how stupid can people be?

[Bazeye]

"Das war ein Vorspiel nur, dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen."

'That was only a prelude. Where one burns books, there one ultimately burns people.'

Heinrich Heine 1836.

In 1934 Heine's works went into the fire too, along with Thomas Mann, Sigmund Freud, Felix Mendelsohn.......

And the Beatles in the 60s when John Lennon "offended" Christians.

[Bazeye]

Dont see any problem myself. I cant recall any cries of outrage or pages of press coverage a couple of years ago when this happened. Seems to me some people want to be able to eat their cake and have it.

http://www.speroforum.com/a/17283/Muslims-burn-Bi...

[John Little]

You are not comparing like with like.

Your example is from a country where mass education is rudimentary or non-existent, where democracy is weak and free speech is dangerous.
Burning Bibles or anything else is common - and, in the context, understandable. Most of them know no better.

The west is different- isn't it?

Here we are educated to a high degree. We have deeply established democratic institutions and a tradition of free speech.

We understand by long and hard experience that if you burn books then you burn ideas.

The last generation, one of the most remarkable we have ever seen, fought a long total war to establish our freedoms.

If we burn Korans then our vaunted freedoms are nothing.
We burn Korans then we are exactly the same in mentality and sophistication of thought as the bible burners of Pakistan.


I like to think we know better.

If we do not then our civilisation is bunk.

[brandy]

behind you there john little!

[Bazeye]

Didnt mean to compare the two as such, I was merely wondering why is one deemed more newsworthy than the other by the media?

[John Little]

Ah - well the media in general seems to be run by a bunch of lazy swine who can't be bothered to find out about real stuff so they just grab what they think will sell from news agencies. Mad Mullahs have always sold well - nothing like a Mad Mullah to get people worked up.

Tried and trusted formula.

I just ignores them.