The "Right" Button: Intolerance and Hatred

My rightist friend, Anon E. Mouse, sent me another diatribe on Tuesday: 

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Tuesday, February 13, 2007 8:33 AM

Can’t vouch for its validity though I agree with it; quite an eye opening article.

It's a frightening world situation that could affect us all.

Subject: Spanish newspaper article on Judaism

Spanish newspaper article on Judaisn

No words minced here - something to think about. Spanish newspaper article on Judaism (In English)

"ALL EUROPEAN LIFE DIED IN AUSCHWITZ"
By Sebastian Vilar Rodrigez(*)

I walked down the street in Barcelona, and suddenly discovered a terrible truth - Europe died in Auschwitz.

We killed six million Jews and replaced them with 20 million Muslims. In Auschwitz we burned a culture, thought, creativity, talent. We destroyed the chosen people, truly chosen, because they produced great and wonderful people who changed the world.

The contribution of this people is felt in all areas of life: science, art international trade, and above all, as the conscience of the world. These are the people we burned.

And under the pretense of tolerance, and because we wanted to prove to ourselves that we were cured of the disease of racism, we opened our gates to 20 million Muslims, who brought us stupidity and ignorance, religious extremism and lack of tolerance, crime and poverty due to an unwillingness to work and support their families with pride.

They have turned our beautiful Spanish cities into the third world, drowning in filth and crime.

Shut up in the apartments they receive free from the government, they plan the murder and destruction of their naive hosts.And thus, in our misery, we have exchanged culture for fanatical hatred, creative skill for destructive skill, intelligence for backwardness and superstition.

We have exchanged the pursuit of peace of the Jews of Europe and their talent for hoping for a better future for their children, their determined clinging to life because life is holy, for those who pursue death, for people consumed by the desire for death for themselves and others, for our children and theirs.

What a terrible mistake was made by miserable Europe.

***********************************
*This is a translation of an article from a Spanish newspaper. Please send this article to as many people as possible, with a request to forward it on.

I couldn't let this sit in my inbox unaddressed, so this morning I was able at last to give the piece of crap – excuse me; "fine editorial from one of the fronts of the War on Terror(ism)" – the attention and response it deserved:

-----Original Message-----

From: Aging Child

This article is more of a problem to deal with, and at least initially appears a bit more thought out than most the pieces I get from the far right. 

Rule of Thumb Number One for Touchy Issues: If a forwarded email focuses on a very sensitive, "hot-button" issue (e.g., illegal immigration, political/cultural/religious clashes, etc.), do NOT trust it as legitimate without verifying its source(s), no matter how much you agree with it – actually, especially if you agree with it. Otherwise you're fanning the flames, or even throwing gasoline, and not working to solve the problem at its source. This is not being a good American; this is instead lemming knee-jerk psychology.

Question: WHAT Spanish newspaper? Published when? A check around the net in English and Spanish is not finding this Rodrig(u)ez fellow, though the item itself seems to have been circulating at least since Autumn of 2005.

Rule of Thumb Even Ahead of Number One: If a forwarded email includes any statement paralleling "Please send this article to as many people as possible, with a request to forward it on", it is to be distrusted. At best a firebrand has gotten hold of something worth considering, has likely rewritten any original text to make it more incendiary, may even have written it him/herself. No; strike that. At best s/he is a lemming; at near-worst, s/he's had a hand in writing the piece; at worst, s/he did write it him/herself, and is deliberately spreading hate, fear, and intolerance.

It's easier to forward than to think.

Now let's look at the content, with an eye on Spanish, European, and Judaic culture, and history,

So far as I can tell, and I may be wrong on this, Spain did not participate in the Holocaust, though they were a de-facto ally of Nazi Germany. However, Spain does have a history of anti-Semitism, though not (again, so far as I can tell) within the past century. But there were mass expulsions of Jews and Muslims alike during the long seven-plus centuries of Moorish (Islamic) occupation of Spain (711 AD to 1492). (Interestingly, there are strong indications that Jewish culture was much freer and more broadly tolerated under much of the Moorish rule than under indigenous Spanish rule.)

I point this out because I find it highly unlikely that a Spaniard would be wringing his hands (especially phrasing it as "we burned" them) over the mass-murder of Jews during the Holocaust; since they weren't involved, it's not part of their own national identity.

And it seems to me that it borders on bigoted, even racist, lowbrow reasoning to assert that it is the influx of Muslims into Europe that has turned the cities into squalor. Many of the Muslims who've come to Europe did so as desperate refugees from oppressive cultures back home, but many others came – nearly all legally – to find work in Europe's powerful postwar economy: there was a labor shortage, and a high demand on industry to rebuild, and build up, shattered countries (e.g., the Marshall Plan, etc.).

It is true, though, that a large influx of any group, any nationality, any culture, into another will bring with it both its best and worst. And all cultures – indigenous, and "guest", have their parasites. Or were there no slums in Spain until after World War II? No "filth and crime"? No unemployed?

It is use of a wide, intolerant, hateful tarbrush to characterize all these Muslims as people "who brought us stupidity and ignorance, religious extremism and lack of tolerance, crime and poverty due to an unwillingness to work and support their families with pride". Certainly, some are. Are there are no stupid, ignorant, intolerant, extremist Christians in recent history? Didn't Timothy McVeigh and David Koresh, from their own twisted perspective, believe themselves to be Christian? Does anyone remember Lt. William Calley? Or was he a Muslim, too?

It is a gross oversimplification, with an eye and intent toward racist hatred, to portray all members of a culture guilty of the crimes of a dangerous few who wrap themselves in the media's headlines through atrocities and brutality. James Wilkes Booth, a Shakespearean actor, murdered Abraham Lincoln in cold blood. Are all actors thus murderers? Would they be, given a gun and a cause? My daughter is a Shakespearean actress; by this pseudo-Spaniard's rationale, she is a danger to society… or at least to presidents, I suppose. Should she be deported?

Try this one, softly, "Sebastian": Germans engineered and executed the Holocaust (under Hitler… an Austrian!). I’m German – well, half-German. Are Jews in danger around me? (I should alert my friends Rebecca and Sharon, and my brother-in-law and his whole family!) Will you use the same tarbrush and say I must be thrown out of this country, or murdered? Or is your unswerving tilt toward hatred selective? I would class that as evil if so; willfully ignorant if not.

This writer also describes Muslims in general as "those who pursue death, …people consumed by the desire for death for themselves and others, for our children and theirs". He has not read his Koran. Chapter 5, verse 32, reads (in part): "whosoever killeth a human… it shall be as if he had killed all mankind, and whoso saveth the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind" (Pickthal translation).

Certainly Islamic fanatics seem to forget that verse… much as some Christians scream "an eye for an eye!" and forget about "turn the other cheek". And Muslims, like any human being, love their families and their children; has the author seen no television news footage, showing parents in Iraq weeping over their children's torn bodies?

This is simple bigotry, hatred, racism. The problem with fanatics in the Muslim community – especially where that community is part of a larger community in the Western, non-Muslim world – will not be solved by vitriolic broadsides. This kind of sickening, ignorant intolerance is exactly the kind of thing that exacerbates the problems, and encourages the hottest heads to grab their guns and bombs and tanks and unread holy books (Bible and Koran alike).

I'll repeat what I've patiently pointed out before: "Islam" in Arabic means "surrender" – specifically, surrender to the will of God, or Allah. (By the way, this is at the core of Christianity, too: In Luke 22:42, Jesus says, "not my will but yours be done", and then himself surrenders to God's will. We use similar words in the Our Father… or does "Sebastian" pray something different on Sundays?) A "Muslim" is one who submits/surrenders to God's will – and the root for "Islam"/"Muslim" in Arabic is in the word "salaam"/"asalam", or "peace". This word also appears in the name "Jerusalem": the "foundation of peace" or "city of peace" (see here near the bottom, under "15. Nirtzah".)

And for crying out loud, the first lines in the Koran are "In the name of Allah, the Merciful and Compassionate"! Jesus preached mercy and compassion; Sebastian Vilar Rodrigez does not. May Christ have mercy and compassion on him… insh'allah.

Now let's have that other word one more time: Intolerance. Yes, "Sebastian": you decry these folks' "lack of tolerance" as though standing on a higher moral/religious ground… and every word of your spiel drips intolerance as well. Best pack your bags. Still, it's easier than thinking, isn't it?

Regards,

AgingChild

While I love friend Mouse dearly – even while regularly pulling my hair out over some of the things she's bought into – I doubt she'll give my response the circulation she gave the "Spanish" piece. For much of the "Right", one voice is a "dialog"; a voice raised in response is "criticism", "liberal", and "unpatriotic".