Kristallnacht : A warning from history

Kristallnacht: Also known as The Night of the Broken Glass. On this night, November 9, 1938, almost 200 synagogues were destroyed, over 8,000 Jewish shops were sacked and looted, and tens of thousands of Jews were removed to concentration camps.

fcit.usf.edu...

Back in the late 1920's and through the 1930's the National Socialist German Workers' Party embalked on a campaign of monstrous proprtions.

Back in the 20's, Germany was a broken nation. They had lost the first world war, their economy was ruined, their military smashed and stripped bare. The people of that country needed a focus. They needed someone to blame and some clever, twisted bigots decided to use that to their own ends.

Through propaganda, carefully placed words, outright lies and fear mongering a public was manipulated and people began to take their frustration out on the Jews. Immigration, financial corruption, religious beliefs and all manner of other issues/practices were cited. Lies were repeated until they became "truth". Eventually a whole society lost its collective conscience, dropped into a state of apathy and then the country turned into a cesspit of hate and people stood by as despicable things began to happen, and those things then snowballed into genocide.

I wasn't alive during those times - I'm fairly sure its unlikely that anyone reading this was, but I am a student of history - particularly the second world war era, and recent events have made me sit up, take notice, and have made my skin crawl.

You see - its happening again. Albeit in different circumstances.

"Dirty muslim"
"Filthy Muslim"
"Rag Heads"
"Turn the middle east to glass"
"Send them home"
"They aren't like us, they have no place being here"
"A good muslim is a dead muslim"
"All they want to do is take our jobs/take our women/kill us"
"They're all the same"

Such things seem to be becoming commonplace on blogs, on facebook and other social media, on some news programs and even here on ATS.

Our society is losing its humanity again.

Yes, I understand 9/11 (although most people here think it was an inside job it seems). I understand Al Qaeda. I understand ISIS. I understand the middle east situation. I understand the paranoia and the fear of things that may seem different.

I understand that there are people out there in the world who wish to do others harm, under the guise of a perversion of a religion. I get that. I don't want to see those people in my world. I have no problem whatsoever with the armed forces of any nation being used to bring cold blooded killers to justice. None at all.

But those people do not represent all muslims - despite what some of the carefully crafted fear mongering propaganda out there will try and tell you.

You know the kind I mean. The propaganda akin to that the Nazi's used about the Jews in the 30's.

The kind that makes people out to be sub-human.
The kind that makes all kinds of assertions about motives.
The kind that deliberately tries to set up differences.
The kind that seizeson the comments of an extremist and tries to make out its a common view.
The kind that singles out one section of society and tries to make out that it is responsible for every kind of problem imagineable.
The kind that picks up on individual issues and tries to make out that all people see it that way.
The kind that gets spread virally on social media out of ignorance, fear and malice. The propaganda du jour.
The kind that leads people to begin to casually accept it.
The kind that leeches and seeps into collective conciousness.
The kind that leads to "reprisals", to witch hunts, to forced segregation, to the wearing of symbols, to tattoo's, to ghetto's to camps to gas chambers...

Hopefully it won't get that far.

If we, as "responsible" nations in the west wish to take the high ground, to confront the extremists and the killers, to bring them to justice, to prevent the spread of their brand of hatred (which is, I believe, a worthy cause) then we have to be better as a society as well as being better militarily.

We have to understand that the actions of a few do not represent the actions of the many - and lets be clear on this - there are 1.6 billion muslims on the planet and all but a very small percentage of those people live a peacful existence.

We have to be better. We have to resist the temptation to slide into the cesspit.

We have to avoid another Kristallnacht.

Verify your method of separation so we don't vilify incorrectly.We need to be defended.
If you have no answer then the war continues unabated.
My answer would be as a soldier.

a reply to: neformore

That has to be the post of the year for me....





Jane

a reply to: neformore

Its not the people or their ethnicity its their ideology as a whole that needs to wither in history's sands. The Muslim dislike and distrust is not artificial it is through experience and ideology. Blaming the West is getting to be a very old tune and it was fun for a while but im done. We need to call this ideology what it is and that is evil.

a reply to: neformore

I've nothing to add, other than that I agree wholeheartedly.

Well said, neformore.

B x

a reply to: neformore

All we need is the economic collapse like the great depression and we're there. 2008 should have been it but they managed to delay it. History is cycling again only with even higher stakes than before.

Great post.

a reply to: neformore

Yet your logic works if flipped 180 degrees..

Small group trying to make the rest of the world think and believe like they do.. Radical Islam ------- Nazis

And using that same comparison, like the majority of Germany that never spoke out against the Nazis, the rest of Islam is quiet for the most part..

Group logic parameters and generalizations almost always work both ways..

Good analogy however...

Depending on one's point of view

a reply to: cavtrooper7

a reply to: TechniXcality

If you fight fundamentalism with fundamentalism, all that is left is fundamentalism.

If you fight it with knowledge, understanding and calm logic, then what is left is hope and the ability to grow.

a reply to: semperfortis

The difference is that people will readily accept that not all Germans were Nazi's.

Its seems that these days people don't want to accept that a miniscule amount of muslims are fundamentalists who bastardise a religion to suit their own particular perverted view of the world.

a reply to: neformore

No obviously not all Muslims are terrorists but unfortunately because of their ideology all Muslims are potential terrorists.

a reply to: semperfortis

These Muslim nations don't have a massive military industrial complex like the USA or like WW2 Germany so you really can't flip it around so easily.

Nice try though.

PS lots of Muslims and even non Muslims are speaking out. No one listens though cause it doesn't fit the narrative.

a reply to: neformore

The comparison is valid. Been thinking the same recently.

At the same time a comparison between European socialists and radical Islam must be acknowledged. Europes Jews like todays Muslims were involved in social change. Radical Islam reminds me so much of the Socialism of 100 years go in central and eastern Europe. Discontent in Europes eastern Jewish communities led to the Russian revolution as an answer to the issues of the day, indeed many of the European socialist attempts at taking power. Nazism was in many ways a response to this change in the European order, a change that in many cases was led and organised by the Jews. Could the same happen again with radical Muslim ideas?

a reply to: TechniXcality

You do realise that Goebbels would be proud of that line, don't you?

originally posted by: angelchemuel
a reply to: neformore

That has to be the post of the year for me.

Why such low standards..?

Until the Muslim world cleans its own house, history lessons are of no concern here.

a reply to: neformore
Yea, nice Nazi comparison always give arguments more weight.hmm

It´s very disturbing when comparing history and then nonviolent ones were culprits and now "we" think that those who rape, behead and kills are the innocent ones. Radicals are someones we should not praise and those who share the same ideology should raise their voices against those who breaks the human rights.

a reply to: neformore

Again I am NOT a fundamentalist I am a warrior,I stated as such ,again WHAT ARE YOUR INSTRUCTIONS ?
Some people want PAYBACK and it is MY people who stop them WE ALL know about how it FEELS we seek KNOWLEDGE to do what is right.
IN it's absence WE die not you.
You get to tell us how it feels.

I think most people with any intellect realise there is a difference between muslim people and fanatics like ISIS. The negative comments I have sern have been towards the jihads doing the beheadings etc. Against the people sending out messages for people to join them by killing an american, or the filthy french! Im sure in the history books there will be no mention of Jewish people in Germany stood on street corners spewing hatred to non believers, calling on other Jewish people to behead innocent people on the streets (Lee Rigby), taking innocent hostages and making them beg for their lives and sending copies to family members. So although I understand your warning I think you are talking to the wrong side!a reply to: neformore

a reply to: neformore

Well done nef, like George Santayana said those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it and this is particularly true today where we can see a collective push to marginalize an entire section of the planets population, to isolate them and destroy their ideology.

And, with todays surveillance, monitoring and killing technology my mind runs rampant with worse-case scenarios of what could possibly eventuate.

I've been banging on ever since joining ATS that the real enemy of mankind is a select few - if they paint Muslims as a collective threat to the rest of humanity (which they most certainly are not) then divide/conquer ensues and they are virtually given a collective green light to execute the master-plan.

ISIS is the green light.

People need to wake up and see behind the curtain - therein lies the true enemy.

a reply to: neformore

Excellent, excellence, OP.

We are walking a tightrope. We must be very diligent not to fall.