www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Hitler and Stalin live in Iran

Looks like another Hitler. Not surprising. Many Arab nations were strongly influenced by Nazism and Communism. Is it surprising that they are anti-Semitic?

"This is an English version of an essay first published in Slovak.
On December 14, 2005, Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad delivered a televised speech in which he called the Nazi murder of six million Jews a fabrication. "They have created a myth in the name of the Holocaust and consider it above God, religion, and the prophets. If someone were to deny the existence of God... they would not bother him. However, if someone were to deny the myth of the Jews' massacre, all the Zionist mouthpieces and the governments subservient to the Zionists tear their larynxes and scream against the person as much as they can." In October 2005, he presided at a "World Without Zionism" conference. Banners called for Israel to be "wiped off the map." The use of English to display the slogans belied the explanation that such rhetoric was meant for internal consumption only...."

Complete article:

http://www.meforum.org/article/885

CDL

"Looks like another Hitler. Not surprising. Many Arab nations were strongly influenced by Nazism and Communism. Is it surprising that they are anti-Semitic?"

Dan,

For the record I categorically reject everything that fellow said.

However, I feel I must respond to your post as I disagree with your sensationalistic style and several of your points:

1) Arabs are Semites, so how can they be anti-Semitic? Anti-Jewish, sure, but not Anti-Semitic. And before someone quotes Webster's dictionary in an attempt to state that Anti-Semitic means Anti-Jewish in modern English, I reject that definition as prejudiced and believe that our language should be updated (as it often is) to be more precise.

2) Iranians are not even Arabs anyway, but are "white people" being Aryans (Iran = Aryan).

Just some thoughts.

Anastasios

Iran was infected by Nazi and Communist influence as well. Beyond that there seems not to be much relevance to your objection.

Read: Stephen Schwartz, "The Two Faces of Islam" to gain an understanding of the anti-Jewish nature of much of Islam in the area.

CDL

BTW With your "Aryan" observation are you suggesting that Hitler was right? I wonder why India doesn't behave toward the Jews like this Iranian leader since many Hindus are Aryans?

I do not support those who say that "there was no holoccaust" but I believe that the world must not condemn those who have a different opinion based in proofs and facts, with serious investigation.

It's absurd that after so many years the Communist history continues to be enforced as obligatiory, telling us that WWII only saw the extermination of Jews by the Axis while the allies were pure hearted and good.

What kind of freedom did Stalin give to the peoples that were opressed by the Soviet dictatorship? Millions of Ukrainians perished of hunger, thousands of Russians were murdered in concentration camps. The Japanese also had their Holocaust courtesy of the allies.

It's perfectly acceptable today to admire Joseph Stalin, there are even political parties in the world who actively advocate his actions but it's not possible to Mosley or Maurras or you can be the victim of an agression.

The Holocaust is an excuse to allow all kind of abuses in the middle-east, but the Armenians, the Assyrians and the Kurds are denied the right of self-determination and freedom.

Carson makes a number of valid points.

To add to this, progressive forces in both Iran and Palestine were sharply critical of the anti-semitic remarks and the attempts by the Iranian regime to divert attention from internal problems.

No serious investigation can support the revisionist theories that the Holocaust did not happen. To pose the question is, in the first place, absurd--and I think that I am being charitable here in saying "absurd."

Democracy is, at its core, pure hearted and good. The countless Catholic, Orthodox, Jewish and other martyrs in the Nazi death camps testify to this. Among them are many of our saints and holy people. A visit to what is left of Jasenovac or to the Orthodox monastery in the Beograd suburbs will melt hearts and destroy pride.

It is not that anyone is saying or enforcing an idea that Stalin gave anyone their freedom. The situation is more complex than that. But the world should not have had to make the false choice between Hitler and Stalin and people of conscience should not have had to choose those sides and surrender their own religion, morality and ethics in doing so. The best we can do now is pray and work to make sure that new Hitlers do not arise. Carson has done well by raising the issue.

The Japanese did indeed also carry out genocide and paid for it with untold numbers of innocent lives. Again, terrible choices were made and we have much work to do in overcoming the legacy of the last world war. Its a good thing to join with your local peace movement every August when the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are prayerfully remembered.


Honoring Mosley & Co. probably should be a crime.

Armenians have a country and a spectacularly corrupt government; not much problem with self-determination there. Assyrians are busy winning their self-determination and fighting the Kurds to do so. Eventually the Armenians, Kurds and Assyrians will butt head-on against one another with their conflicting claims. Then what?

But let's return to Carson's original story and its reprecussions. One of the region's strongest Christian voices for peace, justice, non-violence and reconciliation was jailed by the Israelis yesterday. Sami Awad, a friend of mine, is standing for election to the Palestinian legislative assembly as a non-violent Christian activist. He was arrested and beaten yesterday by Israeli forces. If you want justice in Palestine, work equally hard against fanaticism and violence on all sides. Please ask the State Department (202-647-4000) to intervene. Mr. Awad has joint US-Palestinian citizenship and heads the Holy Land Trust organization.

bob r.

Bob,

Thank you for this information. I trust that many will follow your suggestion. The Israeli government is often its own worst enemy. Christians suffer as they are caught between Islam and Judaism. I wish it weren't so.

"But let's return to Carson's original story and its reprecussions. One of the region's strongest Christian voices for peace, justice, non-violence and reconciliation was jailed by the Israelis yesterday. Sami Awad, a friend of mine, is standing for election to the Palestinian legislative assembly as a non-violent Christian activist. He was arrested and beaten yesterday by Israeli forces. If you want justice in Palestine, work equally hard against fanaticism and violence on all sides. Please ask the State Department (202-647-4000) to intervene. Mr. Awad has joint US-Palestinian citizenship and heads the Holy Land Trust organization."

?????

How in the world do you arrive at such resonsings? My point was you called Iranians Arabs but they are not Arabs, that's all. I can't believe you suggested I think Hitler is right. That's messed up.

Anastasios

Anastasios,

Thank you for the clarification. You are of course correct, but I was a bit surprised that you thought I didn't know that Persia was not Arab. Sorry for reacting so strongly.

CDL

I have to take issue with this. Democracy is rule by the people. People can be good or bad, usually left without guidance by the Lord and his Church (Monarchy) people will sink to the lowest common denominator: America today.

Aristotle taught that there were 6 types of government, from best to worst: Monarchy, Aristocracy, Polity, Democracy, Oligarchy, Tyranny.
I suspect you are referring to democracy when you probably mean polity. Polity is everyone working together for the common good. Democracy, as Thomas Jefferson put it, is 51% of the people subjugating 100% of the people. Democracy is only as good as the people in the state. Polity is the state working for a greater good; not for the people, which is what democracy is.

By the way, the best form of govenment is a monarchy or kingdom. Who is the King? Who is the Pantokrator?
I don't know if Divine Right of Kings is good or not, but even the French during the Revolution wanted a return to the Reign of St. Louis IX. I wonder who wouldn't want to live under St. Stephen of Hungary or St. Edward the Confessor. I don't know much about St. Volodymyr or St. Olha. What other Eastern Monarchs are there who are saints and under whose reign we would have been blessed to be under?

PS I have read that both of the old Emperors abdicated due to that they only wanted the best for their people. Both are Blesseds of their respective Churches. The Austrian Emperor in the Western Church, and the Russian Imperial Family in the Russian Church.

Oh yeah... Hitler was elected by the people.

Dr. Eric,

I agree with you. A strong case can and has been made for the superiority of monarchy even in Muslim states. (See Schwartz, The Two Faces of Islam and Abu El Fadl Khaled, Islam and the Challenge of Democracy). The confusion comes when we try to help people understand the difference between Monarchy and Tyranny. Many don't see the difference.

CDL

We don't see the difference between monarchies and tyranny because there isn't one.

Monarchies perhaps made sense when production and distribution were undeveloped and localized, before commodity production developed and class and national relations were transformed. To take a step backwards to those kind of societies would mean losing modern science, development and national relationships. Since most people are unwilling to do that--and I think this really is the Holy Spirit at work--it would indeed require tyranny and repression.

Much of the difficulty in Muslim countriues today stems exactly from the conflict between the classes around and supporting the monarchies and developing national or internationalist capitalist classes. Let's not use them as a model. And the monarchies everywhere else are either corrupt or are damaged goods (having sold their countries out to the fascists) or are irrelevent to anything and a tremendous drain on national resources.

Democracy is indeed good and pure at its roots because it comes to us from the synergy of the Holy Trinity.

bob r.

CIX!

Many of us see the difference quite cleary - possibly because we haven't been infected by silly liberal prejudice against the institution of monarchy. Perhaps you might consider the Monarchy of God the Father to be Tyranny too.

Nonsense. Absolute nonsense. Perhaps you might also consider socialist and marxist societies to be the work of the Holy Spirit.

Crude, gross and unfair generalisation. A monarchy costs far less than the swollen self-important administrations of the present day so-called democracies.

I can give two examples of well-loved and functioning monarchies in countries that work perfectly well: Thailand and Japan.

There are bad monarchs and good monarchs, but it is unfair to condemn the institution - which comes to us from God.

This is the funniest thing I've heard in a long time. Do the words 'O Heavenly King' ring a bell? God anointed Kings and Emperors - never democracies.

Democracy always becomes Ochlocracy.

To pretend that Democracy comes from the Trinity is either gross ignorance and fantasy at best, or wilful misrepresentation and and devilish obfuscation at worst.

There is no lack of sainted monarchs - I have yet to see a single holy leader of a democracy.

All ye Holy Emperors and Empresses, Kings and Queens of Christendom - pray to God for us!

http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/saintc8t.htm

http://www.serfes.org/royal/newmiracle.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_royal_saints_and_martyrs

I would much rather live under the rule of these persons than under many of the democratically elected presidents, prime ministers, and chancellors that have been around in the last 300 years.

Dear Edward Yong and Dr Eric,

Your posts represent the most blatant defense of monarchy I have ever seen on this democratic Forum!

Keep up the great work!

Alex
past president
Monarchist League of Canada
Toronto Branch

That's because I want to be the Emperor!!!


Or at least the Patriarch!!! :p


St. Peter had a wife!

You might want to read "Theology Of A Classless Society" by Gee Varghese Mar Osthatios. When someone--anyone--on the right rises intellectually to the point of, say, Comblin or Jose Miranda or Gustavo Guttierez the larger issues can be debated. Until then, I'll accept the Othodoxy of Gee Varghese Mar Osthatios.

Besides the terrible cataclysms which creating or reinventing modern monarchies would certainly take, the institutions themselves are outmoded, authoritarian verging on dictatorial or suck tremendous resources from civil society. These people have a certain tendency to turn their countries over to foreign powers and leave with wealth and titles, living dissolute lives in exile. And where none of this is true, modern monarchs do provide some aumusement and keep an entertainment industry going with their foibles and peccadillos; I doubt that this is your intention, however. Their days are past. Societies which are welcoming back their monarchies are more to be pitied than anything else.

I think that my point about the foundations of democracy being found in our religion and in the workings of the Holy Spirit are best covered by our dear Gee Varghese Mar Osthatios and by Comblin. I'll stand by him and my points.

Faithfully,

bob r.

Henry VIII is all the reason I need to oppose monarchies on this earth, now and forever.

Ptui on crowned heads!

For those of you advocating a return to a monarchy, I think you should review Medieval History. There were three estates: the nobility, the church, and the common person. The nobility & the church composed about 10% of the population, but contolled almost all the wealth. I've visited numerous castles in Europe, in which the nobility or church officials wined & dined on meat, white bread, puddings, etc. And they had bards, jugglers,clowns, etc. for entertainment. Outside, the people, who were serfs, ate coarse, brown bread and rarely ate meat at all. If they did, it was pork. Why do you think sausages are so popular in Europe? Old age was around 35-40 years of age!
Case in point: Salzburg, Austria. Here, the church functioned as government & nobility. Church officials lived in an oppulent castle high on a mountain (people today take a cable car to the top) while the common man slaved away in the salt (salz in German) mines deep below the earth. Nice system . This was not ended until Napoleon rolled through in the early 19th century. The past couple of hundred years have seen Europe slowy recover from feudalism.
All the great European authors wrote witty, disguised literature poking fun at the system.
Also, read your Bible. God did not want a Theocracy. The Israelites saw the system from neighboring countries and begged God for a similar system.
-Wolfgang

Christ is Born!

Gentlemen, you're being quite silly. Setting up a straw-man caricature of your opponent's positions and knocking that down doesn't even win you cheap debater's points. It's not only bad debating, it's intellectually dishonest.

No-one here is advocating a return to monarchy in places that have lost it or never had it. Losing this God-ordained institution is something we have to live with in this state of negative entropy after the Fall.

---

Bob:

For your supposed intellectual reading, you seem to have missed St Thomas Aquinas - a far greater mind than GeeVarghese Mar Osthatios. You've also completely failed to address the points in my previous post - either you are unable to rebutt them?

Japan and Thailand provide excellent examples of old monarchies still in place, deeply respected and loved by the peoples of their respective countries - and with no scandals.

While we're at it - to label all on the right as unable to rise to the supposed intellectual level of an obscure Indian bishop whose name is unknown to the vast majority of scholars, is, at best, hilarious ranting, and at worst, obfuscation and hideous ignorance.

Wolfgang:

God did not want a Theocracy - who's advocating a Theocracy here?

Juan Diego:

You've then forgotten the excellent examples of the Royal Martyrs of Russia, Blessed Charles of Austria, King Charles the Martyr and countless other holy and blessed Royals since Henry VIII.

---

All I can say is, if the best arguments and debating tactics that the opponents of monarchy can come up with are these - I'm glad to be on the other side.

Well, it seems rather pointless to me to respond directly for several reasons. I certainly don't want to be a source of conflict or a cause for further sarcasm and insults, the point of the original thread seems to be lost, I don't share any of your assumptions, neither of us are going to change our points of view and the matter has been settled by an almost inexorable historical process--monarchy lost and attempts to revive them have been tragic at best.

I think its fine to refer to traditions and scholars of the past--we can't live without them--but tradition and scholarship existing for themselves or read and used out of context or seen outside of unfolding historical processes blinds us to the work of the Holy Spirit. Read Comblin writing on the Holy Spirit and get back to me.

If I provided some means of amusement for you or gave you something to think about, I'm satisfied. In any case, I don't want to be a source of conflict--and especially so about a matter decided by history and explained so well by Comblin or Jose Miranda or Gustavo Guttierez or Gee Varghese Mar Osthatios.

On the other hand, I apologize if you were somehow offended or bothered by a voice and assumptions different than your own.

Greetings on Epiphany!

bob r.

Dear Anastasios you said:

"1) Arabs are Semites, so how can they be anti-Semitic? Anti-Jewish, sure, but not Anti-Semitic. And before someone quotes Webster's dictionary in an attempt to state that Anti-Semitic means Anti-Jewish in modern English, I reject that definition as prejudiced and believe that our language should be updated (as it often is) to be more precise.

2) Iranians are not even Arabs anyway, but are "white people" being Aryans (Iran = Aryan).

I say:

Good comment! At one time the word Anti-Semitic meant exactly that. It was the European prejudice against the Semite Jews living in Europe. But now it becomes rediculous, considering that almost everyone in the Mediterrean has some Semite blood in their veins...not to mention the Arabs are almost pure Semites. I say almost, because they have quite a bit of European blood in them too.

Actually Aryans refers to the 'root' language that became the most dominant in Europe. I don't believe for a second that there were not other people...speaking other languages, in Europe. That of course would account for the differences in appearances.

As for Hitler, and the Germans in general, they were surrounded by Slavic nations. Now the Germans couldn't help but do what everyone else in Europe did; hate their neighbor.

So believe it or not, the Nazi's measured the facial features of the countries they conquered in order to see if they were pure 'Aryan'. It didn't matter that the Slavic languages were Aryan language too. To them they were an inferior people, or as Hitler said when asked to obey the League of Nations. "How can we take orders from people as inferior as the Czechs."

Zenovia

As for Monarchy or Democracy:

Does it really matter? If we are with God, He will be with us in whatever government we have.

Now at the time that we were revolutionizing the world with our revolt against Britain, we had to find legitimacy. Up until then, this legitimacy that protected the world from anarchy and chaos was given to a 'Church' anointed monarch. The monarch in other words, was made holy.

Well it seems to me, it was this lack of legitimacy that has our Founding Fathers mentioning and rementioning God in the Constitution, Declaration of Independance and what not. We too, and our form of government had to be made 'holy'. Otherwise how could our nation be presented to the world and acquire any trust and respectability? Is it any wonder then that England expected us to fall apart in our first twenty years.

Then of course there is something else to consider. What if George Washington had children of his own and not his wife's? Would he have given up the crown so easily?

Zenovia