Welcome to Mosquehattan!

Published August 4, 2010 at Family Security Matters*
by Nancy Hartevelt Kobrin, Ph.D and Joan Lachkar, Ph.D

Like the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, we have been invited to have tea with moderate Muslims who want to build a mosque at ground zero. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt that they are not doing taqiyya, dissimulation or deception – saying one thing like “peace be upon you” while on the other jumping up and down with joy celebrating the victory of building on top of the decimated Twin Towers.

Many have presented their views and dismays and even their support of building a Mosque in New York, but few have tried to offer the psychological contours of this conflict. To build or not to build?

Many on the Left are already drinking tea. But do Muslims remain clueless as to how their behavior comes across to non-Muslims? Let’s assume though they are well intentioned. Yet Muslims don’t resist what their terrorist brethren do because they are pre-programmed to fear for their lives. They are terrorized from birth. They too like the Strong Horse but could never admit it publicly. They overcompensate by thinking that this mosque is a present. It is as if they are saying:

“New York! New York! We bestow you with our holy gift, our sacred Mosque!”

Before they honor us with their sacred gift, it might be nice for Muslims to consider their inability to respect other religions. Ms. Khan claims that it will embrace all religions. How is this possible when they co-opted the Hebrew Torah and the Gospels and when they read verses in the Noble Quran that claim we perverted the sacred text? This is the moderate Muslim narrative.

It’s time for moderate Muslims to admit that in many ways Islam is a political institution dressed up in the garb of a religion. After all Ground Zero is the space leveled by 19 Muslims who were merely following to a “T” the 24 chapters of Jihad found in that peaceful Quran? They were merely moderate Muslims’ proxies, carriers of group rage. Classic passive aggressive behavior. It’s as if this gift of the mosque screams in our ears:

"Now you are the displaced victims not us! We are strong and powerful -- look what we have built! We have a Mosque and all you have is a big dark hole in the ground!"

This is not your benign local mosque that sprung up out of need arising from a community that slowly grew together and wanted to move from a room in someone’s home or office building or one built in the suburbs. Rather this is a mosque to be built at the heart of the trauma by those who pretend to have a heart. Doesn’t it seem to come across like rubbing salt into the wound?

With the anniversary of 9/11 around the corner, with moderate Muslims having already laid claim to Jerusalem and having made Saudi Arabia Judenrein with a purified Mecca and Medina, will the mosque at ground zero become the fourth holiest place in Islam? Ah to have a foothold in the New World. Couldn’t that be the ultimate Da’wah feather in their kefiyyah? There might even be a mosque on the next space shuttle. Didn't Obama demand of NASA to recruit Muslims to space? But here is a big problem – pigs in space. How is sharia going to get around that one?

Coming back to earth, will there be beheadings in its courtyard? Will IEDs and Stingers be stored in it while the local Muslim Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts meet? We can hear the refrain being taught -- "Never fear -- Honor will save everything!" No need for moderate Muslims to experience loss and to let go of what can’t be, instead just become more pushy, intimidating and demanding, then we will just give in and let them have a mosque at ground zero.

It will be a grand place for moderate Muslims to rage against all the betrayals that the US has perpetrated upon the umma, the Muslim community. Like Peter Pan they can sing – we won’t grow up and chant Allahu Akhbar – our “Daddy” God is bigger and better than yours. So there.

Welcome to the tea party – this is the Mosque that Jihad is building, brought to you by moderate Muslims. In many ways it has already been built because we are forced to deal with this conflict and discussion.

"We know you want equality but at this Tea party there is no "Equal." How do you want your tea- - one or two sugars?

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Dr. Nancy Kobrin, a psychoanalyst with a Ph.D. in romance and semitic languages, specializes in Aljamía and Old Spanish in Arabic script. She is an expert on the Minnesota Somali diaspora and a graduate of the Human Terrain System program at Leavenworth Kansas. Her new book is The Banality of Suicide Terrorism: The Naked Truth About the Psychology of Islamic Suicide Bombing.

Dr. Joanie Lachkar, a licensed Marriage and Family therapist in private practice in Brentwood and Tarzana, California, who teaches psychoanalysis and is the author of The Narcissistic/Borderline Couple: A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Marital Treatment (1992, The Many Faces of Abuse: Treating the Emotional Abuse of High -Functioning Women (1998), The V-Spot, How to Talk to a Narcissist, How to Talk to a Borderline and a recent paper, “The Psychopathology of Terrorism” presented at the Rand Corporation and the International Psychohistorical Association. She is also an affiliate member for the New Center for Psychoanalysis.

Copyright 2010 Family Security Matters

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