Islamic group to build mosque adjacent to ground zero

[al Roumi]

Fragony, am I right in understanding that you don't think all Muslims are terrorists, but dislike fundamentalist Muslims because of their lack of desire to come to a compromise with western values? That your dislike of fundamentalists and concern that they might subvert non-fundamentalists and end up as violent fundamentalists leads you to conlude that all muslims should be actively discouraged or prevented from living in the west?

Is that why you are against this particular mosque, or any other?

[Cute Wolf]

Fragony, am I right in understanding that you don't think all Muslims are terrorists, but dislike fundamentalist Muslims because of their lack of desire to come to a compromise with western values? That your dislike of fundamentalists and concern that they might subvert non-fundamentalists and end up as violent fundamentalists leads you to conlude that all muslims should be actively discouraged or prevented from living in the west?

Is that why you are against this particular mosque, or any other?

actually, in my humble day to day opinion, every muslims who had their wife worn hijab is a fundamentalist muslims, every muslims who refuse to drunk beer together with me is fundamentalist muslims, and every muslims who insist seggregation of sexes is fundamentalist muslims, why I said that? because everyday, I have many muslim friends who didn't worn hijab, drunk beer together with me, and generally very nice persons, FAR nicer than those who follows their holy book strictly, and these men are majority here...

sorry, but your "hijab maniac" muslims of europe is not a good peaceful muslims, but potential-to-be-terrorist fundamentalists

[al Roumi]

sorry, but your "hijab maniac" muslims of europe is not a good peaceful muslims, but potential-to-be-terrorist fundamentalists

I shouldn't even bother asking you to back that up. How many terrorists do you count among Indonesia's Muslims?

[Cute Wolf]

I shouldn't even bother asking you to back that up. How many terrorists do you count among Indonesia's Muslims?

a little fewer than half, most growth because of fundmentalist's campaigning on their "victory" in western world.... the ammount of Hijab wearer before 2001 are very very few, but since your "islam is peace" campaign commenced, their numbers grow, and non muslims got more and more oppresion because their flawed logic (if the west permit us to worn hijab there, we should enforce that here, etc...)

*. Thankfully, most of our politicians loathe fundamentalist muslims....
did you see most of our leader and military's wife? they never ever worn hijab except when they marry or go to furneral, that's it...

[al Roumi]

a little fewer than half,

So is that a little over 40% of Indonesia's 243 million population, say 97.2 million people, are terrorists?

Really?

Oh ok then.

[Cute Wolf]

So is that a little over 40% of Indonesia's 243 million population, say 97.2 million people, are terrorists?

Really?

Oh ok then.

potential to be terrorist, that's it... ok?
and muslims are actially just a bit less than 80% of total population

[al Roumi]

potential to be terrorist, that's it... ok?
and muslims are actially just a bit less than 80% of total population

Well, the 2000 census, as reported here, says that 86.1% of the population are Muslim. Either way, I'm happy to go with a conservative estimate and say that only 90 million people in Indonesia are terrorists.

Oh no wait, now you said potential terrorists. Why only potential? I thought your point was that half/all the Muslim population were terrorists?

Anyway, this is ridiculous. Simply being Muslim does not make one a terrorist, that is complete nonsense. Thankfully, you only went half that far.

A nation that even pretends to respect human rights cannot censure an entire (or roughly less than half!) religious or ethnic group because a fractional minority of them are violent or engage in terrorism. That the discussion here (never mind in the mainstream US media!) even centres around this dichotomy proves Al-Qaida is well ahead in the ideological battle.

[Cute Wolf]

Well, the 2000 census, as reported here, says that 86.1% of the population are Muslim. Either way, I'm happy to go with a conservative estimate and say that only 90 million people in Indonesia are terrorists.

the census for muslim population are bloated, extremely bloated in some regions...

Oh no wait, now you said potential terrorists. Why only potential? I thought your point was that half/all the Muslim population were terrorists?

Anyway, this is ridiculous. Simply being Muslim does not make one a terrorist, that is complete nonsense. Thankfully, you only went half that far.

You never knew, every muslims who interpret quran in literal sense is potential terrorists, since they insist a practice of desert warfare and political cunningness being done on literal basis, this time, they only stress on the fashional sense, just wait until they start to want "more"...

I know, not every muslims are terrorists, yes, there are a big happy community of muslims who fully understood that quran is meant to be interpreted methaporically, and those rules their god sent 1400 years ago are not meant to be followed letter per letter. But you should know that these are not your average muslims on the western world. If you see a women who insist to worn her hijab covering her head all times, shw should knew that 500 years ago, muslim women have much better freedom in their sultanates (that more or less equal to largely secularized european today), poetry praising wine and beauty of women are abundant, and they worn tanktop and revealing skirt instead of today's extremely closed attires. Yes, she was the victims of today's fundamentalist campaigns, but in turns, she could become an element who push to the death of democracy as well, because she had fear of hell.

A nation that even pretends to respect human rights cannot censure an entire (or roughly less than half!) religious or ethnic group because a fractional minority of them are violent or engage in terrorism. That the discussion here (never mind in the mainstream US media!) even centres around this dichotomy proves Al-Qaida is well ahead in the ideological battle.

Nah, that was simple reason, if they insist worn their hijab, they are terrorist since if they could interpret hijab law literally, they will interpret the law to conquer and systematically enslave people with another system of belief literally.

==================

if you study "Islamic Civilizations" in depth, especially that one who goes in South Asia and South East Asia, you'll found that most of them are nowhere as extreme as today's fundamentalist muslims, and they never try to interpret the quranic law literally...

*EDITED*

[Lemur]

Going back to Rauf, two mosque-related bits of news: Hamas has endorsed the site of the Cordoba whatever, which makes everyone involved go "Ewwww."

Secondly, I finally found the full Rauf quote about Hamas where he "refused" to condemn them:

I'm not a politician. I try to avoid the issues. The issue of terrorism is a very complex question...I'm a bridge builder. I define my work as a bridge builder. I do not want to be placed, nor do I accept to be placed in a position of being put in a position where I am the target of one side or another...

The targeting of civilians is wrong. It is a sin in our religion. Whoever does it, targeting civilians is wrong. I am a supporter of the state of Israel. ... I will not allow anybody to put me in a position where I am seen by any party in the world as an adversary.

-edit-

In the same interview, Rauf states his relationship to the Muslim Brotherhood pretty starkly: ""I have nothing to do with the Muslim Brotherhood. My father was never a member of the Muslim Brotherhood."

[Reenk Roink]

Cute Wolf: Nonwithstanding your extremely nebulous definition of terrorism/terrorist and the even looser way in which you associate to it, your entire point is laughable. The religiosity levels (as according to Pew surveys) in Muslim majority countries is among the highest in the world with even the lowest like Lebanon still hovering around American religiosity levels of 60% and yet the support for terrorism (as defined in reality of course) seems quite low. Furthermore, you are aware that the most expansionist eras of Islamic history, the Ummayad and Ottoman periods were the ones in which the wine drinking elite existed (yeah I took a intro to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam class in college as well as a couple of classes on Byzantine history)? Not to mention wearing tanktops 500 years ago is not even false because it is anachronistic...

Lemur: You do realize that you have just spurred another 100 posts of wafer thin accusations on Rauf and his misleading the public.

[Lemur]

Lemur: You do realize that you have just spurred another 100 posts of wafer thin accusations on Rauf and his misleading the public.

I dunno, I think the preponderance of evidence is pretty clear. Imam Rauf may be insensitive and PR-unsavvy, but he ain't a fifth columnist.

In point of fact, here's a chronological history of media and blogosphere coverage of Rauf and the mosque. Note that until it was the Worst Thing Ever it was deemed a pretty good idea. In December of last year, Fox News's Laura Ingraham declared on The O'Reilly Factor, "I can't find many people who really have a problem with it [...] I like what you're trying to do." This while talking about the Cordoba House to the (un-veiled) wife of Imam Rauf.

Looks like there wasn't much outrage rustled up until the New York Post's Andrea Peyser falsely reported that the opening would be on Sept. 11, 2011, a lie which I have seen repeated in this thread. Once that numerological silliness was out there, the outrage machine revved up. Read the whole chronology, it's quite instructive.

[Cute Wolf]

Cute Wolf: Nonwithstanding your extremely nebulous definition of terrorism/terrorist and the even looser way in which you associate to it, your entire point is laughable. The religiosity levels (as according to Pew surveys) in Muslim majority countries is among the highest in the world with even the lowest like Lebanon still hovering around American religiosity levels of 60% and yet the support for terrorism (as defined in reality of course) seems quite low. Furthermore, you are aware that the most expansionist eras of Islamic history, the Ummayad and Ottoman periods were the ones in which the wine drinking elite existed (yeah I took a intro to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam class in college as well as a couple of classes on Byzantine history)? Not to mention wearing tanktops 500 years ago is not even false because it is anachronistic...

you should knew that belief in god and attending religious ceremonies aren't the standard of religiousity, plus you should know that in most muslim countries (asia, africa, etc), the value of social pressures was far higher than in the west. If you are muslim man, you will be ridiculed by almost everyone if you don't pray at friday.

In fact, there is not only wine drinking elites that I told, muslims in Indonesia regularly drunk beer and ate pork since 500 years ago, these trend are only recently halted because the rise of fundamentalism. And I must inform you that a lot of good muslims here drunk beer and ate pork rather regularly, and the still call themself muslim.

ADD:
my concept of terrorism may be nebulous, but it was some of my univ allumnus, who support terrorism and being captured recently with baasyir, that was among the one who first start "the islamic revival" here... and some of those muslim student organizations did systematically brainwash their cadre

[Reenk Roink]

you should knew that belief in god and attending religious ceremonies aren't the standard of religiousity, plus you should know that in most muslim countries (asia, africa, etc), the value of social pressures was far higher than in the west. If you are muslim man, you will be ridiculed by almost everyone if you don't pray at friday.

In fact, there is not only wine drinking elites that I told, muslims in Indonesia regularly drunk beer and ate pork since 500 years ago, these trend are only recently halted because the rise of fundamentalism. And I must inform you that a lot of good muslims here drunk beer and ate pork rather regularly, and the still call themself muslim.

So what is your concept of religiosity then? Because a survey that flat out asks how important religion is in your life seems the best to me. I saw you gave an examples of drinking beer and wearing the hijab. Fine let's go by your standards for the sake of argument and judge by adherence to religious law and custom. But the same point is made. You see a large number of Muslim clerics condemn all kinds of terrorist attacks though they not only live by Sharia law but support it. I know that when Iraq's new constitution was being drafted, there was great popular support for "Islam being the/a source of law" there.

ADD:
my concept of terrorism may be nebulous, but it was some of my univ allumnus, who support terrorism and being captured recently with baasyir, that was among the one who first start "the islamic revival" here... and some of those muslim student organizations did systematically brainwash their cadre

OK?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

....my concept of terrorism may be nebulous, but it was some of my univ allumnus, who support terrorism and being captured recently with baasyir, that was among the one who first start "the islamic revival" here... and some of those muslim student organizations did systematically brainwash their cadre

Bog standard recruitment and indoctrination behavior for virtually all groups -- AQ or USMC. It is an impressionable age frame, most of whose members are desperately seeking to define their own identities.

[Beskar]

In point of fact, here's a chronological history of media and blogosphere coverage of Rauf and the mosque. Note that until it was the Worst Thing Ever it was deemed a pretty good idea. In December of last year, Fox News's Laura Ingraham declared on The O'Reilly Factor, "I can't find many people who really have a problem with it [...] I like what you're trying to do." This while talking about the Cordoba House to the (un-veiled) wife of Imam Rauf.

Funny thing is, this supports pretty much all my posts where it is just conservative media trying to kick up a storm in a tea cup, which people follow blindly like sheep. Though, the most surprising thing is, that near the start, Foxnews supported the idea. Before the racists and islamophobes got near the story, main-stream.

[Hax]

If you are muslim man, you will be ridiculed by almost everyone if you don't pray at friday.

Not true, personal experience.

[Cute Wolf]

Not true, personal experience.

I think you are buddhist? allready convert to muslim?

[Lemur]

Once again, good to see politicians making hay as quickly as they can move their pitchforks:

[Beskar]

Once again, good to see politicians making hay as quickly as they can move their pitchforks:
[video]

What are mozlem fanatics and moslum extremists?

Do they possess nucular weapons?

[HoreTore]

This used to be one of those areas in america that I could point to in a discussion and say "people, this is one area where the yanks are superior to us; no matter what your beliefs are, you will have every freedom to go about building it aa you please. The americans will let YOU decide what you want to build, how you want to spend your OWN money, there wont be any bureaucrats to tell you how you can spend it or what you can building."

It noe appears that I won't be able to do that anymore. You have now adopted one of the worst aspects of our european nanny-state.

America, I am disappoint.

[HoreTore]

Nvm

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Apparently there was another building nearby that was canceled that I hadn't even heard of:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interna...Freedom_Center

However, opponents reacted against the IFC's mission, saying that plans to promote international freedom through exhibits and displays about various genocides and crimes against humanity through history, including genocide of Native American genocide and the slave trade in the United States, were inappropriate at a site that many people consider to be sacred. On September 28, 2005, New York Governor George E. Pataki barred the IFC from the World Trade Center site.."

Jeff Jarvis, a journalist and 9/11 survivor, noted that the IFC's proponents stated they "will tangibly link September 11 and the lives of its victims to humanity’s greatest idea: freedom", but objected:

“ But what is that link? Nothing about September 11 was about liberating people. The people who were killed that day were free. They were not struggling to be free. The murderers, too, were free and exploited that freedom to commit this act. Of course, I support the celebration of freedom; who but a tyrant or a terrorist would not? But the struggle here is not against or for freedom. The struggle here is for civilization against extremism, fanaticism, and criminality. So make your center, elsewhere, about terrorism, then. Have your seminars and events and debates about extremism. Study religious fanaticism. This actually is not about freedom.

This building seems similar in some ways, though less blatant. Rauf has latched the message he wishes to spread onto a big name event when it doesn't make sense to do so. I don't see the logic in using 9/11 to spread an extremism combating message. "Here, at the site of your greatest success, let me remind you why you shouldn't be extremists?".

It reminds me also of how michael moore got in some trouble for exploiting a sympathy shot of an amputated (but pro-war) soldier to make his case in Fahrenheit 9/11.

[Lemur]

The americans will let YOU decide what you want to build, how you want to spend your OWN money, there wont be any bureaucrats to tell you how you can spend it or what you can building.

Well .. I mean, we have aleays had zoning, and building codes, and local codes, and all sorts of rules and regulations. Heck, that's what keeps my brother wealthy; he negotiates leases for cell phone towers. It's complicated.

So I don't understand how the very public huffing and puffing over the Cordoba House changes the equation for America as a whole. We're more free than most places, but we don't bathe in absoulte freedom. For total, unfettered do-as-you-please, you pretty much have to exist in anarchy.

[Xiahou]

"Here, at the site of your greatest success, let me remind you why you shouldn't be extremists?".

I really don't think that's the argument. You're again making the leap that muslims=terrorists. I think his message could be more like "Here is a site of horrible devastation and death. This is what radical ideology leads to."

The message wouldn't be directed at the Taliban or Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. It would be directed at American muslims- you know, like the ones living in Manhattan for example.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

I think his message could be more like "Here is a site of horrible devastation and death. This is what radical ideology leads to."

But it is an interfaith center, a place where he can "show off [his] hospitality, my culture, my background".

The message wouldn't be directed at the Taliban or Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. It would be directed at American muslims- you know, like the ones living in Manhattan for example.

It doesn't seem to be directed at muslims.

[Xiahou]

It doesn't seem to be directed at muslims.

Uh-huh. Then who is this directed at?

"Here, at the site of your greatest success, let me remind you why you shouldn't be extremists?"

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Uh-huh. Then who is this directed at?

I wrote that. Not directed at anyone

It wouldn't make much sense for him to say it, would it?

[Fragony]

Funny thing is, this supports pretty much all my posts where it is just conservative media trying to kick up a storm in a tea cup, which people follow blindly like sheep. Though, the most surprising thing is, that near the start, Foxnews supported the idea. Before the racists and islamophobes got near the story, main-stream.

Hardly surpring as Fox is partially Saudi owned

[Meneldil]

Though I don't know whether or not the Mosque should be built (I find it stupid, but if the law allows it, then meh), despite what Lemur says, this Rauf dude seems like your cliché 'pretending to be assimilated and open-minded muslim'. Reminds me of Tariq Ramadan. On the first hand he'll say that he's all for dialogue and what not, but on the other hand he'll aknowledge that, you know, fundamentalist muslims aren't completely wrong.

I'm now deeply convinced that Islam has no place in the western world, and this man is only a further proof.

[al Roumi]

This building seems similar in some ways, though less blatant. Rauf has latched the message he wishes to spread onto a big name event when it doesn't make sense to do so. I don't see the logic in using 9/11 to spread an extremism combating message. "Here, at the site of your greatest success, let me remind you why you shouldn't be extremists?".

I really don't think that's the argument. You're again making the leap that muslims=terrorists. I think his message could be more like "Here is a site of horrible devastation and death. This is what radical ideology leads to."

The message wouldn't be directed at the Taliban or Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. It would be directed at American muslims- you know, like the ones living in Manhattan for example.

Moreover, 9/11 is not a Muslim "achievement". It is Al-Qaida's achievement. It is deeply concerning that after 9 years of history and 13 pages of this godforsaken thread you can't appreciate that.