What the NYC Mosque Tells Us About America's Mood

"The past is never dead. It's not even past." - William Faulkner

What was Faulkner talking about? Few quotes can inspire better parlor room debates. Faulkner wrote about the underbelly of reality, and it is debatable whether he used the setting of the South for his gothic stories, or whether the South was a character all unto itself. I think that few places had more trouble dealing with the past than the post-antebellum South. And so the quote makes more sense, takes on more meaning. People love to recite the cliche, "Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it." But that doesn't apply to some places, and it has no bearing on some people. For Faulkner's South, people didn't have to worry about forgetting the past, and they didn't have to worry about it repeating itself. You see, it's hard to forget something when it never left in the first place.

The point of the preceding paragraph isn't vanity, at least most of it isn't. I want to try an exercise. It is a bit abstract, but, interesting nonetheless. What if we tried not to think of history in such a linear way? Meaning, instead of event A leading into event B and then into event C, what if we took A, B and C, and talked about them at the same time and in the same way? It's not that I think "cause and effect" isn't useful, I think few things are more useful. It's just that most people think "effect" always starts where "cause" ends, and I think that there is more overlap than we realize.

I don't think anyone will argue with the suggestion that, today as we know it, America is divided. The Tea Party's existence, if anything, is proof of that. United States politics is a predominantly a two party system, any time an extra party or "movement" sprouts up, it is a surefire sign that times are tumultuous. But I am rambling, so let's get to the point:

Historically, nations who are suffering major domestic discontent and unrest often, ultimately, find a way to project that discontent OUTWARD towards a real, or imagined, foreign threat. The idea is this: you and I may not have a lot to agree about, but what we can agree about is that THEY (the foreigners) aren't US (us us, not the USA). Restated, you and I don't have much in common, but what we do have in common is that fact that WE aren't like THEM. Do you see where I'm going with this? I think you do.

The "mosque", "community center", "worship house" that is being proposed to be built near Ground Zero has touched off a nerve in this country. The story has been in the news for weeks and, as the anniversary of 9-11 nears, it is in no danger of going away any time soon. The proliferation of this story/controversy in the past weeks, and recent polls reporting that a growing number of Americans suspect that President Barack Obama is secretly a Muslim are, without a doubt, closely related. I find the idea that Obama has professed his faith in Jesus Christ and attended a Christian church for decades, all the while secretly hiding his Muslim faith and supposed deep-seeded plan to get elected to this nation's highest office in order to turn the US into a Muslim nation, to be about as ludicrous as any idea I could come up with on my own. People who give this conspiracy theory any more than a moments thought have, in my opinion, truly gone off to live in left field. But I also acknowledge that most people are not like me, at least in this one regard. But the facts are facts, and they're worth facing - 21% of Americans now believe President Obama is secretly a Muslim, and an overwhelming majority of Americans believe the mosque in NYC should not be built.
And so, here we are. The country has 10% unemployment, housing is in the dumps, a historically partisan government has been unable to supply economic relief (at least relief acceptable to public America), and some cable news stations (ahem, Fox News) fuel paranoia and confusion on a daily basis. Return to the main premise: when there is chaos within, project that chaos onto some outside force, real or imaginary, and national unity will follow . . .
A month ago, there wasn't much the American public could agree on. Today, most Americans agree that a community center being built in an old Burlington Coat Factory nearly two miles from Ground Zero represents nothing less than an act of war and a triumph of desecration (fyi, there is already a mosque much closer to where the Twin Towers fell).

In the early 1900s, Germany had emerged as an industrial behemoth. It was also a political mess. The country grew too fast, and before long wealth had become localized in a choice few, aristocratic landowners and businessmen (sound familiar?).
With Wilhelm I and his monarchy acting as a puppet for the dysfunctional democratic republic, Germany faced a crossroads. It could either sit back and succumb to the revolution that would inevitably come or, instead, it could create an imaginary foreign threat in order to create unity at home. Germany chose the second path. Most of us were taught that the cause of WWI was an intricate alliance created by treaties that knocked over the first domino, starting war, when the Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated. Honestly, this is not true. The truth is that Germany had been expanding its military months before the Black Hand shot the Archduke and his wife. The truth is that, as soon as Austria-Hungary's prince had been shot, Germany wrote Austria-Hungry a "blank check", with one simple understanding: despite your inclination to do otherwise, if you declare war on Serbia, causing all-out war, when the dust settles, you will enjoy a wonderful place in the new world created by Germany and her friends.
That is a lot of history, I know. The point is that treaties and alliances didn't start WWI, Germany did. And Germany did so because it was about to tear itself apart on the inside, and it decided that a foreign threat was the best way to stop internal struggles dead in its tracks.

You and I may not have much in common, but what we do have in common is that WE aren't THEM.

Am I saying that the USA today is like Germany then? No. But the analogy isn't that far off, not quite apples and apples, but not quite apples and oranges either. Mostly, it is worth it to remember that some cliches make more sense than others, and that repeating them aloud won't make them mean anything more than they already do. You see, we don't walk in straight lines and we don't walk in perfect circles either. No, we walk over our old footsteps in different ways and for different reasons than we did before. But our old footsteps are still there, whether we take the time to stop and notice them or not.

"The past is never dead. It's not even past."