A Limited Knowledge of World History

Terry Jones is making the entire planet shiver. This pastor, who heads an obscure church in Florida, has been threatening for several days to publicly burn copies of the Quran. He’s got his matches ready for Sept. 11, the anniversary of the terrible attacks by al-Qaida.

This peculiar “pastor” must only have very limited knowledge of world history. He probably doesn’t know that it was the inquisitors of the Middle Ages who inaugurated the practice of the auto-da-fé. And on occasion, they would throw a heretic or a Jew into the fire at the same time, just to purify them. Someone probably also hasn’t taught him that the Nazis were great book burners in the ‘30s. A century earlier, possessing an astonishing intuition, the Jewish-German poet Heinrich Heine promised: “Where they burns books, they will, in the end, burn human beings too.” Did he see the hateful days of crematoriums coming?

None of this fazes Pastor Jones. But it shakes the world. In the U.S., Barack Obama explains very simply that such an act will be a godsend for al-Qaida’s recruitment. Nearly all political, religious and community leaders condemn this project. But the Constitution’s First Amendment prevents anyone from depriving this crazy fundamentalist of his little campfire.

So, evidently in the Muslim part of the world, they are taking this idiotic provocation very badly. From Kabul to New Delhi and on to Jakarta, a chorus of protests and threats is rising … which Americans are taking very seriously.

In France, the rector of the Paris Mosque, Dalil Boubakeur, advises very intelligently against falling into the trap. Still, here is an illustration of the butterfly effect: The whims of an irresponsible fundamentalist could possibly bring about hundreds of deaths.

As mischievous fate would have it, there is another, much more famous Terry Jones in the world — an artist, actor, director and a member of the famous Monty Python. Terry Jones, with Terry Gilliam, notably filmed “The Holy Grail,” as well as a parody about the New Testament: “The Life of Brian,” whose last scene presents some victims of crucifixion who happily begin singing a song in spite of their torture.

This Jones tells us that humor and love can triumph over fanaticism. And stupidity.