Despite attempts by left wing and anti-racist groups to disrupt the conference, the right-wing Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) party of Germany has adopted its policy on removing Islamic influence from the nation. This includes bans on minarets, calls to prayer and the full face veil. As someone of Jewish origin, when one hears "right-wing party gaining in Germany" it brings back dark memories of the 1930s and 1940s. But then again, one cannot automatically dismiss such a group without at first hearing out their grievances. This is no local matter as the resurgence of right-wing groups throughout Europe have been occurring.
However, before you go out and call these people neo-Nazis, may I remind you that they have made interesting points.
Leaving out my own prejudices I feel for Islam as a religion, Muslims in Europe have not made it easy for their European hosts. Terrorist attacks, gang rapes, problems at assimilation and religious extremism have painted an ugly picture of Muslim migrants especially as their acts have gone through social media. Rather than try and rectify their image, they and their liberal colleagues turn to political correctness and blaming the media for distorting Islam.
This does NOT work.
Islam is no innocent nor peaceful a religion than Christianity and Judaism. Ignoring the crimes committed by terrorist groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda, Muslims in Europe continue to import their own prejudices they learned back in the Middle East into Europe. Keeping women veiled and harassing those who aren't, discrimination and violent attacks against gays, Jews and minority groups in in France and the Netherlands, refusing to assimilate into the cultures they are entering as seen when two teenage Muslim boys in Switzerland refused to shake a woman's hand (shaking hands is considered polite to the Swiss people and not doing so is considered an insult) and of course, preaching extreme puritanical views of Islam in the social media making the Enlightened Europeans more nervous. Attempts to discourage anti-Muslim sentiment through political correctness ends in absolute disaster as real criminals who are Muslim are allowed to get away with horrible crimes as seen in the child exploitation scandal Rotherham, UK and the New Years assaults in Germany and Sweden. Silencing critics of Islam only makes them stronger.
Now for those who try to equate the situations with Muslim migrants with the Jews during the Holocaust, read a book and not what you read on Wikipedia. As a Jew, the history of antisemitism goes far deeper than one side having reservations towards another based on differences of religion. Jews were ostracized in the early years of Christianity by blaming us for betraying Jesus Christ to the Romans while additional blood libels and disturbing myths written about Jews were published by the public. Our people were confined to walled off ghettos and any Jew suspected of a crime has no friends coming to their rescue. A story about a butcher killed in Germany during the late 1800s ran segments suspecting the perpetrators to be Jews without any evidence while a disgusting myth circulated saying Jews kidnapping Christian babies and drain their blood as an ingredient for matzoh. Yeah, you can see how disturbing and hurtful such accusations and myths have made being a Jew the hardest thing in the world when there exists made up stories like that. The publishing of the conspiracy laden Protocols of the Elders of Zion only made things worse as, despite most Jews occupying middle to peasant class status in all of Europe, are suspected of plotting domination of the world. Unlike the equally insane Eurabia theory, it offered no statistics proving such cases and the stories are all made up basing them around prior prejudices. Finally, the theme of the "Stab in the back" aimed at blaming Jewish groups for Germany's failures of WWI and stories about us being an unclean race led to us being seen as part of a national and health issue to a nation seething with rage and wanting revenge in the most brutal way possible. A stark contrast with Muslims.
On the other side with Muslims, the stories written about them are published on social media with video evidence and newspaper stories that find witnesses to prove their cases. This makes writing such myths and blood libels unnecessary; they have actual proof of the crimes committed by Muslims. The Muslims' ability to acquire special privileges also makes their case to the recession hit Europeans who look to their politicians as selling them out to Muslim interests above their own. Their crimes are reported and blamed on clerics who despite pleas to ensure non-Muslim Europeans that Islam stands for peace, it does nothing to dry the angry tears of those wanting revenge. This makes the right wing groups the only alternative.
What Muslims need to do to feel accepted are these:
1. Silence and denounce with absolute prejudice extreme clerics that call for such outrageous things as Sharia in Europe
2. Urge Muslim youth to adopt non-violent manners of protest in a manner that can reassure their already frightened European neighbors of their peaceful intent (no posters that involve denouncing people insulting Muhammad)
3. Support moderate and liberal Muslim movements that aim towards Europe's stance on human rights, liberalism, freedom of speech, separation of church and state, and LGBT rights.
4. Denounce and call for the arrest of members who speak for extremist ideologies even if they are of your own flesh and blood.
5. Do not protest whenever someone publishes articles about your Prophet, ignore it. Such criticisms can do no harm
I know there are some Muslims who do not agree to such ideas but I urge you to try. Europe has been done this genocidal path before. Don't let it happen again. No one should go through what we Jews went through.
Sunday, May 1, 2016
Saturday, April 30, 2016
Balkanization of Iraq
An April 28, 2016 article from the New York Times wrote about the idea of allowing Iraq to be split apart. While some have argued against such a idea based on politicians from outside, those inside Iraq (or by this time, anyone who possesses basic awareness) have argued that such a partition may be the only choice left.
Even VP Joe Biden in a 2006 essay he wrote as a senator considered breaking up Iraq into Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish zones although now he urges the three entities to forget their grievances and to try to make it work. Sorry to say Joe but your past self has more logic than your current self. Iraq throughout it's history has been a quagmire within Islam's history. From the massacre of Ali and his family in Karbala in 680 AD to the Iraq Wars of today, much hardship has plagued this region for centuries. Through the conversion of the Safavids from Sunni to Shia Islam in Iran in the 1500s and the Afsharid dynasty's extension into Iraq and the Caucasus did the roots of the Shia reemerge into Iraq following the descendants of Ali's followers fleeing from the Arab lands to sanctuary in Qom. Years of conflict with the Ottomans ended the Afsharid's hold on Iraq and the Caucasus but the seeds had been planted. The Shia would move back into the Cradle of Civilization but this would not be easy. The Sunni Ottomans kept a firm grip over the land but despite their attempts to suppress any sectarian strife, it could only freeze the conflict not solve it.
And now for the one agreement that every historian and expert in the Middle East cannot hear without saying, "What were they thinking?!!" The Sykes Picot agreement. Like the Treaty of Berlin that divided up African colonies between the European powers, the leaders of Europe with little to no knowledge of Arab tribal grievances and religious disputes, ending up carving up the remnants of the Ottoman Empire into the states we know today. The Kurds also were introduced into the fracturing as the tribes inhabiting the northern mountains of Iraq were brought into the borders of Iraq. When Saddam and the Baathists came to power, they knew they were sitting on a powder keg about to blow up but just like Tito of Yugoslavia, his party chose a different way to control the region: through an iron fist. The secular yet Sunni Baathists took control and suppressed the Shia and Kurds of the country. When the Iran Iraq War broke out, the Sunni Shia sectarian strife began to boil once more. As Saddam used such anti-Persian sentiment and religious ideology to convince his Sunni base to fight against the Revolutionary Iran that was calling for exporting an Islamic awakening that would create pure Islamic States free of monarchies and dictatorships. The problems Sunnis, especially the most devout and puritanical, had with this call: this was coming from a Shia nation and was threatening the secular nation Saddam was trying to keep control over. It's a similar occasion when Pope Pius V issued the Regnans in Excelsis calling Elizabeth I of England a heretic and urging her subjects to disobey and rebel against her. However, unlike Elizabeth who tried to control her protestant governors and advisers from carrying out massacres against Catholics in order to keep her kingdom from descending into anarchy, Saddam did the exact opposite. Shia uprisings were met with brutal reprisals. Massacres committed by men like Ali Hassan al-Majid unleashed genocidal campaigns against rebelling Kurdish factions during the Iran-Iraq War.
Since the fall of Saddam Hussein, the flood gates broke open once again. Past memories of Saddam's brutality lingered in the Shia minds with them seeking retribution. Sunnis, the powerhouse of the Baathists, found themselves ostracized from government as they made up only 40% of the population with the Shia majority dominating the government. The Kurds did the only sane thing by forming their own semi-autonomous regime, their own armies and their own laws. Despite being Sunni as well, the Kurds had no desire to live alongside either of their Sunni or Shia Arab neighbors. They wanted to separate and have their own state. Now the rise of ISIL and the resurgence of Iran's influence over Iraq have plunged the state back into the sectarian mess that it once was in. Now the question is: Should we try to repair a broken state or let it fracture until it is no longer chaotic?
We remember the horrors of the breakup of Yugoslavia as the Serbs of Croatia and Bosnia unleashed genocidal campaigns against their ethnic neighbors. Croats against Serbs. Serbs against Bosniaks. Serbs against Kosovo. Each side battling each other as death squads and paramilitary organizations sprung up intent on wiping each other out to acquire the territory it wanted while carving out the races they didn't want out of their country. Massacres, rapine and destruction of such insurmountable horror Europe had not seen since WWII. Only with NATO suppressing the Serbian paramilitary forces and introducing a stronger police force to stop the massacres did the horrors stop. But there was one thing it also did: It let the nations break up but kept the proper borders that it agreed upon in the Dayton Accords. The latest breakup occurred with Kosovo that was granted a referendum deciding if it wanted to remain as part of Serbia (a precedent that ended up being usurped by Russia against Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014). Now the same thing is happening to Iraq. My honest advice: let it fail. As much as we may hate to see such people lose friends from across Iraq, the religious strife plaguing Iraq is so severe that not even an Iraqi version of the Treaty of Westphalia can save it. The Imam Husayn Shrine of Karbala and anti-Shiism that plague the Middle East to this day leave the Shia ruled Iraq with a strong cultural identity that influences their roots in the region. The Kurds wish to be left alone to their own devices having established a stronger cultural and national identity that wishes to acquire statehood. For the Sunnis, having lost their control of the state, feel there is nothing left for them. I know it may seem pessimistic to encourage such fracturing but we have to admit when such a state has failed. As Hadi al-Ameri says in the article, "Even if a prophet came to rule Iraq, he wouldn't be able to satisfy all sides."
And now for the one agreement that every historian and expert in the Middle East cannot hear without saying, "What were they thinking?!!" The Sykes Picot agreement. Like the Treaty of Berlin that divided up African colonies between the European powers, the leaders of Europe with little to no knowledge of Arab tribal grievances and religious disputes, ending up carving up the remnants of the Ottoman Empire into the states we know today. The Kurds also were introduced into the fracturing as the tribes inhabiting the northern mountains of Iraq were brought into the borders of Iraq. When Saddam and the Baathists came to power, they knew they were sitting on a powder keg about to blow up but just like Tito of Yugoslavia, his party chose a different way to control the region: through an iron fist. The secular yet Sunni Baathists took control and suppressed the Shia and Kurds of the country. When the Iran Iraq War broke out, the Sunni Shia sectarian strife began to boil once more. As Saddam used such anti-Persian sentiment and religious ideology to convince his Sunni base to fight against the Revolutionary Iran that was calling for exporting an Islamic awakening that would create pure Islamic States free of monarchies and dictatorships. The problems Sunnis, especially the most devout and puritanical, had with this call: this was coming from a Shia nation and was threatening the secular nation Saddam was trying to keep control over. It's a similar occasion when Pope Pius V issued the Regnans in Excelsis calling Elizabeth I of England a heretic and urging her subjects to disobey and rebel against her. However, unlike Elizabeth who tried to control her protestant governors and advisers from carrying out massacres against Catholics in order to keep her kingdom from descending into anarchy, Saddam did the exact opposite. Shia uprisings were met with brutal reprisals. Massacres committed by men like Ali Hassan al-Majid unleashed genocidal campaigns against rebelling Kurdish factions during the Iran-Iraq War.
Since the fall of Saddam Hussein, the flood gates broke open once again. Past memories of Saddam's brutality lingered in the Shia minds with them seeking retribution. Sunnis, the powerhouse of the Baathists, found themselves ostracized from government as they made up only 40% of the population with the Shia majority dominating the government. The Kurds did the only sane thing by forming their own semi-autonomous regime, their own armies and their own laws. Despite being Sunni as well, the Kurds had no desire to live alongside either of their Sunni or Shia Arab neighbors. They wanted to separate and have their own state. Now the rise of ISIL and the resurgence of Iran's influence over Iraq have plunged the state back into the sectarian mess that it once was in. Now the question is: Should we try to repair a broken state or let it fracture until it is no longer chaotic?
We remember the horrors of the breakup of Yugoslavia as the Serbs of Croatia and Bosnia unleashed genocidal campaigns against their ethnic neighbors. Croats against Serbs. Serbs against Bosniaks. Serbs against Kosovo. Each side battling each other as death squads and paramilitary organizations sprung up intent on wiping each other out to acquire the territory it wanted while carving out the races they didn't want out of their country. Massacres, rapine and destruction of such insurmountable horror Europe had not seen since WWII. Only with NATO suppressing the Serbian paramilitary forces and introducing a stronger police force to stop the massacres did the horrors stop. But there was one thing it also did: It let the nations break up but kept the proper borders that it agreed upon in the Dayton Accords. The latest breakup occurred with Kosovo that was granted a referendum deciding if it wanted to remain as part of Serbia (a precedent that ended up being usurped by Russia against Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014). Now the same thing is happening to Iraq. My honest advice: let it fail. As much as we may hate to see such people lose friends from across Iraq, the religious strife plaguing Iraq is so severe that not even an Iraqi version of the Treaty of Westphalia can save it. The Imam Husayn Shrine of Karbala and anti-Shiism that plague the Middle East to this day leave the Shia ruled Iraq with a strong cultural identity that influences their roots in the region. The Kurds wish to be left alone to their own devices having established a stronger cultural and national identity that wishes to acquire statehood. For the Sunnis, having lost their control of the state, feel there is nothing left for them. I know it may seem pessimistic to encourage such fracturing but we have to admit when such a state has failed. As Hadi al-Ameri says in the article, "Even if a prophet came to rule Iraq, he wouldn't be able to satisfy all sides."
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