The Silent Majority

A Muslim friend of mine, Dodi Tabbaa, a hugely talented artist living in Amman, sent me this in an email, which apparently was written by a German doctor living in the States. So many atrocities have been committed in the name of religion, and ethnic cleansing, and communism, and empire... And so many of us have remained silent for decades.

The whole Islam vs Christianity thing has a lot of resonance for me, not merely because I'd lived in Jordan in the early 90s and encountered nary a Qu'ran thumping fanatic. In fact, I loved my three years in Jordan - for me it was the best overseas posting ever. And now I've used the country as the setting for my current work-in-progress. Religious conflict plays a huge part in it - a YA novel which is kind of Meg Cabot meets Khaled Hosseini - and I realize that I have to tread delicately around the issue as it is such a minefield, even if none of my characters are murderous radicals out to behead every infidel. Because none of the Jordanians I've ever met were like that at all.

Anyway, here is the letter. Please pass it on.

Time to wake up

Subject: 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 of 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.

Emanuel Tanay, M.D. 2980 Provincial St. Ann Arbor, MI 48104 734-997-0256 drtanay

Comments

[claudia shaw]

i passed it on!

[BrianB]

Exactly how George Bush went to war with Iraq. I'll pass this along, especially to my friends and relatives most of whom think ranting against the decline of ethics is not the manly thing to do.

[bambinawrites]

Thanks so much for passing it on!