Mosque at Ground Zero, and the part the Media played

    The beginning was with a news title “Mosque at Ground Zero” in various media sources, printed and visual, which misled the American public to thinking that a mosque “an Islamic temple” will be built at the world trade center site that was attacked in 9/11/2001 by group of radical Muslims. What is being said on the media for the past few months brought more tension to the case, something that has been the basis of news these days, creating propaganda to make the news seem more interesting and bring controversy and even anger sometimes. In this article I will be discussing the hidden truth behind it, supporting it with solid facts.
   
    The first argument about this issue is that what the media stated as a mega mosque building, is in-fact a sixteen story community center that carry’s out public facilities such as, indoor pool, a restaurant, child care facility, media tech library and a world class auditorium that seats over five hundred people, according to what Sharif El-Gamal “the investor behind the project” said in an interview with Scott Pelley on 60 minutes. He states that the idea of this community center was inspired by the Jewish community center in Manhattan, that he was a member of.

    The news titles from all different media channels stating that the “Mega Mosque” was going to be located at ground zero, which is the location of the tragic terrorist attack on the World Trade Center September 11, 2001.   News article such as one printed in the Merrimack Journal called “No Mosque at Ground Zero” states that this building will cover the cemetery of 9/11 and cause further insult to this country. Headlining on the cover of a Newsweek Magazine stated “A Mosque at Ground Zero?”, also according to a 60 minutes news broadcast a congregation of people gathered at the site of the World Trade Center protesting against the so called “MEGA Mosque.”  But in all actuality the truth is that the community center is not planned to be built at ground zero.  It will in fact be constructed  two blocks away, where ground zero is not visible from this location.   In the same 60 minute broadcast the anchorman Scott Pelley showed all of the viewers where exactly the location of the community center is in comparison to where the World Trade Center site is.  Scott Pelley and the owner Sharif El-Gamal literally walked the two blocks from the center to ground zero to show how far away they truly are. 

    According to Scott Pelley, in may 2010 a committee from the lower Manhattan community board approved the building of the project unanimously, a project such as this one will benefit the public in that part of the city.  This unanimous vote for yes led protestor Pamela Geller to rally against this project even more, causing another vote from the committee, which resulted in another vote for yes toward the construction of the center.  The people in this community have all agreed that this center will indeed benefit the area and would like it to be built, as it will provide employment and bring business to the community.

    The controversy started with a select few of the American public disagreeing to build anything related to Islam in that area of Manhattan, as it is considered to be a sacred place to honor those who lost their lives in 9/11, and should not be a spot where an Islamic temple is placed.  As sensitive as this issue could be, and as I personally feel for what those families had to go through. I say at first that its their constitutional right to have a place to go and practice their religious beliefs as well staying in tune with their community.  This is what America was originally built on, Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Speech and the freedom to be whom ever you want to be.  I feel that the select few that do not wish to have this community center built this close to ground zero needs to be aware that the acts of 9/11 were acted out by radicals and extremists who do not represent any ethnicity, culture or religion but themselves and their own beliefs.

    People who are skeptical of the project and believe that this community center is funded by terrorists, organizations and radical groups that would form intelligence cells that would plan for other attacks on the United States soil.  The developer Sharif El-Gamal who is an American citizen that was born and raised in New York, married to a Christian wife, his mother is a Polish Catholic, and his father is a Muslim from Egypt.  He is a real estate developer bought this building one year ago for the main reason of creating a community center in lower Manhattan.   

    The Media can be very informative and crucial to our way of life, but sometimes it manipulates the truth to seem more interesting and appealing to the public.  We see this in not just this case of the Mosque at ground zero but in plenty of other issues in today’s news.  This issue dealing with the “Mosque at Ground Zero” is a definite example of how the media can be interpreted in many different ways and lead people to misunderstand and cause tension between the people who this issue might effect the most. 

Resident Assistant Presentation

On Wednesday November 10th i had an interview to become a Resident Assistant on State University of New York Campus, so i thought of sharing the presentation and putting it on my blog. It was just 5 minutes presentation for the interviewers to know me better.

Note: the presentation did not include every thing i said.

Life Experience

It was a dark night and the moon light had disappeared long ago as I was walking. The streets were so empty that you could hear the frightful sound of a car’s engine coming from two kilometers away. I went back in time when I was in the office trying hard to come up with a creative idea for an interactive CD presentation, it was around midnight when my boss asked me to go home and finish the remaining work the next morning. After cleaning up my work, while I was picking up my laptop, my boss offered me a ride home. I preferred to walk, I needed to think about what I could add to my work.

It was a twenty minute walk back home.  I put my headphones on, pressed PLAY on my new touch screen SonyEricsson cell phone, and started my journey. Before making a turn to get to the main street I met a friend, an old friend from elementary school. He actually lived on the same street where the company I work for, is located. His name is Sofyan and I could tell that he was coming from a soccer game, because of his sport outfit. I took off my headphones to say hi, and talk to him for a little bit. We chatted about few things, remembering the old days in school, and how naughty we were as students. Then I excused myself because it was getting late, and I had to get going. Before I put my headphones on again I asked him a question “Did you win or lose?”,  “We lost badly” He replied.

     I felt hungry as I kept walking and I couldn’t wait until I got home, and so I decided to buy a snack, there was a mini-supermarket few blocks away from where I work that stays open until three in the morning. The music is back on and I’m heading to get my snack. While I was approaching the mini-supermarket I took my phone out to turn the music off and I noticed that a guy who was standing in front of the store looked at it, and gave me a mysterious look after. I did not pay attention to him and just walked in. I found my way to where all the soft drinks are, and I had to make a choice between Coke or Vanta but I chose Coke, before I reached the cashier I grabbed a small bag of potato chips. After I paid and when I was about to leave my phone rang,

called ID: Mom.

With a really loud voice she asked “what are you doing out until now?”

“I’m walking back home” I answered.

“Walking!!!!! Oh! my god, why didn’t you take a taxi or call your brother to come and pick you up” she said.

“ mom I wanted to walk, am not that far from home anyway” I said.

“god forbidden if something happens to you at this late time” she said.

“mom don’t worry I will be fine, I will be there in few minutes don’t worry”

  She said “ok son” and wished me luck.

      Now I have just five minutes left to get home. I was still listening to music when I made a wrong turn, I got into a dark street, and there were no street lights. The electricity was cut in that whole neighborhood, and it was indefinitely quite that it’s easy to notice my heart beats rising.

In the time I was walking in the terrifying dark street listening to my loud music and drinking my last sip of Coke, I saw a bright light coming from distance and it kept on becoming big and massive as I was walking towards it until I reached it, it was a 1998 Nissan Sunny. I passed by it and kept going.

      And all of a sudden two huge guys snatched me, pulled my black jeans jacket, and pushed me to the wall, grabbed me again and put me down. My brain froze; I couldn’t feel my body so there was no reaction from me. And it got worse when the first guy grabbed a knife out of his pocket, and ordered me to be silent. “Don’t even breathe“ he said. The knife was touching my neck, I could feel the sharp edge of it and I could smell the blood going out of me. I recognized who that guy is. It was the one who was looking at me when I was about to get into the supermarket. He hollered at me with his thick voice, saying “GIVE ME YOUR PHONE,” but I couldn’t answer him back. He asked his friend to get it from my pocket, which his friend did.

After taking the phone out of my pocket he ran to the car to bring it to where I was laying so he could pick up his friend quickly and run. And that is what happened. It was terrifying, long one minute, it felt like the last minute of my life.

I stood up after they got into the car, trying to get the license plate number, but to no avail. It was a dark night and the moon light had disappeared long ago.

My First Trip Accross the Atlantic ( Tripoli to New York )

On August the 26 - 2009 exactly at 3:00am I picked up my passport, ticket and my back bag and headed to the front door where my brother ANNAS was waiting for me. On my way out I checked on my two little brothers Mohamed and Ali who were deeply sleeping and probably dreaming of their favorite cartoon character “Spiderman”. I leaned to kiss them, a kiss that would last one year of time. Then walked out of their room passing by all the other rooms in the house trying to take snap shots of the house I lived my whole life in, a house I shared happy memories with my family, a house that I will leave for quite long period of time. I looked at the dining table where we used to have our warm breakfast: cappuccino and a soft Croissant with hot chocolate filling that mom used to make.”Ahhh” just mentioning it makes my dribble run down my chain. I turned my head and saw the twenty four inch television that managed to gather the family in many occasions especially in RAMADAN nights. “Tick tock tick tock” I could hear my steps in the staircase while going down, there was my family waiting. I hugged dad sayin goodbye then my little sister saying goodbye, but when I turned to hug mom an overwhelming feeling of sadness controlled me and tears came out, then we hugged for about two minutes.

“Wake me up before you go go, don’t leave me hanging on like a yo-yo, Wake me up before you go go , Cause I'm not planning' on going solo”

Those were the lyrics of the song “Anas” was listening to once we took off to the airport, I looked out of the window and kept looking and looking still trying to take snap shots, I looked at every house in the neighborhood at every playground and at the dark pole that doesn’t work because I kicked it once with a soccer ball.

“BANG” that was me closing the car’s door hardly, it took us twenty minutes to get to the airport, ANNAS grabbed one suitcase and I grabbed the other and went inside. I looked up to the monitors to find that the check in for the trip to Rome is not open yet, then looked down to see almost thirty people coming towards me, FRIENDS!! friends from college friends from high school and old friends from my home town, all came to say goodbye. And how good it feels to know that so many people care about you. I looked up again to see that the check in to my flight is open; I hugged everyone because this is the custom there, and then headed to the line and from now on, am on my own.

     I stood in line, in front of me a forty year old Italian man and behind me a French guy, I could tell from his English accent when he asked me if it’s the right flight to Rome or not. Finally it’s my turn to check in. “Where are you going?” the guy asks, “Atlanta through Rome” I answered. he took my suitcases, my passport, and the ticket and did his job then gave me back the boarding pass, passport and the ticket again so I can go through few customs procedures. After I headed to the waiting lounge, chose a spot, and fell asleep. “They’re calling for the flight, they’re calling for the flight” a familiar voice woke me up, it was the voice of the French guy trying to wake me up. I grabbed my back bag and got into the plane, looked for my seat and once again I fell asleep but this time the flight attendant is the who woke me up, I looked out of the tiny window of the plane to see Rome but…. I didn’t, the airport was far from the city center.

Once I stepped into Fiumicino airport in Rome, A strange thought popped into my head: I lost my suitcases. I looked at the screens to see what terminal I should take to go to Atlanta it was G27, after a dozen of security procedures I made it to Gate27, I lined to check in for the flight to Atlanta and when it was my turn I asked the lady “should I pick my suitcases or they should go directly to this flight”, “they should directly but give me the tag number of the suitcases and let’s double check” the lady answered, “here you go” couple of clicks on the keyboard and the not excepting came out. Let’s go back in time Remember! the guy in Tripoli’s airport when he asked where are you going, instead of sending my suitcases to Atlanta he sent them to Rome, this was the worst part of the trip, I asked the lady what’s going to happen with my suitcases now, she answered: don’t worry I will make sure someone picks them up and put them in your flight. ahhhhh “relief”.

Six hours, six hours of flying from Rome to Atlanta, uncomfortable seats, bad food: a dry sauce sticking over an uncooked peace of chicken, and a hard bread that would break your teeth, it was cold ugly and has an offal smell, and even thou I was hungry I did not eat it. but there was  a good company, a ten inch screen that will allow you to watch TV, Movies or listen to Music, which kept me from sleeping, I watched old episodes of Seinfeld, Pursuit of happiness and listened to country music.

From a plane to another with different security procedures and after almost fifteen hours I made it to Albany, I went out and there was John a faculty staff, waiting for me to bring me to campus, we chatted for a bit before going down where am expecting my suitcases to show up, we waited and waited and waited…for nothing. Therefore I had to file a claim from DELTA’s office in Albany’s airport of a lost baggage; we got that done and drove to campus.

We reached the campus at 01:20am exactly; I stepped out of the car and felt the cold breeze of Cobleskill. I couldn’t wait until I get to my room, I was tired sad and hungry. But I slept right away once I got to my room.

“Riiiiinnnngggg” the loud melody of the room’s phone woke me up at 10:30am the twenty seventh of August. “Who is that?” I said, “Delta airlines representative” she replied.