Koran Burning and Culpability: A response

          I want to start this essay off with a point or points of agreement before I head into the highly contentious disagreement I have with those in favor of all exoneration of liability for the Dove Outreach Church and its irrelevant display of social immaturity that took the form of burning the Islamic Holy Book, The Koran.

First, as an American I support and revere all of the freedoms we have as a result of hard fought wars, our strides toward civil rights, and overall, American solidarity. Our country is a better place because of the voices of Harvey Milk, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Susan B. Anthony, all of whom stood in the face of hatred, bigotry and threats of violence, and inspired minority group movements and governments to enact laws that gave rights to all human beings regardless of arbitrary, birth given attributes. The world, taking this a step further, is a better place because of the philosophical works of David Hume, who challenged religiosity fervently, and C.S. Lewis, a Christian apologist, who exercised, though not exclusively, his religious expression through timeless literary classics like The Chronicles of Narnia and The Screwtape Letters.

What we can learn from all of the above mentioned is not only that our right to express ourselves freely is tantamount to human striving, but that the way we express ourselves carries a great deal of responsibility. Could we imagine Martin Luther King, Jr. making strides, as he did, within the civil rights movement if he were to antagonize his adversaries with t-shirts that pejoratively referred to whites as ‘crackers’ or ‘honky’s?’ For one, it was not part of Dr. King’s character to act in such a way, but I feel that King also recognized that if he remained civil no matter what, that reason would overcome and the positive message would eventually have to be addressed. They were. And in 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into legislation the Civil Rights Act.

Imagine; a race that was subjugated to near insurmountable amounts of racism and denigration which won its war though peaceful marches and legislative negotiation. Dr. King should not only be recognized as a stalwart of civil rights, but also as a human that understood the benefits of civility and social responsibility.

Okay, so, hopefully I have made it perfectly clear that suppressing freedom of expression is not some implied motive for my contentions toward those who see the Dove Outreach Church as an inculpable participant in the riots in Afghanistan that resulted in several deaths. The argument is simply that I believe the Dove Outreach Church and its leaders Terry Jones and Wayne Sapp are morally liable and own a part of that tragedy.

I was not an active participant in this debate until it was revealed to me that Susan Jacoby, author of A Voice of Reason and Never Say Die, had published an article in The Washington Post stating “the idea that Jones is responsible for the savagery of those who murdered the first westerners they could get their hands on in Afghanistan represents multiculturalism run amuck.”

Ms. Jacoby then goes on to persecute three afghan mullah’s who she claims are partially responsible for the above mentioned deaths because they,  “demanded that Jones be arrested by U.S. authorities for what is a perfectly legal act here, and who urged people to take to the streets to express their outrage, bear a huge share of the responsibility.” My questions to Ms. Jacoby then are; is it not just as harmless, the act of burning a book, which is, as stated, a freedom of expression just like the mullah’s are exercising in asking their parishioners to take to the streets and protest the act? Is it not freedom of expression that is really at stake here? Why should we have the right to protest but Muslims do not? Certainly we cannot hold the mullah’s responsible for making what is our constitutionally protected right to endorse a protest. How many times is it called for George Bush or Dick Cheney to be arrested for lying or war crimes? I’ve yet to see a riot or death as a result of some neo-liberals outcry for protests and investigations into our previous administrations political meanderings. Yet this is different from Mullah Mohammed Shah Adeli’s statement found here that, “Burning the Koran is an insult to Islam, and those who committed it should be punished?’’ I fail to see how. 

It would seem then, that the only position to hold, if one is not to fall into a hypocritical trap, is that the only ones responsible for the deaths of those U.N. workers are those that committed the crime. It was here that my friend, David Null, lent his opinion to the matter in his blog, unCommonSense.

David pins all of the blame on the rioters as demonstrated by these remarks: “There is no causal relationship between some lunatic burning the Koran in Florida, and a mob overpowering police and killing 12 victims, other than an irrational and equally maniacal zealousness.”
“Do I think that what Terry Jones did was right? No.”

It seems an incompatible stance to, on one hand, state that Terry Jones was not right for the implicit reason he is not right and, on the other hand, state that there is not a causal relationship between Terry Jones burning the Koran and a mob overpowering police and killing 12 victims. In order to rationalize no causal relationship one must remain neutral on the stance of burning a Koran. If that was the case, then moral neutrality can be maintained and Dove Outreach is off the proverbial hook. However, my friend Dave does recognize that these books are more than just mere words on paper and so, he is correct in stating that what Jones and the Dove Outreach Center did was wrong but, precisely because there was an impending perilous effect that loomed over the action.

Michael DeDora, Executive Director of the Center for Inquiry, has also added to the debate. Most concerning is Mr. DeDora’s continual and conspicuous reference to the innocuous act of ‘book burning’ which completely undermines and more importantly ignores the importance of symbolism that not only is a part of a myriad of cultures around the world, but humanity as well. I could, if I wanted, reduce the pictures I have with my child to a meaningless picture of a kid and a man. I could also just as easily walk into a Black Panther meeting and start calling everyone in the place the ‘N’ word without fear of retribution on the basis that it is just a word, right? By continuing this kind of rhetoric we not only, for the sake of argumentative convenience ignore human psychology, but we also perpetuate the unfavorable view others have toward ‘arrogant’ and ‘ignorant’ Americans. A miniscule amount of intellectual honesty would grant that even though one picture of individuals or some subjective, pragmatic rationalization of semantics means nothing to some, it does not follow that those experiences are the same for another. Throwing relativism out with the bath water for the sake of being right is a disingenuous approach to such an ideologically charged and socially important topic. The fact that a group of people get so outraged at the desecration of their holy texts, especially ones inclined to violence, should not motivate this undermining of religious sensitivities. And no, sensitivity does not have to be a swear word. I do not go out of my way to call people fat so they have an incentive to lose weight just like I do not go around burning Koran’s to show people their faith is wrong. One is not justified solely on the basis of having rights. 

Mr. DeDora continues, “To use an example nearer to some of us, recall when PZ Myers desecrated a communionwafer. If some Christian was offended, and went on to murder the closest atheist, would we really blame Myers? Is Myers' offense any different than Jones’?”

Here Mr. DeDora is drawing false parallels between Christianity and other religions when compared to Islam. For one, let’s take a look at the disparity in social conditions that exists between the Middle East, the location of most riots, and America. First, the Iraqi government disputes between three religious sects: Shiite, Kurds, and Sunni’s that leads to, at a detriment, a political impasse. Afghanistan is mostly controlled by Al Qaida, a notoriously violent Muslim group that influences the populace by providing for the poor. I could go on, but it would become redundant to go into great detail over the religious, political and social unrest that has plagued that region for millennia. It should come as no surprise then, that when we ‘burn a book’ here, and mix austerity, plutocracy and fundamentalism there, something bad is going to happen. It is a grave mistake, as we have witnessed, to underestimate the psychological conditionings of a group of people that habitually resort to violence. Taking a break from polemics and demagoguery, Christopher Hitchens makes the relevant claim that Islam is young religion in need of enlightenment. I agree. Thus, it is quite a leap to make a comparison between cracker breaking and Christianity, having gone through its enlightenment 300 years ago, and that of Koran burning and Islam. Not to mention that Mr. Myers attack on an innocent communion wafer is more directed at Catholics than any other sect; which, by the way, is one of the more fragile religions due to the increased reports of child abuse within the Catholic Church. Further, if you want to go after a religion, do not pick one that is comprised of a mostly white, middle class and up demographic.

So to answer Mr. DeDora’s question: Yes, there is a difference between the P.Z. Myers demonstration and the one conducted by the Dove Outreach Center and a little common sense shows it is more complex than the subjective view that both acts are equal.

Further, I find it relevant that the Dove Outreach Center is also a member of the Southern Poverty Law Centers’ Hate List while P.Z. Myers is not. The Dove Outreach Center is labeled as a group of ‘general hate’ that “espouses a variety of rather unique hateful doctrines and beliefs that are not easily categorized. This list includes a “Jewish” group that is rabidly anti-Arab, a “Christian” group that is anti-Catholic and a polygamous “Mormon” breakaway sect that is racist. Many of the groups are vendors that sell a miscellany of hate materials from several different sectors of the white supremacist movement.” It is also noted in an important paper done by Asef Bayat for the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, that, “despite their drama and at times remarkable impacts, urban mass protests are usually spontaneous, ad hoc, and consequently uncommon; they often involve violence and a risk of repression. Urban riots are a response to the absence of effective, institutionalized mechanisms of conflict resolution. Social groups without an institutional power of disruption (such as the unemployed who cannot strike) and those who enjoy such power but find it inadequate (workers, students) are likely to follow leaders initiating mass protests.”

So, as mentioned in my rebuttal to Ms. Jacoby, it should be apparent that Muslims have the same right to protest as we do, but certain conditions exists which change the dynamics and dispositions of those who are reacting compared to other parts of the globe impacting the severity of expression our freedoms here. Again, this is in no way paralleled to the P.Z. Myers case. Of course we could also arrive at the same conclusion considering the circumstances and the philosophies regarding human nature that are espoused in Hobbes’ Leviathan and Rousseau’s’ Social Contract.

Mr. DeDora does go on to state correctly that,” Unlike many countries in the Middle East and Europe that punish blasphemy by fine, jail or death, the U.S., via the First Amendment and a history of court decisions, strongly protects freedom of speech and expression as basic and fundamental human rights. These include critiquing and offending other citizens’ culture, religion, and traditions. Such rights are not supposed to be swayed by peoples' subjective feelings, which form an incoherent and arbitrary basis for lawmaking. In a free society, if and when a person is offended by an argument or act, he or she has every right to argue and act back. If a person commits murder, the answer is not to limit the right; the answer is to condemn and punish the murderer for overreacting.”

I get it. It is frustrating when someone who is following the ‘rules’ has to play against someone who is just not playing fair. However, you do not have to forfeit the absolute belief in free speech and at the same time hold someone accountable for their actions. The goal is not to suppress the Dove Outreach Center; the goal is to show the Dove Outreach Center that there can be consequences as a result of our expressions and actions and should thus be considered. These sentiments lie explicitly in the ideologies of collective responsibility and solidarity which have been grossly overlooked in this debate.

I am reminded of a scenario  in which most students who have taken ethics are aware of. It involves the unfortunate and true case of Kitty Genovese, a New York woman, who was brutally beaten, raped and killed on her way home from work. What makes this story astounding is that a couple dozen people witnessed the attack and did nothing about it. The importance of the story here is that it pegs ethical egoism, which states that one’s moral obligation is only to the self, and collective responsibility/solidarity, which is the doctrine that, according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is,  a notion of collective responsibility, like that of personal responsibility and shared responsibility, refers to both the causal responsibility of moral agents for harm in the world and the blameworthiness that we ascribe to them for having caused such harm.

When we hear of the neighbors of Kitty Genovese not taking action to avert this heinous crime, it draws out a sense of anger and disgust. Why? For one, we have an innate sense of community. I should find no argument that humans are social creatures. Further, we see that the neutral act of using the telephone, would have, in this case, been a critical component in potentially saving Ms. Genovese’s life. We adjudicate that the neighbors had a moral obligation to do something rather than just ignore the crime taking place. What makes this story even more destructive to my intellectual adversary’s arguments is that most contend that if our life is in danger, we are justified in doing nothing.

To illustrate the implications, we can envisage a scenario where if we were to have done anything to save Kitty’s life and it put our lives in danger, then, in this case we are morally released from any culpability. This is known as a form of coercion. Ms. Jacoby called it blackmail. I call it justified inaction. And notice that the impending danger need not be explicit for one to be released of responsibility. One only needs to reason their way out of taking action. Now, according to The Daily Kos, last fall, our top governmental leaders believed that there was a significant risk to American servicemen in Afghanistan and elsewhere if Jones went through with his planned bonfire of the Qu'rans -- and they publicly spoke out.  As we can see now, their concerns were not unfounded.

 If this is the case, and since it is true that the act of burning a Koran was going to ignite riots in an unstable society, and Mr. Sapps’ and Mr. Jones’ lives were in no way in danger, then they had a moral obligation to avert the tragedy, right? If not, then why do the moral rules of autonomy not apply to the rules of the community when well-being is not sacrificed? Kitty Genovese’s neighbors were exercising their egoistic and constitutionally protected right to do absolutely nothing and yet they are found morally culpable. Were they raping the victim? No. Did they kill her? No. But they could have done something, knowing that their actions would have caused a possible scenario where life is preserved in the face of self-interest.

It further seems just as silly as one justifying these actions because a caller would have missed an episode of I Love Lucy in comparison to the need to protect expression from hate groups inciting anger in societies that are often misunderstood and easily manipulated.

Are Jones and the Dove Outreach Center solely responsible for the violence that resulted in the deaths of U.N. workers? No. But video-taping the burning of a Koran and then broadcasting for the world to see clearly had a motive and the fact that the Dove Outreach Center is a member of a hate group only solidifies the intuition that this was done to incite rage and anger. We have motive, intent, action and consequences. In a court of justice, here in the United States, little more is needed a conviction. However, this is clearly not a legal issue, but a moral one. Therefore, I find the Dove Outreach Center morally culpable, to some degree, in the events that unfolded as a result of the Koran burning ceremony.

In conclusion, the Dove Outreach Center chose the right of expression over a duty to preserve life. It is troubling that the action portrayed by the Dove Outreach center are being trivialized as ‘book burning’ and ‘freedom of expression’ when potential dangers loomed for innocent victims. Sure Jones and Sapp have their freedoms, but I assure you that it was in no way, upon the founding of our great nation, to be used as a platform to antagonize those who deal with harsh lifestyles and oppression daily and have yet to experience what it is like to be free. It’s like tossing food in front of a staving animal that is just out of reach.