The alleged desecration of Koran story resulted in the death of many Muslims and the reaction has been violent, verbally, in United States
Instead of sending Mr. McClellan out to flog Newsweek, President Bush should have said: “Let me say first to all Muslims that desecrating anyone’s holy book is utterly wrong. These allegations will be investigated, and any such behavior will be punished. That is how we Americans intend to look in the mirror. But we think the Arab-Muslim world must also look in the mirror when it comes to how it has been behaving toward an even worse crime than the desecration of God’s words, and that is the desecration of God’s creations. In reaction to an unsubstantiated Newsweek story, Muslims killed 16 other Muslims in Afghanistan in rioting, and no one has raised a peep – as if it were a totally logical reaction. That is wrong.[The Best P.R.: Straight Talk]
and Jeff Jacoby has more
No one recalled, for example, that American Catholics lashed out in violent rampages in 1989, after photographer Andres Serrano’s ”Piss Christ” — a photograph of a crucifix submerged in urine — was included in an exhibition subsidized by the National Endowment for the Arts. Or that they rioted in 1992 when singer Sinead O’Connor, appearing on ”Saturday Night Live,” ripped up a photograph of Pope John Paul II.
There was no reminder that Jewish communities erupted in lethal violence in 2000, after Arabs demolished Joseph’s Tomb, torching the ancient shrine and murdering a young rabbi who tried to save a Torah. And nobody noted that Buddhists went on a killing spree in 2001 in response to the destruction of two priceless, 1,500-year-old statues of Buddha by the Taliban government in Afghanistan.
Of course, there was a good reason all these bloody protests went unremembered in the coverage of the Newsweek affair: They never occurred.
Christians, Jews, and Buddhists don’t lash out in homicidal rage when their religion is insulted. They don’t call for holy war and riot in the streets. It would be unthinkable for a mainstream priest, rabbi, or lama to demand that a blasphemer be slain. But when Reuters reported what Mohammad Hanif, the imam of a Muslim seminary in Pakistan, said about the alleged Koran-flushers — ”They should be hung. They should be killed in public so that no one can dare to insult Islam and its sacred symbols” — was any reader surprised?[Why Islam is disrespected]
What about those Indians who were holding candles in Marina Beach during the invasion of Iraq, sooo concerned about civilian deaths due to the bombing ? What happened to the Booker Prize winner who wrote pages and pages against the war and the secular Rediff columnist who surfaces only when Maoists are in trouble ? If you are for peace, shouldn’t you be holding candlelight vigils and holding protest campaigns against the terrorists ?
The Jeff Jacoby piece was cool! I read with increasing surprise at my own ignorace till I read the googly in bold in the end!
The most important point that you made was this: is god’s word more important than his creations? But what you and I think is hardly important. What is important is, what it taught in the millions of religious schools that are breeding hate among the poor.
I can’t understand this at all: the “liberals” are calling for muslims to condemn the rioting while the “conservatives” are attacking Newsweek. Geez, politics never made sense to me!