Radical Ideas September 9, 2008
Posted by Mark T. Market in Quotables.Tags: emanuel tanay, ideas, islam, nazi, radical
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We are often told that radical ideas about anything–whether it be religion, politics, or philosophies, can be tolerated as long as these ideas remain within the minority of individuals.
A US-based psychiatrist, Dr. Emanuel Tanay, offered some insight into the power of ideas that while emerging from a small minority, can take over whole populations and create massive impact. He also higlights that fence-sitters, or the silent majority–are complicit in any atrocities committed in the name of radical ideas.
An excerpt:
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 awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun. Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghanis, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late.
See more here.
fair enough. a rather solid idea here, that, among others, it isn’t enough to merely refrain from supporting the acts carried out by a fringe group. we are all affected when atrocities are perpetrated, and it has reached the point where we all must find a way to voice our disgust with these events, even as we look to actively participate in finding a solution.
we are all involved, whether we like it or not. so it matters that we come down hard on the side of the light.
Text purported to be by Emanuel Tanay, but is that of Paul E. Marek
Why The Peaceful Majority Is Irrelevant
By Paul E. Marek
http://cjunk.blogspot.com/2006/02/why-peaceful-majority-is-irrelevant.html
I did not write the article attributed to me; I have forwarded it to some friends. Someone put my name as the author. I am not German but a Holocaust survivor from Poland. Obviously, I am aware of the danger of fanaticism. My book Passport to Life (Amazon.com) gives some of my reflections on the subject of fanaticism.
The author of the article you are referring to was Paul E. Marek of Saskatoon, Canada. The original Title was Why The Peaceful Majority Is Irrelevant. Paul E. Marek is a second-generation Canadian, whose grandparents fled Czechoslovakia just prior to the Nazi takeover. He wrote it in February of 2006.
See http://inrepair.wordpress.com/2008/01/20/why-the-peaceful-majority-is-irrelevant/
Also http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/6996
Emanuel Tanay, M.D.