It’s a helluva lot more effective than taking to internet message boards to tell other people that they’re not protesting correctly.
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AKA: “I actively helped out until it became too disgusting even for me and then it was too late.”
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Perhaps. I always read it as this:
I stood aside silently, watching bad shit happen because it wasn’t happening to me personally; I didn’t care until after it was way too late, and the bad shit was actually happening to me too.
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Niemoller supported the Nazis at first. Then they went too far for him.
Hence the “when they came for me”, because he finally spoke up – too late because any surviving people who might have helped him already knew he was no ally.
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Is remorse exculpatory? No. That doesn’t make it worthless – on the contrary.
I’ve done some pretty stupid (and too many shitty) things over the years. When my children grew up and headed off to University, I made a rather painful confession to them of the ones I regret. Obviously no do-overs, but it’s worth while if they avoid repeating my mistakes and make new ones of their own.
Seems to have been at least partly successful, which as parenting goes ain’t all that bad.
I never read the poem as a plea for forgiveness so much as a warning: ”don’t be the kind of self-serving coward that I was.”
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Did he? That’s even worse, then.
It does to all the dead, and those who mourn them.
Absolutely.
And sadly, the warning is useless if we fail to heed it.
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I suppose it depends on how you organize and how effectively you make real change. Just getting arrested does nothing.
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Power to the People!
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It may not be for you to complete the task, but neither are you free to abstain from it.
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