I support flag-burning. In the same vein, I support the desecration of the Koran.
I support Pakis burning the American flag the day before they line up outside the American embassy at 6 AM for a 2 PM appointment so they can come here.
I support American soldiers burning Korans in a country in which they are waging a hopeless and underfunded war for dubious purposes.
I have burned a Koran myself.
In public, no less, to applause and cheers from a community of atheists in San Francisco, Calif.
If I were emerging from fundamentalist Christianity, I would burn the Bible.
If I were imprisoned and tortured by the government of the United States, I would burn the American flag.
I don’t agree with respecting beliefs and symbols I find abhorrent just because others cherish them.
I don’t agree with this. Not least because it’s ludicrous to worry about the “increasing secularity” of a society inching towards theocracy, in a country that won’t elect a non-Christian to the presidency and won’t elect an atheist to most any public office. But also because it talks about respecting people’s beliefs, which is code for protecting religions from criticism and has been used to suppress dissent and persecute heretics for centuries.
And Muslims are not marginalized in Muslim-majority countries. Muslims are hardly marginalized in the world, being a behemoth religious community of two billion people. Muslims, in fact, have a distinguished track-record of oppressing religious minorities (including other Muslim sects) in Muslim-majority countries.
Tell me again why the Koran shouldn’t be burned.
Tell me again why the Pakistani passport shouldn’t be burned… if, to get this passport, I have to sign a statement swearing I’m a Muslim and condemning as non-Muslim all Pakistanis who belong to the Ahmedi sect.
Tell me again why anybody’s beliefs deserve “respect” when they use their beliefs to persecute others — routinely.
I do agree that it’s not just ink and paper. Symbols are powerful — and burning them is a powerful statement. It’s often a legitimate statement of disalliance and revolt, of disagreement and criticism. There is no moral case to be made against such acts of deliberate disrespect that devalue others’ patriotism or religious beliefs — the act itself is often a moral act just as certain beliefs are immoral beliefs.
Via Renegade Evolution.
Filed under: Islam/Religion, Socio-Political
I think, perhaps, from comments here and at hearts that you think, perhaps, I am saying more than “Sylvia made me think”
I am saying nothing more than that.
What a lot of people seem to be willing to forget is how big I am on consent. A person can consent to burning anything they want. A person can also consent to doing other things some may find offensive.
So, if one is willing to gladly burn a book/flag/whatever and risk offending others by doing so, yet support the burning in the first place….
They might need to truly consider the fact that others have the same right to be…offensive.
Ren, of course. No one has the right to be protected from being offended.
ETA: You did say you thought she was right, but whatever.
“And Muslims are not marginalized in Muslim-majority countries. Muslims are hardly marginalized in the world, being a behemoth religious community of two billion people. ”
So…you’re saying that the low-income brown kids that I tutor don’t experience increased police harassment in these times? Interesting. South Asian Americans of various religious backgrounds (especially Sikh) haven’t been the targets of hate crimes in recent years? “Muslim” isn’t now a slur against Obama in the campaign? The nuance you’re probably deliberately missing is the presence of double standards.
It’s a weird place for me to be in considering that my dad was a refugee from religious violence during Partition, especially as an atheist. But racism IS a relevant issue in my life.
But also because it talks about respecting people’s beliefs, which is code for protecting religions from criticism and has been used to suppress dissent and persecute heretics for centuries.
Wow. Switch to decaf, really.
Eh, I should elaborate, not just be a drive-by snarkbot. I respect your beliefs, your right to have them and your right to express them. Am I speaking code now? No, I’m asserting a fundamental principle of a civil society.
Sometimes people mean what they say. You have no reason to suspect that the blogger you quoted is a dangerous hypocrite, you just sort of want her to be, because symbol-desecration is apparently a hobby for you and she’s said something that calls that into question.
However, you symbolically desecrate symbols as an act of protest against the institutions they represent. Do we honestly think that’s what that soldier was up to? Or was it a simple statement of dominance and humiliation enforced on an occupied people? (And yes, you can be in the majority and be marginalized at the same time. There are many, many, many more poor people than rich people in the world.)
You might entertain the possibility that you and she are largely on the same side, and talking about different aspects of similar concerns that you both most likely hold dear: human freedom and human dignity.
You have no reason to suspect that the blogger you quoted is a dangerous hypocrite, you just sort of want her to be, because symbol-desecration is apparently a hobby for you and she’s said something that calls that into question.
Huh?
Bq, Muslims are not marginalized in Muslim majority countries, nor is the voice of Islam (as opposed to anti-Islam) marginalized in the world.
Don’t know about the kids you tutor or anything else. Draw what conclusions you may — but if you choose to deliberately misunderstand me, I have no time for you.
Huh?
If you can’t remember your own assertions, I don’t know how we can have a fun argument. But just to keep things going, you claimed that she was using “code for protecting religions from criticism”. Whereas what she was doing was asking for less hypocrisy and more simple humanity.
I have no intention of arguing with you, Susie. You should’ve stuck to the drive-by snark.
Shoo. Off you go.
apostate- I should have been more clear on “right”…I meant it in the sense of how consumerist we are, and how some of us often hold things related to money above all…which is why I started my blip with “as a worshipper of the almighty dollar” or something like that. I’d freak if someone burned up money in front of me…
Also, contrary to popular belief, I do ‘feel’ when people are offended by things, such as burning a book or a flag, and i feel like if one is going to do such a thing, it does in a way behoove them to ponder how such an action will make others feel. By all means, they have the right to do it, but others will find it deeply hurtful, and it is something to consider.
Ren, either you care if people are offended or you don’t care if people are offended. You can’t have it both ways.
And why should it bother you if someone burns money in front of you that is not yours to begin with? People do that all the time (waste it on super-expensive crap).
I have no intention of arguing with you, Susie. You should’ve stuck to the drive-by snark.
Wow, that commitment to the free exchange of ideas runs out pretty quick with you, doesn’t it?
What commitment to the free exchange of ideas? This blog is a vehicle for MY ideas. Everyone else gets short shrift.
If you don’t like it, go elsewhere.
And what ideas? You’ve spewed gibberish here twice now. What do you expect me to say to you? You can’t even communicate in plain English, nor do you have reading comprehension skills.
God, people are stupid.
Susie, I just checked out your blog. I’m on the wrong side of the aisle from you. You probably have figured this out by now — you are not my ally and I frankly think you’re stupid.
We have nothing to talk about.
If, when I say this clearly, people continue to persist in talking at me, I write them off as simply trying to be obnoxious.
And when I show you the door here, I expect you to leave. You probably were sympathetic with BA’s desire to keep her blog free of stupid white feminists, so apply the same standard and don’t let the door hit you in the ass.
Fuck off.
Apostate: Well, because I am human? Flag burning for instance….People have the right to do it. I do not wish to say they don’t….but it bothers me personally because so many people have died for what that flag is SUPPOSED to mean. I mean, my parents came here believing in the American Dream, and even though they’ve seen a good part of the nightmare, they still, like Agent Mulder, Want to Believe! So yeah, when I see some snot-nosed silver spoon neo-hippy who has never worked for anything in their lives burning a flag….it bothers me…because they have NO idea how lucky they’ve been.
As for people burning money…well, that is, most certainly, my Issue…and I admit it.
When a symbol becomes a wholly owned subsidiary of a system of power and privilege, expose it and then burn that sucker down and scatter the ashes!