Germany calling!

The following extraordinary article was sent to me by a friend who had, in turn received it from some-one else; thus, the translation is taken on trust.  It is not just the content that is startling but the fact that the author is Matthais Dapfner, CEO of the mighty Alex Springer media empire.  It was published in Die Welt, Germany's largest daily paper.

                                 'Europe - thy name is Cowardice

A few days ago Henry Broder wrote in Welt am Sommtag, 'Europe - your family name is appeasement'.  It's a phrase you can't get out of your head because it's so terribly true.  Appeasement cost millions of Jews and non-Jews their lives as England and France, allies at the time, negotiated and hesitated too long before they noticed that Hitler had to be fought, not bound to toothless agreements.

Appeasement legitimised and stabilised Communism in the Soviet Union,then East Germany, then all the rest of Eastern Europe where for decades, inhuman suppressive, murderous governments were glorified as the ideologically correct alternative to all other possibilities.

Appeasement crippled Europe when genocide ran rampant in Kosovo, and even though we had absolute proof of ongoing mass-murder, we Europeans debated and debated, and were still debating when finally president Bill Clinton sent the Americans halfway round the world into Europe again, and do our work for us.

Rather than protecting democracy in the Middle East, European appeasement, camouflaged behind the fuzzy word 'equidistance' now countenances suicide bombings in Israel by fundamental Palestinians.  Appeasement generates a mentality that allows Europe to ignore nearly 500,000 victims of Saddam's torture and murder machinery even as it uncovered that they made illicit billions, no, tens of billions in the corrupt UN Oil-for-Food program.

And now we are faced with a particularly grotesque form of appeasement.  How is Germany re-acting to the escalating violence by Islamic fundamentalists in Holland and elsewhere?  By really suggesting that we should have a 'Muslim Holiday' in Germany?  I wish I were joking but I'm not.  A substantial fraction of our German government, and if the polls are to be believed, the German people, actually believe that creating an official state 'Muslim Holiday' will somehow spare us from the wrath of the fanatical Islamists.  One cannot help but recall Britain's Neville Chamberlain waving the laughable treaty signed by Adolph Hitler, and declaring "Peace in our time".

What else has to happen before the European public and its leadership get it?  There is a sort of crusade underway, an especially perfidious crusade consisting of systematic attacks by fanatic Muslims, focused on civilians, directed against our free, open Western societies, and intent upon Western civilisation's utter destruction.  It is a conflict that most likely will last longer than any of the great military conflicts of the last century - a conflict conducted by an enemy that cannot be tamed by "tolerance" and "accommodation" but is actually spurred on by such gestures, which have proven to be, and will always be taken by the Islamists for signs of weakness.

In the meantime, Europe sits back with charismatic self-confidence in the multi-cultural corner, instead of defending liberal society's values and being an attractive centre of power on the same playing field as the true great powers, America and China.  On the contrary - we Europeans present ourselves, in contrast to "those arrogant Americans", as the World Champions of "tolerance", which even [Germany's Interior Minister] Otto Schilly justifiably criticises.  Why?  Because we're so moral?  I fear it's more because we're so materialistic, so devoid of a moral compass.

While we criticise the "capitalist robber barons" of America because they seem too sure of their priorities, and yet are willing to pay the price, we timidly defend out Social Welfare systems.  Stay out of it!  It could get expensive!  We'd rather discuss reducing our 35-hour week or our dental coverage, our free theatre and symphony tickets or our 4 weeks of paid vacation ... or listen to TV pastors preach about the need to "reach out to terrorists ... to understand and forgive".

These days , Europe reminds me of an old woman who, with shaking hands, frantically hides her last pieces of jewelry when she notices a robber breaking into a neighbour's house.

Europe thy name is Cowardice!  God Bless America!

Pheeew!  Well I don't go along with every detail but I sympathise with the main thrust.  I'm just amazed that a man who truly is 'at the heart of Europe', part of the European establishment, should be writing such things.  What do you lot think?

Comments

[N.I.B.]

It's not a holiday they need, it's a badge with the crescent and star on.

[genghis]

When we happily sign up to a farrago of rubbish which poses as the Afghani Constitution, but is in fact a word-for-word interpretation of Sharia Law, what else do you expect?

We mustn't say anything which might "offend" the sensibilities of some bogus rag-head who's just crept out of a container truck; we can't wear a tee-shirt saying "Bollocks to Blair" because it might be construed as being 'offensive; hell we can't even say what is true, that our schools are being swamped by a big heap of 'fuzzies' from Pakistan and India, nearly all of whom cannot speak a bloody word of English!!

Yep, lets give the fuzzies a 'Muslim Holiday' in Germany, but the condition should be that they can only celebrate it back in some dung-heap in Pakistan!

[David Duff]

Oh, come on, 'Ghenghis', stop beating about the bush and tell it the way you see it!

[dearieme]

"Appeasement crippled Europe when genocide ran rampant in Kosovo": but didn't the genocide claim from Clinton and Blair prove to be almost entirely false? The ethnic cleansing started after we started bombing the Serbs, didn't it? And the holocaust argument is just hindsight.

[Lawrence Duff]

So Dearieme,

Britain and the Allies caused the holocaust did they, starting, as it did, after the second world war was declared by Britain on Germany?

Is there anything you won’t blame on Britain and America as we go about our business of trying to fight the enemies of the open society?

Son of Duff

[Lawrence Duff]

Pater,

You may not agree with every detail but I do!

When Orwell said: “If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever” he was, fortunately, wrong. Built into the cycle of tyranny are the gnawing reactionary processes of incompetence, corruption and oppression that the human condition will not abide, which slowly but inexorably unravel the enthusiasm which drove the tyranny in the first place, leading inexorably to decline and fall. The only counter-reaction tyranny can offer is to attempt to change the consciousness of mankind; that great unfinished project of the 20th Century. If it’s ever achieved, the enemies of the open society now know it won’t be a social engineering technique, but rather a medical one: “the light of a perverted science” as Churchill chillingly put it.

But unfortunately, neither will Liberty be “A soft slipper cushioning a human face - forever”. Built into the cycle of Liberty are the seeds of its long-term destruction: complacency, materialism, appeasement, pusillanimity, pessimism, guilt and self-loathing, which will eventually lay low every Liberal civilization in turn. All the evidence suggests that the West’s grip on the torch of Liberty is slowly slipping for all these reasons, and that is the article’s sentiment.

What hope? Well if the Cold War was the last Great War that Western civilization won in the name of the open society, and Iraq, Afghanistan and subsequent struggles overwhelm us, leaving our body corporate mortally wounded atop the parapet of our final foray “over-the-top”, then we can say that the Cold War was the West’s greatest victory. If in our dying act we have fired the flaming arrows of Liberty over the heads of our Socialist and Islamo-fascist enemies, lighting 3 billion fires in the hearts of men who’ve never known Liberty, kindling youthful Liberal lifecycles with all their vigour and enthusiasm in civilizations who’ve never known the open society, then it will have been enough. When the 3 billion confront Socialism and Islamo-fascism - as inevitably they will having (1) had a taste of Socialism which left 120 million of their number dead and (2) a limitless future thirst for oil - they will crush them casually, like two insects under the soft slipper of Liberty.

Son of Duff

[Andy M]

Hang on - they get free theatre and symphony tickets in Germany?

The jammy bastards!

[dearieme]

Duffson, you've got my point arsy-versy. I was objecting to anyone who criticised the appeasers on the grounds that the holocaust happened. The appeasers made a rotten judgement, but to suppose, or imply, that they should have foreseen the holocaust is pretty juvenile stuff. The appeasers proved to be wrong but I don't think they were evil.

[Pharcyde]

God, this Duff fella is a twat.

[Lawrence Duff]

“Duffson, you've got my point arsy-versy. I was objecting to anyone who criticised the appeasers on the grounds that the holocaust happened.”

There’s no misunderstanding! You *are* objecting to me because I *do* criticise the appeasers on the grounds that the holocaust happened. Earlier in Western civilisation’s Liberal lifecycle the clear signs of what was going to happen in Nazi Germany would have been seen without “complacency, materialism, appeasement, pusillanimity, pessimism, guilt and self-loathing” and acted upon promptly.

“The appeasers made a rotten judgement,”

Now you’re agreeing with me!

“ but to suppose, or imply, that they should have foreseen the holocaust is pretty juvenile stuff.”

Eh? Now you’re saying their judgement wasn’t rotten?

“The appeasers proved to be wrong but I don't think they were evil.”

Jury’s still out on that one. Certainly today, even later in Western civilisation’s decline, a large body of appeasement thought comes from a malignant sector of our society whose intent is Western civilisation’s destruction. It doesn’t get more evil than that.

Son of Duff

[EU Serf]

If the European Union had a proper motto, it would be,

Please Leave Me Alone, I'm Nice :)

[David Duff]

"Please Leave Me Alone, I'm Nice"

Yeeees, not quite, "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more" but one feels, in a very profound sense, that it is trying (and succeeding) to get in touch with its feminine side. So that's alright then!

[Larry Teabag]

A Muslim holiday you say? A MUSLIM HOLIDAY??! Well how awful. I really am beside myself with rage. Indeed that would be almost as bad as the holocaust.

[N.I.B.]

Wasn't that a song by 10cc?

[David Duff]

Don't know, but I think "We're all going on a Muslim holday" was rather popular in its day, sung by Imam Cliff bin Richards, I believe.