KABUL: Ahmad Bakshi says he was one of the first to protest when he found out about the burning of the Qu'ran by US forces. “This is an insult to all Muslims. We can't tolerate it. We have to show to the Westerners that if you insult us, we won't let you go easy.” An Afghan employee at the sprawling US Bagram military base north of Kabul, he was one of the first locals to know about the move to incinerate copies of the Muslim holy book. He and some colleagues brought out the burnt copies and showed them to a crowd gathered outside the base early Tuesday. “Soon after, the mullahs in the neighborhood started calling people from their mosques' loudspeakers to take to the streets and protest the burning of the Koran,” said Bakshi, who himself called dozens of his friends “to come and protest against the insult of our religion and the holy book.” Members of the international forces at Bagram had “unintentionally” burnt Islamic religious materials, including copies of the Qu'ran, on Monday, the coalition confirmed. Apologies were issued as protests started. They came both from NATO and US officials, including President Barack Obama, who sent a letter to Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday. The disposal was called improper and termed “unintentional.” Late Wednesday, Karzai urged demonstrators not to resort to violence. But it has done little to douse the anger of the protesters. By Thursday evening, the protest has spread to at least a dozen of Afghanistan's 34 provinces. Fifteen Afghans have died in the three days of violence. Two foreign soldiers were also killed by an Afghan worker in a joint base in eastern Nangarhar province on Thursday. The incident and the ensuing violence shows the flailing relationship and widening gap between Afghanistan and the West. Anti-foreign sentiment has been on the rise in recent days, a decade after the US-led war against the Taliban insurgency. A UN survey last month found that 57 percent of respondents expressed unfavorable views of the international forces. Another survey in November by The Asia Foundation said 63 percent of Afghans expressed mistrust about the foreign troops. Martine van Bijlert, a political analyst with the Afghan Analyst Network says the frustration against the West in general is normal. “Initially, people thought the West maybe did not understand or did not have the information to know how things were going wrong. Then slowly they started thinking how the West did not care and were indifferent,” Bijlert says. “Now they are thinking maybe it is intentional, maybe there is a conspiracy or a plot. And thinking like that, naturally, increases the hostility (against the West).” The anger on the streets is not just because of the Qu'ran burning. For some people, it reflects pent-up frustrations, she says. “It's not just because of this (incident) but because they are angry at the international forces and frustrated with their lives in general,” she told dpa. “It is an outlet for them. They can express how they feel.” The incident is also proof to many that international forces still do not understand Afghanistan, 10 years after the occupation of the country began. Former Afghan general Abdul Hadi Khalid says it is only normal that his fellow citizens react as they have. He adds that the international forces should have known better. “As we know, Afghanistan is a conservative society and its entire people are Muslims and Islam is worthy of their life. This is how they will react to an issue when their religion is being desecrated,” he told dpa. “I feel very ashamed that Westerners and the nations who are here to help the people of Afghanistan destroy their reputation and achievements made in the last 10 years in a blink of eyes,” says Khalid, a former deputy interior minister. Such incidents can negatively affect the already flailing relations between the Afghan and the West, he says. This is not the first such incident involving the Qur'an. In April 2011, a protest against the burning of a Koran by an American pastor in Florida turned lethal as the demonstrators stormed a United Nations compound in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif and killed seven foreigners, including four Nepalese guards. At least 12 people were killed in other cities in violence that went on for at least four days. Bijlert says the incident shows “how remote and isolated a lot of the internationals are. “They don't appreciate or understand the sensitivities of certain issues and also because it happened on their own base, they probably did not think about it at all,” she says. “It is an illustration of the actual situation of the international community that has been here for 10 years, but that has not collectively acquired the knowledge of 10 years.” BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/DExiu Tags: Afghanistan, Islam, Qur'an, Relations, West Section: Asia, Features, Latest News, Religion
