Following on from my *blogpost yesterday (and a moment ago) upon the Syrian conflict seven years on, what are we to make of those Westerners - especially vocal upon talkback radio - who are, like most of us, admittedly, increasingly overwhelmed emotionally by the large numbers leaving Syria. Again, like most people in such nations, these folk seem more and more anxious and distrustful about their emigrating in seemingly ever larger numbers into Western nations - with the consequent issues this has apparently (and indeed indisputably) created at times. But then such people take this a step or several further in their incensed assertions that 'they' - or at least the men and male refugees, that is - ought to stay and fight for their besieged and beleaguered homeland.
Though I'd already come to strong and clear ideas about this matter following the alluded-to discussions upon New Zealand talkback radio over recent months and years, I am indebted for a reading I did last Saturday which helped crystallize my thinking in a somewhat new and different direction, though withal essentially confirming my previous convictions. The serendipitous reading came through a classic tome of the World War Two era, Dietrich Bonhoeffer's The Cost of Commitment.
Having just checked the copyright legalities and ethics involved, let me quote an intriguing passage from p33 ('Memoir') about which I am extremely ambivalent, both profoundly disagreeing and yet concurring all at the same time; (not that hard, I'll readily concede, for an extremely conflicted person like myself!)
Noting that the following are not the words (or necessarily even the sentiments) of Bonhoeffer himself - indeed the memoir is attributed to a 'G. Leibholz' - we read the following commentary upon the relative guilt of respective (non-)participants in the maintenance of the political regime in 1930s' and 1940s' Nazi Germany:
It has often been said that those of the many who are not directly guilty for the crimes of the former regime in Germany must be punished for their passive attitude towards it. In a modern dictatorship, however, with its subterranean ubiquity and all-embracing instruments of oppression, a revolt means certain death to all who support it. To reproach in a modern tyranny a people as a whole for failing to revolt is as if one would reproach a prisoner for failing to escape from a heavily-guarded prison. The majority of the people in all nations alike does not consist of heroes. What Dietrich Bonhoeffer and others did cannot be expected from the many. The future in modern society depends much more on the quiet heroism of the very few who are inspired by God.These few will greatly enjoy the divine inspiration and will be prepared to stand for the dignity of man and true freedom and to keep the law of God, even if it means martyrdom or death.
In this regard, though not able to give a blanket, cast-iron **pardon to much less to find it within me to rationalize/excuse/justify the silence of the so-called 'silent majority' of Germans (or similar nations) whilst evil and barbarism stalked the land, I do indeed believe such shared some, even significant complicity in the conditions which thus obtained there during their period of conspicuous silence and passivity. And not only in Nazi Germany but throughout then Fascist and/or largely Nazi- sympathizing pre-'Eastern' (and even Western) Europe. Indeed both before and since that time, in the Stalinist Soviet Union, Maoist China...before even considering such much more modern-day counterparts as Pol Pot's Cambodia, post-Tito Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Myanmar/Burma etc etc etc.But let me leave that for another discussion hopefully in the not too distant future.
What I do take unreserved exception to, however, with these oftentimes glib and facile talkback hosts and their ready-made, re-actionary clientele and acolytes is they're only too ready to lay in to male Syrian refugees who risked bailing out from their self-imploding homeland than stay and fight to the (probably inevitably) bitter end.
All I, all anyone can really do, I suppose, is reflect upon what I, what they, would do in like circumstances. Or so I imagine - suppose - hypothesize - surmise...-but suppositions and the like are free and easy, and accordingly worth little, when it comes to the necessary work of translating mere noble-sounding ideals into concrete, practical, on-the-ground realities, aren't they. And we're all so very wise long after the facts have moved in permanently and hunkered down for good.
But would I, if proverbial push came to shove and the long-time hypothesized, oft-bandied about Maori uprising, of sovereignty-seeking indigenous New Zealanders, ever actually occurred, and morphed into a full-scale civil war? Quite frankly, I've little doubt I would bail out - for good - I just don't have enough invested in the matter...as in strong enough feelings and convictions that this land wasn't originally acquired unlawfully and maintained upon that unethical basis a heckuva long time.
Which is hardly the same as even remotely suggesting that European kiwis, at least c/o their governing representatives - of both major political parties especially - haven't done a whole lot more than equivalent peoples of almost any other nation upon Earth in recent times (or perhaps anytime in history) to significantly seek to redress major and minor grievances of the indigenous people (excepting Moriori of course!)
But I'm 'afraid' to admit I would bail out, hook, line and sinker - but not before, naturally enough, ascertaining the safety of each and every one near and dear to me, and, moreover, of seeking to aid one and all (of such) willing family in joining me in a new life overseas, if necessary by stowing away unbeknownst as 'cargo, incognito' upon boats bound for better climes.
Expecting me or anyone else to stay on and 'fight to the bitter end' in a modern-day re-enactment of Custer's Last Stand is, frankly, I respectfully submit, making a whole lot of assumptions about me (and others) that no-one has any right to, placing a bucket-load of expectations upon my and others' shoulders that are not only ill-conceived, but really none of your business - if you'll pardon my French. To put it as politely as possible in the circumstances.
For one thing, I might - quite legitimately - consider the whole thing/enterprise a lost cause (i.e. unlikely to ultimately succeed) to begin with. For another the cause itself might in fact be one I simply don't happen to share, to feel deeply or passionately enough about. And - perhaps far more significantly - my very life might be worth a whole lot more to me than some cause my heart wasn't really in from the start.
And though it always sounds great and carries a real wallop whenever you hear it, JFK's idea of 'better being dead than red' might have some real validity and pack a punch when one is required - by law - to resile/recant or be killed; I pray when such occurs in the not too distant that I may truly, by God's grace alone, prove myself worthy of dying for my thoroughgoing and heartfelt convictions; but when it is employed for lesser aims and goals and man-made ideologies however well-packaged and beautifully presented and convincingly spin-doctored...sorry, folks...this precious life I've been vouchsafed is too valuable a 'thing' to fritter away for such - comparative - trifles and baubles.
Somehow I strongly suspect, however, that those suggesting such self-sacrifice of others for what those armchair critics suppose should matter to those others, would themselves in like, in selfsame circumstances, bail out at the drop of a hat...would themselves often lack the the gumption, the guts, the balls (if you'll pardon my vernacular) to do-or-die themselves in such a situation...were it to present itself (in their own personal circumstances)...impacting upon their own life and times.
Hey, we're all essentially paper tigers until our own lives are on the actual line.
*Upon my other blogsite, that is: http://davidedwinisms.blogpost.co.nz/(or .com/)
**Nor, God forbid, is it my prerogative to do so! Seeing I am a mere mortal made of dust and subject to finitude; neither knowing everything (believe it or not!), being present only in one place at a time, and having very little power or might to effect things in my own little world let alone the world at large...in other words completely lacking in all those special prerogatives normally associated with and subscribed to divinity.
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