How to Miss the Point by Timothy Garton Ash

Last Friday, in New York, I discovered a strip club near the site of the planned Islamic centre, described by its opponents as "the mosque at Ground Zero". As pole dancers gyrated with all the sizzling eroticism of a weary Wal-Mart checkout assistant at the end of a long shift, I asked the burly front-of-house man – Scott, from Brooklyn – whether they had faced any protests about this profanation of hallowed ground.

Had any Fox News commentators, for example, been beating an angry path to their door? Well, he replied, one or two passers-by had raised objections since the controversy erupted about the Islamic centre. "People are entitled to their opinions," said Scott, but the "New York Dolls" Gentlemen's Club had been here for 30 years and the folks working in it had to make a living.

Now a strip club at the memorial site of the worst terrorist atrocity on American soil would truly be a profanation. Though obviously not comparable to a strip club, planting a large new mosque directly on that site would nonetheless show an acute lack of sensitivity.....

But here's the point: the strip club on Murray Street is not "at Ground Zero" any more than the site of the planned Islamic centre, a former Burlington coat factory in Park Place, is "at Ground Zero". They are, respectively, three and two blocks away. Neither would be visible from the World Trade Center memorial site, which may in some important if secular sense be considered hallowed ground.

So TGA opines in the Guardian today. Later he responds to critics that,

...the point is that objections to the centre are partly on the grounds of 'profaning hallowed ground', but it seems to me that a strip club - even if 30 yrs old - would profane hallowed ground even more. except that it's not at the memorial site, so it doesn't. so the point is more about double standards and hypocrisy.

Its more about stupidity and media manipulation than double standards with the prevailing discourse that runs throughout much of the US media that "radical Islam" is a threat but that "Islam" is a religion of peace". By not clarifying who or what is actually the threat, this conveniently offers a pretext to continue with the foreign policy in Afghanistan.

It is Islamism that potentially poses a threat and has an existence bound up with a resentment of Western double standards and a feeling of embittered resentment at the material success of societies deemed to have profited from exploiting Muslim lands. And many Muslims are not Islamists. Islamism is a political ideology. Islam is a religion.

TGA then cites those opposing the Mosque in New York

Newt Gingrich, the Republican former speaker of the House of Representatives, denounced the scheme, saying: "Nazis don't have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust Museum in Washington." Fox star Bill O'Reilly says it should not be built because "Muslims killed us on 9/11". Sarah Palin famously tweeted "Peaceful Muslims, please refudiate" (sic).

....in a Pew poll this August, 51% of Americans asked said they opposed the building of the centre near the World Trade Center site.

There is now no good way forward. If it goes ahead, it will be a constant bone of contention. If it is moved, more Muslims will believe radical Islamists when they say: "You see, we told you so – America is Islamophobic."

The idea that "they" hate "us" has not been conclusively examined by politicians and opinion formers because its convenient to leave the real nature and origins of the terrorist threat conveniently vague. If Islam is not to blame, that allows intervention to save Muslims from evil ideologies

If it is believed Islam has weaknesses that are to blame for 9/11, then that too can be useful in mobilising or spinning opinion around the necessity of continuing wars in Afghanistan for, when the reality is faced, was fought ostensibly for a variety of shifting pretexts. The USA has free speech but with a media based on mass manipulation of opinion.

Yet the only one not publicly mentioned is the geopolitical strategy of constructing the TAPI pipeline as a rival that blocks off the rival IPI scheme, thus isolating Iran, diversifying Turkmenistan gas away from Russian or Chinese control and giving the West a strengthened position in Central Asia.

Such geopolitical facts are considered too arcane for the US public to understand and, lets face it, seems too much of a shoddy reason why US lives are being lost. It has to be a struggle for civilisation. So comment and speech is free but it seems that there are facts too unsacred for liberals to confront.

All this natter about mega mosques near ground zero, halfwits like Pastor Jones burning the Quran and waffle about Islam and strip clubs is a divertion away from the real nub of what's at stake and why potential conflicts and misunderstandings are increasing the potential for tragedy.