Soledad O’Brien’s CNN special “Unwelcome: The Muslims Next Door” focuses on one of the more high-profile battles over Islam in the past year: the fight over a mosque in a small city in Tennessee called Murfreesboro. The fight–in which a wave of anger, protest, threats and, in one case, arson sprang up in response to the attempt of the city’s Muslim population to build an Islamic community center–drew national attention. Along with the debate over an Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero and other anti-Muslim acts of violence around the country, it also highlighted a growing strain of fear, resentment and hostility towards Muslims.
In the special, O’Brien talks to people from all sides of the debate in Murfreesboro, from the imam who is trying to get the mosquie built to the men and women at the center of the opposition to the building. She also follows what happens when the anti-mosque side takes the group behind the center to court–and tries to argue that Islam is not even a religion.
(Source: CNN and HuffingtonPost.com)
