Earlier this month, the Lexington wrote a column in the Economist attacking critics of Cordoba House. On his blog, he has posts a flailing response from Rick Tyler, a Gingrich spokesman. While I believe that the extent of anti-muslim fervor in this country is exaggerated by many on the left, Tyler’s rhetoric really is despicable.
Gingrich…recognizes that the radical Islamism that drove the 9/11 attacks is more than simply a religious belief. It is a comprehensive political movement that seeks to impose sharia—Islamic law—upon all aspects of global society. Moreover, while some radical Islamists use terrorism as a tactic to impose sharia, Gingrich and many Americans are well aware – even if the Economist’s columnist charged with reporting on American society has not yet figured this out — that other radical Islamists also use non-violent methods to wage a cultural, economic, political, and legal jihad that seeks the same totalitarian goal of sharia supremacy even while claiming to repudiate violence.
I understand that sharia law is an effective bogeyman. It’s difficult to see, however, what sharia law has to do with international terrorism. As Reza Aslan argued in his book “How to Win a Cosmic War,” the perpetrators of 9/11 don’t actually have much of a political agenda. How, then, are they a part of a “comprehensive political movement” to propagate sharia? Does he really think that al-Qaeda, Hamas, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and Sufi Imams are part of a coherent political movement? Also, what exactly is “global society”? Most conservatives would deny the existence of such a thing.
Ground Zero is not like any other place in America to build a mosque. It is a battlefield where radical Islamists who trade in terror murdered almost 3,000 Americans in an act of war.
No, it’s really not. It’s the site of a national tragedy.
Lexington calls Imam Faisal Abd ar-Rauf, the ground zero mosque leader, a “well-meaning” cleric. Apparently, the British Economist magazine thinks you qualify as “well-meaning” if you believe that “United States policies were an accessory to the crime that happened [on 9/11]”, which is what Rauf said in a [2001] interview on CBS 60 Minutes. Americans don’t find anything well-meaning about that statement.
Besides the bogus invocation of “Americans,” Tyler is wrong to extrapolate how “well-meaning” a man is from one arguably offensive statement.
Rauf told CBN last May that “by being in this location we get the attention and are able to leverage the voice of the vast majority of Muslims who condemn terrorism.” But given the opportunity to do just that in a subsequent interview, he demurred. Asked if he thought Hamas, responsible for murdering civilians, is a terrorist organization could only say “I try to avoid the issues. The issue of terrorism is a very complex question.”
Rauf clearly seek the Ground Zero location for a propaganda platform but it is also clear that it will not be for the purpose of condemning terrorism.
Again, one ambiguous quote followed by a sweeping characterization of the man’s intentions.
There is much more in Imam Rauf’s background to make Americans believe that Imam Rauf wants to build a GZM as an arrogant political act of Islamist triumphalism rather than as a genuine effort at building inter-faith understanding. If the latter were indeed Rauf’s goal, then why doesn’t Rauf propose building an inter-faith community center at ground zero with a church, synagogue, and a mosque, governed by a board of Christians, Jews, and Muslims?
Tyler may be right that an inter-faith community center would a better bridge-building exercise, but who cares? The debate is not over the best use of the building, people are discussing this particular project. Gingrich can (and should!) buy his own building and create his own community center.
If Rauf is so intent on “improving Muslim-West relations”, then why doesn’t he lead an effort to build the first church and synagogue in the heart of the Muslim world in Saudi Arabia? Which do Economist readers really believe will improve Muslim-West relations more: one more mosque in America — but this time at Ground Zero — or the first church in Saudi Arabia?
Why doesn’t Gingrich campaign in favor of Saudi Arabian churches rather than against this mosque? Is it because he is an American politician, rather than a Saudi prince?
Short of that, Rauf’s pleas for religious liberty in the United States (a freedom Saudi Arabia and other Muslim counrties forbid) is rank hypocrisy. Western editorial and political elites may remain blissfully blind to Rauf’s hypocrisy at the expense of 9/11 victims and their families, but most Americans recognize the hypocrisy and are insulted.
If Gingrich’s people could find an instance where Rauf defended or excused the lack of religious liberty in a place like Saudi Arabia, then a charge of hypocrisy might be appropriate.
Ideally, we wouldn’t have to waste time responding to people who use the phrase “at the expense of the 9/11 victims and their families” to stoke anti-Muslim sentiment. Gingrich has created an opportunity to reaffirm the principles of a free society, and we would be remiss not to seize it.
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