Hold Your Peace

America needs a debate over its very nature, that is--does it have characteristics distinctive from the animal qualities of other countries? Does it have a unique direction or is this just another nation trying to find its economic footing within a workable political framework? The New York mosque flap provides just such an opportunity.

Hurt feelings, bigotry, xenophobia and religious enthusiasm aside, this mosque debate should stimulate reasonable discussion about the boundaries of personal freedom policed by individual responsibility. The question is not whether it is legal to build it--it is--but rather whether such a building is appropriate, whether well meaning citizens should enforce their personal rights in the teeth of the overwhelming condemnation and discomfort of virtually everyone else simply because it is legal to do so. Some see this question as akin to desegregating a grade school, an African American personal right in the face of white condemnation and discomfort; this is more akin to the behavior of the "flying imams", gratuitous and malicious--albeit allowed by existing laws--done solely for the purpose of tormenting a social opponent. It is an area where good will is required, a willingness to put aside your personal right for the greater good. It is that crucial element in society that recognizes the individual's importance to the whole--and the whole's vulnerability to the individual: Self restraint. It is that quality in an individual that recognizes that on some level in this country he is participating in something large and important, something he shares in common with all others as opposed to the smaller and individual family, racial, blood type, skin color, cultural and religious variables that distinguish him from that large group.

Every marriage has that moment where the minister turns to the congregation and intones, "If any here gathered has reason why these two should not be joined together in holy matrimony, speak now or forever hold your peace." It is sometimes a signal in fiction for the picaresque hero to leap to the fore and abscond with an unwilling bride. In truth, it is a brilliant moment evolved from the Book of Common Prayer: The modern minister is not serious. The announcement is designed to give the individuals in the congregation the opportunity to put their objections aside, to allow the couple to proceed with their ritual and move on with their lives. To start anew. The people are being asked to withhold their right--even their presumed responsibility--to be destructive. It is saying to the congregation, "You are given the freedom and the opportunity to speak, to damage these people and this event; don't take it."


Yet someone will sometimes take it. The society is always plagued by the self-righteous, the bluenose, the puritan and the literal, often someone with a vindictive streak. Someone willing to destroy the whole to make a point. This mosque controversy is an opportunity to confront that person, to smoke him out and reveal him, to raise the important argument of social unity--the argument that must be resolved if this country is to solve the economic and security threats it will soon face.




All that being said, this is funny:

A grass-roots movement among construction workers and unions asks Cordoba mosque supporters: Who do you expect to build it? The same people who built the World Trade Center perhaps? (IBD)