How moderate Muslims in Africa view NYC mosque debate
| Dakar, Senegal
Suburban Point E, on whose cobblestone backstreets Senegalese-American R&B rou茅 Akon passed his boyhood years, already has a mosque. Several, actually, each megaphoning prayer songs across balmy Ramadan soir茅es. So, locals wonder, why shouldn't downtown New York City get another mosque, too?
The question may seem trivial, coming from one of Africa's smaller nations, but America's controversy over the interfaith community center proposed by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf has implications for the United States' ability to thwart terrorism and defeat Al Qaeda. And Senegal, with a 95 percent Muslim population, represents a pivotal buttress in that campaign, say US military operatives. With Islamic fundamentalism triumphing in neighboring Mauritania and northern Nigeria, strategists see Senegal as a critical junction for US dialogue with the Muslim world.
鈥淚slam in Senegal is tolerant, and we expect that tolerance in return," says Souleye Diallo, director for a study abroad program here.
But lately, Senegal鈥檚 FM talk shows and private press have been appalled by America's debate over the mosque near ground zero, protests against Mr. Rauf, a Manhattan taxi passenger's attack on his Muslim driver, and sneers that Muslims worship 鈥渁 monkey god鈥� (that was former Tea Party spokesman Mark Williams).
4 mosque battles brewing across US
Land of intolerance?
Mr. Diallo says Senegalese aren't seeing tolerance in the charged debate over the proposed Islamic community center about two blocks from the former World Trade Center. Nor did he personally feel it when he visited New York City earlier this month. While waiting to board the Staten Island Ferry for an iconic boat ride past the Statue of Liberty, he says he was profiled, frisked, and bag-searched in front of his outraged daughter.
He cautions that it was a one-off experience. 鈥淪enegalese go to America because in America, they can have their rights respected, and their freedom of movement to be entrepreneurs,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not like in France, where you can be asked for your papers wherever you go.鈥�
Allowing a mosque near ground zero, says Diallo and other Senegalese, would restore America's image as a place of opportunity while also allowing Muslims to feel accepted. Islam pervades Senegal鈥檚 Sahelien milieu, as does the hope harbored by youths to travel to America and prevail as capitalists on a stage like New York City.
Their impressions are not to be taken for granted. Senegal's second-biggest export (after its desert-farmed peanuts) might be New York's entrepreneurial class of Senegalese-American immigrants, studying business, driving night taxis, running Harlem restaurants in the Le Petit S茅n茅gal neighborhood, reinvesting millions of needed dollars into Senegal's agrarian economy, and even selling "Never Forget" snow globes around ground zero itself. After all, it was a Senegalese souvenir salesman named Aliou Niasse who was the was the first to see smoke, and then call 911, when a Pakistani-born banker tried to car-bomb Times Square in May.
鈥淚t would be good to have a mosque there, to create dialogue between all religions,鈥� says Mamadou Mbao, an unemployed young man sitting curbside his mosque. 鈥淚f it鈥檚 controversial, then they must build one church and one mosque, right there in the same place. That鈥檚 fair.鈥�
鈥淚 don鈥檛 understand,鈥� adds his friend Mustafa Ndiaye. 鈥淚f they鈥檙e saying it could become a terrorist command center, isn鈥檛 America a powerful country? If it becomes a terrorist command center, couldn鈥檛 American just shut it down?鈥�
Case closed, for Mr. Mbao and Mr. Ndiaye. Then they asked this American journalist for help in scoring two green cards.
Mosque helps US image
Human rights activist Daha Cherif Ba says he can appreciate America鈥檚 anxiety surrounding Islam. 鈥淚f Americans bombed us, you wouldn鈥檛 be welcome here, either,鈥� he says.
Mr. Ba thinks the mosque near ground zero should be relocated. 鈥淢inorities must respect the sensitivities of the majority,鈥� he says.
But Mbao, Ndiaye, Diallo, a gathering of bearded men in a mosque, two students, a teacher, a young man reclining across a wooden bench, and a university professor all disagreed.
鈥淔or us, it would be a blessing to have a mosque there, where Muslims could pray for the deceased,鈥� says Diallo, the study abroad director. 鈥淚 understand the grievances, and yes, there were Islamists behind the attack, but the way to heal is to accept people鈥檚 prayers.鈥�
But he says he knows the reality of America's news cycle and heavily charged political scene.
鈥淎merica鈥檚 politicians,鈥� he adds, 鈥渁re thinking about re-election, not how to heal.鈥�
