Prepare to be Outraged Again

Two months ago I wrote on the effort by some terrorism apologists to hijack the World Trade Center Memorial and turn it into a platform for every anti-American accusation imaginable. These people, I said at the time, simply cannot allow such a prominent public venue to be without politically correct America-bashing. And if you can offer some words or symbols of sympathy to the terrorists whose depravity created the need for a memorial in the first place, so much the better. It shows how open-minded and tolerant you are.

Well, they're at it again, this time in Pennsylvania. Flight 93, the fourth plane to be hijacked that terrible day, was different than the other flights; it was where America first began to fight back. The passengers of Flight 93 knew there would be no landing, and on a day when the alphabet soup of government agencies failed so miserably to protect America, these citizens decided to take matters into their own hands. Knowing that the terrorists' destination was either the Capitol or the White House, Todd Beamer, Jeremy Glick, and several other burly men recited the 23rd Psalm with an air traffic controller, and then charged the cockpit. In the ensuing struggle, it is thought, the plane crashed, killing everyone aboard.

One would think that a fitting memorial to the brave passengers of Flight 93 would reflect their defiance. After all, had they passively awaited their fates, we would now be talking of Capitol memorial or a White House memorial instead of one in a Pennsylvania field. But 9/11 was not about war, the touchy-feely crowd tells us, it was about a lack of understanding. It is that plaintive, whiny sense of victimhood and "tolerance" that the memorial design draws upon, not the spirit of anger and resilience that characterized the heroes of Flight 93.

The design is called "Crescent of Embrace," as if the lesson of Flight 93 was that terrorists should be hugged, not fought. But the proposed memorial's totally inappropriate tone of reconciliation is not its most outrageous feature--that distinction belongs to the design's symbolism. The design calls for a crescent of maple trees to line the site, surrounded by black stone. Symbolism is very important to architects; their entire profession is devoted to deriving meaning out of structures. Like poets, any symbols they use in their work are deliberately chosen to convey a (sometimes hidden) message.

The symbolic significance of the crescent and the black stone may not be immediately obvious to everyone, so allow me to explain: For centuries, the crescent moon has been an “internationally recognized symbol of the faith of Islam.” Many Muslim nations bear the Crescent of Islam on their flags. The Black Stone of Mecca, the Ka’ba, is the focal point of Islam's holiest city, and each Muslim is required to make a pilgrimage to it at least once in his lifetime.

So the Flight 93 memorial design calls for a crescent and black stone...well, I suppose it could be a coincidence, as the site's designers claim--although Muslims, when shown the design, immediately associate it with their faith. But look at this graphic, in which the memorial's design is overlaid by the Crescent of Islam, and tell me the symbolism wasn't deliberate:



This design is so outrageous, so blatantly offensive, that I'm surprised there has not yet been a bigger public outcry. Apparently the absurdities of political correctness know no bounds--adherents to radical Islam killed thousands of Americans on 9/11, and we respond by building memorials laden with Islamic symbols. It would be like designing a World War II memorial in the shape of a Swastika. Call me old-fashioned and intolerant, but the site of America's lone victory on that horrific day should be a monument to the heroism of a few brave passengers, not a monument to the ideology of their killers.