The Afghan Riots: A Chilling Study in Cause and Effect

As has been widely reported in the media and in the blogosphere … including here at Hyscience, in two days of riots in Kandahar, Afghanistan, over a hundred people were injured; over twenty were killed… and that’s just from the preliminary reports. The casualties are sure to grow. They tell us it all happened just because an obscure American preacher burned a book. John F. Di Leo offered his thoughts on the matter in his Illinois Review column yesterday.

Di Leo writes:

In a small town in Florida on March 20, the pastor of a small church held a public event: burning a koran for his audience and a video camera. His American Christian audience reacted as one would expect from them: they were happy to be a part of this provocative event; they returned to their homes and jobs after the service, and went on with their lives.

The world continued to turn … nobody of substance cared about Pastor Jones’ latest attempt at news coverage … until almost two weeks later, when it made the news half a planet away, in Afghanistan.

The president of Afghanistan denounced the event; imams and mullahs hammered it in their mosques. Their Afghan muslim audience reacted as one would expect from them: they streamed out into the streets, hunting down foreigners, beating hundreds of UN aides, NATO staffers, contractors, travelers, journalists, soldiers… rioting in the streets, burning the shops in their own neighborhoods, destroying property, attacking innocent bystanders. At least a hundred injuries and dozens of killings were confirmed by the second day of the riots.

In a world in which thousands die tragically every day — from starvation to murder, from disease and neglect — these events might not seem particularly newsworthy. When aren’t there riots in that part of the world? When aren’t innocents killed? It happens every day.

But this story is indeed noteworthy for several reasons, a chilling study in cause and effect, and in the difference between western civilization and the barbarism that still flourishes in the third world.

The Catalyst?

For over a year, Pastor Jones had been talking about burning a koran to make a point.