But crescent doesn’t bring to mind the religion for most people. Pillsbury didn’t change the name of their crescent rolls. Atlanta’s southern side suburbs are still the Southern Crescent. I still use a crescent wrench. “Crescent” is a shape, not a symbol.
The Crescent only becomes a symbol when accompanied by the star.
The shape, however, looks nothing like the symbol of the Ottoman Turks. The fight is over the word.
I suppose, given that some twits have gone out of their way to be offended, that there is some truth in this part. I suppose that when we are dealing with ignorance, we have to take an extra step back to avoid contamination by it.
(The symbol has no association with the Wahabbists or with any country from which the terrorists were recruited or based, it is used only by some nations and by one relief organization, not any actual religious groups, but let’s just go ahead and conflate the issues so that the ignorant can be appeased.)
So let me try to make sure I have this right…memorials to victims of IRA bombings should NOT have crosses on them, right? Because the cross is, after all, the symbol of a religion that was misused by the perpetrators of the bombings…
You folks do realize that the trees which are making this a specifically red crescent are only going to be red for a few weeks of the year, don’t you? The rest of the year, they’ll be pretty much indistinguishable in color from the surrounding trees.
Personally, I like the symbolism as it’s been described – a circle, interupted by the flight path of Flight 93 as it crashed. I’ll also point out again that one of the most vocal local critics of the design is a self-proclaimed bishop who seems to pretty much believe that anyone who isn’t one of his followers is going to hell.
CJ
Self-proclaimed pawn
I feel compelled to reiterate. We must reject and disavow any implication that the War on Terr is in any way a conflict of religions. Nothing, but nothing, could be better calculated to offer aid and comfort to our enemies.
Its not about changing the minds of the people who hate us, its about the people who don’t hate us yet! Anyone who doesn’t grasp this should resume running with scissors.
I do not deny either of these points. What I do deny is the idea that the one necessarily has anything to do with the other. Taking offense at an obviously unintentional coincidence of symbology is just plain foolishness. It makes about as much sense as me throwing out all my batteries because the + symbol on them resembles a Christian cross.
I’m not offended - I certainly have no reason to believe the designer meant to pay tribute to Islam. I’m just saying that, intentional or not, based on points (a) and (b) above, the memorial should be redesigned, or at the very least, they shouldn’t call it a “crescent”.
What I do take offense to is the assumption that the only possible objections to the design must stem from stupidity or malice, and therefore, the memorial should proceed exactly as designed because we don’t let stupid or malicious opinions guide us. If anyone is guilty of being a moron, it’s the designer, who should have read up a little on crescents. The crescent is not a symbol of Islam only in the sense that Santa Claus is not a symbol of Christmas, that is, in a technical or historical sense. And if you have to resort to technical/historical arguments, you’ve already conceded that the crescent does, in fact, mean Islam to most people, so why not just dispense with the damn thing?
That’s a cool badge, incorporating the tradition star of law enforcement and the crescent from the city’s nickname. It’s well done. And it provides further evidence that the crescent isn’t exclusively a Muslim symbol, even when paired with a star…
emphasis added. The Crescent and Star together, not any old crescent alone. And as Casey1505’s link to the New Orleans badge shows, a crescent with a star isn’t always an Islamic symbol.
That’s true.
But we’re not dealing with razor-edge precision of meaning. We’re dealing with human perception, variety: flawed.
Absolutely.
Except for one tiny problem: the victims of that violence also share a religion that uses the cross as a symbol of eternal life.
Were the IRA victims not themselves Christian, though, you’d have nailed the principle at work exactly right.
But the only possible objections are based on malice and stupidity. It may be worthwhile to back off on the design because, as Bricker noted, stupidity is rampant, but the design, while a crescent, does not look anything like the Turkish emblem. It is much more a matter of battery “positive” symbols being “Christian” than it is the employent of a Muslim symbol. The actual analogy would be to shun yard gnomes on government property because they remind people of Santa Claus and we don’t want that “Christian” image on the courthouse lawn.
One other question:
Is the memorial intended to honor the passengers of flight 93 simply because they died? Or is it, at least in part, supposed to honor them for fighting back against the hijackers?
I believe the correct answer is (b). I get the sense, though, that there are some folks uncomfortable with memorializing and honoring fighting, even in that circumstance.
Perhaps that’s a mistaken impression on my part.
The carillon with the wind chimes is supposed to be erected in a “heroic” form, although I do not know exactly what that form is to be.
The WTC and Pentagon memorials are simply for dying. I believe that the Flight 93 memorial will have an extra cachet because those passengers had the time and knowledge to fight back, but I think your impression is mistaken. There would be a memorial for them anyway.
Well maybe it doesn’t look anything like the Turkish emblem to you, but I can sure see it. Particularly with the cluster of trees standing between the open ends of the arc. It doesn’t have to have the exact dimensions or proportions to detect a distinct resemblance.
You certainly may think I’m stupid, but I hardly possess any malice wrt this memorial. It’s ridiculous to compare placing a symbol that looks similar to one associated with a particular religion on a battery, to one that, even if wrongly, has become associated with a particular religion at a memorial site for victims of people who used that religion, again, even if wrongly, as justification for their brutality.
I couldn’t give a shit about crescents or arcs or crescents with stars in any other form, be it on flags or biscuits or lakes or whatthefuckever. I just think it’s the height of tackiness to place that particular symbol at that particular site under these particular circumstances. Frankly, I think the “actual analogy” is like placing a swastika on a Holocaust memorial, regardless of the fact that Nazis aren’t the only ones who use that symbol, or that its origins have nothing to do with them. Or even a bigass plus sign similar to a cross on a hypothetical memorial where Jews were killed by Christians invoking Jesus as their justification.
Feel free to revoke my Bleeding Heart Liberal card and call me stupid if it pleases you.
Nope. I think you’ve been influenced by the people that made a big deal of this, earlier. I think the complaints against this design are equivalent to arguments against placing garden gnomes on the courthouse lawn becuase they resemble Santa. It is sufficiently similar to bear the name crescent, but it lacks the dimensions and attributes of the Turkish symbol.
Turkish symbol: two smooth eccentric circles forming points where they intersect.
Memorial: Two concentric circles that never narrow to points. On the Northeast, the maples are planted in rectangles that give the appearance of creating niches (no smooth surface) in the outer ring for just a bit less that 180° of arc, but the walkways that form the circle proceed without approaching each other. The inner walkway on the south side angles abruptly inward, destroying the line of the crescent. On the North, the concentric circles end at the block of the visitor center and parking lot with a walkway that actually expands away from being a point, further destroying the negligible resemblence to the Turkish symbol. Depending on the light, (as opposed to colored artist renditions highlighting the layouts), the memorial will either look like little less than half a circle or like a nearly complete circle, but not the “moon” shape associated with the Turkish crescent.
And, of course, none of this is visible except from above. Everyone who visits the site will see only the arc of the memorial around one side of the bowl of the valley with paths crossing into it.
You simple, silly bastard. The crescent is a symbol not only of Islam but of the Byzantines, outhouses, and rock-ribbed, red-blooded, more-fucking-Republican-than-thou, South-fucking-Carolina! Not only that but, as tomndebb has pointed out, the crescent design of the memorial does not, and was never meant to, symbolise a traditional Islamic crescent. The monuments designers were, I’m sure, aware of the symbolic associations of the crescent with Islam. This does not in any way justify the overt politicization of this issue by the rabidly anti-Islamic right-wing.
I do, however, agree with you that this could indeed be a secret U.S. Military project…
Scene: The Oval office.
Karl Rove: Um…boss. May I have a word?
Pres. Bush: Sure! How about…burrito?. You like burrito’s, dontcha, Karl. That can be your word of the day. [sub]hee hee[/sub]
Rove: Uh…sure. Um, it’s about your poll numbers Mr President.
Bush: They still love me, right?
Rove: Well actually sir I…uh, no. No, not really, sir.
Bush: Oh. Well, uh, what’s up burrito-boy? Gum?
Rove: No, thank you sir. I…
Bush: [sub]burrito-boy, burrrrrrrito-boy, burrito-butt-boy, big bucket of burri…[/sub]
Rove: Sir! The people aren’t at all happy with your handling of the New Orlean’s crisis.
Bush: Oh. Ok. Whaddaya propose we do? Should I dust off the old flight suitaroonie?
Rove, leaning forward to whisper: Well, sir. There is something we could try which might take the heat off you for a while. See, there’s this memorial in [sub]whisperwhisperwhisper[/sub].
<long pause>
Bush: But…it’s a Memorial! I can’t do that. [sub]Can I?[/sub]
Rove: Relax, Mr President. You won’t have to lift a finger. I’ve got Rush and Ann in a conference call just raring to go.
Well you’re flat out wrong. The ONLY thing I’ve seen, read or heard about this has been this thread and the linked article in the OP.
I know, I read that. And I think differently. I think arguments that call people stupid or malicious because they have a negative visceral reaction to what is commonly held to represent the religion of terrorist who used that religion to wage war on our citizens, is self-centered and rude. Just because you don’t see it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
My husband and I were putting up a fence around our patio. I searched all over the internet for examples of fence designs that might look good in our yard. This is one of them I found that I liked. At first Thomas agreed that it looked like a cool design. Upon a second look, for whatever reason, it caught his eye in a way that he envisioned a swastika in the design. I don’t see it, though I can kindof see where he could see it. But because he saw it once, now every time he looked at it it was impossible for him not to see it, and it bothered him, so we scrapped that design and I came up with one of my own. I feel the same way about this memorial. There is a rather large subset of people who can see enough similarity to the commonly perceived symbol of Islam that it makes them uneasy to have it representing a dedication to those slain by people in the name of that religion. So you can’t see it, but that doesn’t make those who do evil or stupid, despite your declarations to the contrary. You’re a bright guy, so I suspect you know that you don’t get to dictate why people feel the way that they do.
So what?! You can describe it in minute detail until the cows come home, that doesn’t negate the fact that some people DO see enough similarity to make them uncomfortable.
To you! I see it and I have absolutely no political agenda against it.
Again, so what? If I can only see the similarity to a swastika design from above at a (hypothetical) Holocaust memorial, does that make it any less similar to a swastika design?
