On this day in March 23 1933 the The Enabling Act was passed that gave Hitler dictatorial powers.
Everyone should remember how a "civilised", hard working, clever, ordered Christian nation embraced an evil, racist, nationalistic European idea called Fascism.
It still exists today.
Its proponents are still being elected.
News papers (or propaganda papers) still feed its evil narrative and politicians rise to been seen on it's poisoned platform. Headlines today about Jews in Germany are the same word for word as those during the Nazi rise to power except for one word: Take out "Jew "and replace with "Muslim." The Daily Mail which supported the fascists here before the war spews bile now about Islam and Muslims.
Take some time to remind yourself that within Europeans there exists a vicious, racist, supremacist, xenophobic undercurrent and read about Hitler's rise to power! The idea of multiculturalism is something that modern Europeans are historically new to, and you can see from Cameron's misguided and ill informed "multiculturalism is dead" speech (ironically delivered in Germany) in Feb 2011, where he expounds the academically discredited theory on "non-violent Islamic extremism" being a path to terrorism, and how these non-violent Muslim extremists (read please "ordinary practicing Muslims") will be sidelined. We have seen how the goal posts have moved from then until now where there is talk of ASBOS for "radical" (whatever that is...make it up as you go along) preachers and passport confiscation and even making people stateless!
Forgive me for thinking that this is looking increasingly like a fascist state rather than a democratic one! There is some real irony in this since one of the factors that the government uses to identify one as a radical, non-violent extremist is rejection of democracy. Although I am tempted to dive deeper into the question of what actually democracy exactly is I won't, at least not here! Suffice to say that this government seems to have distinctly fewer democratic principles than quite a few radical nonviolent extremist Muslims. Where this conveyor belt to extremism theory ironically does seem to have some milage, is not so much when it comes to Islam and Muslims, but rather when it comes to the right wing and the Conservative Party.
Multiculturalism and living together with mutual respect and tolerance doesn't come that easily to most Europeans. They had a pretty hard time accepting that anyone might have a different interpretation of Christianity even from amongst themselves and were happily slaughtering each other for hundreds of years over theological differences that makes the Shia / Sunni divide look like a mild altercation. Jews have been horrifically persecuted throughout European history, the Holocaust only being the most extreme manfiestation of it, and let's not forget the Crusades! So perhaps we should not expect too much as Muslims living in the midst of these rather multiculturally awkward people. We Muslims have been gifted with the blessing of divine guidance that has bequeathed us a shinning example of religious tolerance from which shone forth over a thousand years of real civilization where not only did Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, Hindus and many others live peaceably together, but other religions even had their own legal systems to judge by! Put that in your muscular liberal watch out for creeping shariah pipe and smoke it!
To be fair European history has had few historical successes. The Roman Empire was pretty multicultural and relatively tolerant, but expected offerings to be made to the Roman gods, including of course the Emperor. Jews and Christians wouldn't, so massacres and persecutions followed. Another success story, and perhaps one of the greatests of course was under the Muslims in Spain, the convivencia in Sicily under the Normans another, and the Austro-Hungarian empire, both of which I suspect took their lead from the shining example of the Muslim world.
Living together with our differences takes a patience and intelligence sadly lacking among many of our (I use this word hesitantly) leaders today, who would rather pander to the worst in human nature than cultivate the best in it.
well put brother...
Posted by: abdi | Saturday, 29 March 2014 at 09:08
some valid points on Europe's far right but, overall, flawed by its biased view of Islamic rule, which omits jizya and 2nd class status of non muslims under sharia.
ARG Comment: There is some truth in what you say. Islamic rule was pluralistic rather than multicultural, although this may be mere pendantics. Can true "multiculturalism" exist?
In many respects dhimmis were better of under Muslim rule than Muslims are in so called free-world.
Interesting article on Jews experience under Islam:
http://www.thejc.com/comment-and-debate/comment/68082/so-what-did-muslims-do-jews
Posted by: roy | Thursday, 03 April 2014 at 18:36