From 9-11 to Pastor Jones
by Ron Jacobs / September 10th, 2010
Like many people who were in Manhattan that day, I can still smell the acrid, industrialized smoke that covered much of the island by the evening of September 11, 2001 and for days thereafter. When I got home to Vermont a couple days later (when the trains started running again), the odor and even the taste of that smoke remained. Naturally, the images of the burning towers and hundreds of missing posters took a while to leave my immediate memory. Meanwhile, for many, the shock and grief so many felt after the events of that day began to change into anger and a desire for revenge. George Bush, the Congress, and the Pentagon obliged within weeks by invading the country of Afghanistan, deciding that the people who lived in that war-torn region would pay for the deaths incurred on the date now known in the United States as 9-11.
That invasion, along with the invasion of Iraq less than two years later did not go so well. Washington finds its troops still in both countries while the costs of these endeavors (along with several lesser military actions) are draining the economy dry. As for that anger and revenge, it has turned into hatred. Like almost all hatred directed at a group of people based on nothing more than how they look or what they believe, this hatred is based on fear born from ignorance. Unfortunately for the hated, there seems to be little desire to unlearn that ignorance. In other words, those invoking the hate are delighting in their stupidity and intend to make that stupidity and all that flows from it the conscience of the land.
Whether it’s the talking heads in the media who have played the building of a community center in Lower Manhattan into a fearmongering circus against Islam that reminds many with a sense of history of many dark times in human history or an idiot pastor of a fifty member church in Florida who wants to burn the Koran, the hatred on display here is beyond shame. There are those who say that such hatred is unAmerican. I only wish that were true. If there is anything that is American, it is fear of the other. Furthermore, all too often that fear turns into something much worse. Just ask any African-American over fifty. If they didn’t experience some kind of racial hatred, they almost certainly have a relative who did.
Some will argue that this is different, but they are wrong. (Furthermore, the hatred being played out in the United States against Muslims is not much different than that directed against Jews throughout European history. The myths being perpetrated regarding Muslim religious beliefs and practices are as incredible as those propagated about the Jewish religion in countries across Europe on and off throughout history. Those myths fed a fear that all too often resulted in the burning of Jewish temples and synagogues, the expulsion of Jewish populations, and mass murder) (THIS IS THE OPINION OF THE WRITER I DO NOT AGREE WITH IT MAHMOUD RAGAEY ALI). One wishes that the historical similarities could be seen by those whose fear and hatred of Islam is currently blinding them.
It’s not enough to wring one’s hands and begrudgingly accept the growing displays of hatred. One must confront them. If Terry Jones has the right to burn Korans, then those who oppose his ignorant and self-aggrandizing display of hatred must seize the higher hand and call out this action for what it is. The fact that Jones has apparently called off the Koran burning does not alter the hatred he promoted. It only makes one wonder what kind of blackmail was used to force his hand. If pundits in the media have the right to fan the flames of hatred by telling lies and half-truths about a community center in Manhattan, then those pundits should also be called out. Doing so doesn’t necessarily express support for any particular religion (or even for religion), but opposition to religious hatred. The reason why we should do this is not because US soldiers may be the victims of reprisals in countries where they don’t belong, but because this hatred is wrong. Not unAmerican, but wrong.
How about this – before anyone burns a book, he should be required to read it first. And then write a book report on it
