this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2023
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Should criticism be able to be voiced without burning literature? Yes. Do I think climate activists should be able to be heard without disrupting people's commutes by blocking traffic? Yes.
Unfortunately, sometimes activists are ignored without an unusual act of protest, and protests should not be considered hate speech unless they're directly calling for violence towards a group. I don't think burning a book falls under that category.
With all that being said, the government should not be responsible for deciding what a person can or cannot do unless they're actively hurting another person.
Climate protests have a specific goal in changing policies and economic practicises.
Burning a Quran has no specific target. It targets muslims as a group entirely. And there is also no goal, no transformation, nothing better to strife for, in it. It is just hate of islam and muslim people. The only target could be to abolish the religion as a whole and ban people from practicising it. that is nothing but persecution. And you cannot argue that the people behind it would want anything less, as they are attacking the key symbol of that religion. Or as a methaphor, you don't slap someone on the wrist by stabbing their heart.
I would argue that their target are Muslim extremists, not just your average Muslim. Why can't the two groups be differentiated?
If they want to target muslim extremists they could burn a Daesh flag. But they burn the Quran because they don't want to target the extremists. They want to target all muslims, which is why they choose the symbol of all muslims.
In the same wake you wouldn't burn an EU flag to criticise the hungarian government. It would of course be understood as an attack on the EU and all EU countries, because you know, you could just take a Fidesz flag. (Arbitrary example, the same would work for any country, political party or figure)