Being part of the solution (PoAC)
Jan. 30th, 2008 05:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
velvetpageFirst, the email I came home to today: Dr. Emanual Tanay is a well known and well respected psychiatrist.
A German's point of view on Islam
A man whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II 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 spectra 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 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, 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 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, is contributing 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.
My answer:
Okay, everybody, I've thought about it, as the email asked me to do, and because this was shared with so many people and my thoughts ran deep, I figured I might as well share them with all of you.
First, I'm not sure what the email is trying to get us to do. Think about it? Okay. But what is it the author wants us to think? Let me summarize what I see as his main points:
1) Most people in aggressive countries are not themselves aggressors.
2) Those who aren't aggressors are made irrelevant to the discussion by those who make political decisions that are aggressive.
3) The peaceful element in Islam is made irrelevant by the aggressive elements of the faith.
Let's take things one point at a time, shall we?
1) Okay, I'm with him so far. I'm all for seeing individuals as separate from their nationalities and faith, and treating them so. No one likes to be defined by their superiors to the point where the individual gets lost. I fight the simplistic view of conflict every day in my social studies class at school. Letters to the editor from different points of view on an issue are a staple assignment for me.
2) What exactly does he mean by irrelevant? Politically? That may be true, though I think even that is simplistic. But since the author doesn't specify, we are left to determine the level of irrelevance for ourselves. That, frankly, scares me. It's a way of saying, "If you belong to group X, and group X does something aggressive, you're a party to it even if you didn't believe it or support it, and you are therefore the enemy of every victim, real or perceived, of that aggression." It's a way of defining all Muslims as "them" and everyone else as "us." It's setting us up for a war mentality against the Islamic faith.
The author began by pointing out that people think as individuals, which most people are quite happy to agree with; but then he said that, regardless of their status as individual thinkers, we should fear them as a part of an aggressive group. He's arguing AGAINST the very individualism he sets up in his first paragraph.
3) I take issue with his characterization of Islam as the biggest threat at the moment. Frankly, I laughed out loud at the line, "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." That's a flat-out lie. There are at least three big waves sweeping Africa at this time, and Islam is one of them; but it's dwarfed by the huge surge of pseudo-evangelical, magic-flavoured Christianity that has been rising for the last three decades. In many parts of Africa, Islam is not the biggest threat at all; Christianity is, or the clash between radical Christianity and radical Islam is creating the conflict. Add in certain radical elements of American Evangelical Christianity, led by the likes of Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell, and I fear radical Christianity at least as much as I fear radical Islam. I also recognize that many people around the world - notably in Iraq, but there are other places, too - have much more reason to fear radical Christianity.
I refuse to characterize a huge and diverse group of people as either aggressive or party to aggression, solely because of their faith. Whenever someone assumes that I'm the kind of Christian they fear is taking over the United States, I'm quick to point out that I'm not, and they can't judge all Christians by a few fanatical Southern Baptist or Assemblies of God congregations. How much of a hypocrite would I be not to extend the same consideration to the Muslims of the world?
What exactly does it accomplish to characterize all Muslims and all of Islam as people to be feared? I'm sure they're just as tired of that as many Christians are of being lumped in with the radicals in our own faith. Do we want to cut off all dialogue between us and the people who are trying to change their faith from the inside? Do we want to convince them that we really are their enemies too, that we can't see the fault lines in the Islamic faith for what they are? This fearmongering email is not going to solve any conflict. It's going to exacerbate it. It will make moderate or peaceful Muslims believe that they might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, that the West really is out to get them, and that maybe the radicals are right.
The author and I agree on exactly one thing: passivity is a problem. But the answer is not to forward a passive-agressive email that demonizes all Muslims. The answer is to fight such prejudice. I refuse to cater to it. I will send the email on, but I will send it with my thoughts attached. I'll post it to my blog. I'll make sure that everyone over whom I have any influence knows that I will not be part of the problem. Through my blog, through my teaching, through my life, I'm going to part of the solution.
A German's point of view on Islam
A man whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II 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 spectra 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 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, 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 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, is contributing 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.
My answer:
Okay, everybody, I've thought about it, as the email asked me to do, and because this was shared with so many people and my thoughts ran deep, I figured I might as well share them with all of you.
First, I'm not sure what the email is trying to get us to do. Think about it? Okay. But what is it the author wants us to think? Let me summarize what I see as his main points:
1) Most people in aggressive countries are not themselves aggressors.
2) Those who aren't aggressors are made irrelevant to the discussion by those who make political decisions that are aggressive.
3) The peaceful element in Islam is made irrelevant by the aggressive elements of the faith.
Let's take things one point at a time, shall we?
1) Okay, I'm with him so far. I'm all for seeing individuals as separate from their nationalities and faith, and treating them so. No one likes to be defined by their superiors to the point where the individual gets lost. I fight the simplistic view of conflict every day in my social studies class at school. Letters to the editor from different points of view on an issue are a staple assignment for me.
2) What exactly does he mean by irrelevant? Politically? That may be true, though I think even that is simplistic. But since the author doesn't specify, we are left to determine the level of irrelevance for ourselves. That, frankly, scares me. It's a way of saying, "If you belong to group X, and group X does something aggressive, you're a party to it even if you didn't believe it or support it, and you are therefore the enemy of every victim, real or perceived, of that aggression." It's a way of defining all Muslims as "them" and everyone else as "us." It's setting us up for a war mentality against the Islamic faith.
The author began by pointing out that people think as individuals, which most people are quite happy to agree with; but then he said that, regardless of their status as individual thinkers, we should fear them as a part of an aggressive group. He's arguing AGAINST the very individualism he sets up in his first paragraph.
3) I take issue with his characterization of Islam as the biggest threat at the moment. Frankly, I laughed out loud at the line, "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." That's a flat-out lie. There are at least three big waves sweeping Africa at this time, and Islam is one of them; but it's dwarfed by the huge surge of pseudo-evangelical, magic-flavoured Christianity that has been rising for the last three decades. In many parts of Africa, Islam is not the biggest threat at all; Christianity is, or the clash between radical Christianity and radical Islam is creating the conflict. Add in certain radical elements of American Evangelical Christianity, led by the likes of Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell, and I fear radical Christianity at least as much as I fear radical Islam. I also recognize that many people around the world - notably in Iraq, but there are other places, too - have much more reason to fear radical Christianity.
I refuse to characterize a huge and diverse group of people as either aggressive or party to aggression, solely because of their faith. Whenever someone assumes that I'm the kind of Christian they fear is taking over the United States, I'm quick to point out that I'm not, and they can't judge all Christians by a few fanatical Southern Baptist or Assemblies of God congregations. How much of a hypocrite would I be not to extend the same consideration to the Muslims of the world?
What exactly does it accomplish to characterize all Muslims and all of Islam as people to be feared? I'm sure they're just as tired of that as many Christians are of being lumped in with the radicals in our own faith. Do we want to cut off all dialogue between us and the people who are trying to change their faith from the inside? Do we want to convince them that we really are their enemies too, that we can't see the fault lines in the Islamic faith for what they are? This fearmongering email is not going to solve any conflict. It's going to exacerbate it. It will make moderate or peaceful Muslims believe that they might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, that the West really is out to get them, and that maybe the radicals are right.
The author and I agree on exactly one thing: passivity is a problem. But the answer is not to forward a passive-agressive email that demonizes all Muslims. The answer is to fight such prejudice. I refuse to cater to it. I will send the email on, but I will send it with my thoughts attached. I'll post it to my blog. I'll make sure that everyone over whom I have any influence knows that I will not be part of the problem. Through my blog, through my teaching, through my life, I'm going to part of the solution.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-30 11:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-31 12:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-30 11:41 pm (UTC)I agree with you about the passive agressiveness of the email.
I am not doubting you but can you tell me where you found information about the "huge surge of pseudo-evangelical, magic-flavoured Christianity" and what would be the third surge?
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-31 12:01 am (UTC)My information on African Christianity comes mostly from the
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-31 12:27 am (UTC)Too, when researching statistics, you have to remember they're just another brand of propaganda. You have to be careful to look at how they're being used and where they're drawing the information from and how recent the data is, etc. The numbers, when viewed as anything but numbers, can be made to say whatever one wants them to.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-31 03:32 pm (UTC)It's the Anglican Primate of Nigeria, Rt. Rev. Peter Akinola (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Akinola), that is the loudest in denouncing the US Episcopal Church and the Canadian Anglican church for their progressiveness in dealings specifically with homosexuality. There are others, but his voice is by far the loudest.
That said, one of the most moderate, tolerant voices is the Primate of South Africa, Archbishop Desmond Tutu. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Tutu)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-31 04:39 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-31 08:19 pm (UTC)We're mostly okay people, but we are disenfrancised and we want to work on our own shit. Meanwhile our country slides into ruin and fanaticism and the rest of the world is getting the unpleasantly true impression that we are torturing egocentric bullies who have never really had to live with the results of a war or shortage, so we're just fine dumping it on other people.
I miss feeling okay with my citizenship.