Pastor Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla., has stated his intention to burn a Qur'an as an act of protest to commemorate Sept. 11, 2001, a date in which 19 fundamentalist Islamic hijackers turned passenger planes into missiles, exploding them into the World Trade Center in Manhattan.
General David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan has responded to the scheduled protest by stating that the burning of a Qu'ran would incite violence that would endanger the lives of American men and women in uniform in Afghanistan. For this reason, I call upon Pastor Jones to not burn the Qu'ran at this time.
And yet, this episode offers a unique learning moment for Western democracies.
In explaining his impending action, Pastor Jones stated, "We must send a clear message to the radical element of Islam. We will no longer be controlled and dominated by their fears and threats."
The burning of an American flag or the burning or the desecration of a Christian cross is a despicable act, and the protesters should be condemned. Yet unlike those who would burn a Qur'an, those protesters need not worry that they will be beheaded. They know that American or Christian leaders would not sentence them to death, nor would Western leaders use the protest action to incite violence in the populace at large. And this is the basic point of Pastor Jones' protest.