Dear Rev. Terry Jones: Kindly go throw yourself off a cliff. No love, The World
(Note: First of all, this entry stands whether the "Burn the Koran Day" thing actually happens or not. He keeps flipping back and forth on it, so who knows. Second, I know there's a couple of different ways of spelling "Koran", the other being "Qur’an", but after some googling I discovered that even Muslims can't agree on what the correct spelling is in the Roman alphabet. "Koran" is what I'm familiar with, and since it doesn't seem to be incorrect, that's what I'm going to use. Absolutely no offense is meant by the spelling.)
I've been trying to come up with something to say about the recent goings-on with this idiot Florida pastor Terry Jones and his "burn the Koran day" ignorance, but in the end, it's just... rage. It infuriates me that someone could be so ignorant, so hateful, that they would actually burn someone else's holy book. Just because it's not yours, that doesn't make it any less important. Just because it's not yours, that doesn't make the act of burning it any less wrong or offensive. It's a vital part of the lives of millions of people around the world- if Wiki is to be trusted, there are over 1.5 BILLION people who practice Islam. By burning the Koran, you send the message to all of those people that their beliefs shouldn't exist, that THEY shouldn't exist, and that is absolutely unacceptable. What if we had a "burn the Bible day"? I bet he'd be up in arms about that. How is this any different?
The really sad thing to me is that too many people agree with them on at least some level. My mother, while she disagrees with the Koran burning (mostly because of the effect it might have on our troops overseas in primarily Muslim populated areas), she actually made the statement that "THEY don't have the right to put a mosque in New York City." Um, yeah, actually, they do. And even if the proposed Mosque is close to the twin towers site... I fail to see how that's actually offensive. It's not the fault of ALL Muslim people that 9/11 happened. The radical minority doesn't speak for the whole. Almost every religion has radical factions. Christians as a whole aren't summarized by their worst... why should that be done with the Muslim faith? It is WRONG and epically unfair. Blaming all Muslims for 9/11 is like blaming all Christians for the KKK or the Holocaust. It's blatantly untrue and shouldn't happen. And yet... there are so many people that DO blame Muslims for 9/11. That feel it's okay to tell them that they can't worship in certain places, that they're wrong, that burning their KORAN is okay. My favorite part of the conversation I had with my mother was that, after she made that incredibly racist comment and I gaped at her like she was insane, she said "I'm not discussing politics with you." Which really... indicates to me that she, that these people, don't get it. It's not about politics. It's about respecting other people. It's about showing a little understanding to someone who's different from you in one way, but may be very much like you in another. It's about BASIC HUMAN DECENCY. Burning the Koran doesn't "honor" the victims of 9/11, it breeds hate and violence.
And that's before we even get into the actual act of burning a book. Burning a book is like burning knowledge. You're destroying awareness of what's going on around you. You're destroying tolerance and understanding. Books are SACRED, holy or not, and should be treated as such.
Bella posted a fantastic video that I'm going to share (I apologize to people who have seen this on their flist multiple times, but in all fairness, you don't have to push play if you don't want to. Such is the wonderfulness of the internet. Also it needs sharing.) International Read-A-Book Day... I like it. I think I have a copy of Fahrenheit 451 around here somewhere...
I've been trying to come up with something to say about the recent goings-on with this idiot Florida pastor Terry Jones and his "burn the Koran day" ignorance, but in the end, it's just... rage. It infuriates me that someone could be so ignorant, so hateful, that they would actually burn someone else's holy book. Just because it's not yours, that doesn't make it any less important. Just because it's not yours, that doesn't make the act of burning it any less wrong or offensive. It's a vital part of the lives of millions of people around the world- if Wiki is to be trusted, there are over 1.5 BILLION people who practice Islam. By burning the Koran, you send the message to all of those people that their beliefs shouldn't exist, that THEY shouldn't exist, and that is absolutely unacceptable. What if we had a "burn the Bible day"? I bet he'd be up in arms about that. How is this any different?
The really sad thing to me is that too many people agree with them on at least some level. My mother, while she disagrees with the Koran burning (mostly because of the effect it might have on our troops overseas in primarily Muslim populated areas), she actually made the statement that "THEY don't have the right to put a mosque in New York City." Um, yeah, actually, they do. And even if the proposed Mosque is close to the twin towers site... I fail to see how that's actually offensive. It's not the fault of ALL Muslim people that 9/11 happened. The radical minority doesn't speak for the whole. Almost every religion has radical factions. Christians as a whole aren't summarized by their worst... why should that be done with the Muslim faith? It is WRONG and epically unfair. Blaming all Muslims for 9/11 is like blaming all Christians for the KKK or the Holocaust. It's blatantly untrue and shouldn't happen. And yet... there are so many people that DO blame Muslims for 9/11. That feel it's okay to tell them that they can't worship in certain places, that they're wrong, that burning their KORAN is okay. My favorite part of the conversation I had with my mother was that, after she made that incredibly racist comment and I gaped at her like she was insane, she said "I'm not discussing politics with you." Which really... indicates to me that she, that these people, don't get it. It's not about politics. It's about respecting other people. It's about showing a little understanding to someone who's different from you in one way, but may be very much like you in another. It's about BASIC HUMAN DECENCY. Burning the Koran doesn't "honor" the victims of 9/11, it breeds hate and violence.
And that's before we even get into the actual act of burning a book. Burning a book is like burning knowledge. You're destroying awareness of what's going on around you. You're destroying tolerance and understanding. Books are SACRED, holy or not, and should be treated as such.
Bella posted a fantastic video that I'm going to share (I apologize to people who have seen this on their flist multiple times, but in all fairness, you don't have to push play if you don't want to. Such is the wonderfulness of the internet. Also it needs sharing.) International Read-A-Book Day... I like it. I think I have a copy of Fahrenheit 451 around here somewhere...
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