Planned mosque puts residue of bigotry on display

As soon as certain topics are raised, concrete melts into the abstract and no one seems able to think of turns of speech that are not hackneyed: prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated henhouse. — George Orwell

At the heart of this one-sided debate is a proposal to build an Islamic cultural center and mosque a few blocks from Ground Zero in New York City. Opponents maintain that Muslims should not have the right to build near Ground Zero. The conversation usually degenerates into polemics blaming Islam and Muslims, directly and indirectly, for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Once so caricatured, Muslims — all Muslims — become an easy target. Opponents of the mosque project then make it their God-given right to prevent the construction of what they consider to be a symbol of terrorism so close to hallowed ground.

For the debate to have a semblance of civility, you have to define its parameters. If the American people believe that Islam is a violent and evil religion and an insult to the memory of 9/11 victims, then there is very little to discuss. In this case, the battle lines are already drawn by Republican politicians such as Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin as well as many right-wing Christian clergy. This course is destined to repeat the past.

But if we look through the pages of history, we find that Muslims have at times worked closely with Christians and Jews to achieve spectacular advances in the arts and science. They also helped usher in the European Renaissance. How, then, can you blame 1.4 billion Muslims for the evil doings of a small number who also claim to be Muslims?

Americans take pride in the freedom of religion. That includes freedom from the tyranny of religious leaders and politicians. To deny a legitimate construction project on private land that does not violate any zonal laws is inherently against what America stands for.

For those well-meaning people who say this project is an affront to the memory of 9/11 victims, let us not forget that among the nearly 3,000 victims there were hundreds of Muslims. The site is shared hallowed ground for all religions and many nationalities.

Religious bigotry has deep roots in this country. In the 1830s and 1840s, two firebrand preachers, Horace Bushnell and Lyman Beecher, incited mobs against Catholics. They were encouraged and supported by the American Protestant Association. Historian Arthur Schlesinger, Sr., called this “the deepest-held bias in the history of the American people.”

Also, you must not forget the Native Americans, African-Americans, Jewish-Americans, Mormons, and Japanese-American who have suffered at the hands of self-righteous bigotry. We may have come a long way, but the residue of bigotry persists in some minds.

Today, five Catholics sit on the Supreme Court, but they take their cues from the U.S. Constitution rather than the Vatican. Ditto for the three Jews and one Protestant on the court. Beecher and Bushnell would be turning in their graves.

Mr. Gingrich and Ms. Palin are throwbacks to a bigoted past. But it was surprising that a paragon of religious freedom, the Jewish Anti-Defamation League, jumped on the anti-Muslim bandwagon. That led Fareed Zakaria, a CNN commentator and editor of Newsweek International, to return the Hubert Humphrey Award he received from the ADL in 2005. One cannot be two-faced about religious freedom.

But there are many who support the idea of building the Muslim community center near Ground Zero. National Council of Churches President Michael Kinnamon said: “Ground Zero must be open to the religious expression of all people whose lives were scarred by the tragedy: Christians, Jews, Sikhs, Buddhists, Hindus, and more. And Muslims.”

Dr. S. Amjad Hussain is a retired Toledo surgeon whose column appears every other week in The Blade.

Contact him at: aghaji@bex.net