The Republicans and the Mosque

AS New York City rebuilds the area around the former World Trade Center, it faces a host of controversies. In this case, architecture can have wide and deep cultural impliactions. For example, some say the new structure should be even taller than the old WTC as an indication that "we" will not "cave in" to the terrorists. That the old WTC was a blight on the neighborhood, making it darker and less livable; that it was never full and lost money; that no one really liked the building became secondary considerations for these people, most of whom never set foot in the city.

Now many of these people want to outlaw or otherwise bully out of existence a new Muslim community center set to be built near "ground zero." As a recent aNew Yorker rticle pointed out, most of the people who object to the center are from places as far as possible from the site. Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, John McCain and others from "the heartland" say that allowing Muslims to interact with New Yorkers near place of our most recent national catastrophe (excepting, of course, the self-inflicted disasters in the Gulf of Mexico) would be an affront to Americans -- an un-patriotic act.

Two elements of this position strike me as deeply ironic. First, before the attack, many of these people saw New York as nothing but a cesspool -- a symbol of everyhting wrong with modern America. They would not even weant to visit, much less be there. Now, though, they want part ownership, as if they had anything to do with September 11 attack.

Second, even conservative New Yorkers, like Mayor Bloomburg, support and embrace the project. They realize that New York stands for the way forward: multi-culturalism, openness and flexibilty. The people most affected by the decision like it. So where is all the railing against elitist and federal "outside intervention" now? Why must people in Kansas be left alone, while people in New York conform to the sensibilites of whack-jobs like Palin, who could not even spell "mosque" under pressure?

This is a perfect illustration of whast is wrong with the GOP.