According to Britain's Daily Mail, Florida Pastor Terry Jones, who burned a copy of the Koran after a six-hour mock trial, "has been directly responsible for a wave of violence that began last night (April 2) and has left 30 people dead and more than 150 injured. The defiant stance has led General Petraeus, the head of NATO forces in Afghanistan, to join international condemnation of pastor Jones." Let me begin by stipulating that what Mr. Jones did was both stupid and provocative. At the same time, the reaction to his stunt is quite fascinating on a number of levels, most of which center around the reality that Western culture is besieged by weak thinkers, apologists and appeasers. What Mr. Jones did was personally self-destructive. The reaction to it may be culturally suicidal.
First, weak thinking. The contention that Mr. Jones is "directly responsible" for the deaths and injuries perpetrated by Islamic thugs half-way around the world is preposterous. It wasn't Mr. Jones who participated in three days (so far) of violence that has left 20 dead and 83 wounded in Afghanistan, including the beheading two UN guards in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif. Nor has he participated in the scores of violent demonstrations taking place across the Middle East, many of which were ginned up by local imams broadcasting Jones's comments from loudspeakers mounted on moving vehicles, in response to the book burning.
So why characterize Jones as directly responsible? Because to do so allows those who refuse to view the "religion of peace" through anything other than rose-colored glasses to continue their vacation from reality. It is a vacation which began almost immediately following 9/11--for which many of the same weak thinkers blamed "imperialist" American foreign policy instead of the attackers themselves--when George W. Bush insisted, with no supporting evidence whatsoever, that the "majority of Muslims are on our side."
Really? That would mean out of the approximately 1.5 billion Muslims who inhabit the planet, at least 750 million of them are in favor of...what, exactly? Our three interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Libya? How about our Constitutional determination not to endorse a state religion? Equal rights for women and non-believers? Certainly not freedom of speech, as this latest incident reveals.
Perhaps the Obama administration could do the country a big favor and tell of us what the parameters are for one to be considered a "pro-Western Muslim." And perhaps some of the weak thinkers might explain why a person who puts a Christian crucifix in a jar of urine, or covers a portrait of the Virgin Mary with elephant dung is considered an artist, even as Jones is considered a provocateur.
Thus, the double-standard of the apologists is revealed. It is the typical double-standard which posits that one particular group of people--in this case Muslims--can not possibly be expected to conform to standards which apply to everyone else. This "plantation mentality," which has been applied at various times to other sub-groups, wraps bigotry in a patina of compassion. Thus, Muslims reacting to Mr. Jones by perpetrating violence and murder become, not only perfectly understandable, but apparently absolvable as well, as the focus of "international condemnation" directed at Jones, far more than the perpetrators of violence themselves, indicates. The unspoken assumption? The essence of apologism: Muslims are less "evolved."
Two thoughts arise. First, how does one square such apologism with multiculturalism, which posits that all cultures are equally viable? The West and Islam are equal, but Islam gets a special pass regarding censorship and violence? Good luck with that. Perhaps the three European leaders, Britain's David Cameron, France's Nicolas Sarkozy, and Germany's Angela Merkel, who have contended that multiculturalism is a "failure," might be asked whom they hold "directly responsible" for the current violence. Second, will the media sources which made Jones's provocation international news be willing to accept equal shares of the "direct responsibility" they so easily ascribe to the Florida preacher? Without their "help," Jones is little more than an obscure Gainesville, FL hot head firing up some locals. Now he's a man with a $2.4 million fatwa on his head, courtesy of some "less-evolved" Pakistanis who are "understandably" upset. If Jones gets killed, will the media be internationally condemned for provoking his murder?
Which brings us to appeasement. While it is entirely understandable that General Petraeus, as well as the families with loved ones in harm's way in the Middle East and elsewhere, are upset with Jones, it might be pointed out that such feelings can be selective. When Senator Harry Reid concluded that the "war was lost" in Iraq, one is hard-pressed to recall the General, or anyone else, joining a chorus of "international condemnation" against the Nevada Senator. Apparently Jones's incitement of the enemy is a greater sin than Reid giving them aid and comfort, but this writer is at a loss to understand why.
Perhaps what the General is inadvertently revealing is that American soldiers are at greater risk when one provokes one's adversary than when one gives them reason to hope. Perhaps that is what happens when the initial reasons for prosecuting the war on terror have been obscured by politically correct jargon. Ten years ago, Americans signed on for "war" in order to achieve "victory" against "Islamic terrorists." What they did not sign on for was an "overseas contingency" or "kinetic" military operation against "undefined insurgents" in which "nation-building and "winning hearts and minds" has replaced victory--especially when, after ten years, seemingly all of it can be undone by the actions of a single ranter in Florida.
As for Mr. Reid himself, his shamelessness along with Senator Lindsey Graham's fecklessness, was on display Sunday on CBS' Face the Nation. Both men were looking for ways, not to condemn Islamic violence, but to censor Terry Jones. "Ten to 20 people have been killed," said Harry Reid (D-NV) "We'll take a look at this of course. As to whether we need hearings or not, I don't know." Perhaps we could also hold hearings on how many Americans were killed as a result of Senator Reid's words. "I wish we could find a way to hold people accountable. Free speech is a great idea, but we're in a war," said Linsey Graham (R-SC), oblivious to the idea that one of the reasons we're in a war is to protect free speech.
There is no question that Terry Jones is an opportunist. Yet what would one call those Muslims who both incite and commit violence at the slightest provocation? It is worth remembering that when Newsweek falsely reported a Koran being flushed down a toilet at Guantanamo Bay in 2005, 15 people were killed in rioting. Former Seattle Weekly cartoonist Molly Norris has been forced into hiding--in the United States--after she became the target of a death threat following her "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day" satire for that newspaper.
The most compelling argument against what Jones did can be reduced to the idea that you don't swat a hornet's nest. Yet it is precisely that kind of self-censorship which allows the hornets to continue stinging whenever they choose to do so. This is one American who prefers to know exactly who can be moved to beheading someone by the burning of a book, rather than having that person remain in the shadows--even as I'm told there's a better than even chance he's on our side.
This is where the West's infatuation with political correctness has taken us. It is an ideological bankruptcy so profound, that we are reduced to a disturbing reality brought on by equal amounts of weak thinking, apologist inanity and reflexive appeasement:
It takes a bigot to expose a death cult.
