Open societies do not burn books since this bad habit is monopolized by closed up communities that are in a state of crisis, thus raising the level of their rejection of the other after annulling it physically, to the point of destroying it symbolically by annulling the different ideas that it put in words on papers put together in books. The act which American Pastor Terry Jones intended to commit tomorrow on the ninth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, raises numerous questions in regard to the possession by societies and governments carrying the banners of democracy and openness of legal or punitive tools to protect themselves. However the burning of the Korans constitutes a “mobilization tool” in the hands of the United States' enemies such as Al-Qaeda organization – as stated by President Barack Obama – and will threaten the lives of the American soldiers abroad as it was determined by the military commanders at the Pentagon. While the burning of books is a characteristic of societies that are clinically hostile to foreigners and believe they constitute an existential threat to them, represented in the case of the followers of the Gainesville Church by a “demonic religion,” it is important to take a look at the differences which rendered a forgotten village in the center of Florida the object of international interest. This is especially true after the controversy surrounding the building of the Islamic compound near the former site of the World Trade Center, moved from the democratic context which New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg gave it a cosmopolitan character worthy of an international city such as New York, to the ignorance and darkness of the Middle Ages and the memories of book burning during the Nazi era with Jones' determination to burn the Korans. If this move means anything, it means that the American project on the domestic arena has not yet reached the level of harmony desired by its advocates, and that religious extremism and the “born again” movements which governed the United States during the term of George Bush's administration are still prevailing on the political and cultural levels over the American scene that is far from the urban centers on the East and West coasts. In the meantime, the closed up inland looks capable of producing the complete opposite of Karl Popper's “Open Society” which America usually symbolizes, as it is filled with contradictions threatening the United States' interests around the world. Still, what concerns the Muslims who through the burning of their Korans at the hands of an obscure cleric without any intervention from his government believe they are being subjected to a great insult, is not the American sociopolitical structure. The burning of copies of the Koran falls in the context of a retreat affecting the policy of the administration of Obama who promised to inaugurate new American relations with the Arab and Islamic worlds, while at the moment, he is reviving policies which are not that different from the practices of the previous administration. Indeed, American aircrafts are still killing civilians in Pakistan and Afghanistan and the pressures exerted on the Palestinians to accept the dictations of Benjamin Netanyahu's government are “unprecedented” as it was stated by the head of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmud Abbas, who eventually succumbed and agreed to partake in direct negotiations that have no horizon. Consequently, the American warnings against the Gainesville pastor's pouring of oil on the fire of Islamic extremism are without meaning if Obama's administration does not use the legal and administrative measures it holds to prevent this free insult to Muslims. Anything else will constitute a call to watch the Christian extremist forces fueling their Muslim counterparts like a snake swallowing its own tail, as the village fool over there will provide the necessary pretext for the fools over here to do as they wish.
