Sunday, June 3, 2012

The Murfreesboro Mosque: Built on a Foundation of Lies

The Murfreesboro Mosque: Built on a Foundation of Lies
by Eric Allen Bell

A huge grassy field in Murfreesboro, Tennessee – summer, 2010. My video camera was set on its tripod, ready to film the first shot in what would become over 300 hours of footage, for a documentary I was about to produce. This documentary was to be about how a small town, in the heart of the American Bible Belt, was reacting to the proposed construction of a 53,000 square foot mega mosque. I was standing on a plot of land that was to become the site of rushed construction of this massive structure, the subject of international media attention, lawsuits, an arson, vandalism, interfaith rallies, and press conferences. This plot of land was about to be highly politically charged and would even become the mysterious burial site of a human body.
And so I pointed my camera and I filmed my first shot: a huge red, white and blue banner, directed at the passing cars of local residents on a rural country two-lane highway. It was hard to know at that time if the banner was patriotic, a bit of public relations or a mix of both. It read: “Happy 4th of July from the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro”.
FOUNDATION:
I later learned about another sign that had stood recently in that same spot, one that was defaced, a sign that would become the poster for my documentary and provide its title as well. That sign had read: “Future home of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro” and across were spray painted the words “Not Welcome”.
The premise of “Not Welcome” was that, contained within this image of the defaced sign, was a story. And I felt that within the story of this defaced sign was the story of human civilization and our inability to peacefully coexist. I may have been a bit naïve, but I meant well. Coexistence seemed like a good idea. And Mufreesboro seemed like a microcosm of the world, and an excellent jumping off point to look more deeply and how and why we are divided as a people on this planet. Little did I know that I was going down a rabbit hole, for which there was no turning back.
A couple weeks later there was a rally and a march against the mosque, down Main Street in Murfreesboro. The anti-mosque marchers were met with counter-demonstrators, organized by college kids, who held up a big banner which read: “Coexist” – using the symbols of all of the world’s major religions. And it didn’t take me long to lose my objectivity and to take sides. I had a film crew embedded with the townspeople who were marching against the mosque. And I had a film crew embedded with the college activists, who were there to say that the Muslims were being picked on and that this was an issue of religious freedom. And given my Liberal leanings, I tended to see the Muslim community as the underdog and those who were fighting the mosque to be the bullies.
And so I did a lot of bad things, thinking they were good things. I helped a colleague at “The Daily Show” in their attempt to humiliate prominent members of the Mufreesboro Counter Jihad movement. I accepted the support of Michael Moore, to expose what I (wrongly) thought was a foaming at the mouth, bigoted Evangelical bullying of a minority group. I said and did things, in print, on the news, everywhere, which have consequences. And much of my work today is focused on correcting my mistakes and educating the world about what I now know to be the defining issue of our time: The grave threat of Political Islam. (Click here to continue reading.)

4 comments:

Dk said...

Yeah this is a fascinating story. I especially enjoyed the read at his blog. He makes a great rebuttal to loonwatch

Deleting said...

whoa....that was....whoa.
Glad he realized what was up.

D335 said...

even tho it looks that I use 2Cor 6 out of context... but then again :

"For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? 15 What harmony is there between Christ and Belial[b]?"

Budhists, Hindus, Christians, Catholics, can co-exist in the past for a long periode of time although conflicts happened some of the time.

But when Christianity and Islam in the same area, that's another question. Since when Islamic religion in which the scripture is totally opposing the bible can co-exist together?

Quran wants to fight kill eliminate anything that is not muslim until the whole planet scream in vain.. "no god but allah".

that is madness.

Tatersalad said...

A Vietnam Veteran is being sued by Muslims for "discrimination" when all he was doing was.......his job!

http://www.debbieschlussel.com/44577/more-sharia-in-dearbornistan-vietnam-vet-lawsuit-against-muslim-discrimination/