Killers, Victims, or Bystanders
By D. S. Mitchell
Indifference Is Seductive
Elie Wiesel, teacher, writer, philosopher and Auschwitz death camp survivor, said in a speech before the US Congress in 1999, “indifference can be tempting-more than that, seductive. It is much easier to look away from victims. It is after all, awkward and troublesome to be involved in another person’s pain and despair.”
Three Categories
Furthermore, “to be indifferent to that suffering makes the human being, inhuman. Indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor-never the victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten. The political prisoner, the starving children, the homeless refugees-not to respond to their plight, not to relieve their solitude by offering them a spark of hope is to exile them from human memory. And in denying their humanity, we betray our own. Indifference, then, is not only a sin, it is a punishment. Where I came from, society was composed of three simple categories: the killers, the victims, and the bystanders.”
Turn Away
Today’s “bystanders,” want to look away from the victims, to look anywhere but in the direction of the suffering.
Kindness Requires A Court Order
“I’m a good person,” President Trump has said. A man with a heart, he tells us. Mr. Trump seems to delight in the misery he is creating at our southern border. The plight of these children is horrific. They have been separated from their parents. They have lived in filthy cages. Without access to clean clothes, showers, decent meals, toothpaste, or phone calls to family. It has taken a court order to give showers.
Lifelong Scars
We have all seen television clips of dirty, crying children, behind wire fencing. I have seen their pain. I have heard their cries. The emotional trauma that is being perpetrated against these innocent children is appalling. These kids will surely bear the scars of this incarceration the rest of their lives.
One Of The Killers
President Trump, why are you promoting this evil? It is your administration that has brought so much pain to so many. You must have understood the repercussions of your actions. History will not see you as a bystander. No sir, you will be one of the killers. As of today, seven migrant children and twenty-six adults have died while in border patrol custody. Unimaginable, yet here we are in Trump’s real world.
ICE Raids
I think Mr. Trump is a racist. The rants we hear are directed against the brown people, not the white. There are millions of Canadians and Irish who are living in the United States “illegally”. There has been no ICE raids against those white “criminals”. Nor has there been demonizing rhetoric against the white skinned, undocumented aliens.
Taking Notes
Our government claims we are the wealthiest country on earth. I know we are the most generous people on earth. Our basic instinct is to help, not turn away. The American people want to help the world absorb the displaced refugees of these troubled countries. History is taking notes and the consensus will be scathing. Support legal immigration. Support humanitarian asylum. Don’t turn away. Make the Trump administration accountable.
