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I live in New York City. I was here during 9/11 when hijacked airliners took down the World Trade Center Towers. I remember the clouds of toxic smoke in the sky. I remember roads being cleared for emergency traffic, and National Guard in full kit with M16s patrolling the streets. I remember the hospital emergency rooms being cleared for a flood of casualties that didn't occur because everyone either got out with minor injuries or didn't get out at all. I remember masses of flowers left at fire stations whose firemen responded to the attack and didn't return. I remember every telephone kiosk turning into an impromptu shrine, with votive candles and posters pleading for information on the missing. The annual ceremony of the reading of the victim's names is taking place as I write.
I wish it were as simple an issue as many would have it.
I don't see the underlying conflict as religious. I see it as cultural. The religion you espouse may specify what you believe. The culture in which you are raised determines how you express it. You can find fanaticism and a willingness to die for the cause in almost any religion, if the believers are raised in a culture that expresses things that way. Consider what Islam might look like if Mohamed had been a Teuton in Germany instead of a Arab in the Mediterranean. Do you suppose it would look anything like it does now? I don't. The underlying cultures are very different. The Arabs might have invented "an eye for an eye". The Teutons were less motivated by spite.
The late psychiatrist Eric Berne did an interesting analysis which concluded that the real motivation of a terrorist was causing terror. The cause in which they labored provided the means for causing terror and a justification the terrorist could use to tell himself it was okay. Berne suggested that a terrorist could turned to work for the other side with appropriate psychiatric supervision: just give them the ability to create bigger bombs and more terror, with a plausible justification for why they are doing the Right Thing, and you've got your man.
The current tempest in NYC over the placement of a new mosque near the Ground Zero site is simply an aftershock, and we'll see more of them.
Burning a Koran might make you feel better, but it's pointless in addressing the underlying issues. It might be better to actually read that Koran, to attempt to understand the mindset of the believers who can do things like blow themselves up to make a statement. Until you can understand the motives and feelings of such folks, you can't realistically hope to counter them.
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Dennis
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