Days of Change

Day 1208 – Burning Down the Mosque

Two months before September 11, 2001, the animated series South park aired the episode “Super Best Friends.” It featured a group of religious icons, including Joseph Smith, Moses and Mohammed. This episode stood as is for another five years before threats of retaliation for “depicting Mohammed” forced the episode from availability online.

I’m not sure how they figured it out, but the worst of the Muslim community saw the way Bush and the rest of the would was trying to look sympathetic to Muslims around the world while killing the terrorist sympathizers in Afghanistan. Americans coddle their children, and so Muslims decided to act like children, being “offended” at every turn as if their ability to dish out cultural insensitivity far exceeded their ability to accept cultural insensitivity.

Here’s a case in point. The Taliban destroyed two giant Buddhist statues in Afghanistan over 2,000 years old despite international protest. They felt no one had authority over them. However, when the series “24” portrays Muslims as terrorists, (which the unbelievable majority are) Muslim groups go to every legal and television channel they can find. This asymmetrical process has recently been referred to as lawfare, the use of Western law as a weapon to protect Islam.

When a child throws a temper tantrum and you give in to stop it, in only teaches the child new ways in which to gain the upper hand. The more that the West gives in and apologizes for imagined slights, like burning a few worthless Korans that were already desecrated by the prisoners writing secret messages in them, the more violent the protests will become. We need to desensitize the mobs instead. I would suggest burning some holy books on the White House lawn, but I’m sure something more subtle could also work.