A symbiotic relationship

posted by: Nick Lowles | on: Friday, 10 September 2010, 12:11

Last night I watched the events unfolding in Florida with a mixture of amusement and trepidation. A common complaint of our 24-hour news age is that you watch for 15 minutes and then you find the loop starting all over again. Last night was different.

Pastor Terry Jones had enraged the world with his promise to burn 200 copies of the Koran on Saturday, the anniversary of 9/11. Suddenly, and no doubt because he was under immense political and religious pressure, he seemed to pull back but only after saying that a deal had been done to move the mosque and Islamic centre that are currently being planned on a site two blocks away from Ground Zero.

“What a coup”, commentators reported. “How does a pastor with a regular congregation of just 12 wield such power?” reflected Sky News.

Of course his coup was not what it seemed. The Florida-based iman with whom Jones claimed he had made the deal said the pastor had twisted his words and all he had said was that he would try to facilitate a meeting.

The pastor felt cheated. “I have been lied to”, he responded and a little later he announced that he was thinking about withdrawing his decision to cancel the burn-fest. Given his belief that Islam is “of the Devil”, it is somewhat surprising that he made any kind of arrangement at all.

He now claims he has not cancelled the burning but postponed it. I think this whole charade was a face-saving exercise to pull back from the book burning. He now has the added bonus of being able to claim that the lying double-speak of the iman is further proof of the wickedness of the religion.

But of course the wider damage has already been done. Some have criticised President Obama for getting involved, claiming it only inflamed the situation, but of course he had no choice. As soon as news of Jones’s actions spread across the airwaves Islamist extremists were using it for their own ends. There was widespread anger across the Muslim world, with Pakistan even calling in Interpol about a possible terrorist backlash. With the controversy reaching an international stage Obama had little choice but to speak up, for if he had remained silent he would have been criticised.

My wider point is that extremism breeds extremism. Pastor Jones’s actions were jumped on by the very people he claimed to oppose, just as British right-wing extremists, such as the English Defence League, latch onto the actions of a handful of Islamic fundamentalists over here, and their actions in turn wind up the very extremists they have set themselves up to confront. Extremists need their nemesis to justify their own existence. They need to demonise their opponents and use their extremism to justify their own. In this context simply denouncing extremism – from whatever quarter – is not enough. As we demonstrated in Bradford we can oppose extremism by talking up what unites us – and by “us” I’m talking about the vast majority of people across all communities, religions and races who want to live together peacefully.