Making a mockery of Ground Zero
NY Daily News
Editorials
The International Freedom Center, which proposes to run a museum at Ground Zero, announced in April that it has "drawn inspiration and received some important practical advice" from a group of so-called museums of conscience around the world.
The IFC's organizers have also cited plans to host exhibitions by members of the International Coalition of Historic Site Museums of Conscience as a reason why the Freedom Center would be a perfect fit for the hallowed ground where 2,749 people were murdered. To which we can only say that IFC leaders Tom Bernstein and Richard Tofel must be nuts. The advice the coalition gave them is neither inspirational nor practical. It is pure anti-American hogwash.
The coalition's wisdom, as spelled out in its 2004 annual report, begins by expressing concern about how religious Muslims would view the Freedom Center and climaxes by offering Bernstein, Tofel & Co. an offensive prescription: "Don't put America first." The coalition also worries that "the average Bangladeshi" feels "his/her human rights have been violated by the U.S." Come again? Exhibits on what amounts to a mass grave of slaughtered Americans will be decided by what the average Bangladeshi feels? Not bloody likely.
Consider this, too: "The Freedom Center is a caricature of the typical American response to everything (telling every story from an American viewpoint)." Exactly what viewpoint is an American museum on American soil marking an American tragedy supposed to express? Oh, right. Bangladeshi.
The IFC notes that it will not necessarily follow any particular advice and further says it's drawing inspiration from the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum in Illinois. Fine, but Bernstein and Tofel cannot escape the fact they trumpeted an association with the museums of conscience as one reason to let the Freedom Center overlook the Ground Zero memorial.
The coalition's annual report, brought to light in today's Daily News by reporter Douglas Feiden, certifies that 9/11 families were right to warn that the Freedom Center was being taken over by bash-America propagandists. It also shows, again, that Gov. Pataki had no clue what he was doing in giving the Freedom Center and a second cultural group, the Drawing Center, a franchise at Ground Zero.
The Drawing Center, producer of offensive 9/11-related art, is being booted from the site, and the Freedom Center has until Sept. 23 to present plans for an appropriate institution, as Bernstein and Tofel have promised. Maybe they'll come through this time, but their judgment so far has been abominable. When, for example, the coalition said that, in building a Freedom Tower to replace the World Trade Center, "the U.S. reasserts its power in an arrogant way," Bernstein and Tofel at least should have wondered who they were in bed with. And when the coalition went on to ask, "Does this mean the U.S. will not only build the biggest building, but also define freedom for the world?" their answers should have been: Yes. Yes. And get lost.
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