Burn Calories Not Quran’s

During the recent media coverage of little known American Pastor Terry Jones who plans to burn copies of the Islamic holy book Quran we have learned that the practice of burning books is not new.  Pastor Jones is stirring up global media for planning to use September 11^th as “Burn A Koran” day in reaction to incorrect naming of the “Ground Zero mosque” further feeding into many Americans “Islamophobia” over the recent months.

It started recently when the proposed building for Park51 Islamic community center in lower Manhattan just two blocks away from the fallen Twin Tower location was met with emotional opposition by Christian conservatives and relatives of the victims of 9/11 attacks.  The nation has been focused on the location of the mosque that is simply practicing its “freedom of religion” choice rather than a not awaited memorial for the victims of 9/11.  Since 2001 not a single memorial tree, bench or wall has been placed at Ground Zero to commemorate the 2,976 lives lost at the location.  So why attack the legal construction of the Islamic community center now?  United States President Obama has cited the Declaration of Independence in his recent comments that  “One of those inalienable rights is to practice their religion freely.  “And what that means is that if you could build a church on a site, you could build a synagogue on a site, if you could build a Hindu temple on a site, then you should be able to build a mosque on the site.”

Another reason why this planned burning of the Quran is a dangerous protest is because of the insulting message it sends to over 1.5 billion Muslims across the world.  Then the other side is many people feel that this is the season for ridiculous media coverage that everyone who disagree with the protest should ignore it.  In the social media world a facebook fan page was created to support the burning with 16,000 fans while opponents of the burning reached fans in the hundreds of thousands.  On Twitter there is a trending topic that is getting updates every second but the most relevant one that I found was from Hip Hop artist Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest that read “Americans should be burning calories instead of Qurans.”

For a insightful point of view on this topic check out: Quran row feeds media frenzy

Twitter trending topic: Quran burning

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