saturday reds - 16/2/2008

today's daily mirror says that in modara the police have distributed forms asking for household information including details of bank accounts and balances. a few months i go, two forms were delivered to our home asking for different bits of similar information ( but not bank account details). as i wrote, i threw them in the garbage bin. a pal of mine in office told me that if a bomb goes off in colombo it will be my fault for not giving the information.

i simply cannot believe that essentially good people can take this kind of stuff without even the semblance of a protest.

( this is translated from a German poem)

When the Nazis came for the communists,

I remained silent;

I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,

I remained silent;

I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,

I did not speak out;

I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,

I remained silent;

I wasn't a Jew.

When they came for me,

there was no one left to speak out.

- Pastor Martin Niemoller ( 1892 - 1884)

History

An early supporter of Hitler, by 1934 Niemöller had come to oppose the Nazis, and it was largely his high connections to influential and wealthy businessmen that saved him until 1937, after which he was imprisoned, eventually at Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps. He survived to be a leading voice of penance and reconciliation for the German people after World War II. His poem is well-known, frequently quoted, and is a popular model for describing the dangers of political apathy, as it often begins with specific and targeted fear and hatred which soon escalates out of control.

from wikepedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came...