September 11th, Community Centers, and Koran Burning

"Teacher, al-Qaeda didn't attack the World Trade Center."

"Well, who do you think attacked the World Trade Center on September 11th, then?"

"I don't know. But it wasn't al-Qaeda," came the reply from the smartest student in my Advanced 1 class.

We had started to discuss the proposed mosque/community center a couple of blocks from Ground Zero and the huge controversy it has generated. Only one student had actually heard of it. None of them seemed to care. I took a stab at a one minute survey of American religious history and the 1st Amendment to give some context.

I tried to explain that many Americans conflate Islam with Islamists, that they don't distinguish between al-Qaeda and the much more numerous peaceful Muslims who repudiate al-Qaeda's tactics. But as I got to the part where Americans associate al-Qaeda's actions on September 11th with all Muslims, we reached a snag. Americans are wrong to associate September 11th with Islam not because al-Qaeda is unrepresentative, but because no one even remotely associated with Islam committed the heinous crime.

In contrast with their lack of interest with the "Ground Zero" mosque controversy, they were all well-versed in the plans of Florida pastor Terry Jones to burn Korans next week. All of them had seen the video I posted last week, and all of them were incensed about it.

So I tried to draw the two issues together. Did they realize that not all Americans and not all Christians wanted to burn Korans? After some thought, they could agree to this. After all, the CNN journalist interviewing Terry Jones was American, and he seemed to oppose the idea. I pointed out that Americans need to make distinctions among Muslims as well. The vast majority of people claiming to be Muslims have nothing to do with the attacks of September 11th.

I looked back at the student to see his reaction. "Do you agree, Oussama?"

He paused a moment. I don't know what he was thinking but I assume that in that pause he had decided it wasn't worth arguing with an American who presumably always believes the government's official story.

He grinned, perhaps a little mischievously, and said, "Yes, teacher."