Islamophobia - 1

This heated controversy about granting the permission to construct a mosque in New York which will be close to Ground Zero has shown a lot of issues which should be addressed and tackled.

I was following the CNN interview with Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf.

The following are my "Observations" about the whole matter;
1) The gap and misunderstanding between the western culture and the Islamic world is huge.

2) People in the both sides like more to listen to the war savvy and whoever is striking on the war drums.

3) Extremists in both sides are equally dangerous for our world. They could Ben Laden, Dick Chenny, Al-Zawahry, or W. Bush but whoever has the extremism mentality he will justify all the evil acts in the world for whatever he believes that is worthy to do so.

4) Electioneers unfortunately like the sense of power given by the war savvy and war drum strikers where that gives them the sense of security which is essential need for the human being. Voices of wisdom will equal to weakness within this atmosphere.
This is the human nature in the middle of the crisis times and that's how people will react when they feel threatened.

5) Considerable proportion of the western communities now are perceiving Muslims - in general - as barbaric enemies who are blood thirsty to beheading the western atheists or Christians. This perception is fueled by the media day and night which is devastating for any bridging efforts.

6) Stereotyping Muslims in this image is becoming main narratives in the media.

7) Understanding will require a lot of effort and both sides should know that.

8) We should recognize that 9/11 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will cast their shadow in any attempt.

9) When I've seen the resistance to the construction of the Islamic cultural center I had two contradicting impression. The first one, what the Islamic center has to do with 9/11.
The another impression was that we should give slack to the Americans where 10 years are not enough to heal their grieving and awakening the wounds by proposing this challenging idea might be not the wise movement considering the time factor though in principle it might not be wrong but timing is an important factor.

10) Attacks and retaliations are spiraling and growing between the both camps and the wise treatment should release this mounting pressure by doing wise action and not only the strong and powerful actions.

11) Both sides should create friends more than creating enemies.

12) It is easy to label whoever is resisting for his nation or his cause as an Islamic terrorist because it is much easier to convince the American public opinion and the European public opinion to support the effort to fight them and fund their counter wars.