Fanatics and Bystanders

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 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 spectre 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
honour 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, was peaceful as well,
but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million
people.

The average Japanese individual prior to World War Two 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 civiliansmost 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 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, Serbs,
Rwandans, 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.