Here is a round-up of interesting links on the so-called GZM controversy in the USA – should a Muslim cultural centre cum mosque be built close to the site of the 9/11 terror attacks on the World Trade Center in New York?

Or not? If not, why not?

Peter Beinart says that in revealing a geyser of Islamophobic hysteria (or something like that) America has disgraced itself:

Once upon a time, the “war on terror” was supposed to bring American values to Saudi Arabia. Now Newt Gingrich says we shouldn’t build a mosque in Lower Manhattan until the Saudis build churches and synagogues in Mecca—which is to say, we’re bringing Saudi values to the United States.

Not exactly.

What in fact has happened is an unSaudi-like good ol’ US public intellectual ding-dong about Rules and Values, with all sorts of people on Left and Right alike spiralling off in unexpected directions.

Take William Dalrymple, not normally associated with wild-eyed radicalism, who points out some of the subtler issues involved. The Cordoba Centre is being supported by the Sufi tendency in Islam, one the West should encourage:

Feisal Abdul Rauf of the Cordoba Initiative is one of America’s leading thinkers of Sufism, the mystical form of Islam, which in terms of goals and outlook couldn’t be farther from the violent Wahhabism of the jihadists… 

His slightly New Agey rhetoric makes him sound, for better or worse, like a Muslim Deepak Chopra. But in the eyes of Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, he is an infidel-loving, grave-worshiping apostate; they no doubt regard him as a legitimate target for assassination.

Victor Hanson Davis is more cynical:

Here at home well-meaning liberals would applaud the audacity of hope in positioning a mosque near the 9/11 site in order to “commemorate” the “tragedy,” as a token of tolerance where all could come together and thus avoid another misunderstanding of the sort that sent two airliners crashing into two skyscrapers. 

 

Abroad, the message would, of course, be interpreted quite differently: To the radical Islamists, a mosque rising near Ground Zero well before a new World Trade Center is constructed is a message of Islamic triumphalism — in the long tradition of minarets on the conquered Santa Sophia in Istanbul, the eighth-century Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem rising on the site of the destroyed Jewish Second Temple, and the great mosque at Cordoba retrofitted from the gutted Christian Church of St. Vincent.

Elsewhere too views diverge. See eg some Muslim Republicans:

Muslim Republicans like David Ramadan and Randa Fahmy Hudome see it as a free-exercise issue that shouldn’t be demagogued for midterm gain, and longtime blogger Aziz Poonawalla gave a thoughtful interview to fellow blogger Scott Payne reiterating his support for the project and his misgivings about how both opponents and Park51 management have handled the subject.

Why not go all the way on tolerance while we’re at it? Build a bar for gay Muslims right next to the new Center:

"I hope that the mosque owners will be as open to the bar, as I am to the new mosque. After all, the belief driving them to open up their center near Ground Zero, is no different than mine. My place, however, will have better music."

Liberty Girl looks vigorously at the whole business from the point of view of first principles of freedom:

So now come these guys who want to build a mosque.  Not just any mosque, but named for freaking Cordoba, the virtual capital of Moor occupied Spain.  And not just any place, but in the still bleeding heart of an American tragedy.

Can anyone, ANYONE, show me where in the Constitution we are guaranteed the right to not be offended?

… This is not about whether or not we, as a people, agree with the deliberate slap in the face the mosque and community center builders want to deliver to us.  Especially since they have chosen September 11 as the dedication date. 

They are absolutely trying to get a reaction from us.  They WANT us to either halt the deal so they can say “Look, the Americans are breaking their own Constitution to stop us from building this” or to let it go through so they can say “Look, the Americans are so weak they didn’t even try to stop us from building this.” 

Either way, they get their propaganda. Either way, they can turn to their Muslim brethren and boast about how they outwitted us…

She advocates letting them build:

I think I would rather be called coward and know that it isn’t true than be called bully and know that it is.

Maybe that’s the point in all thus hubbub?

That the same sort of people who clamour for Islamic ‘sensitivities’ to be respected and edge towards giving militant Muslims a de facto right to ban anything which ‘offends’ them (eg cartoons) are now insisting primly on Muslims’ freedom under the law to build a mosque wherever they choose, regardless of the sensitivities of others who might be unhappy?

Which brings us elegantly to President Obama’s speechwriter. See next posting.