Have you met…Terry Jones?

‘Facebook,my love. You keep my loved ones (-and maybe also not so loved once) in one place, you give me the chance to procrastinate and you also let me “like” more things than I ever thought was possible.’
My ode to facebook can be also extended to social media in general, but in the same way I do love it, it also scares me or even makes me furious.

Furious?Well,listen to this…

Last year, a (sect) pastor from Florida communicated a message to the world:”Let us burn 200 Qurans on the 11th of September.”
Why did he wanted to do this?
In “memory” of the 11th September and in order to state a message. Maybe even just to provoke and get some kind of 2-minute fame – whatever. But most importantly, this whole incident was supposed to maybe come up in some local news, get some short criticism and then disappear in the huge vastness of the sea of information.

Well, that is not exactly what happened.

According to the article “From Facbook to Prime-Time” Terry Jones a message on Facebook on his book “Islam is of Devil” invoked people to issue ideas on how to burn Qurans. Although there were barely any comments, many people were outraged. This actually got the ball rolling. In a few weeks, Jones appeared in several interviews, on television,on youtube and thus got more attention than he was supposed to. Luckily, governments reacted and Jones did not burn a Quran in 2010.

End of story?

Sharon Autenrieth compares Jones in his article “The Rat that Roared” to a figure in Dr.Seuss Yertle the Turtle.

This throne that I sit on is too, too low down.

It ought to be higher!” he said with a frown.

“If I could sit high, how much greater I’d be!

What a king! I’d be ruler of all that I see!

Therefore Jones of course did not dissappear, he did even worse. Unhappy about his sudden loss of fame, he decided to burn a Quran anyway. One person who burns a Quran? Again, a message with no great potential of being on page one in newspapers.
He was also held a trial for burning it, but the media tried to ignore this message in order to prevent social interest.
Unfortunately Hamid Karzai, president of Afghanistan, saw this as the perfect insult and was not only outraged but also requested an apology of the U.S. congress.
“Given the high sign by their president (don’t tell me otherwise – the man may be corrupt, but he’s not stupid), the usual mob took to the streets. ” (Sharon Autenrieth)
Where did this lead to?
Death.

I asked myself who or what is the reason for this horrible event?Jones,Karzai,social media?
I have to admit, the answer has not clearly formed in my mind, but many factors are part of this disaster…
But we should always be aware of how our 24/7 connection to the world and the “overflow” of information on the internet may leave a bad aftertaste…

NOTE: I have barely used hyperlinks to videos of Jones or the like, because I did not want to promote his videos. One could argue that my article works agains the message I am promoting, but the damage is done and I think we should know about the damage created.