If They Never Teach It, They Don’t Need To Deny It

Ayaan Hirsi Ali writes about the recent Holocaust denial festival that just concluded in Iran. She points out something that the West really needs to grasp here. To most Muslims in the Middle East, the Holocaust never happened. Because it is not taught in schools. At all. Ever.

She was not saying anything new. As a child growing up in Saudi Arabia, I remember my teachers, my mom and our neighbors telling us practically on a daily basis that Jews are evil, the sworn enemies of Muslims, and that their only goal was to destroy Islam. We were never informed about the Holocaust.

Later, as a teenager in Kenya, when Saudi and other Persian Gulf philanthropy reached us, I remember that the building of mosques and donations to hospitals and the poor went hand in hand with the cursing of Jews. Jews were said to be responsible for the deaths of babies and for epidemics such as AIDS, and they were believed to be the cause of wars. They were greedy and would do absolutely anything to kill us Muslims. If we ever wanted to know peace and stability, and if we didn't want to be wiped out, we would have to destroy the Jews. For those of us who were not in a position to take up arms against them, it was enough for us to cup our hands, raise our eyes heavenward and pray to Allah to destroy them.

Western leaders today who say they are shocked by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's conference this week denying the Holocaust need to wake up to that reality. For the majority of Muslims in the world, the Holocaust is not a major historical event that they deny. We simply do not know it ever happened because we were never informed of it.

The total number of Jews in the world today is estimated to be about 15 million, certainly no more than 20 million. On the other hand, the world's Muslim population is estimated to be between 1.2 billion and 1.5 billion. And not only is this population rapidly growing, it is also very young.

This is the problem that voices like Hirsi Ali, Oriana Fallaci and Mark Steyn have been trying to point out. There is a demographic problem here. And the cynical scapegoating and systematic dehumanizing of the Jews is happening again. "Polite society" is just helping to pave the road right now. By turning a blind eye to this hate and by actually encouraging it with their own rhetoric. It would be a good thing to recall this poem:

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

Pastor Martin Niemöller

I choose to speak out. How about you?

Other Links to this Post

1. Tao Of Defiance » Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Why they deny the Holocaust — Monday, 18 December , 2006 @ 11:05 pm