We're all Muslims now
and black and sick and Asian and Jewish and gay and old and homeless and catholic and refugees and artists and women and prisoners and disabled and...
What has happened this weekend strips us all of a little bit of humanity. You don't notice the little bits being chipped away until you turn around one day and look for compassion and find there's nothing there.
Two things have been going round in my head all weekend. The first is Martin Niemöller’s poem:
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out —
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out —
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out —
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.
Niemöller was a German Lutheran pastor interned in Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps from 1938 to 1945. He initially supported Hitler and his poem is an attempt to address the guilt he felt.
And the second thing is the Manics’"If you tolerate this your children will be next"
David Slack @slack2thefuture says it much better than me, well he is a professional writer after all,
“Remember sitting in history, thinking “If I was alive then, I would’ve…”
You’re alive now. Whatever you’re doing is what you would’ve done.”
What are you going to do?
Labels: charity, heroes, idiots, music, poetry, politics, society