Staff: Chloe Breyer
Article Date: 2/20/2004
Article Name: Lost in Translation – A cautionary tale of rebuilding in a Muslim country
Author: The Rev. Chloe Breyer
Summary: In November 2001, while bombs were dropping over Afghanistan, the Episcopal bishop of New York heard that at least one Afghan mosque had been destroyed in a U.S.-led assault. He invited church members to work with our Muslim neighbors in Flushing, N.Y., to help rebuild a damaged mosque north of Kabul. The “mosque project” was a small pre-emptive strike by a few New Yorkers of Episcopalian and Afghan Muslim extraction against a Samuel Huntington-style “clash of civilizations” on the one hand and the hollow ring of President Bush’s laudable words about religious tolerance on the other. It was also an interfaith effort at reconciliation that ended up having more potential religious, cultural, and logistic pitfalls than your average USAID road- construction venture. Download full text.
