The Koran on fire

A small church group in Florida the name of which is hardly worth mentioning has warned the American public that it is going to publicly burn a copy of the Koran on the day of national mourning for the victims of 9/11 terrorist attack.  

The statement resulted in a wave of condemnation all over the U.S. and abroad, but the church’s leader seemed to be unabashed. “Despite all the international condemnation, we will go ahead with our plans to burn the Koran on the day of 9/11 anniversary”, he said. General David Petraeus, who is the commander of the US led troops in Afghanistan, has already warned that such an unequivocally anti-Muslim measure will result in a rise of Afghan insurgency, and therefore lead to an increase of American casualties. Other U.S. officials also condemned the church’s plans to burn Koran. State Secretary Hillary Clinton called the church’s plans "disrespectful and disgraceful". The US Attorney General, Eric Holder, called the idea "idiotic and dangerous".

But despite all criticism, the church’s leader, Pastor Terry Jones, who is also the author of a book entitled ‘Islam is of the Devil’, said that they will go ahead with their plans and want to “send a clear message to the radical element of Islam.” However marginal the ‘Dove World Outreach Center’ may be and whatever are the numbers of the sect’s followers, the whole initiative resounded very loud in American society.

The very issue of what is Islam in today’s America has become probably the hottest one on the agenda. The debates over the planned construction of a mosque at the site of 9-11-2001 have not yet subsided, and anti-Islamic sentiment is clearly rising. The anti-Islamic campaigners do not ask themselves the question whether all Muslims are terrorists. The fact that all terrorists on 9/11 were Muslims seems to be enough for them. The xenophobic wave in the U.S. is clearly rising. And that is probably not just a result of 9/11 terrorist attacks as such, but rather a result of the long-implanted and enforced notion of tolerance. The prevailing ideology in the U.S. for too long a time has been teaching  American citizens to tolerate all extremes, however weird they might seem to an ordinary American’s eye. A woman is killing her unborn baby – well she has a right of choice. Someone is praying to Satan or a pagan god – well, we are a free society where everyone is free to worship whatever god he/she believes in. And the intensely imposed tolerance has given its sprouts. It has resulted in such extreme acts as burning the sacred book of a religion the very name of which means ‘Peace”.

The reaction of American society to the construction of a mosque at ground zero was very symptomatic. Most of New York’s residents, even if not opposing the idea publicly, would like to see the mosque to be constructed at some other place. That means that the notions ‘Muslim’ and ‘terrorist’ are too deeply embedded in the American way of thinking. As an opinion poll shows, up to 53% of Americans view Islam unfavorably. And this is a society that has for a long time claimed to be the most multi-ethnic and the most multi-confessional in the world!

Even as the supreme spiritual leaders of the main religious confessions gathered in Washington to oppose the wave of intolerance caused primarily by the plans to build a mosque near the site of ground zero, this does not seem to have appeased the most radical anti-Islamists. Their appeal for inter-confessional peace and religious tolerance reached some ears, but the very culprit in the center of the controversy, Pastor Terry Jones seemed to be unmoved. His plans have not altered.

And here a question arises, where lies the border between tolerance, freedom of conscience and respect for other’s beliefs? And isn’t Mr. Jones just following the line once defined by a Danish cartoonist who depicted Prophet Mohammed as the world’ worst terrorist?