The Crescent of Embrace 2
While we're all pondering the Mumbai bombings, here's a subject we may have forgotten.Error Theory notes that comment time for the Flight 93 memorial has begun. "The Flight 93 Memorial Project has opened up a comment period (through August 14th) on whether it should proceed with its plan to build a slightly modified version of the original Crescent of Embrace design, or start over by adopting a No Action alternative. Starting over is imperative because the Crescent design was, and still is, a plan to build the world’s largest mosque." Is this still true?
It was true of the old design. The old Crescent of Embrace plan was extensively discussed on the Internet. It consisted of a stand of trees planted in a crescent oriented toward Mecca which when in bloom would have been the color red.
Current plans are described at the Flight 93 memorial site. Two renderings for the new design are shown. The old crescent is now simply called the Bowl. However, there are two versions shown. The first shows the Bowl with a different orientation from the old Crescent of Embrace. As can be seen from the figure below, the opening of the Bowl is oriented considerably differently from the direction of Mecca. This is arguably different from the old Crescent of Embrace.
However, the other rendering on the plan gives a different impression. We are back, more or less, to a Bowl oriented toward Mecca. Other than the fact that it is Green, we are back, essentially to the architectural elements of the old Crescent of Embrace. Perhaps it was just a drafting error. This is one of the things which might be suitable for clarification in comments.
posted by wretchardthecat at 7/11/2006 03:36:00 PM
34 Comments:
Radical mosques are being built across the United States at an alarming rate, all tethered to a fanatical strain of Islam emanating from Saudi Arabia.
I've said it before, but it bears repeating again and again:
Steve Emerson's Video
"Jihad in America"
said all we need to know about what must be done if we are serious about Islamic Terror.
Obviously we are not yet, nor does this president seem serious about many issues critical to our National Security.
---
Something reminded me recently of one of the first leaks:
The publishing of where Cheney went when we were under attack.
...just like now, when they HAVE to tell us exactly where Dick and Rummy live.
Because they can.
...and only Libby pays any price.
---
Weakness is indeed provocative.
Emerson's Video was made more than a decade ago.
I believe the most effective complaint against this (and sadly, it's important to focus on what will work within the entire set of what is right) is that anything even remotely symbolic of Islam whether intentional or unintentional will legitimize a link between the terrorists and Islam. Radical Islamists will be able to point to this memorial as proof that they have the true claim to Islam, since even the United States demonstrates it. The audience hearing this won't bother consulting the US officials about whether that's true or not. The result is a huge slap in the face to all moderate Muslims who already have a difficult time with those who are hijacking their religion without having the US giving aid to those hijackers.
It's similar to the slap in the face to Christians and the victims if you were to memorialize a group of Buddhists lynched by the KKK with an "Eternal Flaming Cross of Rememberance". Not only are you insulting the Buddhist victims but you are also insulting the non-KKK Christians who represent the true spirit of Christianity. It's hard to imagine doing something more insulting than this Flight 93 Memorial while keeping a straight face.
If the NY Times could leak all the Pols and media getting money one way or another from the Sauds, THAT would be in the public interest.
Bruce,
Imagine the Uproar, and "Unconstitutionality" had it been it the shape of a Cross.
Good Luck!
Personally, I think the whole atmosphere was poisoned, perhaps unintentionally, by the initial Crescent of Embrace design. It will be hard now to come up with a design that's just a design.
I step lightly here. I look upon the Americans on Flight 93 as victims. They were a captive audience and made a desperate attempt to save their own lives, no different than a person being drowned by someone holding their head under water. The firemen who should have been drinking coffee and entered the towers on their own free will were heroes.Flight 93 was not heroic in the classical sense. There is an attempt to make it and the victims an icon for the War on Terror.
When your premise is dishonest, what difference does the design of the monument make to the lie?
Exactly. WAY too much space being given to this memorial. Who's gonna pay for all this, and it's upkeep for 10's or 100's of years? Like the Park Service is flush, or something. Face it, this is mostly a pork project . . . it denigrates the victims on the plane, and America. Grrrr.
Designing elements of the build environment - landscape, structures, or otherwise - often results in unintended iconography. The meaning of any artistic expression is ultimately subject to interpretation by the person observing it.
That being said, the icon of the "crescent of embrace" is SO blatant that one has to wonder if it was actually intended. If so, then to what end? Who is being remembered? The victims? The attackers? Or is it a deconstructivist attempt to question which is which? Or is it something else?
Personally, I think we should suspend any and all memorials regarding 9/11. Any memorial build before the GWOT (used for lack of a better soundbite phrase) is resolved will become a sad reflection of the cultural unravelling of our times. Only when most of us can agree on who we are and what we value, with 20/20 hindsight on 9/11 and its meaning, should we begin to think about memorializing it.
In the meantime, we have a job to do. That job has to do with 9/11 only in as much as those horrible memories should inspire us to do what is necessary to make sure it never happens again.
When Wretchard verified the Mecca orientation of the original Crescent of Embrace back in September, he held out the proviso that north on the site plan could be magnetic north rather than true north.
I investigated this point by comparing the Crescent site-plan to Google-Earth's true-north oriented images and found that the roads near the crash-site have the same orientation in both, to within a fraction of a degree. Thus Wretchard's verification of Mecca orientation is itself verified.
Wretchard also noted in September that the Crescent group's landscape architect, Nelson Byrd Woltz, has a penchant for crescents. I checked out Woltz's crescents and found that none of them is oriented anywhere near Mecca. Neither could I find any other Islamic symbolism anywhere in his designs. Thus there is no evidence that Woltz had anything to do with the untoward features of the Crescent design. Murdoch also claims full credit, describing the "huge emotional investment" made by he and his wife.
I save the distinction, hero, for the few that selflessly and willingly put themselves at risk for the benefit of another. Fleeing from a burning building is not a heroic act. Desperation is not heroism. I cannot know that there were not individual heroic acts and I believe no American should ever have to be put in that situation. If you feel they were heroes, you are not alone. I reserve the distinction.
The flight 93 passengers were heroes, plain and simple. By fighting back they saved other people's lives by preventing the plane from crashing into a building. That was clearly one of their motives, that their plane wouldn't blow up another building like the World Trade Center, which they knew about.
To act instead of be paralyzed is heroic. They could have kept their own lives for longer by not fighting back. The idea that they would have been dead anyway is not necessarily true. As long as someone is alive, there is always the chance that something could save them. To throw away that chance of life in order to save the lives of others is heroic.
How happy the families of world trade center victims would be if those planes had been crashed into fields instead of buildings.
"To throw away that chance of life in order to save the lives of others is heroic."
And so w.w., believes every homicide bomber that kills an innocent. So believed the hijackers, that their actions would save the lives of future Mohammedans from US & Western oppression.
From their perpective, heros all.
Sick puppies in all truth, but they do not see it that way. Neither did the folks "back home", in the KSA and Palistine.
War or retreat, not much else to talk about.
"..."There is no limits on our actions... Even to kill children is good — you stop the generation there, at the beginning." ..."
referencing the bomb attack in Bombay, but the mental conditioning is the same.
My comments are here.
An abomination.
2164th,
I have to agree with Wu Wei and Habu-1 here. I would describe courage as acting effectively despite fear. The danger dealt with does not have to be a chosen one. Fear can lead to our taking simple and ineffective actions that actually increase the danger. How often is freezing an appropriate response to a danger facing a human being?
The passengers and crew on Flight 93 neither froze nor panicked but acted despite their fear in a way that frustrated the terrorists' primary aim. Were they trying to save their own lives or that of others? Both of course.
Are courage and heroism the same thing? I don't think so. Should this act be described as heroism. I think it should.
Al-Quaeda hoped that its actions would demoralize America. The acts of the police and firefighters and others helped nullify their hope. The actions of the crew and passengers on Flight 93 completely wiped out any possibility of demoralization. They demonstrated that Americans were not helpless.
They deserve a better memorial than this travesty. The architect couldn't admit that he stuffed up and should start again from scratch.
To understand a landscape, you have to inhabit the site, if not in person, at least with your mind's eye. A cursory glance at an architect's plan isn't going to do it. As the widow of Flight 93's pilot, Sandy Dahl, put it, "No one was thinking of Islam when they were making this memorial."
A demonic deconstruction of hidden menace
Where some see crescents, others see apple pie:
Let's roll!
I do not want the last word. I want to comment about the quality and the tenor and value of this site. Civil disagreement and respect for alternative views is a rare commodity but often achieved here. It is more the norm than the exception. I value that and respect all of those with whom I disagree and enjoy the repartee and the level of discourse.
At least the barm-heads got it right this time. The color of Islam is green not red!
I would call them hero's for two reasons: (1) they *did* save lives in preventing whatever had been planned for that plane to crash into, and (2) they showed the rest of us the way in how to resist. As Peggy Noonan noted in a WSJ column, Americans passengers are *the* best source of security on planes now, in that we will never, ever, allow ourselves to be herded like sheep into a situation that ends in crashing into the WTC towers again. We have seen this several times since 9/11, and I think it must be because the passengers on Flight 93 so clearly showed us the way.
As to the design itself, I have to wonder why the architect is stubbornly keeping to his stupid crescent design after the public outcry last time, and when he was TOLD (ordered?) to change it. Either the dude has an agenda, or he's a lamentably unskilled architect.
And in either case, I have to wonder why the Park Service hasn't jettisoned him and found someone else who isn't obsessed with circles and crescents in shades of red.
Imagine this dedication speech, loosely paraphrased from a speech by the most hated president in American history.
"Two hundred thirty years ago, our forefathers established a nation founded on liberty and the proposition that all people are created equal. We are now engaged in a great moral struggle testing the resolve of our people against an enemy whose desire to exterminate our people and ideals are documented by his words and his actions. On September 11, the enemy hijacked civilian airliners to massacre people in our nation's cities. This is where the passengers of Flight 93 fought back. They knew they would die, but they preferred to die with honor than to die without it. It is altogether fitting and proper that we dedicate this ground in remembrance of our struggle against tyranny. Yet we cannot dedicate this ground nor can we consecrate it, for the brave men and women of Flight 93 have consecrated this ground more than we ever can. The world will little remember what we say here, but it will long remember what these fallen heroes did here. It is now for the living to be dedicated here to the unfinished work of defeating the sadistic tyranny that sent its murderers to do their evil on the eleventh of September. We are the ones to be dedicated here in remembrance of the struggle, and resolve that the heroes of Flight 93 will not have died in vain, that this nation shall continue to be free, and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from this earth."
Why have a memorial there at all? Why not just let the ground itself exist without adornment?
Moreover, why should we be having any physical memorial to the victims of the September 11 attacks? If our domestic fifth column insists on pushing its architectural defeatism, why not let our memorial come from our actions instead of stone monuments?
Every year on September 11, I think every city in America should sound air raid sirens in memorial to both the victims and the heroes of that attack against our people, an attack that was not merely an atrocity but a breach of our national hospitality.
What I posted at the flight 93 website:
Communication is the responsibility of the one speaking. If one is not understood, the fault lies with the speaker. Similarly, the intent of the designer of the memorial is not at issue, since it is the reception of the design that matters. What follows is my considered perception of the plans for the memorial, which I give in hopes it will shed light on why others have a negative reaction.
By now you will have heard from many of the irony of fashioning a Crescent of Embrace for the flight 93 memorial, since the crescent is a symbol of Islam, and it was Islamic extremists who did the killing that day. I hope to clarify why I find it revolting. Simply, the thought of the victims being embraced forever by the crescent arms of those who killed in the name of Islam is stomach turning. Intentionally or not the designer of the memorial allows the terrorists to make a claim upon the victims even after death, circumscribing their identities. That in the name of all that is holy the victims are condemned to death, that they cannot escape judgment, that they are guilty and worthy of being slaughtered, as judged by the terrorists' interpretation of Islam. The victims are relativized, devalued, by this foreign act of 'holy' violence, and the crescent of embrace design symbolizes this argument of the jihadists.
Do we not wish for those who suffered evil on that day to find release in death? To call it an embrace is to identify with the twisted thinking of the terrorists themselves. Can it possibly bring Americans peace to think of those murdered on 9/11 as being eternally tormented upon the horns of a devil? The Crescent of Embrace prolongs the terror, the pain, the argument the terrorists made in their claim to judge who is worthy and who shall die an infidel. Where is the voice of the fallen? In sum, I do not support a memorial design that compactly symbolizes the very argument of the terrorists. The memorial needs to remember the victims, not indulge in any 'balanced' or 'higher' perspective, though I can't imagine what that might be.
a statue commemorating those who fought for Flight 93 (something like the statue of the three soldiers at the Vietnam memorial), with the names of the passengers (the hijackers left off), and enscription on the bottom "Let's Roll"
Could there be a cartoon with the prophet Mohammad (propeller beanie upon him) someplace in the design so that Muslims understand *exactly* how much we respect them?
Alexis,
We need to defeat the Paul Murdoch-led 5th Column and put a proper memorial there because that's the only way they'll understand they've been beaten. If we do nothing, then they get to forget, which is also fine with them.
Forgetting the whole thing is a win, or building The Contemptuous Crescent© is a huge win for them. A proper memorial is a defeat, especially in light of being bested at the WTC site.
Not to denigrate the courage and heroism of the the firefighters and police who put their lives in dangerous situations every day, but they're trained and equipped for that. Physically and psychologically, they're prepared to fight those battles. The passengers aboard Flight 93 were ordinary people thrust into a dangerous situation for which they had no equipment and no training, and yet they still fought. What happened to them was something completely beyond their experience, beyond anything they'd ever conceived, and yet they still fought.
Speaking as an ordinary woman who was once taken hostage in her own home, I can tell you (even with all modesty) it takes a whole lot of courage to break the "this isn't happening" paralysis. By reacting to it, you acknowledge that this horrific, impossible situation you're in is real, and that's a huge psychological step to take. Even if it's the only thing that will enable you to survive, it's hard. I'm not sure I can convey to those who've never experienced it just how hard it is. Many people who find themselves in dangerous situations just can't do it. That's no slight on them, but to cheapen the courage of those who do take that terrifying step by labelling them mere 'victims' does them a great injustice.
raymondshaw,
I second yor suggestion. Make it a UAV factory. Name each drone for one of those killed in Shanksville and at the WTC and Pentagon.
I don't seek them out, but when I find a battle field I visit it. At their best they are not monuments with a narrative to teach us, they are places of reflection. On this ground people fought.
In the north of Florida there is a beautiful pine woods with a rail line running through it. During the American Civil War there was a minor battle fought in those woods over control of that rail line. As you walk down a path through that woods, with birds singing and the sunlight filtered by the trees, there is one sign after another bearing the regimental numbers of the boys from Georgia and NY who once fought and died in those woods.
No elaborate monument, with a narrative for us dimwits, needs to be built in the field where that flight ended. The field itself, and the knowledge of what happened there, is monument enough.
A block of granite for each passenger and crew member who died. Place one block where a body was found. Then surround it with picnic tables, barbeque pits and playground equipment. Those passengers died for life, let us live it as we reflect upon their sad fate.
vuuv
"No elaborate monument, with a narrative for us dimwits, needs to be built in the field where that flight ended. The field itself, and the knowledge of what happened there, is monument enough."
Absolutely! No need for lectures by sophisticated intellectuals telling us how to feel, what it all means etc etc. We bloody well know what it means, thank you.
Let's just get on with the job of killing more of the animals who glory in death and destruction. Time enough for memorials when the job is done.
Doug: a cross isn't a bad idea: an airplane is shaped like a cross; the victims were martyrs who died to save others (probably in the White House), etcetera
ambisinistral is on the right track. Or, as Mark Steyn said, what's wrong with a black granite block with the names, under the words: 'Let's Roll' ?
I've posted an analysis of the New Design using Google Earth Image overlays using the Memorial Projects own graphics. I also have the raw KML files and grahics if anyone wants them. Just email me.
http://hounddoghangout.blogspot.com/
The pics are about half way down. These are repeatable.
Just went to the web site
http://www.flight93memorialproject.org/bowl.asp
it is still a red crescent, but the Tower of voices minaret is now replaced with two buildings.
I still find it inappropriate.
Just got an email from the National park Service.
*****
Good afternoon,
Thank you for sharing your thought provoking comments and for taking an interest in Your National Parks. By copy of this e-mail, I am forwarding your concerns to Joanne Hanley, Superintendent Flight 93 National Memorial.
Sincerely,
Kathy Gerding
*****
The email given for Joanne Hanley was Joanne_Hanley@nps.gov
The email oringinated from NPS_Webmaster@nps.gov
-Burt
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