In case you haven’t heard, a pastor of a small church in Florida is planning to burn copies of the Qur’an on Saturday, the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The thing that makes this isolated incident the focus of our attention is that media attention is turning this into a global news story that will be seen by millions of Muslims around the world. And what they see will likely inflame passionate anger directed at the US. The Qur’an is a book, and books are a form of media. So in one sense this is a media story about media coverage of an act that involves the desecration of a media artifact.
Burning patriotic or religious symbols is nothing new. Flags and effigies of heads-of-state are commonly burned to send strong messages of disapproval to the “other side.” In America, the 1st Amendment’s protection of free speech specifically protects these kinds of political acts and we have a long history of protecting speech that is highly offensive. And while no one is debating the “right” of this pastor and his congregants to burn the Qur’an, many are critical of his decision to do something that will be seen as an extremely offensive act to millions of Muslims around the world. Much like the discussion of the mosque proposed for construction near Ground Zero, the right to proceed is not in question, but the appropriateness of the act certainly is. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, and General Petraeus have publicly condemned the proposed burning and have asked the pastor to reconsider. General Petraeus went to far as to say that the burning will endanger the lives of US soldiers in Afghanistan.
Book burning has a long and sordid history of its own…but to fully understand the gravity of this situation one needs to understand the esteem that Muslims have for their sacred scripture. In 2005 a firestorm of controversy erupted in Muslim countries when it was reported that a copy of the Qur’an was flushed down a toilet in the process of interrogating an enemy combatant at Gitmo. While the Pentagon has been unable to find credible evidence that the desecration took place, the response was rioting that led to many deaths. If the book burning takes place this Saturday, the response may make the 2005 riots look like child’s play.
Of course, without media coverage this isolated incident would happen in a vacuum. Just like a tree falling in an empty forest, the silence would be deafening. But that is not the case in a world of 24/7 news coverage with instantaneous global reach. Secretary of State Clinton asked the media to deny coverage as an act of patriotism, but she knows that won’t happen. The Associated Press quoted Secretary Clinton as saying,
“It is regrettable that a pastor in Gainesville, Fla., with a church of no more than 50 people can make this outrageous and distrustful, disgraceful plan and get the world’s attention, but that’s the world we live in right now,” Clinton said. “It is unfortunate, it is not who we are.”
So what do you think? Is this a case where the 1st Amendment goes too far, protecting speech that does not deserve protection? Or is this the very essence of the kind of political protest that the Founding Fathers so passionately intended to protect?