"People say that if you find water rising up to your ankle, that's the time to do something about it, not when it's around your neck"
In Achebe's novel, Things Fall Apart, a small African tribe is faced with a group of British colonists and missionaries whose goal is to 'convert' the people. Things begin innocently enough, with them building a church in a dangerous land and preaching what the natives consider to be nonsense. Over time the missionaries gain followers and grow larger until it has many of the elders of the tribe worried. Eventually the newcomers gain a large enough following to impose rules and laws on the African natives and press their beliefs into the foundation of the society, changing even the most basic beliefs to their own through harsh treatment. One man, Okonkwo, sees the injustice his people are suffering and tries to convince the other elders in the tribe to take action, but to no avail. His people do little to nothing until it becomes too late to repel the invaders, and their entire culture is shifted to that of the British, with very little of their own culture remaining. Okonkwo's last ditch effort to return ways to normal is greeted by failure and in his despair he kills himself at the end of the novel. This story has a heavy relation the Achebe's quote about the rising waters; if you wait until the forces of injustice are too powerful to do something, there is very little hope in stopping it. This idea is even shown in history.
In 1968 Francisco Macias Nguema was 'elected' president of Guinea and over the next 10 years shut down all school in the country and executed 80,000 people in a population of only 300,000, people he considered to be a threat because they were educated. In 1975, Pathat Lao and his followers overthrew the government Laos and subsequently executed 1/4 of the population, they were people who 'did not agree' with his ways. In 1939 Adolf Hitler and the Nazis invaded Poland and the country was captured in less than 5 weeks and over the next 6 years, over 11 million people were murdered throughout Europe. As a whole, the human race has developed a bad habit of acting on problems when it is too late to be effective. Many people see the rise of injustice and do nothing, thinking they have no power in such a large world, or simply because it can put their lives at risk. While self preservation is obviously important, there comes a point where the conflict is unavoidable and people must act in order to prevent horrible events from happening. The sad truth is that many people see injustice happening and think it does not effect them and hide behind their closed doors. Martin Neimoller, a pastor, addressed this idea in his famous poem about the Holocaust:
"First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then 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 out for me"
The point of this is that you can't sit idly by as bad things happen because it is not effecting you, or as the waters rise because from people like Achebe in literature and others like Neimoller in history alike we see that "Idleness is the beginning of all vice" (Franz Kafka) and that idleness in the face of injustice, leads to the oppression of the innocent.
More on the problems with idleness
https://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/bystander-effect
and some pictures to illustrate the idea of idleness in crisis
And a drawing to illustrate Achebe's quote
No comments:
Post a Comment