One of them, anyway.
Ground Zero's wounds are still too deep to build upon by Aaron David Miller
Yes. That Aaron David Miller. What can I say? He got this one exactly right.
It's an approach that reaches deep down to what I believe is at the real core of the opposition to this offensive project. Not racism, not Islamophobia (or any other phobia), not politics. Sure, there are people out there appropriating this issue for their own agendas. There always are. The attempts to brand the rest of us with their malice is just another distraction.
Ground Zero's wounds are still too deep to build upon by Aaron David Miller
Yes. That Aaron David Miller. What can I say? He got this one exactly right.
If there is one lesson to be learned from the controversy over the proposed mosque near Ground Zero, it is that messing with memory, particularly traumatic memory of the first order, is akin to messing with Mother Nature: It rarely ends well, no matter how good the intention.Much more here (via Solomonia).
I learned this the hard way 12 years ago, when my idea of inviting Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat to visit the Holocaust museum in Washington proved to be a disaster. There is great danger in misappropriating memory and attempting to link it to another agenda or to a tragic historical experience seared in the minds of millions. However the controversy over the proposed mosque and Islamic center in Lower Manhattan plays out, the outcome is bound, for many in this country and elsewhere, to keep raw and open the wounds of Sept. 11, 2001. And the benefits do not appear to be worth the risk.
It's an approach that reaches deep down to what I believe is at the real core of the opposition to this offensive project. Not racism, not Islamophobia (or any other phobia), not politics. Sure, there are people out there appropriating this issue for their own agendas. There always are. The attempts to brand the rest of us with their malice is just another distraction.
