A mosque near Ground Zero? Everyone’s deluded

Rod Liddle says that the battle over the Islamic cultural centre mirrors the tortuous debate we’ve all endured for nearly a decade

Like you, I suspect, I am hugely enjoying the debate as to whether or not a huge Islamic cultural centre and prayer room should be built 100 yards or so from Ground Zero in New York — where, fittingly, Islam made perhaps its most iconic and vibrant cultural statement of the present century. For many of those who lost husbands, wives, friends and colleagues in the 9/11 attacks, the plan for a mosque seems to be — you know — just pushing it a little bit: a little test to the old tolerance and patience. I suppose it must seem akin to opening a National Socialist Cultural Centre near the front door of Ravensbruck, or Dachau, where you could browse through the economic teachings of Julius Streicher and maybe hum the ‘Horst Wessel’ to yourself.