New Tactics For The Ground Zero Mosque

If you're getting dizzy looking at the illustration to the left, wondering if it's an eye-deceiver, let me enlighten you. It is in fact the artist's rendering of the proposed Abbey Mills megamosque in London, close to the site of the London Olympics. Don't get mad at me, I'll tie it to the Ground Zero mosque below.

The controversial mosque/Islamic Center which is to be built within sight of Ground Zero doesn't look anything like the proposed London megamosque, and most of the stated reasons for their respective construction are quite different from each other. Those stated reasons are rarely in conformity with the true underlying purposes, but in each case, they share the lie that the purpose is to promote interfaith understanding with Muslim worship as a secondary purpose. Both style themselves as first and foremost educational centers. In London, the public has been far more successful in thwarting the construction than in New York City.

The proposed London megamosque is designed to accommodate 12,000 worshipers. The Ground Zero mosque is designed to accommodate 2,000 plus. The sheer size of the London megamosque was one reason why Londoners were more successful in blocking construction. Traffic problems, setbacks, height and footprint restrictions all made the job of the opponents easier. Meanwhile, in New York City, where the politically-correct idiots in City Hall keep raising the phony issue of the First Amendment, the mosque organizers have decided to avoid the confrontational issues that brought them so much negative publicity a year ago.

Whether it's called the Ground Zero mosque, the Cordoba Center, or the current Park51, the mosque has garnered immense opposition among even the most tolerant of New Yorkers. Few object to a mosque, and few are basically anti-Islam. The objection is to both the size and location-appropriateness of the building. Many have compared it to building a huge German WW II memorial adjacent to the Arc de Triomphe even now that France and Germany and been at peace with each other for over sixty-five years.

The Ground Zero developers have decided to try an entirely different approach. They now invite "community input" into the final design to fool the locals by feigning interest in what New Yorkers actually think. If you can get enough fools to "assist in the design," you might draw their attention away from the basic fact that most New Yorkers and most Americans don't want that mosque in that location, in any form.

The developers have also taken the radical imams behind the building of the mosque out of the public picture entirely. Instead, they have launched a website devoted entirely to praise of the "healing potential" of the edifice, requesting suggestions, and preaching tolerance. They likewise have linked to an allegedly independent website called PrayerSpace, that calls for input from Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Both sites claim Park51 will be a community center open to all, including a large interfaith space, library and public meeting rooms. The mosque, if they are to be believed, is a minor part of the proposed building.

The developers have now convinced themselves that they have been so successful in deflecting the anger and dismay of a gullible public that they have applied for a five million dollar federal grant designed to rebuild lower Manhattan in accordance with the intent of "community and cultural advancement" grants administered by the Lower Manhattan Redevelopment Project. In other words, they are asking for public funds to pay for development which would have been unnecessary if their friends and allies hadn't flown jumbo jets into the World Trade Center buildings. At the same time, the city authorities have denied building permits and grants for rebuilding the nearby Greek Orthodox church which was devastated from the fires and collapse of the Trade Center buildings.

Now for the similarities in true intent of the two large mosques. The "small prayer space" at Ground Zero which will be entirely Islamic and which comprises the main portion of the mosque itself is designed for over two thousand Muslim worshipers at a time. That makes the "prayer space" alone equal in size or larger than the worship areas of St. Patrick's cathedral, the largest religious building in New York City. St. Patrick's is also the largest gothic-style Catholic cathedral in the United States.

It goes without saying that the London megamosque which is designed to hold 12,000 worshipers would be the largest mosque in Europe, and would dwarf not only all the other religious buildings in London, but is so large it would compete with the buildings of Parliament. And that is the very point. The largest religious building that Olympics visitors would see on their way to the stadiums would be a Muslim mosque.

The largest religious building that visitors to New York City would see when visiting Ground Zero (and later the Freedom Tower) would be the Park51 "Islamic Center." It's pure in-your-face "my religion is superior to yours, and our grand mosques prove it." As with real estate developers generally, for Islamic zealots it's "location, location, location."

Succeeding in putting this Islamic Center 350 feet away from where 9-11 human remains were found is an intentional poke in the eye to Christians, Jews, secularists, the citizens of New York and the entire American nation. No matter how they try to dress up this pig, they are never going to convince most Americans (including me) that it's a cuddly puppy.