Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Fareed Zakaria: Ground Zero Mosque, the KKK, and Crosses

Fareed Zakaria used the Ku Klux Klan and the Christian symbol of the cross to illustrate that it's wrong to be against the mosque at Ground Zero.

Zakaria drew the parallel when speaking to Charlie Rose.


Video.


Transcript

FAREED ZAKARIA: People need to understand that this mosque or Islamic center is not a respresentative of al Qaeda. You know, the idea that because al Qaeda says they are acting in the name of Islam any Islamic symbol should be banned or forbidden is nuts, is to buy al Qaeda's argument.

Again, I've been trying to think about what an analogy would be. And it would be like saying that you should never build a cross anywhere because the Klu Klux Klan [sic] used crosses. You know, it is to concede an argument that really is about what the extremists argue.

The hundred people who died in 9/11 who were Muslim, they didn't, they would have loved to see a mosque honoring them. The 800,000 New Yorkers who are Muslims, they would be delighted to see a mosque.

Zakaria makes an illogical leap in his analogy.

He says that opposing a mosque at Ground Zero is similar to "NEVER [building] a cross ANYWHERE" because of the KKK's use of crosses.

No one is forbidding the construction of a mosque or Islamic center in New York or in the United States.

Who is doing that?

No one is saying that the use of any Islamic symbol should be banned or forbidden.

Who is saying that?

Good grief.

Location, location, location.

Zakaria doesn't get it. His argument is screwy.

1 comment:

Annie said...

Yah. It's really offensive- building a Community Center, with absolutely no view of Ground Zero, in an old abandoned Burlington Coat Factory 2 blocks away.

They should choose somewhere more ideal, like an abandoned Macy's.

How dare they.