Tapfer im Nirgendwo

Albrecht Schröter is a „committed Christian“, German politician, mayor of the city of Jena and he knows who’s responsible for the flow of refugees from Syria: Israel!

In view of the influx of hundreds of thousands of refugees to Germany alone, Albrecht Schröder declared on September 17, 2015, that a major change in German policy was necessary to defuse the conflicts in the Middle East. He stressed:

„Germany needs to change its role in the Middle East conflict. We must disengage from our restraint toward Israel as an occupying power. (…) We need to offer people incentives to remain in their countries. Otherwise, we’ll loose control over a flood of refugees.“

What incentives does Albrecht Schröter mean?

A few years ago, Albrecht Schröter demonstrated along with Sheikh Tayseer Rajab Al-Tamimi against Israel. Al-Tamini is chief Islamic judge of the Palestinian National Authority and head of the „Palestinian Center for Religion and Civilization Dialogue“. Concerning their mutual participation in the demonstration, Schröter remarked:

„Walking arm in arm, we felt like brothers!“

In reference to a proposed German policy change towards Israel, let’s listen in on what this “brother” has to say:

„With regard to the Jews, the Holy Quran says that they lack knowledge, they have no wisdom, know nothing, break agreements, etc. The Jews, however, are known – and it’s evident throughout history – that they make false allegations, lie, fake, slander and invent things freely, to justify their aggressiveness, their land theft, their desecration of sacred sites, their appropriation of land, their demolition of houses, their murder of children, women and old people.“

Tayseer Rajab Al-Tamimi’s attitude is within the same tradition as related in an interview with Abdallah Jarbu‘, Hamas deputy minister of religious endowments, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on February 28, 2010:

„[The Jews] (…) are foreign bacteria – a microbe unparalleled in the world. (…) I condemn whoever believes in normalizing relations with them, whoever supports sitting down with them, and whoever believes that they are human beings. They are not human beings. They are not people. They have no religion, no conscience, and no moral values.“

https://vimeo.com/16779150

The Hamas Charter states:

„The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!“

Albrecht Schröter looked at a world map and decided which color-coded area is responsible for the current plight of refugees.

For Albrecht Schröter, the tiny red area represents the biggest problem in the Middle East. Red marks precisely the area in which the following declaration prevails:

„WE EXTEND our hand to all neighboring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighborliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land. The State of Israel is prepared to do its share in a common effort for the advancement of the entire Middle East.“

In the green area on the map, homosexuals are persecuted, women stoned and dissenters executed. From the green area, missiles are fired against Israel. These are the areas from which suicide bombers come. From there, the terrorists will finance those who want to destroy Israel.

Israel is only a small red dot and barely discernable to the human eye on a world map. Israel is, however, surrounded by a green carpet of hatred.

In Israel, gays and lesbians enjoy state-mandated equality. Homosexuals serve in the army; a transsexual has already twice represented the country at the Euro Vision Song Contest; Jerusalem is one of only three places where World Gay Pride celebrations have taken place and Tel Aviv was recently chosen by American Airlines as the best travel destination for gays. Der Spiegel reported:

„It’s one of the few places in the Middle East, where homosexuals are allowed to kiss in public. Tens of thousands – scantily clad, dancing and very colorful – paraded at the annual gay pride parade through Tel Aviv towards the Mediterranean beach.“

In neighboring countries, the situation is very different!

Homosexuality is forbidden in Iraq; in Lebanon there’s the threat of imprisonment; in Oman, Egypt and Syria three years imprisonment; in Libya five years; in Kuwait seven years; in Bahrain ten years. In Iran, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, homosexuality is punishable by death! Israel is an enlightened state surrounded by the deepest dark ages.

Israel is the only country in the Middle East where an Arab can sue the state and win!

Israel is among the leading countries in world children’s aid.

Israel is the only country in the world where forests increase and desert areas decrease in size.

Israel is the only country in the Middle East which offers disaster relief.

Israel is the only country in the Middle East with pronounced freedom of the press and artistic freedom.

Israel is a leader in water recycling.

Israel is a leader in the production of ecological energy.

Israel is the only country in the Middle East, besides Jordan, where Arabs may be openly gay.

I don’t claim that Israel is free from errors, but there is truly no reason to continually over-criticize the country and assert that an anti-Israel policy is the way to win peace.

Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. Although the country is engaged for more than sixty years in war for its very existence, it has maintained a rule of law in a way that is unique in the whole history of mankind. Never before in world history, has a country, threatened with extinction by its neighbors, adhered steadfastedly to the principles of civil liberty.

Israel is at war with enemies which aim for the total destruction of Israel, and not a few of these also want to annihilate all Jews. A review of Arab television shows the danger which all Jews in the region face.

Wiam Wahhab was a Lebanese minister and he loved football. On July 4, 2010, he explained on Al-Jadid / New TV:

„I support Germany in politics and Brazil in sports. I like the way Brazil plays soccer, but I like the Germans, because they hate the Jews and burned them. Hahahahaha!“

Other television broadcasts are no less vindictive:

Egypt: „Our hatred for the Jews is justified in our faith! The Koran tells us to hate them, not to love them.“(Al-Nas TV, January 8, 2008)

Qatar: „We will consider the Jews as enemies, even if they give us Palestine back. Because they are infidels!“(Qatar TV, January 9, 2009)

Gaza: „In a nutshell: As Muslims, our blood is full of revenge against them and can be satisfied only with the destruction of the Jews, God willing. They’ve tried several times to kill our prophet.“(Al-Aqsa TV, February 28, 2008)

Qatar: „Again and again God has punished the Jews. The last punishment was carried out by Hitler. In everything he did to them, – and the Jews exaggerate when describing these deeds – Hitler put the Jews in their rightful place. It was divine punishment for them!“ (Al-Jazeera TV, January 30, 2009)

Egypt: „The greatest enemies of every Muslim, besides the Devil, are the Jews! Who says that? God says so!“(Al-Rahma TV, January 9th 2009)

Saudi Arabia: „Jews are pigs and monkeys! God says so!“ (A little girl on Iqra TV, May 7, 2002)

Children’s programs are no better. A Hamas Mickey Mouse leads children to sing songs about the “heroic” act of the assassination, while the funny Hamas Bunny, Assud , calls for children to fight against the infidels. His hobby includes eating Jews. In Arab television broadcasts, children are led to feel joy when they hate Jews.

In Europe, there are not just a few satellite dishes pointing toward these television stations. Presumably, the Frenchman Mohammed Mera grew up with these children’s programs before he decided to kill children because they were Jews. Mohammed Merah killed three Jewish children with targeted shots to the head. For him, their lives were unworthy because they were Jews.

In an Egyptian version of „Candid Camera“, guests were fooled into thinking they were on Israeli TV which resulted in ugly anti-Jewish attacks. And the audience laughed. A hidden camera used in an Israeli TV show filmed a gas station retailer who refused to serve Arabs. No one laughed at that. Instead, the audience was indignant. That is Israel!

While the propaganda against Jews in the Arab world is running at full speed, a clear majority in Israel is working to preserve humanity; despite the almost daily bombings and rocket attacks against Israel. A day after Albrecht Schröter said incentives should be created for refugees to remain in their countries and restraint towards Israel be reduced, several rockets were fired at Israel.

On some days, more than a hundred rockets are fired into Israel, more than a hundred rockets at an area not much larger than New Jersey. The missiles are fired at schools, hospitals, nuclear power plants, retirement homes, mosques, synagogues and churches. The intention of each fired missile is mass murder!

However, the mass murder won’t succeed because Israel takes the threat of destruction seriously and has therefore built an excellent defense system. The Jewish people won’t let themselves be slaughtered again. Israel is ready to defend itself!

Members of Hamas hide behind their own civilian population. Because Hamas can’t destroy Israeli schools, hospitals, nuclear power plants, retirement homes, mosques, synagogues and churches, it ensures that hospitals, power stations, retirement homes and mosques are destroyed in Gaza. Synagogues in Gaza were already destroyed back in September 2005 when all Jews were expelled from Gaza! Since 2005, there is not a single Israeli settler, not one Jew in Gaza, which still doesn’t prevent Hamas from blaming Israeli settlers in Gaza, who are no longer there since 2005, and the Israeli occupation of Gaza, also non-existent since 2005, for the war. Jew-hatred was always based on rumors and falsehoods!

Hamas attacks Israeli schools, hospitals, nuclear power plants, retirement homes, mosques, synagogues and churches and uses their own hospitals, power stations, retirement homes and mosques in Gaza as shields.

Had Hamas instead used all the money spent on missiles and terror tunnels to build Gaza, there would not only be hospitals, power stations, retirement homes and mosques, these would all be well supplied. With all the money that Gaza has received, Gaza should actually belong to the wealthiest areas of the Middle East! The desire to destroy Israel and hatred of Jews, however, has devoured all the money. Not Israel and Jews pose a danger to Palestinians, but rather the hatred of Israel and Jews!

Hate doesn’t create wealth and prosperity! Israel knows that. Israel would rather have Gaza a thousand times more as a business partner than as an enemy.

But, for Albrecht Schröter, Israel is the problem. The Nazis were of a similar opinion:

Dear Albrecht Schröter,

Imagine, a man seeks shelter under a dome and people shoot constantly at this dome, hoping to destroy it and hit the man inside.

Imagine, the attackers screaming they want to kill that man, and even have this wish fixed in their program.

Imagine, the man under the dome had a gun. Every now and then he peeks out from under the dome and warns, „I’ll shoot back!“ He even signals the direction in which he will shoot, although it weakens his defense when the dome is opened a crack; but the man under the dome doesn’t want innocent people to die. So, therefore, he announces his defensive measures beforehand.

Imagine, he shoots out from under the dome. He shoots until the shooting at the dome stops.

Imagine, on a calm day, the man come forth from under the dome. Would it fair to criticize him for shooting back in his defense?

Imagine, the people who shot at the man had deliberately put children in the lines of fire and called the man under the dome a child killer.

Imagine, behind the people who shot at the dome, were people with cameras who filmed everything and then say: „We filmed everything. You were safe under your dome! No one has died under the dome. But you have killed many people! Children and civilians. That was disproportionate!”

Imagine, from around the world the man is criticized because he killed civilians.

Imagine, the attackers put their own children in the line of fire, solely to provoke exactly these photos in order to make the man’s defense look like aggression.

What would you say to the people who made those photos which gave the attackers exactly what they wanted to fuel hatred, for which they sent their children to their deaths?

I would say:

„The deaths of these innocents are on you, you monsters!“

You, Albrecht Schröter, march with these monsters hand in hand, or to put it in your own words:

„Walking arm in arm, we felt like brothers!“

(Translation: William Wires)

In Roland Emmerich’s disaster film „2012“, Charles Hapgood’s hypothesis of a sudden polar shift becomes reality. The Earth experiences a massive continental drift which consequently causes earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis. In the Himalayas several nations built arks to save civilization from impending extinction. In the last third of the film, various complications threaten the final phase of operations. Instead of the time calculated for a coordinated embarkation, there remains instead merely half an hour. In addition to that, damage to one of the arks has made it unseaworthy. Thousands of refugees gather in front of the remaining ark and beg admission. The White House Chief of Staff immediately orders all ports closed and locked. Among the people in the remaining ark, one man gives a fiery speech to the leaders of the Western world:

„To be human means to care for each other, and civilization means to work together to create a better life. If that’s true, then there is nothing human and nothing civilized about what we’re doing here. Ask yourselves. Can we really stand by and watch these people die? I read a quote two days ago, the author is probably dead by now, bur he said: ‚The moment we stop fighting for each other, that’s the moment that we lose our humanity.’”

At some point, the daughter of the killed American president exclaims: if her father were still alive, he would certainly open the gates. The Russian president and the German chancellor react by repeating the sentence Ronald Reagan once spoke before the Berlin Wall: „Open the gate!“ The gates are opened and the film goes on!

In recent days, I’m often reminded of this movie scene. I am happy about how refugees are greeted and helped at the borders and train stations in Germany. It moves me to tears when I see all the people applauding.

As in the movie „2012“, the German Chancellor has opened the gates for refugees. She is rewarded not only with praise. Many criticize Angela Merkel, others are worried. However, the Chancellor has an answer:

„I think that Islamism and Islamist terrorism are unfortunately a very strong phenomena in Syria, in Libya and in northern Iraq, but to which, unfortunately, the European Union has contributed a large number of fighters. We can’t say this is a phenomenon that doesn’t concern us. These are some people, often very young people who have grown up in our country and where we also play our part. Secondly, fear has never been a good counselor, not in personal life and not in social life either. Cultures and societies that are marked by fear, certainly won’t be able to cope with the future.“

Henryk M. Broder remarks on the current refugee situation:

„Those who feel no compassion in this situation have no heart! But, those who feel only pity are not rational!“

It’s obvious that one must help where help is needed. It’s understandable that positive images such as those from the main train station in Munich where arriving refugees were recently greeted, are needed, especially as a contrast to the nearly daily attacks on shelters elswhere in Germany by radical xenophobes! “The moment we stop fighting for each other, is the moment we lose our humanity.”

Besides Roland Emmerich there is another artist who has given us great plays: William Shakespeare. Shakespeare’s villains are particulary interesting. I have played many of Shakespeare’s evil figures, among others, Richard III and Iago. I am always impressed by the cool logic evil employs. If there’s something to appreciate in Shakespeare’s portrayal of evil, then it’s the inner logic which knows how to exploit an opponent’s weaknesses. There’s no other monologue which better describes the human weakness for evil than as in Hamlet’s famous soliloquy:

“To be, or not to be–that is the question:
Whether ‚tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep–
No more–and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to. ‚Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep–
To sleep–perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
(…)
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprise of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action. — Soft you now,
The fair Ophelia! — Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remembered.”

As long as humans are busy trying to retain a good conscience, there will always be enough bad guys who know precisely how to exploit this conscience with logical brilliance. So, now I’ll imagine myself a villain in today’s refugee situation.

If I were a leader of the Islamic State and wanted to bring war to the Western world, I would use the flow of refugees to my advantage! The flow of refugees would be the best route to smuggle soldiers into Europe. It would be no problem to hide a few thousand fighters among the millions of desperate refugees. I would even profit threefold! Firstly, Islamist fighters enter Europe; secondly, Europa would be weakened or even distablized by throngs of innocent refugees, fleeing Islamic dictatorship, but who are not well disposed among themselves. Hostile Sunnis, Alawis and Shiites who flee together from the Islamic State, would expand internal conflict to Europe. Thirdly, I could harm my main enemy severely. If a million Muslims were to flee to Germany, and among them were only 15% Jew-haters, – and there are more than that according to surveys – then there’d be more Jew haters than there are Jews in all of Germany. The Islamic State would have an unintentional ally in the form of neo-Nazis who hate everything foreign, spread violence and can escalate negative situations in Germany. Soon, there’d hardly be space for logical thought, which would be the only means with which to uncover my devious plan. What a devilish good plan! Shakespeare couldn’t have devised a better one.

We all know these villians exist and that they know all too well how to exploit the weaknesses of the West. So what can we do?

But, we have to make one thing clear: just because the opposing side knows how to exploit our desire for goodness, we mustn’t be tempted to curtail this urge. Just because evilness can pass through our open door, we mustn’t close it for those who need our help. Evil will permeate through every crevice, anyway. Even behind closed doors, evil would still eat us from the inside out like a cancer! Although open doors may indeed facilitate an invasion, we can fight evil only if they’re open!

I realize evil is a metaphysical concept. As an enlightened human being, I’ve learned to use this term carefully. Whom do we not make responsible, when we are confronted with evil deeds if not society, parents, politics, the circumstances! We are all so damn sure that everything is just a matter of education. But what if it’s really all quite different? What if evil simply exists on its own?

Shakespeare’s most brilliant villain is Iago, whom he lets philosophize about evil:

„Virtue? A fig! ‚Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are our gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners. So that if we will plant nettles or sow lettuce, set hyssop and weed up thyme, supply it with one gender of herbs or distract it with many—either to have it sterile with idleness, or manured with industry—why, the power and corrigible authority of this lies in our wills. If the balance of our lives had not one scale of reason to poise another of sensuality, the blood and baseness of our natures would conduct us to most prepost’rous conclusions. But we have reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings, our unbitted lusts. Whereof I take this that you call love to be a sect or scion.“

It is difficult to agree with a villian, but when he’s right, he’s right. Whatever happens to a person, whatever personal misfortunes he or she may have to deal with, the origin of all his or her decisions, may they be good or bad, derive solely from his or her own free will.

“Tis here, but yet confused: Knavery’s plain face is never seen tin used.“

In his essay „Die Lust am Bösen (Pleasures of Evil)“ Eugen Sorg writes:

„Whenever we are confronted with examples of human cruelty and meanness, we are at a loss. We search for a rational explanation, which would remove the horror of senselessness. It’s unthinkable that someone would kill another for the sheer pleasure of killing. For the last half a century, the view has prevailed in the rich Western countries that evil is a reaction to suffered injustices originating in the past and may even be characterized as a kind of misguided good. The more heinous an act – so the universal diagnosis – the less the perpetrator is responsible. „The problem of evil people“, as the American philosopher Richard Rorty summarizes the therapeutic worldview of the cultural elites of the West, „is that they have not had as much luck as we do with regard to the circumstances in which they grew up.“ – Rorty, Wahrheit und Fortschritt (Truth and Progress: Philosophical Papers), Frankfurt a. M. 2000.

Evil accompanies human history. It is not curable, not reconditionable, not to be bought off. It is the tragic condition of human freedom; one can do away with it only if one abolishes humankind. Its power is enormous. Not only because it can cause paralyzing fear, but also because it is seductive. It breaks up the monotony of everyday life, it means intense life and promises liberation from limits and constraints. To deny the existence of evil, is the straight path of surrender to it. Protection against it, is possible only to those who acknowledge it. The vast majority of us have an instinctive moral compass. Humans are moral animals. Only our species can decide at any time between good or evil. Whether we follow our choices, remains unpredictable, because these decisions are subject to our free will.“

Empathy is the ability and willingness to recognize and understand thoughts, emotions, motives and personality traits of another person. As an actor, I have empathy for evil when I play a villain. Compassion should always be empathetic, for goodness, but also for evil. When I read Shakespeare, I have empathy for evil, and I believe I „understand“ it and that scares me. However, on March 4, 1933, the American President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared:

„So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is…fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.“

Fear is truly a bad counselor, especially if you are confronted others in certain situations. Refugees are not a group; they are many individuals. They have individual biographies, their own wishes and dreams. They’ve experienced dangerous journeys, at times, even mortal danger. They may have been freezing and sweating, crying and suffering. Therefore, I will continue to applaud each refugee who makes it to Germany and will help where I can.

A group of people is called a community, everyone together is called humanity and all people who have ever lived, are part of history. The present influx of refugees allows many historical concepts to resurface. Some speak of a worldwide migration, and even use the biblical term, exodus. Edith Piaf once sang an emotional song on this subject:

“They left during the winter sun
They left running through the sea
To erase fear, to override fear
That life had nailed into the depths of their hearts

They are there in a new country
That floats with the mast of their boat
Their broken hearts of love
Their hearts of love lost
They have found the land of love”

George Satayana once said:

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Two thousand years ago, religious refugees arrived in Europe. They were all individuals. Eventually they formed communities, spread out over the continent and aquired more and more power. However, they were persecuted by religious fanatics, who also set libraries on fire and destroyed works of art. They were Christians!

Certainly, there were those who stressed that these fanatics were not true Christians, but nevertheless these fanatics were able to assert themselves. However, in France, for example, it took a bloody revolution to disempower the ever powerful and inhuman first estate of Christian clergy. The Enlightenment endured many a bloody battle in culture wars in order to break the power of the Church. Untold thousands of people were killed. Even among themselves, the Christians quarreled and fought. During the Thirty Years War, Catholics and Protestants fought then as Sunnis and Shiites fight today. Of course, not all Christians were dangerous, but there were enough of them who spread war and misery all over the world.

One only has to look at the last three hundred years of Native American history to realize what Christian refugees and migrants were capable of. Many natives welcomed the Christian migrants from Europe with open arms and gave them food to eat. Even today, there is a national holiday in America which celebrates the welcoming culture of the original inhabitants: Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving Day commemorates the European migrant and refugee landing at Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts. Together with the native Wampanoag, they celebrated in autumn 1621 a three-day harvest festival. Without the help of the Wampanoag, the Christian migrants would not have survived the following winter. That was exemplary welcoming culture. The future, however, would prove bloody. In the movie, „The Addams Family“, by Barry Sonnenfeld, the issue of a welcoming culture is brought to a point in polemical fashion:

What the children act out in this scene, is the kindling of migrant living quarters by locals. In Germany, refugee shelters are being set on fire almost daily. I’m an artist. I write plays, produce shows and I’m an actor. I’m not an academic and –please allow me to assert- I’m a person of reason and sometimes guided by my feelings. Given the growing xenophobia in Germany, I can understand the actor Til Schweiger very well when he says:

„I don’t think politicians have to go to Freital. Instead they could send two battalions of police there, round up the protesters and tell them: ‚Tonight you’ll be spending a night in jail so you can think about what you are doing and tomorrow you won’t come back.'“

It makes me angry when I see and hear the hatred of some people.

Like fear, anger is a bad advisor! It is not easy to properly respond to the wrongness. Hamlet can sing a song about it. But, the governor of Thuringia, Bodo Ramelow’s suggestion to separate refugees according to ethnic criteria in order to avoid violence is completely wrong. Ramelow made this suggestion after fighting broke out in a refugee center in Suhl. A refugee, who had fled Islamic fundamentalism, expressed his anger by ripping up a copy of the Koran. He was then attacked by Muslim fanatics.

Rather than confront the attackers with the full force of the law, the Islamists of Suhl were spared as many a neo-Nazi in Heidenau. If it were up to me, I wouldn’t be separating, rather I’d lock the Islamists and the neo-Nazis together in the same jail cell and see what happens! Because what belongs together, sticks together!

During these times, in the face of mass flight from war and misery, it’s hard to respond appropriately, but each of us still has to deal with it. The German rock group Die Ärzte sang the following:

„It’s not your fault that the world’s the way it is. It would be your fault if you let it stay that way.“

We must do something! But what? On the one hand, we have to accept the following truth of Roland Emmerich:

„The moment we stop fighting for each other, is the moment when we lose our humanity.“

On the other hand, there is also William Shakespeare’s warning:

„…there’s the respect that makes calamity of so long life!“

For me, that means that we shouldn’t close our eyes to the plight of refugees; instead we should help them. But, we must not ignore the fact that among them are many religious fanatics whose „religious feelings“, full of resentment and hatred, deserve no consideration.

(Translation: William Wires)