How We Could Help
By Chip Tsao | published Sep 16, 2010
Michael Chugani, the leading local liberal political commentator and columnist, agrees with me on almost everything, from the right taste for a bowl of wonton soup to the art of wooing Chinese women—everything, except politics. Whenever he’s yelling over an issue of political correctness, he always calls me and sparks off a fierce debate on the mobile phone. Our latest crossfire has been on the uproar over plans to build a Muslim cultural center and mosque two blocks from Ground Zero in New York City.
As someone often labeled a socialist, Beijing’s stooge, and occasionally—to my horror—a Bin-Laden sympathizer by some American republicans living in Hong Kong, Mr. Chugani’s position on the issue hardly needs my support.
I reminded him that the emotional consensus held by the families of some 3,000 victims of September 11, who together form a marginalized minority, compared to the dominating Islamic population of the world—much like gays and lesbians when compared with the sheer number of heterosexuals—should be tolerated and respected. From this view, and from the same perspective of political correctness as is used to look at the other side, Park51, as the project is called, should be dropped. If you have never lost a loved one on that day, you’d never know how much it hurts to see a mosque erected near the historic spot. Having not been born black, as the famous anti-racist argument goes, a European will never know how it truly feels to be black and be discriminated against.
This view is not anti-Islam, but anti-location. There are already enough mosques in North America and Europe to illustrate the point of multiculturalism. It is now the turn of the Islamic world to illustrate the same by, say, allowing the building of a few Christian churches in cities like Tehran and Riyadh.
There was a pause at the other end of the line. A former journalist in Seattle and an American citizen, Michael is a strong orator, but I’m glad that sometimes I can manage to shut him up with some fundamental logic.
How should the crisis be resolved? Easy, I said. The mayor of New York could recruit a feng shui master from the nearby Chinatown. Hopefully with a lai-see pack of a few hundred US dollars squeezed into his hands, the master would bravely meet the Park51 developer and remind him that according to Chinese culture, a haunted Ground Zero provides very bad feng shui. The mosque should be built opposite to the statue of Confucius on Canal Street to truly mark the spirit of multiculturalism. Good feng shui and harmony would bring in a lot of money. The Chinese community in Manila wasn’t very helpful during the Hong Kong hostage crisis. It’s time for overseas Chinese to square it up and contribute to world peace.
On this point, Michael and I both agreed.
Michael Chugani, the leading local liberal political commentator and columnist, agrees with me on almost everything, from the right taste for a bowl of wonton soup to the art of wooing Chinese women—everything, except politics. Whenever he’s yelling over an issue of political correctness, he always calls me and sparks off a fierce debate on the mobile phone. Our latest crossfire has been on the uproar over plans to build a Muslim cultural center and mosque two blocks from Ground Zero in New York City.
As someone often labeled a socialist, Beijing’s stooge, and occasionally—to my horror—a Bin-Laden sympathizer by some American republicans living in Hong Kong, Mr. Chugani’s position on the issue hardly needs my support.
I reminded him that the emotional consensus held by the families of some 3,000 victims of September 11, who together form a marginalized minority, compared to the dominating Islamic population of the world—much like gays and lesbians when compared with the sheer number of heterosexuals—should be tolerated and respected. From this view, and from the same perspective of political correctness as is used to look at the other side, Park51, as the project is called, should be dropped. If you have never lost a loved one on that day, you’d never know how much it hurts to see a mosque erected near the historic spot. Having not been born black, as the famous anti-racist argument goes, a European will never know how it truly feels to be black and be discriminated against.
This view is not anti-Islam, but anti-location. There are already enough mosques in North America and Europe to illustrate the point of multiculturalism. It is now the turn of the Islamic world to illustrate the same by, say, allowing the building of a few Christian churches in cities like Tehran and Riyadh.
There was a pause at the other end of the line. A former journalist in Seattle and an American citizen, Michael is a strong orator, but I’m glad that sometimes I can manage to shut him up with some fundamental logic.
How should the crisis be resolved? Easy, I said. The mayor of New York could recruit a feng shui master from the nearby Chinatown. Hopefully with a lai-see pack of a few hundred US dollars squeezed into his hands, the master would bravely meet the Park51 developer and remind him that according to Chinese culture, a haunted Ground Zero provides very bad feng shui. The mosque should be built opposite to the statue of Confucius on Canal Street to truly mark the spirit of multiculturalism. Good feng shui and harmony would bring in a lot of money. The Chinese community in Manila wasn’t very helpful during the Hong Kong hostage crisis. It’s time for overseas Chinese to square it up and contribute to world peace.
On this point, Michael and I both agreed.
Labels: Politically Incorrect, 陶傑
posted by Gemini Saga at 12:00 AM
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