Posted by
Bill Crawford on Wednesday, September 22, 2010 12:39:58 AM
Those who don't clearly fall on one side or the other in the great debate over the Ground Zero Mosque are wondering what all the blood pressure is about. In New York City itself, there is a good deal of this driven by the fact that there are so many there with friends or relatives who died that day. The farther you go from NYC, the lesser a factor that is.
What is driving the debate is that it is a symbol for how the two ends of the American culture war view the war on terror. One side views it as a real and present problem, driven back from our soil by the efforts of our military overseas. The other side views it more as a criminal problem, driven in part by our cultural arrogance and something we may be overreacting to.
There was unity on this in the months after 9/11: our country spoke in full throat, looking to lash out against the people who were responsible. I remember a Sunday in late September, 2001, listening to a church Mass end in "God Bless America". Tears were flowing freely- it was a memorable moment. Three years later, many of them couldn't understand why we were fighting in the Middle East. Many of them invested time in lecturing me on how I hadn't "grown past the hate".
After 9/11, houses, businesses, cars and people sprouted flags like post-vacation lawn weeds. Then, three months later, I was told that in New York City, people were on the lookout for flag bling that was still a flag, but not quite so obvious, and I knew then that the unity would soon be at an end.
It doesn't matter that both sides regard the right to build a religious structure without the interference of government should be regarded as a near absolute. The people that are against it think it primarily as a sensitivity issue, which it's proponents cannot understand, or regard as a pittance compared to the freedom issue. They never will see eye to eye on that, but it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter, because the primary issue is one of trust. The Mosque opponents do not trust the "moderate" Muslims on this, and the proponents do not seem to have a problem with them, or worse- have more of a problem with us. There is no getting around that. The Mosque may never get built, though, because the sensitivity issue in NYC holds the hearts of many who would otherwise be supporters.
Here's another side issue that lurks behind this whole thing. The Muslims, like some gangs here (notably the Salvadorian MS-13) have what the law enforcement community calls a violent brand. In other words, a large part of their influence is based upon their reputation for issuing violence or death threats and then acting on them. This is what has the Europeans in such a bind with their Muslim population.
Of course, this is old news to anyone following the career of Salmon Rushdie. The scuttlebutt here is of the FBI asking Mandy Norris to "go ghost" with their help, after she drew up the cutest kid style illustrations for a "Draw Mohammed Day" contest, and got the attendant death threats. The Florida Pastor who was planning to burn a Quran on 9/11 got more than his share of threats, too.
The point being, this stuff only works if you let it. I am not a fan of burning books, and certainly not religious tomes, but I was thinking, if the book burnings happened in a couple of dozen places at once here, how long would it take the relatively media savvy Muslim extremists to realize that the intimidation wasn't working here?
This is just mental amusement at this point, but it is a question we will eventually have to face. And, as long as we have politicos in power whose first inclination is to apologize for our behavior, it will never happen.