Zero Tolerance at Ground Zero

Obama can’t back down on the Manhattan Islamic center issue.

The debate is shrill and subjective, but perhaps it would have been naïve to expect otherwise. The terror shock of 9/11 is deeply buried in America’s collective memory. For the families of the victims, the wounds are still fresh. It’s no wonder that the disagreement about a mosque at Ground Zero rapidly took on emotional features.

But it’s incorrect to think that lofty minarets will soon tower over Manhattan. What’s planned is an Islamic community center including a library, restaurants and prayer rooms. It’s intended to be a symbol of reconciliation, tolerance and dialogue — not one of divisiveness, and certainly not a monument to subsequent triumph. It can’t be emphasized often enough that the assassins around Mohammed Atta weren’t representing Islam: They invoked the name of Islam in an attempt to disguise their crime.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has already said everything that needs saying on the subject: that tolerance is the elixir of life in this world metropolis; that New York could only achieve greatness by opening its doors to everyone; that it is a valuable asset in safeguarding America’s freedom of religion. Barack Obama said much the same using different words. Yet neither he nor Mayor Bloomberg succeeded in calming the troubled waters. On the contrary.

It says a lot about the current state of mind in the United States, a nation that, at present, is not at peace with itself. It is fraught with uncertainty, forced back into the economic shadows by export powerhouses like China and Germany. It’s a nation that, in the midst of the euphoria surrounding Obama, hopes for miracles and is all the more disappointed to find that it will take time to pull the cart out of the deep mud hole the Bush administration drove it into. In an America like that, populist slogans fall on fertile soil. Sarah Palin can be assured of thunderous applause when she calls the “mosque” near Ground Zero a dagger in America’s heart.

That’s not what this project, long ago approved by local government, actually is. The idea didn’t come from al-Qaida, and Osama bin Laden presumably would have categorically rejected it. It came from Faisal Abdul Rauf, a cleric whose flag stands for conciliation. The imam preaches interfaith dialogue. He had hoped to heal the wounds, especially with the choice for the center’s location. He correctly reminded everyone that Muslim New Yorkers also perished in the attack.

In light of all the understandable emotion, the United States would be well advised to take a break in the debate. It wasn’t that long ago that American politicians were expressing pride in America’s integration of Muslims, something that seemed to be succeeding more so than in Europe. As suicide bombers from Yorkshire blew themselves up on the London Underground, the concept of America, land of immigrants, seemed to be working. Don’t create divisions, don’t allow cultural ghettos or divisiveness, and ensure that everyone is, above all else, one thing: American.

America’s strength lies in its diversity, and an Islamic house of God at Ground Zero belongs in that picture puzzle. It would be good if the populists reconsidered their course and Obama not give the impression that he’s backtracking.