Selective scapegoating

Media has, in total, misled Americans regarding the “Ground Zero Mosque,” largely by embracing that very meme. Why the emaciation of sound journalism? Why exacerbate what shouldn’t be controversy?

To incite said controversy. To provide easy campaign fodder. To gain viewership and readership.

And now, if you will be enlightened, here are some widely available, widely ignored facts.

Fact: The mosque is not on nor at Ground Zero. The Associated Press, when finally pressing associates to do away with such phrasing, noted the mosque will be “two blocks away in a busy commercial area.”  

Fact: The mosque is more than just a mosque. It is to be “a small portion” of Park51, a YMCA-style cultural center with an auditorium, library, swimming pool, gym and “a September 11th memorial and quiet contemplation space, open to all,” according to the project’s website.

Fact: This area has already been used for worship since 2009, as there is much spillover from two already well-established mosques in lower Manhattan (Masjid Manhattan, founded 1970, four blocks from Ground Zero and Masjid al-Farah, founded 1985, 12 blocks away).

“People had been praying on sidewalks because they had no room ... We made the move to buy 45 Park Place in July 2009 in part to offset the loss of this space,” said lead developer Sharif el-Gamal.

Fact: Imam Feisal Abdul-Rauf, despite Fox News’ portrayal of him as “part of the stealth jihad” and out-of-context quotes, is indeed a moderate, part of “a Muslim-American force for promoting the universal values of justice and peaceful coexistence in which all good people believe,” who believes “fanaticism and terrorism have no place in Islam.”
 
What should we make of these facts? Is there anything to debate? Should an entire religion be condemned for the acts of a few extremists who do not follow its true practices?

No. Even if it were solely a mosque and not part of a community center, a resounding No.

So why, as a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll tells us,  is 70 percent of America against the building plan? Why does Pastor Terry Jones intend to hold a “International Burn a Koran Day” because he said he believes the sacred text, which he has never read, is “full of lies?” 

Fear. The us-them mentality. Columnist Stanley Fish aptly wrote that if a perpetrator of violence is “uncomfortably close” to our own profile — white, Christian — we “characterize him as a one-off, non-generalizable, sui generis phenomenon.” If they are comfortably distant from yourself — lambast the lot, all of their brethren.

It happened in the case of Timothy McVeigh and again in the case of Michael Enright — who, perhaps spurred on by the anti-Mosque rhetoric, assaulted a Muslim cab driver only a few weeks ago.

But that, you see, was the act of an individual.

So back to anti-Mosque, anti-Islam sentiments. It is not bigotry, the opponents of the mosque say. It is because it is emotionally right.

But, it is the same feeling of emotional rightness that led to the internment of Japanese-Americans, hostility toward German-Americans and Catholics and hate-crimes throughout our nation’s history.


E-mail: celgrund@indiana.edu