[해외논단] 뉴욕 시장의 유화주의 정책

뉴욕 시장 마이클 블룸버그는 대다수 미국인들이 이슬람을 싫어하는 편협한 인간들이라고 생각하는 진보파 엘리트다. 그에게 애국심이나 순국선열 추모 같은 가치는 기이한 혐오대상이다.

현대 진보주의의 밑바탕에는 애국심과 외국인 혐오를 동일시하는 가치관이 자리 잡고 있다. 미국 정계와 언론계의 진보파가 중산층을 멸시하는 이유가 거기 있다. 미국의 예외주의와 애국심은 그들의 파괴 대상이다. 문화 진보주의는 인종주의와 불관용에 대한 비판을 망치와 낫처럼 사용한다.

제프리 T 쿠너 美 에드먼드 버크 연구소 총재

진보주의자들은 미국과 기독교를 넘어 세계주의를 지향한다. 블룸버그는 그런 이념을 지닌 새 지도층의 화신이다. 시장 재임 중 그는 뉴욕을 불법이민자들의 피난처로 만들었다. 그의 세금 및 예산 정책은 경제 파탄을 유도한다.

투자자본과 일자리가 뉴욕을 빠져나가고 범죄는 급증하고 있다. 시민들의 정부 의존과 사회보장을 당연시하는 풍조가 늘어난다. 도시의 시설은 노후화되고 있다. 복지제도를 지지하고 자본주의에 반대하며 이슬람에 관대한 그는 여러 가지 면에서 전임 시장 루돌프 줄리아니와 반대다.

그는 거대한 재산에 둘러싸여 세상물정과 단절되었다. 그의 고상한 진보주의와 호화생활은 대다수 미국인들에게 낯선 현상이다. 대다수 좌파들처럼 그는 미국에 대한 헌신을 오래전에 포기했다. 그에게는 다문화적이고 초국가적인 정체성이 애국심보다 중요하다.

그라운드 제로의 모스크 건설에 반대하는 사람들에 대한 대다수 진보주의자들의 생각을 블룸버그가 표현하고 있다. 반대자들은 일종의 종교적 아파르트헤이트를 무슬림계 미국인들에게 실시하여 2등 시민으로 만드는 길을 모색하고 있다고 그는 주장한다. 그는 그라운드 제로의 모스크 건립 반대를 인종차별주의로 몰아붙이고 있다.

블룸버그는 미 대륙에 먼저 이민 온 가톨릭교도와 유대인처럼 무슬림 역시 박해의 희생자라고 주장한다. 이는 9·11 테러 공격 이후 무슬림을 희생자로 간주하는 진보파의 표준적인 사고 노선이다.

그러나 미국처럼 무슬림에 관대한 나라는 없다. 대다수 무슬림계 미국시민들은 교육, 소득, 자유, 신앙 등 모든 면에서 미국 사회의 주류 속에 동화되었다. 이슬람 신앙을 가진 시민들을 갈라놓고 차별하는 정치, 경제, 문화의 장벽은 없다.

미국에는 뉴욕시의 100여개를 포함하여 전국에 1200개의 모스크가 있다. 미국인들이 이슬람을 싫어한다는 블룸버그의 주장과 달리 이슬람의 출입을 금지하는 곳은 미국에 없다. 미국인들이 이처럼 이슬람에 관대했기 때문에 19명의 비행기 납치범들이 과격파 이슬람의 대의명분 아래 3000여명의 미국인을 살해할 수 있었다. 그들의 행위는 외세가 미국 본토를 공격한 최악의 전쟁행위였다.

미국인들의 손에 묻은 무슬림의 피가 알카에다의 손에 묻은 무고한 사람들의 피보다 많고 미국의 각종 정책이 9·11 공격의 공범 노릇을 했다고 주장하며 하마스를 옹호하고 샤리아 율법의 채택을 요구하는 호전적인 이슬람 율법학자가 주도하는 모스크 건립운동은 몰지각하고 도발적일 뿐 아니라 그라운드 제로에서 사망한 사람들을 모독하는 행위다.

모스크 건설 문제는 미국의 이슬람 허용 문제와 무관하다. 그렇지 않다고 주장하는 것은 대중선동에 불과하다. 진정한 문제는 세계의 온건한 무슬림들과 미국의 무슬림계 시민들이 과격파 무슬림들에게 공개적으로 반대할 것인지다.

과거부터 현재까지 과격파 무슬림들은 기독교도나 유대교도보다 더 많은 동료 무슬림들을 죽였다. 그럼에도 불구하고 좌파와 동맹한 온건파 무슬림들은 과격파 무슬림의 만행을 애써 외면한다. 그라운드 제로의 모스크 건설은 결국 유화주의정책을 상징하는 최후의 기념비가 될 것이다. 블룸버그는 윈스턴 처칠의 혜안을 가진 현대의 진보인사가 아니라 네빌 체임벌린 같은 2류 유화주의자다. 다문화주의의 선봉을 자처하는 비겁한 유화주의자에 불과하다.

제프리 T 쿠너 美 에드먼드 버크 연구소 총재

워싱턴 타임스·정리=오성환 외신전문위원

Bloomberg for president?By Jeffrey T. Kuhner

New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg says opponents of the Ground Zero Mosque are "un-American." The liberal billionaire vows to nix any compromise that would move the proposed 13-story Islamic cultural center and mosque to another location - one farther away from the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks at the World Trade Center.

"We must do what is right, not what is easy," he told Muslim-American guests at a dinner speech at Gracie Mansion, marking the breaking of the fast during the Islamic month of Ramadan.

Mr. Bloomberg has taken a dogmatic, absolutist position: There can be no middle ground because fundamental religious freedoms are at stake. Previously he has said mosque critics should be "ashamed of themselves" for even criticizing the project. In his iftar dinner speech, he went even further, claiming that the Ground Zero Mosque is the litmus test for "religious liberty." For him and for much of the liberal ruling elite, our constitutional system rests on the mosque being built.

"There are people of every faith - including, perhaps, some in this room - who are hoping that a compromise will end the debate," he said. "But it won't."

According to Mr. Bloomberg, the nearly 3,000 Americans who died on Sept. 11 - including the first responders, firemen, police officers and rescue workers who perished trying to save people in the burning Twin Towers - lost their lives for "freedom," a precious birthright that would be denied Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and the other sponsors of the Ground Zero Mosque if it is relocated.

"If we say that a mosque and community center should not be built near the perimeter of the World Trade Center site ... we would undercut the values and principles that so many heroes died protecting," he said.

Brave Americans thus shed their blood that fateful day so that Mr. Rauf could build his mosque. Mr. Bloomberg is peddling a twisted logic. Rescue workers laid down their lives to help their neighbors and friends. They committed acts of compassion and self-sacrifice. They died on behalf of their fellow countrymen, not in the service of political correctness.

Mr. Bloomberg is an elitist liberal, a country-club Republican who believes most Americans are Islamophobic bigots - primitive hicks who need to be led toward a rationalist, secular progressive future. Patriotism, blood-and-soil nationalism, honoring the memory of our war dead - these are values he finds strange and repulsive.

This equation of patriotism with xenophobic bigotry lies at the heart of modern liberalism. It is why our political and media class despises Middle America. The belief in American exceptionalism and love of country must be smashed. Charges of racism and intolerance are the hammer and sickle of cultural liberalism. They are used to beat the rebellious heartland into submission.

Liberals have embraced a post-American, post-Christian globalist world. Mr. Bloomberg embodies the values - and utter disconnect - of the new ruling elite. He is a pampered, effete billionaire whose financial empire stretches all over the world - including lucrative new media deals in Persian Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

As mayor, he has transformed New York into a sanctuary city for illegal immigrants. His tax-and-spend policies are leading to economic ruin. Investment capital and jobs are fleeing. Crime is surging. Government dependency and social permissiveness are rising. The city is crumbling. In many ways, he is the opposite of former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani: pro-welfare, anti-capitalist and soft on Islamists.

Mr. Bloomberg is insulated by his vast wealth. His commercial interests are global. His chic progressivism and lavish lifestyle are foreign to most Americans - even to trendy, deracinated New Yorkers. Like many secular leftists, he long ago abandoned his commitment to America. His multicultural, post-national identity trumps patriotism. What really matters is that he ingratiates himself with the bien-pensants inside the Beltway and in New York. This he has done with his pseudo-Churchillian defense of the Ground Zero Mosque.

Mr. Bloomberg is expressing what most liberals really think about the opponents of the mosque: They are seeking to impose some kind of religious apartheid upon Muslim-Americans that will consign them to second-class citizenship. For Mr. Bloomberg and his ilk, the Ground Zero Mosque is all that separates America from a return to its segregationist past.

"We would send a signal around the world that Muslim-Americans may be equal in the eyes of the law but separate in the eyes of their countrymen," he said. "There is nowhere in the five boroughs that is off-limits to any religion."

Mr. Bloomberg argues that Muslims - like other newcomers to the United States before them, such as Catholics and Jews, are victims of "persecution." This has been the standard liberal line since Sept. 11: Islam as victim.

The reality, however, is that no nation (with the possible exception of Canada) has been more accommodating of Muslims than America. Whether it is access to higher education, income, civil liberties or freedom to worship - most Muslim-Americans have assimilated into the national mainstream. There are no barriers - political, economic or cultural - to citizens of Islamic faith. They are not denied the right to vote. They do not drink from separate water fountains or go to separate, impoverished schools. They are not prevented from eating at public lunch counters. They are not routinely lynched. In fact, many of them have college degrees, earn above-average salaries and are free to practice their religion.

There are more than 1,200 mosques in America, about 100 in New York alone. Contrary to Mr. Bloomberg's fantasy Islamophobia, there is nowhere in the five boroughs that is off-limits to them - except for one place.

This is because 19 Muslim hijackers in the name of radical Islam murdered nearly 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11. The atrocities were more than a crime. They were an act of war, the worst foreign attack on American soil. Ground Zero is sacred, hallowed ground. It is the place where innocent American blood was spilled by Islamic fascists as the global jihad was brought to our shores.

To construct a mosque - led by a militant imam who boasts that "the United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than al Qaeda has on its hands of innocent non-Muslims," defends Hamas, demands we adopt Shariah law and claims U.S. policies were an "accessory" to the Sept. 11 attacks - is not only insensitive and provocative, but blasphemous. It denigrates and defiles the dead.

The issue is not - and never has been - America's acceptance of Islam. That has long been settled. To suggest otherwise is cheap demagoguery.

The real issue is whether Muslim-Americans - and moderate Muslims all over the world - will speak out against their co-religionist extremists. Radical Islamists have murdered more fellow Muslims than Christians or Jews. Instead of condemning them, however, moderate Muslims in alliance with the secular left insist on turning a blind eye. The construction of the Ground Zero Mosque would represent the ultimate symbol of appeasement. Mr. Bloomberg is not the liberal Churchill of our time. Rather, he is a second-rate Neville Chamberlain - a craven appeaser masquerading as a multicultural hawk.

It is no secret Mr. Bloomberg has presidential ambitions. He toyed with throwing his hat in the ring in 2008. Facing a weak and damaged President Obama in 2012, along with a conservative Republican opponent, Mr. Bloomberg may think his chances at a third-party bid would be fairly good. He could emerge as the progressives' dark-horse candidate. He could tout his business background and executive experience as the mayor of America's best-known city.

More important, his staunch defense of the mosque has solidified his credentials with the liberal elite - especially the establishment media. Many liberals would be tempted to ditch a terminally wounded Democratic incumbent in favor of a mosque-hugging, pro-environmentalist, pro-choice insurgent.

This is clearly what Mr. Bloomberg has in mind - and it wasn't lost on many at the Ramadan dinner. Sheikh Moussa Drammeh said he and other guests "went crazy" over Mr. Bloomberg's speech.

"He's someone ... who deserves to be president," Mr. Drammeh said.

No, he does not. Mr. Bloomberg thinks that by defending the mosque, he is paving the way for a potential 2012 presidential run - a real profile in courage. Instead, he is an example of liberal self-indulgence and national self-abnegation. Rather than standing for American ideals, he is capitulating to our enemies and trampling on sacred ground.

bien-pensant:정통파적인 생각을 가진 사람 craven:비겁한

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