KORAN BURNING SPARKS UN MASSACRE

FLORIDA PASTOR TERRY JONES’S
KORAN BURNING HAS FAR-REACHING EFFECT

Washington - (AFP) - Afghan protests over the burning of a Koran in Florida continued Sunday for a third day, with three more people killed here.  That brought to almost 30 the number of people killed in Afghanistan since Friday, when a mob overran United Nations offices in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, killing seven United Nations international staff members.  That was followed by two days of disturbances in Kandahar, in southern Afghanistan, with businesses closed and young men rampaging through the streets, flying Taliban flags and chanting anti-American slogans.  The police fired into crowds Saturday, killing nine people and wounding 81, all by gunshots, but were more restrained on Sunday, as representatives of the protesters met with government officials in an effort to defuse the violence.

Still, 40 more people were wounded and two more killed Sunday in the confrontations between the police and protesters. Two policemen were killed over the two days here, apparently because some of the protesters were armed and shot back at them.  President Barack Obama condemned a US pastor’s burning of the Koran, after violent protests at what he called an act of “extreme intolerance and bigotry” left 20 dead in Afghanistan.  Obama also reiterated his condemnation of the “outrageous” attacks by protesters as “an affront to human decency and dignity.”  “No religion tolerates the slaughter and beheading of innocent people, and there is no justification for such a dishonorable and deplorable act,” he added.

For three days, thousands of Muslims are protesting against what they consider an affront to the holy book of Islam.  Besides the UN headquarters, they attacked other public buildings in Kandahar, and clashed violently with police. “The protests and attacks against the headquarters of the UN is the natural reaction of Muslims to the burning of the Koran,” said Zabiullah Mujahid, from the fundamentalist sector.  On one hand we have a radical fundamentalist Christian pastor from U.S. and on the other the fundamentalist Taliban insurgents who use it to justify their attacks.  Both do it on behalf of their particular faith.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US? 

Śrīmad Bhāgavatam asks, “What is the conception of māyā ?” rite ‘rtham yat pratīyeta (SB 2.9.34) - what seems to us to be the correct reading of the environment, is actually not so.  Arthesu abhijñah – Krishna knows the meaning and purpose of every incident.  Many events are harmonised and are for the purpose of serving Him.  But when there is localised interest, there is a clash.  Imperial and universal interests clash with provincial and local interests. ... What we conceive, feel, trust and believe, is not in consonance with the universal reading; it is māyā. Even our belief is within the realm of māyā.  Our conceptions will have no standing in the interest of the Absolute.  What we read with our local interest, we will not find if we read from the Universal interest.

Śrīla Bhakti Raksaka Sridhara Mahārāja :
“Hearing to See” - “The Plane of Ignorance and Error”
(Article from an informal discourse)
Bhaktivedanta Memorial Library - www.bvml.org/SBRSM/