The_Perils_of_Indifference
“The perils of indifference” was a speech given by Elie Wiesel, a NOBEL peace prize winner at the White House Millenium Evening, 1999, commemorating the onset of the new millennium. It was my first day at GITAM and I stumbled upon this speech at the KRC and the thoughts which lingered on I wanted to share.
Elie Wiesel was a holocaust survivor at the Jewish concentration camps in Nazi Germany, was separated from his mother and sister, and lost his father to malnutrition and exposure in those. Later he founded the Elie Wiesel Foundation and always spoke against the oppression around the world, including the soviet Jews, the ‘disappeared’ in Argentina, refugees in Cambodia, the Kurds, native Indians in Nicaragua and famine victims. He wrote books such as La Nuit, L’ Aube(Dawn), Le Jour(The Accident), and many more drawing from his own life and experience as a victim. Elie Wiesel passed away this year on July 2nd.
When you ask what is indifference, Siri or Google say it is a lack of interest, concern or sympathy. Is everything understood in that small sentence, or is there more to it? Do we really know how much indifference affects people around us? Elie Wiesel says,” the opposite of Love is Indifference and not Hate”.
Indifference is always tempting, as we would want nothing to do with things with which we are not affected. We always have our own goals and works to do. There could be a bomb killing tens of people, or a flood destroying hundreds of lives or even a community wiped away for ‘developmental’ projects. But no, we want nothing of that. Thinking we could never take the place of the ‘victim’, is betraying our own self. We see suffering in the news, on the roads even, and forget they are people just like us with families like we have.
Wiesel said “Anger and hatred even are a virtue, as they elicit a response. But indifference is always a friend of the oppressor”. He spoke about children, and how it broke hearts to see them suffer on the television, and I could only wonder, has anything changed today? How many children are we seeing, suffering in wars in the Middle East, bodies from upturned boats in Europe, trafficking all over the world, natural calamities, and what do we do about them?
I always thought, what CAN we do about them? Going around fighting all of these is definitely not pragmatic. But that day, I found an answer. If God has given us one voice to speak, technology today has given us numerous voices. When people are hurt, we should let them know we are with them. When we see suffering and we write a beautiful piece, or a symphony, many more will come and stand with us.
It isn’t true that none of us do anything. People react and BRAVO to them. But if we aren’t reacting, we should. We must be holding hands against the oppression around us. When the whole world, ‘our world’, crumbles around us, don’t we want a hand on our shoulder, and a voice saying ‘’ We are with you”.
Being indifferent in this day and age is much more easy, and fashionable even, to say, “I have got nothing to do with people”. But let’s not forget we are all together as part of humanity. Ignoring the human in us is what makes us inhuman.
P.S. The speech by Elie Wiesel is in “Speeches that changed the world”, by Simon Sebag Montefiere, and is a wonderful read.
Elie Wiesel was a holocaust survivor at the Jewish concentration camps in Nazi Germany, was separated from his mother and sister, and lost his father to malnutrition and exposure in those. Later he founded the Elie Wiesel Foundation and always spoke against the oppression around the world, including the soviet Jews, the ‘disappeared’ in Argentina, refugees in Cambodia, the Kurds, native Indians in Nicaragua and famine victims. He wrote books such as La Nuit, L’ Aube(Dawn), Le Jour(The Accident), and many more drawing from his own life and experience as a victim. Elie Wiesel passed away this year on July 2nd.
When you ask what is indifference, Siri or Google say it is a lack of interest, concern or sympathy. Is everything understood in that small sentence, or is there more to it? Do we really know how much indifference affects people around us? Elie Wiesel says,” the opposite of Love is Indifference and not Hate”.
Indifference is always tempting, as we would want nothing to do with things with which we are not affected. We always have our own goals and works to do. There could be a bomb killing tens of people, or a flood destroying hundreds of lives or even a community wiped away for ‘developmental’ projects. But no, we want nothing of that. Thinking we could never take the place of the ‘victim’, is betraying our own self. We see suffering in the news, on the roads even, and forget they are people just like us with families like we have.
Wiesel said “Anger and hatred even are a virtue, as they elicit a response. But indifference is always a friend of the oppressor”. He spoke about children, and how it broke hearts to see them suffer on the television, and I could only wonder, has anything changed today? How many children are we seeing, suffering in wars in the Middle East, bodies from upturned boats in Europe, trafficking all over the world, natural calamities, and what do we do about them?
I always thought, what CAN we do about them? Going around fighting all of these is definitely not pragmatic. But that day, I found an answer. If God has given us one voice to speak, technology today has given us numerous voices. When people are hurt, we should let them know we are with them. When we see suffering and we write a beautiful piece, or a symphony, many more will come and stand with us.
It isn’t true that none of us do anything. People react and BRAVO to them. But if we aren’t reacting, we should. We must be holding hands against the oppression around us. When the whole world, ‘our world’, crumbles around us, don’t we want a hand on our shoulder, and a voice saying ‘’ We are with you”.
Being indifferent in this day and age is much more easy, and fashionable even, to say, “I have got nothing to do with people”. But let’s not forget we are all together as part of humanity. Ignoring the human in us is what makes us inhuman.
P.S. The speech by Elie Wiesel is in “Speeches that changed the world”, by Simon Sebag Montefiere, and is a wonderful read.
- Mr. V. Stanley Edward
MBA I year.