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Algeria summons Danish and Swedish envoys to condemn Koran desecrations
(www.france24.com)
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this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2023
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Secularity also includes freedom of religion and in developed democracies freedom of expression does not include hate-speech and inciting violence against minorities.
Publicly burning religious symbols is a pretty expressive form of hate speech against that religion, usually followed by burning people of that religion if allowed to. But what do i know. My ancestors only burned Torahs 90 years ago, and that only escalated into one of the worst genocides in human history.
I wish we could remove the hate speech from scripture or ban the distribution of scripture which contains hate speech (like Torah, Bible and Quran). But I digress.
I understand how it can be seen this way, and recognize it often was analogue in history. But I disagree to automatically equate the two.
From my point of view, these book burnings exist because other people take offense about them in a very violent way. Some do burn embassies, some kill people. They want us to submit to the rules of their specific religion, although we don't believe in it. Some feel entitled to rage and anger when others don't do what they'd find acceptable.
This is childish and encroaching, and a threat to freedom, and sadly also sometimes a threat to life. To please this attitude by succumbing seems wrong to me. Provoke them until they learn that their rights end where our rights begin.
The article does not talk about the motives of the protesters, so we don't know in this particular case. There are cases where you are right; where book burnings are meant to incite hate and violence. There are cases when the opposite is true; book burnings to resist and protest encroachment and violence.
Not sure how a burned book is restricting anyones freedom of religion. Compulsory book burnings, that would be another story. Some people have fun believing in sky daddy, some people have fun burning fantasy books - there is no real problem in coexisting, if they tolerate each other.
Because freedom of religion means that you can be religious without persecution. Someone publicly burning the symbols of your religion is aiming at threatening you for your religion.
Imagine you'd be living in a foreign country and your neighbour is greeting you every morning with burning the flag of your country of origin. He's just having fun burning flags right? Or how about the KKK burning black straw figures? They are jsut having fun right? It is their right. It is your fault for assuming they might want to incite violence against you this way right?
Or maybe we can stop pretending that the burning of a religious book is meant as a threat against the people believing in that religion just as much as burning any book related to a people, to certain ideas etc. aims at threatening them.
I join in, since he has a point and the country of my origin sucks.
Is he burning straw muslims?
So wat muslim rules do we have to follow to not upset conservative and fundamentalist muslims? Do women have to cloth modest? Do LGBT+ people have to give up on their rights? Introduce some blasphemy laws? Because that are all things, conservative and fundamentalist muslims are upset about. Where do you draw the line?
You are convoluting two things. You say that not burning the Koran would be a sign of adhering to conservative muslim ideas of society. But it is a sign of adhering to the principles of democracy and human rights to prevent the abuse of freedom of expression for inciting hate and threatening a minority.
There is no right to threaten people and incite violence against them. That has nothing to do with the freedom of how you dress, who you love etc. It also doesn't require blasphemy laws, because again, it is not constructive criticism of the religion, whose book is burned, but a threat of violence against the followers of that religion.
Incidently the LGBT+ community you seem to care about and want to protect is currently attacked in many US states by books talking about LGBT+ issues or written by LGBT+ authors being attacked. Now would you say that it is okay to burn a straw figure depicting a stereotype of an LGBT+ person is okay, because that would have nothing to do with hate against LGBT+ people? I hope not, because of course it does.
Nah, I just value freedom of expression over the right of religious people to not be offended.
And there is no right to be not offended. What about drawing the Prophet? And again - existence of LGBT+ people offends conservative muslims, as well as women having basic human rights - so where do you draw the line? You dodged that question.
Are they burning straw muslims? You also dodged that question. I'm slowly getting a feeling that you are not really interested in engaging in a conversation.
you are clearly trolling so i end it here. You are ignoring the key issue, that burning a symbol of a group is always meant as a threat against the group. It has nothing to do with feelings of being offended or freedom of speech or whatever you try to justify your hatred with. If you defend the burning of symbols of a minority it is an expression of your hatred against that minority.
Sure, it's me who is trolling - not you who constantly is not engaging with the arguments I made.
And for some reason you also get personal. I don't hate muslims, I don't like fundamentalist of any kind and I think organised religion is an obsolete concept that mostly brings suffering into the world, while at the same time I respect every humans personal faith - as long as they tolerate me and others.
Nope. I don't even have to agree with actions - but I can think that people have the right to do them. This concept is called tolerance - you should try it some times.
But I also have a question for you to think about - who is offended by burning of Koran? Secular, moderate muslims or fundamentalist? Maybe you are the one missing the point, the guy burning the book is trying to make.
Well i am atheist, my wife is a moderate muslim and we feel threatened by it, because it is a threat and it is no coincidence that i goes along with more and more open hatred, discrimination and violence against muslims or people perceived as muslims in europe. And you are proudly defending that hatred so it is obvious that you share the hatred.
Fair point, but I asked if moderates and secular muslims were offended?
Again, I don't hate muslims and I don't think that burning koran or any book is a good thing. I might even join a counter protest, if some nazis were burning koran somewhere not far away. But I believe they have a fundamental right to do so, just like AfD clowns and Querdenker have the right to organise protests and marches - I will join the counter protest, but I believe that they have a fundamental right to do so. Freedom of expression is extremely important.
I get it that you and your wife might be frightened. I'm an immigrant my self and my gf does not pass as german, while being born here. The pure existence of AfD and likes, is rather threatening to me and if the trend continue I might have to seek a new home. But at the same time I strongly believe that people should be able to express them selfes even in ways that might be provokative to myself. Maybe it's due to stories of my parents living under a regime that randomly forbade all kinds of expressions.
Yeah, no. I would burn all religion books if possible, doesn't mean I would burn christians, muslims or whatever. I personally can burn any book I want given that the book is my property. Your ancestors burning books wasn't what caused the genocide; the book burning and the genocide have a common cause, they don't cause each other.
If you don't see that the people who make a point of publicly burning books do so, because they would like to burn the people of that religion if they could you are fooling yourself. Thats like saying the KKK is just burning straw on a stake and has nothing to do with their hate of black people. Except of course it does.
How has burning one singe copy of a widely available book affected anyone's ability to follow their religion?
Ah, the slippery slope argument. Is burning people of that religion allowed in Denmark or Sweden?
Because it is burning the book as a symbol. And it is about burning the symbol. Noone would care about him burning it home alone without anyone knowing. But that is not what it is about. It is burned publicly, after announcing ti burn it publicly, to make sure that the threat to the people of that rekigion is heard by everyone.
You think burning jews was allowed in 1930 Germany? It is a clear step of radicalization against a minority to publicly burn symbols associated with them and that of course is a slippery slope. Terrorism against muslims is on the rise in most western countries, and acts like this help to normalize it.
Ah, so Denmark and Sweden are 1930s Germany now.
This is either an incredibly bad simile or you're genuinely implying that they will implement a state operated mass genocide on Muslims within the next decade.
Don't mistake me for one of those free speech absolutists but criticizing religion is not the same as attacking people.
Facism is on the rise all around Europe and if we do not change trajectory soon, it is a matter of when, not if.
Violence against muslims, but also against jews and lgbt people is increasing, and over the last decade there were numerous terror attacks, like in Norway, the NSU terror group, Munich, Hanau, Christchurch etc.
Just last week a group of school children was assaulted on a German train, because some of then were brown. About two month ago a schoolclass had to flee ftom a holiday camp in the middle of the night, under police protection because they were assaulted by the local facists.
Burning symbols of groups affected by such violence is fueling the immediate violence against the groups.
Freedom of Religion is just the right not to be forced to adhere to a specific religion by the state, it is not some sort of super-constitutional right that lifts every rule of every religion up to constitutional right status.
You cannot have hate speech against a religion, a religion is a non living concept.
You can have hats speech against a religious follower.
Burning a book in protest of a religion is not hate speech.
Except you can protest a religion without burning things.
Burning things publicly is always meant to intimidate the people associated with it.
No it’s not?
Burning a flag of a country for example is done in protest of the country, not the people.
Burning books is likewise done to remove access to knowledge.
You really think that Iranians who burn the US flag for example distinct between the country and the people?
People who burn flags or religious symbols aren't really known for having well articulated and nuanced criticism.
Uh, yes? In fact I think Iran is the worst example for the fact that I’d consider them one of the countries that separates people from their states actions the most.
Now like ISIS or something? Yeah, I doubt they discern but they’re also a fringe extremist minori and not representative of the norm.
Then you really have way more faith in the rationality of people who burn flags or books than I do. To me this always reeks of the lowest form of populism.
Yes, in Sweden we are secular and have freedom of religion. However, my personal preference would be freedom FROM religion. And I mean all religions.
Hate-speech term is some kind of manipulation tool now. How someone supposed to oppose anything in this case? If I go on the street with “No religion in lawmaking” banner am I hate speaking too?
Any 5 years old starwars fan have to now start holy war coz somebody burned Yoda toy?
Are star wars fans a minority subject to discrimination, violence, murder and terror? I am not aware of that. Meanwhile muslims and people perceived as such are subject to worse and worse discrimination, violence and murder in Europe.
With this logic I can discriminate and murder catholics in mostly catholic countries because they are not minority. And this is actually logic you can see used by any religion groups. Not only muslims. Portray them self as “discriminated” and other side as aggressor. Then use it to push their agenda force religion on others.
No you cant, because there is laws against murder and if you announce to the police that you plan a murder, they'll keep you from commiting it. They should have done the same for people announcing to burn books.
For context: one of the announced burnings was by an ex-muslim Iraqi. Not everyone born in Islam stay in Islam. Some people move to Europe precisely because of this freedom of ours.
Muslim people do exist and they are subject to discrimination and hate, what the fuck are you talking about?