Building a Mosque at Ground Zero

When you think of September 11th, what comes to mind?  Before the year of 2001, the day of September 11th was just an ordinary day like any other day of the year.  People went to work, school, and did other activities attributing this day to nothing special.  For one of my good friends, September 11th was his birthday.  After this date in 2001, my good friend's birthday would become known globally and would be a day to remember.  Unfortunately for my friend, people wouldn't remember this day as his birthday, but rather a tragedy in which thousands of lives were lost and landmarks that represented the United States would be destroyed.  After this tragic event, people in the United States began to associate the small terrorist group with the Middle East as a whole and combine them into one entity.  Accordingly, whenever someone hears the words "Middle East" people automatically think terrorists and bad people.  This stereotype has damaged the reputation of a specific region along with its people as a whole, and branded them with a demeaning title.  This past June, there has been much controversy on the plans of constructing a mosque just two blocks from Ground Zero.  People believe that Ground Zero is a sacred ground that should be preserved to honor the lives and victims of September 11th, 2001.  On one side of the debate, people for the mosque believe that the mosque will serve an educational purpose and promote a better understanding of the Islamic religion, especially when people in this country are ignorant when it comes to the beliefs and values of Islam.  They believe that this can serve as a healing power by turning the tragedy from 2001 into a positive, in order to create a better relationship with the Islamic and Middle Eastern society.  Those against the mosque believe that it is a slap in the face to the victims that lost their lives just a little distance from the site of the mosque, a cause of those under this religion, and that it would be a constant reminder of what "evil" lurks in this religion.  Both sides of this debate are very opinionated and raise different issues.  President Obama supports the building of the mosque in the desired site.  Looking at this issue from a legal standpoint, people need to realize that this country is founded greatly on the Constitution and the laws contained in this sacred document.  The First Amendment says that, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" so there is a basic freedom of religion that is granted to all of the citizens of the United States of America.  This event connects to the Public Relations in the Middle East, because it affects the Middle East in a negative way.  The reputation of the Middle East is not placed on a pedestal and seen in high regards by this country, because of the events of 9/11.  The Public Relations of the Middle East are working very hard to try to heal the perspective on the Middle East as a culture and with its people.  It is unfortunate to see that one event and crisis can damage an entity as a whole, even though the majority of its people are good.  The Middle East Public Relations Association (MEPRA) is now busy working on ways to stimulate good viewpoints toward this region, and how they can improve the reputation of the Middle East, especially after the events of 9/11.  After doing the reading in The Basics of Social Research by Earl Babbie, I thought it would be interesting to examine this issue of the building of the mosque through a premodern, modern, and postmodern view.  The section relates this to the term "naive realism" because it is true that because people are ignorant on certain topics, they automatically assume ideas based on the little knowledge they do know.  Looking at this issue from a premodern view, people think that it is a bad idea to build a mosque because it will promote terrorism and attract bad people into the area near Ground Zero, because all Muslims are bad.  According to a modern view, even though very few people that were part of a religion did something horrific, does not mean that all people of that religion are bad, and that people should be able to exercise their freedom of religion wherever they desire because they too are citizens of this country.  A postmodern view would acknowledge that people of this religion have the possibility of either being good or being bad.  All the different images and ideas portrayed by having this mosque with people of this religion are equally "true" in the sense that anything is possible.  It is interesting to note the different views and how they would react if faced with an issue like this.  My personal opinion on this issue is that the mosque should be able to be constructed on the desired site near Ground Zero.  I am very disappointed in the attitudes of people that attribute the religion of Islam with terrorism.  Before the events of 9/11, there was an act of terrorism that was very deadly that took place within the United States.  Timothy McVeigh detonated a truck bomb in front of a building that killed 168 people and launched other attacks in various areas that took the lives of many people.  Did I mention that Timothy McVeigh was a Catholic? It is interesting, because after the killings done by McVeigh, the whole religion of Catholicism was not branded as a terrorist group and it was not assumed that just because someone was Catholic, it automatically made them a terrorist.  So, why is that another religion, in this case Islam, has the reputation that all of its members are terrorists? This baffles me.  While I think that the mosque should be able to be built wherever it desires, I think that it is wise on the Islamic community to not continue to build near Ground Zero.  Wisdom means acknowledging when it is a good or bad time to act in a certain way.  After much controversy and debate over this construction and to avoid any more bad publicity towards the Middle East and its assocaited members, I think the mosque should consider to be built somewhere else in the area.