Scapegoats

I‘m currently reading about Germany in the 1930s. It was a tough time for them. The reparations demanded after the First World War had killed the economy; people were suffering. Inflation was spectacular and out of control. A lady took a basket of money to town to buy a loaf of bread. Her basket was stolen, the money tipped on the ground.

Hitler provided ready and easy answers for their troubles. Like many before him over history, he chose a scapegoat group. Scapegoats have to be readily identifiable. He chose the Jews (among others) as the ones who were holding Germany back. This all seems obviously wrong from our perspective now. But we have the lesson and burden of history. We know what was to come. A significant proportion of the population (we remember that Hitler was elected) went along with it – a little step at a time. They could not see where it was leading.

A demagogue is: “a political leader who seeks support by appealing to popular desires and prejudices rather than by using rational argument”. If we could go back to Germany in the 1930s, we would be telling them where this leads, wouldn’t we? But that’s not possible. We live now. We are the people of our time. Our learning comes from the past, but our pleading can only be for today.

The German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer stood up to Hitler, and paid for it with his life. He said this: “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act”. I’m not one to quote theologians, but I’m happy to quote that. Not saying something is to give tacit consent: we may not be the ones to join in when they smash all the shop windows of the scapegoat group, but neither do we say anything against it. Or we dismiss it, at some level in our minds, as justifiable.

Hitler’s regime organised propaganda. Most of us today would, I hope, instantly dismiss the kind of bile these newspapers and radio broadcasts spewed out. Maybe. After all, there was the ‘asylum seekers have thrown their children overboard’ misinformation a few years back, complete with misleadingly cropped photos. We still have the casual and regular use of the word “illegals” in relation to asylum seekers in at least one section of the popular press. Because, you know, if they are “illegal” they may just deserve some little bit of what they get, at least in the thinking of some deep part of our brain. We have ‘shock jocks’ who whip up hatred of the ‘other’. Maybe things haven’t changed that much.

I am aware of ‘Godwin’s law’. I know that drawing comparisons between anyone’s viewpoint and those of the Third Reich is too easy; a cheap shot. But let’s not leave the lessons of history unlearnt or ignored – because somehow we think it’s different now. A majority of people in 1930s Germany were either fooled or indifferent. I don’t want to be one of those. I don’t want to pretend that one thing doesn’t lead to another.

I don’t want to be political about it either. However you are persuaded, good luck to you: rightwing, leftwing, centrist or whatever. I don’t want politics to crowd out other things I want to speak about, allowing people to put my views into some bucket. In Australia, the issue of our treatment of asylum seekers is no longer political, because no viable choice is being offered to us. Both the Government and the alternative Government are on a ‘unity ticket’ on this subject.

So this is isn’t a political viewpoint, it’s just my position – based on simple humanity, and taking a broader view of history.

Because of the politically bipartisan course of action being taken by my country, with the support of a majority of Australians, here’s what’s happened: two people set themselves on fire last week in separate events.

The official response was appalling – and can be summarised as: ‘people talked them into it’ and ‘nothing will change our resolve’. Resolve to do what? Create conditions so bad, and so indeterminate, that it will deter others from seeking asylum? That the conditions we have organised and the lives put into limbo are actually government policy. Otherwise, what’s the deterrent? This is being done on purpose?

I don’t accept the argument that treating asylum seekers this way is necessary. I don’t believe the ends justify the means. I think there are lots of alternatives and that ‘stopping drownings at sea’ is a figleaf justification covering an evil policy.

The locking up of asylum seekers in indefinite detention with no foreseeable future for ‘the greater good’ is not acceptable, at least not to me. Any society that accepts that innocent people must suffer for the benefit of the rest of us is misguided. The real unstated justification is the irrational fear we have of being ‘swamped’. I could go on to argue the benefits nations have accrued through immigration. But that’s not the point. The point is we seem to have collectively decided that some must suffer to the point of self immolation, for our sakes.

The fact that these self immolations are not the subject of a massive public debate and screaming headlines speaks volumes about what we have become. One step at a time we accept the unacceptable and defend the indefensible.

This is not being done on my behalf.

I don’t want it. I don’t agree with it. I am ashamed of it.

When political leaders are doing electoral math, please count me out.

Or better, stop doing the math and start showing some leadership.

Image: Kristallnacht, November 1938
Zerstörte jüdische Geschäfte in Magdeburg.
Image Attribution: Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1970-083-42 / CC-BY-SA 3.0