Blaming all Muslims for 9/11 is un-American
We don't hold Christianity
responsible for the crimes of a few, and it should be the same with Islam.
By GREG KESICH
To call Muslim worship in the same
neighborhood as Ground Zero a “desecration of hallowed ground” makes a connection
between the Islamic faith and an act of war that is at odds with the core
beliefs America was built on.
In this country, we believe in
individual responsibility and don’t believe in collective guilt. The Muslims of
New York City should build their facility wherever the local zoning laws allow.
The people who planned and carried
out the destruction of the World Trade Center may have been Muslims, but
opponents of this project act as if all Muslims bear some responsibility for
this crime. Why else would the mere presence of an Islamic center — not at
Ground Zero but two blocks away in a busy city neighborhood — be considered an
affront? This attitude smacks of religious scapegoating and something that
should be intolerable to all Americans.
This is not a legal question but a
moral one, and one that strikes at our basic founding principles. Those beliefs are why we put individual Nazi war
criminals on trial at the end of World War II when it would have been much
easier to punish all Germans.
We were operating under a concept of
justice that holds individuals responsible for their actions — but only their
own actions. This comes in sharp contrast to the Nazis, who condemned a whole
people to the gas chamber.
Yes, 9/11 was perpetrated by
al-Qaida, which bases its war on America on an idiosyncratic reading of the
Koran.
But you don’t have to be an expert
on religion to recognize that the goal of al-Qaida is less than spiritual and
all about exerting power and control over others.
Osama bin Laden would probably like
nothing better than to manipulate the United States into a war with Islam and
its 1.5 billion believers, rather than with his tiny splinter group.
Hundreds of millions of Muslims all
over the world practice their faith without ever feeling called to commit a
violent act. Claiming that the entire faith of Islam bears some special
responsibility for the actions of al-Qaida is as outrageous as it would be to
blame all Christians for bombing abortion clinics, sexually abusing children or
the financial excesses of a few televangelists.
Remember, the Godfather was a
Christian, too.
This Islamic center plan has gone
from a local zoning issue to a platform for talk-radio ranting because some
politicians have irresponsibly used it as a wedge to leverage the still-tender
wounds of many Americans into voting their way in November.
They should just stop before they
cause more damage.
There were Muslims in the Twin
Towers on Sept. 11, 2001, who were also victims of al-Qaida’s attack. Their
families still grieve.
The perpetrators of 9/11 may have
been Muslim, but all Muslims have nothing to apologize for.
This is America, where we don’t tell
people how to worship. And we don’t hold a whole group responsible for the
crimes of a few.
The convenor is Mahmood Madani, former Rajya Sabha MP 
ShareThis