The Problem With The ‘Ground Zero Terror Mosque’ Is Ground Zero

04Sep10

There’s been endless caterwauling over whether a structure of Islamic inclination has the right to be built near New York City’s hallowed Ground Zero. Politicians and most other professional talking assholes have phoned in on this weighty cultural matter. But very few scribble or shout in split-screen on T.V. about the truly disturbing aspect of the debate: that there is still a Ground Zero at all.

It has been almost nine years since the Twin Towers came down, leaving deep scars in lower Manhattan and giving then-President George W. Bush carte blanche to play Civilization III with the Middle East.

Nine years of ceaseless war in countries that did not attack America; years of Bush and Cheney’s steady erosion of human rights for Americans and most people on the planet, and, more recently, President Obama’s capitulation on fixing many of those wrongs.

Nine years after 9/11, “Ground Zero,” a phrase born out of the necessity of emergency, is still there, a shameful sixteen-acre open wound near shameless Wall Street. It has become a proper American noun.

Cottage industries have, nearly from the first day of the disaster, sprung up around the site of destruction: savvily opportunistic street-vendors sell Ground Zero-branded hats and jackets, flag pins and fluttering flags, and cheesy sculptures of the Towers sketched in glass relief.

Do you require a heart-tugging watercolor of the Twin Towers lit by sunset and the New York City skyline, in a cheap frame, with perhaps a dove winging overhead? I know a guy on Fulton Street who can help.

Tourists from all over America flock to our giant old hole in the ground and take home a “patriotic” souvenir as if to say, “Now I have a representation of our national tragedy that I will treasure spitefully forever.” Legions of foreign visitors gather to gape around the scaffolding, too, and gaze down into concrete-covered nothingness. Everyone snaps pictures for social media posterity.

For years New Yorkers were threatened with the idea of a thing to be called the “Freedom Tower” to go up where the World Trade Center once stood. That name’s thankfully gone the way of Freedom fries, but Ground Zero remains Ground Zero, a place of absence and the still-visible after-effects of attack. Whenever I pass by, my horror is grounded in our collective inability to fix it. How those out-of-towners must take their Flickr’ing Facebook photos and wonder: why is this here?

Political and financial wheelings and dealings have seen one plan after another fall through for how and what to build on the site. The state, the City, The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (which technically owns much of the land), insurance leech leaseholder Larry Silverstein of Silverstein Properties, and a parade of squabbling developers and politicos have muddled the process for years.

They’ve left the nation with little but commemorative light shows to show on each successive September 11th.

We couldn’t even agree on – or build – a proper memorial to those who lost their lives in the towers and those who died trying to save them. Now we have computer-generated pictures of promised reflecting pools to cling to and some symbolically-selected trees are in the process of being planted.

The Republican governor, mayor, and President all declared at The Time Of Terror that we would rebuild; we have new public servants of variant parties in their place now and still no triumphant tower. Real estate developer Silverstein, who has since spent years in court haggling over how much of a pay-out he could get from the attacks (based on whether the Towers coming down constituted one or two acts of terrorism) said directly after 9/11 that to leave the site in its eviscerated state would “would give the terrorists the victory they seek.” Victory, it seems, is still theirs.

Meanwhile, posters on NYC subways helpfully remind first responders, rescue and clean-up workers that they are entitled to medical care for the horrific after-effects many are suffering because it turned out the air down there wasn’t as clean as the E.P.A promised it was. And you don’t need to be a conspiracy-obsessed Truther to believe that many questions about 9/11, its lead-up and aftermath remain unanswered through commissions deemed ineffective by the people who ran them. All of this contributes to our collective hysteria concerning anything Ground Zero.

Though plans for building at Ground Zero are at last approved, and some foundations lain, the anxious chatter then turns to whether companies will want tenancy there. The vacancy rate for office space in the Recessioned city is high, and many, many commercial spaces are unoccupied. But surely some will move to occupy such a significant place if it ever comes into existence; that is a matter that will be addressed once the skyline is finally restored.

The nasty, fruitless, xenophobic fight over whether an Islamic cultural center should exist somewhat near Ground Zero only has traction because Americans are easily distracted by hatred and finger-pointing in place of action – and because Ground Zero remains an open graveyard of skeletal beams. If, nearly a decade after it was created, there was no Ground Zero, there could be no ‘GROUND ZERO TERROR MOSQUE’ headlines.

Even if we had gone forward and constructed a place called the Freedoms Screeching Eagle Under God Capitalism Center, the tone of this ridiculous sideshow would have to be very different: should a religious institution be built in a nation built on freedom of religion, in the very shadow of the Freedom Tower? Why, yes! Yes, it should. How poignant a symbol and how free that would mark us to be.

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Tags: freedom, ground zero, hypocrisy, mosque