The case of Mohammad Salman Hamdani

Well, Happy New Year, everybody. I said goodbye to 2011 and greeted 2012 watching Coldplay perform on television here in Las Vegas, after which I took my young cousin out into the cold (mid-30s at that point) and watched the spectacular pyrotechnics from a safe and sane distance. This was apparently a record-setting New Year's Eve, which is a welcome sign for Nevadans.

Had I been in Seoul, I would have marched from my apartment down to Chongno to either watch or hear the new year literally being rung in. One thing that was cool, though, was that NBC Nightly News highlighted the Seoul celebration in their December 31 broadcast.

Anyway, I'm still on the Mainland stamping out sparks and putting out fires in what has become a sometimes amusing but sometimes hair-pullingly galling health, financial, and emotional drama. Some day I may write about my big adventure in prose form; in the spirit of Shakespeare, whether t'is ultimately a comedy or a tragedy will depend on whether we all get out alive. 

I will be back to regular posting more either later in the week or by the middle of the month. The odd thing is, though, that Kim Jong-il's death and Kim Jong-un's cosmetic rise has pushed my hit rate up far higher than usual, even though I'm hardly writing any new stuff.

In the meantime, though I'd like to nudge you toward this story in the New York Times, about a Muslim Pakistani-American who was killed in the 9/11 terror attacks when he was responding to the emergency:

He was buried after the Sept. 11 attacks with full honors from the New York Police Department, and proclaimed a hero by the city’s police commissioner. He is cited by name in the Patriot Act as an example of Muslim-American valor.

And Representative Keith Ellison of Minnesota, one of two Muslim members of Congress, was brought to tears during a Congressional hearing in March while describing how the man, a Pakistani-American from Queens, had wrongly been suspected of involvement in the attacks, before he was lionized as a young police cadet who had died trying to save lives.

Despite this history, Mohammad Salman Hamdani is nowhere to be found in the long list of fallen first responders at the National September 11 Memorial in Lower Manhattan.

Nor can his name be found among those of victims whose bodies were found in the wreckage of the north tower, where his body was finally discovered in 34 parts.

Instead, his name appears on the memorial’s last panel for World Trade Center victims, next to a blank space along the south tower perimeter, with the names of others who did not fit into the rubrics the memorial created to give placements meaning. That section is for those who had only a loose connection, or none, to the World Trade Center.

A tragedy on top of tragedy that, frankly, reminded me of this bit of satire I wrote in August 2010 during the "Ground Zero Mosque" nonsense.

... 

From Koran to Korean

Pardon the bad pun, but it was inspired by news today about that "Christian" pastor in Florida who'd made headlines around the world with his "Burn a Koran Day," which he later canceled.

Well, it turns out the Gainesville minister is getting a free car out of the deal. A Hyundai Accent to be precise. Brad Benson, a former center for the New York Giants who now owns a major car dealership, had offered Reverend Jones the Korean automobile if he backed down on his incendiary plans:

Car dealer Brad Benson made the offer in one of his dealership's quirky radio ads, which focus more on current events than cars. But he was surprised when a representative for Jones called to collect the 2011 Hyundai Accent, which retails for $14,200.

"They said unless I was doing false advertising, they would like to arrange to pick up the car," Benson recalled. At first he thought it was a hoax, so Benson asked Jones to send in a copy of his driver's license. He did.

Jones, of Gainesville, Fla., never burned a Quran but told The Associated Press on Thursday that the offer of a car was not the reason, saying he learned about the offer a few weeks after Sept. 11.

Now before you say "more like ill-gotten Gainesville" ('cause that's what I said), it turns out the newly enlightened parson is going to donate the car to an organization that helps abused Muslim women.

Ignorant OCers offended by swastikas

From the Los Angeles Times:

Controversy flared up at Pretend City, a children's museum in Irvine, when a few visitors recently complained about a Hindu swastika woven on a tapestry in one of the museum's exhibits.

The offended visitors apparently were unaware that the swastika is an old religious symbol in Hinduism and that members of many other cultures around the globe revere it, among them some Native Americans. The swastika, however, was co-opted by Nazi Germany as the centerpiece of the Third Reich's flag.

The tapestry is part of the museum's "Home" exhibit, which is displaying a Hindu family's belongings. The exhibit rotates every six months and takes cultural objects from local family homes and displays them to the public, allowing Orange County visitors to see how different families live.

And they live like frickin' Nazis!

Sadly, no, I'm not making this story up (I'd come up with a hella more creative name than "Pretend City"). They actually removed the offending swastika for a couple weeks while they figured out how to de-ignorantify the general public.

And I guess since we can't have Muslims setting up prayer centers in Lower Manhattan because it offends other people, I guess the Hindus are going to have to put away the swastikas that were co-opted by the Nazis. The Buddhists in America have already done so.

Hmm... maybe OC folks were offended by the hidden message that Republicans are a bunch of Nazis.

Kristof visits Monster Island?

Hmm... it seems Nicholas Kristof has sorta cribbed my title and my content. [sarcasm emoticon here]

A mosque at Ground Zero

Satire meets reality.

In this "crap I make up" piece, I mocked the media and national leaders who have demonized Muslims at the expense of American values while conveniently ignoring the dozens of followers of Islam who were also murdered by the Islamist terrorists who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks. In the same vein in the New York Times today, this article reminds us of the Muslim presence at the World Trade Center back in 2001.

Fekkak Mamdouh, an immigrant from Morocco who was head waiter, attended a worship service just weeks after the attacks that honored the estimated 60 Muslims who died. Far from being viewed as objectionable, the service was conducted with formal support from city, state and federal authorities, who arranged for buses to transport imams and mourners to Warren Street.

There, within sight of the ruins, they chanted salat al-Ghaib, the funeral prayer when there is not an intact corpse.

“It is a shame, shame, shame,” Mr. Mamdouh, 49, said of the Park51 dispute. “Sometimes I wake up and think, this is not what I came to America for. I came here to build this country together. People are using this issue for their own agenda. It’s designed to keep the hate going.”

According to the same article, the closest thing to an actual mosque at Ground Zero was destroyed in the 9/11 attacks by the Islamist terrorists who took down the towers. It was a prayer room on the 17th floor of the South Tower:

On any given day, Mr. Abdus-Salaam’s companions in the prayer room might include financial analysts, carpenters, receptionists, secretaries and ironworkers. There were American natives, immigrants who had earned citizenship, visitors conducting international business — the whole Muslim spectrum of nationality and race.

It is gone now, of course.

In an age of demonization of Muslims and their faith (helped along, deliberately and by design, by those Islamist terrorists themselves), it's as if history has been rewritten so that such things as Muslims who peacefully worshipped in the WTC dying on 9/11 can be conveniently forgotten.

The result is that most Americans oppose "a mosque at ground zero" even though it's not quite a mosque and it isn't quite at Ground Zero. Would-be presidential leaders seem to want to trample the First Amendment in the rush to save our Judeo-Christian republic.

On a completely related note, I wonder how many Americans support the burning of the Koran today. Actually, I do. Well, sort of. Not exactly. But yes.

You see, I loathe the hate-mongering of the so-called pastor of the Dove World Outreach Center in Florida who planned to have a Koran-burning. As a Christian, I wonder (as do others) if he actually understands the New Testament. Jesus would kick his ass out of the temple. (And Gainesville would like to boot him out of town.) I'm glad some Christians are publicly taking a different tack.

But at the same time, I stand up for his right to do it (assuming the Supreme Court doesn't count Koran-burning as "fighting words" or some such).

After all, this is America. We have a First Amendment that is extended to hated Muslims and hate-filled duckweed supposed Christians.

So go ahead, "Minister" Terry Jones. It is your right as an American to do something so incendiary (literally and figuratively), so foolish and ignorant, and so hate-filled.

I am dismayed, however, that so many people seem to see the Florida minister and Imam Rauf (the man behind the Cordoba House that has been called "Ground Zero Mosque") as equivalents. The minister's acts are the essence of bigotry and religious animosity, while it is (many in) the Imam's opposition that is acting out of bigotry and religious animosity.

Sigh. At least President Obama got it right today:

I think I've been pretty clear on my position here, and that is, is that this country stands for the proposition that all men and women are created equal; that they have certain inalienable rights. One of those inalienable rights is to practice their religion freely. And what that means is that if you could build a church on a site, you could build a synagogue on a site, if you could build a Hindu temple on a site, then you should be able to build a mosque on the site.

Now, I recognize the extraordinary sensitivities around 9/11. I've met with families of 9/11 victims in the past. I can only imagine the continuing pain and anguish and sense of loss that they may go through. And tomorrow we as Americans are going to be joining them in prayer and remembrance. But I go back to what I said earlier: We are not at war against Islam. We are at war against terrorist organizations that have distorted Islam or falsely used the banner of Islam to engage in their destructive acts.

And we've got to be clear about that. We've got to be clear about that because if ... we're going to successfully reduce the terrorist threat, then we need all the allies we can get.

Why does that have to be spelled out? Were Barry and I the only ones paying attention in 12th grade Civics class?

Do those who see all Muslims as enemies not realize that they are playing into the hands of Islamists like Osama bin Laden who want us to toss aside our freedoms and values and blindly join in their endeavor to create a clash of civilizations?

Whither my country?

I thought this was America

Before I begin, I thought I'd point out how many Japanese restaurants there are in the vicinity of the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor.

Okay, then. The only good reason I can think of to oppose the establishment of the Cordoba House — the incendiarily nicknamed "Ground Zero Mosque" — at 45 Park Place in Manhattan is that its construction at that spot two blocks from Ground Zero means destruction of a building that is a century and a half old, one for which landmark status had been sought.

And that's it.

Frankly, as an American citizen who believes in our Constitution (yeah, I'm a Democrat who believes the right to bear arms, even if well regulated, is important), I am aghast, disappointed, and overall quite embarrassed that one of our major political parties is running their fall campaign on the unofficial platform of prohibiting the free exercise of religion. Even if that religion is an unpopular one with bigots. And I'm equally angered that a few invertebrates in the other major political party feel they need to jump on the bandwagon to save their jobs.

I haven't even listened to President Obama's speech on the matter. This is a no-brainer I pretty much came up with on my own.

About the closest I can imagine to a valid argument for opposing the institute with the mosque inside was articulated by The Marmot:

For what it’s worth, I think the Cordoba Initiative has the right to put a mosque/prayer room/madrassah/community center wherever it likes. If they feel like ignoring the majority of New Yorkers and majority of Americans who find it hurtful/in bad taste, hey, it’s a free country, so build away. No doubt East Coast liberal elites will celebrate it as proof — to themselves, anyway — of American tolerance and diversity. However, if the Cordoba Initiative wants to build bridges (“Improving Muslim—West Relations” is their motto), and I’ll take them at their word, then they should clearly see that putting an Islamic community center anywhere near Ground Zero — far from building bridges — is just pissing a lot of people off. For PR reasons alone, they should have reconsidered this project. Unfortunately, PR and sensitivity to host nation sensibilities haven’t proven to be a strong points of Islam in the West.

I'm no mizar5 with a Bathroom Reader on logical fallacies, but this sounds like some form of argumentum ad populum to me (mizar5, I'm told, spends a lot of time in the bathroom, ahem, boning up on his, um, oratory skills). That is to say, the argument that it shouldn't go up there is basically that a lot of people don't want it to be there, ignoring whether such popular sentiment is valid in the first place.

I mean, isn't the First Amendment of the Constitution there to protect unpopular speech, religion, etc.? Right? If so, take that GOP candidates for national office!

Is that a Nazi salute popping out of your raincoat
or are you just unhappy to see me?

But what of The Marmot's idea? Should the Cordoba House relocate to somewhere where they will be more welcomed... or, um, less unwelcome? Can we count on the rabid dogs be any less frothing at the mouth if the Cordoba House were to be placed somewhere else in Manhattan?

If they succeed at getting the Cordoba House moved from the island altogether, how does that affect the spiritual needs of the people who would utilize such a facility? Should they just be screwed over because their religion is unpopular with the protesting masses and the political operatives who would use them to manufacture an fake issue to win elections?

But more to the point, just what is the grounds for this opposition? The so-called Ground Zero Mosque is not only not a proponent of any form of radicalism espoused by the Islamists who felled the World Trade Center towers, it is actually a type that the Osama types oppose. Vehemently, from what I understand. The Sufism practiced by the Cordoba House is anathema to the Wahhabist radicalism that propels their hatred.

Holding the man at the center of the Cordoba House iniative, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, responsible for the egregious sins of the Islamist terrorists who perpetrated 9/11 would be like holding Quakers accountable for the Crusades or systemic child abuse by Catholic clergy.

But that doesn't matter, of course, because in the eyes of the bigoted everyman, Islam is Islam and a Mooslim is a Mooslim. All same same.

And so if your argument that the Cordoba House should plant itself elsewhere is based on the idea that it offends public sentiment, then you are arguing for the triumph of ignorance and religious bigotry. Coupled with the brazen attack on and disregard for First Amendment values, that is the real offense.

I'm reminded of a heated discussion I had with an adult when I was a teenager, when he defended the forced relocation of 110,000 ethnic Japanese — the majority of them native-born US citizens — because their presence in their West Coast communities would upset people whose families were fighting and dying in the Pacific. Even in modern times, there are people who feel Japanese tourists should not be allowed at the aforementioned USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor (though I don't know how they feel about Japanese restaurants). To me this latest drive to banish moderate Muslims from practicing their faith where they live and work simply because non-Muslims who can't tell the difference from an extremist and a moderate are all upset is little different from that.

Maybe this is the real America, where bigotry runs amok and can be wielded as a weapon to keep down those who look or sound funny. Especially if there is political gain to be had from targeting such groups.

Frankly, I am flabbergasted that so few voices in the Republican Party have spoken out against the likes of Sarah Palin in her ranting tweets about this manufactured non-issue. They are out there, though. Imam Rauf worked with the Bush Administration to help the FBI understand Islam and to act as something of an envoy to various Middle Eastern countries for the US, and former administration official Michael Gerson has stood up in support for the Cordoba House:

An inclusive rhetoric toward Islam is sometimes dismissed as mere political correctness. Having spent some time crafting such rhetoric for a president, I can attest that it is actually a matter of national interest. It is appropriate -- in my view, required -- for a president to draw a clear line between "us" and "them" in the global conflict with Muslim militants. I wish Obama would do it with more vigor. But it matters greatly where that line is drawn. The militants hope, above all else, to provoke conflict between the West and Islam -- to graft their totalitarian political manias onto a broader movement of Muslim solidarity. America hopes to draw a line that isolates the politically violent and those who tolerate political violence -- creating solidarity with Muslim opponents and victims of radicalism.

How precisely is our cause served by treating the construction of a non-radical mosque in Lower Manhattan as the functional equivalent of defiling a grave? It assumes a civilizational conflict instead of defusing it. Symbolism is indeed important in the war against terrorism. But a mosque that rejects radicalism is not a symbol of the enemy's victory; it is a prerequisite for our own.

The federal government has a response to American mosques taken over by advocates of violence. It investigates them, freezes their assets and charges their leaders. It does not urge zoning decisions that express a general discomfort with Islam itself.

And The Western Confucian alerts his readers to the writings of Republican renegade Ron Paul (a favorite of The Marmot), who makes some of the same points as I:

The justification to ban the mosque is no more rational than banning a soccer field in the same place because all the suicide bombers loved to play soccer.

Conservatives are once again, unfortunately, failing to defend private property rights, a policy we claim to cherish. In addition conservatives missed a chance to challenge the hypocrisy of the left which now claims they defend property rights of Muslims, yet rarely if ever, the property rights of American private businesses.

Defending the controversial use of property should be no more difficult than defending the 1st Amendment principle of defending controversial speech. But many conservatives and liberals do not want to diminish the hatred for Islam–the driving emotion that keeps us in the wars in the Middle East and Central Asia.

It is repeatedly said that 64% of the people, after listening to the political demagogues, don’t want the mosque to be built. What would we do if 75% of the people insist that no more Catholic churches be built in New York City? The point being is that majorities can become oppressors of minority rights as well as individual dictators. Statistics of support is irrelevant when it comes to the purpose of government in a free society—protecting liberty.

Amen. (Can I say that?) Maybe this is America.