The selection of Feisel Abdul Rauf for this year’s Weil Lecture on American Citizenship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was deliberately controversial, according to chancellor Holden Thorp. Bringing the nationally known, highly divisive “Ground Zero Imam” to campus last Wednesday (March 16) was intended to spark a dialogue and shed light on a raging topic of national discussion.
In fact, the event’s organizers, the UNC Institute for the Arts and Humanities, even invited John Hood, the president of the conservative-leaning John Locke Foundation, to question Rauf so that the event would not be completely one-sided.
Yet one respectful but direct question (Hood’s) does not make a dialogue. For the most part, UNC provided Rauf with an opportunity to present his views unchallenged in a friendly environment. The audience of several hundred people—many of them senior citizens or Muslims—tilted heavily toward Chapel Hill’s liberal population. Rauf’s messages of multiculturalism, “world citizenship,” and condemnation of his opponents on the political right resonated with the assemblage at UNC’s Hill Hall auditorium.
Rauf has emerged as the key figure in a highly charged emotional debate over the location of his proposed community center two blocks from Ground Zero, where the twin towers of the World Trade Center destroyed in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks formerly stood. Critics have said that building a “mosque” (the center includes an Islamic worship area) is a deliberate affront to those who died in the attack, and have even suggested that it is meant to be a symbolic declaration of victory over the West.
Rauf has said he means no such thing. He has long tried to position himself as the face of “moderate” Islam: according to Newsweek editor Fareed Zakaria, he has long spoken of “the need for Muslims to live peacefully with all other religions.” This stance led the U.S. State Department to send Rauf on an outreach tour of Middle Eastern countries to promote his supposedly moderate brand of Islam.
Such talk of peaceful coexistence is well and good—but it’s important to know exactly on whose terms this coexistence will be. After all, the peace after the Allied victory in World War II was very different than the one that would have occurred if the Axis powers had been able to dictate the terms. At the same time Rauf has been presented as the voice of Islamic moderation, there are many indications that this is a façade, that he harbors more aggressive intentions than he claims.
Some of his controversial statements from the past include:
- “United States policies were an accessory to the crime that happened (on 9/11).”
- “The West must acknowledge the harm they have done to Muslims before terrorism will end.”
- “We tend to forget, in the West, that the United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than al Qaida has on its hands of innocent non Muslims.”
Even the name of the proposed community center seems more like a slap at the West than an attempt at conciliation. Calling it the “Cordoba House” immediately conjures images of the Caliphate of Cordoba that ruled a Muslim-conquered Spain in the 10th and 11th centuries AD.
Such contentious sentiments and actions do not mesh easily with Rauf’s pronouncements of comity. On one hand, he offered broad generalities on the common values of mankind, but then made statements that were hard to accept at face value:
- He depicted Islam as a model of “religious tolerance.”
- He suggested that Islam offers equal treatment for women.
- He indicated that violent terrorism and non-violent acts condemning Islam’s aggressive nature—such as the publication of satirical cartoons of Muhammad in Denmark—were morally equivalent.
- He claimed that “90 percent” of the family members of 9-11 victims have no problems with the Muslim presence near Ground Zero.
- Islamic values are similar to American values.
He also scoffed at the notion that, as some of his critics have claimed, he is trying to bring Islamic Sharia law to this country. But then he presented an argument for why Sharia law is compliant with the U.S. Constitution, except for Sharia’s penal codes.
Rauf also said that he wishes to influence “how well the United States engages with the Muslim world.” He appeared to be less concerned with how well the Muslim world engages with the United States—even on its own soil.
His response to John Hood’s question possibly reveals where Rauf’s true loyalty lies. Hood asked whether, given Rauf’s “goal to foster dialogue and respect for all people in America,” and “given the public reaction” (against building the center near Ground Zero), Rauf could appreciate why continuing with the project is considered by many to be “unwise and counterproductive.” Rauf said that if he moved the center to a more neutral site, in America he would have become a “national hero,” but in the Arab world, he would have been “a national disgrace.”
Therefore, when faced with a choice between insulting Americans and losing face in the Islamic world, he chooses to comply with the wishes of the East. Furthermore, he also seems to be trying to divide America further by demonizing his American critics as a “small group of xenophobic radicals.”
But he faced no critical follow-up questions to press him further. His “multicultural” sentiments appealed to the audience, as did his suggestion that the current wave of Moslem immigration will eventually be seen in the same light as the earlier Catholic and Jewish waves of immigration. And his attack on his critics, who are mainly on the right, played well with the largely liberal audience.
Perhaps the event would have been more enlightening had the opposition chosen to participate. Instead, it was siphoned off by a concurrent event a short distance away.
At a rented room in the Carolina Inn, roughly 35 people gathered to watch a documentary movie, “Sacrificed Survivors: The Untold Story of the Ground Zero Mega-Mosque,” and to listen to former New York City firefighter Tim Brown speak.
The people at the Carolina Inn had a different take on Rauf and his community center. “He’s planting a flag of Islam on the grave of 3,000 innocent souls,” said Martin Mawyer, the producer of the movie. Mawyer said he made the movie so that the families of 9-11 victims could have their say on the mosque.
Brown has long contended that the families are being victimized all over again. He has said that although Rauf told him that many families of the victims supported his center, the imam he has never provided any names. The people in Mawyer’s film, on the other hand, gladly had their names and opinions recorded.
After Brown’s speech, the protesters held a candlelight vigil for the 9-11 victims, walking past the auditorium where Rauf was speaking. They deliberately waited until the speech began to avoid confrontation (although they were met by a group of ten or so counter-protesters). “We don’t want a big scene where we’re on the sidewalk shouting at each other,” explained Curtis Carrington of Holly Springs, the local leader of ACT! for America, an organization founded by Lebanese immigrant Brigitte Gabriel. ACT! for America helped organize the UNC protest.
But there can be no resolution of this issue without confrontation. The divide between Rauf and his critics is painfully deep (it is easy to see why campus officials would want to keep them separate). There was considerable irony as Rauf ended the evening with pleas for “truth” and “authenticity,” for much of what he said did not seem to ring true, and he left much unresolved. His performance brought to mind a quip by National Review writer Andrew McCarthy about “spoons full of sugar that helped the sharia go down.” Sadly, it was clear from the standing ovation for Rauf that many in the audience were only too eager to swallow what they were fed.