Thursday 9 September 2010
Burning the Koran
I rarely praise politicians, but I must say that world leaders are to be congratulated for condemning the proposed Koran burning in Florida on the 11th of this month. Pastor Terry Jones, the instigator of this event, appears to have learned none of the lessons that have been learned, at great cost, by our military and political leaders. Sorry to sound wise after the event, but even at the time of 9/11, I thought that the attacks were meant as provocations, intended to propel the USA and her allies into some kind of precipitate action. Unless Bin Laden and his cronies are idiots, they must have known that there would be a powerful military intervention against them, and would have planned for it. Well, in war, you don't do what your enemies want you to do. 9 years down the line, I think we've done just that, paying a huge cost in lives, money and material, two countries have been devastated - and we still haven't caught Bin Laden. Still, light is beginning to shine, realisation of what kind of enemy we are dealing with is growing, and President Obama is 100% correct to say that the proposed Koran burnings will cause a "bonanza" in recruitment for Al-Qaeda. If Bin Laden has any money left, he'll be sending it to Pastor Jones in grateful payment for helping the cause.
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Well, we can all breathe a sigh of relief - the Korans were not burned after all. I hope this is a sign that people in the USA (and here) are learning that Islam does not equate to terrorism. I'd like to remind everyone of two forgotten victims of 9/11. One was a Sikh garage attendant in the USA who was shot dead shortly after the attacks because he looked like Bin Laden. The other was an Afghan taxi driver who was assaulted at the time by a bunch of thugs in Chiswick. He was beaten up so badly that he was left paralysed. These men were also victims of 9/11, but their names are forgotten. There were many Islamophobic incidents following 9/11, all of which would have been welcomed by Al-Qaeda.
ReplyDeletePlease see:
ReplyDeletehttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1548981.stm
People have already died as a result of this stunt, even though it was cancelled. Their blood is on the hands of this so-called pastor and his rabid flock, with their own very bigoted and venomous form of Christianity.
ReplyDeleteCopied and pasted from the Care2 website. What's reassuring is that non-Moslems in the community have come out against it.
ReplyDeleteCOPYCATS BURN QURAN IN MICHIGAN
Terry Jones' plan to burn Qurans to commemorate the ninth anniversary of 9/11 may not have moved forward in Florida, but it looks like the idea inspired some others to put forward their own display of anti-Muslim sentiment. Early Saturday morning a burned copy of the Quran was found at the entrance to a mosque in East Lansing, Michigan. Some of the pages of the holy book had been shredded and some had been smeared with feces.
A community representative compared the action to burning a cross on the doorstep of a black church.
But even though the act of hate was discovered on Saturday the 11th, Muslim community leaders waited until the following day to make the incident public in order to make sure that the focus on Saturday remained on the reflection and remembrance of 9/11. The FBI has been asked to investigate the incident as a possible hate crime and East Lansing police kept a squad car parked at the mosque after it received the initial report.
According to news reports some pages of the desecrated text were found scattered throughout the surrounding neighborhood.
These actions show a lot more tolerance for the memory of that day and the message that the intolerance of a few will not dictate the policy of the majority then Jones or any of his copycats. If there is an upside to this story it is that many non-Muslims have come out in strong opposition to the action and have called for a showing of solidarity with the mosque. And now that the anniversary has passed, let's hope the rest of the country can find a similar showing of unity and push back against the frenzied Islamophobia that has captured the emotions of so many.