The Rev. Terry Jones Threatens to Burn Korans
In July, the pastor of the Evangelical Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville declared that he was going to burn the Koran on the 9th anniversary of 9/11, an incident that would most likely set off a bonfire of protest across the Muslim world that would put American troops and citizens abroad at greater risk. The stunt, which had little support in Gainesville itself, neverthless gathered a global array of media waiting for Terry Jones to light his matches. Last minute negotiations and sleights of hand (including statements that seemed to indicate that Jones believed that the Imam of the "ground zero mosque" had relented to meet him and perhaps give up his project), however, seemed to change the pastor's mind. The spectacle, however inane, was a measure of the potential for grassroots Islamophobia to become a brushfire.