OIC, MWL Call for Probe Into Qur’an Desecration
P.K. Abdul Ghafour, Arab News

JEDDAH, 15 May 2005 — International Islamic organizations based in Saudi Arabia yesterday called on the United States to investigate reports that its officers in Guantanamo Bay desecrated the Holy Qur’an and bring the culprits to justice.

The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) said it had written to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressing “astonishment and dismay” at the incident.

There are a couple of things to note in this Arab News article.

First, major Islamic organizations–ones with global reach–are calling for an investigation into a story (reported yesterday) that claimed US military forces desecrated the Quran. An investigation, not riots as have happened in South Asia among other places. Not an assumption of guilt.

That, clearly, is a good thing.

Something not quite so clear cut is that this event highlights an important cultural clash between the Islamic world and the West–and the US in particular.

It’s evident that in the Islamic world Islam is of the utmost importance. The religion holds a place in Islamic societies that no religion holds–any more–in the West. As a consequence, people in the Islamic world want and have created laws that protect the exhlted nature of religion. Strict laws condemn blasphemy, apostacy, misuse of religious symbols.

In the West, though, we tend to draw a distinction between symbols and the reality to which they are related. In the US, it’s perfectly legal to defame prophets, books, religious practice, even God. In most European countries, freedom doesn’t stretch that far: freedom of speech is not protected when it’s racist or intended to slur ethnic or religious groups, or the religions behind them.

[I note, pointedly, that some in the US believe that desecration of the American flag, a symbol, should be a felony crime.]

Simply because one has a right, however, doesn’t mean that it need be exercised. As I remarked in a comment to yesterday’s post, an American soldier does not have the same rights of free speech as a civilian does, and particularly not those of a non-governmental employee.

A soldier or other US government employee has a strictly circumscribed freedom of speech. That is because that person’s speech can easily be construed to be government policy. The default assumption is that if a government employee–military or civilian–does something it is a reflection of official policy. That’s obviously not always the case, but the assumption’s a fact.

This event does need to be investigated. I don’t know whether it happened or not, but I do know that if it did, it was not a manifestation of government policy. It was a stupid act by a stupid person who clearly didn’t understand what s/he was doing.

Because so many contemporary terrorists are Muslim, it’s easy enough for some to conclude that all terrorists are Muslims. It’s also easy to conclude that the war against terror is actually a war against Islam.

Both are categorically wrong conclusions.

But realizing that the issue of religion is a highly charged, emotional issue, it behooves all parties to remain calm until facts are known, not just supposed.

If someone working for the US government intentionally desecrated a Quran, that person should be punished. But the punishment should not be for the desecration–which is not a crime in America–but for bringing disrepute onto the US government, and endangering the lives of many people, Americans and not.