Tearing into the heart of the matter…
The debate over the mosque in lower Manhattan is certainly an interesting one, but it is also a very emotional episode in American history. While there are two sides to this story, one for allowing the mosque to be built, the other against, there is an unfortunate side effect no matter which side you are on.
If one chooses to be against the mosque, to me, it is a perfectly natural reaction. After all, who wants to let the terrorists plant a victory flag at Ground Zero? Who wants to follow the long history of having Muslim “invaders” build mosques on conquered land? Is one fearful that if they are not against the mosque that somehow they are disrespecting the victims by allowing this to happen? Can you feel this way and yet be able to recognize that not all Muslims are terrorists? Worse yet, are we showing the terrorists that we are weak by allowing the mosque to be built?
If you are on the opposite side, are you trying to show the terrorists that we, as Americans, are not affected by their actions and the building of the mosque doesn’t bother us because we know not all Muslims are terrorists and, in fact, terrorists are a small percentage of a very large religion? (For the record, terrorists do not represent the peaceful Islam that millions of others do, I get that.) Do you think that this mosque is far enough away from Ground Zero? Do you not believe that this mosque is not a threat to anyone and is a peaceful building with a peaceful purpose? Where do the emotions of the victim’s families lie in your mind?
In the end, it really doesn’t matter which side of the argument you are on, there is absolutely no way of winning this impossible argument. If you believe one thing, the terrorists can always see it differently, it’s human nature. You say it’s black, they will claim it’s white. You say it is for peace, they call it victory. You say they cannot build, they say we are bigots for not letting them build. This world isn’t fair and (at least to me) that is undisputable.
The only noble move would be to have the organization that wants to build the mosque to understand the great divide and emotion that this is stirring and make the call to build elsewhere. That would simply avoid the argument and not really solve the greater issue, but is it even possible at this time to resolve this argument?
In the end, Americans want peace, we want to be understanding, we want to be understood. We want to believe that hope does exist, even though it may not. We do believe in our Constitution, but it tests everything about us (in the end). We want the world that we dream of, where opportunity exists, people help people, and compassion rules the day. I think we all want a world where we can all believe in what we want to believe, Muslim, Christian, Conehead, No Conehead – we don’t want it to matter.
My heart goes out to the victims of 9/11 and their families and loved ones who were torn apart on that fateful day almost nine years ago. May their lives always be remembered and let us never forget what the terrorists did on that day.
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