REPOSTING this post from 2011, in which I look at the issue of calling everyone a “Nazi”. Which is kind of what happens these days. And which I’ve steered clear of. Except, back in 2011, in the case of Hamas. Because they really are modern Nazis. Arguably worse: the Nazis of Germany were ashamed of their Holocaust. They hid it. The modern Nazis, Hamas, are proud of what they do. They celebrate it. And they have fellow followers, in academia, in the media, in even, I’m sad to say, amongst friends.
ADDED: I no longer think Julian Assange is a “prissy blonde pissant”. I now think he’s a hero and martyr to free speech. There. I admit my wrong.
REPOST:
Writing a letter to the Sydney Morning Herald, I read up their page of tips on letter-writing style, which has something along the lines of “we take the view that the first person to make a comparison with the Nazis has lost the argument”.
For sure there are many cases of the inappropriate analogy of [name your hated ideology here] and the Nazis. There’s even a Facebook page on it here. Obama has been likened to Hitler. Then again, he’s also been likened to Mao and Peaceniks, and said to be a Muslim. As the Facebook page says, “make up your mind, he can’t be all four”.
But what if the analogy with Nazism is correct? In the case of Islam, I came to the thought that it was a theocratic equivalent to Nazism quite independently and purely on the basis of its documents, its actions, its teachings. And reading, not just the Koran, Hadith and Sira (life of Muhammad), aka “The Trinity of Islam, but also books such as “Icon of Evil: Hitler’s Mufti and the Rise of Radical Islam” by Dalin and Rothman.[1] This is the story of Haj Amin al-Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem before, during and after WWII right up to his death in 1974. One of the worst men in history.
Related:
"The Madonna in the Tortilla", Roland Shirk, Jihad Watch, 20 January 2011. Here.
"On the furphy that Muslims are the new Jews", Peter at 12 October 2010. Here.
"Cathophobes on the march", Peter at 14 September 2010. Here.
"Free Exercise of Religion? No, Thanks", Christopher Hitchens, Slate, September 6, 2010. Here.
This rather caught my attention. For sure my letter (about Wikileaks) contained no such analogy -- no matter how tempting the thought that the prissy blond pissant Julian Assange does rather remind one of the good Aryan lads of the Third Reich -- and the next day it was duly published [here].
But I’ve continued to think about that stricture of the Herald’s sub-editors.For sure there are many cases of the inappropriate analogy of [name your hated ideology here] and the Nazis. There’s even a Facebook page on it here. Obama has been likened to Hitler. Then again, he’s also been likened to Mao and Peaceniks, and said to be a Muslim. As the Facebook page says, “make up your mind, he can’t be all four”.
Then there’s Hamas’ criticism of Israel’s policies in Gaza: equating them with the Holocaust. That’s clearly waaay beyond the pale. “Genocide”? You’re kidding.
A more subtle one has lured many an Islam apologist onto its rocks: the suggestion that Muslims are being targetted today, just like the Jews of the 1930s. Sounds powerfully reminiscent, right? Well, no. The analogy does not stand the most cursory scrutiny (See Christopher Hitchens on it here), though it does exert a strong allure to bien pensants, who believe that Muslims are being unfairly targetted. But there is no analogy between Jews being targetted for exterminationfor purely fabricated reasons, and Islam, Islam the ideology, being questioned and challenged for its clearly and unequivocally bigoted tenets.
A more subtle one has lured many an Islam apologist onto its rocks: the suggestion that Muslims are being targetted today, just like the Jews of the 1930s. Sounds powerfully reminiscent, right? Well, no. The analogy does not stand the most cursory scrutiny (See Christopher Hitchens on it here), though it does exert a strong allure to bien pensants, who believe that Muslims are being unfairly targetted. But there is no analogy between Jews being targetted for exterminationfor purely fabricated reasons, and Islam, Islam the ideology, being questioned and challenged for its clearly and unequivocally bigoted tenets.
But what if the analogy with Nazism is correct? In the case of Islam, I came to the thought that it was a theocratic equivalent to Nazism quite independently and purely on the basis of its documents, its actions, its teachings. And reading, not just the Koran, Hadith and Sira (life of Muhammad), aka “The Trinity of Islam, but also books such as “Icon of Evil: Hitler’s Mufti and the Rise of Radical Islam” by Dalin and Rothman.[1] This is the story of Haj Amin al-Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem before, during and after WWII right up to his death in 1974. One of the worst men in history.
Al-Husseini met Hitler and shared the latter’s dream to rid the world of Jews. He offered Muslim troops for the task and offered to be the Fuehrer’s tool to exterminate Jews in the Middle East. This is documented fact. In offering his services to Hitler, al-Husseini was punctilious to state -- both to the Fuehrer and on his regular radio addresses to Muslims broadcast from Berlin -- that in carrying out the proposed genocide, he was carrying out the wishes of Allah and his "prophet", carrying out, in other words, the demands of Islam.
Other similarities between Islam and Nazism:
- Supremacism: the belief that there is only one true ideology and that it should conquer the world
- Belief in one supreme leader: Hitler and Muhammad
- Warlike: both Hitler and Muhammad waged war against “unbelievers”
- Hatred of “bourgeois” art
- Rabid anti-Semitism: see above.
- The salute: Hamas and Hezbollah have chosen – quite deliberately, one assumes – the Nazi salute as their token of obedience to the supreme leader.
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| Hezbollah shows its true colours |
Ways in which they are not alike:
Islam is non-racist cf Nazism. Though Islam does make a clear distinction between true believers and non-believers, or kuffars, much as Nazism did between the Aryan race and non-Aryans.
So, let’s say that I wanted to write something to the Herald and chose to make the – correct – analogy of radical/orthodox Islam to Nazism. Would I then be blackballed by the sub-eds for having broken their stricture? Seems rather unfair to me, that simply because so many Nazism analogies are wrong, they assume, in their arrogation, that all such comparisons are wrong. Rather a case of “you vill obey orders”, nein?
Just like the Nazis.
Related:
"The Madonna in the Tortilla", Roland Shirk, Jihad Watch, 20 January 2011. Here.
"On the furphy that Muslims are the new Jews", Peter at 12 October 2010. Here.
"Cathophobes on the march", Peter at 14 September 2010. Here.
"Free Exercise of Religion? No, Thanks", Christopher Hitchens, Slate, September 6, 2010. Here.
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