The increasingly vocal campaign to prevent a mosque from being built near the Ground Zero site in New York City is an unseemly mixture of ignorance, irrational fear, naked bigotry and opportunistic political demagoguery. It also represents a blunder in terms of counterterrorism policy.
Unsurprisingly, Sarah Palin has thrust herself to the forefront of this effort, with her characteristic mangling of the English language somewhat obscuring the ugliness of the message underlying her now infamous “refudiate” tweet. Neddy Merrill captured the crux well:
As if you didn’t know, Palin tweeted as follows:
Ground Zero Mosque supporters: doesn’t it stab you in the heart, as it does ours throughout the heartland? Peaceful Muslims, pls refudiate…Peaceful New Yorkers, pls refute the Ground Zero mosque plan if you believe catastrophic pain caused @ Twin Towers site is too raw, too real….Peace-seeking Muslims pls understand. Ground Zero mosque is UNNECESSARY provocation; it stabs hearts. Pls reject it in interest of healing
There’s something obscene about Palin reminding “peaceful” New Yorkers that the pain of 9/11 is “too raw.” But what really set me off is the idea that “peaceful Muslims” should oppose the masjid because of its associations with 9/11. Here’s the tension: we’re always hearing calls for “moderate muslims” to repudiate extremism, denounce terrorism, etc., but the guy heading the Cordoba Institute is pretty much the paradigm case of the moderate muslim who rejects al Qaeda, Sharia-for-all, global caliphate, all that. The Cordoba Initiative is all about being the moderate Muslim voice. One problem, therefore, is that he’s being opposed by the people ostensibly calling for…more of what he wants to do.
The second problem: the CI masjid will be “unnecessary provocation” only if people see the pain of 9/11 as caused by [M]uslims rather than, say, extremist [M]uslims in al Qaeda. (If I were more enthused about this post I’d make up a story about “how dare you build a synagogue near where that Jewish guy did that terrible thing” etc. etc.) Complaining about the symbolism or psychological effects just helps to cement the idea that the relevant reference class is [M]uslim rather than something else. The point of amplifying the “moderate voice” is to show what is true, viz., the [M]uslim community is a diverse one with a very small minority who likes to blow stuff up. The collective responsibility view implicit in Palin’s opposition is diametrically opposed to that. And you wonder why Step ibn-Fetchit doesn’t come running when you call.
That’s it in essence. The building of this mosque by the Cordoba Institute would only be problematic if al-Qaeda is treated as representing all Muslims, even those that view al-Qaeda as a fringe group that espouses heretitcal ideas. No doubt al-Qaeda craves that mantle, but we have very good reasons to try to deny al-Qaeda that prize.
And, remarkably or not, many of the same pundits that claim to want “moderate” Muslims to take a more prominent role in marginalizing the extremists fringes are also the ones arguing that such moderate Muslim groups should not be part of the tapestry of the financial district in Manhattan.
This is common sense. Alienation and marginalization of moderate elements is not conducive to the empowerment of those same elements. That, aside from the malevolance of the bigotry itself.
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Tip of the cap to whomever first came up with “Step ibn-Fetchit.” Quality snark there.
Yeah, I laughed out loud at that one.