[Note: if any reader can himself translate, or have translated, into German, this piece, and then seee to it that it is inserted into the bloodstream of German-language blogs, I would be grateful]
The sad little ceremony, a pretend-event that used “honoring the victims in Paris” which included Muslims, to attack those who are guilty of “islamophobia” or deny the wonderfulness of Islam and those whom Islam inspires, took place last night. I saw it on French television; only a few thousand people showed up, presumably most of them Muslims (there were plenty of imams in evidence) and, aside from a grim-faced Angela Merkel, who looked unhappy, looked as if perhaps she dimly understands that she’s doing something wrong and stupid but having made her idiotic “Islam is part of Germany” remark, couldn’t go back on it, had to show up, had to go through with the farce. There was one other named government official with her; I forget his name. It doesn’t matter.
It is one thing to say, as a description, that “there are many Muslims who are now living in Germany.” That is a statement, not an implied endorsement. It is better to say that “many Muslims have been allowed to settle in Germany,” which hints that it has been a favor, a gift to those who should be grateful, to come from lands where so much is wrong, and that so much that is wrong is wrong because of the effect of Islam. It is best of all, because truest to the situation, to say that “without our having sufficiently studied, or studied at all, Qur’an, Hadith, and Sira, we have allowed, in Germany as elsewhere in the West, large numbers of Muslims to settle.”
But when Merkel denounces PEGIDA,, an organisation that is trying to alert others as to the dangers of the “islamisation” of Gemany and the rest of Europe, an organisation that is not neo-Nazi (I saw, at one demonstration, holding a flag, a tall black man, possibly someone who, in Africa as a Christian, had been on the receiving end of Islam’s adherents), and proclaims “Islam is part of Germany” what she is saying, and someone in Germany, in German, should not whisper but shout this: “Islam, the greatest vector for antisemitism since the German Nazis, is part of Germany,” “Islam, the greatest threat in Europe now, and in the future, to the safety of Jews, is part of Germany.” That’s what she’s saying. She doesn’t know it, she refuses to understand, but someone — Thilo Sarrazin? — should take up this theme, and point out the real meaning.. It’s too late for Merkel, she’d be embarrassed to have to go back on her pre-fabricated mechanical goody-goody reaction. She thinks that because Germans murdered the Jews, the best way to act in a different spirit is to defend, and protect, the Muslim presence in Germany (and Europe). It’s not. It’s the worst way to make — what word can possibly fit here? there is no such word? but I’ll put in something anyway, just to finish the sentence — amends.
