Book burning

[sciolist]

Birmingham girl arrested for allegedly burning Quran
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/25/girl-arrested-allegedly-burning-quran

This kind of story upsets me a little since I wonder where the legal line gets drawn. What are acceptable ways of house-tidying or disposing of personal property? Garden waste is OK to burn, so's old furniture and arguably being paper, books could be burned too.

So, if you're allowed to burn your own unwanted property safely - where's the crime? Would it be better or worse if the Quran was one of a bunch of books being burned? Is chucking it in a wheelie bin that much more respectful? Is deleting a pdf of the Quran innately offensive? Could other faiths object to other books being disposed of? If Jedi is officially a faith in some circles does that mean that Splinter of the Mind's Eye could be holy enough to be criminal to burn? It's certainly unreliable and inconsistent with the later Star Wars canon. Even if you think the object in general is special, why should that affect what I can do with my instance of that object.

It feels like they've got a sticky situation where they're trying to make the intent criminal, and that's got to be harder than demonstrating the actual actions performed.

If I could be bothered, it'd make me tempted to hold a big book bonfire party. Just bring a book that you think is worthy of permanent disposal to render it unreadable by others.

Fret not, I'm likely not that motivated.

Comments

[valiha]

I usually don't just barge in into other people's journals, but I saw this on DW Latest Things, so I thought I should offer my perspective as a Muslim woman living in a predominantly Muslim country in the middle of Europe.

We have a special relationship with the Holy Qur'an. We view it as the Word of God. I'm aware that devout Christians view the Bible as the Word of God, but they don't treat the Bible the same way we treat our Holy Book.

In order to even hold the Holy Qur'an, you must be clean: you must perform ablutions, and your mind should not wander but be focused on what you are reading. It cannot be placed on the floor. You cannot scribble notes on the pages - I was always appalled at my Christian friends who would underline something in their Bibles, or scribble notes in the margins.

So yeah, to a Muslim disposing of the Holy Qur'an is offensive. If you do not want it anymore, for whatever reason, it should be either given to someone who does, or donated to a library.

Having said that, I believe a person has the right to dispose of their property in any way they like, as long as it's done safely and cannot be construed as offensive. Just because someone views your holy book as holy, doesn't mean they will too, and might want to get rid of it after reading it and finding it lacking. What this girl did was more than just disposing of an unwanted book. As reported by the website:

"A 15-year-old girl has been arrested on suspicion of inciting religious hatred after allegedly burning an English-language version of the Qur'an – and then posting video footage of the act on Facebook.

The teenager, from the Sandwell district of Birmingham, was filmed on her school premises burning the book. Police have confirmed the incident was reported to the school and the video has since been removed from the social networking site." [emphasis mine]

So not only was she not simply disposing of an unwanted book on her own property, she did it on school grounds, in a way which could be construed as deliberately offensive, and she (or the classmates looking on) posted the video of the event on Facebook.

A book burning is often not just burning old, unwanted things. It's almost always meant to send a Message: "we think you and your culture are worth nothing". Just remembering that Nazis burned books they disagreed with makes me disinclined to ever hold a book bonfire party, no matter how offensive a book might be to me. Because as stated on the Wikipedia entry linked above, "German Jewish poet Heinrich Heine, who wrote in his 1820-1821 play Almansor the famous admonition, 'Where they burn books, they will also burn people.'"

[sciolist]

Certainly it sounds like this girl was being incredibly insensitive, probably intentionally rude and certainly silly for burning stuff at school rather than at home. That american preacher who wanted to hold a Qur'an burning was definitely being a deliberately offensive arse, in my opinion.

For me - this girl's offense is in deliberately trying to be offensive to a bunch of people. It'd be interesting to know why she wanted to do it. But from a religious angle, I don't feel that unbelievers in a particular religious faith should be held to the standards of that faith.

Obviously civil law should apply to everyone, but then I think that civil law should be founded on secular, rational, justifiable humanist values rather than any specific religious text.

[valiha]

I don't feel that unbelievers in a particular religious faith should be held to the standards of that faith.

Yes, which is what I said above. The opposite should be true too, as well as "believers in a particular faith should not be held to the standards of another faith." Of course, not everyone (religious or not) feels the same.

There are still some norms of behavior that should be followed. You don't believe a certain book held as holy by a religion is actually holy? Feel free to get rid of it, but do it away from prying eyes. You think the beliefs of a certain religious groups are stupid? Refrain from saying so, or at the every least say that you don't hold to such beliefs and would rather change the topic. (By "you" I mean a general "you", not a specific "you, the owner of this journal".)

Burning stuff at school is more than being silly, it can be downright dangerous. I'm sure there are rules against students burning anything on the school premises, and she should at the very least be punished for that. Many countries also have laws against inciting religious hate. I'm sure UK has them too.

As for the reasons, they usually are fear of the unknown coupled by a wish to conform to the views of family/peers. Or perhaps no reason other than to be rebellious.

[jang]

Being an arse is not very polite but it should not be against the law.

We have laws (the Racial and Religious Hatred Act of 2006, I think) against inciting religious hatred. What about plain hatred? I don't think that one kind of belief - or any other mechanism for the classification of people - should be preferred when it comes to passing laws against inciting hatred towards people so classified.

The act itself is here:

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/1/schedule?view=plain

You will note that it is the hatred against persons that is illegal, not against the belief itself. In other words: hate the religion, love the sinner.

If the girl was intending to be an arse, that's fine. If her _intention_ (much harder to prove) was to cause others to hate a group of people based upon their religion, then she falls foul of this. I'd say that was nigh-on impossible to demonstrate.

Incidentally, there is a ray of hope in all this:

[[[
29J: Protection of freedom of expression

Nothing in this Part shall be read or given effect in a way which prohibits or restricts discussion, criticism or expressions of antipathy, dislike, ridicule, insult or abuse of particular religions or the beliefs or practices of their adherents, or of any other belief system or the beliefs or practices of its adherents, or proselytising or urging adherents of a different religion or belief system to cease practising their religion or belief system.
]]]

Well, thank god for that.

[valiha]

Being an arse is not very polite but it should not be against the law.

Definitely not. But I still hope more and more people will stop being arses. I won't hold my breath though.

About plain hatred, I'm inclined to call it misanthropy. My own view is that there's always a reason behind hate, there's always something that starts it, whether it's hate against a religious group, people of color, people of a certain sexual preference, of a different ethnic group... I find that very few people would say, I hate you because I hate you.

I'd like to say I don't think there should be a preference either, but I'm ambivalent about that. Should the punishment be the same for someone who, say, kills a person during a robbery, and someone who kills a person because he hates them due to their religion? Someone who rapes because he hates women, or someone who systematically rapes women of a different ethnicity as a weapon of war? I don't know. There are many things I'm ambivalent about, and that I struggle with.

About the girl, when it comes to her intention, I agree, it's difficult to prove unless some evidence is found to support the theory that it was a deliberate act of hate, in which case they should sit her down with a counselor and try to get to the reason of her actions. I believe that since she burned something on school property, and videotaped that event, she should be punished for that. It doesn't matter that it was the Holy Qur'an; I'd say the same thing if it was the Bible or the Torah or The Origin of the Species. If it's proven that hate is the reason, then she should be punished according to the religious hatred laws.

You will note that it is the hatred against persons that is illegal, not against the belief itself

As it should be.

29J: Protection of freedom of expression... [snip]
Well, thank god for that.

I agree.

[jang]

If it's proven that hate is the reason, then she should be punished according to the religious hatred laws.

Whether or not an act is motivated by hatred per se, the crime is acting or speaking with an intention to stir up religious hatred; not hating something. In other words, a bigot can do whatever they like providing, say, that their motivation is making someone question their own religion.

Whether a young punk could carry off that defence is anyone's guess. Being outrageous for its own sake without thinking of the consequences is something teenagers have a tendency to do. School is the place to learn lessons like "folk take this seriously". Does that merit:

[[[
(a)on conviction on indictment to imprisonment for a term not exceeding seven years or a fine or both;

(b)on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum or both.
]]]

or just giving her a scare and a bit of a wake-up call?

[valiha]

Honestly? I don't know. I don't think there should be prison time involved, but I do think there should be stricter punishments for this and not just a scare. Then again I think there should be stricter punishments in general for many things we tend to disregard too easily. (And also, I think home is primarily the place we should learn those lessons. If a parent hasn't done their job, there's very little I can do to correct the behavior of a student other than report them to the disciplinary committee.)

So a - what do you call it - probation?? Conditional punishment?? Where you're don't go to prison but have to report to a probation officer?? And probably a fine.

Mind you, this is just my personal opinion, plus I cannot help but be influenced by the fact that the event had something to do with my religion. To many of us have been rounded up and raped and killed because of who we are for something like this to be anything but a sensitive subject for me.

[jang]

Heh, at least you recognise it! My own wish would be that appropriate punishments should be determined by those who are not emotionally connected to the (alleged or otherwise) crime.

That presupposes that the machinery of justice is good at apposite levels of response. The trouble is, once something like this has landed in the lap of the powers that be, there's a feeling that something must be done about it and the opportunity to put things to bed with, "try to be a bit more bloody considerate" is lost. Instead, additional attention is given to something that's liable to cause an escalation of feeling the longer it's on the radar :-(

[valiha]

Oh yeah, I'm aware of it. I'm not perfect, and I have my own prejudice, and sometimes presume too much, but I think I'm mature enough to be able to step back and say, OK, gut feelings and reactions are one thing, but long-term actions are another. I'm always working on becoming a better person.

I'm a pretty level-headed gal; I think the only time I actually got pissed off enough to go and tell somebody off was when a fandom organized a writing contest to kill off (preferably in a bloody manner) a character I loved and most of them disliked. I'm afraid character bashing is one of my hot buttons!