Reading comments on the Rev. Jones Koran-burning saga, I came upon a remark that wondered how it was OK for rockstars to burn Bibles and not OK for Pastor Terry Jones to burn the Koran. I wondered what it was. Multiple factor make the planned burning a bad idea.
First of all, there exists a really important difference between the Christian’s Bible and the Muslim’s Koran, one that might be perceived as a detail by our increasingly secular society (in some parts of North America, that is!). The Koran is, in fact, thought to be the exact Word of God. What is written in that book is thought to be verbatim what God said, not what Muhammad said, whereas the Bible is instead the word of Christ, prophets and apostles. This distinction is important in understanding why the book itself as an object is still today considered more sacred than the Bible.
Second, during the last century, most of the occidental world has moved away from religion, as there is now a clear distinction between church and state. Not so in many middle-eastern countries. Those countries have not enjoyed the secular revolution, or at lest not to the same degree. Even in many of the more secular nations, more fundamentalist groups operate than in our societies. Think not so far back, in the 1970s. 40 years ago, people protested when rock bands used anything that could remotely be construed as a Devil symbol.
Our society has changed a lot since then. What is astonishing is to see that, for the most part, the people who do not oppose the planned Koran burning are part of the same groups that so fiercely opposed rock stars defiling their religion and “making youths worship Satan”. Today, when we speak of burning Islam’s sacred book, they shrug it off, saying “Rock stars burn the Bible all the time, people burn American flags all the time”, but not so long ago, they marched the streets opposing rock concerts. Hell, in some parts of Occident, things have not even changed that much: Behemoth, a Polish black/death metal band, was sued recently for desecrating a Bible on stage. Don’t tell me people do not overreact to the same degree…
Third, the Koran burning combines many factor that makes the plan even more contentious: it happens at a time when relations between Muslims and Christians are tense, at a date held sacred by Muslim (Ramadan), on the date that Muslim extremists, nine years ago, committed a terrorist act, during a period when there are already concerns about a NY “mosque” (it is more correctly an Islamic center), and done by someone who vilify Muslims, no matter what, and who did so apparently even before the 9/11 attacks…
Finally, when a rock star or a metal artist “burns a Bible”, it is most of the time part of the act, either as “character” or as an act of rebellion. Rarely are artists who sing lyrics about the devil serious, and when they are, they are surrounded by so many similar artists who take this as an act that it is impossible to tell the difference. In this case, this is no theatrics: this is real life attempt to sow hatred as revenge for acts committed by a tiny minority of the immense and diverse Muslim community.
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