And in the end they came for me

­­­­­Edmund Burke, the Irish political philosopher often regarded as the father of modern conservatism, wrote very profound words that have proven correct throughout all our modern history:

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Apart from a number of wars that had swept through Europe including the Hundred Year’s War (the compilation of conflicts raging from 1337 to 1453) the First and then subsequently the Second World War brought an immense destruction not only to Europe, but also to the rest of the ‘civilised’ world. Usually the pattern is quite similar. A small extremist minority accesses power and then either convinces the larger part of the majority, threatens them, or assassinates them and subsequently gains the majority of politico-social influence allowing it to carry out plans that threaten the general welfare and future of every country.

Carl Albert Fritz Gerlich, the leading journalist in the Nazi Germany, who was sent to a Dachau concentration camp and murdered there, opposed Hitler. He was murdered during 30^th June 1934, the Night of the Long Knives, when Hitler finally dealt with his opposition and ensured that any potential uprising would be quenched by instilled fear. The power of the written word is great. It has a potential to change people’s opinions, form them into an opposition and eventually challenge the potential rise to power. Sounds familiar? If it doesn’t, I will give you another example, more recent.

Stephane Charbonnier, the cartoonist and the editor of Charlie Hebdo, told the Los Angeles Times that he believed it was more likely to be a victim of a traffic accident in Paris, rather than a victim of an assassination (2013). As we know now, he was one of the 12 victims of a terrorist attack, where the magazine cartoonists were shot by gunmen yelling that they avenged the Prophet Mohammed.

The video footage, which I found sickening, showed a man shot and lying on the pavement. Two men approached him to finish off the job, then they got into a black car and drove off. The satirical cartoonists were shot because they ‘made fun’ of Islam. I mean, that’s their job, s-a-t- i-r-e.

We do live in the Western establishment with freedom of speech and to have people assassinated simply for voicing their opinion is beyond everyone’s comprehension. Are we seeing a similar pattern here?

Let me make something clear, I am not a prophet and I am very happy with that. Considering all that is happening I wouldn’t sleep at night if I saw these things ahead. But a generally sane mind would start asking questions about where all this is going? The Islamists want to establish a world-wide caliphate. They are present in every country. If you don’t believe that, have every country allow their newspapers to write something against Islam, their Prophet or the establishment and we will see a blood-bath.

How can I say something so politically incorrect? Frankly because I think people’s lives are more important than political correctness. Because if the Islamists say something horribly offensive to us, it is considered as their freedom of speech and no one chases them to avenge Moshe, Buddah or Jesus, or whoever for that matter. In that way, the freedom of speech is what they enjoy, the freedom they have and rightfully so, because everyone should be able to express their opinions, unless they incite to violence. They do incite to violence however and the West turns a blind eye on the problem, citing the entitlement to the ‘freedom of speech’. Nevertheless, where the freedom of speech is exercised with regards to Islam, the establishment or anything to do with Muslims, we see people assassinated. Now how, and in what way is this fair? Normal? It is not, and here is where the problem lies.

The Islamist extremism calls for the establishment of the caliphate everywhere and they mean everywhere. That means not only in the Middle East. They do not just fight against Israel, not just against the Jews, but against the Western establishment, the freedom of press, speech, expression, religion; all that we hold dear and all that they use now to their benefit, they eventually want to destroy and introduce censorship, diminish rights of the individual, religion and expression.

If the West will continue turning a blind eye on the problem of Islamist extremism and the infiltration of their societies with ready-to-assassinate guerrilla fighters, the leech that they grew of their own back will grow even bigger and suck the life out of them.

What is happening these days will either weaken us, divide us or make us stronger in unity. Either the nations will give into fear or they will fight this uprising. No one took Hitler seriously when he was inciting against the Jews and gathered his then insignificant army. No one is taking the Islamists seriously now, but why, oh why don’t we just learn from our history? We have Holocaust to show how far people are willing to go to destroy what they hate and Islam, at least in its extremism, is not a religion of love.

For those that say that religion has nothing to do with it, I say, in my humble opinion that they are wrong. We had a time of secularism, pretending that religion did not govern our decisions and that religion has nothing to do with our interaction on personal and national level. We have entered the time of post-secularism where we have to acknowledge that religion rules choices and decisions, and especially when it comes to Islam, where it becomes an organised politico-socio-economic system, which, if implemented with hatred aims to overthrow the world we live in. People respond to religion, people fight better when they are indoctrinated, they die better if they only believe that they are doing it for their god and they are willing to make sacrifices a sane person would never attempt if they did not expect however many virgins waiting for them in the afterlife… Religion is opium for masses.

Just as I am finishing this article, another tragedy has happened. There was a terrorist attack on Jewish shoppers in the Jewish grocery store in Paris. Some people were shot for simply being Jewish. Is the French government doing something about this? I am sorry, wrong question. Has the French government done anything to protect Jews in France? When during the Operation Protective Edge Jews were assaulted on the streets of Paris and soon learned that they could not even wear their kippot on the street on Shabbat nothing was really done to contain the situation. When their businesses were burned many Parisian Jews made Aliyah fearing for their lives and the lives of their loved ones. A friend of mine, who moved from France, told me that she feared wearing the Star of David and that was more than a year and a half before the recent developments. She witnessed people on the train inciting violence against the Jews, blaming them for all calamities and the people in the carriage met these accusations with silence. A complete and utter silence.

The world may be silent now when Jews are attacked on the streets, their families are being shot, stabbed, their businesses burned, but this time, thank G-d, we have somewhere to go. In contrary to the time before the creation of the State of Israel when they were sent to gas chambers, because other countries including the United States of America would not accept the Jews that Hitler did not want.

What I want to say is: you stay silent now allowing all this to happen to us, today they come for us, tomorrow, when we are no longer there, they will come for you.

 First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Martin Niemoller.