Monday, August 16, 2010

Wrong About Everything! ii., Cordoba House.

Any of the following can be learned in about 15 seconds with Google.

1. Cordoba House is not even the name of the project. The name of the property is Park51 and the project is officially called "The Community Center at Park51". "Cordoba House" is just one part of this development.

2. It is doubtful that Cordoba House is actually a mosque. The Arabic term for such a building is a masjid, and it is not at all clear that Cordoba House will impose the same restrictions on non-Muslims that a typical masjid would. Reading through the literature of the Cordoba Initiative especially, non-Muslims would be perfectly welcome to attend, say, salat (one of the five daily prayers) so long as they were not disruptive. Further, it does appear likely that non-Muslim services would be permitted.

"Ecumenical worship center" is likely more accurate than "mosque." Sure, it will primarily cater to Muslims. That's like so bad or something in the eyes of teabaggers, but whatever.

3. It doesn't represent radical Islam. It is being developed by two extremely ecumenical organizations, the American Society for Muslim Advancement (which sounds scary but is in fact moderate-to-liberal) and The Cordoba Initiative (which is an ecumenical body similiar to Christianity-centric interfaith councils).

4. It isn't at "Ground Zero." The nearest point of Park51 to the nearest point of the World Trade Center complex is 2 blocks. That does not seem like a very long way to most people, but in lower Manhattan there is a lot of stuff crammed in a two block area.

5. Inconsistent much? News Corporation's second-largest shareholder is Saudi Prince Al-Waleed. News Corporation is the parent company of Fox, including the Fox News Channel. Teabaggers: If Muslims are involved in a global conspiracy to fuck up America, why are you spending all your time watching a news channel partially owned by one--especially a member of the Saudi royal family whose own dedication to the moderate tenets of Islam is in doubt.

1 comment:

cmh said...

Ecumenical councils are a bigger threat to Christian extremists than Muslim extremists are. Ethnic diversity and spiritual reconciliation with moderate Islam cuts off xenophobic jingoism at the knees, doesn't it?

Perhaps you've inadvertently landed on the REAL reason they're so incensed about the project.

Stoking the fires of extremism for political and personal gain is something teabag astroturfers and Wahhabists might have in common...?