An Understandable Uneasiness

Nine years after the 9/11 attacks, the proposed construction of a mosque near ground zero has fueled debate in New York. It has sparked an understandable uneasiness.

This is a sensitive issue in which it is unfortunately so easy to throw oil on the fire. It’s the perfect example of a debate where nuances should prevail while they are — also unfortunately — systematically swept up by a deluge of inflammatory words that are too strong.

Too bad that politicians like Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich have been behaving like bulls in a china shop. As good a politician as he is, Mr. Gingrich has exploited this controversial project by declaring that he is waiting for the day when Saudi Arabia would authorize the construction of Christian churches and synagogues in their country.

Luckily, the United States is nothing like the unbending Saudi Arabia! It is the honor of the fathers of the American nation to have guaranteed freedom of religion.

The most committed defenders of the project, like New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, emphasize a series of arguments. First, they assert that a mosque isn’t being built, but a Muslim cultural center, open to other faiths.

As they are still repeating, opponents are wrong to confuse Islam and the 9/11 terrorists, those who have gone astray from their religion in order to perpetrate the barbarous attacks on the World Trade Center towers.

Finally, they are right to ask how many blocks from Ground Zero is necessary before this Islamic center can be built, since opponents argue that installing it two blocks away would be too close. How many blocks does it have to be? Three? Thirty-five?

Is this the end of the debate? Absolutely not. Arguments in support of the center are too coldly rational. They don’t consider life as it is, as it unfolds.

Advocates for the center must agree that the project arouses a real uneasiness among many American citizens, even those who are not narrow-minded Islamophobes.

They can’t dismiss this feeling with a wave of the hand, under the pretext of irrationality. It isn’t stupidly irrational. It is self-explanatory.

It comes from a human sensitivity tied to a singular event. Moreover, a traumatizing event that happened little less than nine years ago might as well be yesterday.

The uneasiness is perfectly understandable. Here is why: In the present context, two steps from ground zero, this project isn’t a good idea.

The “rationalists” should take this into account rather than treating all the opponents as if they were high.