“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. MarekI 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.
Update: I originally posted a text purported to be by Emanuel Tanay, but one of my readers pointed out that the original source was Paul E. Marek. I decided to replace the entire article and credit it to the correct author.
10 Comments
Yikes… You have the most thought-provoking blog. Every post! (I know I usually just lurk you…
Anyway, do carry on!
A slight correction, Emanuel Tanay is not the author of this post. The original source of this article can be found here:
http://cjunk.blogspot.com/2006/02/why-peaceful-majority-is-irrelevant.html
It was also picked up by the mainstream media, in two cases at least:
Source 1
Source 2
(Junker: I edited your links because one was so long that it ran into the sidebar. I also replaced the original article with the one that you mentioned. Thanks! - In Repair)
You are completely wrong!
The decisive bit is not what the fanatics do. It is not even, to stay with your analogy, why Britain let this happen in Germany. The decisive bit is why Germans not only let it happen but sympathized. I don’t know what’s the value in saying not many Germans were ‘true’ Nazis, whatever the definition of a true Nazi is. Certainly not every German was a member of the SA, and not all who were will have identified with that altogether. But read a little on the theory of fascism and you will see that such fascist mass effects don’t happen without backing of the masses. The masses may not initially identify with every aspect of it, but it does not succeed if it does not strike a nerve in a way the nourishes some fundamental desire.
With Nazi Germany it was certainly that inferiority complex brought about by the defeat in WW I and a desastrous economy that made people crave for some self-respect. In such a time, the message “You are somebody, you are the best even. It’s not your fault. It’s the fault of … er … the Jews.” was well-received. Surely, not everybody appreciated every consequence of that message, but deep inside it did strike a nerve. It did allow people to free themselves of self-doubt, self-loss, fear of failure, of inferiority by externalizing those fears and projecting them elsewhere outside into enemies that could actually be fought.
So, the point is, it is much more effective than battling fanatics (there will always be crazies) to wonder how we can stop people from rallying to them. How can we stop people from sympathizing with the fanatics enough to keep them aware of the errors of the fanatics’ ways? The question is not “How can the peace-loving Americans stop fanatic muslims?” but “How can we get to a point where peace-loving muslims will stop fanatic muslims?” Much like some more respect might have helped the people of the Weimar Republic, that point will clearly not be reached by keeping on disrespecting the whole of the muslim world. That is just going to make the fanatics’ message of the West as the muslims’ enemy more true.
P. S.: History lessons are never simple and blunt, because life is not simple and blunt. History only becomes simple when used in propaganda! Again, read some theory of fascism (or read Golding’s “Lord of the Flies” for a start) and stop clinging to most Germans actually having been nice chaps. Then don’t stop at believing fascism is some specific German trait. Go to a pub, wait till people have had enough alcohol, listen to them rant about whatever minority is the current fashion, and you will see the same seed of fascism in action. Every single of our human psyches is vulnerable to the underlying psychological mechanisms. And again, the question is why we only hear such rants in pubs, not in politics (hopefully) and how we can keep it that way. How can we keep the majority of people from sympathizing with such pub rants so much that it becomes commonly accepted to think that way? Not quite that simple.
Makes me think about MLK:
“History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.”
“In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
–Martin Luther King Jr.
@ CuriousC: I’m glad you lurk, but I love it when you comment!
@ Karl: How can I be “completely wrong” when I didn’t even write the article?
@ Nestor: Beautiful and timely words. Thanks for sharing them.
Though I must admit I was to eager to learn what a specificially German point of view on muslims might be (as the original title suggested) to notice, one can also be wrong be reiterating something wrong without comment.
@ Karl: I do agree with the article, for the most part. I take issue with the title, though, since it seems to contradict that the author is saying. The majority has a responsibility to speak out against injustice and demand change - then they can be truly relevant.
I am surprised that Marek wants to discuss fanaticism but omits the far right neo con fanatics in the Bush administration. If he has addressed the genocide going on in Iraq then I apoligize, if not, than I must ask why not? The American media and people at large have not protested this unjust war to cause a change in policy. And what about Central America during the Regan administration? The Iran Contra affair is not something to be proud of, not to speak of the untold thousands who perished. And the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are facing horror because of fanatics in Israel correct?
The Bush administration has assaulted the constitution with its warrantless wiretapping of citizens and political enemies and you want me to fear Muslims or Islam? I fear what has happened to my own country under the Bush crime family who also outed a CIA agent because her husband did not agree with them. They have bankrupted my country, sold it to China and other countries, broken our armies and not secured our borders. Shame on America and its people who have found no voice.
Barbara Beneitone
Beneitone@aol.com
I don’t think the author is arguing with Karl’s point. If anything I think that the author would agree with his comment about the silent peace-loving Muslims need to stand up for themselves before they are labeled. It is not a political statement more then it is a study of human behavior. And how human behavior repeats itself due to fanaticism. And how drawn some are to the fanatic leaders and others are oblivious.
The article seems to bring to the surface the psychological issue that humans by the majority are often oblivious to their world and its problems until its too late. The vast majority are followers and not leaders. The vast majority only do as they are told as the do not wish to offend. They vote with their pack, they celebrate with their pack and are not wanting to run from the pack nor lead it.
It is a lesson in understanding that because of religion, race, skin color, country, tribe, or political party that it does not create a universal label for all of those within that group.
Our culture in America is very myopic. Our culture is very opinionated and open about our ideologies. In many other cultures in this world you are not allowed to possess open opinions. It could cost you your life. Yes, even today.
We have the same issues in tribal warfare in our urban streets only on a smaller scale. We have grown to view it and empathize with the innocent that live there, but how many are really taking an active step to eliminate the problem? Not many. Would you move there? Never. Would you take action? Not until it lands in our back yard. We too are a peaceful majority. Until when?
I did not write the article attributed to me; I have forwarded it to some friends. Someone put my name as the author. I am not German but a Holocaust survivor from Poland. Obviously, I am aware of the danger of fanaticism. My book Passport to Life (Amazon.com) gives some of my reflections on the subject of fanaticism.
The author of the article you are referring to was Paul E. Marek of Saskatoon, Canada. The original Title was Why The Peaceful Majority Is Irrelevant. Paul E. Marek is a second-generation Canadian, whose grandparents fled Czechoslovakia just prior to the Nazi takeover. He wrote it in February of 2006.
See http://inrepair.wordpress.com/2008/01/20/why-the-peaceful-majority-is-irrelevant/
Also http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/6996
Emanuel Tanay