AMERICA HAS CREATED TWO HELL- HOLES

Sep 14, 2010 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

In this week’s column, I pay tribute to the victims of the September 11, 2001 terrorists attacks in the United States of America. This was one of the most terrible crimes in human history, one for which there can be no justification.
For the first eight anniversaries of the attack, the observances in the United States of America were held against the backdrop of the ongoing war of terrorism which the United States and its allies launched in retaliation against the terrorist attack.
Unfortunately this war has not brought any peace to the conflict between America and its enemies, but has further hardened those who are opposed to American actions in the Middle East. This conflict has clouded all the observances held so far but has not dimmed a central theme of sharing in the pain of those who lost their loved ones. The healing process has been the most central feature of all the 9/11 events that have been held each year.
It was no different this year. Again there were the usual services held at the site where the twin towers of the World Trade Centre stood. There was another genuine attempt to offer support to the families of the victims.
Unfortunately, however this year’s commemorations were overshadowed by the raging Islamophobia that is gripping America at this time.
This phobia was not stirred by the proposed construction of an Islamic cultural center blocks away from Ground Zero. The phobia was already there and was simply brought to the surface by those who for their own reasons are opposed to the proposed construction.
Three weeks ago, seventy per cent of Americans were opposed to the construction of an Islamic place of worship so near to Ground Zero. The opposition however went against the ideals on which that great nation was built. Despite the obvious implications for religious freedom in America, we were told that the issue was not about religious freedom but was about the propriety of situating the mosque so near, a distinction that did not conceal the social intolerance inherent in the opposition to the project.
We were even told that seventy per cent of Americans could not be wrong. Well apparently close to half of those that were initially opposed to the construction of the mosque have changed their minds since the latest opinion poll shows that only about 50% of New Yorkers now oppose the project.
But if the opposition in New York was fizzling out, a new front was opened with the bizarre announcement that a pastor proposed the public burnings of the Q’uran, an event which has now been abandoned because of intense internal and external pressure.
Despite this, there are still persons who feel that however deplorable the proposal, there is a religious right to publicly burn the holy book of a major religion. There can be no such right. The public burning of the Q’uran cannot be defended under religious freedom. Such an act will serve as a direct incitement to hatred against a major religious grouping and therefore cannot be deemed a defensible right under any constitution much less the American constitution.
These are all the incidents which have clouded this year’s 9/11 observances. Lost in all the controversy is the health of American security and its image in the Middle East. This year’s observances ought to have allowed the Obama administration the opportunity to reflect on the security of its homeland, something that cannot be divorced from its image overseas.
In the Middle East, the signs are not that good. American combat troops are exiting an Iraq that is in disarray. The invasion has created a hell-hole for the Americans and for the people of that world. Instead of creating a stable, democracy that is friendly to the American people, the invasion of both Iraq and Afghanistan has created two ungovernable countries with little hope of western democracy taking root.
On the ninth anniversary of the terrible terrorist attack on the home of the free, the American people cannot afford to be diverted from the sort of post 9/11 world they are constructing.

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