Back in August 2016, in an article called, “Why Trump is not Hitler, & Why Evangelical Americans are Not German Christians”, I argued that the more pressing danger was Turkey’s, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the fanaticism surrounding him. His recent decision to use the tragic pro-Communist, eco-Fascist attacks in New Zealand, as a political whip, particularly against Australians, only furthers the point I attempted to make.
The piece was written in response to the large amount of naysayers who were predicating another Holocaust if Donald Trump was to win the 2016 United States Presidential race. Equating Trump with Hitler was all the rage.
Well. Trump won. There hasn’t been a Holocaust yet, neither are there any significant signs that suggest the predicated, diabolical conversion of Trump, into one of history’s most famous, and vile tyrants has occurred.
As I wrote then, instead of focusing in on Donald Trump and American Evangelicals, there is a spate of more relevant events to choose from.
The loudest come from Islamism and the growing militancy of the Left.
Both of which do violence to classical liberal rights, such as free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of conscience and freedom of association.
I was concerned that academics were falling over themselves to denounce Trump. Yet, were failing to acknowledge the more pertinent historical parallels which shared a closer affiliation with a Nazified Germany, and the compromised German Church of the 1930s-’40s.
One of those examples is the Left’s fierce advocacy of blank cheque abortion. Families and thousands of unborn children every day are literally torn apart in the service of an ideology. Abortion, even up until birth, is dangerously close to the Nazi doctrine of “life unworthy of life” (Lebensunwertes Leben). More so if we take into account the deliberate abortion of down-syndrome babies. Then the link between Nazi Germany and Leftism’s fanatical support for abortion becomes complete.
The next example is the targeted call to implement laws banning “hate speech”. This ban is nothing other than intellectual terrorism. It’s a front for the more sinister goal of picking and choosing to exclude people because they disagree, or show dissent towards those currently in power.
Exhibit 1: ‘Turkey warns tourists: criticize Erdoğan and we will arrest you; Tourists suspected of opposing President Erdogan’s regime will be arrested as soon as they set foot on Turkish soil. (The U.K Times).
Exhibit 2: in Turkey, a Turkish journalist was sentenced to prison over an investigation that reported on some dodgy activity involving the former Prime Minister. (International Consortium of Investigative Journalists)
The other parallels between now and then, are Islamism’s closeness to the doctrine of “blut und boden – blood and soil”, or ethno-nationalism, and Leftism’s selective outrage. By which I mean the kind of rage that often involves advocating one selective set of issues, and the dismissal of others, equally as important.
There is no real difference between the Nazi practice of dehumanizing the Jews, and the dehumanizing of those, who are deemed as being not worthy of having an opinion. Just as there is no real difference between the blasphemy laws of Islamists, and the increasing demands from minority groups to ban so-called “hate speech”.
The pattern is clear. Leftism and Islamism, as Erdoğan (et.al) and the naysayers against Donald Trump, have consistently shown, only allows criticism if it does violence to the people, and things, both the Leftist and Islamist hates.
The secular and sometimes Christian left, for example, are quick to write-off and then propagandize any dissent. Anyone who shows dissent is automatically treated with suspicion, and is, as a consequence dismissed as a racist, or ridiculed after being diagnosed as having a “phobia” of some kind.
As is well established, the pattern of behavior is to denounce any disagreement and then shame anyone who raises honest questions about serious social, theological or political issues.
Such as, the use of a politics of diversion and evasion, when it comes to the dangers of Islamism and the bizarre placating of it, from those whose own self-interests lie in controlling the debate over immigration, abortion, and gay marriage. This includes the ability punish, those who oppose the Leftist construct of “gender fluidity.”
I get the criticisms of Trump, but as far as historical parallels go, only the deliberately myopic, would choose to ignore the relevance of those historical events and their echo found in the many examples of intolerance and violence which stems from Leftism, and Islamism.
Erdoğan exemplifies this by deliberately invoking the emotion associated with the tragic event in New Zealand, in order gain political traction, turns that event into political whip.
As with most adherents of the LGBT religion, so it is with a large portion of Islamists, you’ll never be caring enough, tolerant enough, or loving enough[1], until you’ve been converted to their ideological view of the world. It’s written in the radical feminist textbooks, Marxist manifestos and the peer reviewed blueprints for their promised utopia, with man/woman-ruling-as-god at the helm.
One dark example is American and Radical Feminist, Mary Daly’s belief that “true tolerance can only be achieved through conversion.” (paraphrased)[2]
When compared to the examples of history, it’s not Donald Trump or conservatives who appear on the horizon, as this century’s very own gathering storm, it’s the militant expansion of Islamist ideology and the Left’s appeasement of it.
It must be said, then, that the path to the resurgence of fascism doesn’t begin with Trump, or the rhetoric of Donald Trump. Nor does it rest in the endorsement of American Evangelicals. The responsibility falls on the individual who fails to discern for themselves the distinction between fact and fiction.
In discussing the effort it took in order to awaken people to the reality of World War Two, Dwight Eisenhower wrote:
‘The handicaps were many. The greatest obstacle was psychological— complacency, it still persisted! Even the fall of France in May 1940 failed to awaken us— and by “us” I mean many professional soldiers as well as others— to a full realization of danger.’[3]
Eisenhower identifies a key complaint about, and eventually from people who were warned, but failed to hear.
Weaponizing the self-confessed pro-Communist, eco-fascist, attack in New Zealand, against non-Muslims, and all people with white melanin, does not do any justice to the victims of the attack, or the millions of non-Muslims, who’ve reached out to support them.
References (not otherwise linked):
[1] Sahar Ghumkhor, The Hypocrisy of New Zealand’s, ‘this is not us’ claim, Aljazeera sourced 21st March 2019
[2] Jean Bethke Elshtain, 1981. Public Man, Private Woman, Princeton University Press, p.209 (et.al) {paraphrased}
[3] Eisenhower, D.D. 1948 Crusade in Europe: A Personal Account of World War Two Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Ed. (Loc. 251-256; 260-262).
Travel advice is current as of the 21st March, 2019. For an update see Smart Traveller.gov.au
(Originally published on Caldron Pool, 22nd March, 2019)
Photo by Manu Sanchez on Unsplash
©Rod Lampard, 2019
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