Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
(The Second Coming, Yeats)
What kind of religion is it that can brook no criticism, that cannot hear alternative views about its code of morality, its ethical standpoint on issues that we face in the world today?
Now is a sad time for Muslims whose silence in response to the killing of workers in the publication office of Charlie Hebdo and the people in the kosher supermarket in Paris has been short in conviction while expressing their opposition to the actions of the terrorists.
Immediately, there were protests all over France which world leaders quickly cashed in on. There they all were, the black suits and the look at me aren't I concerned linking of arms as if they have personally suffered a loss.
Cynical, maybe, but as the world watches, why to miss a photo opportunity showing solidarity against terrorism? Er...didn't see any mention or looks of despair in relation to the 2,000 killed by Boko Haram in Nigeria. Not a peep, not a word of sympathy, not a flicker of awareness that in Africa and the Middle East, worse atrocities are taking place on a regular basis.
Islamic extremism is entering a new phase. Germany has already had protests against the Islaminisation of the country in three major cities. The country has the highest number of immigrants from Islamic states in all of the EU.
So Yeats was right when he foresaw the creature "moving its slow thighs with a gaze as blank and pitiless as the sun...slouching towards Bethlehem to be born".
Apart from Israel, every middle eastern country is ruled by dictators who will not brook any opposition to their rule. Arms are flooding into those countries instead of real help for the people in the form of education, housing and medical facilities. Now is the time for the leaders to act in unison against this threat of fundamental dogma, and not by linking arms for a hypocritical photo shoot.
