I looked into the Cordoba House - which may have been been renamed Park51 - and learned some more.
An article from the New York Daily News mentioned that the Cordoba House is a community center and also a prayer space. Now I am typically not for building a prayer space as I am completely against praying in the first place. However, as much as I wish religion to dissipate, being unreasonably tyrannical will not make it so. I truly hope Cordoba House turns out as more of a community center than it does a prayer space. Since the goal of the project is to build better relations between Islamic people and Western culture and to help Islamic people feel accepted - something they are not in many American's minds - I would except the community center to play a large role and that Christians and others could also pray.
A meeting about the property where Cordoba House would be built got out of hand and ended with people revealing their strong feelings on the project (NY Daily News Article).
"People were murdered on 9/11 because the terrorists believed in the power of Islam," said Sierra Rose, 19, of Manhattan. "Anybody who is an American knows what caused those people to attack us on 9/11 was their religion," Rose added.
Why is this news story quoting a 19 year old girl? Out of all the people with opinions on the topic the reporter picked a loud mouth 19 year old girl who should have been in 5th grade when 9/11 occurred. Good job. While this girls may be correct - the "terrorists" where followers of Islam - she is demonstrating the need for a community center aimed at showing not all Islamic people are crazy. The director of the American Society for Muslim Advancement, Daisy Khan, made clear that her organization responsible for the Cordoba House consisted of moderate Muslims who wished to show that the extremist ideology is not their way. Khan also stated "For us it is a symbol..that will give voice to the silent majority of Muslims who suffer at the hands of extremists. A center will show that Muslims will be part of rebuilding lower Manhattan" (Wiki).
I am not sure as to how "mosque-like" the center will be. I do not think it matters, besides what kind of mosque has a pool? This project is and will continue to bring out the bigotry of Americans who naively blame the entire Muslim community for 9/11. They need to relax and be more tolerant even though I enjoy seeing Christians making themselves appear very unchristian.
In the long run the project will either (1) allow expression for moderate Muslims, leading away from extremism which is always good. To eliminate religion it needs to slowly be watered down. Unlike many Christians, most Muslims seem to be intensely devoted to their faith and actually center their lives around it. This project may help develop an Americanized watered down Islamic faith where the community no longer practices what they preach - Hallelujah! The project may also (2) gather more Muslim people together and lead to a group of extremists Muslims who want to influence political decisions with their faith. In this case the Muslim group will show Americans exactly what they were afraid of and bring down further intolerance for their faith. Hopefully the political disputes that would break out would highlight the error of letting Christian faith sway our politics as well. Seems like a win-win situation for me.
No comments:
Post a Comment