August 5th, 2010

August 5th, 2010
Dear Jeremy,
I want to weigh in on an event that transpired some eight and a half years before you were born—or rather a current debate that has everything to do with it. Y’see there was a day in my senior year of high school, it was the day of senior assembly as a matter of fact, and this day was absolutely insane. It was like a damned made for cable movie and nobody knew nothing about anything.
I was in a first period math class at the start of the first full week of the school year. As the class was drawing to a close I saw a crowd gathering by a large bay window down the hallway; the teacher has allowed me to go see what the commotion was—the tone was calm and, for lack of a better word, chill. As I looked across Jamaica Bay at the stunning view Beach Channel High School had of Manhattan I noticed one of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center had quite a bit of black smoke rising out of it. Some of the adults were saying an airplane had flown into it. I remember thinking that the day was incredibly clear but that it must have been an accident.
I won’t spend too much time harping on my personal experience of September 11th but I will say that the day itself was, as I stated before absolutely insane. Rumors were flying abound; planes and missiles had hit the Supreme Court, the Pentagon, Sears Tower, The White House, a field in Pennsylvania. Some of this was true some was not but it was hard to tell especially in the face of what we were seeing from the school windows: a black cloud of ash hiding Manhattan from plain sight. I remember teachers running around wildly trying to get spouses, friends, and family members on the phone; adults and students were crying in the hall way. I was scared to make the short subway ride home because, shit, who knew what was going on—someone had declared war on fucking America and it wasn’t aliens. It was surreal and frightening.
As time wore on facts came to light about who perpetrated these atrocious acts and why. Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda terrorist organization had decided that the decadence of America in particular and the West in general could no longer be suffered on this earth. With the promise of a seemingly impossible afterlife he sent zealots and murderers into our midst to symbolically destroy everything we stand for as a nation: individual liberty, freedom of religion and speech, and the equity of races/genders/creeds/etcetera. The idea was to make us run from our way of life.
This “man” bin Laden has not, as of yet, been brought to justice. He probably won’t be and there is small solace in the fact that he will die in a cave—a lavish and comfortable cave but a cave nonetheless. There is small solace in the fact that, assuming there is an afterlife, that the murderers of that day have probably not found themselves in a tropical paradise with some gratuitous number of virgins to spend eternity with—their destination is, hopefully, far warmer than they had hoped with a great many more pointy things that do not originate from them but reside in them all the same.
Brandied about was a new patriotism in America in a Post-9/11 world. A patriotism that declares “These Colors Don’t Run”; a patriotism that put Osama’s face on urinal cakes; and most importantly a patriotism that promises to “Never Forget”. And perhaps we haven’t forgotten—not the shock, nor the pain, nor the betrayal of our illusion of safety but we have forgotten the reason. We were attacked to change and destroy our way of life. To deconstruct our sense of separation of church and state, the right to believe whatever one wants to believe, and to act or practice those beliefs—so long as it doesn’t infringe on the rights of others.
Which brings us to the present day. The rebuilding of the World Trade Center site, dubbed Ground Zero for the far better part of the last decade, has been halted by every imaginable entity that seems to think it has the right: the land owner, the insurance company, the architect, the Port Authority, the local government, the 9/11 families, financial problems, the public at large. Monkey wrench after monkey wrench as the festering wound of the attack lays physically unrepaired—a crucial part of the psychological healing process has not occurred. Symbolically we have not yet bounced back with just about 13 months to go until the decade mark will be reached. And now, scandal strikes.
An Islamic entity has purchased a building that had a 757 Engine crash through it on 9/11 and they wish to convert it into a mosque and community center living in the shadow of the World Trade Center (or as it is now its ruins). You could not begin to imagine the uproar—and I won’t argue with its sentiment. While the mosque is being touted as a memorial in itself to the victims of the attacks many see it as a slap in the face. The proposed name for the site is “Cordova House” which has a deep a long history in Islam as a name associated with Muslim conquest.
Shit, Jeremy, if they ain’t right this time. They are. It is a slap in the face, and honestly who knows where the money is coming from? Right. I mean not all Muslims are terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims (except for the IRA, Irgun, Shining Path, The Weather Underground, The Ku Klux Klan, Revolutionary Struggle, and had they lost The Continental Army among many others). Not to compare any of these groups to another of course but this is a wild accusation to make. This kind of gross exaggeration is the same sort that started many a-bad rumblings in Europe during the 1920’s and 30’s against Jews. In fact I have heard these very same similar arguments from survivors of those horrid times applied today (and I have gently tried to remind them of how they sound). The malcontented parties are so blinded by their outrage that they have demanded legal recourse in blocking the mosque from being built.
This is exactly the point where the terrorist act of 9/11 emerges victorious. The moment we become exactly like them. Regardless of propriety in the sense of taste and manner, and in many—many—ways respect and respect for the dead the very moment we infringe on the American cornerstone of freedom of religion and the right to own land on the basis of our prejudices we have become no better than the zealots who attacked American. At least in principal—I am not saying that blocking the mosque is paramount to a mini-9/11, what I am saying is that we will have become just as intolerant as they are. It is our tolerance and there-and-by our freedom that was attacked—it is our moral duty to take the high road in this matter, at least legally and allow this mosque to be built. The law of the land cannot stand in the way—it balks the constitution to do so. I dare a single person to say the constitution should be ignored in this sense, especially a conservative given the climate the President has had to deal with in passing laws and the sanctity of the constitution—you will discredit your every argument in American politics forevermore if you do.
For the sake of clarity however I do feel it my duty to say “I don’t want that fucking mosque built. It shouldn’t be there. It’s in bad taste and a slap in the face” but this is America, dammit. I’ve heard people say “why can’t we build a church or synagogue in Mecca?” and to that all I can say is: Mecca is not in America. If it were it would probably have a synagogue and a church and it would certainly have a McDonald’s and a Starbucks. The people can make it very uncomfortable to have a mosque there however—civil disobedience is allowed. Commerce can make it very uncomfortable—construction workers don’t have to work there and companies don’t have to take the contract—if they believe so strongly it shouldn’t be there they will pass up the work; even in this dismal economy. The people who disagree can do every non-violent and legal thing they want. Shit, they could get the permit and open a pig slaughter house on every adjoining wall to the building and be within their rights to do so, but the law cannot and should not intercede. They have every American legal right to build wherever they want that they can manage to purchase.
People won’t do any of that, I don’t think. They will sit and pretend their hands are tied and that the world is cow-towing to Islam the same way the Jews were accused of being cow-towed to for hundreds of years. They will sit and talk about what a shame it is that the government did nothing and how the honored dead have been forsaken. They have not. If this mosque is built it is legal and constitutional and those two things are the levies of equity that were attacked on 9/11, if not physically than symbolically.
Son, I gotta tell ya people don’t know how to be thorough and this country is getting greedy and exclusive and ugly (or maybe it always were and we thought otherwise in the past). Just remember this, when you block someone from building a mosque I guaran-goddamn-tee you the next thing that gets blocked is a synagogue, and then a church, and then a minority owned grocery, then a low income health clinic, then the press. Then we’ll have no rights. It’s a slippery slope to take rights away from some groups but not mine. The moment that happens your rights become other people’s advantages.

Love,
Your Father

P.S. This past month you had a cold. You ran a fever. We all caught it. In was during my last week of summer session. Thanks for that. You started sleeping in your crib, in your own room, and we started using our awesome video baby monitor. You rolled over from both sides. You weighed in at over 15 pounds and measured at over 2 feet…long. You got a swing, a play pen, and an awesome black Cadillac looking bouncer. I am off for the whole month of August and it’s just you and me pal…so please stop waking up at 6 in the morning! I love you dearly but I am on vacation!