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Staring At The Void

Posted April 13th, 2016 by Lesley Hazleton

I’ve been to New York City many times since September 11, 2001.  And each time, avoided going anywhere near Ground Zero, now formally known as the National September 11 Memorial.  I didn’t want to make a pilgrimage to disaster.  Didn’t want to take part in what felt like an act of national piety.  And yet I felt oddly guilty about not going.

Last Friday, I was in New York again.  It was horrible weather:  the whole city in complaint about the bitter cold, the biting wind, the snow flurries.  “And in April!” people kept saying, as though the season only added to the insult.

I had an early afternoon appointment way downtown.  And when I checked the map, realized it was just two blocks from Ground Zero.  It had taken me fifteen years, but the time had clearly come.

I’d seen photographs of the memorial, of course — and much admired the concept of it.  Not the conventional obelisk or spire lifting the eyes skyward, nor even the black marble wall built into the landscape of Maya Lin’s Vietnam War memorial in DC.  No.  This one, by comparison, was unutterably spare.  It didn’t lift off the ground or nest into it.  Instead, it went deep down into it.  Where the two towers had been, two giant squares had been dug, and filled partway with water.  Each almost an acre in size, they covered the footprints of the twin towers.  And at the center of each pool was a far deeper one, a sharp descent into what seemed to be a bottomless black square — a void within a void.

So why did I need to see this “in the flesh,” as it were?  I kept asking myself that question as I followed the thin stream of tourists who’d braved the weather, wool caps pulled low, scarves multiply wound, collars and shoulders hunched against the wind.  Were their eyes streaming in the wind like mine?  They had to be.  There is something about the iciness of a wintry Manhattan wind as it funnels through the high-rise canyons that seems to suck tears out of your eyes.

As we entered the plaza — past three guys handing out pamphlets for the memorial museum, each of them incongruously sporting green plastic Statue of Liberty headgear — I was wondering if there wasn’t something kind of ghoulish about this.  All these people going to see where all these other people had died?  The site of nearly three thousand horrific deaths becoming an item to be ticked off the tourist checklist?  What was I doing here?

Yet I resisted the urge to turn back.  As everyone else headed straight for the shelter of the museum building, I went the other way to the North Pool, the one where the North Tower had been.  I leaned over the waist-high parapet, its bronze surface etched with names of those who’d died, and the moment I did so, all my questions faded into very small, graceless quibbles.

What I saw was grey on grey on grey.  Concrete on concrete.  A square within a square, so sparse as to be brutalistic.  And this brutalism moved me — deeply and unexpectedly — because surely, it was what was needed.

I made my way to the south edge so as to get my back to the wind, but still it seemed to knife right through me — through the leather motorcycle jacket, through the fleece ski leggings, through the wool beret.  My eyes streamed more than ever — was it only the wind? — and as the tears threatened to freeze on my cheeks, I realized how utterly different this was from the photos I’d seen.

They’d showed placid water calmly spilling over from the upper square into the lower one — less my idea of a waterfall than of a large-scale ornamental water feature.  But the water this afternoon was anything but placid.  It was angry, roiled up by the wind dipping into it and howling over it, raising whitecaps and sending giant silvery curtains of wind-drift over the surface.  The water didn’t merely fall into the deep center square:  it fell over itself, boiling in icy tumult, tumbling and cascading into the void.

I stood.  Still.  Shivering.  For I don’t know how long.  In sadness, in awe, in admiration at how the designer, Michael Arad, had created what felt like sacred space out of  public place.  Not the kind of sacred space that elevates you, but the kind that fills you with dread, and with the biting awareness of how fragile life can be.

“You should have taken a photograph,” a friend said that evening.  But I had no need to.  That time I spent leaning over the parapet is unforgettable, and what I saw is etched in my mind as indelibly as the terrible images from fifteen years ago.  “There’ll be lots of photos online,” I said.  And indeed there are.  But all seem to be with the water calm.  It seems nobody pauses to takes photographs when an icy wind is blowing.  And many of the photographers had clearly waited for dusk, when the walls are lit up for dramatic effect, though all the lighting did, to my eye, was prettify what should never be prettified.  After a half-hour of online scrolling, I found not one photo that came anywhere near expressing the forlorn quality of the place last Friday afternoon — the terrible, abandoned greyness of it.

And maybe that’s as it should be.  How, after all, do you photograph absence?  How do you photograph a void?

 

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File under: art, existence, ugliness | Tagged: Tags: 9/11, Ground Zero, Maya Lin, Michael Arad, National September 11 Memorial, photography, sacred space, twin towers, waterfall pools | Be the First to leave a comment

Mosque Hysterics

Posted August 18th, 2010 by Lesley Hazleton


Cartoon by Mike Luckovich

(Thanks to Truthdig.com)

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File under: Islam, US politics | Tagged: Tags: Ground Zero, Islamophobia, mosque, Park 51 | 1 Comment
  1. lavrans says:
    August 19, 2010 at 9:06 pm

    I wonder why no one’s complaining that they still have prayers in Oklahoma City?

    Hallowed ground and all that.
    Right?

Framing the Mosque

Posted August 17th, 2010 by Lesley Hazleton

I hate to say this, but whoever came up with the phrase “mosque at Ground Zero” was a political genius.  The phrase is not just an exaggeration;  it’s a lie. But in today’s America, it’s a very effective lie — a horribly brilliant piece of demagogery.

I could show you what’s actually planned, but that’s not the point (okay, the plan’s at the end of this post).  I could point out that the Park 51 Islamic center’s peace- and love-preaching imam is Sufi, part of the mystical branch of Islam (see the medieval Persian poems of Rumi, the best-selling poet in the US), as hated by hardline Saudi- and Taliban-type Islamic bigots as by fundamentalist American Christian and Jewish ones.   I could explain, as William Dalrymple does so eloquently on the Op-Ed page of today’s NYT, that

a 2007 study by the RAND Corporation found that Sufis’ open, intellectual interpretation of Islam makes them ideal “partners in the effort to combat Islamist extremism.”Sufism is an entirely indigenous, deeply rooted resistance movement against violent Islamic radicalism. Whether it can be harnessed to a political end is not clear. But the least we can do is to encourage the Sufis in our own societies. Men like Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf should be embraced as vital allies, and we should have only contempt for those who, through ignorance or political calculation, attempt to conflate them with the extremists.

I could explain and point out and be as rational as you like, but bigotry demands blind ignorance.   It demands the simplistic view, in which Islam is a destructive monolith.  And just as the patriotism of scoundrels wraps itself in the flag, so the bigotry of Islamophobia wraps itself in the deaths of others — those Americans who died on 9/11 (except, of course, for the American Muslims among them).

The idea of Ground Zero as “hallowed ground” is another ghastly piece of framing, veiling bigotry in the holy.   “Too close to hallowed ground,” say the bigots.  “Move it further away.”   But not to the suddenly hallowed ground of Staten Island, where they’ve organized in opposition to a proposed new mosque. Or that of Murfreeesboro TN, ditto.  Or  Wilson, WI, ditto.  Or Temecula CA, ditto. Three thousand miles from Ground Zero is clearly just too close for delicate bigoted sensibilities.

We need to re-frame this issue, and quick.  NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg started the path toward re-framing (read his full speech here, an object lesson in integrity).  President Obama then set an all-too  tentative foot on the same path, only to immediately back-track — an object lesson, it saddens me to say, in the lack of integrity:

“I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there. I was commenting very specifically on the right people have that dates back to our founding.

“No comment”?  Thanks, Mr President.

It’s time to stop pussy-footing around. Time to talk not just about the right to build the Park 51 Islamic center, but the need for it to be built.  Yes, right there, close to Ground Zero, as a magnificent stand of Islam — of all of us — against the crude distortions of murderous extremists, of those who love only their own bigotry, and of cynical political operators now determined to make the “mosque at Ground Zero” a central issue in the mid-term elections.

This is not solely a matter of constitutional rights, Obama, and you know it.   You need to speak out — clearly, forcefully, and eloquently — not just for the right to build Park 51, but for the necessity of it as a major step toward healing this ghastly rift in both the national and the international body politic.

Don’t you remember?  Yes, you can.

…
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File under: Christianity, fundamentalism, Islam, Judaism, US politics | Tagged: Tags: bigotry, framing, Ground Zero, Islamic centers, Islamophobia, Michael Bloomberg, mid-term elections, mosques, Obama, Park 51, protests, Rumi, Sufi | 5 Comments
  1. Pietra says:
    August 17, 2010 at 3:04 pm

    I’ve been finding out the truth piece by piece on 1090am, Seattle.

  2. Gustav Hellthaler says:
    August 17, 2010 at 8:25 pm

    Leslie,
    I have tried to sign up to your blog. Could you include me in?
    Gus

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      August 18, 2010 at 12:46 pm

      Gus, you are hereby declared in! To get email notification of new posts, just click the “Sign Me Up” button under Email Subscription half-way down the left-hand side of the page. (I don’t know why they call it a subscription, since there’s no fee — it just sounds off-puttingly formal. Sigh…).

  3. Tea-mahm says:
    August 18, 2010 at 11:21 am

    The King of Morocco would agree with you. He uses Sufism as a “hedge against fundamentalism.” On behalf of many Sufis and other reasonable people, thank you for this, Lesley.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      August 18, 2010 at 12:48 pm

      Thanks T — and in case you missed it, check out William Dalrymple’s excellent Op-Ed piece yesterday in the NYT (I linked to it in the post).

Muslims on the Bus

Posted July 16th, 2010 by Lesley Hazleton

Imagine this ad on a NYC bus:

Is a priest groping you?

Quitting Christ?

or this one:

Were you circumcised against your will?

Want out of Judaism?

No way, right?   So then why is this one on buses in Miami and San Francisco as well as New York?

Pamela Geller, the reactionary millionaire financing this ad campaign, seems to think she’s the evangelical equivalent of Joan of Arc, protecting Christian America with her “Stop the Islamization of America” campaign ( its website a horror of phobia and paranoia). Coexist with Islam?  No way.  Geller has donned her financial armor to spearhead opposition to a proposed new mosque near Manhattan’s Ground Zero — a mosque conceived entirely in the spirit of reconciliation by  The Cordoba Initiative, named in honor of the ‘Golden Age’ of intellect and faith in medieval Spain that came to a  screeching end with the Inquisition.

Do I really have to point out that the use of the phrase “fatwa on your head” is nothing but demagogery?  What fatwa?   The phrase appeals to Islamophobic stereotypes, nothing more.   And do I really need to say that Geller doesn’t give a damn about coerced Muslim women?  Like French lawmakers banning the burqa, she’s using fake feminism as a vehicle for Islamophobia.

I’m an agnostic Jew, averse to any form of orthodox monotheism, whether Muslim, Christian or Jewish, but these bus ads disgust me.    Even more disgusting is the fact that public transportation authorities in three of America’s largest cities saw no reason to reject them.

Just how blind can we be when prejudice is staring us in the face?

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File under: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, US politics | Tagged: Tags: ads, buses, Cordoba Initiative, fake feminism, fatwa, Ground Zero, Inquisition, Islamophobia, Leaving Islam, Miami, mosque, New York City, Pamela Geller, San Francisco | 10 Comments
  1. Nancy McClelland says:
    July 16, 2010 at 3:12 pm

    I am astonished, repulsed, perplexed and saddened by this outrageous ad, which I’m guessing will serve more to encourage ignorance and bigotry than to assist anyone in finding “the right path”, whatever that may be. I need time to digest and articulate — I keep writing down my initial reactions and backspacing; they are simply not appropriate comments.

  2. Pietra says:
    July 18, 2010 at 7:53 pm

    When I was a young girl being sent to Cathechism, one thought took root from what I was told: by the time I was in my 50s, religions would all have faded away. They’ve only become stronger and stranger and more dangerous. The few steps we’ve taken away from the cave were baby steps; we have so far to go it makes me tired to think of it.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      July 19, 2010 at 8:53 am

      Yes, that’s something I want to explore at some point. I mean, the main raison d’etre for religion was once as an explanation for the physical world: sun, rain, drought, floods, earthquakes, etc. Now we have facts instead, so it would seem, rationally, that religon had served its purpose. Unless, of course, we, in our hyper-rationalism, completely understand the many purposes it does in fact serve…

      • Lavrans says:
        July 27, 2010 at 10:24 pm

        I don’t know Lesley- I think Judaism and Christianity and Islam came about as a response to living in cities and close communities of strangers. There were other city-religions before, but those are the three Western religions that remain, and what they do is provide the rules of living in this type of place, where the rulers and important decisions are made entirely by people who have nothing to do with the land or the physical world, really.

        Christianity, especially, does little to explain the natural world in the way that, say, the Greek religions did, for example. Few of the natural religions persist, and none are international (well, except by emigration).

        So it does make more sense to me why religions persist so well even in the face of reason and technology. And why they can push something of that sort on a bus- for the believers, it’s their religion that shows how to operate in society. Those people don’t know how to operate in the natural world; they haven’t ever had to (think Geller has ever hunted or fished or farmed subsistence?).

        • Lesley Hazleton says:
          July 28, 2010 at 9:34 am

          Good point — all three monotheistic religions did indeed develop in urban settings, and I agree were, in part, responses to the divorce from the natural world. Pantheism has always made sense to me — my inner pagan, maybe.

  3. Chad Tabb says:
    March 11, 2011 at 12:13 pm

    Lesley, Thank you for your great insights. As an agnostic Muslim (if there is such a thing!), I appreciate the knowledgable, intelligent understanding you have and agree with most of your thoughts. I have just been introduced to your website 2 days ago, and plan on reading your books. I have a question. As a psychologist, what do you think of the idea that the human psyche needs religion or some form or spirituality? Is it true? or is it a “sensation” that can be substituted for by eating chocolate, hearing good music?

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      March 11, 2011 at 2:58 pm

      Hi Chad — can eating chocolate or listening to great music be a religious experience? I think so. That is, in the sense of transcendence, of taking you beyond your usual well-defined self, bringing you into a state of “cosmic consciousness” or “oceanic feeling” or any of the other terms that try to express the inexpressible and therefore miserably fail, then yes. Okay, so maybe not chocolate. But music definitely. We’re talking about far more than sensation here. We’re talking major changes in felt experience and awareness as well as in muscle tone and brain waves. In fact I doubt if any religion could survive for long without music — and yes that includes Islam, with its musical recitation of the Quran. Which then leads me to start wondering if religion is really a desire for music. I’ve argued before that the essence of religious experience is poetry, and poetry is a form of music, and so… Maybe music is what the psyche really longs for, and religion acts as a vehicle for music? Or to put it another way, music and poetry are what carry religion as anything more than dogma. Take them away, and all you have left is the deadly dross of fundamentalist puritanism. Just puttering around with thoughts here, and may or may not think further on it (maybe even more coherently…)

      • Chad Tabba says:
        March 12, 2011 at 3:11 pm

        Wow! Definitely something to think further about! I have reached that oceanic feeling listening to music (not pop music obviously), much more often than religiously. I think that idea is well realized by some muslim religious extremists, who have claimed that Islam forbids music. Maybe they wanted to “own” access to that “oceanic feeling”. Music seems very important in Islam, not just in the musical recital of Koran, but also in the daily calls to prayer. Also witness the dervishes who also add a dizzying dance to the music to reach that state. Also, Islam notes 99 names or descriptions of god, which are sometimes sung. I’m sending you the link of a youtube video of these names and their translation. Note the musicality. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAyAw_j1EpY&feature=related

  4. Chad Tabba says:
    March 12, 2011 at 4:37 pm

    I like your thought that the psyche longs for music, and religion may be its vessel, but I think its really that the psyche longs for that oceanic feeling. So religion “uses” music to get the person to that stage. I wonder if anyone has really studied that effect of music, and why oriental music has a stronger effect than Western music. What’s in Oriental music that makes it special that way, and why has Western music drifted away from that towards pop music. Have people stopped yearning for that feeling?

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      March 12, 2011 at 5:10 pm

      Hmm — this all feeds into something I’ve been thinking lately about prayer, breathing, and rhythm. Will post about it once I find out what it is I’ve been thinking. Thanks — L.

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