Op-Ed: Why the Peaceful Majority is Irrelevant
Published: Sunday, March 18, 2007 4:46 PM
History lessons are often incredibly simple.
Paul E. Marek
Paul E. Marek is a second-generation Canadian, whose grandparents fled Czechoslovakia just prior to the Nazi takeover. He is an educational consultant specializing in programs that protect children from predatory adults.
I used to know a man
whose family were German aristocracy prior to World War II. They owned a
number of large industries and estates. I asked him how many German
people were true Nazis, and the answer he gave has stuck with me and guided my attitude toward fanaticism ever since.
“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 unquantified 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 world wide. 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, behea
The fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history.
d,
murder, or execute honor killings. 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” is the “silent majority,” and it is
cowed and extraneous.
The fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history.
d,
murder, or execute honor killings. 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” is the “silent majority,” and it 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 war-mongering sadist. Yet, Japan
murdered and slaughtered its way across Southeast 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 the fanatics.
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, Bosnians, Afghanis,
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, watching it all unfold, we must pay attention to
the only group that counts: the fanatics who threaten our way of life.
Labels: Conflict, Islamism, Political Realities, Psychopathy, Racism, Societal Failures, Terrorism
posted by Pieface @ Friday, August 17, 2012
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