Bullied
October 10, 2018
[Here is the right version of this site.]
FOR NINE months, Monika Schaefer, a peaceful, nature-loving Canadian violinist from Alberta, has been in prison in Germany.
Her crime? Making this video. She has done nothing else. She has not called for harm or retribution toward anyone. The very idea that this mild-mannered woman who volunteers to play violin in nursing homes and schools would promote hatred or violence is patently ridiculous. And for this she is in the hands of the world’s most powerful bullies and is portrayed in the Canadian media with dehumanizing rhetoric as a dark, Hitleresque figure. That such a powerless person as this middle-class artist should be arrested and held in a foreign country strongly suggests that what she said is true. As Theodore Fontane, a 19th century German author, said:
The reason people are silenced is not because they lie, but because they tell the truth. When people lie, their own words can be used against them. When they tell the truth, there is no other countermeasure except violence.
Seized in January when she was visiting family in Germany and attending the trial of a lawyer who has defended other activists (thousands of people have been imprisoned or fined in Germany for thought crimes), Schaefer is accused of inciting “hatred.” The clever thing about accusations of hatred is that they can never be conclusively disproven. Hatred is invisible. It lies within the human heart. You can never prove you don’t have it. A society that possesses the vestiges of a Christian sensibility honors charity, making this word an extremely effective weapon. Invert these claims of hatred. In reality, it is those who promote lies about World War II (for financial or political gain) who should be in prison. Read it all in a mirror.
Imagine calling the police and saying, “I’ve just been robbed!!” — and then being thrown in prison by the police for being robbed. The twisted logic of imprisoning those with Monika’s claims is similar. Monika’s brother, Alfred, is also in prison for his Internet videos. Their ongoing trial is a journey into the absurd with the basic principles of international law overturned. Whatever the outcome, they will be crushed.
But please don’t think this is just about the Holocaust. It is not.
That subject is an effective filter for identifying those who are most capable of resistance, those who possess so much honor and integrity that they will risk intense social ostracism and even imprisonment or death to question received wisdom with facts and logic. Honor and integrity are more dangerous than guns.
Schaefer’s imprisonment is ultimately about thought itself — and individuality. We should not be advocates in response of mindless, undiscriminating “free speech.” Only the truth deserves to be disseminated. It is no accident that a powerless, middle class artist is involved. The artist is often the first person to cry out. Beautiful music — Schaefer has obviously devoted herself to beautiful music — instills a love of truth. If she were a musical celebrity, she would have all kinds of interests to protect. But she is not. The middle class has less at stake and it must be crushed intellectually and psychologically because of its natural instincts against tyranny, as the kulaks were crushed under Communism. It is precisely because Schaefer is reasonable, courteous, kind, gentle and non-threatening that she is especially dangerous. The people who are responsible for her imprisonment in Germany, we can surmise, are deeply afraid of these qualities and their inherent persuasive power. They must envy these qualities. We are living in the pages of a dystopian novel. Legions of conservative writers quote George Orwell — but say nothing about a living example of his bleak warnings. Feminists predictably say nothing about outrageous abuse of a woman.
Monika’s video may reasonably be disliked. Disputing her conclusions is also fair game. But imprisonment? An obscene injustice. B’nai Brith Canada, a branch of the intensely powerful, international Jewish organization, initiated a complaint before the German government and has applauded her imprisonment. Mark Bonokoski, a columnist for The Toronto Sun who wished an agonizing death on another Canadian who sought the true history of World War II, wrote this summer that Monika deserved imprisonment.
The bully, Mark Bonokoski
In Jasper, Alberta, Schaefer, before her arrest, was harassed and bullied on the street. She talked before her arrest about her experiences in the “little gingerbread town” in the mountains here. The Alberta Society of Fiddlers canceled its association with her and her political candidacy within the local Green Party was also destroyed. However, she has also received great support. She wrote in a letter to the Society of Fiddlers before her arrest:
From the volume of messages of support that I have been receiving, it is becoming quite clear to me that there are people in every village, town and hamlet who agree with my conclusions on the “holocaust”. These messages have come to me from all over Canada and the world, and from many places in Alberta. But the vast majority of those people do not speak publicly about it, because there is a high price to pay. They are afraid of losing their jobs, their friends, and their community standing. An example is made of anyone who dares speak out, to frighten others who might be tempted to question the prevailing dogma. I invite you to read about “ritual defamation”, something that I am becoming an expert on. Evidence and facts have no bearing in this process.
Of the people who have viewed my “Sorry Mom, I was wrong about the holocaust”, those who have voted their approval or disapproval online have consistently done so in a ratio of approximately 3:1 likes over dislikes. Although not the final word, this ratio suggests that many see this video as a positive contribution, well within community standards.
[…]
Free thinkers are often found within the artistic community. I remember long ago hearing about political prisoners in countries far away, such as poets in the Soviet Union who were jailed because of their writings. A tyrannical state is threatened by free thinkers, so the tyrannical state often persecutes its artists. But it is strange when the artist community persecutes their own. That is the context in which I find the actions of the Alberta Society of Fiddlers to be so shocking.
As Lasha Darkmoon writes:
Because few people with social standing have the courage to point out the megalomania and searing hypocrisy evident in [these persecutions], these malignancies grow unchecked, conferring upon our supposedly egalitarian society a Talmudic supremacism consisting of special prerogatives for bullying and hating marginalized dissidents and non-conformists, who have little or no voice in the mainstream media and are dehumanized with impunity, to the glee of the guardians of “human rights.”
Monika is the victim of breathtakingly arrogant hatred.
“Every Jew, somewhere in his being, should set apart a zone of hate — healthy, virile hate — for what the German personifies and for what persists in the German.” — Elie Wiesel, Legends of Our Time, chapter 12: “Appointment with Hate,” (Schocken Books, 1982).
Monika Schaefer is a hero, a person of great honor and selfless integrity appearing on the pages of this ever unfolding dystopian novel.
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