Handbook for Provocateurs

Why can a provincial pastor’s threats to burn the Koran get the whole world to hold its breath? It all comes down to timing and the willingness to be outraged.

Pastor Terry Jones is obviously not a gifted preacher: His congregation in Gainesville, Florida numbers less than 50 believers. Nevertheless, the man with the Kaiser Wilhelm moustache has managed to become world-famous in just a couple of days. All he had to do was declare his intention to hold a public burning of the Koran. That sort of stuff gets around quickly.

Suddenly, television networks began planting their satellite dishes on the front lawn of his country church. The idiotic plans of a lunatic became a diplomatic affair. A general, a Cabinet member and even the president of the United States himself got involved, warning of the possible ramifications of such an idiotic barbecue. Their main concern: that it would anger the Islamic world. The first demonstrators were already marching in Afghanistan and had burned a U.S. flag; then they marched some more just to be on the safe side, even though Jones had called off his plans to burn the Koran.

A provocateur has an easy job these days. He only needs to find a taboo, break it in an outrageous fashion and presto: He gets maximum attention, even if he hails from a little dump like Gainesville. Once a certain level of outrage has been reached, the subject can no longer be ignored. The media always joins in the controversy. Choosing a deeply symbolic date for the production helps to stage the issue. Here, Jones demonstrated a keen sense of timing: He set the Koran burning for Saturday, Sept. 11, the anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City.

Rhetorical cluster bombs.

You only have a scandal if you can get people angry about something. Putting nude people on stage doesn’t work so well anymore, at least not in the West. But if somebody like Terry Jones insults Islam, he can be sure of enraged protests.

We know this is true because half the Islamic world went to the barricades when a Danish newspaper published cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed. It is hard to connect such a reaction to masterful self-confidence, but that is another chapter entirely. Breaking a taboo only has maximum effect if it explodes like a simplistic rhetorical cluster bomb. The provocateur’s dynamite is made up of sweeping generalizations aimed at entire segments of the population such as foreigners, gay men, chubby people, Jews, Muslims or Christians. Once they have thrown their verbal grenades, provocateurs like to portray themselves as unfairly persecuted, merely because they voiced an unpleasant truth. Their battle cry is, “We have freedom of speech!” Then they regurgitate the unappetizing, undigested remnants of their thoughts — things others might say, but only secretly. This equalization of pressure makes them popular.

Provocateurs like to claim they are only promoting discussion, but the only discussion that takes place concerns the form of their assertions, not the content. The provocations are just a straw fire at which Jones and other neurotics given to stereotyping like to warm themselves. Nobody gets anything from such an orgy of rabble-rousing except shoddy entertainment.