As a Middle East expert, I daily see material from Arab and Islamic sources containing hair-raising threats against America, Israel and the West, as well as media reports on the details of horrendous terrorist attacks. But this item in a British newspaper may be the scariest sentence I ever read.
It’s so frightening because the story reveals how the institution most entrusted with preserving democratic society and Western civilization–the school system–is betraying that trust. According to a report by the British government’s Department for Education and Skills, schools in England are dropping the Holocaust from history lessons to avoid offending Muslim pupils.
And here’s the really scary sentence in the press reports: “Some teachers are reluctant to cover the atrocity for fear of upsetting students whose beliefs include Holocaust denial.” Get it? They are told at home or by Muslim preachers that the Holocaust never happened, and rather than challenge this misinformation, teachers are shutting up so as not to disturb a world view based on lies.
By the same token, the Crusades are being dropped not even–though this is also not a good excuse–because that might stir social conflict but since “lessons often contradict what is taught in local mosques.” Moreover, teachers are dropping such material due to, as press reports put it, “Fears Muslim pupils might express anti-Semitic and anti-Israel reactions in class.
Similar reports have already appeared in France, where the rot has gone even further. Thus, 500 years of progress in open intellectual inquiry through the use of logic and evidence are abandoned. Rather than confront or challenge students, they will be left safe in their prejudices. Aside from the broader implications, such behavior constitutes a reinforcement of racism, intolerance, and hatred in the name of a philosophy–political correctness–which is supposed to combat these things.
And to make things even worse, note that there have been no riots, no mass protests to demand the preservation of ignorance. This is not only surrender but one being offered voluntarily, without even being pressed or threatened.
Up until now, democratic, modern societies have successfully absorbed large numbers of immigrants because of the process of assimilation or, in milder form, acculturation. The idea, so successful in the United States, has been that immigrants must accept the society’s rules. And why not, since it has been so successful? Indeed, the stability, freedom, and material benefits offered are the reasons why people came to the West in the first place. In addition, immigrants were free to keep most of their own culture and all of their religion.
But now, it is the successful society that must adapt to less democratic ones. Where does it end? Can schools teach democracy to those told this is heresy because laws can only be made by God? Can evolution, or even intelligent design, if it contradicts what is said in mosques or might provoke complaints in class? And what about the value of tolerance itself, since it might upset those who have been taught intolerance toward others?
This new approach also condemns Muslim immigrants to be slaves of the radical Islamists among them. Rather than challenge extremism, the school would reinforce it. Students hungry for knowledge and freedom would be told to shut up and believe what their mullahs say. Any Muslim female student who did not want to wear concealing clothes or wanted personal freedom cannot depend on help or validation from French or British society. Instead, she is sentenced to imprisonment in a behavioral and intellectual ghetto.
Finally, there is one more horrifying element–perhaps the worst of all–in what is happening in Europe: the passivity with which people are excusing or ignoring this revolution against freedom.
Barry Rubin is Director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, Interdisciplinary Center university. His co-authored book, Yasir Arafat: A Political Biography, (Oxford University Press) is now available in paperback and in Hebrew. His latest book, The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East, was published by Wiley in November 2005. Prof. Rubin’s columns can be read online at: http://gloria.idc.ac.il/columns/column.html.
I can’t really answer that question for you. All I can do is point out that out of all such events on American soil, virtually none have anything to do with Islam.
I will also point out that the only person whos death sentence was commuted by George W. Bush, was not a Muslim. http://www.amazon.com/Programmed-Kill-Politics-Serial-Murder/dp/customer-reviews/0595326404
I will also point out that – in my humble view – when we start to see anything popping up in our soup whether it’s actually there or not, then it’s time to pause and repair our damaged Sovereignty.
The fear generated by Islam is just one weapon in an enormous arsenal at the disposal of The Globalist’s Criminal Syndicate. It is essential that we don’t give it too much credit. It is essential that we realise that in order for us to be sold a lie by The Evilarchy, we are the only ones who are responsible for deciding whether or not to buy it.
There are forces in this world which benefit from such a dynamic, and it’s not “The Muslims”.
and
Just a few more small pieces of evidence among a veritable abundance, that it is not Muslims or even Islamists who are primarily behind the spread of Islamofascism.
Fox News is reporting at least 22 are dead after a shooting at Virginia Tech University Monday morning, the campus police chief said. Police said there was only one shooter and he is now dead.
And when something like this happens is it wrong that my first thought is a question if the shooter has connections to Islam?
Another case in point:
And it is in the UK again,
They also tell you don’t stare at a strange dog.
This is becoming absurd. I wonder how many Muslims they will offend by trying so hard not to offend them.
It is interesting that often when you fear something and allow that fear to move you, that which you feared comes to pass.
It also bears repeating that those who forget the past are destined to repeat it.
By pretending that the Holocaust did not happen, or by ignoring it out of fear, these people are creating an environment where the seeds of fascism can flourish and spring forth again.
What schools should be doing in this present climate where anti-Semitism is rearing it ugly head is the exact opposite; Schools should be studying and teaching the Holocaust and fascism in greater depth. Obviously, current social trends revel that something is drastically amiss in the education system.
Fear can be a self fulfilling prophesy if you allow it to dictate your actions. Evil feeds on fear, it is the fertilizer that makes it grow.
In a report in The Guardian, April 2, 2007 http://www.guardian.co.uk/secondworldwar/story/0,,2048082,00.html, The British Department of Education and Skills, according to the worlds of a spokesperson for that department said:
This initiative to drop the Holocaust and in some cases both the Holocaust and the Crusades from the school teaching curriculum so as to not offend Muslims and give Muslims an excuse to express even more anti-Semtisim is therefore not a matter of British government policy.
These various community school administrations involved in dropping the Holocaust and Crusades from their teaching curriculum, while showing the utmost respect for Muslim sensitivities and sensibilities, have by their actions, deeply offended and insulted Jews, their own history and truth.
This initiative by a number of community schools speaks volumes that the BD of E & S should have the exclusive authority to determine in cases such as this what should and should not be taught in British schools. The British government’s failure to do so thus far, speaks volumes about the attitudes and mindset of the British government.
If there is no hue and cry made to the BD of E and S by British citizens to take control, assert authority and ensure the Holocaust and the Crusades are taught in British schools, that also speaks volumes about the attitudes and mindset of the British public.
Since the British government is not taking that initiative and the British public are not demanding they do speaks volumes about the British utter lack of regard for Jews, for themselves and for truth.
I wonder whether the leaders of the British Jewish community have reacted and sought to get the government to take the initiative or have they thrown in the towel. If so, they may as well start looking to leave Britain to live amongst more hospitable neighbours within more hospitable environments.
On this matter of the schools unilaterally deciding what is and what is not offensive to Muslims, the community leaders are proactively taking the lead in appeasing Muslims and destroying our own Western culture, religion and history.
If we assume that Holocaust education is offensive to Muslims and science is offensive to Muslims and then grovel at their feet for forgiveness because our ideas, science, culture, history and way of life is somehow assumed to be offensive to Muslims, then we are to blame for this dangerous form of cowardice and gutlessness.
I gather from this action that Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust denial and threats to blow up Israel have actually been digested and accepted by teacher’s and others and they have decided that he is right and the cowards fear that the Muslim hoards will descend upon them with the violence that they are known for when they are in any way offended.
This is the kind of decision that requires protest on a significant scale to let everyone know that our Judeo-Christian values and the millennia of progress we have made in science and culture among other important areas cannot be wiped off the face of the earth by a cult that enslaves people, feeds them lies and urges them to violence in the form of jihad for any given reason.
The millions of people who died in the Holocaust will have died for nothing if we allow weak-minded cowards to make these kinds of decisions on our behalf and instill the values of a cult into our children while erasing all that is good in our western civilization.
Among the things people can honestly say is that…
the West cannot trust Muslims because of the Muslim doctrine of being allowed to lie to non-Muslims.
the West cannot interact with Muslims as long as Muslims take the view that they are allowed to kill or otherwise disadvantage non-Muslims as a religious right.
western culture cannot live in the same world with Islam as long as the principle of reciprocity is not part of their cultic practices and beliefs.
Holocaust denial should be the gold standard for interaction between Muslim and non-Muslim culture. When Muslims can admit that they participated in Hitler’s efforts to exterminate the Jews during World War II and that they are now aware and repentant of that aspect of their history, then dialog becomes possible.