Schools are tackling how to teach the events surrounding the 9/11 terrorist attacks to our children.
Many schools are placing an emphasis on the obviously heroic acts of first responders. We are all in for that.
So many gave their lives so that others may have lived on that day. And, indeed, the event did rally Americans around the flag and boosted our sense of patriotism.
With all that said, we must make sure that we do not shy away from vilifying those who committed this atrocious act, and explain clearly to our next generation, who didn’t experience the horrors of that day, who the enemy is who perpetrated this mass murder of nearly 3,000 New Yorkers.
There are some who will try to gloss over it for fear that they might be labeled Islamophobic or that it will make some students feel uncomfortable.
That’s nonsense. There’s a way to talk about the religious fanatics who hate America and carried out this attack without castigating all Muslims as being terrorists or hating America.
There is a difference between an overwhelming number of hardworking, God-fearing, patriotic American Muslims, who seek to assimilate and adapt to our nation, and the religious fanatics who hate America and Western civilization to the point that they would seek to kill thousands of innocent Americans to make their point.
We don’t shy away from teaching children the evil of Nazis and their genocidal quest for world domination on the grounds that doing so might make us appear anti-German, or offend those of German descent.
The same applies to Japan, which was the aggressor in attacking America in 1941.
There is a need to tell it like it is.
Vilifying Nazism is not vilifying Germans. Vilifying Islamofascism is not vilifying Muslims.
Just about every German-American was assimilated into our society and fought against Germany in the war, as did the Italian-Americans, who fought against their relatives in the early part of the conflict.
If we want to survive as a nation, we must instill within our children why we think our way of life is better than those of the enemies that tried to wipe us out.
Last week, we wrote glowingly about how the state of Florida is now mandating that high school students learn about the evils of socialism and communism as practiced in Cuba, China, Venezuela, and the former Soviet Union.
We have to know who our enemies are if we want to maintain our way of life.
Those preaching Nazism, communism and religious fanaticism as practiced by the Islamofascists must be called out. Our youth must know who Osama bin Laden and his ilk were and how they wanted to turn us into a Taliban-like society where girls can’t go to school past the sixth grade, where women must cover themselves from head to toe and where democracy is snuffed out and there is no free press.
A two-page article in Newsday this week discussed how schools are contemplating their lesson plans.
The words “kindness” and “courage” were each used twice. The words “Islamists,” “bin Laden,” “religious fanatics” and “anti-American” were never mentioned, or even alluded to.
The heroes of that day deserve our focus and gratitude. But let’s not forget the villainous religious Islamofascist zealots who wanted not only to kill Americans, but to kill our Western civilization as well.