Well, I dutifully read about 3/4 of that before giving up without coming upon anything I’d normally count as a “reason”. Maybe he hid them at the end. I’ll have to say that this is one more case that leads me to believe that I’m better off just trying to think that Friedman (and most of the other writers for the NYT opinion page) don’t exist.
Well, P. Ruse, let me ask you this: Why does this guy feel entitled to pronounce as to where some group of religious people ought to build their house of worship? Why is it any more his business than that of Newt Gingrich, et al.? The whole column strikes me as arrogant and condescending.
Personally, if I had $100 million to build a mosque that promotes interfaith tolerance, I would not build it in Manhattan. I’d build it in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan.
Really? Why not build it in Antarctica? Sure, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are hotbeds of intolerance, but there’s nothing like the polar desert for religious uniformity.
Wouldn’t interfaith tolerance be best promoted in the most promiscuous locale?
4: roac, he’s a columnist: opining on what other people ought to do with their time and money is pretty much his entire job. If you think no one should be doing stuff like that, fair enough, but that’s rather a different world you’re building from the one we’ve got.
4: roac, he’s a columnist: opining on what other people ought to do with their time and money is pretty much his entire job.
Note: replace ‘columnist’ with ‘concern troll’ when one does this for free.
More specifically, it’s irritating to have Friedman espouse ‘I think these folks would be more successful if they pursued X instead’ when we have strong reason to believe that Friedman would not want those folks to be more successful.* It’s a bit like reading Karl Rove’s opinion on how Democrats can be sure to retain the House next election. Conflict of interest, much?
*I guess it’s technically debatable whether or not Friedman actually does want to promote pro-Islam interfaith tolerance (though I’d be surprised to see anyone take up the mantle on his behalf), but it’s altogether a different issue from the undifferentiated assertion “all columnists do concern-trolling, so get over it.”
There are two reasons why I seldom read Friedman’s column: his prose has all the vitality of a piece of gum I’ve been chewing for the past hour; and when I agree with what he says, he manages to put it in a way that makes me cringe. We got a twofer with this one.
My no. 4 was strictly an emotional spasm, generated by a whole afternoon spent trying to argue with Muslim-haters (this particular subset being McMegan’s commenters) about the Cordoba mosque. An experience like that can really get to you (and yes, I should have known better than to start).
Let me rephrase my reaction to the Friedman column thus.
I don’t know how much influence Friedman has over public opinion in the US — probably less than he thinks, but that is one thing that is certainly true of nearly every member of the commentariat. But is certainly far more influence than he has over public opinion in the Muslim world, and he has to know that. Thus when he addresses the latter, he is pretending.
I think a fair Shorter for the column would be: Because we are so awesomely poen-minded, we should extend religious tolerance to Muslims, even though they obviously don’t deserve it..
There is a scarily large group of people (starting, to make the obvious rhetorical point, with Osama bin Laden) who want to promote a religious war between non-Muslims. There are also people like Mayor Bloomberg who are trying to damp down the hostility.
Which group do you think Friedman falls into, on the evidence of this column?
For one thing, if he was interested in their success, he could, y’know, make direct contact with the various folks responsible for building and paying for the Cordoba mosque and engage them in a dialog about their specific goals for the thing, and why they’re building in New York instead of Baghdad, etc, etc, prior to writing this article. He could send out a draft and invite responses from the organizers in private, prior to publishing this article, and engage with the responses received in a second draft. Given his clout and position at the NYT, there’s a lot he could do to engage with the Cordoba builders — prior to writing this article. That he pretty clearly didn’t do much of that at all, implies some level of disinterest in sincere engagement based on shared goals. He’s pontificating, not cooperating.
For another, he’s treating “Muslims” as this monolithic entity which could as easily build a building in Cairo as New York, instead of considering that a particular group of people who are Muslim are taking a particular action at a particular place and time (and might not have the widest conceivable array of alternatives available to them). This is a common problem among concern trolls: thinking of a group to which one does not belong as having the agency of an international corporation or even a nation-state.
When someone in the corresponding out-group talks of what the “liberals” should do to promote bipartisanship, or what the Muslims should do to best promote interfaith tolerance, that person is actually saying, “Dear people who are not me: what you are doing does not please me. I think you are trying to please me, or ought to try. So, here is an alternative you could pursue that would please me. Please change course with all appropriate haste.”
There is a scarily large group of people (starting, to make the obvious rhetorical point, with Osama bin Laden) who want to promote a religious war between non-Muslims. There are also people like Mayor Bloomberg who are trying to damp down the hostility.
Which group do you think Friedman falls into, on the evidence of this column?
The second, clearly. Is this s trick question? The column is all about how important interfaith cooperation is. He says, explicitly, that “I’m glad the mosque was approved on Tuesday”. I can’t see anything in the column that suggests he wants to promote a religious war against Muslims ffs, and frankly I think you’re letting yourself be blinded by an (entirely rational) dislike of most of what he’s written.
There’s the one paragraph of concern-trolling roac flags, but the rest of the column seems unobjectionable. It just says that maybe some countries wouldn’t allow a church in such a sensitive site (I doibt this is actually true, but whatever), but tolerance is what makes America great, it’s because Muslims and everyone else are free to worship as they choose here that we have [insert eclectic mix of cultural signifiers]. Sure, it’s banal elementary-school civics stuff, but what in the below is in actually wrong?
When we tell the world, “Yes, we are a country that will even tolerate a mosque near the site of 9/11,†we send such a powerful message of inclusion and openness. It is shocking to other nations. But you never know who out there is hearing that message and saying: “What a remarkable country! I want to live in that melting pot, even if I have to build a boat from milk cartons to get there.†As long as that happens, Silicon Valley will be Silicon Valley, Hollywood will be Hollywood, Broadway will be Broadway, and America, if we ever get our politics and schools fixed, will be O.K.
if he was interested in their success, he could, y’know, make direct contact with the various folks responsible for building and paying for the Cordoba mosque
Sorry but this gets a penalty card. The rhetorical technique of “if my opponent were serious he would do Y, which I have made no effort to learn if he has in fact done” is annoying and unacceptable, even when aimed at as (in general) deserving target as Friedman.
he’s treating “Muslims†as this monolithic entity which could as easily build a building in Cairo as New York
I don’t see it. What passages are you thinking of?
In general, I don’t think there’s much to do here except note that the blind pig found its nut and move on.
Sure, it’s banal elementary-school civics stuff, but what in the below is in actually wrong?
Roughly, that it would be at all reasonable to hold ‘Muslims’ accountable or responsible for 9/11, as if that monolithic group had exercised some kind of collective agency in order to bring about that event.
To be even more provocative about it: I hear they allow churches to be built in Oklahoma City, despite the fact that a couple of Christian terrorists blew up a building there — excuse me, I meant to say terrorists who happen to be Christian — heavens, I don’t know what inspired me to make that mistake. In fact, when a church goes up in Oklahoma City, nobody makes a big deal about it.
While this isn’t a tendency that Friedman is uniquely accountable for, we can still hold it against him.
The rhetorical technique of “if my opponent were serious he would do Y, which I have made no effort to learn if he has in fact done†is annoying and unacceptable,
Fair enough; I guess I should have demanded that he include, in his article, narrative evidence that he had done this. It’s not my responsibility to call Friedman up to see if he did his job. It’s his responsibility to do his job as a journalist.*
What passages are you thinking of?
Well, okay, lp, how about this passage:
When we tell the world, “Yes, we are a country that will even tolerate a mosque near the site of 9/11,†we send such a powerful message of inclusion and openness.
To me, that’s offensive. Perhaps “we” are merely sending the message that we’re aware one has nothing to do with the other.
*Don’t want to get into a discussion of whether or not he’s a journalist per se, but presumably he has the same fact-finding responsibility in his articles that a journalist would.
In general, I don’t think there’s much to do here except note that the blind pig found its nut and move on.
I see your point. Other-handedly, I think it’s a bit pernicious to let slide the implicit association of Islam predominantly with extreme and exceptional terrorism. It’s not like we associate Christiandom predominantly with abortion-clinic bombings or the assassination of Joseph Tiller or etc etc.
“we†are merely sending the message that we’re aware one has nothing to do with the other.
Well yeah. And that’s a really good message to send.
I generally like your comments here, Salient, and I definitely share your pissed-off-ness. But I respectfully suggest you’ve got the wrong target here. You know who sucks, on this? Anthony Wiener and Chuck Schumer. Two of the most important Democrats in New York, and neither has the guts to make what should be a trivially easy call. Schumer especially — he can sit in the Senate for another 20 years, if he likes, and never worry about a contested election. hand it off to his son, if he likes. And he’s still too chickenshit to take a stand for freedom of religion and for his own Muslim constituents.
Phrasing matters, but substance matters a lot more. Friedman is on the right side here. Let’s keep our priorities straight.
Sorry. I am a hard-liner on this issue. I prefer silence about the Cordoba mosque to a defense of it that assume as a starting point that “we” have a legitimate right to regard it as a provocation. For me derision is the only possible response to those who assert that we do.
Among the many, many offensive statements I have run into online in the last 48 hours, Friedman’s is at most a 3 on a scale that goes to 11 & has a mode about 10.8. But it was the one that was teed up on CT.
The narrative that emerges is as follows:
* 9/11 was a great victory for Islam.
* The Cordoba Mosque is in the nature of a victory celebration.
* Permitting it sends a signal of weakness to the Muslim world, and will inevitably encourage further attacks (one person specified that it will encourage massacres of Christians in Kenya.
(Incidentally, I have no particular dislike for Friedman. I have never actually read anything he has written longer than this column. The kind of books he writes are not the kind of books I read as a rule. I admit the general scorn for him on places like CT probably deters me from making an exception.)
You know who sucks, on this? Anthony Wiener and Chuck Schumer. Two of the most important Democrats in New York, and neither has the guts to make what should be a trivially easy call… Phrasing matters, but substance matters a lot more.
On this, lp, we can definitely agree (which I don’t think contradicts my complete and as-enthusiastic-as-possible agreement with what roac said at #21). Admittedly, if Friedman’s article hadn’t been mentioned on CT, I wouldn’t have been one to bring it up.
The terrorist attack of 9/11 had nothing to do the Islamic faith. It was a political attack by a fringe political entity with political goals simultaneously inscrutable and abominable. The political entity appropriated religious language in order to provide cover for their political agenda. I refuse to provide them that cover, or acknowledge its legitimacy.
And I think silence, here, is a form of complicity.
Silence doesn’t aggravate me quite as much as does actively reinforcing the misconception spelled out by roac, but silence does aggravate me. So I agree: I want to hear Wiener and Schumer (and Bloomburg and several others for that matter) speak up about this, especially now while the “this is potentially an offense” narrative is settling in, and I intend to hold their silence against them for as long as they sustain it.
I’ll note that Zead Ramadan has nailed his soundbites on this issue perfectly, and deserves kudos for that: “The people here are trying to connect this vile attack on our nation to the religion Islam,” he said, “though that exact act stands against everything that Islam stands for.”
Also, might as well note that Mike Bloomberg was damn impressive on this:
On that day, 3,000 people were killed because some murderous fanatics didn’t want us to enjoy the freedom to profess our own faiths, to speak our own minds, to follow our own dreams and to live our own lives.
Let us not forget that Muslims were among those murdered on 9/11 and that our Muslim neighbors grieved with us as New Yorkers and as Americans. We would betray our values – and play into our enemies’ hands – if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else. In fact, to cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists – and we should not stand for that.
Of course, it is fair to ask the organizers of the mosque to show some special sensitivity to the situation – and in fact, their plan envisions reaching beyond their walls and building an interfaith community. By doing so, it is my hope that the mosque will help to bring our City even closer together and help repudiate the false and repugnant idea that the attacks of 9/11 were in any way consistent with Islam.
Win, win, win. The bits about private property didn’t particularly inspire me, but I haven’t felt that genuinely happy listening to a political speech in a long time.
I want to see some group reprint that speech word for word in a full-page Times advertisement and demand New York politicians sign onto a petition letter in support of the speech. I would contribute financially toward the ad’s cost.
I prefer silence about the Cordoba mosque to a defense of it that assume as a starting point that “we†have a legitimate right to regard it as a provocation.
That sounds nice. But on the other hand, American Muslims’ civil rights and recognition as citizens really are at stake here. So maybe it’s better not to spend too much time yelling at people trying to defend them, even if they haven’t got the line just right.
“What a remarkable country! I want to live in that melting pot, even if I have to build a boat from milk cartons to get there.”
I can’t let that pass. This is a myth that I think a lot of Americans continue to believe because it suits them to believe it. People all over the world may admire the US for its potential economic freedom, but they soon discover that it takes a lot more than a boat made from milk cartons to become a US citizen. You can make money in the US without status, but it is extremely risk-prone as you can be jailed very easily, and deported almost as easily. And what, incidentally, is the substantive difference between someone who floats to the US on a boat of milk-cartons and someone who simply wades across the Rio Grande?
The terrorist attack of 9/11 had nothing to do the Islamic faith. It was a political attack by a fringe political entity with political goals simultaneously inscrutable and abominable. The political entity appropriated religious language in order to provide cover for their political agenda. I refuse to provide them that cover, or acknowledge its legitimacy.
Is there a distinct difference between a political entity that appropriates religious language to provide cover for their political agenda and a religious entity that appropriates political tactics to provide cover for their religious agenda? Does it matter one way or another if members of the political entity have a sincere belief that their political agenda follows naturally from tenets of their religion? You don’t have to believe that Muslims are responsible for 9/11 to believe that those responsible for 9/11 acted in service to their vision of Islam.
“Is there a distinct difference between a political entity that appropriates religious language to provide cover for their political agenda and a religious entity that appropriates political tactics to provide cover for their religious agenda?”
In other words, is there a distinct difference between the United States of America and al-Qaeda? I’d say so. Although both are ultimately organizations used to advance the interests of a powerful minority — just a different minority in each case.
It was a political attack by a fringe political entity with political goals simultaneously inscrutable and abominable.
The goals of al-Qaeda aren’t actually that inscrutable. Thanks to various books and interviews, they’re now extremely scrutable, and can be scruted at will by anyone in the English-speaking world. You make them sound like they’re the Taipings or something. But their objectives are remarkably clear, explicit and unchanging:
first bring about the end of US support for dictatorships in the Middle East, and for Israel;
then overthrow them in favour of an Islamically-inspired government, specifically one run in accordance with Wahhabi Sunni Islam.
Now that may or may not be abominable, but it’s hardly an obscure or incomprehensible objective.
Right right, of course. I’m really not sure why I used the word “inscrutable” there (or why I suddenly veered into pseudo-poetics, what with the inverted noun-adjective order and all).
It seems to me like a weirdly tepid letter of support that smacks of strong reservations without actually expressing them. But maybe I’m being hypercritical / seeing something that isn’t actually there? I guess, taken literally, it’s what I was hoping to see… but what the heck does that third paragraph communicate?
Sorry but this gets a penalty card. The rhetorical technique of “if my opponent were serious he would do Y, which I have made no effort to learn if he has in fact done†is annoying and unacceptable
Hmm. The only annoying and unacceptable rhetorical strategy I observe in that is “there is one and only one way my opponent can demonstrate seriousness, and I see no evidence he’s done it.” (Not looking for such evidence is just icing on the cake.)
After all, you don’t know Salient didn’t etc. etc. Ahem. You’re accepting his (?) premise that if Friedman indeed didn’t do Y, he shouldn’t be taken seriously. He’s a columnist, he’s entitled to believe practicing columnism constitutes addressing an issue.
27
You don’t have to believe that Muslims are responsible for 9/11 to believe that those responsible for 9/11 acted in service to their vision of Islam.
Nonetheless, all Muslim groups are not automatically suspect. That this is an Islamic community center as opposed to a YMCA or generic community center is only relevant if you in some way attribute the attcks to Islam as opposed to a particular strain of Islam, a particular Islamic philosophy.
He’s a columnist, he’s entitled to believe practicing columnism constitutes addressing an issue.
The issue in question (for me) being: Sir Thomas Friedman apparently believes he has any standing whatsoever to tell Muslim citizens how to best appease “us” where “us” means, roughly, “the well-to-do white Christian folk you’re supposed to be appeasing at all times, #$%&ers. Don’t you know your place? Suck. On. This.” Or really, where “us” means “Sir Thomas Friedman.”
Let’s be completely clear about this: he could have said things that would have been a hell of a lot worse to say. But he can still go heed the advice Jon Stewart would deliver to him.
I am kind of confused by folks who are inclined to give Mr. Suck On This the benefit of the doubt. And actually, I’m either pissed at ajay at #10 for attempting to elide this, or pissed at myself for letting it slide. Probably the latter, since I doubt ajay was being intentionally disingenuous. But since it didn’t get brought up, let’s recall to mind some reasons to doubt Sir Friedman’s good intentions. “Creative moral accounting” indeed. Christ.
But do pardon me for calling Sir Friedman a concern troll. He is one. And his attitude toward Islam disgusts me, on a visceral level (and I don’t believe for a second that his attitude suddenly changed between Suck On This Day and today). You really will have to pardon me for saying it, though. After all, I’m a blog commenter, so I’m entitled to believe practicing whinging on a CT comments board constitutes addressing an issue…
{ 35 comments }
Josh 08.05.10 at 3:21 am
I think “‘Cause Elaine Stritch wanted to get drunk” is a good reason to offer for anything.
Matt 08.05.10 at 11:12 am
Well, I dutifully read about 3/4 of that before giving up without coming upon anything I’d normally count as a “reason”. Maybe he hid them at the end. I’ll have to say that this is one more case that leads me to believe that I’m better off just trying to think that Friedman (and most of the other writers for the NYT opinion page) don’t exist.
Phil Ruse 08.05.10 at 8:06 pm
I’m guessing there’s a personal dislike for the man himself because I didn’t read anything I could object to.
roac 08.05.10 at 8:17 pm
Well, P. Ruse, let me ask you this: Why does this guy feel entitled to pronounce as to where some group of religious people ought to build their house of worship? Why is it any more his business than that of Newt Gingrich, et al.? The whole column strikes me as arrogant and condescending.
ProfWombat 08.05.10 at 9:56 pm
Friedman is most useful as a mirror in which to view his constituency. As writer and reasoner, on his own terms, not so much.
AB 08.06.10 at 2:56 am
I just want to be present when he asks the House of Saud if he can build a Tolerance Mosque in Riyadh.
bad Jim 08.06.10 at 6:19 am
Really? Why not build it in Antarctica? Sure, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are hotbeds of intolerance, but there’s nothing like the polar desert for religious uniformity.
Wouldn’t interfaith tolerance be best promoted in the most promiscuous locale?
ajay 08.06.10 at 10:24 am
4: roac, he’s a columnist: opining on what other people ought to do with their time and money is pretty much his entire job. If you think no one should be doing stuff like that, fair enough, but that’s rather a different world you’re building from the one we’ve got.
Salient 08.06.10 at 2:35 pm
4: roac, he’s a columnist: opining on what other people ought to do with their time and money is pretty much his entire job.
Note: replace ‘columnist’ with ‘concern troll’ when one does this for free.
More specifically, it’s irritating to have Friedman espouse ‘I think these folks would be more successful if they pursued X instead’ when we have strong reason to believe that Friedman would not want those folks to be more successful.* It’s a bit like reading Karl Rove’s opinion on how Democrats can be sure to retain the House next election. Conflict of interest, much?
*I guess it’s technically debatable whether or not Friedman actually does want to promote pro-Islam interfaith tolerance (though I’d be surprised to see anyone take up the mantle on his behalf), but it’s altogether a different issue from the undifferentiated assertion “all columnists do concern-trolling, so get over it.”
ajay 08.06.10 at 2:51 pm
we have strong reason to believe that Friedman would not want those folks to be more successful.
Really? What is it?
Randy 08.06.10 at 3:08 pm
There are two reasons why I seldom read Friedman’s column: his prose has all the vitality of a piece of gum I’ve been chewing for the past hour; and when I agree with what he says, he manages to put it in a way that makes me cringe. We got a twofer with this one.
roac 08.06.10 at 3:30 pm
My no. 4 was strictly an emotional spasm, generated by a whole afternoon spent trying to argue with Muslim-haters (this particular subset being McMegan’s commenters) about the Cordoba mosque. An experience like that can really get to you (and yes, I should have known better than to start).
Let me rephrase my reaction to the Friedman column thus.
I don’t know how much influence Friedman has over public opinion in the US — probably less than he thinks, but that is one thing that is certainly true of nearly every member of the commentariat. But is certainly far more influence than he has over public opinion in the Muslim world, and he has to know that. Thus when he addresses the latter, he is pretending.
I think a fair Shorter for the column would be: Because we are so awesomely poen-minded, we should extend religious tolerance to Muslims, even though they obviously don’t deserve it..
There is a scarily large group of people (starting, to make the obvious rhetorical point, with Osama bin Laden) who want to promote a religious war between non-Muslims. There are also people like Mayor Bloomberg who are trying to damp down the hostility.
Which group do you think Friedman falls into, on the evidence of this column?
Salient 08.06.10 at 4:14 pm
Really? What is it?
For one thing, if he was interested in their success, he could, y’know, make direct contact with the various folks responsible for building and paying for the Cordoba mosque and engage them in a dialog about their specific goals for the thing, and why they’re building in New York instead of Baghdad, etc, etc, prior to writing this article. He could send out a draft and invite responses from the organizers in private, prior to publishing this article, and engage with the responses received in a second draft. Given his clout and position at the NYT, there’s a lot he could do to engage with the Cordoba builders — prior to writing this article. That he pretty clearly didn’t do much of that at all, implies some level of disinterest in sincere engagement based on shared goals. He’s pontificating, not cooperating.
For another, he’s treating “Muslims” as this monolithic entity which could as easily build a building in Cairo as New York, instead of considering that a particular group of people who are Muslim are taking a particular action at a particular place and time (and might not have the widest conceivable array of alternatives available to them). This is a common problem among concern trolls: thinking of a group to which one does not belong as having the agency of an international corporation or even a nation-state.
When someone in the corresponding out-group talks of what the “liberals” should do to promote bipartisanship, or what the Muslims should do to best promote interfaith tolerance, that person is actually saying, “Dear people who are not me: what you are doing does not please me. I think you are trying to please me, or ought to try. So, here is an alternative you could pursue that would please me. Please change course with all appropriate haste.”
ajay 08.06.10 at 4:53 pm
There is a scarily large group of people (starting, to make the obvious rhetorical point, with Osama bin Laden) who want to promote a religious war between non-Muslims. There are also people like Mayor Bloomberg who are trying to damp down the hostility.
Which group do you think Friedman falls into, on the evidence of this column?
The second, clearly. Is this s trick question? The column is all about how important interfaith cooperation is. He says, explicitly, that “I’m glad the mosque was approved on Tuesday”. I can’t see anything in the column that suggests he wants to promote a religious war against Muslims ffs, and frankly I think you’re letting yourself be blinded by an (entirely rational) dislike of most of what he’s written.
lemuel pitkin 08.06.10 at 5:37 pm
There’s the one paragraph of concern-trolling roac flags, but the rest of the column seems unobjectionable. It just says that maybe some countries wouldn’t allow a church in such a sensitive site (I doibt this is actually true, but whatever), but tolerance is what makes America great, it’s because Muslims and everyone else are free to worship as they choose here that we have [insert eclectic mix of cultural signifiers]. Sure, it’s banal elementary-school civics stuff, but what in the below is in actually wrong?
When we tell the world, “Yes, we are a country that will even tolerate a mosque near the site of 9/11,†we send such a powerful message of inclusion and openness. It is shocking to other nations. But you never know who out there is hearing that message and saying: “What a remarkable country! I want to live in that melting pot, even if I have to build a boat from milk cartons to get there.†As long as that happens, Silicon Valley will be Silicon Valley, Hollywood will be Hollywood, Broadway will be Broadway, and America, if we ever get our politics and schools fixed, will be O.K.
lemuel pitkin 08.06.10 at 5:46 pm
if he was interested in their success, he could, y’know, make direct contact with the various folks responsible for building and paying for the Cordoba mosque
Sorry but this gets a penalty card. The rhetorical technique of “if my opponent were serious he would do Y, which I have made no effort to learn if he has in fact done” is annoying and unacceptable, even when aimed at as (in general) deserving target as Friedman.
he’s treating “Muslims†as this monolithic entity which could as easily build a building in Cairo as New York
I don’t see it. What passages are you thinking of?
In general, I don’t think there’s much to do here except note that the blind pig found its nut and move on.
Salient 08.06.10 at 5:50 pm
Sure, it’s banal elementary-school civics stuff, but what in the below is in actually wrong?
Roughly, that it would be at all reasonable to hold ‘Muslims’ accountable or responsible for 9/11, as if that monolithic group had exercised some kind of collective agency in order to bring about that event.
To be even more provocative about it: I hear they allow churches to be built in Oklahoma City, despite the fact that a couple of Christian terrorists blew up a building there — excuse me, I meant to say terrorists who happen to be Christian — heavens, I don’t know what inspired me to make that mistake. In fact, when a church goes up in Oklahoma City, nobody makes a big deal about it.
While this isn’t a tendency that Friedman is uniquely accountable for, we can still hold it against him.
Salient 08.06.10 at 5:54 pm
The rhetorical technique of “if my opponent were serious he would do Y, which I have made no effort to learn if he has in fact done†is annoying and unacceptable,
Fair enough; I guess I should have demanded that he include, in his article, narrative evidence that he had done this. It’s not my responsibility to call Friedman up to see if he did his job. It’s his responsibility to do his job as a journalist.*
What passages are you thinking of?
Well, okay, lp, how about this passage:
To me, that’s offensive. Perhaps “we” are merely sending the message that we’re aware one has nothing to do with the other.
*Don’t want to get into a discussion of whether or not he’s a journalist per se, but presumably he has the same fact-finding responsibility in his articles that a journalist would.
Salient 08.06.10 at 5:58 pm
In general, I don’t think there’s much to do here except note that the blind pig found its nut and move on.
I see your point. Other-handedly, I think it’s a bit pernicious to let slide the implicit association of Islam predominantly with extreme and exceptional terrorism. It’s not like we associate Christiandom predominantly with abortion-clinic bombings or the assassination of Joseph Tiller or etc etc.
lemuel pitkin 08.06.10 at 6:13 pm
“we†are merely sending the message that we’re aware one has nothing to do with the other.
Well yeah. And that’s a really good message to send.
I generally like your comments here, Salient, and I definitely share your pissed-off-ness. But I respectfully suggest you’ve got the wrong target here. You know who sucks, on this? Anthony Wiener and Chuck Schumer. Two of the most important Democrats in New York, and neither has the guts to make what should be a trivially easy call. Schumer especially — he can sit in the Senate for another 20 years, if he likes, and never worry about a contested election. hand it off to his son, if he likes. And he’s still too chickenshit to take a stand for freedom of religion and for his own Muslim constituents.
Phrasing matters, but substance matters a lot more. Friedman is on the right side here. Let’s keep our priorities straight.
roac 08.06.10 at 6:44 pm
Sorry. I am a hard-liner on this issue. I prefer silence about the Cordoba mosque to a defense of it that assume as a starting point that “we” have a legitimate right to regard it as a provocation. For me derision is the only possible response to those who assert that we do.
Among the many, many offensive statements I have run into online in the last 48 hours, Friedman’s is at most a 3 on a scale that goes to 11 & has a mode about 10.8. But it was the one that was teed up on CT.
The narrative that emerges is as follows:
* 9/11 was a great victory for Islam.
* The Cordoba Mosque is in the nature of a victory celebration.
* Permitting it sends a signal of weakness to the Muslim world, and will inevitably encourage further attacks (one person specified that it will encourage massacres of Christians in Kenya.
(Incidentally, I have no particular dislike for Friedman. I have never actually read anything he has written longer than this column. The kind of books he writes are not the kind of books I read as a rule. I admit the general scorn for him on places like CT probably deters me from making an exception.)
Salient 08.06.10 at 8:53 pm
You know who sucks, on this? Anthony Wiener and Chuck Schumer. Two of the most important Democrats in New York, and neither has the guts to make what should be a trivially easy call… Phrasing matters, but substance matters a lot more.
On this, lp, we can definitely agree (which I don’t think contradicts my complete and as-enthusiastic-as-possible agreement with what roac said at #21). Admittedly, if Friedman’s article hadn’t been mentioned on CT, I wouldn’t have been one to bring it up.
The terrorist attack of 9/11 had nothing to do the Islamic faith. It was a political attack by a fringe political entity with political goals simultaneously inscrutable and abominable. The political entity appropriated religious language in order to provide cover for their political agenda. I refuse to provide them that cover, or acknowledge its legitimacy.
And I think silence, here, is a form of complicity.
Silence doesn’t aggravate me quite as much as does actively reinforcing the misconception spelled out by roac, but silence does aggravate me. So I agree: I want to hear Wiener and Schumer (and Bloomburg and several others for that matter) speak up about this, especially now while the “this is potentially an offense” narrative is settling in, and I intend to hold their silence against them for as long as they sustain it.
I’ll note that Zead Ramadan has nailed his soundbites on this issue perfectly, and deserves kudos for that: “The people here are trying to connect this vile attack on our nation to the religion Islam,” he said, “though that exact act stands against everything that Islam stands for.”
Also, might as well note that Mike Bloomberg was damn impressive on this:
Win, win, win. The bits about private property didn’t particularly inspire me, but I haven’t felt that genuinely happy listening to a political speech in a long time.
I want to see some group reprint that speech word for word in a full-page Times advertisement and demand New York politicians sign onto a petition letter in support of the speech. I would contribute financially toward the ad’s cost.
roac 08.06.10 at 9:01 pm
BTW, Jerry Nadler’s statement, at LP’s link, is damn good as well.
lemuel pitkin 08.06.10 at 9:12 pm
I prefer silence about the Cordoba mosque to a defense of it that assume as a starting point that “we†have a legitimate right to regard it as a provocation.
That sounds nice. But on the other hand, American Muslims’ civil rights and recognition as citizens really are at stake here. So maybe it’s better not to spend too much time yelling at people trying to defend them, even if they haven’t got the line just right.
lemuel pitkin 08.06.10 at 9:35 pm
Mike Bloomberg was damn impressive on this.
Indeed he was.
yeliabmit 08.07.10 at 3:05 am
“What a remarkable country! I want to live in that melting pot, even if I have to build a boat from milk cartons to get there.”
I can’t let that pass. This is a myth that I think a lot of Americans continue to believe because it suits them to believe it. People all over the world may admire the US for its potential economic freedom, but they soon discover that it takes a lot more than a boat made from milk cartons to become a US citizen. You can make money in the US without status, but it is extremely risk-prone as you can be jailed very easily, and deported almost as easily. And what, incidentally, is the substantive difference between someone who floats to the US on a boat of milk-cartons and someone who simply wades across the Rio Grande?
parse 08.07.10 at 5:00 am
The terrorist attack of 9/11 had nothing to do the Islamic faith. It was a political attack by a fringe political entity with political goals simultaneously inscrutable and abominable. The political entity appropriated religious language in order to provide cover for their political agenda. I refuse to provide them that cover, or acknowledge its legitimacy.
Is there a distinct difference between a political entity that appropriates religious language to provide cover for their political agenda and a religious entity that appropriates political tactics to provide cover for their religious agenda? Does it matter one way or another if members of the political entity have a sincere belief that their political agenda follows naturally from tenets of their religion? You don’t have to believe that Muslims are responsible for 9/11 to believe that those responsible for 9/11 acted in service to their vision of Islam.
yeliabmit 08.07.10 at 6:20 am
“Is there a distinct difference between a political entity that appropriates religious language to provide cover for their political agenda and a religious entity that appropriates political tactics to provide cover for their religious agenda?”
In other words, is there a distinct difference between the United States of America and al-Qaeda? I’d say so. Although both are ultimately organizations used to advance the interests of a powerful minority — just a different minority in each case.
ajay 08.07.10 at 9:22 am
It was a political attack by a fringe political entity with political goals simultaneously inscrutable and abominable.
The goals of al-Qaeda aren’t actually that inscrutable. Thanks to various books and interviews, they’re now extremely scrutable, and can be scruted at will by anyone in the English-speaking world. You make them sound like they’re the Taipings or something. But their objectives are remarkably clear, explicit and unchanging:
first bring about the end of US support for dictatorships in the Middle East, and for Israel;
then overthrow them in favour of an Islamically-inspired government, specifically one run in accordance with Wahhabi Sunni Islam.
Now that may or may not be abominable, but it’s hardly an obscure or incomprehensible objective.
engels 08.07.10 at 2:18 pm
‘inscrutable and abominable’
You really need to read some Edward Said.
engels 08.07.10 at 3:18 pm
Or maybe just this:
http://www.versobooks.com/books/klm/l-titles/lawrence_ed_messages_osama.shtml
Salient 08.08.10 at 9:20 am
Right right, of course. I’m really not sure why I used the word “inscrutable” there (or why I suddenly veered into pseudo-poetics, what with the inverted noun-adjective order and all).
Salient 08.08.10 at 4:52 pm
So, uh, did Anthony Weiner’s letter make sense to anyone?
(here)
It seems to me like a weirdly tepid letter of support that smacks of strong reservations without actually expressing them. But maybe I’m being hypercritical / seeing something that isn’t actually there? I guess, taken literally, it’s what I was hoping to see… but what the heck does that third paragraph communicate?
Hershele Ostropoler 08.09.10 at 1:18 am
16
Hmm. The only annoying and unacceptable rhetorical strategy I observe in that is “there is one and only one way my opponent can demonstrate seriousness, and I see no evidence he’s done it.” (Not looking for such evidence is just icing on the cake.)
After all, you don’t know Salient didn’t etc. etc. Ahem. You’re accepting his (?) premise that if Friedman indeed didn’t do Y, he shouldn’t be taken seriously. He’s a columnist, he’s entitled to believe practicing columnism constitutes addressing an issue.
27
Nonetheless, all Muslim groups are not automatically suspect. That this is an Islamic community center as opposed to a YMCA or generic community center is only relevant if you in some way attribute the attcks to Islam as opposed to a particular strain of Islam, a particular Islamic philosophy.
Salient 08.11.10 at 12:25 am
He’s a columnist, he’s entitled to believe practicing columnism constitutes addressing an issue.
The issue in question (for me) being: Sir Thomas Friedman apparently believes he has any standing whatsoever to tell Muslim citizens how to best appease “us” where “us” means, roughly, “the well-to-do white Christian folk you’re supposed to be appeasing at all times, #$%&ers. Don’t you know your place? Suck. On. This.” Or really, where “us” means “Sir Thomas Friedman.”
Let’s be completely clear about this: he could have said things that would have been a hell of a lot worse to say. But he can still go heed the advice Jon Stewart would deliver to him.
I am kind of confused by folks who are inclined to give Mr. Suck On This the benefit of the doubt. And actually, I’m either pissed at ajay at #10 for attempting to elide this, or pissed at myself for letting it slide. Probably the latter, since I doubt ajay was being intentionally disingenuous. But since it didn’t get brought up, let’s recall to mind some reasons to doubt Sir Friedman’s good intentions. “Creative moral accounting” indeed. Christ.
But do pardon me for calling Sir Friedman a concern troll. He is one. And his attitude toward Islam disgusts me, on a visceral level (and I don’t believe for a second that his attitude suddenly changed between Suck On This Day and today). You really will have to pardon me for saying it, though. After all, I’m a blog commenter, so I’m entitled to believe practicing whinging on a CT comments board constitutes addressing an issue…
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