"Is America Islamophobic?"

This was the headline on the front cover of the August 30th, 2010 issue of Time Magazine.

The article was a discussion of the controversy surrounding the plans to build a mosque near the Ground Zero site - and there were many capable arguments on both sides.

This blog post is not intended to be a re-hash of that article, but rather a forum where I can express my own thoughts and reasoning on this matter, with a view toward engaging in healthy discourse and debate.

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First of all, I have absolutely no issue with followers of Islam, the Islamic religion, mosques, or "Islam" in general.  What I DO repudiate are the extremists - of any faith or persuasion - who seek to achieve their ends through senseless acts of terrorism.

I also don't have any issues with mosques in general, even in downtown Manhattan.  If these people can afford the multi-gazillion-dollar per square foot that land goes for these days in NYC, they're more than welcome!

Where I do run into problems, is with the idea of building a mosque all but literally on top of Ground Zero.

I raised this question a while back on Facebook, and I received two broad classes of reply:

• The "Right on, Brother!  Preach it, brother, preach it!!" kind of response.
• As well as the "Don't be so insensitive.  Muslims died in the 9/11 disaster too."

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Before anyone decides to point the Fickle Finger of Fate and call me "racist"; let me tell you about "racist", having grown up in the South-East corner of Virginia.  This is a place where they practiced both bible-thumping and rabid racism.  (And if that's not a combination gone to seed, then I am no judge!)  This absolutely repulsive double-standard has, if anything, made me even more tolerant of differences in race, creed, color, national origin, etc. etc. etc.

My objection to a mosque at Ground Zero is, not that I object to mosques, but that I believe a mosque at that particular location is singularly inappropriate in light of the events that happened there.

But!  "Muslims died in the 9/11 disaster too!"  Absolutely right.  Along with Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Hari-Krishna's, atheists, and people from every possible walk of life - from the blood-poor to the insanely rich - and the memorial planned for that site memorializes everyone that died there that day and in the days thereafter.  Not just the Baptists, or Episcopalians, or whatever - the memorial there represents everybody who died on that tragic day.

The juxtaposition of a mosque at the site of what has to be one of the most tragic acts of Islamic extremism, would be like the Japanese wanting to erect a Shao-lin temple at the site of the Arizona memorial, memorializing the brave Japanese who died that day while attacking Pearl Harbor.

Do I object to the Japanese as a "race" or as a people?   Of course not.  Do I have a bone to pick with the Shao-lin faith?  Absolutely not.  I have every confidence that the descendants of Japanese immigrants fought and died at Perl Harbor, right alongside of the descendants of other more European-like races.

What I do know, and what is a matter of historical record, is that those descendants of Japanese immigrants living in Hawaii were so angered by the attack - by Japanese no less! - that they immediately thereafter took down any traces of Japanese writing, decoration, or anything else associated with Japan, culturally or otherwise.

You could easily say "But Japanese [Americans] died in the Pearl Harbor debacle that day!" and you'd be right.  But the Arizona memorial doesn't memorialize just the "white" race - it memorializes everyone that died that day, be they white, black, yellow, red, blue, purple or polka-dotted.

I am equally sure that if anyone suggested a memorial to the Glorious Nazi Sacrifice during WWII being placed at Auschwitz or Buchenwald, (or anywhere else in Europe, for that matter), they would encounter enormous opposition.

Did German soldiers fight and die during WWII?  Of course they did; and death in battle is probably one of the more gruesome ways to die.  However I believe that a Nazi memorial at the German Death Camps would be as singularly inappropriate as a Japanese memorial in Pearl Harbor, or a Islamic memorial at Ground Zero.

What say ye?

Jim