Muslim Community Center

The Cordoba Initiative is an organization designed to cultivate multi-cultural and multi-faith understanding across minds and borders. Its main focus is to strengthen the relationship between Islam and the west. Their project, the Cordoba House project, calls for 15-story Islamic community center (ICC) including a mosque, performance art center, gym, swimming pool and much more. The plan is to place the community center 2 blocks away from ground zero. Now as you have probably heard, this has sparked a great and very emotional debate among residents of the area and people worldwide.

Let me start by saying this, I am ok with this ICC simply because I cannot tell someone what they can and cannot do with their private property. As long as a group has everything in order, and are not breaking any laws by going up with a building, how can one even think of stopping them? The individuals who are planning to build this ICC are private citizens who own private land and can do anything they please with said land, as long as it is legal. They are obeying the law by pursing their rights, how can anyone legally stop them from obeying the law and living by the constitution? You tell me.

The 9/11 occurrings were not carried out in the name of Islam, they were carried out in the name of what a group of mind washed individuals thought Islam expected them to do. I do not understand how Christians and Americans both can blame and condemn such a large group who has this faith, and to say anyone who has this faith is a terrorist. To quote a good friend of mine, “Muslims are not terrorists, the terrorists were Muslim.” Of the over 3000 people that died in the world trade centers that day, about 300 were Muslim, about 10 percent, 10 percent of those who died that day were Muslim. I am sure that they all had families and loved ones who live in as much pain as anyone else who lost someone that day. Every one suffered after 9/11 including those in the Islamic community and maybe they suffered even more due to all the discrimination and ignorance they had to deal with. No one is going to walk by the community center and have to face the horror of that day again. No one is going to think, “the small boy swimming in that pool believes in the same book that those who killed my husband believed in.” Not everything about this community center will be traced back to the attacks of 9/11. In fact nothing should. Black people do not walk by a cross and trace it back to the days of the KKK and it being on fire.

Ignorance 101

In my opinion, this ICC can be a good seed of peace and understanding. Understanding that the people using it had nothing to do with what happened on 9/11. I will also give you a very possible and very solid option that those who oppose the ICC have, make the Cordoba House project an offer, get together, donate, and collect donations, get ignorant politicians like Sarah Palin who firmly oppose this plan to raise money, buy the land, make them an offer they cannot refuse. I am a firm believer in the idea that everyone has a price, no matter how strong their beliefs are, they will take the money if the price is right.