Who is more to blame for the murder of 10 U.N. workers killed after U.S. Pastor Terry Jones burned a Quran: The people who committed the murders or Terry Jones himself? For Poland’s Rzeczpospolita, columnist Jerzy Haszczynski expresses the view that what the world needs most is for Muslims to condemn the criminal behavior of people who killed innocents for the misbehavior of one U.S. pastor.
For Rzeczpospolita, Jerzy Haszczynski writes in part:
This makes us acutely aware that we live in a world where the irresponsible act of a backcountry American pastor can incite a murderous rage in a crowd 7,500 miles away, on another continent and in another civilization. A representative of a minuscule U.S. community can imperil hundreds of people who Muslims identify more-or-less (rather less) with the civilization represented by that pastor.
The pastor not only provoked a wave of murders in Afghanistan, but he also considerably damaged the debate about Islam. … By criticizing certain phenomena taking place within Muslim communities, both in the Islamic world and the West, the pastor put the weight of his own responsibility on every politician, journalist or writer who is against burning the Quran. Now everyone will think many times over before speaking out for fear of endangering people on humanitarian missions in Afghanistan or Pakistan.
The U.N. workers were murdered by real live Muslims, and they are obviously the guiltiest ones. Unfortunately, no one is hearing a resounding condemnation from the Islamic world for the killing of innocent people to avenge someone else’s burning of their holy book. This, too, will make the debate with Muslims far more difficult.
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