Berlin-Tehran: the Counter-Enlightenment Axis

Earlier this year Leeds University bowed for the forces of obscurantism and intimidation in cancelling a series of events on the theme "Hitler’s Legacy: Islamic Antisemitism in the Middle East", involving Matthias Küntzel, a Hamburg-based author and political scientist who specialises in the threat of Islamic fundamentalism. Since the 9/11 demo "Stop the Islamization of Europe" was prohibited in Brussels by the Socialist mayor of that city under the excuse of 'security fears', this seems to have become the standard excuse.

Nevertheless, Leeds University at some point retrieved their moral and intellectual backbone and reissued the invitation to Küntzel, who this week finally held the oration on his new book "Jihad and Jew-Hatred: Islamism, Nazism and the Roots of 9/11" to an audience of about 120 people.

Melanie Phillips in a recent post on the subject "The Nazi roots of Muslim antisemitism" writes: "Muslims despised Jews as second-class citizens, but they did not see them as a global conspiracy. They do now - and that’s because of the influence of the Nazis. Key to this was the alliance during the 1930s between the Arab Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al Husseini, and the Nazis."

Küntzel: "Islamism ... was established as a mass movement by the Muslim Brotherhood, which stands in relation to Al Qaeda as the Bolsheviks did to communism. The Brotherhood is a revolutionary political movement focused almost entirely on Zionism and the Jews. It is inspired by two sources: the Koran and Islamic theology, plus Nazi doctrine and influences, using not only Nazi-like patterns of action and slogans but also, historically, Nazi funding."

In "Yes my Friends, I will Call for War" we have seen how historical, colonial ties led Nazism and Fascism into the Middle East where it fell on the fertile breeding ground of Islamic collectivism and subjectivism, the traits it has in common with the European - overwhelmingly Germanic - Counter-Enlightenment movement, which was a reaction started by Swiss born Frenchman Rousseau against the rationality of the Enlightenment, giving later rise to philosophies in the same vein by Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Marx, through to the Nazist Heidegger and postmoderns Foucault et al.

Phillips quotes Küntzel as follows: "For Islamists, the issue at stake is not the welfare of individual Palestinians, but the abolition of Enlightenment, reason, and individual freedom – achievements whose spread is attributed primarily to the Jews."

So, there you have it: the Enlightenment is a Jewish project! Nothing could be further from the truth, but it is one of the lies Middle East conspiracy theories seem to thrive on, and another interface of Marxism and Nazism with Islam: the aversion to Reality and Reason.

Moving the attention to Shi'ism Phillips further quotes: "This Nazi/Islamist propaganda also made an impact in Iran, where it reached a certain Ayatollah Khomeini: even the German consulate in Tehran was surprised by the success of this propaganda.

"Throughout the country spiritual leaders are coming out and saying ‘that the twelfth Imam has been sent into the world by God in the form of Adolf Hitler’ we learn from a report to Berlin in February 1941. So, ‘without any legation involvement, an increasingly effective form of propaganda has arisen, which sees the Führer and Germany as the answer to every prayer… One way to promote this trend is sharply to emphasize Muhammad’s struggle against the Jews in the olden days and that of the Führer today.’"

It therefore may not come as a very big surprise that today the same Axis is revived in reaction to French President Nicolas Sarkozy's demand that in the event that the U.N. Security Council should prove incapable of measures in the Iran nuclear issue, Europeans take action against the recalcitrant Iranian stance.

It is only by applying massive economic pressure, Sarkozy argued, that "a catastrophic alternative" could still be avoided, "either the Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran." The policy presented by Sarkozy is in fact the only non-military option available. It is only the European Union - in casu Germany - that is in a position to force a change in Iranian policy without the use of military force.

In his article "Berlin and Vienna Stand Against the West: European Divisions in the Iranian Bomb" in World Politics Review above mentioned German author Matthias Küntzel writes: "The former Director of the German-Iranian Chamber of Commerce in Tehran, Michael Tockuss, drew attention to Germany's importance for Iran when he noted, in an interview with the German magazine Focus , that "around two-thirds of Iranian industry is essentially equipped with plant and machinery of German manufacture. The Iranians are thoroughly dependent upon German replacement parts and suppliers."

Here's the European reaction to Sarkozy's proposal for a unilateral European boycott against Iran: "... Germany and Austria ... have rejected it. ... German Chancellor Angela Merkel is supposed in principle to support the Sarkozy proposal, but has explained Germany's hesitations by reference to her Social Democratic coalition partners."

The cooperative Counter-Enlightenment Axis and their inability of spotting objective Evil never fails! Their alternative: "... Germany, Austria, and Russia are prepared now to accept Iran's nuclear facilities as long as they are placed under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). They have thus effectively shelved the strategy hitherto pursued by the U.N. Security Council."

"By opposing the prompt passage of a new sanctions resolution, Germany has, in effect, departed from the Western block in order to make common cause with China and Russia against the core Western powers. It is remarkable that in taking this unprecedented step it is coming to the aid of a government that denies the Holocaust and wants to eliminate Israel."

"The question of whether a country or society has drawn the correct lessons from the history of National Socialism is not to be answered by pretty speeches, but only in practice. As concerns Germany's and Austria's Iran policy, the answer is clearly "no." Iran's progress in obtaining a nuclear capacity casts the shadow of a potential nuclear Holocaust over the Middle East. Berlin and Vienna are standing on the front lines: not however with those who are attempting to avert the catastrophe, but rather with those who are, for whatever reasons, paving the way for it."

Amorality, as a result of the rejection of Reality as posited by Counter-Enlightenment Axis is today alive and well, and unfaltering.

Update: A lot of material is suddenly surfacing about Amin al Husseini. Not only was he the Nazi Mufti of Jerusalem, he also appears to have been directly involved in Ottoman atrocities committed against Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians in the aftermath of the World War I (see comment by Politics and Free Thinking). It's hushed up, but Yassir Arafat was related to him. For the completeness of the files, here are the relevant links - Hat tip Jack:

- "Tell the Children the Truth"
- "Pearls of Wisdom" This is an important historic document. Please let us know if it ever fails, or is removed.