Ground Zero Wedge Issue

He disembarked carrying everything he owned. The morning chill was not alien to him, though the humidity of this more southerly and coastal land made the cold that much more biting. He had been on deck for several hours waiting for the dawn and was glad to be moving down the gangplank. As his right foot touched the stone on the wharf, he sighed heavily and tears welled instantly. A shove from behind and he moved on, into a cue where his papers were examined. It was February, 1735 and the port was Savannah, in the new colony of Georgia. Frederick Wilhelm Mueller, a clockmaker from Franconia, Germany, had completed the journey from the other side of the ocean, one of thousands escaping the persecution brought on because of their Protestantism. They had been invited by King George II of England, himself a German Lutheran, who offered these Germanic immigrants, known collectively as the Salzburgers, a refuge, a place where they could practice their minority religion without interference. They were greeted at the port by James Edward Oglethorpe, the founder of the Georgia Colony.

This is one story of the origins of America. It had already been repeated for more than a hundred years and is still going on today. Mueller's story is particularly interesting to me because one of his descendants, Louisa Miller, married my great-grandfather, himself an immigrant escaping ethnic cleansing of Gaels in Sutherland, Scotland.

In recent decades, a group that has been pouring into America are moderate Muslims, escaping oppressive governments, both secular and, more pertinent to this story, radically religious. But, upon arrival, the “leader of the colony” is not greeting them at the port. It seems that many Americans are acting just as those who drove their forebears from their homes.

These new oppressors are holding up poll numbers, from among their own ranks, and as in 1730s Salzburg, where Count Leopold von Firmian, the Prince and Catholic Archbishop forced twenty-thousand protestants out, they are demanding that the majority determine the ability of the minority to practice their religion as they choose, on private property no less.

The people who are pointing to the polls, in most cases are both the same people who recently have said that polls should not determine policy and the same people who have recently been hearkening back to our founding fathers, of course, only when the founders' words fit their argument.

We are blessed in this country still, though, because we are able to openly discuss such issues as the “Ground Zero Mosque,” which by the way is neither a Mosque, nor at ground zero. It is to be called Cordoba House. The name was chosen because in the city of Cordoba, Spain, Muslims, Jews and Christians once co-existed and thrived. Yes, the Muslims were in power, having vanquished the Visigoths who had brutally ruled Iberia, and, yes, the Jews and Christians had some restrictions on them, but their co-existence and cooperation led to incredible advances in civilization. No one is telling Muslims that they will be able, for instance, to practice all of their beliefs, in terms of Sharia law, but as in medieval Cordoba coexistence can lead to wonderful advances. For these poll watchers though, understanding and using the community center's actual name would blow the opportunity to create a wedge issue that could impact elections. That is what is going on here. Issues such as Same Sex Marriage amendments have already been used twice and as some powerful people have said in the past: “...fool me, … you can' t get fooled again?” When one day after an election there is not one word about the wedge du jour, even the least informed voters know that they have been hoodwinked. Or, do they.

Recently, such comparisons as Newt Gingrich's equating Cordoba House to Nazis building a center near the holocaust museum are eating up the airways. The phrase “Ground Zero Mosque” itself is part of the campaign and is used by virtually all media.
The group Think Progress reported recently that Laura Ingraham, a FOX News contributor, who often sits in as show host, as recently as last December publicly supported the idea of Cordoba House, saying, “I like what you are trying to do” when interviewing Daisy Kahn, the wife of the Imam who is leading the project. At that time it was, as Kahn said, “a blow to the extremists,” but in August, Ingraham, who is promoting a book, said that building Cordoba House means “the terrorists have won.”

Khan's husband, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf has recently been vilified in this new wedge campaign.

What his accusers are ignoring is that the Bush Administration's Justice Department brought Rauf in to help them deal with the Muslim community and he repeated his oft-spoken observation, “Islamic extremism for the majority of Muslims is an oxymoron. It is a fundamental contradiction in terms.”

You would never know about the Imam's moderate views though lately, as Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh and consequently millions of others reading from the same script quote the Imam in 2001 saying that “The United States' policies were an accessory to the crime that happened because we have been an accessory to a lot of innocent lives dying in the world. In fact, in the most direct sense, Osama bin Laden is made in the USA!” Of course, as comedian Jon Stewart pointed out, Beck himself, just in April, with his chalkboard in tow, said, “Were we in bed with dictators and abandoned our values and principles? Yes. That causes problems.”

I point out the pundits' inconsistencies to make the point that the current furor over Cordoba House is fabricated. It is a trumped up wedge issue and it is having an impact.

Recently Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, running neck and neck with a Tea Party candidate in Nevada, gave in to the wedge, advising against Cordoba House's location. Fool me four times. Shameful.

This story is a moving target, as more reactions create more issues. The Anti-Defamation League has weighed in, opposing Cordoba House, a complete 180-degree turn from their mission statement of protecting freedom of religion. And now the Archbishop of New York's Catholic Church, Timothy Dolan has expressed a desire to help mediate with the preconceived opinion that it should be built elsewhere. These two reactions, as with many others, show a complete lack of understanding of Cordoba House. It is supposed to be a “blow to the terrorists” to show that America is tolerant of Islam, just not the terrorist's bastardized version. Now that these groups have weighed in, there can be no decision but to build it where it is planned. Otherwise, the radicals will be able to tell their supporters and those in the Muslim world who are not quite sure where to stand that Christians and Jews in America control whether, how and where Muslims can pray.

As Americans we should be promoting such institutions that bring us together, increase understanding and promote the true meaning of this shining light in which we live. For me, it is for that clockmaker, Herr Mueller, whose grandchildren suffered in our revolution as their town, Ebeneezer, GA was used for English cannon practice. The commander in chief of that revolt, George Washington, would later write “May the father of all mercies scatter light, and not darkness, upon our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in His own due time and way everlastingly happy.” Insh'allah.