Genocide begins when people choose to remain silent

Genocide doesn’t happen because of “monsters” but because the rest of us choose to do nothing

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Genocide does not begin with monsters or madmen. It begins when ordinary people choose comfort, obedience and indifference over the human rights of others.

I spent the Christmas of 1991 visiting friends and family in Germany. I had a wonderful time. It is a magical season, and many North American traditions come from Central Europe. The people are also very warm, and we shared much fun and laughter.

During one celebration, a thought came to me that has never left. “How did a nation of warm and kind people fall for Nazism?” The quest to answer this question changed my life, and it continues to impact me every day.

The uncomfortable truth is that genocide did not only happen in Nazi Germany. It happens in every society where citizens prioritize their comfort over the inherent human rights of others, and where fear and coercion are allowed to turn moral silence into a survival strategy. It happens when we dehumanize our neighbour.

In our interconnected world, we do not have the luxury of “out of sight, out of mind” when it comes to the suffering of other human beings.

The most helpful ideas for understanding how a genocidal mindset takes hold of a society come from the Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt. She observed the 1961 trial of Nazi technocrat Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem and coined the term “banality of evil.” Our image of evil is often that of a crazed person carrying out acts of violence. Arendt points out that much evil is carried out in more mundane ways. Eichmann saw himself as a bureaucrat following orders. How many of us also offer unquestioning obedience to unjust systems?

The banality of evil is not confined to any one system. It is ingrained in modern societies, including our capitalist one. When reports came out recently that British Columbia billionaire Jim Pattison was considering selling a warehouse he owned to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Virginia, McMaster University professor Marvin Ryder said, “If I am going to sell my house and you want to buy my house, and you agree to my price, why should I really care what you are going to do to that house?”

Fortunately, many disagree with Ryder. The people of B.C., and even a union operating in Pattison’s grocery stores, let their displeasure be known, and Pattison wisely chose to back out of the deal with ICE.

Another vital lesson from Nazi Germany is that the genocidal mindset is expansive. Violence never stays focused on one group. African American civil rights leader Malcolm X spoke of “the chickens coming home to roost.” When we do bad things or simply allow bad things to happen to others, the suffering comes back to us.

That concept is communicated in the famous quote attributed to the German theologian Martin Niemöller, a man who had voted for the Nazis three times:

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.

In a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Prime Minister Mark Carney cautioned that the international rules-based order is breaking down. His warning was about what happens when legal and moral restraints weaken and abuses are tolerated because they seem distant.

It may be easy for many of us to ignore brown people dying on the other side of the world, but the chickens are coming home to roost. The same indifference that allows coercive practices to persist abroad is now being echoed in the United States. ICE agents are using aggressive enforcement tactics in Minnesota that many critics describe as coercive, colonial in nature and long tolerated when applied to racialized populations abroad.

Can we avoid the barbarity that engulfed Nazi Germany? Are there enough trade unions, enough religious organizations, enough honest journalists, enough human rights organizations, enough courageous ordinary people, to stand up and reject the banality of evil?

To not care is to choose genocide. No one is free until everyone is free.

Gerry Chidiac specializes in languages and genocide studies and works with at-risk students. He received an award from the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre for excellence in teaching about the Holocaust.