the problem with complacency...

i read this on another blog and found it very interesting. it moved something in me. created stir. since i’ve had my myspace page, i’ve had the pastor martin niemoller quote on it and it remains one of my favorite. this reminded me of it a bit. made me think. about you. about us. about me...

from the blog of suheilah waeli:

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=40340508&blogID=345872275

A German’s Point of View on Islam

I thought you’d find this interesting.
I know I was impressed. It could be
likened to Martin Niemoller words
of the 1940s

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.

peace and blessings / love and light