During my absence Ted wrote:
You can look away and say that the majority of Muslims are peaceful, friendly folk, and that they obviously do not pose a threat to you. In the long run you will be annihilated by these radicals if you do not resist them. There is no middle ground on this. None.
I sense that you don't believe that such a thing can actually happen. Not too far back in history far too many Jews, Roms, homosexuals, et alia, all believed that the Nazis couldn't REALLY be so inhumane as to murder them and use their bodies for diabolical medical experiments.


Ted, I think the great threat to positive developments in the current world predicament comes from *both sides of this fundamentalist clash. And the side that worries me the most isn't that of the extremists Muslims - it's that of the U.S. industro-military government. For they have the most power. They have all the balls [sic] in their court. Sure, I could look away and say that the majority of Americans are peaceful, friendly folk, and that they obviously do not pose a threat to me. In the long run though, they might threaten to play a key role in annihilating mankind's chance at positive development by allowing these few radicals bearing a handful of vested interests to rule. Ignore this at your own peril, world.[g]
I jest slightly, but seen in this light, one must assume that if Ted and Rous. were Muslims, say in Palestine, they would fully approve of, if not applaud the WTC terrorist attacks of last year and others like them. Odd to think of it that way, isn’t it?

As to your question of what I would do if extremists Muslims attacked 'my' country.
I’m not much for hypotheticals really, especially when sitting in a country with a decent size Muslim population. I certainly wouldn’t be fighting along side other Muslim Germans against the ‘great evil’ that is Islam. Nobody is going to talk me into war! ‘Oh, but what if’….? – What if what! This is not 1939, ‘my’ country is not being attacked, nor ‘my’ ‘civilisation’. Mindless military exponents should fly their flags and die for their flags – but I’ll live without one, thanks, I don't have a country and I think little of 'countries', per se. Let's be honest, the whole concept is dreadfully outdated. Hang on to it if you must, like biologists cling to that fouling Darwinist dogma as if sent from heaven, but it's getting us nowhere.
The truth is that my continual displacement in life has made me more conscious of that which I'm not, than that which I am. I see any violence as an attack on us all, because I can’t pretend to be a certain something I’m not. I couldn’t honestly describe myself as German or Australian, or British or European, even if I wanted to. My positive feeling of personal identity comes from the diversity I've experienced not the habitual traditions, rituals, and conventions. I have, as such, been forced to relearn things over and over again; customs, conversation and social conventions. I've been forced to realise how completely arbitrary these things are. Class, race, religion and the like are all just a thin facade behind which we are all exceedingly similar. Clearly you and those extremist Muslims are too, Ted! Both factions here are underpinned by the same types of misconceptions, misunderstandings and prejudice.
Constantly underlining our differences in order to feel special and build our egos is temps perdi. After playing so many parts - trying to mimic that which is expected of me, I have, like many, had the chance to be able, to some extent, collapse all that shite in on itself. The more each of us strives for this the better off we’ll be, I’m sure. We are all no doubt indelibly marked by that which we've seen, the 'culture' that defines us, but surely we should have, or rather want desperately to have a certain anticipation of that which we'll never see – and feel all sides – sense our wholeness.
I'm a bit loopy though, so don't mind me. I mean, I want to radically revalue the normative value of race and division in writing, and history, for myself. I want to wend my way back down the ladder of genetic memory and sense the unbroken chain of life that has led us here. I want to return to the source; centre myself; find divinity and hope; and raise the dead – not create them.