Interview about my new book:
“About persecutors and those who have been persecuted”
(The book will soon be available in English)
2010-11-22
Roland Fakler
speaking to journalist
M. D.
Interview about my new book to journalist M.D.
Quotes from the book: in blue
Mr. Fakler you have published a new book. Why did you write this book?
I have written this book, because I had to say something very important, something that had not yet been written, at least not with this clarity, as far as I know.
What‘s it all about?
My book with the title: “About persecutors and those who have been persecuted”, deals with a central problem of world history. In my opinion it deals with the most important problem of world history. It is about the question: I quote the cover text:
“Why became the so-called great people in world history persecutors, if they had the power and why were they often persecuted, if they were looking for new ways of thinking as artists, writers, painters, composers and founders of religions? Why have the great ones in world history done so much harm? Where is the problem? How can it be solved?”
Why do you call the Great ones „so called“?
Because these „Greats“, for example Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, Mao,….but also the great founders of religion, like Jesus and Paul, who must be regarded as the actual founder of Christianity or Mohammed too have not achieved to become as great, that they had been really wanted. With this fact the whole disaster begins: namely tyranny. One had to have them. Whoever didn’t want to have them had been threatened and persecuted and often persecuted till today.
Actually today this horror story is to be continued in the Arabic and African states.
This has something to do with the structure of the human brain. If somebody is not great enough he cannot be a good ruler. His effect on others is depressing and humiliating. Only if somebody has achieved to rest in himself, his effect is liberating. In my opinion this can only be achieved if somebody has a lonely life concentrating on himself.
Who has achieved that goal?
Nobody, as much as I know. At least I cannot mention any name. And that is the problem to which I would like to alert.
How do you proceed in your book?
The book examines the biographies of the few people, that had been perhaps hundred, who have shaped the political history of the world by 90 percent. The biographies are examined with the aim to find out:
“…to what extend somebody was a persecutor or was persecuted or to what extend he has added a spiritual contribution to the persecution of others. This book is about the question, how persecution arises, how it is justified and above all how it can be restricted or prevented.
The first step to abolish an evil is, that one recognises it, examines and makes it conscious. It is about an eternally human problem, that is connected narrowly with the nature of the human being, that originated with the human being and that will be here, as long as there are human beings.
It’s about freedom and tyranny, about fortune and misfortune of people and nations, about just and unjust rule.”S.19
Therefore the book will be valid eternally.
That’s very demanding. Why had the book not been written long ago?
You should not put this question to me. Ask those who have missed to write this book. I felt competent to examine this problem and look for a solution, because I myself had to deal with it, because I myself have gone through a lifelong tag-of-war with my fellow humans, and because of my development I can explain a lot. I have written the book that I would have needed in my youth, in order to find my way easier.
Where does your knowledge come from?
The truest statements about life derive from my own experiences. To this I add what I have heard and read from others. One can believe that or not. But of course, there are more reliable and less reliable sources of the true history. One always should ask about the intention of the writer. Does he want the truth or does he want to spread a certain ideology? If one had been occupied with history for ones lifetime, one recognizes patterns and structures, that occur eternally. Someday one feels the need to pass on one’s knowledge and wisdom and to write a book. Here I am developing a theory. I combine my acquired knowledge from books and my own experiences to explain the path of history.
Who should read the book?
It is dedicated: To all those, who are striving for knowledge, insight and understanding, who want to live in a better world and believe that we can create it by learning from the mistakes of the past. For all those, who consider the liberal-democratic order the best of the world and for all those who want to defend and justify it.
Above all spiritual leaders and strong personalities should read it, especially artists who, like me, are involved in a tug-of-war, in order to better understand the problem of life and learn to fight fairly, because:
He, who can’t but away any rejection, any teasing, any offense, knows nothing about the nature of life. He is predestined, to cause big disaster and should not get the least power, which would allow him to take revenge for offenses that are none.S.15 above
Most of us are neither involved in a tug-of-war nor in power struggles and they do not belong to the “Great ones” of history. Why should normal-citizens read the book?
The book wants to arrange easy legibly fundamental history-knowledge, confirm this knowledge with quotations, show connections and come to conclusions. S.8 It therefore is worthwhile to read it. It serves the expansion of everybody’s horizon. Whoever has little time to read, with this book he gets an overview about world history? It is a book “against forgetting” but it addresses a broader context. In Germany we had not only two dictatorships, the Nazism and communism. We have to work on the millennia-long dictatorship of the Church too, with its countless victims throughout the inquisition, the witch hunts, the religious wars. The book admittedly is focused mainly on Europe and Germany however it deals with a timeless and global problem.
Why had history been a horror story?
“Half strong” men and their intolerant philosophies are the central problem of world history. In relationship to their greatness they all had too much uncontrolled power and this they often had, because they got it from desperate people, who believed, a young, mighty dictator would solve all their problems. They did not know about the dangers that a dictator always brings along with himself, because the strong must go through a crazy and dark world and he provokes a tug-of-war, therefore dictators always bring big disaster over their blind obeying followers and their opponents. I show the dangers and problems, which are rooted quite deep in the nature of the human being. I state something about the nature of the human brain.
The book appears with a subtitle namely: „Lessons from world history“.
What should we learn from world history?
Cause of all evil is the nature of the human, especially of the male brain, that is prone to aggression, megalomania, greed and lust for power, chosen people delusional and self-overestimation. This creates disastrous thinking. It is disastrous thinking for example, if people believe that the world is only perfect when all people are Muslims or Christians or Communists or pure-bred Aryans ... The freedom of thought and criticism of ominous thoughts are extremely important. Power must always be limited, monitored and criticized. With this book I would like to take fanatics all the air out of their minds and fill them with reason, as I declare, that there can be no chosen peoples, no infallible books, and no absolute truths. I show, which disastrous effects sacred texts and blindly believed ideologies have had that no one dared to criticize. Even today in many parts of the world there are persecutors and persecuted people: in many Islamic countries and in many countries of Africa, in Nigeria, in China, Iran, North Korea, Syria,... The problem comes never to an end. Some things had been learned by now, especially in Europe, on the Christian side, through critics and enlightened man, from an incredibly bloody history. There is still much to learn, especially by the Islamic community. Islam must go through an enlightenment, like Christianity did, and that is only achieved with criticism.
Are the religions to blame for all?
I would say totalitarian ideologies are to blame. But there had been religions with earthly gods, namely Nazism and communism. They also have divided the people like many religions, into chosen and damned ones, in true believers and false believers, and hereby have caused. hatred and persecution. Religions should help to live and help to bring peace to all people. The people have a strong need for religion and religion would have an important function in society, but what we have is not good. Just because the existing religions do not work liberating, but for the most part act oppressive and threatening. In the last chapter of my book I therefore deal with the question:
What is a good religion? P.332
The book is a justification of the liberal democracy, free thinking and an advocacy for human rights, that must stand over the religions and ideologies. This can only work if religion and state are separated.