This is a thought-provoking piece I found somewhere on the internet which I felt worthy of reproducing here. Any thoughts?
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” – Edmund Burke
Paul E. Marek is a second-generation Canadian, whose grandparents fled Czechoslovakia just prior to the Nazi takeover. He wrote the following article in February of 2006.
Why The Peaceful Majority Is Irrelevant
By Paul E. Marek
I used to know a man whose family were German aristocracy prior to World War Two. 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, 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” 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 2 was not a war mongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of Killing that included the systematic killing 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 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, Bosnians, 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.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
This is from memory, so it comes with my apologies to the great bard, if I misquote:
To be, or not to be,
that is the question;
Is it nobler of the spirit
to suffer the slings and arrows
of outrageous oppression,
or to take up arms against a sea of troubles,
and by fighting, end them?
I am not a pacifist; I don’t have that kind of courage. I would always choose to take up arms against outrageous oppression, BUT…
The great, egregious danger must always be in fighting, BECOMING that which you despise.
You didn’t mention Americans.
I think, particularly under George W. Bush the USA has become a terrorist state.
How does 9/11 really compare, to the incursions the USA has perpetrated, to so many countries, all over the world?
Just because the victors get to write the history books, doesn’t make it right.
Apart from that, I thought it a very good post.
grim,
Good memory you have. All I could remember was
“To be, or not to be,
that is the question;”
But I do remember it was Sinatra who said:
Do be do be do be
Do!
For what it’s worth.
Seriously it is easy to make judgments on communities as Marek does in his article but it is never quite as simple, if you are actually caught up in these horrible events, to pick out the right course to follow as they slowly unfold before you and you get sucked into it all. It is of course the frog in boiling water thing but more complicated.
I imagine it can take time to become aware of what is taking shape around you; then you have to believe it and then it has to register that matters are getting worse or not going to go away; then again time slips by as you weigh the alternative courses of action that might be available to address the situation and on and on.
And all the time the personal risk of adopting a “morally acceptable” course of action increases until at a certain point it outweighs potential benefits to either yourself or the immediate and potential victims.
If it were as easy as Merak assumes then why did so many victims not risk their lives to flee en masse the growing calamity befalling them?
Even now those of us who are aware of the dire threats to civilization posed by the current growth at all costs paradigm are only reacting slowly and largely in a way that involves little or no personal risk. Obviously this approach is not getting anywhere, yet we are loath to risk more. Whether we will do so before it is too late is a moot point. Are you (theoretically speaking) prepared to go to jail for the “cause”? If so would it make any difference to the final outcome?
‘I used to know a man whose family were German aristocracy prior to World War Two’
I’ve neen asked by an acquaintance who this aristocrat was that Paul Marek is referring to and not just another urban legend pulled out of thin air.
If you could supply me with this name I would appreciate it.
Thanks;
Kevin Sullivan
Sorry Kevin, I don’t know who the aristocrat was or if indeed he really existed but what the character, real or fictional, had to say is nonetheless pretty thought provoking don’t you think?
OH crud! i just typed a nice comment and as soon as i submitted it it come up blank! Please tell me it worked properly? I do not want to sumit it again if i do not have to! Either the blog bugged out or i am just stuipd
, the latter doesnt surprise me lol.
Hey Angel, I’m sorry you experienced problems. Frankly I’m mystified; this post obviously worked well, and no spam has been listed in the last 48 hours. Our anti spam software will kill any post that contains more than 3 hyperlinks; could that be the problem? Thanks for posting anyway, it is the thought that counts.
Please feel free to try again, or contact me.
Cheers, Grim.