A woman holds a copy of the Holy Quran during a protest against the burning of the Holy Book in Stockholm, near the Swedish embassy in Baghdad. File / Reuters

Attacker, If you have the courage of your conviction and if you seriously believe that you belong to one of the world’s most progressive societies and if you, like the cultured in your part of the universe, value the power of reason and not celebrate prejudice with pride like the ill-bred and insecure do, then you should find ways to set hatred on fire and not a copy of the Holy Book, whose words fashion the lives of tens of millions.

Anyway, you wasted your and the authorities’ time because the book is beyond all man-made fires and is indestructible. How on earth can one questionable human being destroy a treatise on which nations have been built and whose respect and defence have caused empires to shake empires and over centuries and whose power ran through human history like a thunderbolt?  

Though it unveiled itself in the form of verses within no time it became a book whose weight made its enemies crouch and forced history to change its course. It has been authored by one, but is read by millions. And all by choice. And you think you can burn it?

You can target the pages but never what is written on it. You can target all the copies but not the millions who know the book by heart. A billion people like you can’t raze the impact of an alphabet of the Holy Book, leave alone pages.
                     
OFFICIAL PERMISSION

The believers’ agony deepened when they discovered that the authorisation for the protest outside a mosque in Stockholm came officially after a Swedish appeals court rejected the police’s decision to deny permits for two demonstrations in Stockholm, which were to include the burning of the copies of the Holy Book. Police had at the time cited security concerns, following a burning of the copy of the Holy Book outside Turkey’s embassy in January which led to weeks of protests, calls for a boycott of Swedish goods and further stalled Sweden’s NATO membership.

The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) rightly said that collective measures were needed to prevent acts of desecration of the Holy Quran and international law should be used to stop incidents of religious hatred. The 57-member body met at its Jeddah headquarters in Saudi Arabia to respond to the incident. The OIC urged member states to take unified and collective measures to prevent the recurrence of incidents of desecration of copies of the Holy Book, according to a statement released after the “extraordinary” meeting. The body’s secretary general, Hissein Brahim Taha, “stressed the need to send a clear message that acts of desecration” of the Holy Quran are “not mere ordinary Islamophobia incidents,” the statement said. “We must send constant reminders to the international community regarding the urgent application of international law, which clearly prohibits any advocacy of religious hatred,” Taha said.

Well, we were pleased to note the international community’s response to the call made at the Jeddah meeting.

The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) approved a motion, opposed unfortunately by some leading political players, on religious hatred. The resolution calls for the UN rights chief to publish a report on religious hatred and for states to review their laws and plug gaps that may “impede the prevention and prosecution of acts and advocacy of religious hatred.”

The resolution condemns any act that promotes discrimination, hatred and violence, in any form it may come, be it visual, written, spoken or via digital platforms.

Attacker, protest is understandable, but sheer hatred is bestial. It stinks of desperation.