On Steemfest I met with so many exceptional people. I think, I really felt the spirit of a new version of civilisation. Even when I strongly opposed some of the opinions I was confronted with, I still was listened to and so did I. I learned, I was inspired and hopefully, I tought and inspired some, too.

I wrote the following text in a very bad mood in German about a year ago, some days after the massacre in Paris, when French president Hollande decided to enforce bombing in Syria. With slight changes due to deeper understanding of some things today, I will provide a translation now, because the topic is as controversial as ever.

That day I expressed my hope for a better world from my voluntary, peaceful and free perspective.

Today, you can put as “reason” any event concerning the world these days and still find the following words useful:

Event xyz

Sure, I am shocked, sure, I am concerned. I want to scream, cry or just do something to free me from the stupor I´m stuck in.

I don´t really want to cite verses from the Bible or the Quran for finding out what everyone can extract from a religion for themselves. Religion can bring inner peace to one and fanaticism to the other.

Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal and thou shalt not lie.

These are for me the pillars of (western) civilization. Even if these are three of the Ten Commandments, they are not religious in the first place. I believe, it could be supposed if everybody in the world would live after these three rules, the world would be a much better place. These three rules are the basis for feeling safe and if the “killing” part would be expanded to “hurting” then this could be sufficient to “govern” every human interaction as principles.
What more would be needed? Disputing is needed! Tolerance towards the beliefs of anyone as long as conform to these pillars.

Muslims

I want to sit down with my Muslim friends and tell them how dreadful I feel about their religion, but I also want to learn from their answers. I also want them to tell me, why they oppose and even despise my (anticlerical) Christian beliefs, also I want to give them answers to probably better understand why I do what I am doing and why I believe what I believe. After these disputes I want to give them my hand and still call them “friend” or even “brother”. Respect is growing by understanding each other and respect is only earned by actions, not words. I´d always welcome all people sharing these three principles.
BUT if these three principles are violated, then it is my duty (and also the duty of society) to protect and defend these principles, if needed with intolerance, surely with emphasis and at a stretch also with violence.

Violence

Wait a minute! Violence? Personally, I believe violence is acceptable as a last option. At this point we really have to ask ourselves if and against who we are defending ourselves right now. We have to ask, if exactly this kind of defending violence is hitting at us right now. We should on a regular base pause for a moment and ask ourselves if we are – right now - losing part of our humanness by abandoning our moral principles.
Surely I am no politician, but I am strongly disagreeing with politics made these days (almost nowhere in the world). I disagree with luring Syrians and others, fleeing poverty and war into our countries, while they are needed there. I disagree with weapons being sold to dictators, I disagree with asylum camps being burned down. I disagree with putting Muslims under general suspicion, but I also disagree with the expectations some of the fugitives have when having arrived here. Especially I strongly disagree with opinions being forbidden. Banned opinions won´t disappear, they will rot, they will get poisonous, they will start boiling and finally over boil. EVERY opinion has to be discussed. This is the only way to debunk them.

Ideas and freedom of speech

Would it be that bad, if a completely abstruse opinion turned out to be just the right one? I am sure, that a lot of people would be amazed how many really abstruse opinions they still believe in. This is true for leftists, conservative and rightwing opinions and many more, as well. Shouldn´t it be easy to expose “crazy” ideas as what they are? Probably it´s time for radical rethinking?

Brainstorming

In most creatively working businesses “brainstorming” is used to find and develop new ideas. Here one of the most important rules is that there are no thinking-taboos. Each and every idea can be just the right one, even the one that appears the craziest one at first glance. The most important basic rule about this brainstorming is, to give every “Stormer” the feeling of being heard and being taken serious. Else, the excluded ones will no longer take part and will also not share their ideas the next time. This and nothing else should be the intention of politics.

Europe

We have to admit that Europe, as we knew it does not exist anymore since the years 2015 and 2016. There still is a chance Europe recovers like a phoenix from the ashes. This is not done by violence, not by even harder air raids, but by an anthem of freedom as the French Marseillaise

“Liberté, Liberté chérie, Combats avec tes défenseurs!”
(Liberty, cherished Liberty, Fight with thy defenders!)

This is the time to think about the correlation between terror and the refugee crisis: Why not show our symbols openly?
Muslims could react with peaceful verses from the Quran and like this hold a mirror up to ISIL.
Christians should proudly hold up their crosses and say: This is my symbol of liberty. This is the reason why I am helping you. This is why I despise violence.
Moralists could add their own chosen sign of peacefulness, too. Most of us unites the wish for living in peace and of being free.
The term “integration” can surely also mean, showing why we feel the urge helping hundreds of thousands of people. We should “bomb” ISIL with pictures of happy faces and an attached note that the pictured person is just learning to live free and without fear, soon carrying back home to Syria the torch of freedom and liberty.

Fear

It is absolutely right to have fear. But we should have fear for our freedom, for our liberty. These are endangered by more control, more interventions by the state, more violence against those who think different and also by wrongly and unhealthily realized terms of tolerance. If we accept this, ISIL will win. The initial idea of Western Civilization will decline.
Let us not call for vengeance, but let us mourn our dead and then sing an anthem of liberty and freedom, which has to be defended to the death. Let us show to the world how to defend them. Let´s show all the war mongers over the world that we will defend ourselves with the shield of liberty and freedom, but also with the spear of anger. Internal and external.

I wish this text would contain some less pathos but now and again it´s the right time for that.

Yours
pollux.one

PS: This is a 100% powerup post
Credentials: The first picture is an original from Amsterdam Steemfest, the rest was taken from Pixabay