I think it’s a good idea. No one gets anything from publicly burning a book other than maybe demonstrate some kind of opinion?
And it’s a good and easy way to prevent terrorists bombing themselves into heaven in some danish city.
Of course there’s nothing wrong with burning the quran but if it helps to reduce terrorism I am all for it.
Isn’t this just surrendering to terrorism? Isn’t it bad that forms of free speech get banned because others threatens to kill?
Yes if it’s about the principle then you’re absolutely right we’re surrendering. But in practice I think this is more like a hostage negotiation. If someone threatens to kill someone because it doesn’t go their way you don’t just ignore them, you try to negotiate with them, comprise and find a solution. I think that’s exactly what the government does here and what anyone should be doing.
Sooo… other countries burning flags of other nations in public is okay, but this is not?
Even if this has whataboutism-character and I appreciate the take of “making it better, even if others don’t”, I can’t deny there is some irony to that.
No, burning other countries flags is prohibited in denmark, burning the danish flag is ok
Governments should not be allowed to burn books.
Private citizens should be allowed to burn any books they own.
Neither governments nor private citizens should be allowed to harm or threaten people who burn their own damn books.
Example: you can purchase a dozen copies of “On The Origin of Species”, burn them, and I will very happily not threaten to behead you. Easy.
“The bill will make it punishable, for example, to burn the Quran or the Bible in public. It will only aim at actions in a public place or with the intention of spreading in a wider circle,” Hummelgaard said
Hummelgaard told a news conference that the recent protests were “senseless taunts that have no other purpose than to create discord and hatred.”
I agree with Hummelgaard. Those “protests” are used to create hatred. Even though it is also for me not comprehensible how people can be so sensitive about this, we all know the reaction it provokes. And even though we don’t agree and comprehend those feelings, we can still respect those feelings and just not senselessly create disruption. And hey… You can still burn as many Qurans in your private oven as you want.
We can not have a modern society where people feel strongly about religion. And there is really no point in appeasement of fundamentalists - they don’t want a compromise they allays want it all.
yeah, clearly the compromise needs to be burning symbols of a group in public to stir hatred and violence against that group. That is totally the reasonable compromise. Clearly the people wanting the right to burn things in public are not fundamentalist, after all basically everyone burns a Quran, or Torah or Bible for breakfast amirite?
“The bill will make it punishable, for example, for people of the same sex to kiss in public. It will only aim at actions in a public place or with the intention of spreading in a wider circle,” Hummelgaard said
I agree with Hummelgaard. Those “protests” are used to create hatred. Even though it is also for me not comprehensible how people can be so sensitive about this, we all know the reaction it provokes. And even though we don’t agree and comprehend those feelings, we can still respect those feelings and just not senselessly create disruption. And hey… You can still kiss as many people of the same sex in private as you want.
This isn’t an exaggeration: a few weeks ago in Ottawa we had anti-LGBT protests where rainbow flags were burned down – guess who was there? And while many of us were offended and appalled, nobody was threatened or beheaded in response, and we didn’t have politicians trying to pass a new law forbidding the burning of rainbow flags either.
The whole point of this is that in Europe we have fought for centuries in order to establish liberal democracies where freedom of speech and the separation of church and state are enshrined. We must not appease extremists who achieve change with threats of violence. There is a name for that.
In a democracy the act of burning a book, or a flag, is a canary in the coal mine: you know there is trouble when it dies.
The message is simple: we don’t threaten people who have different ideas.
you do realize that the people burning lgbt flags now, will burn lgbt people, or whoever they think to be lgbt, if they get the chance to?
Destroying symbols of a group is a step in the escalation to killing people of that group. Source: two millenia of antisemitism in europe. First you attack the symbols, then the places and finally the people.
The intent is secondary to the effect. If certain muslim people cannot put their religious sensibilities BELOW the secular human rights of their fellow country men, they LITERALLY need to leave. They are literally bad for us, and our social, secular order. EXACTLY like the hardcore christians are bad for human rights in the USA.
I personally really do not like religion. And if you buy a quran and burn it at home, nothing will happen. Nobody will care.
But what is your desired outcome, if you take the book that is holy to some, and burn it infront of their eyes? There is only one answer to this and that answer is the reason for these laws. You cannot go to a pride parade and burn rainbow flags in front of their eyes either. It is rather obvious why.
Fucking Assholes, Apologists and Democracy Enemies.
Fuck that and them.
- it has to be passed in a democratically elected parlament. It may not get passed.
- it is an extension of an existing law that forbid burning of flags (except the Danish flag Dannebrog)
- book burnings are for morons
- fuck you
- fuck you
- fuck you
- fuck you
- fuck you
- burning the fucking Quoran is the right way to dispose of it according to itself
- a democratically elected government can do undemocratic things (and they often do)
- the existing law is idiotic
burning the fucking Quoran is the right way to dispose of it according to itself
Please link to the verse of the Quran you refer to. I don’t believe you.
Why is the existing law idiotic? What problems do you have with it?
I wanted to say that this is a hot take but it seems a lot of people in this comment section agree, It doesn’t matter what kind of book it is. Destroying books is and should very much be a big no no.
I feel bad every time I have to throw out a book. Because it’s not only a Symbol of wisdom and knowledge, it is also a testament to a world view, a thought process and identity.
Burning books is the very antithesis of what we consider a modern Society. It directly attacks fundamental rights, if only Symbolically. The right to think freely, to have a different opinion, the pursuit of knowledge to better ourselves and our Surroundings in pursuit of these world views.
To quote Heinrich Heine: “dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen” (Where one begins by burning books, one will end up burning people. )
PS: In search of the correct Quote I stumbled upon this quote by Arnold Zweig: “Wer Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt auch Bibliotheken, bombardiert offene Städte, schießt mit Ferngeschützen oder Fliegerbomben Gotteshäuser ein. Die Drohung, mit der die Fackel in den Bücherstapel fliegt, gilt nicht dem Juden Freud, Marx oder Einstein, sie gilt der europäischen Kultur, sie gilt den Werten, die die Menschheit mühsam hervorgebracht und die der Barbar anhaßt, weil er halt barbarisch ist, unterlegen, roh, infantil”
Roughly translated: “Whoever burns books also burns libraries, bombs open cities, shoots down places of worship with long-range guns or aerial bombs. The threat with which the torch flies into the pile of books is not aimed at the Jew Freud, Marx or Einstein, it is aimed at European culture, it is aimed at the values that humanity has laboriously created and which the barbarian hates because he is just barbaric, inferior, raw, infantile”
It depends on intent, context and scale.
Burning books to eradicate their content is bad, yes.
Burning a book which you just made yourself is completely harmless. Or single, mass-produced copies.
Some Muslims will take offense when you destroy a hard drive on which you copied the Quran.
This has nothing to do with the book burnings done by the Nazis. Their intent, context and scale was all about eradicating the books’ content.
Or if you want, the totalitarians this time are those who play victim. They seek to oppose their value system and rules onto others, if necessary by deadly force. You better obey Islamic rule and respect the Quran as holy, or else.
yes it has very much to do with the book burnings of the Nazis.
If one person is murdered in a hate crime it is not less of a hate crime because it lacked the scale.
The intent and the targeted escalation is the same. Also it is no coincidence that there is a islamic terrorist group called Boko Haram - books are sin. It is the same idea and the same motivitation and it is always outside of democratic discourse, where criticism of a religion or its institutions is of course permitted. But burning books is not motivated to be part of the democratic discourse, but to harm democracy.
It’s just a fucking book. In todays day and age a printed book means shit. Burn as many as you want. You wouldn’t change anything.
