When people of reason and conscience look back on the subject of Shoah
(otherwise known as the Holocaust) today, it is common to hear questions like:
“How could a nation of philosophers, composers of classical music, technology,
poets, in this seat of the Enlightenment itself, suddenly give place to savagery
not seen since the Dark Ages? How could such dreadful, inhumane impulses seize
every apparatus of a nation and cause it to commit such atrocities?” In looking
at the subject of the Holocaust, we can see the obvious influence of
pseudo-scientific thought as well as a reversion to a darker philosophy in human
history. Arguably, the roots of anti-Semitism in Europe run quite deep, and
found their most lethal expression in the Shoah itself, when some six million
innocent Jewish men, women and children were murdered on the edge of mass graves
in the Ukraine, Poland and Russia or had their lives systematically snuffed out
at factories of mass murder such as Sobibor, Majdanek, Auschwitz- Birkenau,
Treblinka, Chelmo and Belzec, names that shall forever be remembered as grim
testaments to hatred.
While it is not the intention of this article to go
too in-depth into the roots of European anti-Semitism, it must be touched upon
in order to illustrate how prejudice led to disdain, then to hatred, and finally
to genocide.
Anti-Semitism in Europe has a long and tragic history. For
many centuries, this dislike of the Jewish people of the Diaspora was confined
to the religious and social sphere; indeed, it’s all too easy to recall such
events as when the pogroms of the First Crusade in 1096, the expulsion from
England by Royal Decree in 1290, the Spanish Inquisition, and the expulsion of
the Jews from Spain in 1492, the assorted pogroms in Russia and Ukraine; the
list is long and horrific.
This awful situation persisted as recently as
1959, when a reference to “perfidious Jews” was finally dropped from the Good
Friday Liturgy of the Catholic Church (it must be said here that the Roman
Catholic Church has made enormous strides in its relations with the Jewish
people, most notably beginning with Vatican II and the later efforts of Pope
John Paul II; and let us not forget the many Catholics – and others – who
risked, and in some cases, lost their lives to save innocent Jews from Nazi
terror).
Until the 19th century, European anti-Semitism was largely
confined to the religious sphere (and to a lesser extent, the socio-economic
sphere as well). Then, by the middle of the 19th century, it began to change in
tone and style. Anti-Semitism became no longer a matter of theological
difference, but rather a matter of biological differences. This was the
introduction of so-called “scientific racism” through the introduction and
application of Darwinian evolutionary theory, which had gained widespread
acceptance by the end of the 19th century.
And with this, the argument
among European anti-Semites changed from, “Let us convert the Jews” to “Let us
rid ourselves of this infectious and invasive species.” Simply put, an openly
exterminationist sentiment had arisen, based on pseudo-scientific reasoning. The
Jewish people had gone from being “the other” to being “subhuman”; “a bacillus,”
“a virus.”
Darwinism, and its false implication that human beings are
mere animals, classified as “superior,” “inferior” or “non-human” is the basis
for the pseudo- science of racism. When Hitler said, “Take away the Nordic
Germans and nothing remains but the dance of apes,” he was referring to the
falsehood of Darwinist ideas. (Carl Cohen, Communism, Fascism and Democracy,
Random House, New York, 1972, p. 408-409).
While certainly there are
differences between people, to suggest that a group of people is inherently
superior to another, and therefore has a right or moral imperative to subjugate
the other, is a grossly mistaken idea.
As a result of such
pseudo-scientific fallacies and and neo-romanticist fantasies, six million Jews,
innocent men, women and children over a vast swath of the European continent
were dehumanized, corralled into ghettoes and exterminated by the conquering
Nazis.
According to their racial delusion, in which the Nazi herrenvolk
would rule over a vast empire of slaves, with the conquered peoples being the
hewers of wood and drawers of water, and with the Jewish people (not to mention
anyone else who failed to measure up to the Nazis’ exacting Darwinian standards)
having been eliminated from the face of the earth itself.
The Nazis’
crude interpretations of Darwinism and their outlandish views of history, such
as Ariosophy, are all too familiar to anyone with even a rudimentary education,
and there is no need to comprehensively explain their overall ideology. There
are indeed people alive in Israel today, and many other countries, who survived
this darkest period of human history, who can easily attest to the horrors they
witnessed and experienced. Therefore, we must also address a point which has
emerged from the shadows; the notion of denying that the Shoah took place, or as
it is better known, Holocaust Denial.
Holocaust Denial is a peculiar
subset of pseudo-history which teaches that anyone who lays claim to the mantle
of “historian” can deny, out-of-hand, that the Shoah took place. Aside from the
reams of documentary evidence, or the photographs taken by members of the Nazi
extermination squads as they wrought their vile handiwork, we have the words of
the perpetrators themselves, including the testimony on the stand, under oath,
of no one less than Rudolf Höss, the Commandant of Auschwitz, not to mention the
testimony of Adolf Eichmann, the pencil-pushing architect of the Final Solution,
as well as the infamous “Pozen Speech” (which was recorded, by the way) of
Heinrich Himmler, head of the Nazi RSHA (Reichssicherhauptamt – or Reich Central
Security, the umbrella security organization of the SS, SD and the Gestapo) and
directly responsible for the Shoah itself.
That any sane individual, not
to mention a historian, can dismiss this overwhelming verifiable evidence which
clearly testifies as to what transpired, often in the most blood-chilling and
sickening detail, beggars belief. To maintain that the Shoah is either a wholly
fictive event, or that it was “grossly exaggerated” is the pinnacle of
intellectual dishonesty, and indeed we as Muslims must roundly condemn such
foolishness with any other reasonable mind.
As Muslims, we bear a special
obligation to confront the anti-Semitism that has infected the Muslim world. We
must not traffic in discredited ideas and unbecoming stereotypes or proclaim, as
truth, notorious forgeries such as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (it has
been well known for almost a century now that this tract was a forgery by the
Czarist Secret Police in order to justify pogroms in Russia).
We must not
subscribe to pseudo-scientific notions such as racism, nor allow ourselves to
succumb to pseudo-historic nonsense such as Holocaust Denial.
When it
comes to anti-Semitism, we must confront it. We must educate against it. And
most of all, we must repudiate it utterly.
Racist ideology is completely
contradictory to Islam. According to Islam, human superiority has nothing to do
with race or any criteria that human beings are judged by in this world. God
reveals reveals this truth in the Koran: “Mankind! We created you from a male
and female, and made you into peoples and tribes so that you might come to know
each other. The noblest among you in God’s sight is that one of you who best
performs his duty. God is All-Knowing, All-Aware.” (Koran, 49:13) With this in
mind, we can also look to the recent past and remember how Turkish diplomats
worked to save Jews from persecution and extermination during the Second World
War. Although it is neither as emphasized or as wellknown as the stories of
Oskar Schindler or Raoul Wallenberg, it is a fact that Turkish diplomats
provided official documents such as citizenship cards and passports to thousands
of Jews.
Just to give one example, the Turkish ambassador Behiç Erkin –
in order to save the Jews – gave the Nazis documents certifying that their
property, houses and businesses belonged to Turks. In this way, many lives were
saved. Yet another example is that of the Turks who organized boats to carry
Jews to safety in Turkey.
My intention in mentioning this is that Muslim
Turks’ attitude for centuries has demonstrated that Turks and Jews have
continued to help each other in times of great crises and God willing, it will
continue to be this way, no matter what happens.
For hundreds of years,
Jews have known suffering, pain, and have never been at ease. Since the
Diaspora, they have been expelled from most every place they ever went for
centuries. And now there are some who say they want the Jews to leave Israel
also. The question arises, “Where are they supposed to go?” The Jews, the people
of Israel, have the right to live in the Holy Land, in peace and security;
indeed, it is so commanded by God Himself in the Koran: “And thereafter We said
to the Children of Israel: ‘Dwell securely in the Promised Land’” (Surah
Al-Isra, 104).
Therefore, no one who professes submission to God and
heeds the Word of God can oppose their existence in the Holy Land. And as Turks,
as Muslims as much as we want the welfare of humanity, we want Jews to live in
peace as well.
We will always make our best efforts to ensure this
goal.
The writer is an Executive Producer at A9 TV, broadcasting from
Turkey, Istanbul. She is a political analyst, peace activist and is the
spokesperson of a prominent international interfaith organization. She has been
influential in setting up many meetings and conferences between religious and
political leaders of Turkey and Israel.
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