"The Cordoba House Project"

Sydney M. Williams

Thought of the Day

“The Cordoba House Project”

August 4, 2010

While the arguments put forward by the Muslim community to build a $100 million mosque/community center two blocks from ground zero are undeniably correct – promoting integration, tolerance of differences and community cohesion – the project is also unarguably provocative and insensitive.

Among the principals upon which the United States was founded was freedom to worship. Religious intolerance had sent the Pilgrims to these shores in 1620. To deny Muslims the right to build a mosque (or a facility that houses a mosque) where they choose goes against our history of liberality and impartiality. On the other hand, the Muslim community should be sensitive to the feelings of the hundreds of thousands who suffered the affects of an attack, committed in the name of Islam.

Most of the City’s officials have supported the Cordoba House project, including Mayor Bloomberg who piously observed: “If somebody wants to build a religious house of worship, they should do it and we shouldn’t be in the business of picking which religions can and which religions can’t.”

But feelings against the project run deep and Mr. Bloomberg and his sanctimonious cohorts appear to ignore the possibility that the consequences of letting the project to go forward will possible promote more hatred, less understanding and more disunity. Nevertheless, I suspect Mr. Bloomberg had little choice in his decision. He is the mayor of the most diverse city on Earth and can ill afford to show bias no matter his personal feeling, though he could have warned of possible effects.

An interesting (and instructional) comparison has been made by several people between this situation and the one involving the Carmelite nuns who wanted to establish a convent at Auschwitz in 1984. An impasse had been reached between the nuns, who could see nothing wrong with desiring to pray at the site of the atrocities for the souls of those who died in the Nazi’s gas chambers, and the Jewish community to whom the ground was sacred. Ultimately Pope John Paul II wrote the nuns asking them to accept his decision to move the site, but to remain in the city and continue their mission. They did and in time the anguish and anger dissipated.

Yesterday, the Cordoba Project’s last hurdle was overcome when New York’s Landmarks Preservation Commission voted 8-0 not to grant protected status to 45 Park Place, the location of the proposed Center. All that remains now to prevent the completion of the 13-story Islamic center and mosque are a series of lawsuits.

There is one person who could stop the project and that is its architect, planner and biggest booster, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. Obviously that is unlikely, but in an open letter sent yesterday via the Wall Street Journal by Dan Senor, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, a former senior advisor to the Coalition in Iraq and a resident of lower Manhattan called on the Imam to consider the risks of the project. Mr. Senor wrote: “Rather than furthering cross-cultural and interfaith understanding, a Cordoba House located near Ground Zero would undermine them. Rather than serving as a bridge between Muslim and non-Muslim peoples, it would function as a divide. Your expressed hopes for the center not only would never be realized, they would be undermined from the start.”

That is the risk. However, construction is likely to proceed, because it is politically correct and the “right” thing to do. It is difficult to believe that Imam Feisal did not anticipate the reaction he has received from those whose relations perished on 9/11 and the millions of others affected by the attack. It is difficult to conclude that such a decision was not a deliberate attempt at provocation. It is difficult to imagine that Imam Feisal did not realize that tolerant, but sanctimonious New York City officials would find it impossible to deny his request, no matter how distasteful to them individually.

The consequences, as Mr. Senor wrote, could prove “counterproductive.” What is needed and is missing is a person with the wisdom of Pope Paul II. As William McGurn wrote so eloquently in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, there are times when one must recognize “that having the right to do something does not mean it’s the right thing to do.” Imam Feisal, though, could be that man. Imagine the reception such a magnanimous act on his part would receive should he decide to back away from his prior decision. It would go a long ways toward reconciling the Muslim faith with the religious freedom of his adopted country. It would truly help achieve his stated goals – integration, tolerance and community cohesion. Unfortunately, such a possibility seems unlikely.