Soroptimist Public Speaking Competition:If you are neutral in situations of injustice you have chosen the side of the oppressor’

 This speech was one competitor's entry from my school for the Soroptimist Ireland Public Speaking Competition

(Student Speech, November 2013)

Introduction

Life isn't fair. Financial problems plague some people. Others suffer continual ill health. Some people struggle with personality problems and others have family issues. These are tough problems. They’re part of our everyday lives – and we have learnt in many cases how to make these difficulties tolerable. But for some people life really and truly is not fair. These are the people who are forced to leave livelihoods, homes and families and flee to the unknown in search of safety. They are the broken individuals who dread the light of each new day. They are the victims of situations of injustice, of bullies, of dictators, of tyrants, of cruel oppressors, of dark, fearsome powers. Some of them live far away in other countries. Some of them live next door, attend my school, and walk the streets of my town. If we choose to remain impartial in these situations of injustice, then we are supporting that dark power. If we are neutral in situations of injustice, then we have chosen the side of the oppressor.

What is a situation of injustice?

A situation of injustice is when a victim is persecuted for no reason. The victim has done nothing wrong, yet a stronger power rules over them. Justice is not appropriately served, and the situation becomes tyrannical and often bleak. Powerless and unable to speak, the victim suffers silently, wishing, hoping, and longing for help, for someone to reach out and say, ‘I care about you’. Too often however the watching world remains neutral. It decides to take no side, to travel that broad middle road of indifference; in World War 2 Ireland remained neutral and did not side with the Allies nor Germany. As a result, Ireland experienced no mass destruction and very little damage to infrastructure. Choosing to be neutral meant that Ireland remained safe and relatively untouched.  And so for us, neutrality means we can be safe, secure and comfortable. The danger won’t touch me. The tyrant won’t target me. The problem isn't mine.

Being Neutral

Being neutral is the easy option. But often taking the easy route is morally wrong.  Let us take two situations as examples. As we speak, horrors are occurring in Syria.

 4 million people there desperately need assistance - food, water, medical aid, warm clothes, a place to live. As we live each day safe and warm in our country, women and children in a place far away are fleeing, starving and afraid. These women are abused, injured, forced to live on the run with no home and no privacy. They are being targeted by snipers along with their children, and the reports are simply atrocious. No matter what the political background to the conflict, no matter how complicated it is, we must not forget that these people are human beings just like you and me. We must not stand back while they are stripped of their human rights. We must not ignore this problem and hope big countries like Great Britain and America will deal with it.  We must not look the other way and say, ‘This isn't my problem’.

But not all situations of injustice are far away. Let’s come a little closer to home. All of us know what bullying is. And sadly to say, we witness it almost every day, be it on the school corridor, the workplace or the internet.  We see hidden punches and ashen faces – we hear degrading slurs and untrue rumours – we read vile accusations and unkind jokes on Facebook and Twitter. So often we know it’s wrong. But being neutral is so easy. Sometimes we are simply afraid that we’ll be bullied too.  Love of a comfortable life silences us.

The Peril of Indifference

Allow me to take you back 60 years to a time when one racist, tyrannical dictator ruled Germany – Adolf Hitler. He persecuted Jews, black people and the disabled and was responsible for the slaughter of 6 million innocent people.  However fellow leaders failed to halt his cruelty and throughout the 1930s the Prime Minister of Great Britain, Neville Chamberlain followed the policy of appeasement.  This meant that the Allied nations would not oppose Hitler in order to prevent a war.  Instead they tried to make him happy by conceding some powers to him – anything to avoid war breaking out. However their policy only postponed one of the cruelest wars ever fought. Hitler’s time in power caused widespread death and destruction, and it left Europe broken and in ruins. One of Hitler’s victims was a Jew called Elie Wiesel. He survived but his family and friends did not. After the war he rebuilt his life and became a famous journalist and writer, always seeking to remember the past so the future would not repeat its mistakes. At the White House in 1999 he spoke these words concerning individual neutrality – he called it indifference:  

‘Indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor -- never his victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten. The political prisoner in his cell, the hungry children, the homeless refugees -- not to respond to their plight, not to relieve their solitude by offering them a spark of hope is to exile them from human memory. And in denying their humanity we betray our own’.

And so history repeats itself in Syria as once again thousands of vulnerable women and children find themselves facing tyranny and death since 2011 – what are we doing about it?  We can prevent the loss of lives by taking action. We can raise money, we can donate clothes and time, we can encourage our government to liaise with other countries and make some difference in Syria.

 And history repeats itself again and again in the life of each tortured, bullied individual who sees no way out of oppression but death – what are we doing about it? We can report the bully, we can befriend a lonely person, we can call out and say ‘That’s wrong!’ We can take risks, or we can take the easy option and just stand and watch a person being bullied, maybe to death. What if the victim was you? One friend, one kind action, one sentence can make a world of difference.

By remaining neutral, we become oppressors too, because we refuse to oppose evil and injustice – and in the process we betray our own humanity. By saying ‘I care’ and by offering a hand to the victim, we fight oppression and change situations of injustice. Let us pledge today to choose the side of justice and to actively make a difference in the world.

Thank-you.