The Far-Right's Anti-Mosque Mania Spreads from Ground Zero to Across the U.S., Pointing to Dark Politics Ahead
By Stephan Salisbury
The phony 'debate' over the construction of an Islamic cultural center near the former World Trade Center portends darker things to come. It’s not just that opposition to the building has coalesced around a phony “Mosque at Ground Zero” shorthand (with its echoes of dust, death, and evildoers). Many have pointed out -- futilely -- that the complex will be more than two blocks from the former World Trade Center, around a corner on Park Place, and will feature an auditorium, spa, basketball court, swimming pool, classrooms, exhibition space, community meeting space, 9/11 memorial, and, yes, a prayer space for Muslims. The shorthand still sticks.
The mosque controversy is not really about a mosque at all; it’s about the presence of Muslims in America, and the free-floating anxiety and fear that now dominate the nation’s psyche. The mere presence of Muslims at prayer is now enough to trigger angry protests, as Bridgeport, Connecticut, police discovered last week. Those opposing the construction of the center in New York City are drawing on what amounts to a decade of government-stoked xenophobia about Muslims, now gathering strength and visibility in a nation full of deep economic anxieties and increasingly aggressive far-right grassroots groups. Lower Manhattan and Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and Temecula, California, are all in this together. And it is not going to go away simply because the New York Landmarks Preservation Commission gave its unanimous blessing to the Islamic center plan. Since that is the case, it’s worth pausing to consider what has happened here over the past 10 years.
...
Waiting for the Demagogue
Here we come to the real source of unease over what’s now going on -- the realization that we’ve seen something like this developing before, only it wasn’t diaperheads and terrorism inflaming the country. It was dirty commies and Jews then.
.....
On its website, the Tea Party curtsies to the U.S. Constitution and then quickly cuts to the chase: “But this question must be asked based on repeated violence committed by Islamists in the name of religion: Is Islam nothing more than a front for terrorism?” Tennessee’s lieutenant governor, Ron Ramsey, a Republican candidate for governor, went out of his way last month to characterize Islam as a “cult” which may not warrant First Amendment protection: “You can even argue whether being a Muslim is actually a religion, or is it a nationality, a way of life, or a cult -- whatever you want to call it...”
The proliferation of, and acceptance of, such talk, particularly from major political candidates, may be preparing the American ground for the emergence of a leader who can synthesize the demonizing and scapegoating of Muslims, fears augmented by severe economic anxiety, the maturing of extreme rightwing activism, and a widespread and growing contempt for official Washington. If that happens, the nation -- and American Muslims -- could face something far worse than McCarthy, who held sway in a golden era of rising expectations and general economic growth.
Mosque controversies will be the least of it then.
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an excellent article that should be read in full:
http://www.alternet.org/story/147817/the_far_right%27s_anti-islamic_mania_at_ground_zero_in_manhattan_portends_some_very_dark_politics_ahead?page=entire.
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