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“Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen. (Where they burn books, they will also burn people).”– Heinrich Heine

GROTESQUE AND contradictory as it may seem, the right to burn books has become the ultimate expression of freedom of speech. Nazi book burning, or its latter-day equivalent in Gainesville, Florida – Koran burning – are now apparently embodiments of the fundamental values expressed in the US constitution’s First Amendment’s protection of religion and speech. And, difficult and uncomfortable as this may be, that is rightly so – freedom of speech only has real meaning if it is freedom for the obnoxious, the freedom to offend.