The problem with this is the unexamined assumption that Islam is exactly the same kind of thing as Judaism and Christianity, and must be welcomed into the United States with no examination of the ready-made societal alternative that it offers, and which some Muslims have made clear that they are determined ultimately not just to offer but to impose upon the West. In light of the dim view that some Muslims have of Western holidays, can we expect that in an Islamic New York, as some would like to see exist someday, the building will still be lit up for Christmas and Hanukkah?
Another unexamined assumption is that most Muslims abhor what happened on 9/11, and so this is no insult to the memory of those who died on that day. But I can't help but think how nice it would have been to light up the World Trade Center towers also.
From AFP (thanks to all who sent this in):
New York's iconic Empire State Building is to be lit up green from Friday in honor of the Muslim holiday of Eid, the biggest festival in the Muslim calendar marking the end of Ramadan, officials said."This is the first time that the Empire State Building will be illuminated for Eid, and the lighting will become an annual event in the same tradition of the yearly lightings for Christmas and Hannukah," according to a statement.
Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the fasting month, is expected to be celebrated in New York from Friday, depending on when the new moon is sighted, and the city's tallest skyscraper will remain green until Sunday....
An estimated seven million Muslims live in the United States.
Estimated by the American Muslim advocacy groups, that is. The Pew Research Center found 2.3 million.
Just e-mailed this message to the ESB web page.
Will they even read it???
Dear Sir/Miss,
I´m apalled at your intention of turning the Empire State Building green for Ramadan.
The Reason? Not hate of bigotry but a enourmous sense of worrie and lost.
I live in Europe, the land of apeaseament, and, unfortunatly, I´m one of the few who deeply recognizes the help of american blood spilled in our shores and mountains and cities (...) to save us from ourselves in the last century.
And you have no ideia what I´m told each time I mention that, in this continent that hates itself.
Let´s be deeply pragmatical, please!!
To the muslims worldwide an image of a green ESB will send two messages.
Message 1
One of reconciliation/assimilation
I deeply doubt this one, they are not interested in reconciliation/assimilation, that would imply blending into society (remember the melting pot?) wich is something the islamic comunity will never do. When we blend we give something and receive even more. Isn´t that what the view from Staten Island transmited to countless new commers?
Message2
One of defeat and a sence of victory
To to the rest of the Islamic world (and not only...) it will be perceived as a very twisted flag (a green islamic one) on a very twisted Suribachi. How many more galons of american blood will that image help to spill?
Have you any ideia of how that image will be perceived in Europe and the muslim world? I will be a huge moral boost of those who are already singing victory and no doubt it will be "celebrated"...
Thank you very much for your kind attention,
Paulo Reis
"There “may be” peacefull muslims, There is “NOT” a peacefull Islam"
Please tell me you spell-checked the email before sending it.
This is self-imposed dhimmitude, it's disgusting. Criminal negligence by the powers that be.
Robert, any chance of a book on the Islamic slave trade. It's overtime for Islam to face it's demons.
No.. I obviously did not cheked my e-mail before sending it, JihadWatcher. Thank´s for refering it.
I´ll try to be more carefull next time.
Yes Robert... a book on Islamic Slave Trade would be quite interesting. Any plans on that?
Just one more thing, yesterday I saw that the official page of the portuguese community is claiming that Lisbon comes from an arabe word. Nevermind the phoenicians and greeks that named it. I guess I should expect a green "Mosteiro dos Jerónimos" or "Torre de Belém" anytime...
Bought all your books also. They´r great.
And I´m "spreading" the word here in this dhimminized "al-andaluz"...
Ps:Sorry for any mistakes but my english needs to be (quite)improved...
Sickening beyond words and belief. It's enough to make one vomit.
Western civilization is indeed finished.
...what???...no Christmas trees allowed in Mecca?.....
FRONT PAGE OF THE TIMES UK
MUSLIM LEADERS WORLDWIDE ASK POPE TO CAPITULATE TO ISLAM
Pope told 'survival of world' at stake if Muslims and Christians do not make peace
The "survival of the world" is at stake if Muslims and Christians do not make peace with each other, leaders of the Muslim world will warn the Pope and other Christian leaders today.
In an unprecedented open letter signed by 138 leading scholars from every sect of Islam, the Muslims plead with Christian leaders "to come together with us on the common essentials of our two religions" and spell out the similarities between passages of the Bible and the Koran.
The scholars state: "As Muslims, we say to Christians that we are not against them and that Islam is not against them - so long as they do not wage war against Muslims on account of their religion, oppress them and drive them out of their homes."
The Muslims call instead for the emphasis to be on the shared characteristics of world's two largest faiths.
The letter, addressed to Pope Benedict XVI, to the Orthodox Church's Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew 1 and all the other Orthodox Patriarchs and to the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams and the leaders of all other Protestant churches worldwide, will be rolled out around the world this morning in a series of press conferences beginning in Jordan. It is supported by the Bishop of London, the Right Rev Richard Chartres.
It is expected to be followed by a joint conference between Muslim and Christian world leaders at on "neutral" ground, such as at a university in America.
"Finding common ground between Muslims and Christians is not simply a matter for polite ecumenical dialogue between selected religious leaders," the Muslim scholars say, noting that Christians and Muslims make up over a third and a fifth of humanity respectively.
"Together they make up more than 55 per cent of the population, making the relationship between these two religious communities the most important factor in contributing to meaningful peace around the world. If Muslims and Christians are not at peace, the world cannot be at peace."
The Muslims even quote passages verbatim from the Bible, extremely rare in a publication of this kind and at this level and an indication of their resolve to bring the two faiths together and end the present tensions between them.
The letter continues: "With the terrible weaponry of the modern world; with Muslims and Christians intertwined everywhere as never before, no side can unilaterally win a conflict between more than half of the world's inhabitants. Thus our common future is at stake. The very survival of the world itself is perhaps at stake."
It says: "And to those who nevertheless relish conflict and destruction for their own sake or reckon that ultimately they stand to gain through them, we say that our very eternal souls are all also at stake if we fail to sincerely make every effort to make peace and come together in harmony."
Concluding with a quote from the Koran, the scholars say: "So let our differences not cause hatred and strife between us. Let us vie with each other only in righteousness and good works."
The letter is being sent out today by the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought in Amman, Jordan.
Among those launching the letter in the UK will be two world leading figures in interfaith dialogue Professor David Ford and Aref Ali Nayed.
Professor David Ford is Regius Professor of Divinity, and Fellow of Selwyn College, University of Cambridge. Professor Ford is also the Founding Director of the Cambridge Inter-Faith Programme and led this year’s international inter-faith conference at Lancaster House in June on ‘Islam and Muslims in the World Today’.
Aref Ali Nayed is a leading theologian and senior adviser to the Cambridge Inter-Faith Programme. He is formerly Professor at the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies in Rome, and the International Institute for Islamic Thought and Civilization in Malaysia.
Signatories include Shaykh Sevki Omarbasic, Grand Mufti of Croatia, Dr Abdul Hamid Othman, adviser to the Prime Minister of Malaysia and Dr Ali Ozak, head of the endowment for Islamic scientific studies in Istanbul, Turkey. They also include Shaykh Dr Nuh Ali Salman Al-Qudah, Grand Mufti of Jordan and Shaykh Dr Ikrima Said Sabri, former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and Imam of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article2636117.ece
...what???...no Christmas trees allowed in Mecca?.....
Posted by: exsgtbrown at October 11, 2007 8:22 AM
Nope. And if things keep going like this there won't be any allowed anywhere in this world. With this act of capitulation anything is possible.
No doubt Osama is quite pleased-instead of destroying the US he has managed to virtually convert it. He has succeeded far better than he could have ever hoped.
Yes, Robert; and it's particularly galling in that, once the WTC towers came down, the Empire State Building then became the tallest building in NYC. Which means, the symbol of the greatness of our values.
Lady Liberty is probably shedding tears over this. I'll look tonight, when I pass her, to see if she's slumping.
Churchill1939
I just saw that. Disgraceful! That has got to be the ultimate in blame-shifting. Some western countries are going to see what it must feel like being Israel.
As for the ESB:
short-term memory. Guiliani would never have allowed it, I'm sure!
And one month after 9/11. Talk about insult to injury.
Come to think of it, yellow would have been a more appropriate color. Or perhaps white.
Et Tu, Empire State Building?
Not going green to express the sympathy of well-off skyward-thrusting scrapers lording it over the less fortunate -- the trees, the rivers and brooks, the meadows -- everywhere, but going green to express sympathy or solidarity or respect or some goddam thing like that for Islam, wonderful Islam, some of whose most sincere adherents just a few years ago laid low a whole group of fellow skyscrapers, and murdered 3,000 Americans, while they were at their desks, on their phones, in the conference room, sipping a quick cup of coffee, or merely shooting the breeze, or flirting or perhaps even giving a co-worker a furtive glance, or a furtive kiss, or showing pictures to a sympathetic supervisor of their daughter's wedding or their son's camping trip with the Boy Scouts.
The Empire State Building, green for Islam?
There are all sorts of problems with this, problems of the too-numerous-to-mention variety.
But let's start with the obvious. None of us will be able to think of the Empire State Building in the same way again. It will lose whatever appeal it once had. We will think of it as, somehow, a collaborator with the enemy, just as we would, had it been thrown open to a meeting of Fritz Kuhn's Bund back in 1939 or 1940.
I suspect that after this Meccatropic turn, the result of naivete, ignorance, and sheer laziness (did those who thought it would be a swell idea to do this think of the symbolic value to Muslims worldwide, as they are told that the American Infidels, even after 9/11/2001, are going to have their other famously tall building in New York pay tribute to Islam itself in the only way it can? And do they understand how this news will be received? Of course they don't. How could they? But from here on out, they might consult with those who can tell them -- Barkis, by the way, is willin'.
And finally, a personal, quasi-romantic note.
Who among us, sitting alone in the darkened theatre of the living room, as the credits roll, once upon a time unable to contain those quiet tears that roll down our cheeks, involuntarily, prompted by that last scene in "An Affair To Remember,"the version with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr which, as you know, takes place on the Observation Deck of the Empire State Building, where they are supposed to meet, but do not, will now so readily let drop those once-ready tears? From now on, there won't be a wet eye in my house. What about in yours?
From "An Affair To Remember"
“Nicky…”
“Oh, I was so worried that you…”
“I didn’t have time to get dressed. I didn’t get to bed until five…”
“I didn’t sleep at all…”
“Oh…Now listen carefully…”
“Yes”
“…if everything goes right,…”
“Yes”
“…and I mean for both of us, in six months…here I started to write it out…”
“Should I read it now?”
“Mmm-hmm”
“Alright… ‘Darling’--- that’s me?”
“Mmm-hmm…”
“ ‘You have a date my beloved, July the first at five o’clock.’ But you don’t say where…”
“Well you name the place and I’ll obey.”
“I don’t know…I can’t think…How about the top of the Empire State Building?”
“Oh, yes, that’s perfect. It’s the nearest thing to heaven we have in New York.”
“The 102nd floor…and don’t forget to take the elevator…”
“No, I won’t…”
AND CHRISTIANS HIT BACK !!
Comment: Muslim plea well-meaning but flawedRuth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent of The Times
The intentions of the 138 leading Islamic scholars who today wrote to Christian leaders urging reconciliation, are praiseworthy - who among us does not want world peace? - but I fear that the theological analysis underpinning their intervention might not light many candles in the Christian world.
Unfortunately, the road to misunderstanding is paved with good intentions.
Among the first to respond to the letter today was the Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, a leading Anglican expert on Islam. Dr Nazir-Ali, who was born in Pakistan, told me he welcomed the fact that so many Muslim leaders want to enter a dialogue with Christians.
"But what I would stress is that dialogue between partners must be conducted in the integrity of each faith," he said. "One partner cannot dictate the terms on which dialogue must be conducted. This document seems to be on the verge of doing that.'
Related Links
Muslims warn Pope 'survival of world' at stake
For Dr Nazir-Ali, the document appears to be calling for dialogue on the basis of Muslim belief in the unity of God. He said: "If that were the case, we would all be Muslim. I would say, we need mutual witness and learning as well as witness to faith. I am quite happy for Muslims to witness to me. But it is not a one-way street."
The bishop criticises parts of the document, which goes in great detail into Koranic passages which emphasise the unity of God. "One thing the document implies is that Christians have compromised their monotheism. It does this by implication, with all the business of saying we must agree that God is only none and not associated with partners, that we must not take others for Lord. It refers to various verses in the Koran which accuse Christians of taking Jesus and others as their Lord besides Allah."
The verse the entire letter is based on, Dr Nazir-Ali says, is Koran 3:64. "Say, 'O followers of the scripture, let us come to a logical agreement between us and you: that we shall not worship except GOD; that we never set up any idols besides Him, nor set up any human beings as lords beside GOD.' If they turn away, say, 'Bear witness that we are submitters'."
He said: 'This verse says that if we are going to talk it must be on the basis that you [the Christians] are no longer associating others with God. What I would say to that is that Christians uphold belief in one God vigorously but our understanding of the oneness of God is not the Muslim understanding.
"We believe in God as source from whom everything is brought into being. Jesus is God's word and presence for us but is also human."
In fact, the document does emphasise the humanity of Jesus, in line with Koranic teaching. Dr Nazir-Ali said: "That is fine, but he is also God's presence for us. We believe in one God but how we believe in one God is not the same as how Muslims believe in one God. There is an implicit assumption here that what Muslims believe is normative and everyone else has to fall into line."
Dr Nazir-Ali is right to welcome the scholars' call for dialogue on the issue of peace, although he points out that there are many other important areas of dialogue that this letter does not mention. My fear is that this letter betrays a fundamental lack of understanding about Christianity.
The Archbishop of Canterbury has responded. He says: 'The letter’s understanding of the unity of God provides an opportunity for Christians and Muslims to explore together their distinctive understandings and the ways in which these mould and shape our lives.'
I imagine Pope Benedict XVI will be more forthright if he ever gets around to replying to this letter, which warns him that the very "survival of the world" is at stake if Muslims and Christians cannot learn to live together. We can only hope that he doesn't quote any more 14th century Byzantine emperors, as he did in his ill-starred Regensburg address last year.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article2638044.ece
Islam is not in our constitutions and should not be recognised as holidays period! Not in school, government offices or in our western countries. Islam must be outlawed!
I won't be able to watch Sleepless in Seattle ever again....
Hey I know, howsabout a swastika armband on the Statue of Liberty on Hitler's birthday? Would there be any difference?
The best protest to expose this stupidity is to picket the building holding signs with statements from the koran and hadiths about beheading infidels, etc. Green signs, of course.
Perhaps next September 11 the ESB can glow green as well. That date is sure to become a holiday in the Islamic States of America.
WTF is going on in the USA?
"2.3 million [Muslims in America]..."
-- from Robert Spencer's comment in the article above
And about one million of those 2.3 million are Black Muslims, whose Islam is regarded by the orthodox Muslims, Arabs and Pakistanis for example, as not quite the real thing. For there is the matter of differences in doctrine, including the claims made for himself by Elijah Mohammad, and also in practice (Black Muslims dop not banish music, and it has even been played at their gatherings). Of course, that doesn't prevent Muslim Arabs from attempting to use and to exploit, for their own purposes in this country, Black Muslims.
And if that leaves a figure of 1.3 million orthodox Muslims of the kind that Al-Azhar or the seminarians of Qom woudl recognize, that is a figure based, one suspects, merely on adding up certain populations deemed to be "Muslim" assuming, for example, that every person from Pakistan or Iraq is Muslim, when there are not only a certain number who arrive who are Christians, but others who in this country may jettison Islam, openly, or very quietly.
In any case, the fantastic demands and non-stop agitation of such organizations as CAIR, financed in large part from foreign funds, distributed here in various ways, so that the funding becomes sufficiently indirect, shows that even with far less than 1% of the population, Muslims are fully prepared to make assaults on the legal and political institutions of this country, to attempt to limit our exercise of First Amendment rights, and to do much else. And if that happens when Muslims constitute far less than 1% of the population, and at a time when we are fighting, however awkwardly and ignorantly, a war of self-defense against those engaged in Jihad, and have endured attacks, and foiled many other would-be attacks, within the United States itself, then what would happen, what kinds of disruptions, political and economic and social, what kinds of permanent source of friction, and what kinds of expensive monitoring will be required, if that Muslim percentage of the population goes up? Figure out the current cost of security, of protecting targets of known interest, government buildings, army bases, churches and synagogues, Jewish schools, Christian schools, political party headquarters, the Congressional office buildings, state and local government office buildings, symbolic sites such as the Statue of Liberty, or Arlington National Cemetery, or the Washington Monument, or the Jefferson, and Lincoln Memorials, museums with "Western" art forbidden in Islam, every airport and airplane, every train station and train, every large bus terminal, every subway system, every sports stadium, especially those used for the most important games, every, every, every....And still we no longer move about in the carefree easygoing fashion we did, say, twenty years ago, or even ten.
What is the cost, in security guards, in police attention, in the diversion of FBI personnel, in the cost of lawyers, including court-appointed lawyers for all those arrested, and the judges, on the full panoply of court personnel? It's adding up. The larger the population to be monitored, the larger the expenses right here at home. Why should we do this? Living in the United States is highly desired and, obviously, highly desired. It is not something to be offered to anyone who manages to land here, by hook or by crook. Obtaining American citizenship is, or should be seen as, a high privilege, not to be handed out merely for someone having lived on this land for a certain length of time, or having married a citizen, or having through the premeditation of parents been born here. It should take more than merely learning a little bit about American history and about the Constitution.
American citizenship should be made available to, and only to, those who do not possess deeply-held views that flatly contradict every principle of the American Constitution, and whose views, whose beliefs, include the notion that they have both a right and a duty to work against those principles of the American Constitution that contradict their own views, and what's more, are regarded as obstacles to the spread, and future dominance, in this country, of those same views, that Total Belief System whose name is Islam.
Bathing the top of the ESB in green light will make it much easier to hit at night with an aircraft. I'm sure a flaming skyscraper on a clear night will rival video of the WTC on a clear September day in 2001.
At best this is worthless or harmful appeasement.
At worst it is the beginning of a successful fifth column act of sabotage against an icon of the kfir.
The green light for Islamic imperialistic.
Thanks for capitulating in only 6 years NYC.
Has anyone considered this is perhaps an 'insurance policy' on New York's remaining great skyscraper?
Crass dhimmitude and disgusting but probably true. Might knock a few hundred thou off the insurance policy.
Take a look at what Muslims have been able to get away with in New York City:
1) Destroy the World Trade Center Twin Towers on 9/11
2) Change the color of New York City's second most prominent building to match the color of their religious holiday, Eid.
How pathetic!
As a city that paid a heavy price to Islamic terrorism, New York City must display NO SOLIDARITY towards Islam during their religious holiday season.
N.Y. city officials are simply unaware that many Muslims openly promote violent jihad againt the U.S. during their holiday season.
Next you'll see Lady Liberty swathed in a big black burqa a la:
http://www.islamophobia-watch.com/islamophobia-watch/2007/5/21/denmarks-little-mermaid-statue-draped-in-muslim-dress-and-veil.html
Big deal.....,I've seen it lit up Pink(with a cool laser show) for the release of Pink Floyds - "Pulse".
Register your extreme displeasure at this capitulative gesture at:
http://www.esbnyc.com/modules/SE_faq_frame.cfm?section=red (then click on the contact us button). It's a bit of a pain to register a comment but they need to hear a LOT of protest.
Needless to saty it's unbelievable they would do this in NYC just 6 years after 9/11.
americanmadestrat, when's the last time Pink Floyd destroyed a skyscraper? They stopped at The Wall.
Could it be because the management of the ESB wants to buy a bit of protection?
I noted that Fox News is reporting, as a part of this story, the seven million Muslim lie.
Is it because those responsible for fact checking reports don't know where to look?
Or is it because whomever was tasked with such fact checking knew what the number really is?
Come to think of it, yellow would have been a more appropriate color. Or perhaps white.
I reckon red would be more appropriate, given all the sheep and goats who are going to bleed to death during Eid.
Greetings:
What's left of the Irish in New York City are going to be confused;
they will probably think that it's St. Patrick's Day.
"St. Patrick's Day"....that's hilarious!!
Ahhh....
Naseem was always talking about a "mist" in some of her former posts; a mist that seemed to "overtake" a person during prayer, or perhaps during sex, I don't know.
Anyway, maybe they could add some of this mist to the 'green light show' and make it REALLY spooky. Sort of like a prelude to Halloween. Boo!
I wonder how long before God "In God we Trust"
is replaced with the devil.,"In allah we trust"
How many of you know that the "National Park" being constructed in rural Pensylvania to honor the Flight 93 heroes is actually an Islamic Crescent, pointing straight at Mecca?
Yup, essentially it's a Mosque. Todd Beemer said, "Let's roll." Our dipshit government said, "Let's roll over."
I know the thought process you are going through...I would never have believed it, but I have been down this road too many times before and apparently I really AM living in a nightmare from which I cannot awaken.
http://new.petitiononline.com/NOCRSCNT/petition.html
What's the problem?
I mean, really. What's the problem?
Many, no, sorry, MOST New Yorkers supported the slaughter of Serbs in the 1990's. Now it's just a case of the old logical prgression. Surely.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander, surely.
You were all so happy to throw a few miserable worthless sodding Serb lives away, yet now it's all gone pear shape, and you're all blubbing.
Perhaps the poor Serbs who were caught under the NATO bombardment, you know, people like these heroes.......
http://www.geocities.com/hebdo99/img/milica.jpg
....would have a few choice words for you all.
Look into sweet Milica Rakic's eyes, you murderering fcks.
Oh so to not be discriminating we will have a Muslim holiday, a Buddha day, a Hindi day etc will we.. of course not it is only the Muslims we placate..