By Beryl Wajsman, Institute for Public Affairs of Montreal
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Every generation has witnessed the oaths of free men and women maintaining vigilance for the survival and success of liberty. Defenders of the Spanish Republic swore "No Pasaran!" They shall not pass! The fascists shall not pass. The valiant souls of the Warsaw Ghetto fighters staved off Nazi might longer than any national army and swore that, "Yet one day our time will come!" The challenge of a brave, young American President standing in West Berlin and looking east daring Soviet tyrants that if they did not think freedom works "Lass' sie nach Berlin kommen!" Let them come to Berlin!
Republican Spain; the Warsaw Ghetto; West Berlin were all tiny embers of freedom. But those embers kept hope alive and roared into great flames of liberty. Today the world once again faces a threat as deadly as fascism, Nazism and communism. After a century flooded by an orgy of blood that killed some 80 million, the free world is defied, and defiled, by the murder and mayhem of Islamism and the bloodlust of its theocratic hegemony. Once again free men and women are called upon, in Thomas Jefferson's words, to "Pledge eternal vigilance over any attempt at tyranny over the mind of man."
Today, as we commemorate the 40th anniversary of a victory over an attempted national extermination, we have words as well. Words as old as the scriptures and as bold as our dreams. And they come from today's tiny ember of freedom. They come from the family of free nations' frontline defender. They come from Israel, the reborn David that withstood the onslaught of Arab Goliaths those forty summers ago. The words are those spoken by tank commanders when they take up their commissions. They march up a mountain to an ancient hilltop fortress where 900 men, women and children withstood Roman assaults and finally chose suicide over submission. That hilltop is called Masada. And the oath that is taken promises that "Metzadah shuv lo tipol!" Masada shall not fall again! Not just the physical Masada. But the Masada of collective memory and witness. The Masada that belongs to all men and women who choose to live free.
It belongs to Canadians, too. We areinheritors ofa proud and generous landthat sacrificed more sons and daughters in the past century for the defence of freedom than even theUnited States as a proportion of population. Our bold new Prime Minister has rekindled Canadians' passion for pride and purpose in the defense of liberty around the globe. And it is a sad reality in our world thatpart of that purpose requires sacrifice for the defense of the free. Often, too little help comes too late.
As with Poland in 1939, England in 1940, Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in1968, among others, we again face despotismthreateningdemocracy. As we recall those six days in June in that summer of the brave and the bold, we must remain vigilant in the face of Ahmadenijad's threat of a second holocaust while he denies the first. As we remember how Israel was celebrated as liberty's lamp forty years ago, we must respond with vigour to those like Montreal's Sawsan Kalashe who accuse Israel of "apartheid" and instigate boycotts while lionizing Palestinian homicide bombers who tear innocents' flesh from their bones.
The spectre of radical Islammenacing the west, with Israel as its first prey, demands a response from us all andchallenges us to action.The retrograde Imams and tinpot dictators ofthe Islamic world do not hate us in the west for what we do wrong, but hate us they do for precisely what we do right. Live free. Part of their attempted tyranny over our minds is psychological subversion in addition to physical threat. It is about the debasement of language. Turning black into white and white into black. They cannot stand the challenge of the battleground of free ideas. It is the new cloak of the old tyrannies.
They're betting that we are too feckless and fey for any redemptive acts of courage and conscience. As I reflect on how those six days in June, 1967 still inspire all free men and women, I'm willing to bet they're wrong!
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