Koran Burning

I love books, always have done. There's something special about books, it's silly I know. My Father told me when I was young that even if a book was rubbish you'd always learn something from it. He was right.

The love of books instilled in me by both my parents is a precious gift. You can learn anything from a book: programming, history, brewing, calligraphy, anything. I love that.

Because of this affection I don't like book burning. It is more than just because of my affection for the written word, however, but because of all the images of Nazi, and fundamentalist book burning. Too much baggage for me.

However it is not illegal, nor would I want it to be. We should be free to express ourselves. It doesn't matter if anyone else likes it.

Six men have been arrested for burning the Koran. This burning was not in the midst of a riot or in front of a crowd. It was however filmed and posted on the Internet.

And so the police arrested them. Their crime? Inciting racial hatred. See here.

And it is that that gets me. Book burning, or flag burning, is not illegal in the UK. Rightly so. Therefore these men cannot be arrested for book burning. This is the same protection that protects militant Muslims when they burning our flag and burn books they don't like.

So why were these angry, white, stupid men arrested?

The police say it is a racial issue. It isn't, in cannot be. Muslims are not a race, neither are Christians, Hindus, Mormons, Jews, etc. These are religious groups not racially exclusive groups. In the case of Jews and Hindus, etc., the vast majority of the believers are born into the religion and are from a distinct genetic group, but anyone can convert into the religions. Thus their religion and ethnicity constitute two separate things.

For Islam and Christianity there is no such close ties to ethnicity. Muslims and Christians come in any colour and genetic group under the sun. They are not a distinct ethnic group. Therefore it is ridiculous political correctness to arrest people on trumped up charges. It makes the law look an ass.

You don't have to like their actions but you cannot falsely arrest people because you don't like them.

To single out a group of stupid white people for arrest whilst allowing militant Muslims to not only burn our flag or Bible, but to call for people to be murdered to walk free even when they make such threats in front of the police is counterproductive to good community relations. Worse it is the police who protect such extremists whilst they call for others to be murdered. Such protection for a single group and the attacking of the white majority is going to increase the support of the loathsome BNP.

That would be a mistake in my opinion.

I think the most insulting aspect about this case is the views of important people that action has to be taken against these six because if they didn't Muslims would rise up and act violently and kill us.

I would find it hard to come up with a greater insult to the majority of Muslims than that. It is calling all Muslims ignorant primitives with a psychotic propensity to violence. It is not true obviously but it really makes one wonder who has the most racist attitudes of the followers of Islam.

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