New York Mosque? Yes, Both in Theory and in Practice

Barack Obama is serving no one well with his contradictory remarks concerning the construction of a mosque near Ground Zero in New York. He was silent for months, during which time the argument escalated.

Election campaign time in the United States is known as “silly season.” People — and not only professional politicians — are apt to do things that, on second thought, would be better left undone. President Obama isn’t accomplishing anything constructive with his contradictory remarks concerning the construction of a mosque near Ground Zero in New York. He remained silent for months, until the arguments escalated and the issue spilled over onto the national scene because a few Republicans saw it as a useful campaign issue.

At a dinner in honor of the Muslim Ramadan holiday, Obama said that Muslims in the United States had a right to practice their religion like everyone else; that included the right to build places of worship. By the next day, he was already backpedaling on that stance by saying that his remarks were in support of the principle only, not whether he thought it wise to build a mosque two blocks from the site where 3,000 people died as the result of Islamic terrorists attacking the World Trade Center towers using airplanes.

So he’s in favor of the principle, but said nothing about the practice? That’s cowardly. But the rationale for his stance is no secret: Many Democrats think their chances in the coming midterm elections will be hurt if Democrats support that principle. First off, 68 percent of Americans are against the building. They feel it’s insulting to the victims of the 9/11 attacks because the terrorists claimed to be acting on the behalf of Islam. Secondly, the president’s involvement stirs up resentment against him personally. One in three Americans already believe he’s a closet Muslim. In view of such power-politics sentiments, Obama would have been better off remaining silent.

This mosque is actually the perfect subject for a debate on what the West can do to stop being perceived as the enemy in the Muslim world. The symbolism of the setting and the emotions involved are, on the one hand, a barrier. On the other hand, they force all sides to recognize certain facts. The 3,000 victims included about 50 Muslims. The planned memorial in the mosque can remind the worshipers who their real enemy is: not America, but radical Muslims. That’s also the lesson learned in the latest United Nations study of Afghan war victims. Seventy-five percent of them are the result of attacks or assassinations carried out by al-Qaeda and the Taliban; only 25 percent were the result of aerial attacks or other military operations carried out by NATO and the Afghan military.

New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg favors the mosque. He says it shows the world the real America, a nation open and tolerant. Muslims are better integrated in the United States than anywhere else in the West. Their education level is above average, as are their incomes. There is little controversy over headscarves or fluency in English, as there is in France and Germany. When the president invites Muslims to the White House to celebrate Ramadan, it represents the next development in social history. Fifty years ago, the same gestures had to be made to Catholics and Jews to give them a feeling of inclusion. Up until that time, America considered itself a Protestant nation. Today’s challenge is to avoid the impression that America is a Judeo-Christian nation that merely tolerates Muslims.

Why does objection to the mosque find such wide acceptance? Many citizens are frustrated, saying that tolerance shouldn’t be a one-way street. Mosques may be built in America, but churches are forbidden in the Islamic world. The United States and its allies sacrifice the blood of their soldiers and spend billions of tax dollars to help Muslims combat their radical oppressors, and all they seemingly get in return is criticism. But despite that, building the New York mosque is still the right thing to do — in principle, as well as in practice. It is a way for America to display its openness to the world. It may well take more than a generation for the Muslim world to overcome its prejudices toward the West.