Build it – the Park51 Muslim Center
I’m reprinting here a blog post by Russell Simmons, musician, producer and renaissance man. Thanks, Russell. Let’s keep our hearts and minds open as we make the dream of the UNITED States a reality, day by day, moment by moment.
full text is here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/russell-simmons/the-sacred-ground-of-deep_b_691001.html
“Even though the American White supremacy movement was founded in Christian fundamentalism, and even though George W. Bush claimed to have “visions” from his Christian God to go to Iraq and kill over 100,000 innocent Iraqis, even though Timothy McVeigh was born into the Christian faith, we would never think for a millisecond that Jesus Christ or any verses of the bible were the cause of these horrendous, stupid acts of men. Therefore it is un-American and against everything that we believe in as a country to associate the 1.6 billion Muslims or 23% of the world’s population with the acts of a few, very evil men. I pray that all of the Muslims who might hate Christians because of George Bush’s actions, or the blacks or Jews or non-Whites who might hate Christians because of the historical genocide of their people, or the Christians who might hate Muslims for the acts of Osama bin Laden and his culprits, I hope they know that the overriding theme of Jesus Christ, Muhammad, Abraham and Lord Buddha was to love all people of all races and all religions.
I conclude with this story. Recently the organization of which I am the Chairman of, The Foundation For Ethnic Understanding, held a twinning program where we had European Imams and Rabbis visit the United States and hold meetings at the White House, New York City Hall and the United Nations. At the UN in my speech, I mentioned a passage from the Bhagavad Gita, when Krishna tells Arjuna whether he knows him by the name Krishna or not, it is unimportant, as all he needs to do is follow certain principles and he will come to him. When I got off the stage the Imam from Geneva gave me his prayer beads, told me that he loved the verse from the yogic scripture and reminded me that the same sentiment about God loving all people, from all faiths, exists in the Quran.
Now that we have politicized Park51 and the world is watching, there can be no wavering of our support of the First Amendment and, in turn, the proposed community center. Build it.”
