Today's New York Times documents this new fad, spreading across the country like a rabid virus: people crusading against mosques in their communities.
Some of the locations include Temecula, Calif, Murfreesboro, Tenn, Sheboygan, Wis, lower Manhattan, and famously Midland Beach.
But, as the Times found out, all this anti-moderate-Islam rage is not only misdirected but actually causing an increase in the likelihood of terrorist attacks.
Huh! Here's a quote from the Times piece:
A two-year study by a group of academics on American Muslims and terrorism concluded that contemporary mosques are actually a deterrent to the spread of militant Islam and terrorism.That's right, it seems preaching moderate Islam is actually a deterrent to terrorism.
Maybe if all these Tea Party, flag-waving activists turned off the FOX News, for like 5 minutes, and looked at the situation with a bit more nuance they'd find these truths to be self-evident.
But, we aren't holding our breath.
Clearly, the Islamophobes need to recognize that these are not the Muslims you need to be afraid of. Quite to the contrary, you want to befriend them, because they will point out the ones that you need to be concerned about!
ReplyDeleteThat said, building an Islamic center/mosque near 'ground zero', while clearly legal, was a massively stupid move socially and politically. Seriously, now... What exactly did they expect to happen?
The strong reaction to the Midland Beach mosque was a bit surprising to me, but given the number of people affected by 9/11 on the island, not terribly so.
You think at some point the various local religious & community leaders would get together and hatch a plan to raise the level of understanding among all parties... Ah, well.
interesting point about the teaching of moderate islam being a deterrent to terrorism. but idk it seems like all the higher-ups in the mosques are indeed militant and adhere to a more strict and sharia-ish* discipline. So what to do?
ReplyDeleteI'm not asking 'so what to do'. I don't even know why I wrote that.
ReplyDeleteHeh, heh. I love how liberals like the owner of the blog feel the need to lie and misrepresent the truth in order to attack what they perceive as conservative culture or ideas. In this case, the residents of Midland Beach had plenty of reason not to want this particular group build a mosque because of its leader, Imam Mahdi Bray.
ReplyDeleteBray has a mile-long rap sheet of criminal acts including illegal drugs convictions, including a 3 year conviction for defrauding the Federal government our of $71,0000.
In addition, Bray has a long history of left wing activism, the type that would be politically unwelcome in Midland Beach.
So there goes the whole tired argument about bigotry.