Where is your empathy Mr. Baksh?

Aug 31, 2010 Letters

Dear Editor,
I respond to a letter captioned, “Building an Islamic Centre near the 9-11 site”, in Kaieteur News August 29, written by Imam Baksh, in which he made reference to a previous letter that I had written, “Seventy percent of Americans are not wrong”, published in the same newspaper on August 25.
Unfortunately, this is the mindset that causes great concern, coming from one who has tremendous influence over others as an Imam.
In commenting on a statement I made (in support of relocating the mosque planned for Ground Zero) that consideration must be given to the feelings of the families who lost loved ones when terrorist destroyed the World Trade Center towers on 9-11, Imam Baksh wrote, “…these families have wrongfully lumped together all the Muslims of the world with the hateful ideology of al-Qaeda. Quite wrongly, they see an entire religion, not as individuals, but as a single threatening entity. There is a word for when you judge people based only on their religion and not their humanity: prejudice. The feelings of such people do not have to be respected.”
How cruel, insensitive and wrong can this Imam be. Does he believe that the majority of Indo-Guyanese are prejudice by wrongfully lumping together all the Afro-Guyanese for the wrongful actions of a few?
Three thousand innocent people were murdered on 9-11 by fanatical Muslim fundamentalists. Try telling the thousands that barely escaped and the families of the victims that their feelings do not have to be respected.
Where is your empathy Imam Baksh? And to set the record straight, the developers of the proposed mosque to be built at the old Burlington Coat Factory building at Ground Zero, owns only half of that building. The other half is owned by New York’s utility giant, Con Edison.
This is the same Imam Baksh who wrote, “Parents feel they have to push their children to give them success. To these parents, I say, spend your money instead on storybooks and encourage your children to read them on their own, or read to them yourself.
Increasing their reading skills will do far more for them at their age than sending them to classes.
Let them play now, and they will find it far easier to get jobs and keep jobs and earn promotions as adults.
And if the parents do not want to listen to that advice, then let me speak directly to all the Grades 2 and 4 students out there: If your parents want to send you to Assessment lessons this holiday, tell them no! Go on strike. Run away and play with your friends. For your own good.” (SN July 19, 2008). And the same Imam Baksh who is against Government’s funding of the Arts (SN August 27, 2008) when he wrote, “everyone wants to know just how much Caribbean governments should be contributing to the arts. The answer, quite simply, is nothing.”
I was pleased to see this irresponsible comment provoked a blogger named Andy to respond, “Imam Baksh does not understand the role of government in administering the affairs of the people, which include preservation and promotion of their arts, history and cultural heritage.”
I concur with this assessment of the Imam, and suggest that he master a few lessons in public relations before embarrassing his colleagues and other civic-minded Muslims throughout the world.
Harry Gill

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Where is your empathy Mr. Baksh?

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