“As long as one dissident is in prison, our freedom will not be true. As long as one child is hungry, our life will be filled with anguish and shame. What all these victims need above all is to know that they are not alone; that we are not forgetting them, that when their voices are stifled we shall lend them ours, that while their freedom depends on ours, the quality of our freedom depends on theirs.”
I get the privilege of talking and studying the Holocaust every year for several months. And one of the final things I get to analyze and talk around with students is the speech given back in 1986 by Elie Weisel. Weisel’s nobel prize acceptance speech is an excellent example of using rhetorical strategies to emphasize his purpose and ends with a distinct call to action for the listener. BUT, I want to focus today on this one particular paragraph that does a great job at solidifying his message.
Weasel is all about the role of the community. The idea that it takes a village is a concept rooted in ancient biblical tradition. And Wesiel does a wonderful job of illustrating that idea when he talks about how we are all connected. How my freedom, your freedom, your neighbor’s freedom, and a stranger’s freedom are all intertwined. The idea that the quality of what I have should be measured in the quality of how much my neighbors have is repeated when he references enslavement and starvation. Our responsibility to each other as people, as humans, as caring individuals is crystallized brilliantly in this one paragraph.
Who is my brother’s keeper? Who is my sister’s keeper? Who is my father’s keeper? Who is my mother’s keeper? Who is my neighbor’s keeper? That’s right. We are all not to forget those that need us. Those that are fighting the left or the right or the center. Those that are fighting systems and governments of oppression. Those that are being enslaved mentally and physically. Those that are crying out or silent. We have an obligation to be the voice for the voiceless until the time they gain their voice.
And since I spend several months a year talking about and studying these ideas, I feel in a unique situation to pass on these kernels of wisdom from years ago in the hope that one day we will fulfill that legacy. We will realize that dream and awaken from our slumber. I get a lot of time to annually bring back these relics and examine where we are as a society. And though I annually teach and study these things, I can see that our society is not learning from our history.
And we all know what happens to those that forget their history. BUT what about those of us that know our history and have to watch the same things get repeated with variation? BUT what about those of us that keep saying we’ve seen this before while folks act like this is the first time.
I guess we just have to keep on teaching? I guess our work is not done? And I will have to keep speaking and acting as you will have to keep speaking and acting because, as Weisel so eloquently encapsulated, “Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”
So, I will not be silent when I see oppression and enslavement by any system or state. I will not be silent when I know people need to eat and land is wasted on decorative use. I will not be silent when ideas do not match reality. I will not be silent when you applaud the worst of humanity. I will not be silent because my silence does not help, your silence does not help.
You might as well join the side of the oppressors as so many do. At least then you have chosen a side. There are always too many bystanders while the perpetrators and rescuers are few in number. BUT, one voice, once person, can make a difference. Are you your neighbor’s keeper?
