Wintonsweek Christians Riot In Canterbury, Britain’s Holiest City, Er Not What Kind Of People Riot Because Of A Book With Millions Of Copies? Imagine this impossible news story. Scores of people died in Canterbury, Britain’s holiest city today, as Christians took to the streets burning the cathedral and parked cars and setting off a looting and killing rampage to protest the dumping of the bible into a toilet. Of course this is a nonsensical story. No Christian, or for that matter a Hindu or Shinto or Buddhist or Jew or any half-intelligent religion in the world would turn a hair if some individual or organisation quietly or loudly stuffed a bible or whatever holy book was close to their religion, down the nearest toilet. They might not be happy, they might raise their eyebrows at such yobbish behaviour, they might protest verbally, but the bottom line would be clear. This was a book. Nobody died. Imagine for a moment if this story from Canterbury was true. Sane people around the world would be mortified. What kind of people are these Christians. What level of ignorance, what medieval culture, no, what Stone Age ditz could think that disposing of a book of which millions of copies were available in a disrespectful way was a big deal? What paranoids Christians must be if they feel such insecurity as to go on a senseless rampage which ended in the killing of their own innocents because a BOOK was treated in a disrespectful way. And yet we have normally sensible newspapers like the Wall Street Journal, getting into a tizzy about Newsweek’s (you will have already caught my drift) misreporting about the alleged incident in Guantanamo. Why didn’t Newsweek check their facts before publishing? How outrageous that this misreporting caused all this suffering and mayhem. “If printing such an explosive allegation based on the memory of what a single, anonymous source claims ……………………… is standard Newsweek procedure – no documents are even produced – its readers must wonder what about the rest of its content too,” said the Journal. Hang on a minute. Get down off of that high horse right now. Forget for a moment that the sites of the protests were often despicable dictatorships which imprison their citizens without trial, and enforce a top-down system of power which impoverishes their citizens living standards and education, and enslaves women. Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri’s high horse was touching the sky. He told CNN that any such “desecration” would be "intolerable" and "abominable." He told CNN in a television interview that if the situation was as reported, he hoped the United States would make an example of those responsible. He said Pakistan expected the United States to act "sooner rather than later." Remember this is a book, not a person that he’s talking about. Even the Bush administration was losing it. “There is lasting damage to our image because of this report," the chief White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, said at a news briefing. "And we would encourage Newsweek to do all that they (sic) can to help repair the damage that has been done, particularly in the region." If a religion can get so out of control in Gaza, Yemen and Afghanistan and across the Middle East and Asia so irrationally, there’s no logical way to stop it happening again. There’s no telling what might set them off. The Wall Street Journal should be questioning the adherents to a religion that could react in such a stupid way, and insist that the leaders of that religion sort themselves and their believers out. The media would have us feel somehow guilty for setting off an Islamic reaction that can only be described as childish and paranoid. If Muslims react in such an uncivilised way, there’s no hope for reconciliation or progress. For western opinion not to recognise this and blame the poor incompetents at Newsweek beggars belief. Neil Winton – May 18, 2005 Top