What Will Our Choices Be?

“There are worse things than death.”

Those words were spoken to me by the nurse practitioner who works for my ob/gyn. Before working for my doctor, she had worked as an oncology nurse for several years. She had seen the long, drawn out suffering of many of her patients and had realized that death can be preferable to a life of agony.

She spoke those words to me shortly after the death of my newborn son. He had been born with a genetic disorder and died when he was two days old. She herself had lost a two day old baby many years before and understood a lot about life, and death and grief.

Her words have come back to me two and a half years later as I read the news of the Muslims rioting over the Mohammed cartoons. Until now, Europe has shown a dreadful apathy (or is it fear?) regarding the influx of Muslim immigrants and their demands for accommodation of their beliefs. For the Islamists, freedom of speech, freedom of religion and, quite frankly, freedom of any sort do not apply to the infidels. If Westerners in the past have had any misconceptions regarding the mindset of Muslims, I think that time should be over.

The question is: Where do we go from here? Officials of the US and British governments have been unwilling to take a stand for free speech in this matter. Their responses have been nothing short of groveling.

Western democracies protect the religious freedom of Muslims. They are free to say that Jesus was not the son of God. They are free to say that Jesus didn’t die on the cross or rise from the dead. They are free to say that Christians are polytheists. Where, though is the protection of a non-Muslim’s right to say that Mohammed was a false prophet? When Islamists want to curtail our freedom of speech, it is time for us to just say NO.

Any disagreement with Islamic doctrine is met with threats of violence and we in the West just cower. We don’t want any trouble. Maybe if we don’t provoke them, they’ll just go away. How long will it be until ‘Don’t criticize us or we’ll kill you” turns into “Become one of us or we’ll kill you”? One year? Five years? Ten years?

Hundreds of years ago, Arab marauders subjugated Africa and Asia by forcing Islam on the native populations at the point of the sword. Nothing has changed. Today, their descendants want to force their ideology on the world by throwing rocks, shooting people and blowing up buildings. If we don’t wake up to reality now, will we find ourselves with only two choices: convert or die.

Is this the future we want for our children (especially our daughters)? Do we want them enslaved to ignorance and violence? Some things are worse than death.