Today, 1.5 billion Muslims across the globe celebrate Eid al-Fiter, a three-day holiday marking the end of Ramadan, however; one renegade pastor of a church, Rev. Terry Jones, with fewer than 50 members has cast a shadow on their festivities. For the past several weeks, the media has treated us to live theater of the absurd by amplifying a statement made by an unknown preacher from Gainesville, Florida proposing to burn Qurans on the ninth anniversary of 9/11.
Jones has garnered worldwide news media attention these past few days and become an overnight influence on American foreign policy and public image abroad, even receiving a call from Defense Secretary Robert Gates and many pleas from world leaders and celebrities asking him not to go ahead with his plans. The President of the United States urged him to listen to "those better angels," and military leaders warned that his actions would endanger U.S. troops and give Islamic terrorists a recruiting tool.
The media frenzy over Jones' actions reached a peak this Thursday when he announced he was canceling, and later, that he had only "suspended" what he had dubbed International Burn a Quran Day.
The New York Times sent this "breaking news alert" to my Blackberry: "The pastor planning a burning of the Koran (Quran) on Saturday said he will cancel the event, adding he plans to meet with the Imam planning to build an Islamic center near ground zero."
Minutes later wire services competed to report that Rev. Jones had backed off and then threatened to reconsider burning the Quran on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks saying that he was lied to with a promise to relocate the "Ground Zero Mosque" from its current location.
This story has also become headline news all over the Middle East, in an almost coordinated fashion to what is being reported on US networks. This means that viewers in the region were treated to viewing this story not only on CNN International and Fox News, but also on AL Jazeera, Al Arabiya and hundreds of regional and international television networks carried on satellite systems in the region. Television viewers in the Arab world had to endure endless coverage of the pastor from Florida, coupled with the controversy over the proposed building of a Muslim community center in Lower Manhattan near Ground Zero. Making the matter worse, this happened during the month of Ramadan, the biggest time for watching television in the Arab world, akin to the sweeps season in the United States. This could not have happened at a worse time!
Will Jones set Islam's holy book on fire? Will there be copy-cats? It does not matter.
To millions of Muslims across the globe, the mere thought of such a thing happening is repulsive. If the satanic ritual (as an Egyptian Sheikh has described it) does not occur, then that's because the pastor from Florida has been under intense pressure to give it up. Furthermore, the controversy over the Islamic center in lower Manhattan is not going to disappear anytime soon. Ramadan has been tainted by Islamophobia over the building of a mosque, and Eid has been hijacked by one bigot. The media has created a monster.
Follow Jamal Dajani on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jamaldajani
Karen Armstrong: 9/11 and Compassion: We Need It Now More Than Ever
In March 1785, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams went to negotiate with Tripoli's envoy to London, Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdrahaman (or Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja). Upon inquiring "concerning the ground of the pretensions to make war upon nations who had done them no injury", the ambassador replied:
" It was written in their Koran, that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every muslim who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise. He said, also, that the man who was the first to board a vessel had one slave over and above his share, and that when they sprang to the deck of an enemy's ship, every sailor held a dagger in each hand and a third in his mouth; which usually struck such terror into the foe that they cried out for quarter at once"
http://memory.loc.gov/master/mss/mtj/mtj1/005/0400/0430.jpg
Is there a relationship between hate crimes such as burning Korans and intimidating Muslims from building community centers at home in the US and slaughtering countries in the Muslim world, like Iraq? – you bet there is - the common denomintor is the Neocons and Israel Lobby
It's this same group that wants us to illegally attack Muslim countries overseas – like Iraq and now Iran – that are now more and more whipping up anti-Muslim hysteria at home.
Just as the Neocons and Israel Lobby cheerled and lied us into the warcrime against Iraq, just as they are now are trying to whip America up to illegally attack Iran, so too are these same Neocons and Israel Lobbists are actively engaged in these acts of domestic terrorism at home by whipping up the masses to commit hate crimes amongst American Muslims.
Just as these Neocons and Israel Lobby have propagandized a majority of Americans to actually believe Iran has a nuclear weapon and ‘should’ be attacked – so too have they done everything possible to propagandize the American people against Muslims – this Park 51 center and the Koran-burning being just the latest examples.
These Neocons now cheerlead the effort to attack American Muslims on our own soil
These are hate crimes and the authors are the whole edifice of the Israel Lobby, including AIPAC, and the Neocons
Sarcasm alert.
A healthy society would have rebuilt by now and moved on.
911 should have unified Americans, but Bush's misguided war based on a lie set us against each other.
I also agree that the mean, detestable behavior of the attention-seeking right wingbat in Florida should not have been glorified and reached the front page in the news, either. His disrespect and approach are despicable.
However, Muslims should have to confront and deal with the fact that Muslims are murdering other Muslims in Pakistan and Iraq and during their holiest of months. For me, the murdering part is even worse than the behavior of the other two, as at least it is just being discussed, even argued, and people are displaying ignorance, but people are not being murdered for praying in the wrong way from one another.
The problem is that we are comparing apples and oranges here. Republicans wouldn't object to someone building a church, so under the First Amendment, they shouldn't object to someone building a mosque. Republicans would object vociferously if a Muslim group staged a mass Bible burning, so they should object to burning the Koran.
The pastor has a right to burn the Koran if he and his 50 church members want (and can get a fire permit) but their act of doing it is no more significant than their holding a church picnic. If the media wouldn't cover a 50 person church picnic, they shouldn't cover this.
This whole stupid situation is a symptom of the media's caring only for the entertainment value of a story instead of its substance.
Certainly not the first, nor the last!