Mosque is no insult to the victims of 9/11
By Robert Remington, Calgary Herald August 7, 2010 Comments (2)
"Scary Arabs . . . want to kill you, all of you, because that is their nature," Alex Pareene at salon. com sarcastically wrote in a recent blog.
He was referring to the vitriolic Islamophobic backlash to the building of a mosque and Islamic cultural centre in Manhattan two long blocks from Ground Zero, which has riled Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Pat Robertson and a host of others. They claim the proposed centre is an insult to the memory of the victims of 9/11 and insensitive to the feelings of their families.
This might come as a surprise to the friends and relatives of the nearly 60 Muslims who died in the 9/11 attacks. They comprised almost two per cent of the fatalities, which is more than double their proportionate representation (0.6 per cent) of the U.S. population.
Among the Muslim victims of 9/11 was Shabbir Ahmed, a 47-year-old father who was a waiter at the Windows of the World restaurant on the top floor of Tower One. Mohammad Chowdhury, also a waiter there, left behind a wife, Baraheen Ashrafi, who was nine months pregnant with her second child. On the morning of Sept. 11, they prayed Salaat-i-Fajr (the pre-dawn prayer) together before he went off to work.
The 57 verified Muslims who died in the attacks include 28 at the World Trade Center, plus others on planes and at the Pentagon, (which in 2007 had 100 observant Muslim defence workers on staff). Another victim was Salman Hamdani, a 23-year-old New York City police cadet, part-time ambulance driver and medical student. His remains were found six months later near the North Tower with his EMT bag beside him. We can assume he died a hero.
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http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Mosque+insult+victims/3371820/story.html#ixzz0xNTKF0u7Hate the terrorist but spreading that hate to others is just doing the terrorists bidding.
