The international uproar over the inflammatory idea of a screwball Florida pastor to burn Korans seems to have ended peacefully Thursday.
Given the recent furor over the proposal to build a mosque two blocks from New York’s ground zero, we’re thankful for what appears to be the quiet ending of at least one of the needlessly provocative stunts percolating as we approach what should be a solemn anniversary of the worst terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.
Ideally, the mosque issue will resolve itself soon, too.
We never considered Florida pastor Terry Jones to be a serious person. His kooky stunt should have been dismissed as the misguided ravings of a fringe element.
But unfortunately, some Americans applauded his idea to burn the Islamic holy book. And there were legitimate fears that his actions would stoke anti-American sentiments in Muslim countries and jeopardize our safety on the homeland.
U.S. generals said they were also concerned that our troops in Afghanistan, Iraq and other Muslim countries would be placed at extra risk due to Jones’ actions.
That’s one of the reasons why top American officials including President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani publicly called on this unknown pastor with a handful of followers to drop his plans.
Just as we understand that Islam should not be defined by its radicals, we’d like to think the Muslim world would not define our beliefs and values by the radicals among us.
However, no one was confident violence could be avoided given the hysterical reactions we’ve seen in the past to real or perceived slights to Islamic figures and texts. Incorrect reports in 2005 that U.S. military personnel had flushed a Koran down the toilet prompted deadly riots.
As strong advocates for the First Amendment, we didn’t dispute Jones’ right to burn the Koran. But just because he had a right to burn it didn’t mean he should.
Burning books is an extreme form of censorship. And burning a world religion’s sacred texts because of anger spurred by the wayward interpretations of a minority is something we cannot abide.
Jones said he wanted to engage “radical Islam,” but his plans would have only inflamed radical Islam. Thursday afternoon, when he called off his stunt, he said he was flying to New York City on Saturday to meet with an imam from the ground zero mosque.
Perhaps Jones, who, at first blush, hardly seems to be a diplomat, now understands that talking is a better way to engage someone than needlessly provoking them.
We support the right of Park51, formerly the Cordoba Initiative, to build the mosque near ground zero in lower Manhattan, but think proponents would better meet their cause of promoting tolerance by acknowledging the anger and hurt feelings and locating the center elsewhere.
Late Thursday, the imam said he wasn’t interested in moving the site of the Islamic center.
The Florida pastor relented, and we hope the imam does too.
