The USA Today article, "For families of Muslim 911 victims, a new pain", reminded me of Lee Bollinger's quote in Samuel G. Freedman's book, Letters to a Young Journalist. It stated, "The most valued [trait] is that of having the imaginative range and the mental courage to explore the full complexity of the subject. To set aside one's preexisting beliefs, to hold simultaneously in one's mind multiple angles of seeing things, to allow yourself to believe another point of view as you consider it ...The stress is on seeing the difficulty of things, on being prepared to live closer than we are inclined to the harsh reality."
Given the current controversy of building a mosque 2 blocks from ground zero and a rise in anti-Muslim sentiments, the USA Today reporter, Rick Hampson, could've written about 911's non-Muslim families affected by the loss of a loved one. However, by writing about Muslim families that also lost their loved ones, Rick Hampson’s article tampers with a perspective which is often missed when covering surviving family members of 911 victims.
Thank you, Shashana, for bringing this article to our notice. Although articles about 9/11 frequently mention Muslim victims among the thousands killed, this is the first article I have read that focusses on specifically on the families of the Muslim victims, and it is a good example of exploration of "the full complexity of the subject." Hate mail received by Talat Hamdani, the featured mother of a Muslim victim, suggests another facet of the complexity of 9/11 and its aftermath: one piece of hate mail read, "Not all Muslims are terrorist, but all terrorists are Muslims," which,of course is not true. Timothy McVeigh, for example, was not a Muslim. Many 9/11 articles differentiate between Muslims and Islamic extremists, but has 9/11 generated articles about the broad variety of extremists that have terrorized Americans on our own soil?
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