When I was home this summer, the hot topic, the subject everyone seemed to have an opinion on, was the construction of the so-called “Ground Zero mosque,” a misnomer if ever there was one. Actually, its location, as was occasionally made clear in some news reports, was neither immediately adjacent to the site where the Twin Towers once stood, nor was the thing being proposed merely a mosque. In fact, calling it an Islamic community center would be more accurate as the structure would also include a whole host of facilities in addition to a place of worship.
Anyway, the question on everybody’s mind was this: Should this community center be allowed to be built at its proposed location or not?
When I witness such a public debate taking place, one of the things I look for is who is being listened to. Who’s been given the microphone and thus who is being heard?
Ideally, one would want to see an airing of a wide variety of opinions. In such a case, the public gets to hear it all—the intelligent, the idiotic, and everything in between. Everyone is given an opportunity to formulate her own opinion after hearing the full range of available arguments.
Unfortunately, what I happened to witness is that the media seemed most willing to give voice to opinions belonging to well-known TV personalities, virtually all of them “establishment” figures of one sort or another. Many of these public figures expressed pretty negative views on Islam and the motives of those behind the construction of the aforementioned center. Often, I couldn’t help wondering if these people had ever even met a Muslim or been inside a mosque. In what way had they gained special insight on the subject being discussed?
I would have loved to have heard more women’s voices and more Muslim voices, but I didn’t hear them, at least not often enough.
With that said, I have included a fragment of a conversation that took place on CNN International. Have a look and pay special attention to some of the facts presented by Dalia Mogahed, Senior Analyst and Executive Director of The Gallup Center for Muslim Studies and coauthor of Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think.
I want to conclude by arguing that the real danger facing America is not some nefarious plot by Muslims to take over the country. Such thinking is, at best, delusional. A more legitimate concern is that the nation will shoot itself in the foot by becoming too insular and xenophobic.
Don’t simply take my word for it that such a danger exists. Richard Florida, one of the world’s leading experts on creativity and “the creative class,” has repeatedly argued that the most successful countries in the coming decades will be those that champion diversity and fully protect freedom of self-expression. Places that are welcoming in this way will attract talented innovators and become wealthy and powerful while doing so. Conversely, paranoid and repressive societies will fall by the wayside as they experience a profound brain drain.
His argument seems to be a no brainer (no pun intended). To read it in full, click here.
