Burning the Koran is not just burning ‘another book’
It has been going on now for four days. At least 10 people killed as well as two US soldiers shot by an Afghan “colleague”, and this morning a crowd of several thousand on the streets of the Afghan capital Kabul chanting “Death to America!” with – and I have not noticed this before – several protesters carrying the white flag of the Taliban.
So to the facts of it all.
It was at Bagram, the notorious US airbase north of Kabul on the lush Shomali plain, where, somehow, several copies of the Koran ended up heading for the burn-pits, slung out with all manner of other rubbish. Nobody noticed. It was Monday night. Perhaps nobody cared. Until at least one Afghan local worker on the base noticed the Korans – then all hell broke loose.
Bagram’s notoriety lies in the fact that it is a place Afghans enter but, in some high-profile cases, only leave in a coffin. A place where most Afghans believe you will be tortured if you are taken in for questioning. So the place where the Korans were sent for burning matters in Afghan minds every bit as much as the action itself.
Protests have escalated across the country. Yesterday an Afghan soldier killed two US soldiers. The Taliban issued the following statement calling for violent protests:
“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan calls on all the youth present in the security apparatus of the Kabul regime to fulfil their religious and national duty,” the statement said, “to repent for their past sins and to record their names with gold in the history books of Islam and Afghanistan by turning their guns on the foreign infidel invaders instead of their own people.”
At least 10 Afghan protesters have been killed. Usually because the Nato-trained Afghan National Police tend to open up with their Kalashnikovs at unarmed protesters, perceiving that lethal force is the way to deal with public order incidents.
US President Obama has written to his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai formally apologising for something the US says was a complete accident and should hever, ever have happened. President Karzai wants those responsible “brought to justice”.
But what kind of justice is that? They would have been US personnel one assumes, operating under US law inside the vast sprawl of Bagram. What reach does Afghan sharia-lite – the hue of current Afghan law – have in a place like Bagram?
Zilch.
Whether non-Muslims wish to comprehend this or not, the Koran is not “just a book” as one Twitter follower told me this morning. It is, literally, perceived by the faithful to be the word of God and in few countries more than Afghanistan.
It leaves many of President Karzai’s supporters in parliament openly calling for street-protest, the hapless President appealing for calm one the one hand, expressing his utter disgust to the Americans and Nato, on the other.
And – this being Afghanistan – it also leaves a lot of prominent figures in public and political life, accusing Iran to the west and Pakistan to the east, of stirring things up on the streets.
Follow Alex Thomson on Twitter: @alextomo