It is often said in defense of 21st Century Islam in this current climate of conflict, in fact, war between the world of Islam and the West, that most Muslims do not participate in, nor support, the actions of the extremists acting in the name of that religion.  That is a misguided and tragic defense, as history has proven again and again that in a totalitarian regime, the silent become irrelevant when the terrorists take power.  It doesn’t matter what the complacent want or don’t want, feel or don’t feel, agree or don’t agree, they are part of what the extremists control in large part as a result of the inaction of this majority.   Those who do not speak up in the Muslim world today should understand that what they become, as a result of this silence, are the compatriots of the Islamic extremists who incinerate American civilians, behead their own homosexuals, stone to death Muslim female rape victims, and who are authorized by their religious leaders to brutally torture and murder anyone else who isn’t a doctrinaire follower of the prophet Mohammed according to the Koran.

It is the observable, and repeated, facts of history that tell us this.  The same thing happened in Soviet Russia, in Nazi Germany and in imperial Japan, among many other examples.

In Bolshevik Russia, remarkably few individuals took over the leadership of the nation from a centuries’ old monarchy, using tactics that were modern at the time, and were not yet fully understood by the distracted rulers in power until it was too late.  All it took initially was a small group of anarchists who knew what they were doing in the troubled, war-torn Russia of the first decade of the Century, and after annihilating the intelligentsia and either murdering or exiling as many of the upper classes as they could as expeditiously as they could, the Communists took control of whatever passed for the media at the time.  Accepting the lovely and completely false words (you know, hopey-changey stuff) about what they wanted to accomplish ‘for the workers,’ the rest of the populace remained silent. The majority of the Russian people didn’t really know what was happening in their own country during this time of war, revolution, and famine.  They were known to repeatedly call for “Papa! Papa!” to help them, as this is what the Russian people had always called their Tsar.  Before they knew it, the people of Russia had been conscripted into the nightmare of Communism, and by the time they did comprehend the nature of this beast that had captured them, there was nothing they or any other Russian could do about it, for all freedom had been taken from them.  The complacent paid a severe price for their inaction, as everyone in that tragic nation, except of course the ruling elites, suffered nothing but misery, cruelty and horror in the almost century long totalitarian regime. 

It was not until the former USSR, as statist systems always do, collapsed in on itself that the Russian people and so many other of the Eastern European nations behind the Iron Curtain, were released from captivity.  Yet another such experiment that failed totally, as socialist states always do.

Nazi Germany is another example of a peoples’ silent acceptance of the tyranny of a terrorist few. This can be perhaps best described by a German citizen whose family was of the German aristocracy prior to World War II, and who owned a number of large industries and estates. When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism:  “Very few people were true Nazis, but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.”

The silent in Germany have often been described in history as “good Germans,” but it was so much more than that.  As the majority of the populace of one of the most civilized nations the world had ever seen remained complacent as the National Socialist Workers’ Party rose in prominence and gained power, the silent became irrelevant.  Actions of the extremists authorized by those in power, the Nazis, resulted in total control of everything and everyone under their aegis, thus determining the fate of all. 

In this case, the results of the silence of the majority was not limited to national borders. It brought about a global Armegeddon, a brutal decade-long world war killing millions and the near total destruction of the nation of Germany. 

No less is intended by those who currently wish to destroy us.

This fatal danger on the part of the silent has been demonstrated again and again throughout the annals of history wherever tyranny is the victor.  The extremists seem to ever know how to capitalize on the complacency of the majority in ensuring the victory they will stop at nothing to achieve.  They know full well how to make the silent majority completely irrelevant in their plans for domination and power, and it is always then the fanatics who determine the future of the nation, or movement, they have come to control.

The same tragedy of unbelievable proportions occurred in China; the same occurred in Cuba; the same occurred in Rwanda and it was the same in pre-Second World War Japan.  Wherever the fanatics took control, those who stayed silent became irrelevant, then by nature of the process, complicit, and then, they became the ultimate victims of these always cruel tyrannies.

As our German observer states of the most recent manifestation of this paradox:  “We are told again and again by ‘experts’ and ‘talking heads’ that Islam is the religion of peace and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the spectre of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam.”

“The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history. It is the fanatics who march. It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honour-kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. It is the fanatics who teach their young to kill and to become suicide bombers. The hard, quantifiable fact is that the peaceful majority, the ‘silent majority’, is cowed, and extraneous.“
And when you are extraneous in a totalitarian country, you’re dead.

Just look at own home grown experiment in totalitarian rule: Obamacare.  Under this government takeover of our medical system, when you are no longer deemed necessary and/or even helpful to the cause by appropriately designated government officials, “you don’t have the surgery, you take the pain pill.”  In Bolshevik Russia, those determined by the ruling class to be irrelevant to the state came to number more than 40 milllion dead; in China, over 70 million died for the good of that Communist regime.  Most of these millions had remained silent, and by the time they knew that they should speak up, there was no one left to pay attention to them.

Our German historian continues:  “..for us who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that counts–the fanatics who threaten our way of life. Lastly, anyone who doubts that the issue is serious…is contributing to the passiveness that allows the problems to expand. So, extend yourself a bit and (work to see) that thousands, world-wide, (act) before it’s too late.”
History lessons are often incredibly simple, and powerful in their simplicity.  Yet for all our powers of reason, we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points.  These are that peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence, and that peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don’t speak up, because they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun. 
According to some in the Muslim world, this, actually, may have already happened.
Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until the die was cast.

As for we who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that counts–the fanatics who threaten our way of life. Anyone who doubts (which includes all the appeasers on the left) that the issue is serious and as such decides to just carry on, is contributing to the blindness and passivity that allows these problems to expand. Let us hope that thousands, world-wide, realize that peaceful passivity is not the answer, and react to the fanatics – before there is no more time, and no one left, to stop them.