Pastor Provokes International Outrage

Pastor Terry Jones, of his small Christian church of barely 50 members in Gainesville, Florida, has surged to international attention in the past week, after he planned to burn copies of the Qur’an to mark the ninth anniversary of the horrific events of 9/11.

To many Gainesville residents, Mr. Jones is nothing but an ignoble extremist, to which his Dove World Outreach Centre’s existence has long tried to be ignored. However, Mr. Jones’ proposal to burn over a hundred of the Islamic holy book, naming the Saturday, ‘International Burn-a Qur’an day’, caused international outrage, leading to two deaths in Afghanistan, occurring from aggressive protests against the sadistic event from taking place.

Mr. Jones stated he was burning the Qur’an in order to send out a clear message to radical Muslims: ‘We will not be controlled by their fear, we will not be dominated. We feel it is time for America to be America.’

Unfortunately, Mr. Jones does not seem to realise, no matter how direct his intentions of who this stunt is aimed at, all Muslims – radical or moderate – will be revolted at such an act. Muslims consider the Qur’an to be the word of God and insist it be treated with the utmost respect; any intentional damage or show of disrespect to the holy book is deeply offensive to them. So it is understandably irritating to see a confused Pastor wondering why there are such huge protests from Muslims all around the world, when he is just aiming it at the radical spectrum.

If one were to use this very same, illogical, idea and burn a couple of bibles because of a thorough dislike against the Pastor’s religious beliefs, would it offend other Christians, even if it were not directed at them? Of course it would. More to the point, the bible is arguably as much a book of hatred as the Pastor claims the Qur’an to be, with a dark history of homophobia, women being allowed no civil rights and the cruel suffering of Native Americans through ‘Manifest Destiny’.

But his warped views do not stop there. Mr. Jones has also written an extremely controversial book, entitled ‘Islam is of the Devil’, spelling out why Islam is a ‘hate-driven’ religion. But shockingly, and moreover the most frustrating factor in this entire incident, is that the Pastor has stated that he has never even read the Qur’an: ‘I have not read the Qur’an, no, not very much of it.’

Nothing says ignorance like burning a book, claiming it to be evil, to which you have not even read.

Worse still, it appears Mr. Jones, after 58 years, does not seem to care that his actions would have grossly endangered many US troops still fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, even after being heavily, and repeatedly, condemned by President Barack Obama, the Head of State Hilary Clinton and General David Petraeus, the head military commander in Afghanistan.

President Barack Obama on Thursday said Mr. Jones’ plans to burn hundreds of copies of the Qur’an would be a ‘recruitment bonanza’ for al Qaeda.

The President went on to say:
‘I just want him to understand that this stunt that he is talking about pulling could greatly endanger our young men and women in uniform who are in Iraq, who are in Afghanistan. We're already seeing protests against Americans just by the mere threat of it,’ Obama said.

Mr. Jones stated, however, his church would not be responsible for repercussions of its dreadful acts, which would have been allowed to have taken place, and protected against arrest, under the first amendment of the American Constitution on free speech.

Though however awful the outcome may have been from the Qur’an burning, it is important to note that while the President recognises the potential hazards which could occur if such an event took place, the US foreign policy in Iraq and Afghanistan provoke much more anger than Mr. Jones could ever have caused. Policies of the planned invasion of Muslim countries, the unforgivable large numbers of innocent civilian casualties and deaths, plus the use of torture and planned assassination can only be seen in a very dark light.

Whilst Mr. Jones was set to carry out a highly dangerous event, the US Government has no moral high ground to stand upon, to which it’s policies are responsible for creating more radical Islamists than any Qur’an burning could result in. If the US is serious about stamping out any future rise in Islamic extremists, the answer does not lie in pointing all fingers at a small church in Florida; rather the solution is to stop all of these unneeded wars, and to start withdrawing all troops from the Middle East.