Hamarana

Yes, its a little unexpected coming from me, but nonetheless, I felt it worth posting, because its a very serious issue, especially in Australia in the light of the arrest of one Dr Haneef who was associated it seems only by relationship with the bombing in Scotland. His second cousin was a part of it. There is no evidence of his involvement, but the federal police are finding some, anyway.

However: onward to this which I received in email today from a couple of different sources.

A man whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II 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 “he said,” 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.”

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 world-wide. 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. The hard quantifiable fact is that the “peaceful majority” the “silent majority” is cowed and extraneous.

Communist Russia comprised Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant.

China’s huge population, it was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.

The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a warmongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel and bayonet.

Who can forget Rwanda, which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were “peace loving”?

Don’t forget the killing fields of Cambodia

History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points: Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence.

Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don’t speak up, because like my friend from Germany, they will awake one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.

Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Cambodians, Serbs, Afgans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late.

As 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.

I’ve passed the email on. Its certainly something worth thinking about.

I was at the bookstore yesterday morning at 9am, lining up with other Potter fans, to get my hands on the last in the Harry Potter Series. I have been impressed by how J.K. Rowling has presented the previous books, beginning with the first, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, when Harry at age 11 discovers he is a wizard, right through the succeeding books, each one a little more grown up than the last, allowing the readers to grow with Harry.

Each book has become a little darker than the one before, and the last book is no exception. The thing that is an exception for me is that I just didn’t enjoy it as much as the others. There were too many loose ends, too many unanswered questions. When a series ends, I want it to end. The epilogue certainly lets us know that there will be no more Potter stories (at least not from Rowling, I’ll list some fanfic sites in a moment) but during the course of the book, much still remains unexplained.

I’ll read it again, as I always do, to see if perhaps I just read too fast and missed things which would clarify my questions, but I have a feeling I shan’t be satisfied.

Perhaps the “Encyclopaedia” which Rowling hinted she might write, will answer all other questions. I don’t know. But for now, I am quite disappointed.

Fanfic Sites Which Look Decent
Mugglenet Fan Fiction
Harry Potter Fan Fiction
Portkey.org Fanfiction

Of course there are many more, and I’ll likely make recommendations regarding good fanfic somewhere in the blog in the future.

However…

At least she is now pointing in a different direction, even if she is disgorging oil everywhere on both sides of the ship. I can’t help wondering why they did not put oil booms in the water before the refloat attempts, just in case.

Don’t much like how this is proceeding.

[edit: 6.48am] Looking at the webcam… Doesnt look like the booms were deployed. Might be that its just still too dark to see them, but what I saw on the news last night was bright orange… should be visible now…