I say we fight


We are all witnessing with horror the most monstrous hordes in recent history. They cut off heads and eat hearts, they crucify in public squares, they rape children, they sell women to slavery. 

They roam freely and unchallenged. They invade, they destroy, they torture, they murder. And they advertise it all. Proudly and shamelessly. They use every media available to show every atrocity they are committing. 

They want the whole world to see. They want the whole world to know. To know who they are and what they are capable of. And to be afraid. Very very afraid.

But what is the world doing about it? Governments are cowards, we say. Governments are their accomplices, if not worse. Perhaps. But what about us? What are we doing about it? I’m not only asking people in the Middle East. I’m asking all of us.

I’m asking you who are lucky enough to live in a free society. In a society where words and actions can make a difference. A society where votes can decide who comes to power and who doesn’t. Where decision makers can be forced to act, by the mere fear to be driven out of office. Are you the free citizens your Constitutions say you are?


I’m asking Christians. Aren’t these your fellow brothers and sisters who are being driven from their home, from their town and from their country? Aren’t these your fellow brothers and sisters who are being persecuted and massacred by the hundred and the thousands? Can you get on with your lives and watch it happen without lifting a finger?

I’m asking Muslims. Especially Sunnis. Is it not your Faith these barbarians are shaming? Is it not your Faith they are insulting? Is it not your Faith they are reducing to a hideous, bloodthirsty ideology? Can you really stand by and not defend what you hold most sacred?

I’m asking Jews. I’m asking those who didn’t forget that there was once a plague the world stood by and watched rise to power. This new plague is only different by name. The core is the same. The soul is the same. If its terrifying doctrine spreads everywhere and contaminates feeble minds around the globe, ready to do its bidding anytime, anywhere, where will you ever be safe?

I’m asking every man and every woman of every religion. Every man and every woman without religion. Isn’t it your children’s future that’s at stake? Do you want them to grow up in a world tolerant of these monsters if not ruled by them? If in three years they managed to take over larges territories in Iraq and Syria, territories larger than France, if in three years that managed to get almost every terror organization around the world to pledge allegiance to them, can you imagine what they could achieve in ten, twenty or thirty years?

Don’t take my word for it. Read, listen, watch. Then reach your own conclusion. But I urge you to hurry, time is running out. The plague is spreading fast. Men, women and children are being slaughtered. Now. Today. Not so far from where you live.

If you don’t do anything, what would that say about you? If all of us don’t do anything, what would that say about us? What would that say other than we deserve to be ruled by these hordes? Than we surrender. Than we give up on everything that makes us human.

So I say we fight.

We fight with any means at our disposal. We fight by bringing down any government that helps or supports them. We fight by refusing to recognize their de facto State. We fight by not allowing governments to officially or unofficially recognize that State. By forcing them to stop its expansion then to dismantle it, bringing to justice the monsters and their accomplices, in a Nuremberg-like trial. We fight by taking to the streets, in every city, in every country. By reminding leaders, presidents, kings or emirs that we are here. That they need to do what we tell them to do, because their destiny is in our hands. We fight by speaking out. We fight by writing. We fight by informing. By never giving up. We fight by always supporting and helping in any way we can our troops when they engage them. We fight by aiding the people who were lucky enough to escape them. And by actively preparing their return home.

I say we fight, so we can, once again, call ourselves humanity.

And you, what do you say? 


© Claude El Khal, 2014