The Scorched Earth Theory

I went on a radio show last Friday to discuss my recent column supporting the building of an Islamic Community Center a few blocks from ground zero. Truthfully, I was pretty nervous. I consider myself to be relatively informed and, as you may have gathered, I have opinions on everything. But political discussion is some pretty deep water for someone who isn’t accustomed to the shouting and the castigation that goes on during much of the talk show culture. I like to let someone finish speaking before I begin to. It’s kinda how I was raised.

I thought it went well. The host was very nice, she mercifully didn’t take any calls, and even though my voice seemed to be two octaves higher than normal and I used the word, “fear” about 40 times, I was pleased that I didn’t sound like a liberal pussy. (Just “pussy-ish”, as my friend Pauly assessed.)

On the other end of the spectrum, today I spent a few hours flipping around the news channels and surfing the political web sites to see how the Islamic Community Center situation was being handled. I was aghast and it takes a lot to aghast me.

I want to believe that the Republicans preaching intolerance and spreading lies about Islam and President Obama on the various news outlets, and their oafish constituents who invaded my city the other day to protest in that hideous demonstration, also want what’s best for the country.

I want to believe that everyone understands the stakes here and that if New York City were hit again, some “regular” Americans (it’s a term I hear thrown around quote a bit on TV) wouldn’t think that it was just Jews and fags and intellectuals; the “liberal elite” as Republican media sneeringly call us.

I want to believe that they would feel for us, and that tonight, they actually fear for us, too. That they respect how, on September 11th, 2001, we took the shot for everyone, regardless of political affiliation. The bad guys thought they were going to break America and yet we didn’t even let them bend it an inch.

Even through our tears and grief and so much death just after that awful day, New Yorkers were conscious to put on a brave face for the rest of the country. We rallied through a pretty unimaginable horror, and we did it for everyone.

We let President Bush come here with his bullhorn and provoke the terrorists with a “come and get it” and we chalked it up to his incredible ignorance. He flexed and winked and we shrugged. But we didn’t cower. We were too busy digging, literally and emotionally.

In Texas, they prayed for us, but went to their high school football games that Friday night, while we buried our friends and family. In Georgia, the crafts fairs didn’t miss a beat, while we had our neighborhoods tested for toxins and held clothing drives. They may have lit candles for us in Missouri, but part of our city burned down.

And still we kept a stiff upper lip. That’s what patriotism really is, not a bumper sticker,  t-shirt or a Toby Keith song. It’s a bunch of four-eyed, sushi eating, Times-reading liberals (go figure) working together with blue-collar New York Post reading Jets and Giants fans who instinctively understood what had happened and how we needed to react.

I’m not blind—I recognize that there are plenty of racists and xenophobes in the five boroughs. Nor am I under any illusion that all New Yorkers are in favor of the building. For some people, emotions are still to raw to even think about supporting it. I respect them, and their opinions. And I appreciate the discussions that I have heard taking place—civilly and without histrionics and misspelled signs. (Hell, my own brother thinks I’m crazy. If I wasn’t so terrified of him, I would argue.)

Yet I was hoping that these out-of-towners, who were bussed in to rally against the center, would take a deep breath and appreciate how perilous our position was becoming, whether we are for or against the center. Poking 1.5 billion Muslims with a stick is not only wrong-headed it’s stupid and dangerous, especially for New Yorkers. And stoking the ire of mentally unbalanced Americans will likely cause violence against peaceful people who have the misfortune of being born with brown skin.

The politicians want to win—at any cost. Gingrich. Palin. Boehner. You know the names. And they think the best way to do so is to fan the flames of hatred and fear and hope the ensuing uproar would stick to President Obama, dooming him so that they would be able take the country over again and ruin it some more.

For the Republican leadership, there are always more industries to deregulate, more pockets to line, more parts of the Constitution to try and warp to protect the dwindling aging white population, their last constituency, in this nation of immigrants. They have no sense of decency, no concept of Americans as part of a global populace, and no understanding of how easy they are making it for radical Muslims to recruit young people. Or…perhaps they don’t care because they don’t live in New York City.

The rally attendees here, as opposed to the politicians, just blindly hate. They are angry, their lives are crummy, and they are desperate to point fingers at anyone but themselves. They are woefully uninformed about what has driven their families to the brink—like Bush tax cuts for companies that had shipped their jobs overseas—and know so little about Islam that they hurled epithets at a construction worker who they thought was wearing a traditional Muslim kufi, despite the Under-Armour logo on front. He was from Brooklyn and it was a beanie. (I wish that were funny, I really do.)

So these people traveled to my city the other day to rally, stoked intolerance and, with their hate-spew and handmade signs beamed all across the Muslim world, accomplished two very troubling things:

1) They put a great big target on Americans abroad, troops and otherwise. But mostly the troops.
2) They put a bulls-eye back onto New York City.

And then? They drove back to Pennsylvania, or Delaware, Ohio or Indiana or wherever they lived and resumed their lives, going to their book clubs, or poker games, or barbecues, secure in the knowledge that no one is coming to attack their annual Labor Day picnics.

Meanwhile, those of us in New York City sit here (as I am right now in my darkened apartment) and wonder when the next shot is coming. Because it is, rest assured, and we’d better be ready. The anniversary is September 11th is in three weeks. Did any of them stop and think of the significance of that?

Of course not. They have more important things to worry about. I’m assuming.

__________________________________________________

Addendum: Tonight, on August 25th, a young man from upstate was arrested for slashing the throat of a New York City cab driver, after the driver admitted that he was a Muslim from Bangladesh. He will survive. I guess the pertinent question is: will the next one be so fortunate?