Quite a bit of controversy has been kicking up recently regarding the proposed memorial for those that lost their lives on Flight 93, which crashed into a field in Pennslyvania on September 11th of 2001. Ironically, the proposed memorial looks like a crescent, the universal emblem of Islam. Downtown Rod, friend and fellow ranconteur, is on the case and sheds light on the architectural motivation behind the the so-called "Cresent of Embrace" memorial:
By now many bloggers are aware of the controversy over the "winning" Flight 93 memorial design, by one Paul Murdoch, a Los Angeles architect. Entitled "Crescent of Embrace", the design, bluntly put, emulates an Islamic crescent. (See here for pic.) As with many architects, Murdoch fancies himself a deep thinker, and this usually means being able to spout the latest in post-modern, deconstructionist nonsense. I believe the Architect Murdoch knows exactly what he is doing; his task was to design a memorial about an event involving suicide bombers. He may have found his inspiration in Columbia Professor Gayatri Spivak's "post-colonial" deconstruction of terrorism. Professor Spivak offered her views on the concept of "deconstructive embrace" in a notorious speech at Leeds University in 2002, and "deconstructed" the concept of suicide bombing. An excerpt from her speech at Leeds:
Suicide bombing -- and the planes of 9/11 were living bombs -- is a purposive self-annihilation, a confrontation between oneself and oneself, the extreme end of autoeroticism; killing oneself as other, in the process of killing others... the destruction of others is indistinguishable from the destruction of the self...Suicidal resistance is a message inscribed in the body when no other means will get through. It is both execution and mourning, for both self and other. For you die with me for the same cause, no matter which side are you on. Because no matter who you are, there are no designated killees [sic] in suicide bombing....there is no dishonor in such shared and innocent death. [Quoted in The New Republic, July 29, 2002, p.9]
She continues:
The ideal relation to the Other, then, is an 'embrace, an act of love'.... Such an embrace may be unrequited, as the differences and distances are too great, but if we are ever to get beyond the vicious cycle of abuse, it is essential to remain open-hearted; not to attempt to recreate the Other narcissistically, in one's own image, but generously, with care and attention.
Mr. Murdoch, this is your thinking too, and you've been outed!
(Source material for this entry can be found here and here. Also, go to Amazon and see that one of the SIPs for one of her books is: "deconstructive embrace".)
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