Saturday, September 30, 2006

First they came ...


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 me,
there was no one left to speak out.

I found the Wikipedia   link to this powerful poem by Pastor Martin Niemöller over at reddit. I was wondering why this link had acquired over 390 votes (and counting) in less than a day. I mean, why now?

Could it be because of this?

And this? And this? And, perhaps, this too?

* * *

And, a similar situation from ancient history is explored here [thanks to Swarup for the pointer in the comments].

1 Comments:

  1. gaddeswarup said...

    Pl. see http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/30/opinion/30harris.html? too.