FACT, OR BOLLOCKS? Eight possible purposes of the proposed Islamic doodah at Ground Zero
What are we to make of the media’s latest blithering crapfest, the ongoing Punch and Judy show that is the ‘debate’ over the Ground Zero Mosque-that-is-not-actually-a-mosque AKA Cordoba House AKA Park 51 or whatever the hell the thing is called this week?
With so many heated claims and counter claims, including the now traditional yelps of “bigotry” from what Robert Gibbs describes as the “Professional Left”, and conversely, paranoid accusations of “taqiyya” and all round Islamic evilness from the self-declared Right… well sometimes a man just wants to tell them all to shut up — or indeed, fuck off.
However as the controversy is not going to go away, I thought I’d attempt something different here. Rather than debate whether the developers have the right to erect a community center/swimming pool/prayer room/groovy Islamic love hutch on ‘sacred ground’ (which nobody with any brains actually disputes pace Mr. Obama and everyone else who disingenuously frames the argument that way) or whether it is both legal and an affront to the victims of 9/11more likely to divide than unite (which is what most of the Mosque’s opponents argue, including, for example Abdul Rahman Al-Rashid, director of Al-Arabiya TV), I thought I’d conduct a brief analysis of the structure’s purposes and assess whether or not these are factual or simply bollocks.
Here goes:
1) PURPOSE: The center will provide lots of ace utilities for Muslims (prayer room, study center, auditorium etc) to enjoy in Lower Manhattan.
FACT, OR BOLLOCKS? Fact! So long as the building goes ahead as currently planned.
Here however is a secondary question: will non-Muslims also be able to use (say) the excellent swimming pool, in the name of ‘dialog’? Shall Jew and Salafi, Southern Baptist and Baha’i blissfully float together in this big tub of chlorinated water? Nobody in our useless media, as far as I am aware, has even bothered to ask the question, so it is impossible to say. If anyone knows the truth feel free to confirm or deny in the comments below, but back it up please.
2) PURPOSE: The center will promote dialogue between “Islam” (hardly monolithic) and the “West” (ditto), healing the rifts and misunderstandings that have arisen between Muslims (who are of course a highly fractured and divided non-community) and Americans (ditto).
FACT, OR BOLLOCKS? Ultra-bollocks, possibly even bullshit, with knobs on. With approximately 70% or so of Americans opposed to the GZM, the project has in fact inflamed and soured relations between ‘communities’. This reaction was so predictable that it’s difficult to understand why — if Imam Rauf and co are sincere — they did not grasp that this is what would happen. You can argue nuance and the 1st Amendment all day long, protest the purity of your intentions until the rocks melt with the sun, but Imam, old boy — didn’t you see the shit storm coming?
Furthermore, reading William Dalrymple’s recent piece in the NYT I learned that Imam Rauf is a Sufi. As Sufis are hardly representative of the majority of Muslims around the world, and indeed are generally viewed with suspicion if not outright hostility by their co-religionists, the Islamic center at best will provide outreach to a tiny minority of Muslims who probably require very little outreach in the first place. Therefore it is never going to achieve what Rauf and his supporters profess to desire, even if after it is built everyone else in the country eventually chills out about it.
3) PURPOSE: The center is a Trojan Horse for totalitarian Islamism. The theory goes like this: Rauf is a fraud, a man who won’t denounce Hamas, who said numerous dodgy things about America after 9/11; he is merely posing as a moderate and this structure is designed to be a symbol of Islamic triumphalism, spitting in the face of our values, a front guard in the spread of Sharia law around the world.
FACT, OR BOLLOCKS? Who the fuck knows? He certainly equivocates when it comes to Hamas but then so do many members of the “Professional Left”. That’s not just a Rauf thing.
He also likes to ramble on about Sharia, allegedly a system of perfect laws handed down to man by God in Heaven via Mohammed but then again Sharia is not monolithic. For all I know Rauf may have developed his own groovy retconned interpretation that jettisons all the gay-bashing, woman-oppressing, hand-chopping, other-religions-subjugating stuff you find in the harsher variants. Or he may not have: again it would be nice if someone in the media had actually taken the time to ask a few questions to clear up some of these issues.
All that aside, it certainly doesn’t help that the perennially grinning Rauf is too cowardly to appear in public to argue his case; nor that the sources of the building’s funding have not been revealed. If it has been paid for by mystical Sufis, or an enlightened soul like the Aga Khan (not a Sufi NB but rather an Ismaili) then we could dismiss these fears out of hand. If it’s been funded by the Saudis however, well then it probably is a front for some truly appalling ideas. However, pix of Rauf yukking it up with the occasional anti-Semitic/genocidal freak such as those which have been unearthed on Pajamasmedia don’t prove all that much. That’s what you do when you’re a jetsetting global dialogue coach getting lots of cool stuff for free from the public teat as Mr. Rauf most assuredly is.
Consider our own president for example, who by contrast has a real and quite onerous job. Mr. Obama visited Saudi Arabia in June and immediately went into full grovelling mode, thanking King Abdullah for his ‘wise counsel’ and other such crap. King Abdullah of course is the gerontocrat who presides over one of the most oppressive states on earth, an appalling tyranny which enforces gender apartheid, religious apartheid and even today crucifies people on occasion. Lovely! But still, when King A. hands a bucket of lukewarm shit to Prez O., the Harvard educated, oh so urbane ex-Constitutional Law professor laps it up, pats his swollen belly, turns to his grinning host and yums: Oh your Highness you are really spoiling us!
All of which is to say: let’s not judge Rauf too harshly for shaking hands with racist, oppressive, woman-hating, theocratic scumbags. Well-meaning people do that all the time.
4) PURPOSE: The mosque will provide jihadis and Islamist thugs with a great propaganda tool as, ignoring its Sufi origins, they will slap its image on cheaply reproduced posters in Pakistan and Afghanistan and the Sudan, insert footage of it into crap DVDs and videotapes and crow that it is a symbol of American weakness and the coming triumph of Islam over the entire world (yawn).
FACT OR BOLLOCKS? Is the color of Islam green? Does Osama Bin Laden shit in a cave? (Well, possibly not but he certainly shits close to a cave) Did Mohammed ascend to paradise on a winged horse? (OK, I don’t think so either, but you catch my drift).
5) PURPOSE: The mosque will demonstrate to the world that America stands by its founding principles and is a tolerant country.
FACT, OR BOLLOCKS? Yeah, yeah, blah blah blah.There’s something pathetic, naive, insecure and wretchedly narcissistic about this, as if for some reason America must constantly demonstrate its goodness to a doubting world.
AMERICA (squeaky voice): Oh please world, love me! Look how tolerant I am. Aren’t I the nicest country ever?
WORLD (belches): Yeah, yeah, fuck off you imperialist aggressor. What about Israel, eh?…Say, when’s the new iPhone coming out?
6) PURPOSE: The mosque will provide talk radio hosts, cable TV types and their irate audiences with a rich seam of bile to tap into for both pleasure and profit.
FACT, OR BOLLOCKS? Come now: do you really need to ask? This is like the California gold rush all over again. This seam will offer up pure nuggets of apoplectic rage for weeks, months, even years — should construction go ahead. And the pleasures of anger will not fade, especially as sundry Democrats (such as Obama and Pelosi) make more mealy mouthed or downright cretinous statements, while chaps like Newt Gingrich whip up the other side with their own demagoguery. Rage sells, and millions are buying. PLUS: election time is coming.
7) PURPOSE: To supply members of the Professional Left and similarly minded bien pensants with a profoundly satisfying sense of moral superiority over their fellow Americans.
FACT, OR BOLLOCKS? What is more pleasurable than to vigorously masturbate oneself into a climax of moral superiority, floating away from the vulgar mob on a slick of one’s own slippery jizzum, preening oneself as a more intelligent, morally evolved being as you do so?
Well actually lots of things if you’re not a smug dickwad, but do not underestimate the appeal of sanctimonious self-righteousness to your average bien pensant who fears and loathes the filthy horde. 70% of Americans oppose the mosque? Then that is because they are animals and bigots, while I am noble and righteous. Yes indeed kids, some people really feel this way and actually get off on it.
8) PURPOSE: To provide a business opportunity for Greg Gutfeld of Fox News’ Red Eye show, who has pledged to open the world’s first Muslim friendly gay bar right next door to the mosque.
FACT, OR BOLLOCKS? While Gutfeld is adamant that he seriously intends to open said establishment, it seems highly unlikely that the bar will be a business success, 72 virgin cocktails or not. On the other hand, even if gay Muslims stay away it might nevertheless fill up with provocative New Yorkers looking to stick one in the eye (metaphorically speaking) of the tenants next door. And speaking of provocations, when Gutfeld badgered his prospective neighbors for a response they eventually replied via Twitter:
You’re free to open whatever you like. If you won’t consider the sensibilities of Muslims, you’re not going to build dialog.
Now setting aside the weasel word “sensibilities” (which I believe translates into plain English as “contempt and disdain for gays”) what is most striking is the breathtaking absence of any sense of irony. The Park 51 folks are thus either incredibly tone deaf, or so off their tits on their own self-righteousness that they genuinely don’t grasp how ridiculous that sounds. The poor lambs bleat; they whine; but they certainly don’t think very clearly. And that being the case, let’s end on a charitable note — perhaps the men and women behind this mosque/center/swimming pool/Islamic doodah really do believe that by building it they will somehow successfully breed the eternally elusive magic unicorn known as ‘Dialog’.
Latest posts by Daniel Kalder (Posts)
- Book Review: Retroworld (plus, why I hate Star Trek) - April 3, 2014
- A very expensive fungus - October 16, 2013
- The secret rituals of history’s most creative minds - October 9, 2013
- Apparently we are all getting very old - October 3, 2013
- Vasily Grossman: from Stalingrad to toilet trouble - August 28, 2013
Print This Post
Every word of this post sent wisps of joy through my unmentionables. I wish there was a way to bottle your writing and sell it — in lieu of Dasani — all over the globe.
I’d endorse that kind of project.
Thanks for the kind words.
@Daniel
Anxiously awaiting STRANGE TELESCOPES’ arrival into my reading queue. One more item before I can get it to it. Soon though.
Just finished this book, which is nigh-incredible, I think, and quite relevant to your post today:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1933633514/?tag=wfthecoliseum-20
it must national kiss DK’s ass day, but i wanted to mention i finished lost cosmo, liked it, and posted some pretty dull text on the matter here:
http://kudera.blogspot.com/2010/08/daniel-kalders-lost-cosmonaut.html
doubtless, my millions of blogspot readers will make you rich. i guess i’ll hunt down strange telescopes soon.
good.
@Alex
I bet that somewhere in Texas, a void-wandering Scotsman appreciates our ass-kissing and is only slightly disturbed by the unrelenting adulation….Maybe? I hyper-focus on authors and musicians I like, which has probably generated a few eye-rolls now and then.
But, y’know, I unashamedly praise those whose work I admire. These people drive my enthusiasm, infuse me with creativity and generally make life better. I spend too much time on my personal blog complaining about all the contemptible ding dongs in the world, so it’s nice to slather the Daniel Kalders of the world with ‘Mike-Love.’
Perhaps the freed Lockerbie bomber would consider paying the mosque/center/swimming pool/Islamic doodah a visit in the name of harmony as I am quite sure he will be alive when its construction is completed…..
Alex, I appreciate it- I can already hear the clatter of gold coins raining into my bank account.
Michael, I read a long interview with Berman on Michael Totten’s site and really liked the sound of the book. For some reason however I decided to go retro and buy Pascal thingumajig’s Tears of the White Man instead, which is very French in its rhetorical strategies, but excellent nonetheless.
@Daniel
I read that interview too; good stuff. Totten is a bright guy; I like him (he lives here in Portland, too, which is strange). Berman’s other books are stellar as well.
Funny that you mention Pascal Bruckner — some of my favorite parts of Berman’s new book are the references to Pascal. In fact, I’d say some of the best parts of the book cite TEARS OF THE WHITE MAN. Berman says, describing Bruckner’s position:
“To the Western intellectuals, the poorest human beings in the poorest regions of the world appeared to be, in sum, better than other human beings, even if lacking in Western sophistication or other complexities. They were Noble Savages. Fantasies, in short. And the grand left-wing intellectuals of the Western countries never seemed to notice that, in conjuring those many fantastic images of people far away, they had ended up replicating the worst and most horrendous prejudices of the European imperialists of the past, except in a version that pretended to be admiring instead of hostile. The intellectuals pictured themselves as the enemies of racism, but somehow they had ended up as racists. They felt contempt for people different from themselves, and they packaged their contempt as compassion. They looked down, and described it as looking up.”
BING-fucking-GO. That serpent-faced horseshit is prevalent in every shrill leftist I have ever met, specifically the Jello Biafra-PUNK-IS-POLITICS type. And, I hate to paint with a broad brush, but these ding-dongs are so lacking in self-awareness and contemplative power that they can’t even fathom (i) that this character flaw exists, and (ii) that it exists inside their very own sage, ennobling ass-whistles.
They used to piss me off and send me into little rages. Now that I’m closing in on 40, I’m trying to enjoy the cartoonish stupidity of it all rather than allow it to drive me toward a heart attack. Of course, it doesn’t help that I live in a city where 90% of the population is the literal embodiment of Bruckner’s characterizations.
Mass pathology in the Islamists, mass pathology in their lily-livered apologists. If micro-organisms don’t consume the world’s population in some sort of nanotechnology disaster, surely these dunces will place us all in a striking distance of a nuclear warhead. At this point, I’m fairly certain we’re all screwed.
Awesome stuff Daniel … a carefully controlled detonation with a big f*** off bang to it.
I felt slightly sick at the image of Prez O rubbing his satisfied belly after gorging on King A’s left-behinds … but then, how else can you frame such rank hypocrisy?
Anyway, a good one
@ Michael- yes, and Bruckner has updated the theme with The Tyranny of Guilt, which is equally great. I have started tuning out the tools you mention, but i am still aware of them dribbling on in the background.
@ Nik- I removed a final vomit inducing clause from that part to tone it down. It was too much even for me. Then I embedded a link at the end of it to sweeten everything up again…
A pleasure to have you back on the blogosphere, vomiting on the heads of smeg pegs the world round.