9/11 & Pearl Harbor, Muslims & Japan - 0 views
started by Frederick Smith on 15 Aug 10
started by Frederick Smith on 15 Aug 10
started by Frederick Smith on 15 Aug 10
started by Frederick Smith on 15 Aug 10
(1) Japan is a distinct, relatively homogeneous NATION that, like al-Qaeda, launched an unprovoked attack on the US, bringing the US into a conventional war between states that lasted nearly 4 years.
(2) Islam is a WORLDWIDE, UNIVERSAL RELIGION with between 1.0 and 1.5 billion adherents on all inhabited continents - including probably 5-7 million legally resident in the United States (approaching the size of the Jewish population).
(3) At least one-fourth of US Muslims are of African-American ancestry, with a stake in this nation that goes back 2 to 4 centuries, longer than that of most people of European descent now in the United States (excepting those whose ancestors were already here in the 17th-18th centuries: Protestants from the British Isles; Catholics in the then-Spanish Southwest; displaced Catholic French-Canadians; and a sprinkling of mostly Protestant immigrants from Holland, Germany, France and a few other western European countries).
(4) ONLY A VERY SMALL PROPORTION OF THE WORLD'S BILLION+ MUSLIMS APPROVE MASS-KILLING of the innocent to further their understanding of Islamic objectives is very small - certainly no larger than the proportion of the populations of Protestants or Catholics in Northern Ireland, or of Orthodox Serbs, who were willing to do the same at the height of their recent local conflicts.
(5) Apart, AT LEAST 58 INNOCENT MUSLIMS DIED AT "GROUND ZERO" ON 9/11 (NOT INCLUDING the 10 mostly-Saudi Muslim terrorists who commandeered the 2 planes). Their survivors are among "the 9/11 families," so often described as a monolith. These included a young Muslim couple on AA Flight#11: Rahma Salie, age 27 and 7 months pregnant, and her husband Michael Theodoridis, age 32 and a convert to Islam. Another Muslim victim from NYC described at http://islam.about.com/blvictims.htm:
"Imagine being the family of Salman Hamdani. The 23-year-old New York City police cadet was a part-time ambulance driver, incoming medical student, and devout Muslim. When he disappeared on September 11, law enforcement officials came to his family, seeking him for questioning in relation to the terrorist attacks. They allegedly believed he was somehow involved. His whereabouts were undetermined for over six months, until his remains were finally identified. He was found near the North Tower, with his EMT medical bag beside him, presumably doing everything he could to help those in need. His family could finally rest, knowing that he died the hero they always knew him to be."
(6) THE GROUP BUILDING THE MOSQUE IS CORDOBA HOUSE: A GROUP OF MODERATE MUSLIMS ABSOLUTELY DEDICATED TO OPPOSING THE MUSLIM extremism that does exist, to de-legitimizing extremist interpretations of the Qur'an, and to deepening the bonds of American Muslims both to the United States and to its citizens of other faiths. Obviously, they wish also to win the understanding and respect of non-Muslim Americans for Islam's fundamental nature as a RELIGION (not a justification for a particular political or cultural creature, although all religions are intertwined with cultural traditions that are hard to disentangle, and have been susceptible to nationalistic/ethnic co-opting - see the US's Michelle Bachmann, Sarah Palin and other Tea-Partiers in the Christian-right). Islam is a religion that - at its best (like Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism at their best) - fosters peace, tolerance and humble submission to the Ultimate Reality/Mystery whom religious adherents - at their best - bow to during their brief lives on this earth (God in the religions that trace their roots to the call of Abraham; Allah in Arabic). They chose the name Cordoba after the one medieval European nation that exemplified this ideal: the Spanish kingdom of Cordoba, ruled by Muslim Umayyad caliphs who nourished a vibrant, harmonious and creative community of Muslims, Christians and Jews during the 10th century - so unusual that a German nun (traveling on diplomatic duties) called Cordoba "the jewel of the world."
(7) SOME "9/11 FAMILIES" (although admittedly not most) SUPPORT THE EXISTING PLANS FOR THE MOSQUE (although most, admittedly, oppose it). Donna Marsh O'Connor, spokesperson for an organization representing 200 families), stated:
"SEPTEMBER 11TH FAMILIES FOR PEACEFUL TOMORROWS strongly supports efforts to bring an Islamic Cultural Center to lower Manhattan, near the Ground Zero site. We believe that welcoming the Center, which is intended to promote interfaith tolerance and respect, is consistent with fundamental American values of freedom and justice for all. We believe, too, that this building will serve as an emblem for the rest of the world that Americans stand against violence, intolerance and overt acts of racism and that we recognize that the evil acts of a few must never damn the innocent."
On 8/14 "MyFoxNY" - quoted Bronx resident Colleen Kelly (a Catholic who lost her brother Bill in the WTC) that "Obama's statements Friday are in line with America's values," and that
"the mosque [is] 'in many ways a fitting tribute. . . . This is the voice of Islam that I believe needs a wider audience. This is what moderate Islam is all about.'"
(See (http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/local_news/manhattan/911-Family-Members-Divided-Over-Mosque-Near-WTC-20100814-apx.)
(8) DESPITE THE DARK INSINUATIONS OF DEMAGOGIC POLITICIANS AND PROFESSIONAL MUSLIM-HATERS, THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE OF ANY NEFARIOUS FUNDING OF CORDOBA HOUSE BY GROUPS THAT SUPPORT ISLAMIC EXTREMISTS.
(9) GETTING BACK TO JAPAN, consider these facts:
(a) In 1941, about 150,000 HAWAIIANS (about 1/3 of the population) WERE OF JAPANESE ANCESTRY - they, like American Muslims, were also victims of their ancestral country's militaristic government.
(b) 110,000 US JAPANESE-AMERICANSLOST THEIR PROPERTY AND WERE INTERNED IN SHABBY CAMPS surrounded by barbed wire (62% of them citizens). In 1988 President Reagan and Congress apologized for a wrong which they acknowledged originated in "race prejudice, war hysteria, and failure of political leadership." In 1999, a Republican Congress voted $1.6 billion in reparations to surviving Japanese-American victims of internship.
(c) The 1945 A-BOMBING OF HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI KILLED UP TO 175,000 PEOPLE instantly, with another 200,000 dying from radiation effects over the following years). Nagasaki was the center of Japanese Catholicism, and its Urakami (St Mary's ) Cathedral - which was ground-zero for the "Fat-Man" A-bomb, killed a churchfull of worshippers attending Mass.
(d) See "The Catholic Holocaust" by Anthony Josemaria (a Franciscan Brother) at http://www.hprweb.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=250:the-catholic-holocaust-of-nagasaki-august-9-1945why-lord&catid=34:current-issue. Brother Anthony movingly describes the efforts of radiologist and radiation victim Dr. Takashi Nagai to encourage his fellow Nagasaki Catholics (in the face of their protests not to "dignify with pious words the atrocity perpetrated on their families") to seek peace and providential meaning in the holocaust they had suffered. (Dr. Nagai, the author of The Bells of Nagasaki and subject of Kinosita's film Children of Nagasaki," died in 1951.)
(10) Given the suffering of American Japanese and of the A-bomb victims in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, would we really find it unfathomable if, in 1950, pacifist representatives of these 2 groups wished to build a memorial dedicated to peace near the Pearl Harbor war memorials where Japan had attacked 9 years earlier? I don't know if such an idea was ever advanced, but had there been such an initiative, couldn't we see this as a step towards strengthening bonds of peace, and a commitment to avoid the devastation and terror of war as much as possible? Would it really be an insult to the sailors who died on the Arizona?
(11) Given the above facts, mustn't one see the objection to a Cordoba House initiative to build near Ground Zero as stemming, not from thoughtful Constitutional and ethical reasoning, but essentially from raw emotion? - inevitable grief causing understandable anger, which may become attached (isn't it true?) to a non-rational dimension of undiscriminating xenophobia and even vengeful hatred? And aren't the last 2 emotions incompatible with the deepest religious ideals of the faiths most of those opposed to the mosque appear to profess? Although ALL these feelings are understandable, should they be the basis for public policy in a secular, pluralistic democracy which seeks to protect the rights of ALL its citizens? - including those of vulnerable minorities which may be under attack by a majority which may momentarily try to bend the laws to accommodate certain reactive, discriminatory emotions?