Hallowed Ground

The first weekend of April and October, in the middle of the White Sands desert of New Mexico, near Alamogordo, you can gain entrance to one of the most important sites in American history. Down a dusty road, and through gates, lies an area, normally inaccessible to anyone other than a member of the military, cordoned off, containing nothing more that the twisted stumps of a tall tower and a stone cairn monument with a plaque, noting the importance of the place. It is called Trinity Site, and it is the home of the first atomic explosion on Earth generated by humans. July 16th, 1945, a plutonium bomb, similar to the "Fat Man" device dropped on Nagasaki, was detonated atop a tower in the middle of the desert, as proof of concept that an atomic bomb worked. It was the moment when the genie was let out of the bottle, when Pandora's box was opened and the demons of our nature were loosed, and would lead to a tense standoff that threatened the life of everyone on the planet for over forty years. This place has been preserved, as a reminder of where our trip into the modern age began.

Go to south-central Pennsylvania, a tiny town of less than seventy-five hundred, and you find a six thousand acre park, the remains of the most significant battle of the American Civil War, when the forces of Confederate General Robert E. Lee met the Union Army under the command of General George Meade, in an attempt by the Confederacy to force the war into the North, and, possibly, threaten Washington, D.C. After three days of ferocious battle from July 1st to July 3rd, 1863, Lee was beaten and forced to withdraw back over the Potomac River. Though the war would continue for almost two more years, the tide of the war began to shift to the Union, and Robert E. Lee lost some of his mystique of infallibility. It was a titanic struggle of two committed forces, determined to strike a blow against the other, and it led to around 50,000 casualties, a staggering number that was almost evenly split between the two sides. Where the Union could survive such a loss of manpower, the Confederacy could not. It was the fundamental shift that would lead, ultimately, to the end of the Confederacy and the reestablishment of the Union.

A short boat ride on any warm and sunny day will take you a brilliant white memorial, straddling a section of the Peal Harbor Naval Base. At the memorial site, you can look down on the rusting remains of a hulking ship, the battleship USS Arizona, lying where it was sunk in a surprise attack by the Japanese Navy on December 7th, 1941. Only the tops of the mounts where two of the main turrets were still reach up out to the depth of the harbor; the rest of it lies below the surface of the water, clearly visible a short distance down, slowly being consumed by rust and corrosion. Every so often, a dark blob breaks the surface, and spreads out as a shiny and rainbow-tinged circle. These are bubbles of oil, rising up from the ship's fuel stores, called the "tears of the ship." Perhaps the ship still weeps for all the names listed in black on the tall marble wall at one end of the memorial, a monument to the gallant men who gave their lives that day.

These places are what we call hallowed ground, places that retain a meaning beyond their mere existence, but for what happened there and what those events represent for humanity. They are preserved in as natural a state as possible, an attempt to retain a small part of what made those places important. We would not go to Gettysburg and expect to see the corpses of the fallen, or ground strewn with rifles and broken artillery; what we do see is the terrain, and the monuments that stand in for those who fell. It is up to us to go and use out imagination, to insert ourselves as best we can into these places, and try to take something away from them.

Recently, a lot has been made of the plans to build a Muslim community center near the site of the attack on the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11th, 2001. There have been constant references to Ground Zero as being "hallowed ground," and claiming that building this center is some kind of besmirching of the memories of the victims of that day. The rhetoric that is flung around is far more overwrought than necessary; far from being some kind of insult, such a place would hold the potential to broaden people's minds as to the true spirit of Islam, and perhaps build bridges that could eliminate future attacks, by creating mutual respect and understanding.

The acrimony really boils down to one simple question: is Ground Zero hallowed ground? The answer, to me, is no. Ground Zero, far from being preserved as a memorial to the events of that day, was immediately subject to the forces of commerce, and its reclamation for use in building new office and commercial space on the site went off apace, with nary a voice of dissent from any of the groups now clamoring for the Islamic center to be built elsewhere. As we approach the ninth anniversary of that horrific day, the site, though the scene of much construction, still has no building there, no memorial, nothing remaining that would truly illustrate what that day meant to New York City, America, and the world, except for some large picture illustrations. Like so much of New York City, it is being consumed by the incessant need of the city to reinvent and restructure itself, swallowing up its history, and changing it into new things. The fight for preservation has been on-going for more than a century, but it sometimes cannot resist the tide of greed and money that seems to permeate everything.

For those who are outraged, to have that outrage match the actuality of it, then the site of the World Trade Center would still be a hole, filled with crushed rubble, shards of twisted, blackened metal reaching toward the sky like the fingers of the dead, attempting to reach up to wrench down the cowards who perpetrated this crime, and drag them down into the depths of Hades, to await their fate. Instead, it is a virtually empty concrete pit, cleaned and scrubbed of rubble and metal, swept free of the debris of the day, to form the base of a new, gleaming building, to rise like a glass and steel middle finger, aimed at those who would see us as enemies to their way of life. Somewhere, in some corner, perhaps some "suitable" memorial might be built, a small concession to the need to remember what happened there, but kept small enough not to take up valuable real estate.

I would ask, before another voice is raised in horror at the thought of a Muslim community center so close to Ground Zero, that the owner of that voice, and all the other voices raised in anger, take a long, hard look at the place, and ask themselves if the site is still truly hallowed, or has, perhaps, become more hollowed, stripped of everything that made it truly important to us, ruining it as a memorial to the three thousand people who lost their lives there. Perhaps they, too, wonder what we were thinking, in sweeping away the past.

Mosque-erade Bawl

To say we would not be here without Islam is a bit of an understatement. While Europe suffered through the Dark Ages, Islamic scholars were continuing the work of ancient Greek, Indian, and Egyptian scientists and philosophers, working on elements of physics, chemistry, astronomy, geometry, and mathematics. They were responsible for bringing the concept of 'zero' as a number into the numeric systems of the time, from India. The English language is filled reminders of this time: alchemy, algebra, cipher, mecca, and the like. The knowledge harbored and expounded upon made its way into Europe, and thus planted the seeds of enlightenment that led to the Renaissance.

Islam is a distinct offshoot of Christianity, wherein the prophet Muhammad was considered to have taken God's word from the archangel Gabriel. It makes reference to Abraham, Moses, even Jesus, sharing lineage with both the Talmud and the Bible. It, too, demands a strong obedience to God, and lays down the ways to commune better with him. Everything a Muslim does is to be for Allah, nothing less. Their ways may be different than the path taken in Judeo-Christian theology, but all three religions strive for the same thing: to do good works on Earth to please God.

That there are those in the Islamic faith who would pick and choose from the Qur'an, the holy book of Islam, and use it toward their own ends, is no different than those who do so in any religion. There are those who pervert the Torah or the Bible, all in the name of "proving" their faith is the "true" faith, their belief the one-and-only to be followed. Sometimes it comes to nothing harmful; many times -- as in the case Jim Jones' Guyana Cult or the Branch Davidians or al Qaeda -- the fervency of belief leads to death and destruction, the taking of lives, and incomprehensible horror.

That Muslims should be tarred with a brush dipped in the blood spilled by Osama bin Laden is a travesty. His zealotry and self-aggrandizement are affronts to the religion he supposedly holds dear, and that he would make war on innocents, condemns him for the coward he is. He will not reap the golden dreams of his beliefs, instead tasting the bitter fruit of condemnation, when his God will show him the error of his ways. We, however, cannot concern ourselves with this, for his actions have brought forth another travesty, against the United States, and not just in the senseless loss of life on 9/11, but how eagerly Americans have been willing to sell out their principles due to fear and obfuscation and outright lies.

The Founding Fathers made it clear, through the auspices of the Bill of Rights and the First Amendment, that they believed religious freedom and tolerance were paramount for a nation to be successful. Enjoining the Federal government against establishing any religion as the state religion assured all Americans that their beliefs would be protected, if not always respected. It was important for the country to have people of faith, they thought, because they were more likely to act morally, and protectively, toward their fellow countrymen. This would be needed, if the fledgling country were to survive past its inception, as revolution and constitution did not guarantee that another nation would not seek to enslave the young country.

So it has been for over two hundred years, that individuals have had the right to worship as they chose, and establish houses of worship. There has always been a sense that rather than dividing us along the lines of belief, this would make us strong through our diversity. Now, that strength is being threatened, by fear-mongers, ideologues, and sycophants, who seek to confuse, alarm, and terrify the citizenry with Muslim cabals and the threat of terrorist training centers in their midst. They have latched onto a project a few blocks from Ground Zero, wherein a 13-story Muslim cultural center will be built, as their proof that Muslims are going to begin their takeover of our nation, tearing down the Constitution, and implementing their law, subjugating us all.

It would be laughable, if their cries were not in earnest. Some of the biggest names in politics have spoken out against it: Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, etc. Families of 9/11 victims have called it a "slap in the face." The Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, has been supportive, as has President Obama, citing the principle of religious freedom in the Constitution. The whole issue has taken on a dynamic that is akin to a tornado of conflicting emotions and religious prejudice. Battle lines are being drawn. Chaos is sweeping over downtown Manhattan.

As someone who was in New York City on September 11th, I have to say that I have a certain amount of sympathy for those who view the area as hallowed ground. Every visit there evokes strong emotions in me, and I am often brought to tears, recalling the events of the day which I watched from a distance, though was close enough to see with my own eyes. It speaks to me of innocence, misery, suffering, bravery, and hope. I am more appalled by the thought of a new tower being built there, instead of a park with two black marble walls outlining the spaces where the Towers stood, inscribed with the names of the fallen. Commerce has its way; hallowed ground is about to become an office building. Why that is not more of an affront to the families, I cannot say, but it is definitely an affront to me, almost like putting a riverboat casino on the site of the USS Arizona in Pearl Harbor.

I do not wish to insult those who suffered the greatest losses that day, the loss of a loved one, but to claim this cultural center somehow denigrates the memory of 9/11 is rank hypocrisy. A mosque already exists near the site, which was operating before the Twin Towers were even open; no one has complained about it. This is only a cultural center, a couple of blocks from Ground Zero, that will not even been seen from it, blocked as it will be by two city blocks full of taller buildings. It may, in fact, revitalize a dying part of town, as the area around there still suffers the scars, with abandoned buildings and empty shop fronts, a job that was supposed to be done by business interests and/or the government.

This cultural center is only an issue because powerful forces, aligned against Islam since that day (and even before), have determined to make it their mission to bring the religion down in America, violating the principles of freedom we hold dear. In raising this fuss over an innocuous and potentially useful building, they play right into the hands of the extremists they so want to keep out, who can use this news as a recruiting tool in their war against America. Rather than dealing terrorism a blow, they are instead handing them ammunition, as Muslims who see this will gladly donate to, or join, the cause. We have shouted for years about our democratic principles and their superiority, and now we show how hollow those words are, for we are ready to toss them aside, to the delight of our foes, who can then point to our hypocrisy.

If anything, we need this cultural center. We need it to create greater understanding of Islam and what it stands for. We need it to be a place of peace, in a community that is still reeling from a vicious and unprovoked attacked. We need it to show that we, as Americans, will not be cowed by our adversaries into abandoning that which makes us fundamentally Americans. We need it, to build a bridge toward greater harmony. We need it, to prove once and for all, that we are worthy of the sacrifice made by so many to forge this nation. We need this cultural center, because until we can see past our hate, until we can let go of our desire for revenge, until we can stand up and prove that we are better than our enemies, who are so completely intolerant of those things that do not conform to their zealotry, we stand to be dragged down into an infernal abyss. America must show our enemies, as we have so many times in the past, that they are wrong about us, and that their error in judgment will cost them everything, in the end.