An obscure pastor from a small church in Gainesville Florida has kindled a firestorm of violence in the Muslim world surrounding northern Afghanistan. Known as a calm safe haven in conflict ridden Afghanistan, the region’s largest city, Mazar-e-Sharif, erupted with anger against western interests. Following Friday prayers, Muslim clerics instructed religious worshippers to avenge the slander of the Holy Quran by western infidels. Adhering to instructions, Islamic fundamentalists demonstrated, stormed and ultimately killed workers in the city’s United Nations complex.
The Pastor, the Church and the Message
Controversial Gainesville, Florida pastor Reverend Terry Jones, along with followers of the Dove World Outreach Pentecostal church, initiated the controversy several months ago with the declaration that Jones would burn copies of the Quran. Receiving condemnation from political and religious leaders, the pastor postponed his symbolic action.
On March 20, 2011 Pastor Jones reignited the controversy by holding a mock trial of the text, indicting it on charges of crimes against humanity and burning the book; however, the action went largely unnoticed in the western world. “We tried to really downplay it….It didn’t seem to be getting traction in the media,” Geoff Tunicliffe, head of the World Evangelical Alliance, told The Washington Post’s Michelle Boorstein on April 1, 2011.
The Ramifications
However, internet videos of the burning did reach the Muslim world and within days political leaders expressed their outraged. Pakistan’s president labeled it a serious setback while Afghanistan’s president called for the prosecution of Jones. These and other comments brought the issue to the forefront of the Islamic world once again and those with a propensity for religious intolerance came forward. Several Muslim leaders, enraged with passion, instructed their followers to demonstrate against, what they perceived as the west’s indifference. The BBC’s Paul Wood reported on April 2, 2011 that “local clerics had urged people to protest over last month's burning…of the Koran in the presence of US pastor Terry Jones.”
The Violence
In an eerie warning, General David Patraeus surmised the possible influence that burning the holy book could have, back on September 7, 2010. In an interview with Terry Moran on ABC News’ Nightline, the general argued “We’re very concerned about the implications of a possible Quran burring in the United States. It puts our soldiers at jeopardy, very likely….”
The general’s vision of violence was realized on April 1, 2011 when religious protests rapidly turned aggressive, in the normally peaceful city of Mazar-e-Sharif. Demonstrators stormed the symbol of western society (the United Nations compound), overpowered guards, seized weapons and murdered personnel. Wood reported that local police spokesman Lal Mohammad Ahmadzai recalled that “two of the UN staff had been beheaded.”
Pastor Jones’ intentions and calls for hate are self-evident and well known. Whether he performed his act for publicity, sympathy from like-minded zealots or a true call for a holy war is unknown; but, he has nevertheless initiated activities that were carried out in his name. Jones cannot deny that the subsequent anger against his desecration has resulted in the death of twelve UN workers. Subjected to unjustified violence, the victims have succumbed not only to religious intolerance from Islamic clerics and those that carried out the acts, but also from Jones’ Christian dogma.
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