The phrase “turning in their graves” just keeps flashing in my mind, for some reason. “Flight 93 memorial design remains contentious,” by Joe Mandak, for the York Daily Record, August 2:
SOMERSET, Pa.””The father of a Flight 93 victim told two groups working together on a memorial to the victims aboard the hijacked airliner that the memorial’s crescent-shaped design “does not properly honor our people.”
Tom Burnett Sr. of Northfield, Minn., objects because a crescent is commonly used as a symbol of Islam and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were carried out by Muslims who hijacked four airliners. Two crashed into the World Trade Center in New York; a third into the Pentagon near Washington, D.C.; Flight 93 crashed in rural Somerset County before reaching the hijackers’ intended target.
It’s worse than a symbol of Islam; traditionally, it has been a symbol of the power of Islam.
“I’ve continued to voice my concerns because it does not properly honor our people, those Flight 93 heroes,” Burnett said Saturday at a meeting of the commission advising the National Park Service on the design.
[…]Burnett said he wants an investigation into how architect Paul Murdoch came up with the design, the centerpiece of which is a crescent of trees that overlooks the crash site. Parks Service officials say the design isn’t a crescent but a circle of embrace broken by the crash site.
Burnett was one of more than a dozen people, mostly family members of the victims, who sometimes wept as they spoke for and against the design.
Well, can’t we get some of those people who are always quick to defend “traumatized” Muslims to represent Burnett and others? Oh wait; Burnett is not Muslim. Sorry, your feelings are not to be considered.
Park Service officials and the vast majority of family members who like the design say it was fairly and impartially selected out of 1,100 submitted in a national contest. Burnett, who served on a jury that judged the designs, said concerns he raised about the apparent Muslim symbolism were ignored and continue to be downplayed.
[…]
Since Burnett’s point is — or should be — well taken, perhaps, just perhaps now, one of the other 1,099 designs can substitute?
The planned memorial also includes a metal tower from which 40 wind chimes will hang. Burnett and Rawls said the tower is similar to a minaret on a mosque, and that the top of it is crescent shaped, too. Both crescents at the crash site point to the Muslim holy city of Mecca, they said.
Gee, why not just go all out and add the words “Allah Akbar” on top of the memorial?
“This is a terrorist memorial mosque,” Rawls said of the planned memorial.