On Burning the Koran

Life is not defended through death, nor is liberty defended through tyranny. I would like to know what passes through the minds of those conservatives in the U.S. and in Europe who defend the right to life with expeditious tactics – or should I say “fascist tactics” – and religious dialogue with clubs. The matter of Pastor Jones and his call to burn the Koran brings to mind the pyres of the inquisition or the piles of burning books in Nazi Germany.

Yesterday marked the ninth anniversary of the attack on the United States, which was carried out by a shadowy conglomeration of individuals, belonging to a diverse group of Islamic nations and organized in a group with diffuse outlines, called al-Qaida. This began a new form of war, no matter what the “activists” disguised as pacifists may say, to which the U.S. was not accustomed. The utter failure of the war in Iraq, and the unmanageable conflict in Afghanistan, is proof of that.

Pope Benedict XVI has made enormous efforts to foster religious dialogue based not on imposing but on proposing. Of course it is not by burning the Koran that we resolve our differences but by ensuring that our democratic societies treat men and women equally and uphold religious freedoms — something democratic constitutions require. The decision to locate the “Cordoba” mosque at ground zero is not only absurd but also ill-intentioned. This controversy reminds me, on a smaller scale, of the one that erupted when the Carmelites moved into the outskirts of Auschwitz. A place for everything, and everything in its place. Truth is not imposed, it is proposed, with love — a word in disuse – and not blood or fire.