Together we seek better (GETTING THE LESSONS OF 9/11 BACKWARDS ...)

Southtown Star ^ | September 12, 2010 | Editors

[Chi-townChief]

The issue: Nine years after Sept. 11, 2001, it's easy to get caught up in thinking protests, anger and hatred are the norm.

We say: Nine years later, we are proud of this place. While perfection, everlasting peace, and paradise still elude us, we work and play and live together here.

Nine years ago we woke in horror.It was the day after.It still seemed like the world might be ending.Today we wake remembering, but we are filled with hope.

We ask that you look around this place we call home, and join us in hopeful, prayerful, thankful recognition of the peace that we all share.

Sometimes, it's easy to forget it.

Sometimes as a media-influenced society, we concentrate on flare-ups rather than focus on the slow-burning pilot light.

This September, our national conversation bores into a controversial Islamic center proposed near Ground Zero. At water coolers, we debate a Florida minister who threatened, on and off and on and off again, to burn the Muslim holy book.

We start to believe these singular issues reflect a dangerous chasm in America.

We grow apart. We grow suspicious.

But these are only pieces of the whole, much larger America that we are joined together in; where we live quite peaceably, day in and day out, with Muslims, Catholics, Christians, Jews and Buddhists.

This September, we choose to look beyond the explosive, beyond the outragoues exceptions to the rule, and instead to reflect on what it means to live here, now.

Nine years later, after that horror, we have remembered that it works here, mostly, every single day. We shop, work and sleep in Southland communities with all kinds of people, quite comfortably intertwined. Incidents of dogmatic religious intolerance are the rarity, not routine.

We live side by side. Women in hijab push baby strollers, talk on cell phones and run errands quite nonchalantly alongside women in jeans punching Blackberries and juggling groceries. We have beautiful mosques situated throughout the Southland, peacefully co-existing among inspiring churches, and plain old bungalows, pancake houses and discount stores. They are part of us. We are part of them.

The world has not ended. Nor has our America.

There is no question we can do better. We understand we have far to go.

We do not ask you for tolerance for all people.

We human beings are a flawed and troubled lot.

This earth is home to those who hate and harm and seek to silence thoughts that challenge theirs. Those bad people come in all faiths and all colors.

But when we consider the two flare-ups dominating our conversation, we feel compelled to offer a broader view. You might think we live, as Americans, in a constant culture war.

Our experience in the Southland, however, tells a different story.

This weekend marks Eid-al-Fitr, the end of the holy month of Ramadan. Thousands of Southland Muslims are expected to gather at Toyota Park in Bridgeview for a peaceful celebration in praise to God.

Today, at hundreds upon hundreds of churches in the Southland, messages of faith and redemption, brothership and love will be spoken.

We know that nine years later the world is not ending. We know that nine years later we are still a challenged nation.

But we look out into our streets and homes and shops and schools we see South Side people decidated to family and God and hard work and neighborhoods.

We know there's fearmongering afoot.

We don't wish to backslide into the days following Sept. 11, 2001. We strive to keep moving forward.

This is a heroic nation. This weekend we honor it with our hopes for more peace in this Southland and this troubled world.

[Chi-townChief]

"We don't wish to backslide into the days following Sept. 11, 2001."

I'm hoping they mean the days BEFORE 9/11 but somehow I doubt it.

[SteamShovel]

This September, we choose to look beyond the explosive, beyond the outragoues exceptions to the rule

Hey dummy, terrorism IS THE RULE with radical Islam.....

.....There is no negotiating with them.

.....There is no reasoning with them.

.....They are possessed with hate.

.....We either kill them, or they kill us.

.....We are in a Jihad with them because they chose to make it a Jihad. It was not our choice, it was theirs.

Pretending we live in a 9-10 world is insanity.

[Bluebird Singing]

I just received this link in an email. I haven’t seen this before, and didn’t realize this was happening every Friday afternoon on Madison Ave

http://ourlighterside.com/2010/08/09/this-is-nyc-on-madison-ave/

[Molon Labbie]

And if they get their way, it will be mandatory under threat of death in the United States of Americanistan.

[SteamShovel]

this was happening every Friday afternoon on Madison Ave

UN-BE-LIEV-ABLE

Religious tolerance my arse Barry.

This is religious privilege accorded to a cult that is feared.

Can anyone...ANYONE?...believe this would be tolerated from a Christian Church? They would be told to find another place to worship if they outgrew their building capacity. The parishioners would not be able to simply occupy the street during service!