When words go up in flames

[CHIMO]

I declare today “International Read a Koran Day.”

The threat of a Koran burning by Terry Jones, the pastor of the tiny Dove World Outreach Center, which caused the world tremendous anxiety this week, also provided us with an unexpected kind of cross-cultural understanding.

Every time I looked at the mustachioed, blockheaded face of Mr. Jones on television, I couldn't help thinking that I was experiencing what it must be like for ordinary, decent Muslims to see terrorists using Allah to justify blowing up bus stations or daycare centres.

Although I wanted badly just to dismiss Mr. Jones as a freak, he didn't come out of nowhere. As painful as it may be to admit, book-burning is an endemic Western disease, with deep cultural roots.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/when-words-go-up-in-flames/article1703427/