Pygmies of the West
Few things are more evident on the first anniversary of the October 7 massacre of hundreds of young Jewish people at the Nova music festival near Be’er Sheva and the slaughter of hundreds of others in 21 communities along the Gazan border by Hamas terrorists, than the absence of moral clarity by many world leaders.
Prime Ministers Kier Starmer and Anthony Albanese, the leaders of free, democratic nations standout for their unwillingness to unequivocally condemn the terrorists, probably in fear of electoral backlash in Muslim communities in their respective nations. Australia’s Foreign Minister, Penny Wong declined to travel to the site of the massacres. They stand in stark contrast to some leaders of the past. Perhaps the Foreign Minister and the Prime Minister could learn from Ronald Reagan. The 40th president of the United States was invited to participate in events in Germany to mark the 40th anniversary of the end of World War II. The program included an event at a German military cemetery where his staff discovered that there were graves of German Nazi Waffen-SS members. Despite urgings by Jewish leaders and the First Lady, Mr Reagan decided to attend as he had been invited by Chancellor Kohl.
The President also added a speech at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp where he spoke about the Holocaust. Instead of evading visits to slaughter sites, Ms Wong could have reflected on the words of Ronald Reagan:
‘The awful evil started by one man, an evil that victimized all the world with its destruction, was uniquely destructive of the millions forced into the grim abyss of these camps. Here lie people - Jews - whose death was inflicted for no reason other than their very existence. Their pain was borne only because of who they were and because of the God in their prayers. Alongside them lay many Christians - Catholics and Protestants.’
Along with Ms Wong, Mr Albanese could have adopted those remarks by President Reagan on May 5, 1985 instead of his equivocation for the past year: ‘Here, death ruled, but we've learned something as well. Because of what happened, we found that death cannot rule forever, and that's why we're here today. We're here because humanity refuses to accept that freedom of the spirit of man can ever be extinguished. We're here to commemorate that life triumphed over the tragedy and the death of the Holocaust - overcame the suffering, the sickness, the testing and, yes, the gassings. We're here today to confirm that the horror cannot outlast hope, and that even from the worst of all things, the best may come forth. Therefore, even out of this overwhelming sadness, there must be some purpose, and there is. It comes to us through the transforming love of God.’
Written by his speechwriter, Ken Khachigian, President Reagan was clear in his speech about the moral issues at stake: ‘Everywhere here are memories - pulling us, touching us, making us understand that they can never be erased. Such memories take us where God intended His children to go - toward learning, toward healing, and, above all, toward redemption. They beckon us through the endless stretches of our heart to the knowing commitment that the life of each individual can change the world and make it better. We're all witnesses; we share the glistening hope that rests in every human soul. Hope leads us, if we're prepared to trust it, toward what our President Lincoln called the better angels of our nature. And then, rising above all this cruelty, out of this tragic and nightmarish time, beyond the anguish, the pain and the suffering for all time, we can and must pledge: Never again.’
Lest Mr Albanese and Ms Wong think Ronald Reagan too far to the right, let them ponder the words of JFK: ‘Friendship for Israel is not a partisan matter. It is a national commitment.’
Regrettably, ‘never again’ has been breached. No, it has not been to the depths of the depravity and wickedness of the Holocaust, but the events of October 7 involved the same hatreds that drove the evil events more than eight decades earlier. Let us not forget that one of the people urging Hitler to murder millions of Jews - according to Adolf Eichmann’s deputy Dieter Wisliceny - was the then Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.
As President Reagan emphasised: death was inflicted for no reason other than their very existence as Jewish people. ‘Their pain was borne only because of who they were and because of the God in their prayers.’ To see those same hatreds being spewed out in Australia is to witness depravity. To celebrate evil is to descend into an abyss. The omission to condemn it is cowardly.
Nor should our leaders accept the trope that any criticism of some Muslims is Islamophobia. I represented many Muslims for three decades in the parliament. Most of them shared a desire for peace and harmony. Their religious leaders participated in a regular interfaith dialogue with Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus and others. I spoke at the local Mosque and had civil discussions about matters that troubled them.
It is difficult to know which abomination - the gruesome massacres in Israel or the moral cowardice of western leaders - is the worst. I have confidence that Israel will prevail against the fascist regimes in the Middle East, but I have less confidence about the undermining of our western values. The failure to defend them is worrying. Since I introduced the Citizenship Test in 2007, there can be no doubt about our values, which include freedom of speech, religion and association; mutual respect and tolerance; and loyalty to Australia. Specifically, ‘It is against the law to be violent towards another person. Violence of any kind, including verbal and physical abuse, is illegal. . . Mutual respect and tolerance means listening to others and respecting their views and opinions, even when they are different from your own. People should be tolerant of each other where they find that they disagree.’
Historians of past civilisations, such as Potorim Sorokin and Samuel Huntington, have observed that no civilisation is immortal. They have concluded that they rot from within, unable or unwilling to uphold and defend their foundational values. Is this our future under the pigmies who currently lead the West?
First published in the Spectator Australia.
