MARKET WATCH COLUMNIST
“Sacred Ground: Who Decides?” Ellis Henican Column, amNewYork, August 20, 2010
One day – not too soon, I hope – I will die.
And when that tragic moment arrives, those who love me will be saddened. Then a nice person in rubber gloves will come along and squirt 409 spray on my desk. An hour later, some new guy will be sitting in my chair, typing his words on what used to be my keyboard.
Goodbye, hello!
That is what we do in America when people die. We note the passing. We clean up the mess. We honor the dead by living.
So now comes all the uproar over the mosque being proposed for two blocks from Ground Zero. Do Muslims have the same right as other religions to place their houses of worship where they see fit? Or is this location an intolerable affront to the people who died on 9/11? That, right there, is the core of the debate.
And it’s a passionate one.
But beneath the raw nerves is an assumption that hardly anyone is reflecting on this week. What makes ground sacred anyway? The simple fact that a tragedy occurred nearby? Clearly, we apply the theory inconsistently.
When a teenager is killed in a drunken-driving wreck, no one proposes we close the highway forever. When a person loses their battle with cancer, their apartment isn’t forever sealed.
And when I die — well, you already know what happens then.
Back in the ’90s, there was a long-running dispute in lower Manhattan about a new federal building where an African cemetery had been. The graveyard was partially built on. Several people noted that much of downtown once had been cemetery land, though no one proposed demolishing area buildings.
Death is always tragic, whether it arrives in ones and twos or by the thousands. Those left are always bereaved.
The mosque debate raises many questions. But before they can really be answered, maybe we should answer these:
What makes certain ground sacred? How long does it remain that way?
Forever?
How many blocks constitute the sacred zone?
Who gets to decide?
The mother of that teenaged accident victim might have her own answer. I know I have some thoughts about the new guy who is suddenly sitting in my chair.
E-mail ellis@henican.com. Follow him at twitter.com/henican
Related posts
Having family members say the names of 3,000 dead at a solemn Ground Zero event every year is losing the authenticity?
Who do you blame for the politicking of the site, the people in an uproar or the imam who chose ONLY ONE AREA for a mosque. Where’s his sensitivity?
Does he think Americans are not stupid to the fact that Muslim, whether introverted or extroverted, are trying to infiltrate America, and in this case by sticking it in our faces?
Where is the Muslim outcry against extremists? Perhaps that’s part of the reason for the continued and validated mistrust Americans have for the Muslim community as a whole, that and another bomber showing up at Michigan airport or in Time Square, or caught plotting to bomb a bridge or subway or tunnel.
Let’s face it the Muslim community has brought this on themselves in not effectively and openly condemning extremist’s actions, starting with the Ground Zero Imam who should have, if he believed in unity, made this an inter faith community center.
He didn’t; the man who said America is partially to blame for 9/11.
The “season has sunk to this” because of the actions, and inactions of the Muslim Community.
PS When have the New York Dolls strip club ever flew a plane in to two towers, killing 3,000 people?
Next to the familiar Timothy McVeigh diatribe, a very poor analogy.
Seriously, what makes a site sacred? Some bone and pottery fragments, no larger than a human fingernail, were found near a pipeline construction site near San Diego, causing a work cease due to a sudden declaration by a local Indian tribe that this ground was sacred, even though nobody know about it before and it had never been document nor conveyed to anybody. Now the real costs in the delay of the project, which is slated to provide water to over 30,000 in San Diego, is on hold, and a possible re-design of the waterway is feared to exceed $ 10,000,000.00 –
Whatever happened to “ashes to ashes, dust to dust”? If we hold any and all sites “sacred” (loved your example of closing a highway because your loved one was killed by a drunk driver), we will be treading on eggshells very quickly – please, let’s get real!
Just so happened to stumble onto this great article serendipitously. It poses a very intelligent idea that I am sure would be argued until pigs fly. We all live our lives based on degrees of comfort. As an example, say us Americans allow for such a building to be erected, what proximity is sufficient? 5 blocks further? 1 mile further? Another state? So, where is the comfort for the majority of us? And, more importantly, is it moral, ethical, or allowed under the Constitution? This is a great opportunity for us Americans to show the world that we are the world. Let’s not mess this up.
I read your piece in AMNY today. I sought out your website to respond. **THANK YOU** Ellis, for saying what some of us have indeed been thinking and talking about for quite a while.
Your article reflects my thoughts regarding “Sacred Ground” that go back all the way to the debate over the rebuilding of Ground Zero. As you eloquently pointed out in your article, the concept of “Sacred Ground” is subjective. Native Americans could argue there are vast areas of this country considered “Sacred Ground” which was taken as the US was colonized. Should there not be an uproar then about all the buildings and cities already built on “Sacred Ground”? We both can surmise what the answer to that would be.
What happened on that clear September day 9 years ago is a tragedy, but again as you point out, death is a tragedy no matter how it happens for the loved ones who are left behind. Let me propose this, our memories of our loved ones who have crossed over are what should be sacred to us and everytime we have a loving memory of them it is the place we are standing on at that moment that is “Sacred Ground”.