MUST READ: a PEACEFUL majority is irrelevent in the face of fanaticism
I BELIEVE THE FOLLOWING IS A "MUST READ."
A man whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War Two 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 majorit y 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 specter 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 honor 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.
The hard quantifiable fact is that the "peaceful majority" the "silent majority" is cowed and extraneous.
Communist Russia comprised 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, it was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.
The average Japanese individual prior to World War 2 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 uncomplicatedof 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 awake 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, at the risk of offending, anyone who doubts that the issue is serious and just deletes this email without sending it on, can contribute to the passiveness that allows the problems to expand.
So, extend yourself a bit and send this on and on and on!!
Let us hope that thousands, world wide, read this - think about it - and send it on.
posted by jillosophy at 5/18/2007 06:20:00 PM
1 Comments:
A response to mw
One place where we part company in our analysis is the comfort you
apparently derive from the insight that Islam is not a nation state.
Your have asserted that any comparison to the power Islamic cloaked leaders have to do evil despite
the peaceful views of those in the group they claim to lead is
Fallacious thinking.We part company.
The focus on the nation state as the repository of political power and
the projection of military force was reasonably valid through the
World Wars. However, today we have emerging non- political state
structures and amorphous groupings that transcend the nation state and
have the wherewithal to impose their political will and project
violence on a broad systemic international scale. Today's world of
asymmetric warfare and the mass marketing and manufacture of "victim
hood" is used to lever the power of the nation state against itself.
The change agents that make your analysis partial and incomplete
include Globalization, technology and the Internet to name but a few.
This power of bad guys garbed in religion doing harm despite the lack
of total duplicity by the religions adherents is not unprecedented in
history.As an example, even before today's Globalization and
technology, Papal forces once were quite capable of projecting their
political will and violence in the name of religion across
international borders, despite the Church not being principally
focused as a nation state. Many Muslems today would so characterize
the Crusades.
The nation state is a very western form of organization. It is not the
only world view out there on how to organize large numbers of people.
This week's Economist narrates that political Islamism , with its
dream not merely of a single Arab state but of a united Islamic
society or umma, run along the guidelines of Islamic law. Radical
interpretations of Islam are exported systemically. Islamic Madrassas
and Mosques , and Islamic controlled TV , and news media and the
Internet deliver train youth and inculcate a cult of death seeking
martyrdom well across the borders of nation states. Traditional
schools in some Islamic countries are often in the cross hairs of a
concerted - armed - campaign to keep children away from non radical
schools is not infrequent. Education - particularly that of girls - is
associated with the often-hated government and the occupying Western
forces. Their opponents - including the still present Taliban - burn
schools and attack teachers. The products of those schools ,
inculcated with a version of Islam spread their learned hate in the
name of religion across the borders of a nation state.
On your second point, argues against the obligation of moderate
Muslims to speak out. OK. to be your brothers keeper at risk to your
own life is at most merely a moral or religious obligation, it is not
required. We can not by definition expect all to be heros. But how
about self interest? The evil being done in the name of Islam, must
ultimately be dealt with by those who believe in Islam and who do not
want its beauty sullied. The solution will come from within Islam and
not from me and mine. This hope of having Peace loving Muslims stand
up big time to avoid a bloody clash of civilizations to get out of
control is the goal and not as you say ".... simply a false
statement. A blatant assertion of false propaganda to support a
fallacious argument."
Finally consider this analysis from a Muslim voice on this subject.
He strongly disagrees with you on the importance of Moderate Muslims
standing up to confront the evil minority which controls so much and
does so much harm.
How to End 'Islamophobia'
By TAWFIK HAMID
May 25, 2007; Page A15
Islamic organizations regularly accuse non-Muslims of "Islamophobia,"
a fear and disdain for everything Islamic. On May 17, this accusation
bubbled up again as foreign ministers from the Organization of the
Islamic Conference called Islamophobia "the worst form of terrorism."
These ministers also warned, according to the Arab News, that this
form of discrimination would cause millions of Muslims in Western
countries, "many of whom were already underprivileged," to be "further
alienated."
In America, perhaps the most conspicuous organization to persistently
accuse opponents of Islamophobia is the Council of American Islamic
Relations. CAIR has taken up the legal case of the "Flying Imams," the
six individuals who were pulled from a US Airways flight in
Minneapolis this past November after engaging in suspicious behavior
before takeoff. Not long ago, CAIR filed a "John Doe" lawsuit that
would have made passengers liable for "malicious" complaints about
suspicious Muslim passengers.
In an interview at the time, CAIR spokesman Nihad Awad accused Rep.
Peter King (R., N.Y.) of being an "extremist" who "encourages
Islamophobia" for pointing out what most people would think is
obvious, that such a lawsuit would have a chilling effect on
passengers who witnessed alarming activity and wished to report it. We
can only assume that Mr. Awad believes flyers should passively remain
in a state of fear as they travel and submissively risk their lives.
In this case, Congress is acting appropriately and considering passing
a law sponsored by Mr. King that would grant passengers immunity from
such lawsuits.
It may seem bizarre, but Islamic reformers are not immune to the
charge of "Islamophobia" either. For 20 years, I have preached a
reformed interpretation of Islam that teaches peace and respects human
rights. I have consistently spoken out -- with dozens of other Muslim
and Arab reformers -- against the mistreatment of women, gays and
religious minorities in the Islamic world. We have pointed out the
violent teachings of Salafism and the imperative of Westerners to
protect themselves against it.
Yet according to CAIR's Michigan spokeswoman, Zeinab Chami, I am "the
latest weapon in the Islamophobe arsenal." If standing against the
violent edicts of Shariah law is "Islamophobic," then I will treat her
accusation as a badge of honor.
Muslims must ask what prompts this "phobia" in the first place. When
we in the West examine the worldwide atrocities perpetrated daily in
the name of Islam, it is vital to question if we -- Muslims -- should
lay the blame on others for Islamophobia or if we should first look
hard at ourselves.
According to a recent Pew Global Attitudes survey, "younger Muslims in
the U.S. are much more likely than older Muslim Americans to say that
suicide bombing in the defense of Islam can be at least sometimes
justified." About one out of every four American Muslims under 30
think suicide bombing in defense of Islam is justified in at least
some circumstances. Twenty-eight percent believe that Muslims did not
carry out the 9/11 attacks and 32% declined to answer that question.
While the survey has been represented in the media as proof of
moderation among American Muslims, the actual results should yield the
opposite conclusion. If, as the Pew study estimates, there are 2.35
million Muslims in America, that means there are a substantial number
of people in the U.S. who think suicide bombing is sometimes
justified. Similarly, if 5% of American Muslims support al Qaeda,
that's more than 100,000 people.
To bring an end to Islamophobia, we must employ a holistic approach
that treats the core of the disease. It will not suffice to merely
suppress the symptoms. It is imperative to adopt new Islamic teachings
that do not allow killing apostates (Redda Law). Islamic authorities
must provide mainstream Islamic books that forbid polygamy and beating
women. Accepted Islamic doctrine should take a strong stand against
slavery and the raping of female war prisoners, as happens in Darfur
under the explicit canons of Shariah ("Ma Malakat Aimanikum"). Muslims
should teach, everywhere and universally, that a woman's testimony in
court counts as much as a man's, that women should not be punished if
they marry whom they please or dress as they wish.
We Muslims should publicly show our strong disapproval for the growing
number of attacks by Muslims against other faiths and against other
Muslims. Let us not even dwell on 9/11, Madrid, London, Bali and
countless other scenes of carnage. It has been estimated that of the
two million refugees fleeing Islamic terror in Iraq, 40% are
Christian, and many of them seek a haven in Lebanon, where the
Christian population itself has declined by 60%. Even in Turkey,
Islamists recently found it necessary to slit the throats of three
Christians for publishing Bibles.
Of course, Islamist attacks are not limited to Christians and Jews.
Why do we hear no Muslim condemnation of the ongoing slaughter of
Buddhists in Thailand by Islamic groups? Why was there silence over
the Mumbai train bombings which took the lives of over 200 Hindus in
2006? We must not forget that innocent Muslims, too, are suffering.
Indeed, the most common murderers of Muslims are, and have always
been, other Muslims. Where is the Muslim outcry over the Sunni-Shiite
violence in Iraq?
Islamophobia could end when masses of Muslims demonstrate in the
streets against videos displaying innocent people being beheaded with
the same vigor we employ against airlines, Israel and cartoons of
Muhammad. It might cease when Muslims unambiguously and publicly
insist that Shariah law should have no binding legal status in free,
democratic societies.
It is well past time that Muslims cease using the charge of
"Islamophobia" as a tool to intimidate and blackmail those who speak
up against suspicious passengers and against those who rightly
criticize current Islamic practices and preachings. Instead, Muslims
must engage in honest and humble introspection. Muslims should -- must
-- develop strategies to rescue our religion by combating the tyranny
of Salafi Islam and its dreadful consequences. Among more important
outcomes, this will also put an end to so-called Islamophobia.
Dr. Hamid, a onetime member of Jemaah Islamiya, an Islamist terrorist
group, is a medical doctor and Muslim reformer living in the West.
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