Burning of Koran and Right Strategies

First I want to make it clear that I am against burning of any book not just Koran. Not that I have any respect for Koran, in fact I have nothing but contempt for it. But there are civilized ways to deal with this looming threat of Islamism and to show our resistance to the Islamic world; but burning of Koran is certainly not one of them. My opposition to burning Koran is, besides the above stated reason, tactical too.

Pastor, Dr. Terry Jones, of the Dove World Outreach Center, a non-denominational church in Florida, is the architect of event of ‘international burn a Koran day’. And this takes place on September 11th, this year. His stated reasons for this event are “in remembrance of the fallen victims of 9/11 and to stand against the evil of Islam. Islam is of the devil”. He is also the author of a book ‘Islam is of the devil’. And of course, as usual, he received death threats from Islamic fanatics.

The OIC also condemned this act and as usual made this peaceful observation (Read the item dated 24/-8/2010):

"The spokesman expressed fear that the burning of the Holy Quran which preaches peace and tolerance and is against killing of innocent lives, would evoke anger across the Muslim world and provoke unrest."

Yes, Islam teaches tolerance and peace and still we can expect violence and unrest! So much about the religion of peace.Yes, it is always the same. Muslims want to have every thing in their own way.

I absolutely agree with him (Terry Jones) that Islam is devils ideology. It needs to be defeated but distributing Korans, probably with a list of certain verses to be read, to infidels is much better way of fighting that devil than making a bonfire of them. Or even a better idea is to read out violent verses loudly in front of a gathering. Actually any act, anti-jihad, other than burning Koran is good and productive.

Personally I believe that he is doing a great disservice to the cause of spreading awareness about Islamic doctrines and inherent cruelty in them to infidels or even Muslims. In this battle of ideologies, Islamic dictatorship vs. secular democracy, it is infidels knowing about Islamic doctrines which matters the most.

First, burning of any book will make most people recall the incidents of Nazis burning books and subsequent petrifying holocaust. This kind of counter productive acts will only force infidels, who do not, yet, know any thing about Islamic doctrines, away from knowing about hate manual, Koran. As one commentator in a website brilliantly writes “still there are many people out there who can not see the huge difference between burning Koran and bombing people, to be more apt, Islam’s obsession for vanquishing and obliterating other people. It presents the opportunity to Islamist and their infidel collaborators to depict not just all Islamic critics but also those who are even opposing ground zero mosque as extremists and intolerant matching and echoing Nazis.

Some people who are knowledgeable in Islamic doctrines might not agree with me and insist that Muslims (Islamic) opinion of Kafirs (infidels) and their ultimate goal of Sharia ruling the world are fixed and not going to change. In fact Islam and Muslims remain the same no matter what infidels do.

Here I want to state that Islam is equally intolerant of books esp. when they are not Islamic (It is intolerant of everything that is not Islamic). After all Muslims destroyed some great libraries, e.g. Alexandria and Nalanda, in the past for the reason that they are products of Jahilliyya. But I wanted to ask those who are in support of burning Koran whether it is ethical to stoop to such similar lows.

The same question goes to the proponents, in India, of construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya; they can not realize that they are helping the cause of jihadis by dividing Hindus. This unfortunate and unethical demolition of mosque allowed the adherents of intolerant Islamic system to portray themselves as victims and discriminated ones. Even to today, this demolition in addition to conceived and blown up Gujarat riots is acting as a shield even to criticize violence by Muslims.

The issue of broader morality and ethics will not arise when one ideology (as Islam is one political ideology) successfully depicts their opponents as oppressors and intolerant and themselves as victims; it also becomes easy and very effective to exhort its followers to wage a war. This is what Mohammad did. This is also what Hitler did; he successfully sold his version to Germans that Germany was the victim not an aggressor. But it is Islam, and its adherents, who are masters in playing and using this card of victim hood.

More than anything, the plans to construct a mosque or for burning of Koran will become handy tools for Media, slave to political correctness and idea of multiculturalism, in depicting opposition to Islamism as just unwanted, irrational and simple Islamophobia. Not that we should care about this stupid media, which is more or less is abetting jihad, but we need to take in to account the efforts to win more allies, who are neutrals and have no knowledge on Islam, and are likely to support this anti-jihad given impartial exposure to the truth of evil Islam. That is precisely we need right and civilized strategies, not the ones becoming ammunition to be used by Media, liberals and seculars against ant-jihad.

Nevertheless, the importance of this MSM is in decline along with its monopoly over disseminating news is under serious compromise, which is its own creation. Thanks to internet. The best example is opposition to Mosque near Ground Zero. When the resistance to Mosque started in US, media simply ignored it and have not even cared to report the first mass protest under the aegis of Mr. Spencer and Ms. Geller. If at all they ever reported on that whole episode, it is in support of Mosque and its planners. Even to today much of media has not explained Imam Rauf’s obsession with Sharia and sources of funding, the main reasons cited by opponents of that Mosque. The liberal and leftist media arrogantly feels that it does not have to answer these charges because like Islam it feels its views are the best. So rather trying to explain away many underlying issues it has resorted to cheap accusations on opponents of Mosque.

But when the opinion polls came out saying 70% of Americans opposed the Mosque, media lost its rationality and resorted to what can only be called as intellectual terrorism. Their reaction can be summed up like this: How dare those idiotic ordinary men can have such views in contrast to their enlightened view. It is then they turned their attention to stigmatizing people responsible for this, what I call, awakening.

Until now, people were afraid to say anything offensive to Islam as instances of those who did earlier were killed by Islamic fanatics stayed in their mind. But the debate over Mosque near Ground zero (some like to call it ignorantly, an Islamic center) changed it significantly. Daniel Pipes writes:

“September 11 provided a wake-up call, ending this sense of hopelessness. Americans reacted badly not just to that day’s horrifying violence but also to the Islamists’ outrageous insistence on blaming the attacks on U.S. foreign policy and, later, the election of Barack Obama, or their blatant denial that the perpetrators were Muslims or of intense Muslim support for the attacks.”

“American scholars, columnists, bloggers, media personalities, and activists became knowledgeable about Islam, developing into a community, a community that now feels like a movement. The Islamic-center controversy represents its emergence as a political force, offering an angry, potent reaction inconceivable just a decade earlier.”

Seeing its insignificance, Media and liberals have resorted to more bizarre reporting and in the process they revealed their true identities. They tried to create a false impression that this rampant Islamophobia is resulting in hate crimes against Muslims and US is seeing a huge rise in this regard. The line of attack is nothing but a long standing ploy of liberals and Islamists to shut down free speech. When it comes to free speech left liberals, contrary to popular opinion, are always against it. Like I said many times, people who feel and think of themselves as the best and superior to others do not like their views being questioned.

One such media headline on hate crimes is this ‘Anti-Islam Rhetoric Heats Up Ahead of 9/11’ by ABC news.

On this kind of blind and dishonest reporting, Spencer sums it up as follows:

“Here is just one of a cascade of mainstream media articles this week that paint Muslims as victims, using the same examples over and over: the Florida church Qur'an burning, the cabbie attack in New York, and the Tennessee church burning. In other words, they're using one incident in which no Muslims will be harmed; one in which an employee of a group that supports the Ground Zero mosque attacked a Muslim cab driver after asking if he was a Muslim; and one case of arson that has no suspects and comes after a good number of anti-Muslim hate crimes that turned out to have been faked by Muslims.”

If one wants to read the actual hate rime scenario in US according to FBI then read from here. Interestingly the number of hate crimes against Jews is ten times more than that against Muslims. But why is it that Jews are not making such a huge issue out of it and only Muslim groups do make it such a national issue? Complete arrogance and disregard to others and obsession with their ideology is the reason, I feel.

When Mr. Spencer and Ms. Geller reported on them receiving death threats from Muslim fanatics, reaction of some left liberals is “they asked for it”. Now, will they say the same thing if Christian extremists threaten them as they keep mocking Christianity at times?

Oh! The media never lags behind ridiculing Church or Temple even when their stated beliefs do not call for war on others. But with respect to Muslims and Islam, they learned that it comes with a massive price in the form of violence and violent demonstrations. Probably, also, the risk of non availability of petro dollars for investments weighs in their mind. No wonder then, the number of people looking to main stream media (MSM) for accurate information is in decline.

It is with this back ground reality regarding media, one should try to fight Islamism. Useless rhetoric, empty and reckless statements will only alienate infidels who are neutral till now. It must be understood that this anti-jihad (fight against) is not a call for supporting RSS, construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya or voting for BJP. It is simply making a stand for our human rights.