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Peacemakers
Islam is sometimes referred to as the Religion of Peace
Go on, won’t you bless the peacemakers—
The ones who make peace with the beasts.
They think that would take them like Meccans
Around the black Kaaba in bliss.
So mindful and calm, transcendental,
And almost forgetting to live—
They cannot care less for the dead, all
Who were raped and slayed. They forgive.
Peacemakers, who make peace with evil,
Devouring themselves as we speak—
They think of Islam as of an equal
To what makes us happy and meek.
Too lazy to learn from the ages
Of murders and conquests and slaves—
They think that the war Islam wages
Will pass by the one who behaves.
Alas, that’s a story that’s ancient:
A crocodile can’t be appeased.
Its peace is when it’s satiated.
Peacemakers, you’ll bring us that peace.
.
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Michael Vanyukov is a Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Psychiatry, and Human Genetics at the University of Pittsburgh. He immigrated to the United States 30 years ago as a refugee from the Soviet Union.
This is a great poem, Michael, penetrating the evil of the term, “peacemakers!” You are so correct! Such deceptive movements whether religious, social, or political are meant to overcome critics and make the evil they do palatable. In the end it is utter destruction while those who are silenced by death or are still in opposition to their barbarism are declared the enemies of peace.
Dear Roy, I appreciate your approval and am glad we are on the same page in regard to those who refuse to recognize evil.
The history of Islam from its very beginning is that of a ferociously proselytizing religion that looks upon non-believers as second-class dhimmis at best, and as evil idolators at worst. The destruction that ISIS wrought on some of the most precious monuments of the pagan past, out of sheer religious insanity, is a tell-tale sign of Islamic attitudes.
One small correction is needed in the second quatrain. The proper passive form of the verb should be SLAIN, not “slayed.” The verb is not commonly used in spoken English today. so this irregular form will not likely be known to those who have learned English as a second tongue.
Dear Joseph, you are certainly right. “Proselytizing” is very mildly put when speaking of how Islam subjugated nations and religions, colonizing Middle East, North Africa, and a large part of Asia and even Europe. It is a miracle that it was stopped.
Thank you for pointing out the relatively uncommon word. It would make no difference meter-wise if I used “slain,” but it sounded better to me because of the preceding regular verb form. Ironically, I knew it despite, or maybe even because of, not being a native speaker. My English is too bookish: I learned it, nowhere close to perfection, from reading. There were no English speakers around in Moscow, and I’ve barely gained any more proficiency after immigrating.
Michael, you’re correct to identify would-be peacemakers as ones who are devouring themselves, and to imperfectly rhyme their “peace” at the end of the poem with “appeased”–especially as “appeased” refers to a crocodile that can’t be appeased. Evan has found a most appropriate photo to illustrate your poem, for if I recall rightly, it is from one of the videos of “Jihadi John,” a man of British citizenship who murdered several British and American men by beheading, and filmed the brutal details to terrorize the world.
Jihadi John was Mohammed Emwazi, a Kuwaiti holding a British passport. He was happily killed in an American drone strike which evaporated him.
Why he was allowed to live and grow up in the United Kingdom is a larger question, which no one seems to want to answer.
It becomes clearer every day that only the Israelis have the right idea about how to respond to terrorism. The rest of the Western world seems mentally enslaved to a kind of suicidal humanitarianism.
He was allowed to live in the UK because the West has been suckered / guilted into accepting the fantasy of multiculturalism, the “diversity is our strength” mantra, and other utopian rubbish.
Dear Margaret, I cherish your approval. The peacemakers, when it comes to Islam and its insatiable lust for world domination, codified in the Koran and the Sunnah, are far from being blessed. Right now, they demand from Israel to lose the war started by Muslim terrorists in the most fiendish fashion. The “Biden” junta of appeasers has just declared the presence of Jews in their ancestral land illegal—only to buy votes of antisemites and America-haters. As Joseph and Cheryl alluded, it defies any logic that people like that are not only allowed to invade the West but form politics.
Right on target, Cheryl.
I noticed your last name, and know that any Russian (or Ukrainian?) has a long historical memory of the Tatar oppression. Just ask any Armenian, Greek, or Serb about Islam and they’ll reach into that same memory. Unfortunately, those who have never felt really felt Islam’s “peace” seem dead-set on learning the hard way.
Dear Adam, you are correct – in part. The name is Russian, but in Russia, few traces of that memory survive. I actually touched upon that in discussing “Islamophobia,” a misleading invention intended to shame Islam’s victims and protect a totalitarian ideology (https://unchartedforest.blogspot.com/2010/08/islamophobia.html). My understanding of it comes not from historical memory but from studying Islam’s scripture and history, let alone its present. Religious tolerance, the blessing of this country, has its dark side as well, shielding that ideology because it calls itself “religion.”