I hesitated to speak on the controversial subject is the building of a mosque two blocks from the famous site where the towers collapsed the World Trade a Center September 11, 2001.
The construction project is led by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, a Muslim says moderate who says he wants closer religions and Muslim Americans. Obviously, the topic quickly became a political debate polarized between two extremes. If one is in favor of the project, which will relaunch is radical Islam. If one is disagree with the project, it is a racist, closed to cultural diversity and freedom of religion.
in the camp "to" include the New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, President Barack Obama (which has corrected its position several times) and in the camp of the "cons" include personalities like Newt Grinrich, Sarah Palin and Harry Reid, leader of the Democratic majority in the Senate.
I must confess that my discussion with New Yorker visiting Quebec City today was something that motivated me to speak on the topic and to adopt a position that does not lie at the extremes, but that is more in the shade. One New Yorker was a driver met Metro September 11, 2001 at 8:46 and it was a few stations in the place of tragedy.
I am not against building a mosque or any other religious place, whether a Catholic church, a synagogue or a Buddhist center. I believe that freedom of religion is a force in the West that distinguishes it from many regimes in the Middle East that does not allow such a diversity of religious practice. However, I must admit that the place and the obstinacy of the sponsor's place of worship to want to build the center in a place so close and so symbolic for the West in general and the United States in particular creates unease. It's a bit what I have told the New Yorker during the discussion this morning. Far from evoking the demagoguery of Republicans like Sarah Palin, they simply specify the place and time, 9 years after the tragedy, were oddly chosen.
In closing, two issues to support the idea that I have defended. Does the opening of a mosque near Ground Zero is a threat to U.S. national security and a victory for extremists on the West? The answer is probably no. Is the construction of a mosque at Ground Zero is really the best idea to reconcile American Muslims and moderate Islam with the American people in general know the sensitivity of such a tragedy in the American collective memory? Probably not ...
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