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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