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July 17th, 2006General1 comment

Via Poe-News, a very interesting article from Pompano Beach, FL: Seeking a new mosque, they find a cultural turf war.

A local mosque wants to relocate into a predominantly black neighborhood. But the neighborhood won’t have it:

“…That [Dozier], a 57-year-old black Christian minister, who gets teary-eyed when he talks about how he was “excluded as a young black man,” is dead set on excluding Muslims is surprising enough. But even more surprising is who supports him and who doesn’t.

Opposing Dozier: Willie Larson, head of Broward County’s NAACP chapter, and Andrew Louis, head of the county’s Democratic Black Caucus.

When the commission meeting started, opponents of the mosque spoke.

“People in the neighborhood feel less safe knowing Muslims are invading,” Dozier said.

Larson, the NAACP head, went to the podium to caution against “religious intolerance.” He quoted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

The audience booed.

“Now, I’ve seen it all,” Louis said. “Black people booing King. Just how crazy can this get?”

That isn’t very Christian of them.

“Meanwhile, residents at the Holiday Springs condominium, about 10 minutes down the road from Pompano Beach, say that they are closely monitoring the battle, ready to jump in.

“We care about what happens and are watching,” said condo activist Lee Goldman, who characterized the population in the 35 buildings at Holiday Springs as “70 to 80 percent elderly Jewish.”

Goldman recalled that, when a different mosque was built next to their condo a few years ago, she and many of her condo neighbors protested. “We saw the mosque as a threat,” she said.

But last summer — when Hurricane Wilma hit the area, knocking out electricity and trapping many condo residents in their upper story apartments — that changed.

It was then, say condo residents, that the people from the mosque next door brought water, homemade vegetable soup, spaghetti and coffee, carting it up the stairs from door to door to stranded residents, for eight days. “Those people we hadn’t wanted in our neighborhood saved us,” said Goldman.

“They wanted nothing in return,” said resident Marlene Ashkinasi.”

That’s rather Christian of them.