This Way to the Great Egress!

Pastor Jones and his threat to burn Qur'ans brought a lot of press to his little enclave.  He is effectively excoriated and marginalized yet, for some noble reason I see a silver lining in all this.

Follow me here...



P.T.Barnum and the Great Egress, Pt 2




Well now it’s official. The Rev. Terry Jones of Florida has announced that his plan to burn Qur’ans was all a ruse to expose Muslims as liars and Islam for the evil religion it is. In the finest tradition of circus performance art he deftly manipulated his audience into believing they were seeing something that wasn’t there.

P.T. Barnum had, as one of his exhibits a dark tent, almost completely black inside and with a sign at the entrance; This Way to the Great Egress! A quarter got you into this tent, and as you stood in the dark the barkers voice would be heard,, extolling you, the sucke…paying customer to see what was not there, a great egress. When finally convinced there was something there, the people would then shuffle out the exit and into the daylight OUTSIDE the circus. The rubes were forced to buy another entry ticket, for another 25 cents to get back in. It turns out egress is just another word for exit.

Barnum was right, people are basically ignorant and don’t want to see what’s there, but are easily led to believe what is not there. Pastor Jones must have studied under Barnum to be able to pull off his “Great Egress” dog and pony show.

Now the pastor is under fire for fooling the press and misleading them by claiming he would burn Qur’ans and then backing off. Claiming he spoke to the ground zero mosque imam(or at least his second) and had received guarantees the mosque would be moved if he stopped the planned Qur’an burning sent the press off on a nirvanic quest. Not for one minute did anyone ever question the motives of the pastor; it was assumed he was an Islamophobe, racist, hatemonger and worst of all, a bigot who is a Christian pastor!

The clamor from all strata of society accusing this man of everything from inciting riots to eating kittens reduced the dialogue to no more than name-calling, accusations and violence which left some people dead. The very idea that anyone would burn a book, especially one as holy as the Qur’an is an anathema to the ideals and beliefs Americans hold dear. This pastor, who dares to set fire to a religious book, should himself be lit aflame instead of the Qur’an.

Yet is the pastor the devil incarnate, released to do battle against the evil Islamic jinn or just some nutjob doing what he feels is the best way to inform the world of Islamic duplicity? The latter is the odds-on bet in light of the fact that pastor Jones said to Carl Quintanilla on the NBC Today show the Thursday before 9-11 “"Even though we have not burned one Quran, we have gotten over 100 death threats…(our aim was) to expose that there is an element of Islam that is very dangerous and very radical."

His conclusion was that "…we have definitely accomplished that mission."

Most would agree that his method of accomplishing that mission fell short of being fair play. Yet the result; that there is an element of Islam which hates us and will lie to promote the Islamic agenda cannot be ignored. Ever the optimist, the good reverend says that he hopes his actions will enable him to meet with imam Rauf and speak of things interfaith and build a few bridges while convincing him that moving the mosque is in the imam’s best interest. It may be time for a reality check pastor, and ask yourself if there really can be honest dialogue from the people who, as you say lied to you.

Even as he publicly announced he has no intention of burning the Qur’an ever, Muslim outrage at just the mere mention of setting a match to the word of Allah erupted across Islamic lands and people died due to what amounts to a rumor. Was there an outcry of anger at those committing murder in the name of Allah because of the implied insult? Imam Rauf, in an interview for the BBC on Sept 12th issued another veiled threat that if the mosque is moved or prevented from being built a “disaster” would befall America, that it would “strengthen radicals” and that the expression of free speech guaranteed by article one of the constitution would anger our already angry enemies and increase “…the possibility of terrorist acts against America and American interests," both here and abroad.

Lets see if we can understand this: America is responsible for Muslims self-control. We are on notice that the increased animosity and anger from the Muslim community is because we took away their ability to practice self-restraint. I must say I did not know we in the west had that kind of power over how Muslims behave.

Support the pastors right to free speech, condemn him for poor communication skills but most of all, accept the results of his scheme and start asking critical questions about Muslim actions and Islamic ideals.