In the interest of Tolerance

by Gordon Cooper

From Broader View Weekly, August 26, 2010

Imagine, if you will, that you are a descendant of a proud Iroquois tribe. You carry your ethnic heritage with justifiable pride and you regularly visit the ancient burial grounds to pay your respects and memorialize those who have walked this earth before you. Each year you lay a flower and say a prayer over their final resting place. This year, however, you arrive at that sacred place to find the noise and stench of diesel engines breaking the usual silence and sweet aroma of the forest site. You watch as bulldozer blades rip the topsoil from the whitened bones of your ancestors, exposing and scattering the ribs and vertebrae as if they were nothing more than dirt. Would you be willing to allow the construction to go on – in the interest of tolerance?

Now imagine, if you will, that you are the child of a woman who was one of those airplane passengers who perished that fateful September morning in 2001. You have heard the voices recorded from the cockpit on that awful day and you know that the last words your mother heard before the plane crashed through the walls and glass of the World Trade Center were: “Allah Akbar!” Now, you are walking to the place where your mother’s incinerated remains flew through the air and settled upon the sidewalks and gutters. Your intent is to pay your respects to her on her birthday. You are in the midst of a silent prayer, when through the window of a nearby building you hear those words again said in unison by hundreds of praying Muslims: “Allah Akbar!” – “All praise to Allah!” Would you be willing to accept the premise that the existence of that mosque at this place was an effort to “build bridges between Islam and the West”? Would you accept it being there – in the interest of tolerance?

I contend that there are certain areas and certain sites that retain more than just material significance; they should be, and are sanctified, by what took place there or by what they represent. Therefore they should be treated differently than other pieces of real estate. For example, we would not want to see a McDonald’s golden arch or a Wal-Mart parking lot near the gates of Arlington National Cemetery. We would not want to see a Japanese flag flying over the memorial dock in Pearl Harbor where the buried destroyer still cries tears of oil for those who perished in that brutal attack that forced us into World War II.

Those who are planning the erection of the mosque near Ground Zero deliberately chose the site because of its moral significance to us and its morale-boosting relevance to Anti-American Islamists in Saudi Arabia and other nations who call themselves the Muslim Brotherhood, whose stated goal is: “to eliminate and destroy Western civilization from within.” Despite the spoken claim that they chose this spot to open dialogue between those who follow Islam and those who have other beliefs, a careful reading of their own scriptures proves that they accept no compromising position when it comes to their beliefs.

It is also a known fact that within the Muslim faith it is their practice to erect mosques at or near the point of important victories. Hence, there are mosques that overlook monumental sites like the place where the second Jewish temple was destroyed in Jerusalem in the eighth century and on the grounds of the destroyed Christian Church of St. Vincent in Cordoba, Spain.

My brother echoes the words of President Obama and others who say this is an issue of religious freedom and he makes the claim that we who make up the vast majority who oppose this mosque are intolerant. He fails to mention, however, the same poll showed that the majority of those who oppose this mosque at this site have no opposition to a mosque within two blocks of their home. The facts are that there are several mosques scattered all throughout NYC and none are facing opposition or protest.

Another thing Keith and others who share in the support of this building fail to mention is that another church, the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, which was destroyed when the towers collapsed, has been denied permission to rebuild in its original footprint adjacent to Ground Zero by the same committee that has approved the construction of this mosque.

Furthermore, I find it very ironic that construction of a highway project or a hospital can be shelved for years while researchers and analysts study the populations of some irrelevant insect or endangered rodent to determine if the continuation of the project would “offend” the little critter or harm the habitat in any way, yet we Americans who value the sanctity of innocent life must be tolerant of any offense or any harm done to us or our memories.