Religious Relativity and Double Standards

Deep regret: "I extend to you and the Afghan people my sincere apologies. The error was inadvertent. I assure you that we will take the appropriate steps to avoid any recurrence, to include holding accountable those responsible." U.S. President Barack Obama

Damage control is difficult at the best of times. Excruciatingly so when one deals with primitive emotions. An apology is a rational response to an incident one would far rather have been able to avoid. In primitive minds an apology is taken as an admission of guilt, and blame is then further apportioned to the offending party.

So apologies, while they work to defuse situations when two adversaries face one another and each is privy of civil behaviour, not so when expressed toward those for whom it appears a further incitement to riot. And the true test of President Obama's sincere apology would only be recognized by the offended Afghans if he were to hang those responsible of the Koran-burning.

That, after all, is what Sharia law demands. The ultimate punishment for the ultimate sin. This is seen as appropriate, and under Sharia, just. Islamic values and tender feelings will not be soothed by any other course of action. For whatever justice the United States has in mind for the misfortune of having offended Muslim sensibilities, it is meaningless if it reflects American justice.

And riot they do. Blasphemous insults to the Prophet Mohammad, or the desecration of the Holy Koran by being carelessly handled in curiosity by a non-believer causes great anguish to religious faithful who have no idea what Western civility is comprised of. On the other hand the West has little full understanding of how deeply Islam and its values are engrained in the minds of its faithful.

Indoctrination in strict Islamic codes of behaviour since infancy, with reinforcement at every juncture on the road to maturity ensures that a deep reverence for Islam has invaded every pore of a faithful Muslim's body and mind. Nothing is as deeply valued as that faith. The Koran as a priceless object of veneration has more protection and concern at every level of society than that of a child.

And so, there are no acceptable excuses that will mollify that sense of collective outrage, fury and hatred extended toward the foreign invaders that have soiled the land and deprived the people of their belief in the sanctity of all they hold dear, as long as foreigners have access to Korans and may seek to dispose of them as trash.

That one or possibly several ignorant soldiers took it upon themselves to dispose of the Korans - as trash - is an attack of immense significance. To the Muslim mind. Of no great consequence to the Western mind - other than as an unfortunate, embarrassing and troublesome oversight with startling consequences. Destroying Korans is unthinkable to Muslims, however.

It will not be tolerated, and it is not tolerated. Better that riots take place, so the undisciplined and the unlettered may scream their defiance and demand the death penalty for the sinners who have given such grave insult to Islam.

These, coincidentally, are the very same pious faithful for whom the sacred and the holy of other religions are unthinkable as genuine. Who won't blink an eye at the destruction of other religions' holy sites, let alone sacred texts. Who destroy churches and attack Christians fairly routinely, as insults to Islam, the one true religion.

Who will not countenance the appearance of Jews wishing to worship on the Temple Mount, Judaism's most sacred site. This is the religion whose adherents and clerics insist that their religion be respected and held sacred, but not necessarily others. Who have long been habituated to converting the holy sites of other religions to those of Islam.

Who build their mosques and raise their minarets wherever they settle in the West. But whose tolerance for the presence of other religious symbols and institutions in lands dedicated to Islam are simply not to be countenanced.