I just got home from spending a beautiful afternoon in lower Manhattan, where no one appeared to be thinking about a proposed Islamic Center near the former site of the Twin Towers. But 600 miles south of there in rural North Carolina, Ilario Pantano, ‘a former Marine and a Republican candidate for Congress,’ is attacking ‘the proposal before an enthusiastic crowd of hog farmers and military veterans.’ Very few New Yorkers care about this issue, but demagogues are going around the country riling up hog farmers about it.
We have the spectacle of the national director of the Anti-Defamation League comparing the 9/11 families to Holocaust victims, thereby entitling them to some kind of legal jujitsu that can block the First Amendment when it applies to Muslims.
“Survivors of the Holocaust are entitled to feelings that are irrational,” he said. Referring to the loved ones of Sept. 11 victims, he said, “Their anguish entitles them to positions that others would categorize as irrational or bigoted.”
I think Abe Foxman has opened a pandora’s box with that statement. I mean, if we’re talking about someone’s crazy Holocaust-surviving uncle, then, yeah, we’re all inclined to give him a little room to maintain his aversion to German cars or Bayer’s aspirin without too harshly judging his character. But in what sense is that crazy uncle ‘entitled’ to his prejudices? Not in the sense that he has any of legal claim. He can’t band together with like-minded Holocaust-survivors to ban the importation of Volkswagens. They can’t even tell neo-Nazis that they have no right to speak in public.
Now, aside from the legal matter, there is also the question of whether or not it is a good idea to locate an Islamic Center in near proximity to the former World Trade Center. Will the community be able to succeed in its mission or will the controversy surrounding its location make it counterproductive?
Those who support [the project] seem mystified and flustered by the heated opposition. They contend that the project, with an estimated cost of $100 million, is intended to span the divide between Muslim and non-Muslim, not widen it.
Oz Sultan, the programming director for the center, said the complex was based on Jewish community centers and Y.M.C.A.’s in Manhattan. It is to have a board composed of Muslim, Christian and Jewish leaders and is intended to create a national model of moderate Islam.
“We are looking to build bridges between faiths,” Mr. Sultan said in an interview…
…“The ADL should be ashamed of itself,” said Rabbi Irwin Kula, president of the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, which promotes interethnic and interfaith dialogue. Speaking of the imam behind the proposed center, Feisal Abdul Rauf, he said, “Here, we ask the moderate leaders of the Muslim community to step forward, and when one of them does, he is treated with suspicion.”
Only the directors of the project can decide the answer to that question. I don’t know. What I do know is that most New Yorkers don’t care one way or the other. And no disrespect to any of the fine hog farmers in North Carolina, but their opinion doesn’t trump the opinions of the people who live in lower Manhattan. The law is clear. And this controversy is a sad statement on the condition of the country. Irrational fear and hatred don’t entitle people to demand illegal behavior from their government.
