Dear Editor:
As of this evening, some 21,636 Islamic terrorist attacks in over 100 countries since 9/11/2001, killing an average of 5,000 civilians a month and injuring 10,000+ a month. (Reference: “List of Islamic Terrorist Attacks”/http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/)
Another weekend goes by with 400 dead Christians / “Non-Believers” in Kenya, Iraq and Pakistan and as was the case of the terrorist attack on the mall in Kenya, boys and girls as young as five were executed at point blank range in cold blood in front of their parents and vice versa for being unable to recite Islamic scripture; and the “West” cannot even bring itself to reach a moral judgement that we are at war with an enemy whose purpose is to kill those who are the “unbelievers.”
We go to Starbucks, we watch American Idol, we cheer the Redskins; blissfully apathetic and oblivious to the fact that our own culture, or lack thereof, is spawning these monsters (two of the four terrorists in the Kenya attack grew up in an ethic Islamic area of Minneapolis).
If there is a genuine anti-christ, its nature is born out of apathy. Apathy for closing our eyes to the savage barbarism that falls upon our fellow brothers and sisters of humanity. Apathy manifest in our inability to confront, oppose and defeat an ideology that seeks the death of any and all who will not accept its tenants. Apathy born out of a lack of self confidence in one’s own culture, history and civilization. Apathy culminating in our collective wistful delusion that this dark force will remain distant to our shores, distant from our children, distant from our loved ones.
The war is over, we grow tired, we seek no responsibilities and no burdens; for the task at hand is to great a burden to bear.
Generations before us were asked to lay down their lives so that evil itself would be opposed with confidence, humility before God, and wisdom to enable its defeat and submission to the enduring spirit of liberty. Assured in our creed that all men are endowed by their Creator with the unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness our forefathers secured the blessings of liberty, which we now take for granted as a matter of course, with their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor.
Today we “Tweet” about the sexually suggestive nature of a teenage singer dancing on TV; asked to sacrifice nothing, for nothing, in a culture that is simultaneously undefinable as it is indefensible.
The power and seduction of apathy is strong, and ever present, especially when wrapped in the comforting blanket of selfish indulgence that thinks not of tomorrow, but only of the here and now.
Can a nation, a culture, a civilization, long survive that is unwilling or unable to confront, oppose and defeat an ideology that is anathema to its founding?
The answer will lie in the courage of all of us to resist and cast aside the forces of apathy and summon the strength, wisdom and clarity of purpose to confront and defeat the darkness here, now, in this time, so that our children will have the future our forefathers passed onto us.
James William Stansell
