Sunday 3 April 2011

Islam - The new Black? The new Jew?

I have always been told that the best way to repeat history is to ignore it and it seems that it is in ignorance that we might find some of the roots of the hatred of the US brought about by a task made easier by the way the nation conducts itself.

I recall the recordings of the sounds and chants of Germans during the period leading up to, and during Kristallnacht (9th and 10th November 1938) and the awfulness of seeing the broken glass, the windows matching the lives that were shattered (and to be ground to dust), and the books burning.

Burning books has always been the last resort of a cancerous and broken society and to do soin the name of the Christian God speaks volumes about what is going on beneath the veneer of that society. Mob rules and crowd violence filled the screen when I was a child. Then it was Alabama and the enemies were the blacks. Segregation and prejudice were the hallmarks of a land I knew nothing of, other than it was far away and it had cowboys!

Then I grew up and realised that the same land had other enemies within. The Communists (never did understand the trial, but realised it was about people being 'different') were the 'enemy' then.

I grew to realise that whatever people did, they did as a mob and so it was a kind of understood (and accepted?) response to people who were different, a sanitised and legitimised violence against others much like the words that I read in 'Lord of the Flies'. Something sinister lurking under this veneer that we call modern, civilised, caring society; for there was little caring and less in terms of a civilised society to be seen!

Today I heard a recording (on the BBC iplayer 'Sunday' 3rd April 2011) and regardless of the reasons, for I don't know whether the reports of a 'terrorist link' were true or not (and so often it appears they are not), what I heard took me back to the voices that brought us Kristallnacht and the Shoah. echoes of hatred I hoped and prayed were gone forever.

Listen for yourselves here

I'd hoped that with a new president the complexion of the nation would change and that we might see dialogue where there was once white sheets, Kikes, Spics and other prejudices on show. That Sikhs being beaten up for being Islamic might cease and intelligence and understanding, dialogue and a 'winning of hearts and minds' might appear. After all, the majority of those in the US are settling there for a new life, not the old horrors (and I read that there were more home-grown survivalists and anti-governmental types than imported - all though one is too many!).

Christians need to be counted as Christians - to stand for the alien and sojourner in their land, not accepting evils or wrong, but making a stand for a land where all are free and enjoy freely what is on offer.

Is Islam the new Black? Have Muslims become the new jew? Ironic if they have. Dangerous if they have, because this is what the wicked people who seek to radicalise are hoping for. This is the fuel that powers their evil.

What does the LORD require of us?

To acts justly, love mercy and to walk humbly with our God.

May God bring this to pass in all our nations and may He bless America with feet shod with the Gospel of peace that all might walk in unity and pull down the mashinations of the wicked who oppose all across this world in their desire for selfish ambitions and terror.

All it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing
(or gather outside a meeting perhaps?).

Pax

1 comment:

Vic Van Den Bergh said...

Just thought I'd say, in answer to a question, that I totally condemn the actions of those who have taken lives in Afghanistan over the Koran burning.

In the same way I have taken offence at Jones and Sapp I condemn those who have made capital of their stupidity and committed capital crimes.

the same is true of those who took a young Constable's life in Northern Ireland, for those who have committed murder in the Ivory Coast, Libya, Yemen and across the globe this day.

"Oh that today you would hear my voice, harden not your hearts," says the LORD.

Pax