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jenny_islanderI return to my read-through of On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder.
Today's lesson is difficult for me, because I am not in the group to whom it is addressed. If the tyrants get what they want, my loved ones and I may be quite otherwise.
I quote Snyder extensively here because his exact words are so very important. Please pass it on to anyone you know who may need to hear it and who is or might be capable of hearing it.
"Lesson 7: Be reflective if you must be armed. If you carry a weapon in public service, may God bless you and keep you. But know that evils of the past involved policemen and soldiers finding themselves, one day, doing irregular things. Be ready to say no.
"Authoritarian regimes usually include a special riot police force whose task is to disperse citizens who seek to protest, and a secret state police force whose assignments include the murder of dissenters or others designated as enemies...Yet we make a great mistake if we imagine that [riot and secret police forces whose atrocities have become bywords for evil] acted without support. Without the assistance of regular police forces, and sometimes regular soldiers, they could not have killed on such a large scale...The policemen were not the principal perpetrators, but they provided the indispensable manpower."
I tend to omit the specific names of Snyder's historical examples because I have heard and read denials that tyranny is happening again because it doesn't precisely copy the tyranny of former days. So I will paraphrase his next point: The most infamous tyranny of the twentieth century in the West murdered millions upon millions of people. Their elaborate centers of mechanized torment and death get the most press. But they also had a practice of forcing people to go to fields outside their home cities, then shooting them en masse and throwing their bodies into pits. They had a paramilitary death squad, whose name translates innocuously as "deployment group" or "task force," that was specifically tasked with these murders. But there were not enough of them to murder the many, many victims who were shot. Most such murders were carried out by regular policemen. And that is only one of Snyder's examples.
These policemen did not suddenly become seized with a wickedness virus. They did not fall under mind control either. Nor did they cease to be human. "Many of them had no special preparation for this task," says Snyder. "They found themselves in an unknown land, they had their orders, and they did not want to look weak. In the rare cases when they refused these orders...they were not punished.
"Some killed from murderous conviction. But many others who killed were just afraid to stand out. Other forces were at work besides conformism. But without the conformists, the great atrocities would have been impossible."
Let those who have ears to hear, hear.
Today's lesson is difficult for me, because I am not in the group to whom it is addressed. If the tyrants get what they want, my loved ones and I may be quite otherwise.
I quote Snyder extensively here because his exact words are so very important. Please pass it on to anyone you know who may need to hear it and who is or might be capable of hearing it.
"Lesson 7: Be reflective if you must be armed. If you carry a weapon in public service, may God bless you and keep you. But know that evils of the past involved policemen and soldiers finding themselves, one day, doing irregular things. Be ready to say no.
"Authoritarian regimes usually include a special riot police force whose task is to disperse citizens who seek to protest, and a secret state police force whose assignments include the murder of dissenters or others designated as enemies...Yet we make a great mistake if we imagine that [riot and secret police forces whose atrocities have become bywords for evil] acted without support. Without the assistance of regular police forces, and sometimes regular soldiers, they could not have killed on such a large scale...The policemen were not the principal perpetrators, but they provided the indispensable manpower."
I tend to omit the specific names of Snyder's historical examples because I have heard and read denials that tyranny is happening again because it doesn't precisely copy the tyranny of former days. So I will paraphrase his next point: The most infamous tyranny of the twentieth century in the West murdered millions upon millions of people. Their elaborate centers of mechanized torment and death get the most press. But they also had a practice of forcing people to go to fields outside their home cities, then shooting them en masse and throwing their bodies into pits. They had a paramilitary death squad, whose name translates innocuously as "deployment group" or "task force," that was specifically tasked with these murders. But there were not enough of them to murder the many, many victims who were shot. Most such murders were carried out by regular policemen. And that is only one of Snyder's examples.
These policemen did not suddenly become seized with a wickedness virus. They did not fall under mind control either. Nor did they cease to be human. "Many of them had no special preparation for this task," says Snyder. "They found themselves in an unknown land, they had their orders, and they did not want to look weak. In the rare cases when they refused these orders...they were not punished.
"Some killed from murderous conviction. But many others who killed were just afraid to stand out. Other forces were at work besides conformism. But without the conformists, the great atrocities would have been impossible."
Let those who have ears to hear, hear.
