruitment bonanza for Al Qaeda.”
“I just hope he understands that what he’s proposing to do is completely
contrary to our values as Americans,” Mr. Obama said on ABC’s “Good Morning
America.” He added that it could “greatly endanger our young men and women in
uniform who are in Iraq, who are in Afghanistan.”
While Mr. Jones had told reporters that he would not “ignore” a call from the
White House, administration officials decided that an appeal from the military
would be more effective. The Obama administration also had to weigh the desire
to stop Mr. Jones from proceeding with his plans against the recognition the
once-obscure preacher, with a congregation of less than 50, would get from a
direct appeal from the president.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates called Mr. Jones around 4:15 p.m. Thursday,
interrupting a meeting that Mr. Jones was having with Mr. Musri.
The call was brief, Mr. Jones said, adding that Mr. Gates was not the key factor
in his decision. What swayed him, he said, was not the risk to Americans or
foreigners but rather the promise that the Islamic center in New York would be
moved.
“This is for us a sign from God,” he said.
As Mr. Jones walked back into his office, he said that the idea of the Islamic
center as a bartering point came to him only after he had announced his
“International Burn a Koran Day” in July. He said he had no regrets.
“We have accomplished what we think God asked us to do,” he said.
Those involved in the Islamic center project in New York offered contradictory
stances and opinions on Thursday, making it hard to determine if the parties
involved had a common front.
In a brief interview on Thursday, minutes before Mr. Jones made his cancellation
announcement, Mr. Abdul Rauf, the imam, seemed to suggest that moving the
project — at least the part of it that he is to lead, which includes a mosque,
prayer spaces for other faiths and tolerance education programs — was not out of
the question.
When asked — without reference to Mr. Jones — whether the comments he made on
CNN’s “Larry King Live” on Wednesday night, that he would not have proposed the
project had he known how much strife it would cause, indicated a new openness to
moving or some other compromise, he said, “We are investigating that right now,
we are discussing it right now, how we can resolve this issue in a manner that
will defuse the rhetoric and the pain and also reduce the risk” of emboldening
Muslim radicals.
He added: “That is the question we are now asking ourselves. We are weighing
various options.”
But the imam controls only one part of the project, known as Cordoba House, the
interfaith and Muslim prayer spaces and tolerance programs that are planned as
part of the larger community center, known as Park51.
Sharif el-Gamal, the head of the real estate group that owns the properties
where the project is planned, took a more definite position. “We’re not moving,”
he said in an interview. He later issued a statement reiterating that.
In Gainesville, Mr. Jones seemed confused by the differing opinions. At first,
after reporters read him Mr. Abdul Rauf’s statement denying that a deal had been
made, Mr. Jones said he preferred to believe that the center would be moved.
He said he would be very disappointed if that did not turn out to be the case.
As for whether he would go back to burning Korans, he seemed to go back and
forth during multiple appearances before the news media. At one he said, “Right
now, we are not even entertaining that idea.” But later he suggested he might
reconsider.
Regardless of whether Mr. Jones does meet with the mosque leaders in New York,
he has already elevated his profile, which has risen quickly from the small
church he has run in Gainesville since around 2001.
The church has been fairly empty during recent services, with no more than a few
dozen congregants, many of them family members. The smell of dust and mildew
wafts out from the piles of used furniture that Mr. Jones sells on eBay when he
is not preaching.
To most residents of this sprawling college town, where Democrats outnumber
Republicans two to one, Mr. Jones has generally been a fringe figure, even last
year when he put up a sign outside the church that said “Islam is of the devil.”
But that began to change when news of his Koran-burning plans reached Muslim
countries about a month ago. Suddenly, there was an overabundance of what Mr.
Jones seemed to want — attention.
Mr. Jones, a former hotel manager who calls himself doctor based on an honorary
degree from an unaccredited Bible school, has at times seemed sincerely shocked
by the response he has attracted. But not unhappy.
His church has been in financial trouble for years — the property is now for
sale — and even before General Petraeus and the president made him a household
name, he said in an interview that he hoped to become well known as a critic of
Islam.
He was in his office at the time, alone, and to his right sat a drawing of a
bearded man — a terrorist — that had been used for target practice.
The mix of guns and visions of grandeur would come to embody the church and Mr.
Jones.
On Thursday, several of his parishioners carried pistols on their hips — the
result, they said, of death threats. That also served as a sign of the outsize
role their small group had taken on in world affairs.
By nightfall, things seemed no closer to an end, as a church member named
Stephanie, wearing a pink shirt with a holstered gun at her hip, arranged for
interviews with reporters from all over the world.
Helene Cooper contributed reporting from Washington.
September 9, 2010
The New York Times
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 7:25 a.m. ET
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama is exhorting a Florida minister to
''listen to those better angels'' and call off his plan to engage in a
Quran-burning protest this weekend.
Obama told ABC's ''Good Morning America'' in an interview aired Thursday that he
hopes the Rev. Terry Jones of Florida listens to the pleas of people who have
asked him to call off the plan. The president called it a ''stunt.''
''If he's listening, I hope he understands that what he's proposing to do is
completely contrary to our values as Americans,'' Obama said. ''That this
country has been built on the notion of freedom and religious tolerance.''
''And as a very practical matter, I just want him to understand that this stunt
that he is talking about pulling could greatly endanger our young men and women
who are in uniform,'' the president added.
Said Obama: ''Look, this is a recruitment bonanza for Al Qaida. You could have
serious violence in places like Pakistan and Afghanistan.'' The president also
said Jones' plan, if carried out, could serve as an incentive for
terrorist-minded individuals ''to blow themselves up'' to kill others.
''I hope he listens to those better angels and understands that this is a
destructive act that he's engaging in,'' the president said of Jones.
September 5, 2010
The New York Times
By FERNANDA SANTOS
The Internet evangelist Bill Keller moved toward the dais in tiny, quick
steps on Sunday, exhibiting the anticipation of a man ready to address a crowd.
Roughly 60 people stood before him in a hotel meeting room in Lower Manhattan,
temporary quarters of his Christian center, his response to the mosque planned
for an empty building nearby.
“If we’re going to do something in New York City, we’re going to do something
that’s not just bold and visible, but something that has a lasting presence,”
said Mr. Keller, who is from the Tampa Bay area of Florida.
Later, he told reporters that Muslims “can go to their mosque and preach the
lies of Islam and I’ll come here to preach the truth of the Gospel.”
Since its organizers attended a community board meeting four months ago, the
mosque — part of a Muslim community center that would offer a day care center,
an auditorium and a pool — quickly became fodder for a national debate. Much of
the opposition is over its location: two blocks north of ground zero.
Mr. Keller promoted his center, which he called the 9/11 Christian Center at
Ground Zero, as a religious counterweight to the mosque, which he repeatedly
called a “victory mosque” or a monument to “a great Muslim military
accomplishment,” as he explained it at the inaugural service at the New York
Marriott Downtown Hotel on West Street, two blocks south of ground zero.
His career arc makes him a somewhat unusual standard-bearer: Mr. Keller became a
preacher after serving a sentence in federal prison for insider trading, as he
says in a biography posted on his Web site.
He has also appeared on Howard Stern’s satellite radio show and once had a
program on national television, which was canceled after he called Islam a
“1,400-year-old lie from the pits of hell.” The program is now carried by a
small station in Florida.
But it is on the Internet that Mr. Keller has assembled his largest following.
He claims that 20,000 people visit his Web site daily and 2.5 million receive
his daily sermon by e-mail.
His service at the Marriott brought together people who expressed admiration,
disapproval and curiosity. A man yelled, “Muslims pray five times a day,” but
Mr. Keller carried on undisturbed, denouncing Islam as a religion that preaches
“hate, violence and death.” The man eventually left.
Mr. Keller also described the conservative broadcaster Glenn Beck, who is a
Mormon, and Feisal Abdul Rauf, the imam who is behind the Muslim community
center, as followers of false faiths. Later, he called the mosque’s potential
worshipers guilty of terrorism by association, saying it was “their Muslim
brothers” who “flew airplanes into the World Trade Center towers and killed
3,000 people.”
A woman who said she had driven in from Scranton, Pa., pulled Mr. Keller aside
afterward and told him that his Christian center “needs to be here,” but she
asked if he could tame his language so he would not come across as such a
firebrand. He told her he had to talk exactly the way he did if he wanted people
to follow him.
Prebem Andersen, 60, who lives in South Salem, N.Y., said Mr. Keller had “told
the truth from a Christian perspective.” Richard Borkowski, who lives in
Manhattan on the West Side, wore a black T-shirt with the words “Peace Through
Understanding.”
Mr. Keller plans to be at the hotel every Sunday until the end of the year and
then move the center on Jan. 1 to a permanent spot, although he said he would
not disclose its location until Oct. 1.
“I have three locations in contract, but I won’t say where because I don’t want
people picketing outside and ruining the deal,” he said.
He is relying on donations to cover the costs of his weekly services, which
total $7,000. He said he would need $1 million to run the center for its first
year from its permanent home, which would be open seven days a week. He did not
seem concerned about finding the money.
“There are a lot more people than you’d imagine who believe in what I’m doing,”
he said.
September 5, 2010
The New York Times
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
For nine years after the attacks of Sept. 11, many American Muslims made
concerted efforts to build relationships with non-Muslims, to make it clear they
abhor terrorism, to educate people about Islam and to participate in interfaith
service projects. They took satisfaction in the observations by many scholars
that Muslims in America were more successful and assimilated than Muslims in
Europe.
Now, many of those same Muslims say that all of those years of work are being
rapidly undone by the fierce opposition to a Muslim cultural center near ground
zero that has unleashed a torrent of anti-Muslim sentiments and a spate of
vandalism. The knifing of a Muslim cab driver in New York City has also alarmed
many American Muslims.
“We worry: Will we ever be really completely accepted in American society?” said
Dr. Ferhan Asghar, an orthopedic spine surgeon in Cincinnati and the father of
two young girls. “In no other country could we have such freedoms — that’s why
so many Muslims choose to make this country their own. But we do wonder whether
it will get to the point where people don’t want Muslims here anymore.”
Eboo Patel, a founder and director of Interfaith Youth Core, a Chicago-based
community service program that tries to reduce religious conflict, said, “I am
more scared than I’ve ever been — more scared than I was after Sept. 11.”
That was a refrain echoed by many American Muslims in interviews last week. They
said they were scared not as much for their safety as to learn that the
suspicion, ignorance and even hatred of Muslims is so widespread. This is not
the trajectory toward integration and acceptance that Muslims thought they were
on.
Some American Muslims said they were especially on edge as the anniversary of
9/11 approaches. The pastor of a small church in Florida has promised to burn a
pile of Korans that day. Muslim leaders are telling their followers that the
stunt has been widely condemned by Christian and other religious groups and
should be ignored. But they said some young American Muslims were questioning
how they could simply sit by and watch the promised desecration.
They liken their situation to that of other scapegoats in American history:
Irish Roman Catholics before the nativist riots in the 1800s, the Japanese
before they were put in internment camps during World War II.
Muslims sit in their living rooms, aghast as pundits assert over and over that
Islam is not a religion at all but a political cult, that Muslims cannot be good
Americans and that mosques are fronts for extremist jihadis. To address what it
calls a “growing tide of fear and intolerance,” the Islamic Society of North
America plans to convene a summit of Christian, Muslim and Jewish leaders in
Washington on Tuesday.
Young American Muslims who are trying to figure out their place and their goals
in life are particularly troubled, said Imam Abdullah T. Antepli, the Muslim
chaplain at Duke University.
“People are discussing what is the alternative if we don’t belong here,” he
said. “There are jokes: When are we moving to Canada, when are we moving to
Sydney? Nobody will go anywhere, but there is hopelessness, there is
helplessness, there is real grief.”
Mr. Antepli just returned from a trip last month with a rabbi and other American
Muslim leaders to Poland and Germany, where they studied the Holocaust and the
events that led up to it (the group issued a denunciation of Holocaust denial on
its return).
“Some of what people are saying in this mosque controversy is very similar to
what German media was saying about Jews in the 1920s and 1930s,” he said. “It’s
really scary.”
American Muslims were anticipating a particularly joyful Ramadan this year. For
the first time in decades, the monthlong holiday fell mostly during summer
vacation, allowing children to stay up late each night for the celebratory iftar
dinner, breaking the fast, with family and friends.
But the season turned sour.
The great mosque debate seems to have unleashed a flurry of vandalism and
harassment directed at mosques: construction equipment set afire at a mosque
site in Murfreesboro, Tenn; a plastic pig with graffiti thrown into a mosque in
Madera, Calif.; teenagers shooting outside a mosque in upstate New York during
Ramadan prayers. It is too soon to tell whether hate crimes against Muslims are
rising or are on pace with previous years, experts said. But it is possible that
other episodes are going unreported right now.
“Victims are reluctant to go public with these kinds of hate incidents because
they fear further harassment or attack,” said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the
Council on American-Islamic Relations. “They’re hoping all this will just blow
over.”
Some Muslims said their situation felt more precarious now — under a president
who is perceived as not only friendly to Muslims but is wrongly believed by many
Americans to be Muslim himself — than it was under President George W. Bush.
Mr. Patel explained, “After Sept. 11, we had a Republican president who had the
confidence and trust of red America, who went to a mosque and said, ‘Islam means
peace,’ and who said ‘Muslims are our neighbors and friends,’ and who
distinguished between terrorism and Islam.”
Now, unlike Mr. Bush then, the politicians with sway in red state America are
the ones whipping up fear and hatred of Muslims, Mr. Patel said.
“There is simply the desire to paint an entire religion as the enemy,” he said.
Referring to Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the founder of the proposed Muslim center
near ground zero, “What they did to Imam Feisal was highly strategic. The signal
was, we can Swift Boat your most moderate leaders.”
Several American Muslims said in interviews that they were stunned that what
provoked the anti-Muslim backlash was not even another terrorist attack but a
plan by an imam known for his work with leaders of other faiths to build a
Muslim community center.
This year, Sept. 11 coincides with the celebration of Eid, the finale to
Ramadan, which usually lasts three days (most Muslims will begin observing Eid
this year on Sept. 10). But Muslim leaders, in this climate, said they wanted to
avoid appearing to be celebrating on the anniversary of 9/11. Several major
Muslim organizations have urged mosques to use the day to participate in
commemoration events and community service.
Ingrid Mattson, the president of the Islamic Society of North America, said many
American Muslims were still hoping to salvage the spirit of Ramadan.
“In Ramadan, you’re really not supposed to be focused on yourself,” she said.
“It’s about looking out for the suffering of other people. Somehow it feels bad
to be so worried about our own situation and our own security, when it should be
about empathy towards others.”
September 4, 2010
Filed at 3:16 a.m. ET
The New York Times
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
FALCON HEIGHTS, Minn. (AP) -- Despite the smells of fried dough and roasted
meat wafting from the Minnesota State Fair, Salim and Zuleyha Ozonder were
focused on the people who were leaving, not the food or festivities beckoning
from across the street.
Each time a new wave of people exited, the young Minneapolis residents -- who
hadn't eaten all day -- tried to press into their hands a small, glossy card
that read ''Islam Explained'' on one side. On the other, it had about 180 words
of background on a religion whose adherents fear is being misunderstood by too
many Americans as violent and depraved.
''You just want people to take the card, spend a minute reading it and say, 'Oh.
They're not terrorists,''' said 27-year-old Zuleyha. She and her husband, like
other Muslims, were fasting during daylight hours for the Islamic holy month of
Ramadan.
For most fairgoers, the last thing on their mind is religion -- particularly the
renewed controversy over Islam in America amid tension over plans for an Islamic
center and mosque a few blocks from New York City's ground zero. But volunteers
with the Minnesota chapter of Islamic Circle of North America saw the mostly
white, Christian fair crowd as just the type of audience that might benefit from
greater understanding.
The ''Great Minnesota Get-Together'' is one of the largest and best-attended
state fairs in the country. Every day for 12 days through Labor Day, hundreds of
thousands of people stream onto the fairgrounds north of St. Paul to scarf
highly caloric food, stare at farm animals, clamber onto carnival rides and
enjoy concerts by country singers and classic rock dinosaurs.
''What are they doing here?'' said Paulette Kahlstorf of Zimmerman, who declined
a card from Zuleyha as she left the fairgrounds with her husband. ''I didn't
come here for that.''
A minute later, Kahlstorf elaborated that she didn't have a problem with all
Muslims: ''Just the radical ones.'' And she said she didn't mind their decision
to hand out the cards, which include a toll-free number that anyone can call to
request a free copy of the Quran.
''You know, I guess we let all the politicians come out here and schmooze, so we
might as well let these folks as well,'' said Kahlstorf. ''Doesn't mean I need
to listen to them.''
A poll released last week showed many Americans have the same mixed feelings
about the Muslim faith. The nonpartisan Pew Research Center found that most
Americans doubt that Islam is likelier than other faiths to encourage violence
and believe Muslims should have equal rights to build houses of worship. But
more people have an unfavorable than favorable view of Islam by 38 to 30 percent
-- nearly a reversal of findings on the same poll question in 2005, when 41
percent had favorable views compared with 36 percent unfavorable.
Najam Qureshi, a member of the Islamic Circle of North America's Minnesota
chapter and a database administrator at Carlson Companies in Plymouth, said his
group planned the state fair outreach effort -- which includes radio commercials
-- long before the New York mosque controversy.
But he said that controversy has been another reminder of the work American
Muslims need to do to fill what he called ''the void of understanding about our
faith.''
Various state-based Muslim groups estimate Minnesota has about 150,000 Muslim
residents, and the state has had its share of incidents in recent years. Some
Muslim students reported being harassed at schools in St. Cloud and Owatonna,
and some anti-Islamic posters were hung around St. Cloud.
The Ozonders handed out 400 cards during one two-hour shift this week across the
street from one of the fair's main entrances, and were taking their second shift
on Wednesday. The chapter is handing out the cards throughout the fair's run,
which ends on Labor Day.
The couple said they volunteered out of a desire to ''do something together''
for their faith. Zuleyha moved to Minneapolis in July from New York's
Westchester County after she married Salim, 28, a graduate student in physics at
the University of Minnesota the last two years; both are of Turkish descent.
Both said their exchanges with fairgoers were mostly pleasant, though Zuleyha
said one man cursed at her. Most people either decline the cards or quietly take
them and keep moving.
Occasionally, someone will stop and talk for a few minutes, often to ask a
question or two about Islam.
''More than one person said to me, 'You look normal,''' Salim Ozonder said. ''So
if we can even break down a few misconceptions, that is great. Too many people
in this debate are no longer interested in a middle ground.''
September 3, 2010
The New York Times
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
In disputes over the construction and expansion of mosques in California, New
York, Tennessee and elsewhere, supporters of the projects tend to invoke
constitutional principles of religious freedom.
But to experts in land-use planning, the area of law that directly concerns the
controversies scattered across the nation, the way to resolve such conflicts is
in a more modern document than the Constitution. These fights are often all but
moot, from a legal perspective at least, because of a federal law with an
ungainly acronym.
“Every planner and zoning lawyer I’ve talked to about this is saying the same
thing — Rluipa,” said Daniel Lauber, a past president of the American Planning
Association.
The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, whose initials are
commonly pronounced Ruh-LOO-pa, was approved unanimously by Congress in 2000.
Its chief sponsor was Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah.
The law sets a high bar for any government action that would impose zoning or
other restrictions on a religious institution. Any such action must serve a
“compelling government interest” while also being “the least restrictive means”
of furthering that interest, the law says.
Despite the clear advantage that the law gives to religious institutions,
disputes over the construction of mosques have emerged around the country.
In Murfreesboro, Tenn., an arson at the site of a mosque project has raised
tensions. In Temecula, Calif., some mosque opponents brought dogs to a protest,
thinking it would offend Muslims who believe the animals to be unclean. Backers
withdrew the planned expansion of a mosque in Brentwood, Tenn., after critics
raised their voices.
The opposition often reflects America’s complicated attitudes toward the Middle
East, in which passions run high and even basic facts are treated as objects of
contention. The conservative New English Review stated the fundamental question
as “whether Islam is a religion or a political doctrine seeking domination with
a thin veneer of religious practices.”
To some experts, opposition to construction of the mosque and community center
near ground zero, especially by religious organizations, seems surprising.
“It is quite interesting that some of the current opponents of the mosque
construction, specifically Jewish leaders and conservative Christians, were
formerly quite ardent supporters of the religious freedom offered by the
religious land use act,” said Scott L. Thumma, a sociology of religion professor
at the Hartford Institute for Religion Research at the Hartford Seminary in
Connecticut.
The controversy does not split neatly along political lines. Some Democrats,
including the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, have voiced concern over plans
to build the Islamic center, while Republicans like Mr. Hatch insist that the
government stick to the principles of religious liberty for which the law
stands.
“Clearly, the proponents of the mosque have a legal and a constitutional right
to build a house of worship on private property,” Mr. Hatch said in a statement,
referring to the project in Manhattan.
Like Senator Reid and President Obama, however, Mr. Hatch noted that having a
legal right to build the project did not necessarily mean that it was wise to do
so.
“The question in this case is whether, given the inflamed passions of the
community — including those of many people who lost family members on 9/11 —
building the mosque at that location is a good idea,” he said.
Opponents of new mosque construction often cite factors other than religion,
like parking and traffic, when houses of worship expand. But religion often
remains part of the mix. In a statement on the mosque protest in Temecula,
William Rench, the senior pastor of the nearby Calvary Baptist Church, said,
“Our primary concern is that the land adjacent to our property is wholly
inadequate and unsuited for the proposed 25,000-square-foot Islamic worship
center.”
The rest of the statement concerns Islam itself. “It seems logical to me that we
would be opposed to Islam based on its fundamental teachings and on documented
stories of the terror that radical Islam promotes,” Mr. Rench wrote.
In an interview, Mr. Rench said that questions of national and local security
should override land-use rules, though in the case of the mosque next door, “I
don’t think they represent the more extreme elements of Islam.” Still, he added,
“how are we going to get assurances that it’s never going to be an issue?”
Mahmoud Harmoush, the imam of the mosque, said that accusations of radicalism
“really are not worth responding to,” and that despite the importance of
Shariah, or Islamic law, to their faith, “we are bound by the law of the land,”
just as someone who learns to drive in Britain must drive on the right side of
the road in the United States.
No one knows what will happen in coming years or the next generation, Mr.
Harmoush said, but “the future could be much better than Mr. Rench is
imagining.” The mosque might, he said, for example, provide overflow parking for
the church.
Patrick Richardson, the planning and development director for the City of
Temecula, called the issue “very straightforward.”
“This is nothing related to politics or religion,” he said, “and the law
basically precludes us from making that part of the decision-making process.”
The mosque will come up for its first public hearing in November, after the
proponents complete a traffic study recommended by the city.
“I can’t say I’m surprised that there is controversy about this,” Mr. Richardson
said. “I’m probably a little more disappointed than anything.”
In Willowbrook, Ill., a suburb of Chicago, plans for a mosque and community
center have run into opposition that has focused locally on grounds of parking,
traffic and water runoff. But anti-Muslim Web sites have tried to fold that
opposition into the broader fight over Islam.
Dr. M. A. Hamadeh, a pulmonologist who is the president of the Muslim
Educational and Cultural Center of America, which is building the mosque, said
news of other conflicts around the country troubled him.
“This is the greatest country in the world, and the greatness is based in
freedom — freedom of religion, freedom of association, and of separation between
state and religion,” Dr. Hamadeh said. “In order to continue to be a great
country, we have to continue to uphold these values.”
The furor over the proposed Islamic cultural center and mosque near ground
zero keeps giving us new reasons for dismay. As politicians and commentators
work themselves and viewers into a rage, others who should be standing up for
freedom and tolerance tiptoe away.
To the growing pile of discouragement, add this: A New York Times poll of New
York City residents that found that even this city, the country’s most diverse
and cosmopolitan, is not immune to suspicion and to a sadly wary
misunderstanding of Muslim-Americans.
The poll found considerable distrust of Muslim-Americans and robust disapproval
of the mosque proposal. Asked whether they thought Muslim-Americans were “more
sympathetic to terrorists” than other citizens, 33 percent said yes, a
discouraging figure, roughly consistent with polls taken since Sept. 11, 2001.
Thirty-one percent said they didn’t know any Muslims; 39 percent said they knew
Muslims but not as close friends.
A full 72 percent agreed that people had every right to build a “house of
worship” near the site. But only 62 percent acknowledged that right when “house
of worship” was changed to “mosque and Islamic community center.” Sixty-seven
percent thought the mosque planners should find “a less controversial location.”
While only 21 percent of respondents confessed to having “negative feelings”
toward Muslims because of the attack on the World Trade Center, 59 percent said
they knew people who did.
It has always been a myth that New York City, in all its dizzying globalness, is
a utopia of humanistic harmony. The city has a bloody history of ethnic and
class strife. But thanks to density and diversity, it has become a place like
few others in this country, where the world rubs shoulders on subways, stoops
and sidewalks, where gruff tolerance prevails and understanding thrives.
The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island are two pinnacles of American openness to
the outsider. New Yorkers like to think they are a perfect fit with their city.
Tolerance, however, isn’t the same as understanding, so it is appalling to see
New Yorkers who could lead us all away from mosque madness, who should know
better, playing to people’s worst instincts.
That includes Carl Paladino and Rick Lazio, Republicans running for governor who
have disgraced their state with histrionics about the mosque being a terrorist
triumph. And Rudolph Giuliani, who cloaks his opposition to the mosque as
“sensitivity” to 9/11 families without acknowledging that this conflates all
prayerful Muslims with terrorists, a despicable conclusion.
As the site of America’s bloodiest terrorist attack, New York had a great chance
to lead by example. Too bad other places are ahead of us. Muslims hold daily
prayer services in a chapel in the Pentagon, a place also hallowed by 9/11 dead.
The country often has had the wisdom to choose graciousness and reconciliation
over triumphalism, as is plain from the many monuments to Confederate soldiers
in northern states, including the battlefield at Gettysburg.
New Yorkers, like other Americans, have a way to go. We stand with the poll’s
minority: the 27 percent who say the mosque should be built in Lower Manhattan
because moving it would compromise American values. Building it would be a
gesture to Muslim-Americans who, of course, live here, pray here and died here,
along with so many of their fellow Americans, on that awful September morning.
But it’s all of us who will benefit.
September 2, 2010
The New York Times
By MICHAEL BARBARO
and MARJORIE CONNELLY
Two-thirds of New York City residents want a planned Muslim community center
and mosque to be relocated to a less controversial site farther away from ground
zero in Lower Manhattan, including many who describe themselves as supporters of
the project, according to a New York Times poll.
The poll indicates that support for the 13-story complex, which organizers said
would promote moderate Islam and interfaith dialogue, is tepid in its hometown.
Nearly nine years after the Sept. 11 attacks ignited a wave of anxiety about
Muslims, many in the country’s biggest and arguably most cosmopolitan city still
have an uneasy relationship with Islam. One-fifth of New Yorkers acknowledged
animosity toward Muslims. Thirty-three percent said that compared with other
American citizens, Muslims were more sympathetic to terrorists. And nearly 60
percent said people they know had negative feelings toward Muslims because of
9/11.
Over all, 50 percent of those surveyed oppose building the project two blocks
north of the World Trade Center site, even though a majority believe that the
developers have the right to do so. Thirty-five percent favor it.
Opposition is more intense in the boroughs outside Manhattan — for example, 54
percent in the Bronx — but it is even strong in Manhattan, considered a bastion
of religious tolerance, where 41 percent are against it.
The poll was conducted Aug. 27 to 31 with 892 adults. The margin of sampling
error is plus or minus three percentage points.
It suggested that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, the center’s most ardent and
public defender, has not unified public opinion around the issue. Asked if they
approved or disapproved of how he had handled the subject, city residents were
evenly split.
While a majority said politicians in New York should take a stand on the issue,
most disapprove of those outside the city weighing in: Newt Gingrich and Sarah
Palin, among others, have tried to rally opposition to the center.
The debate over the religious center has captivated much of the city: 66 percent
said they had heard or read a lot about it, and follow-up interviews with
respondents showed that the topic was leading to emotional and searching
conversations in living rooms and workplaces throughout the city.
“My granddaughter and I were having this conversation and she said stopping them
from building is going against the freedom of religion guaranteed by our
Constitution,” said Marilyn Fisher, 71, who lives in the Bensonhurst
neighborhood of Brooklyn. “I absolutely agree with her except in this case. I
think everything in this world is not black and white; there is always a gray
area and the gray area right now is sensitivity to those affected by 9/11, the
survivors of the people lost.”
Sentiments about the center appear to be heavily shaped by personal background
and experiences. Those who have visited mosques or have close Muslim friends are
more likely to support the center than those who have few interactions with
Islam.
More than half — 53 percent — of city residents with incomes over $100,000 back
the center; only 31 percent of those with incomes under $50,000 agree.
Protestants are evenly divided, while most Catholic and Jewish New Yorkers
oppose the center.
Age also plays a role. Those under 45 are evenly divided (42 percent for, 43
percent against); among those over 45, nearly 60 percent are opposed.
The center’s developers, and its defenders, have sought to portray opponents as
a small but vocal group.
The poll, however, reveals a more complicated portrait of the opposition in New
York: 67 percent said that while Muslims had a right to construct the center
near ground zero, they should find a different site.
Most strikingly, 38 percent of those who expressed support for the plan to build
it in Lower Manhattan said later in a follow-up question that they would prefer
it be moved farther away, suggesting that even those who defend the plan
question the wisdom of the location.
Richard Merton, 56, a real estate broker who lives on the Upper West Side of
Manhattan, exemplifies those mixed and seemingly contradictory feelings.
“Freedom of religion is one of the guarantees we give in this country, so they
are free to worship where they chose,” Mr. Merton said. “I just think it’s very
bad manners on their part to be so insensitive as to put a mosque in that area.”
Opponents offered differing opinions on how far the complex should be built from
ground zero. One-fifth said at least 20 blocks, while almost the same number
said at least 10 blocks. Seven percent said at least five blocks.
“Personally I would prefer it not be built at all, but if it is going to be
built it should be at least 20 blocks away,” said Maria Misetzis, 30, of the Bay
Ridge section of Brooklyn.
As the fight over the center escalated from a zoning dispute into a battle in
the culture wars, it has splintered New Yorkers along political lines.
Seventy-four percent of Republicans are opposed; Democrats are split, with 43
percent for and 44 percent against.
Even though President Obama is highly popular in New York City, residents are
divided over his handling of the issue (he defended the center, then seemed to
backtrack slightly). Thirty-two percent approve of his approach, while 27
percent disapprove.
It is not clear, however, that any politician is successfully harnessing the
strong feelings around the issue. Even though both Republican candidates for New
York governor, Rick A. Lazio and Carl P. Paladino, have sought to make the
Islamic center an issue in the race, two-thirds of those polled said it would
have no influence on how they made their choice for governor. The poll showed
that the economy and jobs remained the most pressing concerns.
Yet those who said the issue would affect their vote were four times as likely
to support a candidate who is against the center than one who backs it.
The intensity of feeling is greater among opponents. Nearly three-quarters of
respondents who disapprove of the project say they feel strongly; only half of
those who back it do so.
“Give them an inch, they’ll take a yard,” Ms. Misetzis said. “They want to build
a mosque wherever they can. And once they start praying there, it is considered
hallowed ground and can’t be taken away. Ever. That’s why we’re having this tug
of war between New Yorkers and the Islamic people.”
John Dewey, 65, of the Rego Park section of Queens, expressed his view in more
practical terms.
“We can’t say all Muslims are terrorists,” Mr. Dewey said. “There is a huge
population of Muslims throughout the world, and we will have to deal constantly
with them in the future. If we make enemies constantly, then we will constantly
have war.”
August 14, 2010
The New York Times
By EDWARD WYATT
WASHINGTON — Three leading Republicans reacted negatively to President
Obama’s statements in favor of a mosque and Muslim community center whose
construction has been proposed for a building near the site formerly occupied by
the World Trade Center.
John Boehner, the Ohio Republican who is the House minority leader, said: ”The
decision to build this mosque so close to the site of ground zero is deeply
troubling, as is the president’s decision to endorse it.”
“The American people certainly don’t support it,” Mr. Boehner said.
Representative Peter King, a New York Republican, said that while the Muslim
community has the right to build the mosque, doing so needlessly offends too
many people.
“President Obama is wrong,” Mr. King said. “It is insensitive and uncaring for
the Muslim community to build a mosque in the shadow of ground zero. While the
Muslim community has the right to build the mosque they are abusing that right
by needlessly offending so many people who have suffered so much. The right and
moral thing for President Obama to have done was to urge Muslim leaders to
respect the families of those who died and move their mosque away from Ground
Zero. Unfortunately the president caved into political correctness."
Newt Gingrich, the former House Speaker, also condemned the proposed mosque and
the President’s comments.
“There is nothing surprising in the president’s continued pandering to radical
Islam,” he said. “What he said last night is untrue and in accurate. The fact is
this is not about religious liberty.”
Mr. Gingrich said the proposed mosque would be a symbol of Muslim “triumphalism”
and that building the mosque near the site of the Sept. 11 attacks “would be
like putting a Nazi sign next to the Holocaust Museum.”
PANAMA CITY, Fla. — Faced with withering Republican criticism of his defense
of the right of Muslims to build a community center and mosque near ground zero,
President Obama quickly recalibrated his remarks on Saturday, a sign that he has
waded into even more treacherous political waters than the White House had at
first realized.
In brief comments during a family trip to the Gulf of Mexico, Mr. Obama said he
was not endorsing the New York project, but simply trying to uphold the broader
principle that government should “treat everybody equally,” regardless of
religion.
“I was not commenting, and I will not comment, on the wisdom of making the
decision to put a mosque there,” Mr. Obama said. “I was commenting very
specifically on the right people have that dates back to our founding. That’s
what our country is about.”
But Mr. Obama’s attempt to clarify his remarks, less than 24 hours after his
initial comments at a White House iftar, a Ramadan sunset dinner, pushed the
president even deeper into the thorny debate about Islam, national identity and
what it means to be an American — a move that is riskier for him than for his
predecessors.
From the moment he took the oath of office, using his entire name, Barack
Hussein Obama, as he swore to protect and defend the Constitution, Mr. Obama has
personified the hopes of many Americans about tolerance and inclusion. He has
devoted himself to reaching out to the Muslim world, vowing, as he did in Cairo
last year, “a new beginning.”
But his “new beginning” has aroused nervousness in some, especially those who
disagree with his counterterrorism policies, or those more comfortable with a
vision of America as a white and largely Christian nation, and not the
pluralistic melting pot Mr. Obama represents.
The debate over the proposed Islamic center in Manhattan only intensified on
Saturday, as the conservative blogosphere lighted up with criticism of Mr.
Obama, and leading Republicans — including Newt Gingrich, the former House
speaker; Representative John A. Boehner, the House minority leader; and
Representative Peter T. King of New York — forcefully rejected the president’s
stance.
Mr. Gingrich accused the president of “pandering to radical Islam.” Mr. Boehner
said the decision to build a mosque so close to ground zero was “deeply
troubling, as is the president’s decision to endorse it.” And Mr. King flatly
said the president “is wrong,” adding that Mr. Obama had “caved in to political
correctness.”
Indeed, the criticism was so intense that the White House ultimately issued an
elaboration on the president’s clarification, insisting that the president was
“not backing off in any way” from the comments he made Friday night.
“As a citizen, and as president,” Mr. Obama said then, “I believe that Muslims
have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country.
And that includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center
on private property in Lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and
ordinances.”
The local issue of the mosque and the wider issues of Islam and religious
freedom are just part of a divisive cultural and political debate that is
percolating in various forms during this hotly contested election season. On
Capitol Hill, for instance, some Republicans advocate amending the Constitution
to bar babies born to illegal immigrants from becoming citizens — a move the
president also opposes.
“I think it’s very important, as difficult as some of these issues are, that we
stay focused on who we are as a people and what our values are all about,” the
president said here on Saturday.
Mr. Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, also held annual Ramadan celebrations
and frequently took pains to draw a distinction between Al Qaeda and Islam, as
Mr. Obama did Friday night. But Mr. Obama, unlike Mr. Bush, has been accused of
being a closet Muslim (he is Christian) and faced attacks from the right that he
is soft on terrorists.
“For people who already fear the worst from Obama, this only confirms their
fears,” said John Feehery, a Republican consultant who spent years as a top
party aide on Capitol Hill. “This is not a unifying decision on his part; he
chose a side. I understand why he did this, but politically I think it’s a
blunder.”
White House aides say Mr. Obama was well aware of the risks. “He understands the
politics of it,” David Axelrod, his senior adviser, said in an interview.
Few national Democrats rushed to Mr. Obama’s defense; party leaders, who would
much prefer Mr. Obama to talk about jobs, were mostly silent. Two New York
Democrats, Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand and Representative Jerrold Nadler,
however, did back Mr. Obama. But Alex Sink, the Democratic candidate for
governor here, distanced herself, while Gov. Charlie Crist, a
Republican-turned-independent, defended the president.
“I think he’s right,” Mr. Crist told reporters during an appearance with the
president at a Coast Guard station here.
Mr. Obama has typically weighed in on such delicate matters only when
circumstances have forced his hand, as he did during his campaign for president,
when he gave a lengthy speech on race in America in response to controversy
swirling around his relationship with his fiery former pastor, Jeremiah Wright.
Debate about the Islamic center had been brewing for weeks, yet Mr. Obama had
studiously sidestepped it.
But the Ramadan dinner seemed to leave the president little choice. Aides said
there was never any question about what he would say.
“He felt that he had a responsibility to speak,” Mr. Axelrod said.
Edward Wyatt contributed reporting from Washington.
PANAMA CITY, Fla. — President Obama said on Saturday that in defending the
right of Muslims to build a community center and mosque near Ground Zero he “was
not commenting” on “the wisdom” of that particular project, but rather trying to
uphold the broader principle that government should “treat everybody equally”
regardless of religion.
Mr. Obama, who is visiting the Gulf Coast with his wife and younger daughter for
a brief overnight stay, made his comments at the Coast Guard district station
here. On Friday night, he used the White House iftar, a sunset dinner
celebrating the Muslim holiday of Ramadan, to weigh in on the mosque
controversy. In clarifying his remarks, Mr. Obama was apparently seeking to
address criticism that he is using his presidential platform to promote a
particular project that has aroused the ire of many New Yorkers. And on Saturday
at least three prominent Republicans spoke out against Mr. Obama’s stance.
White House officials said earlier in the day that Mr. Obama was not trying to
promote the project, but rather sought more broadly to make a statement about
freedom of religion and American values. “In this country we treat everybody
equally and in accordance with the law, regardless of race, regardless of
religion,” Mr. Obama said at the Coast Guard station. “I was not commenting and
I will not comment on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there. I
was commenting very specifically on the right people have that dates back to our
founding. That’s what our country is about.
“And I think it’s very important as difficult as some of these issues are that
we stay focused on who we are as a people and what our values are all about.”
At the dinner on Friday night, Mr. Obama had proclaimed that “as a citizen, and
as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their
religion as anyone else in this country.”
But the day after the dinner, John Boehner, the Ohio Republican who is the House
minority leader, was among those who criticized the president.
“The decision to build this mosque so close to the site of ground zero is deeply
troubling, as is the president’s decision to endorse it,” Mr. Boehner said. “The
American people certainly don’t support it.”
Representative Peter King, a New York Republican, said that while the Muslim
community has the right to build the mosque, doing so needlessly offends too
many people.
“President Obama is wrong,” Mr. King said. “It is insensitive and uncaring for
the Muslim community to build a mosque in the shadow of ground zero. While the
Muslim community has the right to build the mosque they are abusing that right
by needlessly offending so many people who have suffered so much. The right and
moral thing for President Obama to have done was to urge Muslim leaders to
respect the families of those who died and move their mosque away from Ground
Zero. Unfortunately the president caved into political correctness."
Newt Gingrich, the former House Speaker, also condemned the proposed mosque and
the President’s comments.
“There is nothing surprising in the president’s continued pandering to radical
Islam,” he said. “What he said last night is untrue and in accurate. The fact is
this is not about religious liberty.”
Mr. Gingrich said the proposed mosque would be a symbol of Muslim “triumphalism”
and that building the mosque near the site of the Sept. 11 attacks “would be
like putting a Nazi sign next to the Holocaust Museum.”
“It’s profoundly and terribly wrong,” he said.
Mr. Obama had spent weeks of avoiding the high-profile battle over the center —
his press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said last week that the president did not
want to “get involved in local decision-making.” But on Friday night, he stepped
squarely into the thorny debate.
“I understand the emotions that this issue engenders. Ground zero is, indeed,
hallowed ground,” Mr. Obama said. But, he continued: “This is America, and our
commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable. The principle that people of
all faiths are welcome in this country, and will not be treated differently by
their government, is essential to who we are.”
In hosting the iftar, Mr. Obama was following a White House tradition that,
while sporadic, dates to Thomas Jefferson, who held a sunset dinner for the
first Muslim ambassador to the United States. President George W. Bush hosted
iftars annually.
Aides to Mr. Obama say privately that he has always felt strongly about the
proposed community center and mosque, but the White House did not want to weigh
in until local authorities made a decision on the proposal, planned for two
blocks from the site of the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center.
Last week, New York City removed the final construction hurdle for the project,
and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg spoke forcefully in favor of it.
The community center proposal has led to a national uproar over Islam, 9/11 and
freedom of religion during a hotly contested midterm election season.
In New York, Rick A. Lazio, a Republican candidate for governor and a former
member of the House of Representatives, issued a statement responding to Mr.
Obama’s remarks, saying that the president was still “not listening to New
Yorkers.”
“With over 100 mosques in New York City, this is not an issue of religion, but
one of safety and security,” he said.
Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska and the Republican vice-presidential
candidate in 2008, has called the project “an unnecessary provocation” and urged
“peace-seeking Muslims” to reject it.
The Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish organization, has also opposed the center.
In his remarks, Mr. Obama distinguished between the terrorists who plotted the
9/11 attacks and Islam. “Al Qaeda’s cause is not Islam — it is a gross
distortion of Islam,” the president said, adding, “In fact, Al Qaeda has killed
more Muslims than people of any other religion, and that list includes innocent
Muslims who were killed on 9/11.”
Noting that “Muslim Americans serve with honor in our military,” Mr. Obama said
that at next week’s iftar at the Pentagon, “tribute will be paid to three
soldiers who gave their lives in Iraq and now rest among the heroes of Arlington
National Cemetery.”
Mr. Obama ran for office promising to improve relations with the Muslim world,
by taking steps like closing the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and
more generally reaching out. In a speech in Cairo last year, he vowed “a new
beginning.”
But Ali Abunimah, an Arab-American journalist and author, said the president has
since left many Muslims disappointed.
“There has been no follow-through; Guantánamo is still open and so forth, so all
you have left for him to show is in the symbolic field,” Mr. Abunimah said,
adding that it was imperative for Mr. Obama to “stand up to Islamophobia.”
Once Mr. Bloomberg spoke out, the president’s course seemed clear, said Steven
Clemons of the New America Foundation, a public policy institution here.
“Bloomberg’s speech was, I think, the pivotal one, and set the standard for
leadership on this issue,” Mr. Clemons said.
Mr. Bloomberg, in a statement, said: “This proposed mosque and community center
in Lower Manhattan is as important a test of the separation of church and state
as we may see in our lifetime, and I applaud President Obama’s clarion defense
of the freedom of religion tonight.”
Sharif el-Gamal, the developer on the project, said, “We are deeply moved and
tremendously grateful for our president’s words.”
A building on the site of the proposed center is already used for prayers, and
some worshipers there on Friday night discussed the president’s remarks.
Mohamed Haroun, an intern at a mechanical engineering firm, said, “What he
should have said was: ‘This is a community decision. Constitutionally, they have
the right to do it, but it’s a community decision and we should see what the
local community wants to do.’ ”
LODI, Calif. — Like dozens of other Pakistani-American girls here, Hajra Bibi
stopped attending the local public school when she reached puberty, and began
studying at home.
Her family wanted her to clean and cook for her male relatives, and had also
worried that other American children would mock both her Muslim religion and her
traditional clothes.
“Some men don’t like it when you wear American clothes — they don’t think it is
a good thing for girls,” said Miss Bibi, 17, now studying at the 12th-grade
level in this agricultural center some 70 miles east of San Francisco. “You have
to be respectable.”
Across the United States, Muslims who find that a public school education
clashes with their religious or cultural traditions have turned to home
schooling. That choice is intended partly as a way to build a solid Muslim
identity away from the prejudices that their children, boys and girls alike, can
face in schoolyards. But in some cases, as in Ms. Bibi’s, the intent is also to
isolate their adolescent and teenage daughters from the corrupting influences
that they see in much of American life.
About 40 percent of the Pakistani and other Southeast Asian girls of high school
age who are enrolled in the district here are home-schooled, though broader
statistics on the number of Muslim children being home-schooled, and how well
they do academically, are elusive. Even estimates on the number of all American
children being taught at home swing broadly, from one million to two million.
No matter what the faith, parents who make the choice are often inspired by a
belief that public schools are havens for social ills like drugs and that they
can do better with their children at home.
“I don’t want the behavior,” said Aya Ismael, a Muslim mother home-schooling
four children near San Jose. “Little girls are walking around dressing like
hoochies, cursing and swearing and showing disrespect toward their elders. In
Islam we believe in respect and dignity and honor.”
Still, the subject of home schooling is a contentious one in various Muslim
communities, with opponents arguing that Muslim children are better off staying
in the system and, if need be, fighting for their rights.
Robina Asghar, a Muslim who does social work in Stockton, Calif., says the fact
that her son was repeatedly branded a “terrorist” in school hallways sharpened
his interest in civil rights and inspired a dream to become a lawyer. He now
attends a Catholic high school.
“My son had a hard time in school, but every time something happened it was a
learning moment for him,” Mrs. Asghar said. “He learned how to cope. A lot of
people were discriminated against in this country, but the only thing that
brings change is education.”
Many parents, however, would rather their children learn in a less difficult
environment, and opt to keep them home.
Hina Khan-Mukhtar decided to tutor her three sons at home and to send them to a
small Muslim school cooperative established by some 15 Bay Area families for
subjects like Arabic, science and carpentry. She made up her mind after visiting
her oldest son’s prospective public school kindergarten, where each pupil had
assembled a scrapbook titled “Why I Like Pigs.” Mrs. Khan-Mukhtar read with
dismay what the children had written about the delicious taste of pork, barred
by Islam. “I remembered at that age how important it was to fit in,” she said.
Many Muslim parents contacted for this article were reluctant to talk, saying
Muslim home-schoolers were often portrayed as religious extremists. That view is
partly fueled by the fact that Adam Gadahn, an American-born spokesman for Al
Qaeda, was home-schooled in rural California.
“There is a tendency to make home-schoolers look like antisocial fanatics who
don’t want their kids in the system,” said Nabila Hanson, who argues that most
home-schoolers, like herself, make an extra effort to find their children
opportunities for sports, music or field trips with other people.
Lodi’s Muslims also attracted unwanted national attention when one local man,
Hamid Hayat, was sentenced last year to 24 years in prison on a terrorism
conviction that his relatives say was largely due to a fabricated confession.
(Had he been more Americanized, they say, he would have known to ask for a
lawyer as soon as the F.B.I. appeared.)
Parents who home-school tend to be converts, Mrs. Khan-Mukhtar said. Immigrant
parents she has encountered generally oppose the idea, seeing educational
opportunities in America as a main reason for coming.
If so, then Fawzia Mai Tung is an exception, a Chinese Muslim immigrant who
home-schools three daughters in Phoenix. She spent many sleepless nights worried
that her children would not excel on standardized tests, until she discovered
how low the scores at the local schools were. Her oldest son, also
home-schooled, is now applying to medical school.
In some cases, home-schooling is used primarily as a way to isolate girls like
Miss Bibi, the Pakistani-American here in Lodi.
Some 80 percent of the city’s 2,500 Muslims are Pakistani, and many are
interrelated villagers who try to recreate the conservative social atmosphere
back home. A decade ago many girls were simply shipped back to their villages
once they reached adolescence.
“Their families want them to retain their culture and not become Americanized,”
said Roberta Wall, the principal of the district-run Independent School, which
supervises home schooling in Lodi and where home-schooled students attend weekly
hourlong tutorials.
Of more than 90 Pakistani or other Southeast Asian girls of high school age who
are enrolled in the Lodi district, 38 are being home-schooled. By contrast, just
7 of the 107 boys are being home-schooled, and usually the reason is that they
were falling behind academically.
As soon as they finish their schooling, the girls are married off, often to
cousins brought in from their families’ old villages.
The parents “want their girls safe at home and away from evil things like boys,
drinking and drugs,” said Kristine Leach, a veteran teacher with the Independent
School.
The girls follow the regular high school curriculum, squeezing in study time
among housework, cooking, praying and reading the Koran. The teachers at the
weekly tutorials occasionally crack jokes of the “what, are your brothers’ arms
broken?” variety, but in general they tread lightly, sensing that their students
obey family and tradition because they have no alternative.
“I do miss my friends,” Miss Bibi said of fellow students with whom she once
attended public school. “We would hang out and do fun things, help each other
with our homework.”
But being schooled apart does have its benefit, she added. “We don’t want anyone
to point a finger at us,” she said, “to say that we are bad.”
Mrs. Asghar, the Stockton woman who argues against home schooling, takes
exception to the idea of removing girls from school to preserve family honor,
calling it a barrier to assimilation.
“People who think like this are stuck in a time capsule,” she said. “When kids
know more than their parents, the parents lose control. I think that is a fear
in all of us.”
Aishah Bashir, now an 18-year-old Independent School student, was sent back to
Pakistan when she was 12 and stayed till she was 16. She had no education there.
Asked about home schooling, she said it was the best choice. But she admitted
that the choice was not hers and, asked if she would home-school her own
daughter, stared mutely at the floor. Finally she said quietly: “When I have a
daughter, I want her to learn more than me. I want her to be more educated.”
