US Muslims feel the pressure following Koran burning row
NEW YORK “We are the new communists” that’s how one man described to me what it’s like to be a Muslim in America today.
At morning prayers at the largest mosque in New York City today there was more of a mood of patient resignation, not the fear or fury you might think that think the row over Terry Jones’ threatened Koran burning would have created.
One man told me his greatest fear was that if Islam’s holy book was publically set on fire then how long would it be before someone else burnt a bible?
This one obscure pastor with a tiny congregation in Florida has attracted so much attention – and got a phone call from the secretary of defense – it now seems pretty clear that any extremist who want to grab their 15 minutes just has to buy a book of matches and threaten to burn someone’s Holy Scripture.
“To say you are a Muslim in America today is the same as saying you are a terrorist” I was told. A pretty frightening statement but in country where polls show that 43 per cent now hold “unfavourable” views of Islam you can see why some Muslims feel threatened.
All of sudden Terry Jones has decided to insist that an Islamic centre that’s proposed for near Ground Zero in New York be moved if he is to call off his book burning protest entirely.
The Imam behind the project in Manhattan says that he has not agreed to move his centre and nor will he.
Quite right say the worshippers at the 96th Street mosque. If the Islamic centre is moved than that is accepting argument that Islam and terrorism is the same they told me.
If you accept that having somewhere for Muslims to pray within two blocks of Ground Zero is insensitive or insulting than you are agreeing that Islam was responsible for bringing down the twin towers.
And if you think those 19 highjackers represent Islam that’s like saying Terry Jones is an ambassador for Christianity.
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Is it Sept 11 yet? Let’s proceed with the burning and get over it shall we?
The American politicians and media have kept the American public ‘ignorant’ of the evils of the American colonial/neo-colonial policies in the Muslim world and of Muslims’ grievances; hence, the ‘ignorance’ in the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks encouraged the unprecedented anti-Muslim sentiments.
Terry Jones’s public denunciation of Islam is a manifestation of the Western Colonial mentality, of Christian moral supremacy: Jones has indeed spoken not just for a small Christian community but for millions of Christians in the US and in Europe whose inherent ‘prejudice’ does not allow them to regard Islam as a true religion, or the Muslims as people of faith.
Muslims do not burn the Bible; they consider Christians as people of faith, despite regarding Christ as ‘son of God’ as blasphemy. Considering the unreported US army’s indiscriminate bombing of the people of Afghanistan in 2001 and after, then every week the Afghans should have been burning the Bible as a symbol of a most heartless and violent religion in the world. The American politicians, media and education system bear a great responsibility. Attend any Bible study group and see the shocking hatred for…
The picture of a burning Koran is a good metaphor for a decision many of us make when we reject religion or Islam in particular.
No responsible artist would create such an image in these times.
In the past the Christian community has remained tolerant despite feeling itself under attack by such creative works as ” The Life Of Brian “, ” The Last Temptation Of Christ ” etc, etc.
Such creativity directed towards Islam would be unthinkable these days. The tolerance to allow such a dialogue is absent.
Instead creative freedom has been replaced by the appeasement of a significant minority of Muslims.
For most of us the Koran is just a book. If I have a copy, it is my own private property, and I can treat it any way I like.
Thankfully in the US this is still true. However, in the UK according to Tony Blair, speaking on Channel 4 recently, I could be prosecuted if I did not treat my Koran with the same reverence as a Muslim .
Now if UK Law is protecting the Muslim point of view that the Koran is holy it is also, by extension, enshrining in Law the TRUTH of Islam.
So the UK is a de facto Islamic state.
TB on bringing faiths together is surely being naive. The theosophy is wonderful if we all believe that good will is so strong that no one covets power , dominance or will never do deliberate harm to another…the central issues will never be understood..it is too simple..love peace and gentleness before all…something I personally crave and despair when that vision is lost time after time.
[...] Terry Jones burns Korans or not on 11 September, the uncontrollable momentum of anger and fear generated by his threat has been [...]
I believe Tony Blair, as a person of faith himself, made a fundamental mistake after 9/11, which was to treat this all as simply a question of bringing the faiths together.
This is a secular state. Or was! Some people are religious others are not. And many of those who are not still hold their own spiritual belief systems outwith the framework of organised religion.
There are also those who consider themselves aetheists, but whose tolerance would put many religious followers to shame etc etc.
So its a question of how people of faith and people of no faith can live alongside each other too!
For people of no faith. Islam is just yet another ideology. Obviously we should respect the right of someone to follow Islam. But should we therefore be forced to respect Islam?
Am I allowed to burn Marxs’ communist manifesto?
Should we be expected to respect Communism? Should the government pass a law stating that from now on it is illegal to disrespect Marx, his book on dialectical materialism, etc etc?
Only a communist respects communism. Only a Muslim really respects Islam.
And yet the government is trying through legislation to protect Islam from perceived disrespect!!!
And why?…
Islam is not just a religion, it is also a culture. Just as we in the West feel threatened by attacks on our culture, Muslims feel threatened by attacks on their culture. So to burn a Koran so demonstratively is not only perceived as an attack on a book, or on Islam, but on Islamic Culture and Muslims in general.
We have now in the West a Culture within a Culture, and it has to be understood that both cultures are not going to disappear, and so there must be an accomodation between the two cultures and this entails that we in the West must compromise and respect Islamic Culture.
This means we must restrain creative freedoms we may have taken for granted in the past.
With freedom comes responsibility. And we must be responsible.
There is a problem here. What i rarely see in the media is so-called ‘moderate muslims’, protesting at the acts of violence, commited by their ‘brethren’ against the west and other religions in muslim countries. Our media is frightened to criticise or publicise these outrageous acts and the continuing appeasement of the murderous ideology that is Islam, leaves a lot of our indigenous population disenfranchised and feeds the growing divide’s in our society. Question…. is Islam an ideology or a race? It seems that to criticise Islam leaves one open to the accusation of being a racist. This is just a tactic employed by many to field any questioning of this ‘religion’. More attention ought to be drawn to the true translations espoused by the koran that motivate extremist acts. I had expected more of CH4; a channel i once respected for its investigative journalism. The same sort of appeasement occured in 1930′s europe and we all know the result of that folly. Still, i have faith that eventually, the truth will out, through our dhimmi media or not. Democratic nations are waking up to the threat and our media MUST be more brave in their reporting and un-afraid to offend.