The problem (and the geopolitical point of such provocations/manipulations) is that quran burning forces you to react (no reaction is also a reaction) and, as such, take a stance that is unavoidably for/against this side or that side. Especially at state levels. Because it's not presented as discussing among secular people about the valid expressions of secularity, it's about apologizing for the offense and forbidding it, therefore treating it as such. Validating its perception and definition. Whereas an opposite stance can also be "
it happens, it's no big deal, get used to it, they do that sort of stuff with our symbols aswell". Accepting to treat is as a big deal (even "as a big deal for the sufficient reason that it is a big deal to you") can be justifying the outrage's violence. Especially when the excuses aren't directed at the silent "collateral damage" muslims but at the threatening islamists.
There's an awkward implicit, in the interaction between those who sacralize something and those who don't. There's an untold "we don't care about this thing you care about". And it's usually put aside, just "don't ask and we won't shock each others". But such actions collapse the schroedingerian implicit into an explicit : we care or not, and we show it. It lights latent antagonisms. And defusing them requires to diminish this antagonism. Here : to care about that blasphemy. And caring about blasphemy is a thing that our societies have been (and still are) struggling to get away from. We have our own religious fundamentalists, trying to shape society around what offends them. We have our own provocations re-asserting (or failing to re-assert) that nope, you won't shape our rules around that. Like all cultural and political currents, these things are differing from country to country, and are strenghtening each others between countries. The say of religion in society is a global stake.
And of course, it's all on a complex continuum. From Charlie Hebdo authors getting beaten up by christian fundamentalists after a talk show (the editor-in-chief lost a couple of teeth back then), to the condamnation for blasphemy of the
tame greek parody of an orthodox mystic supposed to routinely perform miracles. The indirect stakes abound, and cannot be fully separated from each others. And these stakes are independant from the original intents. They cross each others awkwardly, between pragmatism, selected (concrete, abstract, immediate or far-reaching) concerns, double standards, oppositions between "nothing is a blasphemy" and "nothing concerning THEIR religion is a blasphemy", etc. Lots of people disagreeing on similar grounds, lots of people agreeing for opposed reasons.
And what annoys me in this thread's discusson is the impression that each side sees it as a solved dilemma, a simple matter with an obvious response. The provocative force of this action, again provocation/manipulation, is that it touches on genuine and genuinely unsolved contradictions. Possibly unsolvable ones. And I don't think any strong one-sided stance can be justified there.