Life On The World Of The Cross

Roman bridge leading to the Mezquita, or Mosque-Church, in Cordoba, Spain

I got me a bone to pick with Sharif el-Gamal, the developer of the Muslim community center in Lower Manhattan, originally called Cordoba House, on near the site of the former World Trade Center.

While there are a variety of groups for and against its construction, the most frenzied opposition comes from Islamophobes (sounds like “Obamaphobes”). Islamophobes number among their numbers old fashioned religious bigots, unrepentant neocons still trying to gin up a War of Civilizations with the Muslim world, and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, a media conglomerate that banks billions by fostering conflict at every level of society.

One of the shouting points Islamophobes use against the center’s construction is that by changing the name to Park51, the developer is tacitly admitting that the original reference to Cordoba was code for a terrorist “victory shrine.” Additionally, in order to associate the center with some of the worst practices of groups like the Taliban, it is also portrayed as the first step towards the imposition of Sharia law on US citizens.

Yeah, I know—pretty whacked. But effective propaganda must contain at least some factual basis around which to weave a narrative. Thus, a brief history of the Spanish city of Cordoba is in order.

Cordoba, located in southern Spain, is believed to have been first occupied by the Carthaginians. It was occupied by the Romans in the second century B.C., conquered by the Visigoths in the sixth century A.D., by the Moors in 711, and by the Spaniards in 1236. The Romans built a temple to Juno, the Visigoths a basilica. the Moors a mosque, and the Spaniards a cathedral—all on the same site. If you see a pattern here, go to the head of the class.

There is hardly an ancient Druid religious site in Europe that the Catholic Church didn’t build a church over. Muslims built the Dome of the Rock on the site of the second Jerusalem Temple (six centuries after it was destroyed by the Romans). In 1401, Christians destroyed the 12th-century mosque in Seville, erecting a large cathedral in its place.

In other words, erecting religious structures on former religious sites is par for history’s course. Such sites were valued for their natural beauty and for strategic reasons, doing double duty as fortresses on elevated land with commanding views.  Location. Location. Location.

So much for the factual nugget of the Islamaphobes’ victory mosque narrative. For their historical analogy to even make sense, the Twin Towers would have to be religious buildings, unless of course you consider them cathedrals to capitalism, full of money changers and such. And the center would have to be built on the former WTC site. As Keith Obermann points out, it will be blocks away and the proposed buildings for the two sites won’t even be visible from each other.

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