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Governors Island National Symbol Governors Island Lifeblood of American Liberty Governors Island Preservation and Education Project
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Governors Island is the historical locus of the dynamic notion of tolerance as a subset of American freedom and a crucial pillar of democracy.
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YouTube - Governors Island - Video www.GovernorsIslandToleranceMonument.com www.NationalHeritageTriangle.com
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In the way that a house of stone and brick is held together by cement, tolerance is the mortar that holds this world together—that enables mankind to prosper through ethnic diversity and cultural diversity. As a dynamic precept, tolerance requires ongoing struggle grounded in "broad awareness and conscious vigilance" in order to cement what unites us in freedom and to surmount what divides us. When the cement fails, so will the house—as in intolerance. The Governors Island Preservation and Education Project is a 50-acre living museum-park-to-tolerance which will provide our children with an opportunity to understand the meaning of American freedom. It will afford them a deeper appreciation of tolerance and liberty as equal partners in a pluralist, democratic society, at the very place where these notions first took root in 1624. Indeed, Tolerance and Liberty are innate to American Freedom. It is a politician’s obligation to govern for the common good of a sovereignty. Therefore, it is a New York State politician’s public duty to recognize, restore and preserve the tangible birthplace of his/her sovereignty—Governors Island—which also is the origin of the nation’s fundamental virtue of tolerance as dynamic source of American freedom. Therefore, as historic symbol of the State’s identity, the island’s legacy with its intangible message must be safeguarded politically for the benefit of our children.
“It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things. For the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order, this lukewarmness arriving partly from fear of their adversaries, who have the laws in their favor; and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who do not truly believe in anything new until they have had an actual experience of it. Thus it arises that on every opportunity for attacking the reformer, the opponents do so with the zeal of partisans, the others only defend him halfheartedly, so that between them he runs great danger” (Niccolo Machiavelli, 1532). |
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To officially consider, and visually acknowledge the momentous, elemental significance of New York State’s birthplace – Governors Island – is in the national interest as well as the interests of New York State and New York City. Our Constitution confers various rights on United States citizens pertaining to individual liberty. The concepts of religious, ethnic and racial tolerance are indispensable ingredients in liberty-for-all. The State of New York should recognize that it was founded on the concept of religious tolerance as the basis for cultural diversity. This precept has been the driving force behind New York's dynamic political culture. The virtuous notion of tolerance was delivered by the first settlers to Governors Island as a legal-cultural condition in 1624. This conception is also the foundation for mutually beneficial trade which requires reciprocal respect for enduring success. Trade, therefore, is a pragmatic manifestation of tolerance because it transcends issues of religion, ethnicity and race. This is evidenced by the success of New York City, originally New Amsterdam, as its exponent since 1625. Within the context of the three historic landings at Jamestown (1607), New Plymouth (1620) and Governors Island (1624), the latter signifies the culturally most important place because it symbolizes America’s earliest contribution to liberty as we know it today. Visualization of Senate Resolution No. 5476 and Assembly Resolution No. 2708 which recognize Governors Island as the origin of North American tolerance, therefore, would illuminate the island as a primary American symbol in New York Harbor next to Liberty Island. When thus realized, this new icon would radiate the idealistic version of tolerance as a fundamental human right and as the dynamic subset of American freedom through broad awareness and conscious vigilance. Honoring Governors Island’s legacy is therefore in the national interest and for the national common good. The island is the locus of New York’s inclusive culture and the wellspring of a message reflective of New York’s historical and contemporary identity. Dedicating 30% of the island for the organic growth of a not-for-profit, self-sustaining education and history project – the Tolerance Park Historic New Amsterdam – requires the active involvement of the State Legislature. A two-house bill only can restore, preserve and sustain the historic message of New York State’s birthplace for the benefit of future generations. Already on February 7, 2000, Dr. Cynthia P. Schneider, American Ambassador to the Netherlands, wrote about this shared, mutual cultural heritage and the joint historic values of two nations to Governor Pataki and Senators Moynihan and Schumer in support of this plan. She declared that “naturally you also need an economic rationale to support such a large project”...as emissaries “of the state with the cultural capital of the world, I doubt you need persuading on the revenue value of cultural tourism. I am certain that you are aware that more people attend museums than professional sports...I hope you will take it.” Legislative initiative is the only way to enable the portrayal of America’s ultimate virtue as a prerequisite to American liberty on Governors Island. It would accomplish a National Heritage Triangle of America’s primary values as an inspiration to humanity and composed by three islands in New York Harbor, each one reflecting its own unique facet of history. Introduction of a "Unibill", however, requires sponsors and co-sponsors willing to act in the public interest and aspiring to safeguard New York's identity and Governors Island's legacy in order to sustain a historic message of enduring value to New Yorkers and, in particular, future generations of Americans.
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Lifeblood of American Liberty
Governors Island’s legacy of tolerance with liberty as its partner constitutes American freedom. Its restitution to primary American history reveals the nation’s oldest National Symbol as a crucial pillar of democracy. With Liberty Island and Ellis Island, Governors Island composes a National Heritage Triangle of quintessential American symbols. New York’s legal and political tradition of religious tolerance—the historical basis for its characteristic ethnic diversity and pluralism—is a subset of American freedom. That tolerance had its beginnings on Governors Island in New York Harbor and has been the lifeblood of American liberty ever since. Intolerance impairs democracy and may even destroy it. Tolerance is central to the contemporary Western conception of personal freedom which can be defined in terms of the twin credos of tolerance and liberty. Its origins as an ethical force in the Western Hemisphere and as a legal and political imperative can be traced to the year 1624, in what is now the State of New York. Tolerance is an active dynamic entailing reciprocity and reciprocal respect. Always bilaterally demanding, it forges “American” freedom by relentlessly transforming plurality into constructive pluralism as a never-finished product of American culture. In the face of intolerance, tolerance is neither uncritical acceptance, appeasement or submission, nor laxity, sloth or indifference. Tolerance defines and gives meaning to an otherwise undemanding “generic” or “static” freedom. Without conscious vigilance and broad awareness of that vital, fundamental notion of tolerance, there will be times when there will be no freedom or democracy in the sense that Americans recognize that term today. Left unnurtured and unprotected, simple liberty invites and facilitates the "friends" of intolerance and extremism—complacency, carelessness, apathy, passivity and insipidness—opening the door to insidious assaults on civil liberties. A proposed Tolerance Park, known as Historic New Amsterdam, will restore Governors Island to its rightful historical importance and extol America’s vital role in advancing liberty in the world through the moral force of tolerance. It will be the place where 350 years of contrasts will visually dissolve harmoniously into a new and unique village, just as divergences and boundaries melt away through the ethical force of tolerance into common humanity. The park will provide our children with an opportunity to understand the meaning of American freedom. It will afford them a deeper appreciation of tolerance and liberty as equal partners in a pluralist, democratic society, at the very place where these notions first took root in 1624. Tolerance builds liberty. Intolerance kills liberty. The Park will thus preserve Governors Island's historic symbolism for America and as an enduring beacon for humanity. |
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COPYRIGHT Historical Rationale In his Inaugural Address of March 17, 2008, Governor David A. Paterson proclaimed: "Let us put personal politics, party advantage and power struggles aside, in favor of service, in the interests of the people...Let me introduce myself...I am the governor of New York State." Earlier, at the January 1, 2007, Inaugural Address, Governor Spitzer declared : “New York created the model for the kind of society that would be duplicated throughout the country and around the globe: Our state was born as an island at the center of the world” (i.e., Governors Island, originally named Nooten Eyland and in pidgin language Nutten Island until 1784). The reason for Governor Spitzer’s statement is that, with the arrival of New York’s (then named New Netherland) first settlers on Governors Island in 1624, the legal-cultural condition of the Dutch Republic, to include the basic human virtue of toleration (= religious tolerance) as the basis for ethnic diversity, was first implanted by law upon North American soil. That 1624 landing transformed the territory from 38 to 42 degrees latitude to a province of the Dutch Republic (unlike the first English landings in New England and Virginia) wherein the laws and ordinances of the states of Holland rather than the law-of-the-ship applied. Prior to 1624, the region—named New Netherland first by Adriaen Block in 1614 (as in Block Island)—had been a place for private commercial interests through patents issued by the States General (as in Staten Island)—the Dutch Parliament. These laws and ordinances contained the legal-cultural code which lies at the root of the New York Tri-State traditions and, ultimately, American pluralism and liberty. The legal basis for the claim to transform the region to a North American province was the Law of Nations: (1) Discovery in 1609 (2) Surveying and Charting from 1611-1614 and (3) taking Possession through Settlement in 1624. Hence, some of the Governors Island settlers were geographically dispersed to the Delaware River, the Connecticut River and at the top of the Hudson River (now Albany) in order to legally delineate the claim to the “Province of New Netherland” (now the New York Tri-State region). The settlers to Governors Island in 1624 had been instructed to attract only “through attitude and by example” the natives and non-believers to God’s word “without, on the other hand, to persecute someone by reason of his religion and to leave everyone the freedom of his conscience” (via “levenshouding en voorbeeld” moesten zij “de Indianen ende andere blinde menschen tot de kennisz Godes ende synes woort sien te trecken, sonder nochtans ijemant ter oorsaecke van syne religie te vervolgen, maer een yder de vrijch[eyt] van sijn consciencie te laten”). That instruction was derived from the founding document of the Dutch Republic, the 1579 Union of Utrecht, stating “that everyone shall remain free in religion and that no one may be persecuted or investigated because of religion” (“dat een yder particulier in sijn religie vrij sal moegen blijven ende dat men nyemant ter cause van de religie sal moegen achterhaelen ofte ondersoucken”). As a legal-political condition, this statement of tolerance was unique in the world at the time. Its introduction to the Western Hemisphere, first on Governors Island in 1624, became the legal-cultural underpinning for the "official" granting of full residency for both Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews at New Amsterdam (now New York City) in 1655. Further south, in Dutch Brazil, the expansion of this tradition of tolerance had been responsible for the historic opening of the first synagogue in the Western Hemisphere at Recife in 1642. On Manhattan Island, therefore, not only were 18 languages spoken in 1643 but Manhattan’s plurality was also depicted, for instance, on a mapped survey of 1639 which shows a large farm owned by America’s first Muslim planter, Antoni du Turck, a Moroccan from Fez. Freedom of religion and freedom of conscience as an individual right in only one geographical sector of North America, for that reason, had been the basis of pluralism and liberty (= personal freedom) since 1624. One hundred sixty seven years after that Governors Island landing, the conception of tolerance became again a legal-political right in the thirteen United States of America. It was not part of its founding document of 1776—the Declaration of Independence from England—or of the Constitution of the American Republic signed in 1787, but was adopted as an individual right in the First Amendment of 1791. American history, therefore, should accept the premise that of the three primary European landings/permanent settlements on the North-American East coast—Jamestown in Virginia, 1607; New Plymouth in New England, 1620; and Nooten Eyland in New Netherland, 1624 (now Governors Island in the New York Tri-State)—the Governors Island settlement was by far the most important one. Its significance lies in the historical fact that the virtuous conception of tolerance, thus rooted in the State’s very birth, is New York’s first and unique contribution to American culture. This precept has contemporary relevance as it helps our understanding of what defines American freedom. This legacy—which is also the foundation of New York’s identity—could make the island qualify as a potential World Heritage Site because it has outstanding universal value. When the island’s inherent contribution to American culture gets politically and popularly accepted, its restitution as important American history could make it serve as the primary National Symbol of tolerance thus—the nation’s oldest—next to the symbol of Liberty Island.
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