Where’s the minaret, I also asked her? Why don’t we just declare Sharia law? She was surprised by my alarm and really didn’t say anything, or if she did, I couldn’t hear it despite being silent myself. I asked her if she really didn’t understand why it was a bad idea for a public space, the public library, to use religious symbols in its carpeting. No answer.
Having just googled Chinese carpets, I have come across some that have motifs that are remarkably similar to the ones in the public library.
Should have known. It was a communist party plot all along!
@ET
your comment directed in response to my earlier post:
“I’d suggest some realism and humility rather than your uptight view of ‘those dirty Others’.”
No where in any post on this or any other blog thread have I referred to anyone as “those dirty Others.”
Therefore I demand an apology from you for the post.
I won’t address anymore of your posts from here onwards. Take that as a victory if you will, but I consider it an insult towards you for not being worthy of being debated in a civilized manner.
I think you’ll find some of those motifs showing up in Navajo carpets too, wiltard, for which there is no reasonable “cultural diffusion” possible. There’s only so many ways to weave a repeating geometric without calculus and a CNC loom.
As to your other assertion, “…they have not been put their [sic] to cater specifically to Muslims.” Except that according to the article, the author spoke to the architect, who said they -were- put there specifically to suit the Muslims. And the architect would know, right?
Now, I’m fairly sure “the Muslims” who actually use the library don’t care a damn what pattern the carpet is. They could have the Last Supper right across the middle and “the Muslims” will still come in for Story Time with the kiddies.
But somebody in the Hogtown bureaucracy thought it would be a good idea to “make the Muslims feel at home”, where they never shifted arse to make anybody else feel at home, before. Except perhaps to be sure people fond of Christian symbols did -not- feel at home. Thanks to endless agitation by the likes of Joe Clark, the author.
Joe is hacked off that after many years of success keeping the Christians (and Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Taoists, Confucians, Zoroastrians, etc.) out of the Library, the City just sold him and his twee little religion hatin’, book lovin’ friends down the river to keep “the Muslims” happy at Thorncliff.
Frankly I think maybe Joe is a bit of a Lefty gay activist dork, but he’s not wrong. That would be the point, yes?
First they managed to convince you that an Islamic carpet had nothing to do with Islam.
then they will convince you that a niqab, burqa and a minaret have nothing to do with Islam.
It is sad to watch how easely some people can be made to believe anything.
Wouldn’t it be easier to put in a lime green shag carpet? … most, if not all, people hate that carpet.