Freedom for All?

Disclaimer: This information and quotes are re-quoted from an Associated Press article by Jennifer Peltz, I take no credit for them whatsoever. This is simply a commentary of my view. I’ve cited the quotes I used in parentheses.

September 11th hurt our nation in 2001. Almost ten years later, many are still upset, still angry, still wishing it never happened, and this leads a large number of Americans towards ignorance of the Islamic religion having a place in the United States.

I read an interesting article from the Associated Press printed in my local newspaper, the Democrat & Chronicle. It was about, of course, a mosque and Islamic Community Center’s proposed building site two blocks from Ground Zero. It made me think more on my viewpoint on the situation, and, even as an American citizen since I was born, I still am firm in my belief that Muslim-Americans should be able to build their center.

“It’s absolutely disingenuous, as many have said, that that block is hallowed ground,” the Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf said (AP).

The lot for the proposed building is between a strip club and a betting parlor. It is not any sacred ground. Furthermore, in refute of the argument of building another memorial for the deceased in the place of the mosque, it’s implied that the empty space would not be appropriate for a memorial.

A former New York City fire chief claimed that the Imam was being insensitive by saying it isn’t hallowed ground. His son died in the World Trade Centers that day (AP).
“The strip club didn’t murder my son,” the fire chief said (AP).

Well, as much as Americans don’t want to believe it, the Muslim-Americans of New York City didn’t murder his son-or anyone-either. Those were Muslim Extremists from the war-torn, unstable Middle East; not a group of people enjoying the freedom to express their religion in a calmer way in our country.

Why is nobody pointing out the fact that there were probably some Islamic-Americans working in the World Trade Center who also died that day? Whose families also grieve? Is it really our belief that they were involved in the attack on their own country?

“I’m a proud American citizen,” said Rauf (AP). He also informed the writer that he has been a citizen since 1979-many years before September 11th, 2001-and he has a niece serving in the United States army.

It haunts me to believe that our America, land of the free, has to hold ignorance in the way of religion. The Islam-Americans have been here for years, and they are not terrorists just because their extremist counterparts were.

Let them build their mosque where they want, because either way people are going to be upset either way; even if they build it across the city.