No Unicorns To Be Found Here ...

Submitted by Morgaan Sinclair (United States), May 8, 2007 at 09:43

Mr. Highstreet:

A tiny minority of Nazis controlled massive numbers of Jewish prisoners in concentration camps in World War II, but that doesn't mean the Jews agreed.

I myself have had a rising anger at Muslims who will not stand up, though given the mistreatment of good guys who've spoken out, people like Dr. Zudhi Jasser, Ghada Jamsheer, and scores of Muslim journaists and publishers and university professors and women's rights advocates, I can certainly understand their concern. But if our folks can die trying to solve this problem, cowardice is not excusable for the Muslim masses who have kept silent so long.

But that is changing -- and it's changing bigtime. It may have taken them awhile to shake off the numbness of denial and dismay, but they are doing it. They do, I point, at greater peril to themselves than do you or I. They are to be applauded and supported and thanked for doing so, for indeed in the Middle East it is taking your life in your hands to stand up.

If you don't think so, ask any of the Holocaust survivors who hung back only because to stand up meant the punishment or death of a wife, a child, a parent, a friend. We can judge all we'd like the behavior of the very threatened, and for the armchair quarterbacks of the world it might be simple to imagine "what I'd do" ... but it is not easy to contemplate the torture or killing of one you love for your behavior.

I am grateful past all saying to see these masses in the streets of Istanbul and Islamabad. And I respect their courage -- especially the courage of those is Pakistan -- in doing so. There is great hope in these happenings, such as I have not seen since 9/11.

And these are not mythical figures. They are real flesh-and-blood human beings who can suffer and die as much as you or I.

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