Following Rob's article about the sailor and survivor, Harold B. Estes. This would also be pertinent. It's been around for some time but deserves to be widely read simply because it's true.
Almost every day we are reminded of this without even having to look for such reminders. For example yesterday I read that the Algerian actrice 'Rayhana' was attacked in Paris, drenched with white spirit before a lit cigarette was thrown at her.
Fortunately the white spirit didn't ignite. But she is among many in danger, even in Paris- as well as constantly threatened in Algeria.
Recently I read another article in Le Figaro of an Islamic group in the UK who was planning to demonstrate against the 'assassination of Muslims by British troops in Afghanistan'. The demonstration was set to take place in a village that has become the symbol of British soldiers killed in action. It's where the coffins arrive from Afghanistan. Over half a million Brits protested against the planned demonstration via Facebook.
The fanatics also predict that the Sharia will be imposed in the UK. The group has since been banned by government authorities, but they will simply change their name and continue..
Dr. Emanuel Tanay, A German's view on Islamic extremism.
Dr. Tanay's family was of German aristocracy prior to World War II. They owned a number of large industries and estates. When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism.
'Very few people were true Nazis,' he said, 'but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.'
We are told again and again by 'experts' and 'talking heads' that Islam is the religion of peace and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the spectre of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam.
The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history. It is the fanatics who march. It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honour-kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. It is the fanatics who teach their young to kill and to become suicide bombers.
The hard, quantifiable fact is that the peaceful majority, the 'silent majority,' is cowed and extraneous.
Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant. China's huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.
The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a warmongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet.
And who can forget Rwanda, which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were 'peace loving'?
History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason, we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points:
Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence.
Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don't speak up, because like my friend from Germany, they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.
Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late. As for us who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that counts--the fanatics who threaten our way of life.
Lastly, anyone who doubts that the issue is serious is contributing to the passiveness that allows the problems to expand. So, extend yourselves, think about it, and pass on the word - before it's too late.'
Emanuel Tanay, M.D.
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Freedom is a daily fight, and those of us that know it, must make people aware daily what the costs of losing it are.
ReplyDeleteLess than 20% of the population of the Colonies supported the American Revolution at the time. Now about a third of the American population actively support tyranny and fascism. The rest of the people, like this article says, just don't care, and go on about their lives. Overused, but:
First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out.
The fascinating aspect of history is that in retrospect one can accurately trace the reasons for everything, from minute circumstances, relatively insignificant causes that can develop into the irreversible 'engrenages' of increasingly infernal effects. We then conclude that without exception there's a reason for everything.
ReplyDeleteObviously this doesn't mean to say that humanity is the helpless victim of destiny, because we are also the makers of history. But if we don't learn from history, it tends to repeat itself. If we don't see and understand the nature of the mistakes we make, we tend to make them again.
Had Europe heeded the call of Commander Massoud when he asked for help underlining his conviction that the war in Afghanistan against the Taliban was an international conflict, perhaps the infernal effects, including his own assassination and the WTC attack two days later, would never have occurred..
Or if, after 11/9 when the Taliban regime was defeated in December of the same year, Nato forces remained in Afghanistan to help consolidate the infrastructure and the new democracy, maybe it would have been more difficult for the Taliban to regroup and return, and maybe the Afghan democracy would have developed in a more positive way.
Ifs and buts. Being philosophical about recent history may be of some comfort, but it doesn't
solve the problems. The danger we seem to be faced with now, is partly due to the principles of democracy itself and our own tolerance.
Why should any democratic country tolerate fanatics whose virtual objective is to destroy it? Why should we allow for the opinions of those who obviously have no respect for democracy? Is it not time that Europe established a common agreement regarding European laws, values and identity so that single European nations are not targeted for having exercised their democratic rights regarding ethnical and religious issues?
If Switzerland, for example, makes a democratic decision, is it not the bound duty of European parliament to defend that decision? Does the European Parliament defend democracy, or not?
Political use of such arguments only increase weakness and disunity. Those who pander to certain communities for personal, political gain are leaving the back door wide open to those bent on destroying democracy in order to impose their own premedieval laws and values.
Great post and good comments. The hard truth is that murderous regimes are almost always perpetrated by extremist minorities, whether of left or right. All people in all countries must be alert to the rise of these groups, even if they appear to be small in number in the beginning.
ReplyDeleteThank you for posting this, Mirino. The term minority is not synonymous with harmlessness...
ReplyDeleteThank you Rob, Tom & MP. This year may be a revealing one. A terrible start for Haiti. Another reminder of who is boss, despite other legitimate fears of man-made madness.
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