The silence is deafening

The silence is deafening.

There is something very wrong here.

Across much of the world, minority social groups are being oppressed, slaughtered or driven from their homes. In the Middle East and Africa, Christians are being driven out of the homes and places where they have lived for generations. They are being massacred in their thousands by fanatical Muslims. Women and young girls are raped and sold – even in cage lots ‒ as sex slaves, by these same fanatics. Boko Haram and the kidnapping of the Nigerian school girls is just a high profile case.

Oppression also occurs with a lesser profile. Other social groups, such as gays, are executed in Iran and jailed in Russia. Women in particular throughout the Islamic world are severely oppressed. In some places women cannot go outside without a male guardian, and they cannot drive a car, and they can be flogged if they do not wear concealing clothing. Even in Australia and other western countries, women can be segregated from men at public lectures in our universities, and sent to the back of the lecture theatre.

The silence is deafening.

The anti-capitalists, the socialist parties, the Greens, the unions and the communists who proclaim to be the great defenders of the oppressed are silent. Their silence is almost total. Almost, but not entirely. The unions, the Greens and the socialists rallied in numbers in all our capital cities to support Palestine against Israel, and to call for a boycott of Israel. The ‘left’ outnumbered any Palestinians at these rallies in support of the terrorist group Hamas, marching in the streets and chanting. Chanting “Free Palestine” and “From the river to the sea” and “Remember Khaybar oh Jews, remember Khaybar”.

The last two chants may give a clue as to why the defenders of the oppressed are silent about oppression of gays, women and Christians. They are obsessed with Israel. “From the river to the sea”  is a Hamas chant threatening the total extermination of all Jews from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean. “Remember Khaybar oh Jews, remember Khaybar” recalls the massacre of Jews by Muhammad’s army at Khaybar in 628AD. The deafening silence over the oppression of social minorities ends as soon as Israel and the Jews are involved. So are the socialist activists of the ‘left’ just anti-Semitic?

No, the core principle of the ‘left’ is the destruction of capitalism and its replacement with world-wide socialism. Because the left does not see those Muslims who carry out atrocities against women, non-Muslims and other social groups as capitalists, it supports them. And Israel is different – it is not just a nation - Israel represents democratic capitalism in a sea of chaos – and as such is to be attacked and destroyed.

There is something very wrong here.