Standing Up

Sometimes I ask myself what I would have done if I had been German in the 1930s. I am imagining that most liberally minded Europeans have asked themselves the same (what they would have done, not what I would have done - I'm not quite that self-absorbed). 

Would I have resisted and spoken up, at the risk of putting my own life in danger? Would I have kept my head down and hoped that this "phase" would just blow over? Would I have tried to help and shelter those being persecuted?

Increasingly it's beginning to look like I will get to answer this question. As the anti-Muslim rhetoric and attacks rise and become more and more mainstream, what will I do? What will we all do?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/05/far-right-muslim-cultural-civil-war

(I'm not keen on the term Islamophobia, because it implies the Islamophobes oppose the religion, when in fact it's racism and the anger and hatred is directed at the people. But make no mistakes this wave of anti-Muslim-ism is a vile and virulent form of racism sweeping Europe and the USA. We have to stand and fight it in no uncertain terms.

A "terrorist sympathiser" writes

397 British MPs are so desperate to be seen to be doing something that they have decided to see how many innocent people they can kill in response to innocent people being killed. What's that Maslow quote again? "If the only tool you have is drones, every problem seems like collateral damage"? Something like that.

And apparently all those millions of us who don;t think indiscriminately killing a bunch of people is a good idea which will lead to world peace are "terrorist sympathisers".

Well I have no reluctance, in turn, to call those 397, appalling stupid murderous compassion-less fucking morons. Scum, every last one of the 397. Utter scum.

I despair. The world is fucked up beyond belief.