Given the preoccupation of the American media with the possible shutdown of the American government, and the preoccupation of American and world media with Japan’s travails and the revolts in the Arab world, many Americans may have missed the news about the April 1 massacre of United Nations employees in Afghanistan.
That is unfortunate because it was as significant as it was instructive.
It began on Sunday March 20, when a pastor named Terry Jones burned a Koran at his small church in Florida. To their credit, almost no American media covered the event, and a mere 30 people came to witness it. But Jones broadcast the offensive and asinine event on the Internet — and did so with Arabic subtitles.
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To the best of our knowledge, since September 11, 2001, when 19 Muslims murdered 3,000 Americans, not one American out of a population of more than 300 million has publicly burned a Koran. Nevertheless, some Muslims in Afghanistan (and elsewhere) claimed that this one American and this one act, which was condemned by every prominent American of every religion and every political persuasion, was deemed worthy of retribution. And that retribution was the slaughter of as many non-Muslims as they could find.
On April 1, hundreds of enraged Afghan Muslims descended on a United Nations office building in Mazar-i-Sharif and murdered — by beating, stabbing, and cutting throats — four Nepalese, a Norwegian, a Swede, and a Romanian.
It is worth reflecting on this massacre.
Let us remind ourselves about the mindset of those Muslims and of any Muslims who agree with them. To these people, murdering any non-Muslims they can find is a just and an Islamic response to the burning of a Koran.
This is important to note because it gives one a clearer picture of the type of the person the Islamist is. We have here a level of moral primitiveness unknown elsewhere in the human race. There are bad people in every religion, in every country, and in every group. But we do not know of any group, let alone millions of people, who believe that murder is a proper response to an affront to their religion (or to their country or to their ethnic group).
The world’s more than two billion Christians regularly endure far greater affronts to their religion, yet not one Christian has murdered anyone because of these affronts. For example, an artist, Andres Serrano, put a crucifix in his urine, and titled it Piss Christ; yet he knows that he doesn’t have to worry about even one Christian hurting him. Likewise, not one of the museum curators whose museums have exhibited the work believe they have anything to fear from even one of the world’s two billion Christians.
And what about the Christians regularly murdered by Muslims in Egypt, Iraq, and elsewhere? Why haven’t these crimes, infinitely morally worse “affronts” than the burning of a Koran — or a Bible — produced anything analogous to the enraged Muslims in Afghanistan?
The frequent and large demonstrations in the Muslim world against affronts — real and imagined — to Islam need to be juxtaposed with the utter absence of demonstrations against the now-routine murdering of innocents in the name of Islam.
Even the notion of religious affront needs to be examined. Isn’t evil done in the name of one’s religion more of an affront than evil done against one’s religion? I suspect this how nearly every Jew and Christian thinks. The vast majority of Christians would be considerably more affronted by murders of innocents in the name of Christ than by insults — like Piss Christ — to Christ. Why, then, isn’t the Muslim world more affronted by all the Muslims who shout “Allah is the greatest” while cutting the throats of innocent men, women, and children, than by illustrations of Muhammad in a Danish newspaper, or the burning of a Koran by a crackpot in Florida?
Unfortunately, the moral confusion wasn’t confined to Afghanistan. Though in no way morally equivalent, we Americans exhibited our own form of moral confusion in regard to the Koran burning.
Joe Klein, political commentator for Time magazine, morally equated Terry Jones and the Afghan murderers: “There should be no confusion about this: Jones’s act was as murderous as any suicide bomber’s.”
Anyone with common sense knows that there is no moral equivalence between destroying a book, no matter how holy, and destroying a human life. So how does one explain Joe Klein’s statement?
Klein is a leftist, and his comment embodies two aspects of the contemporary Left.
One is the Left’s hard time identifying and confronting real evil.
Instead of focusing on Islamism, the Left focuses on small evils like alleged pay gaps between men and women working at the same job, or on non-evils such as carbon-dioxide emissions. Or they engage in moral equivalence: The Muslim murderers are no worse than Terry Jones.
The other characteristic of the Left embodied in Klein’s statement is what George W. Bush called the “soft bigotry of low expectations.” It is clear that Klein has contempt for Muslims. If Christians had slaughtered innocents because of Piss Christ, it would never have occurred to Klein to write “There should be no confusion about this: Serrano’s act was as murderous as any slaughtering Christian’s.”
With Islamism dominating major parts of the Muslim world, and leftism dominating much of the non-Muslim world, these are not the best of times.
— Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. He may be contacted through his website, dennisprager.com.
Your logic is flawed- Serrano's act and Jones' act are not equatable. The reason Klein is correct in saying that Jones' burning of the Koran is equivalent to murder is because Jones was cognizant of the fact that this act had the potential to cause a violent response on behalf of the Muslim community. Saying otherwise would be like saying people shouldn't be responsible for gun violence because it's bullets that kill people, not the pulling of a trigger. Serrano was not conscious of the possibility of a violent Christian backlash because, as your article suggests, that isn't the normal way Christians deal with being persecuted. Thus the situations are completely different.
I also don't think you are correct in (tacitly) trying to equate Islam with the "real evil" that needs to be confronted. I think the facts that your article cites (i.e. the burning of the Koran, the violent protests in response) demonstrate that the real evil is found in extremism. Without engaging in too much of the philosophical nature of evil, it is pretty obvious that that which is considered evil is that which is done without any "good" intentions. Clearly there are some good intentions associated with the religion of Islam. Also, I'd encourage you to read Hannah Arendt's "Banality of Evil," which is a widely regarded work that says evil acts (such as the holocaust) are actually propagated by bureaucratic structures and policies that diffuse responsibility and thus any need to confront what you would consider the "real evil."
Decades ago, the Leftists in this country urged unilateral nuclear disarmament, reasonaing that the bad guys only had nukes because we did and if we gave up ours, they'd give up theirs. Fortunately, we did no such thing.
Unfortunately, we have gradually engaged in unilateral moral disarmament. Diversity has destroyed moral clarity and now our society is at the mercy of a culture with a simple and incomplete, but strong moral code. The average American has been deprgrammed to the point where he can't even look at two moral systems, or their products, and make a meaningful distinction.
Two cheers for Mr. Prager, but why is it to its credit that the American media purposely downplayed Pastor Jones's burning of the Koran? Such considerations on the part of the media are motivated by fear, not principle. A courageous media would have had faith in its own culture and not assumed a preemptive attitude of submission to Islam. In addition, Prager is compelled to denounce Pastor Jones for his "offensive and asinine" exercise in asserting his Constitutional right of free speech. The provisions of First Ammendment are sufficiently broad to include speech we might deem offensive and asinine. However, if Mr. Prager has read the Koran, he might conclude there is much within it to justify the Reverend Jones in his hostility to the book. The Koran is implacably opposed to any faith but Islam and is impossible to reconcile it with the Christian Bible, especially the New Testament. As a Christian and an American, I am wholly indifferent to the Koran and I would not care if it were used as tinder or a door-stop. Please watch Ann Bernhardt's wonderful video on You Tube.
Wow differential, what a backhanded way of proving Dennis' argument. So Pastor Jones has to modify his behavior because he knew that it would incite a bunch of illiterate morons to go on a murderous rampage? That is ridiculous and a capitulation of OUR values. Klein is a moral coward and you seem to follow the same path. The same goes for Serrano, he did what he did because he had no fear of repercussions to himself. Why do we give a pass on Islam as the only religion that is allowed to murder people whenever they decide an insult has been given?
One suspects that if at the snap of a finger Christianity was replaced by Islam as the predominant religion of Anglo-European whites, the Left would finally accord it the criticism it deserves. Well, so long as doing so wouldn't result in someone on the Left getting assaulted.
As it stands, Islam is largely the province of "ethnic" peoples, most of them of the Third World. Many of those countries perceived to be past victims of "imperialism". And they are largely anti-America and inimical to Western Civilization. Also, Islam is totalitarian when practiced as written. The Left has a curious, if largely unspoken, affinity for totalitarian/authoritarian entities that seek to "organize the People".
All of these things combine to give Islam protected status among the Left, regardless of how many Bela Abzugs Islam would either stone to death or remove the shoes from and return to the kitchen.
So are you saying that it is only okay to offend those who are reasonable and believe in the rule of law, but it is not okay to offend those who are irrational and potential criminal?
This not only sounds suspiciously like a capitulation to the lowest common denominator but perhaps an incentive to the irrational to continue to act irrationally.
I do think that the "Pastor's" actions were idiotic and ill-advised but that he had the legal right to do it. I would only defend it on legal grounds, not a moral one. The real horror though, is in those lives that were prematurely ended due to the moral insanity of the jihadist worldview. The two moral violations are not equivalent.
To the first commentor:
In the future, you should avoid starting such a confused hash of strange conclusions and nonsensical examples with the unfortunate phrase: "Your logic is flawed." It is also a good policy to refrain from using the phrase "(Joe) Klein is correct."
Mr. Prager - I must agree with almost everything you have said. My only disagreement is where you say: "Anyone with common sense knows that there is no moral equivalence between destroying a book, no matter how holy ... " My disagreement here is in the implication that the Koran is any way a holy book. It is a murderous political tract on the order of Mein Kampf and the Protocols of the Elder Zion. It is in no way holy.
differentialdirection: Mr. Prager's logic is not flawed and Klein is not correct. Muslims are offended by anything the West does. If they give away porcelain piggy-banks in English banks, they're offended. The English have complied and have withdrawn the piggy-banks. They are well on their way to dhimmitude. This is America. If the Rev. Jones wants to burn the Koran, it is his right. We are not going to be dhimmi in our own country. If Muslims want to be accepted as civilized individuals, they will have to learn how to control their passions. They are on the level of infants. We need not be enablers to their infantile rages.
"Clearly there are some good intentions associated with the religion of Islam. "
Clearly? How so? I'm willing to entertain the idea that out of 1 billion+ adherents there are well intentioned people, but what exactly makes it clear that the religion itself has good intentions?
I've always wondered about how the Muslims view their God. They must believe him to be amazingly weak and ineffectual. After all, he has to rely on them to defend his honor. Apparently he doesn't have the stones to do it himself.
In the New Testament God tells us to turn the other cheek when others insult us.
In the Old Testament God actually tells his people that vengance belongs to him, not to them.
I'm not familiar with the rest of the world's religions to categorize all of them.
But it seems to me that Islam is unique in it's need to have the followers defend their "god's" honor.
I was going to counter differential, but everyone else already hit it pretty well on the head. One comment I do want to make, though, is on the use of the term dhimmi. I find it no more valid than using jihad as a term to justify terrorism. Would we use the term untermensch when refering to holocaust victims? Using the term lends a degree of credibility where none is warranted.
First poster, you actually believe that something can be considered evil only if it was perpetrated without good intentions?
As long as I have "good intentions" I suppose I could collectivize the farms, run off the kulaks, seize private property, make it illegal to quit your job, indoctrinate your children to snitch on you, make a "Great Leap Forward", and run public schools like a wing of my Ministry of Propaganda...and never worry about being called evil?
So long as I can claim to be working towards the Greater Good?
Forget about intentions. They count for exactly squat. Only results matter, because that is what we have to live with or suffer through. I assure you if I could erase every transgression against the natural rights of Man done in the name of good intentions, I'd save far more lives than erasing the ones done out of cussed hatefulness or evil.
That’s a good point Tim, but unfortunately we need a term to describe a real institution, even if we find it repugnant. The Dhimmi subscribes rights and obligations to religious minorities in Islamic lands, but is premised on the submission of those religious minorities to Islamic supreiotiy. The “Dhimis” are subjected to the Poll tax, which has been a crushing burden historically, and various other indignities including not being able to testify against Muslims, having to ride donkeys while Muslims ride horses, etc. This legal subjugations of religious minorities is anathema to American values, but as repugnant as slavery was, we still had to call it slavery, and the same is true of the Dhimmi.
While we’re at it, let’s point out that while the Left and the International Community lie about Israel being an Apartheid state, even though Israel affords full and equal rights to its Muslim minority, it ignores the actual Apartheid in Islam and Islamic states in the form of the Dhimmi and the near universal denial of equal rights to religious minorities in the Islamic world.
Even if Americans did absolutely nothing to be used as a basis for inciting Islamist rage, those who wish to do so will make things up. It happens here, too. People who wanted to make Palin appear stupid propagated the Tina Fey impression/skit about Palin saying she could see Russia from her house.
Yet I wonder if Jones cannot be prosecuted. One cannot yell "Fire!" in a crowded movie theater when there is no fire, because there is a possibility of people getting hurt. This is an apparently acceptable limitation on free speech rights in this country. Unnecessary speech that can result in physical harm to others isn't necessarily legal. I appreciate the free speech aspect of voicing an opinion (or rendering it in non-voice ways) and Jones is welcome to voice his opinion, too. But if we hold ministers responsible for what they say about gays and others, even though not specifically encouraging violence, how would it be inconsistent to do the same in Jones' case for what he said and did?
Rimfrel, in other words all we need to do in order to get flag burning made illegal would be to beat the tar out of anyone burning a flag. Don't like those Westboro Baptists? No problem, just set upon them with fists and cudgels. After enough of them get hurt a law will be passed banning their activity.
That is the sort of thing you are musing about, right? What Jones did is not the equivalent of yelling, "Fire!" He did not give anyone the false impression they might soon burn to death.
Rimfrel, a better example of what you are saying is that abortion should be banned not because it is reprehensible, but because some people get so worked up over abortion they go out and murder abortion doctors. Therefore we should tailor our laws and liberties to the whims of the vicious, lest we stir their ire.
The Left fails to recognize its own considerable evil that includes millions slaughtered in the name of progress in the last century. The Left has also encouraged every known type of immorality at one time or another.
Islamists are strong – no one messes with them, you know the result. In fact we are so fearful of them that we blame ourselves for their atrocities.
We have a strong enemy.
We are weak – consider our desire to make nice with Russia. We give Russia NewSTART and then Britain’s nuclear secrets, what did we get? A willing and complaint Russian partner...
no, a Russia eager to weaken the West further and promoting such by giving Iran nuclear fuel. Russia feels so emboldened now they are actually asking for (and may actually get) our ‘Red Button’ capability so they can have control over our missile launching systems.
Bottom line – Our enemy is strong, we are weak. Mr. Pager is correct; the future does not bode well for our children.
