Park51 Mosque at Ground Zero

Yesterday I left off on the Park 51 controversy with a consideration of how it changed my focus for my sabbatical.  Instead of focusing on Sustainability courses, I switched to the Middle East and wound up learning from Western Values and Culture how Western Culture misrepresented Islam in pieces like The Song of Roland, where they were portrayed as pagans.  I also wrote about visiting the spot of the proposed Islamic Center and  I started looking for news on the topic.

           Now back to August, 2010

          On August 11, 2010, the day I left New York City to return to San Francisco, there was another article in the New York Times.  “For Muslim Center Sponsors, Hopes and Clear Oversights” by Anne Barnard reported on how Daisy Khan contacted Joy Levitt, the executive director of the Jewish Community Center on Manhattan’s Upper West Side for advice, and far from thinking that there would be a national protest against the Islamic center, Joy Levitt gave her advice on strollers.  Saying that there were more toddlers than ever in Manhattan, Joy Levitt said that she was down in the lobby dealing with 500 strollers, so that was what Daisy Khan and the other planners needed to think about:  practical matters.  “Clearly, the idea that Ms. Khan and her partners would one day be accused of building a victory monument to terrorism did not come up.”

                When I got back to San Francisco, I saw a paragraph on “Ground zero mosque” in the News across the Nation section of the San Francisco Chronicle, reporting on how President Obama had weighed in for the first time on the controversy.  “As a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country.”  This was the statement Jon Stewart showed on The Daily Show, followed by another clip of Obama almost reneging on his statement. 

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-august-16-2010/mosque-erade

                Time Magazine came out with a cover story “Is America Islamophobic”” by Bobby Ghosh. The answer seemed to be yes.

Tomorrow:  How the “ground Zero Mosque” fer mongering began.