Religious prejudice and xenophobia

I've noticed that the issue of a plan to build a community center containing a mosque near the former site of the World Trade Center in Manhattan has been in the news a lot in the US lately. This strikes me as yet another thing that should not really be an issue at all, and wouldn't be if it weren't for some people who, while talking obsessively about patriotism and such things, seem to lack even a basic understanding of the principles which are the US's main claim to any sort of moral high ground relative to its enemies (never mind for the moment that in the past the rather large gap between principles and actions has tended to seriously erode that moral high ground).

A major impetus to the settlement of what is now the United States was a desire among members of religious groups that were discriminated against in England to find a place to practice their religion. The Puritans commonly known as the Pilgrims settled Massachusetts for this reason, as did the Catholics who settled Maryland. People from non-English speaking countries who belong to persecuted religious groups, such as French Huguenots, also came to the US for the same reasons. Freedom of religion was considered vital by the leaders of the early US (see, for instance, the quote from George Washington that I mentioned in a previous essay stating that he didn't care if workers were Jews, Muslims, atheists, or any type of Christians, as long as they worked well).

Now we have a bunch of people in the US who want to deny adherents of a particular religion, in this case Islam, the freedom to establish places of worship, not only near the WTC site, but in other places around the country. How much more blatant a violation of the principle of freedom of religion can there be? In the case of the New York Islamic community center, the critics talk about Islamic triumphalism and insensitivity. While one might just possibly be able to make a case for saying establishing a mosque so close to the WTC site is slightly insensitive, even this requires certain questionable arguments. We should keep in mind that the WTC was not attacked by Islam itself; it was attacked by violent extremists who happened to be Muslim. The people who are planning to build the mosque represent a much more peaceful, tolerant type of Islam (attempts to tie them to Islamic extremists seem dubious at best). If no mosque should be built in the neighborhood of the WTC site simply because the 9/11 attacks were committed by Muslims, does that mean no churches should be allowed near the sites of massacres or other atrocities committed by those who were supposedly Christian? If so, there would be lots of places all over the world were churches shouldn't be built.

Those who plan to build the Islamic community center have emphasized their desire to make it a place where people of all religions will feel welcome, a place of reconciliation where Muslims and non-Muslims can get to understand each other better. What exactly is bad about that? The problem with Islamic extremists such as Osama bin Laden is that they are completely intolerant of differing opinions and ways of life. If Americans reject all Muslims, even peaceful ones who want to improve understanding with those of other religions, how are they better than the Islamic extremists?

What's more, as is pointed out in a recent article in Time (http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2011400,00.html), the community center will not even be at the actual site of "Ground Zero" but several blocks away. The argument that it is insensitive to build a mosque at the site of the tragedy would make more sense if it were actually going to be built there. It's not like the time when Hindu nationalists in Ayodhya, India tore down a mosque and wanted to build a Hindu temple on the exact same site (which they claimed was the site of the birthplace of Rama). As I pointed out above and the Time article further explains, while religion was unquestionably a major excuse for the attack, the attackers don't really represent their religion, and this is not ultimately a conflict between religions. And since the mosque won't even be on the site of the attack itself, to call its construction "Islamic triumphalism" is absurd. As the article points out, there is not a single legal reason to deny permission to build the community center, and those who protest against it are going against one of the major principles that the US was founded on.

Unfortunately, there seems to be a large minority of Americans with this kind of irrationally intolerant attitude. A similar phenomenon is seen in the movement among some, even in the US Congress, to deny citizenship to babies born in the US if their parents are there illegally. Whatever one thinks of what their parents have done (and despite anti-immigrant rants about them being "criminals", it's not like they are murderers or rapists), the children certainly aren't to blame. Punishing children, whether by denying them citizenship, medical care, or education, for the deeds of their parents is frankly reprehensible. One can only hope such xenophobic attitudes, like the religious intolerance exhibited by anti-mosque protesters, do not become too common among the American public.

Update (2010/08/25): A good piece on this issue and the ironic effect it may have on American support for the war in Afghanistan can be found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/opinion/22rich.html . One point the writer made was that the project is not a mosque but an Islamic community center containing a prayer space. Some fairly objective seeming reports, however, do refer to the prayer room as a mosque, and I haven't seen anything detailed enough to make clear which characterization would be more accurate, so I haven't edited out my references to a "mosque". But it is worth emphasizing that the building will be a community center with many functions that will be open to all, with the mosque (or prayer room) only one part of it.

I have seen a number of conservatives deny that anyone is contesting the right of Muslims to build a mosque at the site, asserting that their opposition is purely based on the belief that the site is inappropriate because it is insensitive. However, a lot of the comments from and signs carried by opponents clearly target Islam in general (not to mention the fact that anti-Muslim right wingers have been protesting mosques in places like Tennessee, which is a long way from the WTC site), so this assertion seems rather disingenuous. Furthermore, it is worth asking (as many have) exactly how far away from the WTC is far enough to satisfy these opponents. Two city blocks in NY is quite far, and there's already a mosque four blocks away. Some also bring up the Carmelite convent that the Catholic church agreed to move away from Auschwitz after Jewish protests, but that was right next to Auschwitz, not two blocks away.

Some also liken the project to building a Japanese monument near Pearl Harbor, but this is also a questionable analogy. First of all, it was Japan as a nation which attacked Pearl Harbor, while Islam as a religion was not responsible for 9/11 (despite what some might claim), except in the same sense that Christianity as a religion is "responsible" for massacres by its own fanatics. Furthermore, while a Japanese shrine dedicated solely to Japanese dead or something along those lines on the site of Pearl Harbor itself might be objectionable, a Japanese-government-funded museum dedicate to peace and clearly condemning the Japanese role in the conflict located next to the site would be acceptable. There should be even less objection to a community center aimed primarily (but not exclusively) at and funded by the local Japanese-American population (which is a very large percentage of the overall population in Hawaii) and that's essential what this project resembles.

None of the above means that Islam itself doesn't have its problems, at least as it is practiced by many of its adherents (even more moderate ones), or that care should be not taken to try to prevent the spread of any of those more questionable practices through whatever source, including places such as this community center. But then the same applies to Christianity and Judaism, whose more fundamentalist adherents sometimes try to impose their views on, for instance, same-sex marriage on the community at large. As long as there is no evidence that the community center in question is to be run by extremists (and vague claims of money ties are hardly evidence, as Jon Stewart points out: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-august-19-2010/extremist-makeover---homeland-edition), there is no reason it shouldn't be established in the place proposed for it.