Apparently, pastor Jones has put his plans on hold – or not. Or maybe. At the moment, it isn’t sure, more on this later.
A small group of fundamentalist Christians in Florida plan on burning the Koran on September 11. Apparently, despite the fact that the White House (including Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton and General Petraeus), the Pope, countless organizations, whether Christian, Muslim and Jew, Canada and multiple personalities from all around the world – hell, even Stephen Harper, prime minister of Canada and conservative, is unequivocally against the burning!– keep telling them it is a bad idea and a stupid act, they plan on going through with this.
The objections I have to this act are numerous. I do not support any established religion in particular, as I do not like the fact that most religions give answers that remove any form of questioning and interrogations (as, more often than not, these answers are absolute – Word of God); yet there are many things that I hate as much as racism and bigotry, and this is exactly that.
The act of burning the Koran for the Sept. 11 anniversary is an insult to any Muslim, as it basically says “We believe all of you are terrorists”. There is no way around it, the pastor lumps all Muslims together, and brands them as terrorists. This is a classic case of Black and White mentality: they think they are the "good" Christians, victims of the "evil" Muslims. They fail to realize, however, that it is such a line of thought that leads Muslim extremists to resort to terrorism: agitators, whether Al Qaeda or any other group, want Muslims in these parts of the world to believe Americans, and indeed, most of the Occidental, non-Muslim world, is out to get them, that there is a Holy War going on. With such a clear display of hatred, that small group of fundamentalist Christians is doing terrorists a favor: it’ll be easier than ever to convince the angry, the hungry, the uneducated and the easily influenced that we must be eliminated.
Second, history has shown that Muslim communities offended by such act are led to resort to violence: why burn the Koran when we know that they may take up the arms and become more aggressive towards troops in Afghanistan? I’m not lumping all Muslims together, now: I know some will not feel as offended as others, and know some rightfully offended by this act will manifest in a civilized fashion. Yet it will incite the few that stand in a gray area to pick the side of the terrorists.
This cannot be compared to the Prophet’s drawing that drew the ire of the Muslim community a few years ago. The burning of Koran serves no purpose than provoke Muslims. We cannot condone what Muslim extremists are doing in some places of the world, such as burning Bibles and persecuting people of other religions. This is a given. However, in this day and age, I cannot even conceive how it is possible to genuinely believe that a whole religion of hundred of millions of followers are homogenous in their hatred toward the Occident and America. So the burning will insult all those who are tolerant, who are moderate and who are willing to work with us to live in harmony. Heck, Christians, Jews and Muslims all worship the same God! How hard can it be to make things right?
Sadly, it seems ignorance would be to blame. Not knowing that there are Muslims out there who do not support terrorists. If you are one of those, if you believe every Muslim out there is a danger to society, then I feel for you. It means you are blind, that you see the world not in colors, not in shades of gray, but rather in black and white. Such two-dimensional thinking is not very different from that of the terrorists you so despise. Think about it for a moment.
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