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America remembers 9/11 amid souring community relations

When official commemorations are over, rallies will begin both for and against the proposed Islamic

By Samira Shackle Published 11 September 2010 11:28

America is preparing to mark the ninth anniversary of the September 11 attack on the World Trade Centre.

Sadly, this year, the commemoration will be marred by a significant step back in community relations.

At an official ceremony in New York, the names of all the people who died at the World Trade Centre in 2001 -- nearly 3000 -- will be read out. US Vice-President Joe Biden will attend. President Barack Obama will attend a ceremony at the Pentagon, while his wife Michelle and former first lady Laura Bush will be at an event in Pennsylvania, where the fourth plane crashed. Across the country, houses of worship will toll their bells at 8.46am (1.46pm GMT), the moment that the first plane hit the North Tower.

However, when these commemorations are over, rallies are set to begin both for and against the proposed Islamic community centre and mosque near Ground Zero, with both sides keen to use the emotional impact of the day to add weight to their cause. In a clear sign of how low the debate has sunk, the virulently anti-Islam Dutch politician, Geert Wilders, is to speak at a rally opposing the cultural centre.

Over the last week, the news has been dominated by Terry Jones, the crackpot pastor threatening to burn Qurans (more on this from Mehdi Hasan and Patrick Osgood). While he is clearly on the lunatic, fundamentalist fringe, and as such was undeserving of such international attention, Jones is part of a wider trend of Islamaphobia sweeping the US.

A recent survey showed that one in five Americans believe that their president is secretly a Muslim -- as though it were a sinister agenda, antithetical to America, rather than a religion. Attacks on mosques are still unusual, but not unheard of.

Speaking last night, Obama mounted an impassioned defence of religious freedom:

We have to make sure that we don't start turning on each other. We are one nation under God and we may call that God different names, but we remain one nation.

This sad anniversary should be a chance for Americans to stand together -- regardless of their beliefs -- and defend the principles of religious freedom and tolerance that their nation is supposedly built upon.

In 2007, the Pew Research Centre found that American Muslims were:

largely integrated, happy with their lives, and moderate with respect to many of the issues that have divided Muslims and Westerners around the world.

It would be a tragedy to undo this further.

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Tags: America Islam

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13 comments

Sat, 2010-09-11 22:25 — Thomas Devine

The news over here is that the Crack-pot (which is what he is) won't burn the Korans he has. Had he burned them and fifty times their number, anyone who really wants a Koran could still get one.

Whether or not the Crack-pot burns a Koran, millitant Islamists will still burn Americans and Europeans will be callous and smug about it.

The world crisis we face was caused by the European colonial Empires. America has tried to prevent a general world collapse. And the New Statesman roots for planetwide disaster. Why?

If the world ecconomic system chrashes like you guys want it to, it's Europe who'll starve first. And the Arab lands next. America might have brutal problems, but we'll still eat (less desireable food) while you strave in the dark.

Why do you want that?

Sun, 2010-09-12 08:55 — Islamshame (not verified)

Burning the Koran will not stop the jihadists.

Serializing it - in every "reputable" newspaper or magazine hence exposing it's stupidity, sham and utterly fraudulent motives - will.

Sun, 2010-09-12 09:07 — Joe Bone (not verified)

Obama said "..we called that God different name.."

Barrack Obama may be a smart individual but he its pretty obvious he knows nothing about Islam.

Allah, Muslims' god is a 30 x 41 inches piece of rock housed in the kaaba. It is not a God by any stretch of imagination.

The creative spirit or God that made the universe and man would not have made such a fool of himself in the Koran. That nAllh got his sum wrong, geography wrong, science wrong and literally every thing wrong in the Koran.

The Koran is one big fraud big time. Period.

Sun, 2010-09-12 09:58 — Plaintalk (not verified)

Koran 9:88 says "Fight and kill all the non-Muslims where ever you found them, take them captive, harass them, lie in wait and ambust them.."

Koran 8:39 says "So fight them until there is no more non-Muslims and all submit to the religion of Allah alone (in the whole world).

There are 123 verses in the Koran that call for the extermination of non-Muslims. AND Muslims believe that every word, comma, full stop etc inside the Koran is the word of God.

So what kind of God is that?

@Joe Bone is spot on - real God will not say such a thing!!

Sun, 2010-09-12 10:04 — Plaintalk (not verified)

Koran 9:88 "Fight and kill the non-Muslims where ever you find them, take them captive, harass them, lie in wait and ambust them using every strategem of war."

Koran 8:39 says "so fight them until there is no more non-Mulsims and all submit to the religion of Allah alone (in the whole world)."

There are 123 verses inside the Koran that calls for the extermination of non-Muslims and dominate the world.

Mein Kampf is a child's play compare to the Koran

Sun, 2010-09-12 10:18 — swatantra (not verified)

About time these verses were deleted and the whole Koran revised. The verses are unacceptable.

Sat, 2010-09-11 12:06 — jamil (not verified)

Obama's speech was excellent. but it might have fallen on deaf ears.

Sat, 2010-09-11 12:15 — Luddite (not verified)

The proposed building of this Mohammedan temple is a deliberate insult meant to cause the maximum amount of offence. EVERYWHERE.. Muslims go conflict always follows.

Sat, 2010-09-11 12:24 — swatantra

It may be one God, but its not the same God. That is basically the problem with religion. Some Gods are more benevolent than others; some disciples more tolerant than others.
So although Obama's keynote speech to mark 9/11 was excellent, it really doesn't make 9/12 tomorrow any better.
Sometime, the really fundamental questions of what is acceptable and what is not acceptable in all religions has to be tackled. and there has to be some plain speaking.
That means really challenging what is written in the Holy Texts of all religions, and deleting what is not acceptable.
Of course there are common threads running through all religions and those need to be at the forefront of religious teaching.

Sat, 2010-09-11 16:10 — Gideon Polya

The world is marking the 9th anniversary of the 9-11 atrocity in which, either (1) according to some top scientific and intelligence experts, the US Government, with likely Israeli state terrorist support, killed 3,000 Americans on 9-11 to launch the War on Terror for oil, US hegemony and US-Israeli domination of the Middle East or (2) religious fundamentalists in Central Asian caves without state intelligence, armed forces, or military-industrial infrastructure achieved a devastating attack on Metropolitan United States that the hugely powerful Axis Powers failed to do in World War 2 (only 6 people died from Axis attack in Mainland USA in WW2 - 6 people killed in Oregon by a Japanese balloon bomb) and, furthermore, did so for no obvious cost-benefit reasons.

Some top scientific and intelligence experts (notably Professor Niels Harrit who identified unexploded nano-thermite high explosive in all WTC dust samples studied) and Means, Opportunity and Motive (MOM) analysis makes a compelling case that the US did 9-11, most likely with the involvement of the genocidal racist Zionists running Apartheid Israeli state terrorism.

9-11 must be made a day to remember (1) the launching in Johannesburg, 1906, of Gandhi’s ultimately successful Satyagraha Movement for peaceful opposition to racist violence; (2) the US (and most likely Israeli) destruction of 3,000 Americans on 9-11; and (3) the 8 million people murdered, so far, by genocidal US and Zionist violence since 9-11 (2.5 million violent deaths and non-violent avoidable deaths from deprivation in Iraq; 4.5 million violent deaths and non-violent avoidable deaths from deprivation in Afghanistan; and 0.8 million opiate drug-related deaths – 50,000 in the US and 3,000 in Australia - due to US Alliance restoration of the Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry from 6% of world share in 2001 to over 90% today)(see: http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article20210 ).

Only comprehensive Sanctions and Boycotts can stop neocon US and Zionist violence and genocidal anti-Arab anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

Sat, 2010-09-11 17:55 — Joe Bone (not verified)

Al Bukhari "Jihad is an obligatory duty in Islam on every Muslim. He who tries to escape this duty dies as a hypocrite."

The Quoran contains 123 verses that call for the killing of non-Mulsims.
Need I say more.