The US weekly “Newsweek” is a highly reputable and responsible publication, rarely prone to making mistakes. So when it reports, as it has done, that copies of the Qur’an were desecrated at the US detention center at Guantanamo Bay, people will believe the story. People in the Muslim world certainly do. The anger it has stirred up in Afghanistan has left a trail of death and destruction. Incensed at the blasphemy, Afghans have lashed out in fury in all directions. The fact that not only government and UN buildings were burned but even mosques shows the depths of their rage. The same level public anger has been reported from Pakistan, Indonesia, Egypt and many other Muslim countries.
The US authorities have promised to investigate — an indication that they understand the seriousness of the issue. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said that disrespect for the Qur’an “is not now, nor has it ever been, nor will it ever be, tolerated.” That is a refreshing assurance. So too is her promise that “appropriate action” will be taken if the allegations prove true.
If the report of desecration is true, it will be another example of how ignorant and insensitive the US, particularly the US military, remains to other cultures and what those cultures hold most dear. Coming after Abu Ghraib, after all the stories of humiliation suffered by Muslims arriving at American airports and of attacks on Muslims in the US, and given the general hostility toward Muslims in the US and the anti-Muslim mood in certain sections of the US media, nothing could have been more guaranteed to stir Muslim anger across the world. Washington constantly proclaims that attacks on Muslims will not be tolerated and that the war on terrorism is not a war on Islam. Evidently, the American institutions are not listening; they are not interested in the feelings and beliefs of anyone other than themselves. It is crass insensitivity. It is also appalling stupidity. The US government has spent hundred of millions of dollars trying to improve its image with Muslims worldwide; a story like this undoes all that work at a stroke. It is also disastrous diplomacy. Washington presumably wants to retain its friends in the Muslim world; something like this actively undermines that friendship.
The promised investigation must be swift, and any wrongdoing published. Even then, it is doubtful whether everyone will wait for the results. Already believing that the US and its institutions, especially its military, are inherently anti-Muslim, many will assume the worst and react accordingly. The US operates a double standard toward Islam, especially when compared to other religions. It is argued that attacks on other religions are an exercise of the right to speak and it cannot be checked. But no one can attack the Holocaust theory with impunity — and that is not even religion. When will the US, when will the American public, when will the US Army, start showing respect for others that they expect others to show for themselves? If that can change as a result of this, then this outrageous story will, at least, have done some good.
