“Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen” – “Where they burn books, they will, in the end, also burn people.”
(Heinrich Heine – 1821)
It seems that Pastor Terry Jones’s plan to burn 200 copies of the Qur’an has been cancelled though there seems to be confusion about whether it has been cancelled or just put on hold. When I first heard about the plan to burn the Qur’an it certainly sent shivers down my spine, fanning the flames of hate. Jones is a vile bigot and racist.
Why burning, though, rather than some other kind of destruction? The symbolism of flames is plain. For Andrew Motion, former poet laureate and chair of this year’s Man Booker prize, “books are little encapsulations of human effort and wisdom and, I suppose, of our sense of history. So to burn one of any kind, and certainly one that is a representation of a culture and set of beliefs, is to appear to consign it to the flames of eternal damnation.” Book-burning, he says, is first and foremost a monumental “manifestation of intolerance. It’s the conflation of what ought to be nuanced views into one, hate-filled act.
And on the eve of September 11th where chaos, carnage, devastation and destruction happening in New York. And we know the rest in how the West dealt with the situation….”War on Terror”..more destruction and carnage in the name of “liberation”.
Christianity is not the opposite of Islam. They are variants of the monotheist belief system. Neo-conservatism is not the opposite of the intolerant fundamentalism that prevails in Saudi Arabia incubates reactionary religion based ideologies in the rest of the world. They are part of the mindset that says religion is a way of identifying your enemies whom you can destroy.
Both are the violent flailing around of reactionaries who have run out of political answers.
The opposite of the terrorism of that day would be the building of a mosque in the WTC area with the support of the wider community. It would be an expression that all are united and stand together at the end of the day whatever religious or other traditions that different groups or individuals identify with.
The Nazi’s burnt books that were not their own, forcing people, looting jewish property. This act was a part of their program of ethnic cleansing. Using violence to remove people that after many generations had become an integral part of the german people and culture.
This (idiotic) parson and his 50 protesters have bought their own copies of a book with many millions of copies, and planned to burn those private copies as a symbolic gesture. Their gesture is as futile as it is silly. It is a mockery to compare it to old nazi book burnings, meant to exterminate a book, and its ideas, or to intimidate the owners.
The argument is not about principle, or respect for a religion.
The reason we like them to refrain from burning this book is that nearly all muslims are reasonable people, but that there are enough of those that will work up a crazed anger at this book burning silliness, motivating them to violence, against unrelated other people that they, in their craze, associate with these book-burners.
Admit it: we are afraid of a small but vocal minority of overexcitable and potentially violent muslims. And asking the idiotic book-burners to not do their thing is not a sign of respect, but simply fear for crazy people that cannot control their own anger after a perceived insult.
Still good enough reason to ask those silly book-burners to refrain from their ill advised plans!
Let’s hope that the small number of potentially violent muslims will learn to protest in moderate ways, maybe burn a flag or a bible, but refrain from violence towards other people. Maybe this episode is a learning exercize for them.
With due respect nobody reports when in the Middle east Islamics burn the Bible and kill christians in Afghanistan even those there to help their sick children. It is probably a stupid move by Islamics in America to put a mosque next door to the most sensitive area of New York where 1,000s were killed in the name of Islam.
Being democratic and fair minded and accepting is a great ideal to aspire to, but how many cheeks do you turn ? If there was as much outcry when other religions had these ‘attacks’ it would be easier to accept, but it does seem only Americans and US are expected to play queensbury rules.
Bear in mind we are still to get any sort of global condemnation of rank and file Islamics of Al Queda or indeed any loony islamic fringe that kills in Allah’s name….and who use their religion as a hate weapon, until that happens perhaps Americans can feel they are not as genuine as they make out. I find most of the world’s outrage completely misplaced unless they make these points clear too. Are they just running scared of Islamic backlash again ? we can’t keep backing off when people are dying.
MM, as much as you are a good friend, you’re bloody wrong on this – it’s always a small few who use their religion to manipulate and bully others. The majority on both “sides” are peace loving and knd.
Hmm, Did Pastor Jones overlook Luke 18:9-14? There’s nothing in the bible which tells me that Christianity is about bashing other people.
I was agreeing with you Tim, I am sure there are many Muslims who are peaceful, generally we are not seeing them out in force taking on their own extremism. I think if we saw that then it would avoid a ‘blanket’ reaction they are ‘all in it together’. There is an atmosphere of fear all around within the Islamic community who appear to be afraid to speak out against the extremists in their own midst. If British and American lives are put on the line, we need to see it shown we are defending the very peace Islam advocates. An extremist is an extremist regardless if he is Islamic, or christian, if he is pointing a gun at my head or flying planes into buildings killing 1,000s you are not going to argue his religious belief to do so. I think the Islamic community has to put up. Peace comes at a price.