Tapfer im Nirgendwo

Dangerous European division has been poisoning the political climate in the United States of America for decades.

Dear Americans,

I am a European from Germany. I have an urgent request for you: Please stop categorizing politics into right and left! A division of politics into left and right is a European invention, which has already led the world into several major wars.

A couple of centuries ago, beginning with the July Monarchy of France in 1830, the monarchists sat on the right benches in parliament and the opposition Republicans and Liberals sat on the left benches. Hence the political terms „left“ and „right“. Why is it that in the United States of America language regulations of a monarchical seating arrangement from 19th century’s Europe are still being applied in the 21st century?

Why does this European division divide America?

There are many people in the USA today who are not discussing, but yelling at each other. The attributions „left“ and „right“ merely serve as insults. For right-wingers, everyone else is a leftist and for a leftist all others are just right-wingers. Others who stand between these extremes are suffering headaches!

Ask a leftist what right-wing politics mean and you’ll hear the harshest judgements. Ask a right-winger what left means and the result will be similarly devastating.

Dear Americans,

Please don’t evaluate the thoughts and deeds of citizens according to the poisoned European categories of left and right. There are far better classifications, for example, free or authoritarian.

The political terms left and right put ideologies above people. Such divisive political terminology has cost the lives of millions. America is better than that. In America, the focus is on people.

People deserve respect, not ideas, ideologies, religions and convictions. If someone thinks he has been insulted just because the Koran, the Gospel, a manifesto, Marx, Mohammed or Jesus are being criticized, then he confuses himself with his convictions. But a person is more than just the sum of his thoughts and ideas!

Defend the freedom of expression! Never give up ridiculing, doubting and criticizing ideas.

When a person is demeaned because of his or her origins, then it’s racism. But when a person is criticized for his convictions, it’s called enlightenment. Nobody should be criticized for his or her origins. For their convictions they can certainly be held responsible!

With each step taken, a decision is made in regard to direction. No one should be forced in an unfree direction.

Totalitarianism is when we are forced to march lockstep along a given path toward a predetermined paradise. Totalitarianism is when everything in the present is subordinated to that predefined goal. Totalitarianism is when those who waver or question are punished or eliminated!

America doesn’t march lockstep. America dances! When Europeans march, American music and culture is forbidden.

America stands for freedom. Please do not give up this freedom! Continue dancing to the music of freedom, because freedom is an inherent characteristic of every human being.

The striving towards freedom is inherent within each human being! Freedom is a constant criticism of prevailing conventions. Unfortunately, far too often authority is preferred to freedom. Changes have occured because someone had started to think and speak differently. Everyone has a basic human right to express his or her own opinion! Stupidity doesn’t need to be outlawed. Stupidity exposes itself. Basically, I am a romantic because I have faith in the basic goodness of my fellow human being. I believe people are better than their reputations! That’s what America stands for!

Governments should be designed to provide a safety net for those who may fall off the ropes. But, not there to ensure that no one falls or fails. I don’t want to be tied down. I want to dance! The possibility of falling is part of the tightrope walk of life!

I don’t need the government dictate to which music I’m allowed to dance. There are so many melodies.

Please America,

don’t stop making the world dance. Don’t quiet the bells of freedom, silence the songs of love and hinder the hammer of justice with the European categories of „right“ and „left“.

Stay free and remember the words of PUBLIUS in „The Federalist Papers #11“:

„The world may politically, as well as geographically, be divided into four parts, each having a distinct set of interests. Unhappily for the other three, Europe, by her arms and by her negotiations, by force and by fraud, has, in different degrees, extended her dominion over them all. Africa, Asia, and America, have successively felt her domination. The superiority she has long maintained has tempted her to plume herself as the Mistress of the World, and to consider the rest of mankind as created for her benefit. Men admired as profound philosophers have, in direct terms, attributed to her inhabitants a physical superiority, and have gravely asserted that all animals, and with them the human species, degenerate in America–that even dogs cease to bark after having breathed awhile in our atmosphere. Facts have too long supported these arrogant pretensions of the Europeans. It belongs to us to vindicate the honor of the human race, and to teach that assuming brother, moderation. Union will enable us to do it. Disunion will will add another victim to his triumphs. Let Americans disdain to be the instruments of European greatness! Let the thirteen States, bound together in a strict and indissoluble Union, concur in erecting one great American system, superior to the control of all transatlantic force or influence, and able to dictate the terms of the connection between the old and the new world!“

With love and gratitude,
Gerd Buurmann

***
Translation: William Wires
http://www.williamwires.com
http://www.facebook.com/William.Wires.Fine.Art

„What did my grandparents do during the Holocaust? What would I have done?“

These two questions torture many Germans. The second question is particularly tormenting when the answer to the first question is that the grandparents looked the other way or even actively participated in the extermination of the Jews. That’s why many Germans don’t want to know the answer to the first question. But, then they’re all the more certain when answering the second question: „I would have stood up for the Jews!“

There’s only one problem. It’s difficult to prove that one would stand up for Jews when there are so few of them left. How can you stand up for Jews if you’ve never met even one?

Over eighty million people live in Germany. Of these, less than two hundred thousand are Jews, which is a mere one quarter of one percent. Among a group of four hundred Germans you’ll find perhaps one Jew. In many villages and many smaller towns in Germany there aren’t any Jewish residents. How can you show that you have nothing against Jews? Well, you need replacement Jews!

Four and a half million Muslims live in Germany. That makes 5.5 percent of the population in Germany. When twenty Germans meet, there is certainly a Muslim among them. Islam belongs quite naturally to Germany. Islam is a part of Germany. If a German is not a Muslim himself, he certainly has neighbours, friends or colleagues who are German Muslims.

Muslims in Germany are indeed a minority, like Judaism, but not so small that one could not know any Muslims. So why not take Muslims as substitute Jews to show that you have nothing against Jews? Islam is a religion like Judaism and there are many people who don’t like Muslims. So, it’s quite logical that Muslims are the new Jews, right?

Certainly not!

The Germans who once persecuted Jews were Christians or came from a Christian environment. Their Christian faith did not stop them from hating Jews. In many cases the Christian faith even promoted hatred of the Jews. Martin Luther was a fervent Jew-hater. In the churches of Germany Jews were denigrated as murderers of Christ. The credo was: „Extra ecclesiam nulla salus“ („Outside the church there is no salvation“).

Over the centuries Christianity was a brutal and coercive missionary religion. Missionary Christians believed their religion was the only path to salvation. Non-Christians were seen as adversaries to truth. Through their very existence, Jews were considered a provocation because of their refusal to recognize Jesus as the true Messiah. Two choices were made clear: accept the Christian faith or face extermination. It was the Enlightenment that put an end to this fundamentalism.

After the Holocaust, Pope John XXIII redefined the Catholic Church’s attitude in 1965 to non-Christian religions in the declaration „Nostra aetate“ („In our time“). It was recognized that truth and holiness could be found in the other religions. Judaism, in which Christianity is rooted, was reaffirmed as legitimate religion. The declaration softened the extreme „Extra ecclesiam nulla salus“ and stated instead: There are also religious truths outside the Catholic Church.

Islam is also a missionary religion. There are also many anti-Jewish passages in Muslim traditions. There are countries where Islam rules and all Jews have been expelled. There are Islamic children’s programs where funny cartoon-like figures teach children to hate Jews in the name of Allah. The word „Jew“ is often used as a curse word on school playgrounds. In recent years all terrorist acts committed against Jews in Jewish schools, museums, shops and homes in Europe are Islamist motivated.

It is irrelevant to Jews what percentage of all Muslims hate Jews. With over 1.6 billion Muslims and 15 million Jews worldwide, a mere one percent of fanatical Muslims adds up to more than all Jews in existence. Major studies show that far more than one percent of all Muslims have fanatical beliefs.

After Christianity, Islam is the second strongest religious force in Germany. The Jewish community has never been as strong as the Muslim community in Germany. Islam is the second largest religion in the world after Christianity. Several countries have Islam as their state religion. Muslims are as little „the new Jews“ as Christians are, although Christians in many Islamic countries are massively oppressed, expelled and murdered.

Christianity is currently the most persecuted religion in the world. According to estimates of the International Society for Human Rights, over seventy percent of all people who are currently persecuted for their faith profess Christianity. The Christian relief organization Open Doors estimates that more than 200 million Christians worldwide are persecuted or discriminated against. According to its global persecution index of 2019, the strongest persecutions of Christians takes place in Islamic countries.

Nevertheless, it is inappropriate to describe these Christians as „the new Jews“. Hatred of Jews is not only hatred of a religion, but also racist hatred. Hatred is not only directed against beliefs, but against the very physical existence. This racist hatred of Jews is found among Christians and Muslims. Therefore, neither group can be considered „the Jews of today“.

Nevertheless, this doesn’t prevent many Germans from declaring Muslims their very own substitute Jews in order to prove they are not like their grandparents. This leads to an attitude that sees any criticism of Islam, however justified, as Islamophobic. But here, people forget that sharply expressed criticism of Christianity was essential in combating hatred of Jews.

Criticism of Islam is not Islamophobic, but necessary in order to counter Islam’s hostility towards Jews!

Many Germans who have chosen Muslims as substitute Jews have quite a different opinion. They are particularly angry when Jews – of all people – dare to tell them that Muslims are not „the new Jews“, but rather that for many Jews today they are as dangerous as Christians were a few hundred years ago. Some go so far as to declare Jews to be the „new Nazis“, especially when it comes to Israel whereby the “substitute Jews” join hands with non-Muslim Germans to condemn the country as a Nazi state that persecutes Palestinians as the Nazis had done to the Jews during World War Two.

It all falls into place so wonderfully: Muslims are the new Jews, Jews are the new Nazis and the Germans are all heroes in a film of their own making. They defend the Jews! The newly defined ones of course; the attitude towards the old ones remains the same.

But Muslims are not „the new Jews“. They are rather the new medieval Christians. They should also be treated like them, with the necessary criticism and ridicule. But, where they are persecuted today merely because of their religion, we should fight for their basic rights. A new Enlightenment is needed!

***
Translation: William Wires
http://www.williamwires.com
http://www.facebook.com/William.Wires.Fine.Art