During the Cold War chess served as a means of dialectic between opposing world views. That being said, it seems an agreeable and sane gesture to propose some such venue as a symbol of real progess toward finding a means to mitigating conflict or merely confining it to the limits of clock and squares.

Good idea really.

A nice idea, I hope that local government there will approve this kind of proposal, besides it's good to rebuild the lost image of that famous site (once been known for it's twin sky-crapper tower), and I think it is also nice because as formerly known site of world trade center it will now be known as a Chess Center place.

It's just a gambit -- publicity stunt if you like.

Still, there are worse ideas -- such as proposing the Islamic center there in the first place, or having ministers propose burning the Koran. Compared to those ideas, this is top notch.

Couple of years ago Mr. Trump trumped the beautiful dunes of the Aberdeenian coast, and I (while living there) --- and a clear majority (including politicians) of not only the Aberdonians --- protested against it. To no awail, unfortunately. But if Trump would throw money into such a chess site --- and it would be peanuts for him --- that would definitely be something to cheer and welcome.

I know the President of FIDE is a wingnut, but he got this one right. No one in this country wants that mosque there.(yeah, yeah, I know a few do, but the overwhelming precentage do not.) So any other alternative is good. I hope it happens. Donald Trump (in his usual bid for attention) said he would buy the site. Maybe the Donald would help FIDE get the site.

i like it, i would vist new york city for that.

   Its a fantastic plan for a controversial place and present situation but anyway just GO GO GO for it.

oopps, is there no other place whre the proposed building of a chess international center so to be able to shun away form the controversy? I'M JUST CURIOUS OF THE MOTIVE BEHIND IF ITS GENUINE.

One is not afraid of that war-mongering hate-speech religion; that is not the case. One finds it, rather, incredibly dumb and of excessively little use to humanity broadly speaking.

A chess site there would be of infinite more value.

What is completely unclear to me is why the FIDE president would select a site this controversial, which is at best going to tie up the process in litigation forever.  Either he does not understand what he is doing, or he does not really wish the process to succeed.  Either way, I find this move to be disappointing.

Look, an international chess center that happens to be near ground zero might be kind of cool.  But it does not need to be tied to the particular location that is driving so much controversy.

Well there certainly seem to be quite a few naysayers among us. Let's try and look at this situation a bit more objectively for a moment:

a) This man is apparently willing to spend $10 million (of someone's money) to buy a property; upon which he plans to build an international chess center.

b) Who cares what this man did before, who cares how many times he was abducted by aliens, the fact is, him being a good or bad person doesn't affect the quality of the chess center in the slightest.

c) Free chess classes for children is an excellent idea! The effect of chess on the human brain has been studied for decades, and the general consensus is that children who learn chess develop superior numerical, mathematical, spatial and verbal skills. Many schools don't have a chess club, in fact, I never attended a school which had a chess club with more than 2 students.

If this chess center comes into being with all the ideas currently proposed still intact, it could make a change in countless people's lives, albeit miniscule, for the better.

@sittingpawn:  You made some great comments in your post.  One of the reasons why the building where the mosque was planned was so cheap was because a jet engine (or by some accounts, a landing gear) fell through the roof on 9/11 and the place (a former Burlington Coat Factory) has been vacant ever since.  To tell you the truth, anything, even a mosque, is a better use of the land right now than a rat-infested eyesore.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park51

The Imam of New York was right when he said that Ground Zero cannot be "sacred ground" when strip clubs and off-track betting parlors are even closer to Ground Zero than the mosque would have been.  But in most of the public's eyes, mainstream Islam hits too close to home when it comes to pointing out immoral behavior.

So now, as far as the idea of a International Chess Center goes, yes, I would agree that it reeks of re-election propaganda by the incumbent president, Mr. Ilyumzhinov.  However, given his track record, I would guess that Mr. Ilyumzhinov will not be re-elected and Anatoly Karpov will take the reins of the organization.  I would hope that Mr. Karpov does as much as possible to revitalize Chess throughout the world.

kaish98bd wrote:

Muslim world will not accept it easily, even Muslim people will not support such FIDE or chess federation.

Oh man, that's cold. 

Ilyumzhinov is a moron. 

/me rolls eyes at all of the arguing below . . .

WanderingWinder, disagreeing and name calling are not the same thing. Talk is cheap and anonymous electronic talk is cheaper. See ya.

GreenLaser, if I had the means or reason to face you in person, I would call you a coward there as well. As it is, it would be a big waste of my time and money.

You're totally right that I haven't given proper evidence to my claims, as I ask of you. Treat them as wrong. I don't really have any problems with those people, so I'm not going to press some kind of attack against them. On the other hand, you're directly attacking one of the largest groups of people (Muslims) in the world. You claim that I am inferring what you don't imply, but you are indeed implying it, whether you intend to or not - and quite frankly I don't think you're stupid enough to be so inflamatory without realizing it. If you are, then I apologize.

I was "attacking" a much smaller group in Fox. I apologize completely to them, as though I disagree with them, I don't think they're trying to do anything bad or wrong or evil. I don't really think they're taking money from people who have done significantly more bad things than the average person.

I don't even have anything against you, GreenLaser, though it may seem like I do; I merely have an enormous problem with your arguments, and I'm going to speak out against them.

We are all entitled to our opinions, and we live in societies, where, generally, we are free to express them and try to persuade others. It is a wonderful thing. And so I encourage you to state your problems with this or any other action you disagree with; I merely hope that you'll do so more fairly in the future. For my part, I will endeavor to do the same.

WanderingWinder, you in some cases infer what I do not imply. In other cases, you use meta-language to obscure clear language.  You ask for sources, but use the Fox ownership excuse that is used in a number of sources to counter noticing Saudi funding in the case at hand. As for the word cowardly, it is better and more bravely used face to face rather than online.

Without comment.

"The statement, "Would you call a YMCA a church? I would not." is not relevant to what mosques are used for. I would not call a YMCA a rabat. The use of the terms mosque, house, and community center for the "mosque at Ground Zero" have been offered by its imam and developer."

If they've called it a mosque, I was unaware. I do know that they've responded to questions about it where it was referred to as a mosque, but this does not imply that they agree to such a description. For instance, if during a discussion, I continually referred to someone as being Jimbo, after a while, they'll probably grow too weary of correcting me. Even if they have offered the term themselves, I still tend to think (based on the interviews which I have seen) that they have done this more out of a lack of understanding of the public than anything else, and will continue to believe so until evidence is produced to the contrary.

"These people are tax scofflaws, slum landlords, and recipients of Saudi funding (for example from the same prince whose check was refused by Mayor Guiliani)." As far as I am aware - and I clearly admit to not knowing everything - none of these things have any real substantiation to them. If you want to claim that, it's fine, but instead of saying that it's something that's known, why don't you give a source?

"millvillage, 911 Truth is a religion because it puts faith in what cannot be demonstrated by reason. The particular group you cited sells stuff."

By this definition, everything is a religion. The belief that you or I exist cannot be demonstrated by reason. The very principle of non-contradiction cannot be demonstrated by reason. So okay, you just said that everything is a religion. Fine, but then to use such a word is useless. Having not checked out the group in question, I make no claims about it either way, but the argument is bad.

By all means, you can legitimately question some particular group or their funding or connections, what have you. But without any reasoning for doing so, you are playing a very dangerous (and, as you clearly don't have the time to do this with every development every being put in somewhere, ultimately discriminatory) game. The funding angle isn't necessarily a wrong one, but a) one can accept money from others without totally agreeing with them on every issue, b) it's not clear what the people having received funding have done exactly, and c) many large groups have accepted money from people who other people don't feel the best about. While we're looking at rich Saudis with questionable ties, why don't you look at Fox News's largest non-Murdoch investor? So following money-trails can be dangerous, though not necessarily wrong or bad.

This is NOT what you are doing though, when you are saying that Mosques have been used to store weapons. You are making a purposely negative insinuation about the people of a certain religion, by accusing them of being war-mongers, and doing so in a very cowardly way by not stating this plainly. Though your statement is true, it is highly misleading. The exact same thing could be said of U.S. (or almost any other) government buildings, synagogues, churches, and temples of essentially any religion with a substantial history, and of atheist and agnostic groups as well.