The Tolerant States of America?

I was not born in the United States, and I tend to maintain a personal policy of "Not my country, not my business" when it comes to internal U.S. affairs.

Unless, of course, the issue is one that concerns the city in which I live and, more importantly, U.S. commentators have done such a poor job of covering the issue that they clearly require an outsider to shed some light on the matter.

On one side, you have the racists and the xenophobes. Though it may not be my place to point out the rampant ignorance within which they wallow, I'll point it out all the same. With the racists and xenophobes, unfortunately, there are also some sensible people who are raising legitimate concerns:

Why did the members of New York's large Muslim community choose downtown Manhattan as the site for their new mosque? Was it convenience, or a sort of "haha, got you now" move aimed to mock the current lack of a World Trade Center?

From experience with Muslims and from actually knowing Muslims and having Muslim friends, not just watching movies about terrorism and tuning in to Fox's disturbingly ridiculous programming, I can safely assume that, for the most part, the decision was made out of convenience.

Prepare yourselves: Muslims are just regular people trying to pay their bills and go on about their lives.

Yes, there are crazies in the Muslim community. But after a day of reading right-wing political blogs (to say nothing of, say, Oklahoma City), one can ascertain that there are crazies in the Protestant communities.

Unfortunately for the people with legitimate and reasonable concerns, they usually fall into the category of people opposed to the downtown mosque.

In the popular imagination, that sort of puts them with the right-wing nut-jobs who hear the word "Islam" and head for their nearest gun shop. It's unfortunate because they are asking appropriate questions.

Of course, what's even more unfortunate is that the politicians got involved. From President Obama to New York Governor Patterson to some guy who is running for governor of Florida or something (does he really think he matters?) to Nancy Pelosi (has the woman ever said something that didn't land her in a world of mockery and insults?), politicians got involved in the downtown mosque.

And then, a local issue of a mosque, New York's Muslim community, and some genuinely concerned citizens grew into something like a three-ring circus, complete with political footballs, political points, right-wing psychos, and Hamas.

After all, these days in the United States what circus isn't complete without Hamas and some Zionist group or another?

But all of that is just noise. The citizens of the United States of America have gotten carried away with noise.

So let's add some focus, shall we?

The United States, for better or worse, has made a career out of driving Western Europe and Latin America nuts with its talk of tolerance. You just can't talk to an American without, at some point, being told of how the United States is this amazingly tolerant country (of course, this comes just after the American has complained about the local customs of the Latin American or the Western European, but we'll discuss manners in tomorrow's article).

It all sounds wonderful.

A land of great bounty with tolerance for all (or is it liberty for all?) and with brave people and free people and all sorts of amazing things going on. Sounds pretty cool.

Enough to make a person downright envious.

Until someone wants to build a mosque.

Then, fear becomes the order of the day. Suddenly, Zionists spring up from out of nowhere and they start talking about Islamo-fascists or whatever and, next thing you know, Hamas gets dragged into it (they're sort of involved in everything, aren't they?) and before you know it, someone wants to go bomb Iran.

Don't ask how Iran got involved.

No one knows.
They just want to bomb the place.

That's sort of what happened with the downtown mosque.

And that's the hypocrisy and the self-righteousness of the situation becomes apparent, and that's when the foreigner begins to realize that all the talk of tolerance is really just... Talk.

Empty talk, at that.

You see, if all of the wonderful talk of liberty and tolerance and freedom and bravery and the rest of it were real, Americans would not respond to a mosque in downtown Manhattan with talk of 9/11 and Hamas and terrorism and with protests.

They'd say this, "You want to build a mosque two blocks away from the World Trade Center? Hell no! I want you to build it on the World Trade Center site itself, because I want you to know that even though I don't agree with your decision, I tolerate it and respect it and that's that, because I'm above being petty and ridiculous. You can be petty and ridiculous, but not me, because I'm an American."

Unfortunately, no one has said anything remotely close to that.

And then you wonder why Western Europeans and Latin Americans, long-time natural allies of the United States, respond to American talk of tolerance and freedom and liberty with reserved cynicism.

I, personally, believe that the downtown mosque is not a particularly good idea and that it is not sensitive toward those of us who lived in New York during the World Trade Center attack of 9/11, but hey, I believe in tolerance, and so I'll support the downtown mosque if only because there's really not much other choice.

That might make me the ideal of an American, but given the self-righteousness and hypocrisy on display within this whole downtown mosque debate, I think I'll keep my current citizenship.

I only ask that you tolerate my decision, knowing in my heart that you probably won't, but being brave enough not to care.