In the post-9/11 theatrics of George W. Bush, one of the more memorable is his explanation for why the dastardly terrorists chose to attack the glorious symbols of US power: “They hate us for our freedoms,” or in another version, “They hate us for our civilization.”
As the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks draws near, prepare to be bombarded with propaganda in the form of repeated television footage of the hijacked United Airlines Flight 175 crashing into the South Tower of the World Trade Centre with the North Tower already in flames.
It would be reasonable to assume that most normal people would overcome their anger after a decade. Not so the Americans, and now the Europeans as well. Since the attacks of 9/11, the world has been turned upside down.
Germany has a notorious reputation for its racist and discriminatory attitude toward minorities. It has refused to accommodate a large minority community that has lived in Germany for generations.
The renaming of the Center is a particularly eye-catching facet of this enterprise. The Cordoba House, named for Al-Andalus’s achievements in erudition and cultural pluralism, is now the rather legalistic Park 51 Center, shearing off the historical allusions to past Islamic civilizations.
