Neutrality is Assent to the Oppressor
I remember as a young teen sitting in the living room while my mother and her friend were having tea one afternoon. I was doing what I so often did, reading a book, not paying a lot of attention to the adults conversation until her friend Ann mentioned having spent a year in South Africa.
My ears perked up. I'd just read a book about South Africa and their system of apartheid. The images in the book of treatment of blacks and the appalling conditions they lived in were fresh in my mind.
“They have apartheid in South Africa” I said to Ann
She looked toward me with a bit of an irritated look and then turned back toward my mother. She was just opening her mouth when my mother asked what apartheid was. Ann fell silent so I spoke up.
“I’ve just finished reading a book about it. It’s where they make the blacks live separate from the whites, give them all the bad jobs, pay them crap and make them live in poverty. Like slavery with wages.”
Ann immediately said the book was wrong. It was not nearly as bad as that and all in all, the blacks were well treated considering how they live. Then told me I should stick to more appropriate reading.
My mother and her went back to their conversation like they had just humoured the know nothing kid. I went back to my reading but I was fuming that she had dismissed what was clearly bad treatment of others like they deserved what they got.
It would be years later when I would again hear about South Africa and the fight to end apartheid. I would also hear about people like Desmond Tutu who was born in South Africa and lived under apartheid.
Desmond Tutu
His father was a teacher which helped Desmond get his education and study to become a priest in 1960. In 1967 he became Bishop of Lesotho and in 1978 the first black General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches.
In 1984 he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his role as a unifying leader in the non-violent campaign to end apartheid in South Africa. He later headed Truth and Reconciliation Commission which was meant to help heal the country through shedding light on the human rights abuses during the apartheid era.
The commission was a model drawn on for the inquiry into the abuses in Canada’s Residential School system. Tutu played a role in bringing to light some of the ongoing abuses toward Canada’s First Nations some 30+ years ago. He died on Dec. 26th at the age of 90.
This morning the quote in the Prompt A Day email was from Desmond Tutu:
If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.
When I looked the quote up to find more context I discovered there was a longer version which started with:
If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.
When Tutu spoke out about injustices and human rights violations, at the core of the issue was one so many of us are familiar with — bullying.
Bullying Starts Between Individuals
That is an issue almost all of us have either witnessed others being bullied, been bullied or been a bully.
How many times have you seen someone being bullied and remained silent? Not wanting to draw the ire of the bully. Sometimes your sense of compassion has you reaching out to the victim to offer them some friendship or comfort.
Many watch bullying happen and stand by. Few speak up and stop a bully in their tracks.
I was bullied a lot when I was in school. I wasn’t alone, those schoolyard bullies went after several targets. Anyone who tried to be a friend to the bullied, became a new target. Rarely would anyone put a stop to it.
Teachers would all too often look the other way. The rare teacher who went after a bully and pulled their parent in often discovered the parents were not much better in their behaviour.
The effort to remain neutral supports the oppressor. Silence is an effort to be neutral.
As I got older, if I saw younger kids being bullied, I intervened. I’d stop the bully and show some kindness to the younger student. To me it was the right thing to do. To be present for others.
Oddly enough, some of the teachers responded by telling me that it was unnatural for me to be ‘playing’ with younger students. I should be playing with my peers. At first it made me feel ashamed for helping the younger kids.
After watching and seeing those same teachers ignoring kids being picked on, I started intervening again. When the teacher tried to shame me again I was bold enough to tell her to do her job and stop the bullying. Didn’t get well received.
Throughout my adult life, I’ve been more inclined to intervene than sit by and watch injustices toward others. Hasn’t won me a lot of friends among bullies but I knew I was doing right.
Guess I could say I’m not always neutral.
How about you?
Shadowspub is a writer from Ontario, Canada. She writes on a variety of subjects as she pursues her passion for learning. She also writes on other platforms and enjoys creating books you use like journals, notebooks, coloring books etc.
She created Prompt A Day to share with others. You can subscribe to Prompt A Day to get started.
@shadowspub
Powerful... truthful... and so relevant. I love this post, and you are right:
I can hear my Mom, and you know the saying I am sure...
If your friends are all jumping off the bridge, will you jump off too?
Might be slightly different, depending on how it was told. But man... I always say I am "neutral", but this post makes a good point. Sometimes you can't be neutral when the situation requires us to do what's right. Thank you, as always, for using my TAG.
!LUV !WINE @tipu curate !giphy Desmond Tutu
Upvoted 👌 (Mana: 71/91) Liquid rewards.
Congratulations, @wesphilbin You Successfully Shared 0.300 WINEX With @shadowspub.
You Earned 0.300 WINEX As Curation Reward.
You Utilized 3/5 Successful Calls.
Contact Us : WINEX Token Discord Channel
WINEX Current Market Price : 0.300
Via Tenor
@wesphilbin(5/10) gave you LUV.
thanks Wes.. yeah I remember that ... awww mom all the kids are xxx ... if they jumped off a cliff would you too... mutter mutter..walk away with tail between legs lol
I think Wes says it all right here @Shadowspub. Great post and you really bring up a lot to think about.
thank you ... can't see you doing the but all the kids ...
I have been to South Africa and saw both sides. It takes an empathic person with no agenda to really see what is going on.
I relate this to the covid drama.
The amount of people standing on the fence about acting against an encroaching totalitarian state, who are choosing to be 'neutral' actually implicitly assist this regime.
Thanks for a great article! Reblogged!
were you in South Africa during apartheid?
I wasn't aware that it stopped.
I mean apartheid in the general sense as the mentality of elitism of one race over another.
That is certainly still prevalent in some groups of people as I understand it today.
I was in South Africa in 2009.
As far as I was aware there were no explicit laws dividing people by race or colour but regardless the division was still obvious in a strictly social sense.
I have not read a history book on South African apartheid. So I am not aware of the time frame you are talking of.
I have simply been there and spent time with some of the people.
The conditioning of elitism takes a long time to purge out of a group.
My friend whose parents were elitist was not elitist himself. This gives some hope.
It is a complex issue that possibly neither of us have the depth of experience to truly relate to.
We are all human and after acceptance of what our past generations have done we must be patient to take the time to heal as old reactions try to renew themselves.
Apartheid in the general sense as a mentality in South Africa may be around for another generation or two.
Humans do not sometimes forget easily.
In your first comment you made the statement you'd been to South Africa and both sides needed to be seen. I responded by asking you if you were there during apartheid. You responded that you weren't aware that it had stopped. What you are calling apartheid is not what it was in South Africa, so, yeah, having a look at a history book would be a good idea.
Apartheid in South Africa was a period of white minority rule between 1948 and 1994. It was a period where among other details:
What you describe as apartheid is social structure, not even close to what actual apartheid was.
I brought up the subject in my post for two reasons.
One was the Desmond Tutu, the author of the quote, was a central figure not only in ending apartheid but in dealing with the aftermath and efforts to bring about healing between the races.
The second reason was that the exchange I had with my mother's friend about her time in South Africa (during apartheid) illustrated neutrality as consent.
The post is mostly about bullying. Apartheid was state-sponsored bullying. South Africa is most certainly not the only country in the world to engage in state-sponsored. My own country has it's own dark history with state-sponsored bullying.
The problem with paying too much attention to state-sponsored bullying in discussing the topic is that it makes it too easy to let people look away from their own behaviour when it comes to the topic. Something I noticed, you never commented on.
What I said was:
I was not condoning apartheid or justifying the atrocities. You seemed to have jumped to that conclusion on my part.
There is always more to a story than labeling an abuser and a victim.
For example, I have friends who are Israeli and I have friends who are palestinian.
I have friends who are Israeli that are palestinian activists.
When one side decides, you must go or you must be separated. It is a reaction of fear.
Then the other side says... no.. if you say I must do this or you say I must go then, you must go or you have no right here.
The palestinians would love to see the Israelis disappear and yet their are Israelis born on the occupied land with no direct knowledge of the conflict then forced themselves to need a place to live and so by default participate in the conflict assuming their parents were right.
Conflicts are generational.
The truth is at the end of it they are all human and have human needs. It takes an effort to stand back from the conflict and really see what is going on.
That people are afraid.
When conditions are placed to create a unified community apartheid can cease.
This takes generations to change.
Yes, apartheid is a mental thing as much as it was a physical thing in South Africa in the period you mention.
People build up memories and reactions and they identify with these reactions then commit to repeating abuse by continuing to react. Both sides needs to take an active part to create a solution.
I ask, are you South African or have you been to South Africa? Have you seen and met the people? You seem to know a lot about this from a book but have you seen and met people from an apartheid situation directly?
EDIT: Our positions did not differ yet you have capitalized on the differences you decided to see for the sake of coming out on top. Is this necessary? How is it different to the beginnings of apartheid? We can create a shared aim and work towards that. We can also create a solution.
---------------++++++++
Where exactly did you get the idea I jumped to any conclusion about you condoning what occurred during apartheid in South Africa when it was abundantly clear you didn't even know the era existed?
I didn't capitalize on anything nor did I consider there was anything to come out on top of. Maybe in your mind. I don't usually consider replying to comments to be some sort of intellectual wrestling match.
It was clear you lacked the awareness of the era to which I was referring to and to which Desmond Tutu and my mother's friend were relevant to. Since you lacked that awareness I most certainly would not be arriving at any conclusions about your view on a topic you were clearly ignorant of.
Apartheid in South Africa was not the actual subject of the post yet it seems to be what you've chose to fixate on.
Modern day South Africa is irrelevant to the post.
Once again I will point out that I purposely chose to not address nation state conflicts in order to put the attention on individuals and their role in the subject of bullying.
I note once again, you seem to be avoiding that topic. It may be you chose to focus on the nation state as a more comfortable topic. Or maybe you just missed what the post was actually about.
Well for starters I was indeed aware of the existence of the period you outlined.
I did not know exactly when it happened.
But I am glad you have let me know the full details.
Today's South Africa or todays situation of any past of a society from an apartheid situation are extremely relevant. The people that lived through that and live through the aftermath of that have invaluable experiences. When I say I wasn't aware it finished. I was clear of what I meant when I said apartheid in the broader sense. This mentality still exists and there is still segregation as far as I am aware, albeit not with the use of law.
You chose to focus on this subject in your blog as much as I did and a disagreement in semantics has caused an inability to communicate.
I did indeed read the rest of your article and I related it directly to the encroaching totalitarian state the situation of state sponsored bullying to push an experimental injection on everybody.
The apartheid situation being developed now by the government between those vaccinated and those that choose to repsect the function of their innate immune system is real.
By learning from past apartheid and segregation experiences whether it be South Africa, Nazi Germany, Palestine or Northern Ireland - directly from the people who have experienced it first hand and feel the effects and know how long it takes to heal - we can avoid this.
Not sure why we have to keep disagreeing and finding fault in what the other has said.
Shake hands?
I think it's pretty clear that you want to focus on and talk about social apartheid which is not the subject of this post.
If I wanted to talk about social apartheid I could have talked about any country in the world, including my own.
The only reason South Africa was brought up is because of the context to Desmond Tutu and the actual period of apartheid he fought against.
Your focus and mine are clearly different.
Mine is on the personal responsibility and reactions to bullying which is the topic of this post. I don't have any interest in being dragged into a discussion of social apartheid and have tried to kindly redirect you to the topic of the post.
Yours has been on social apartheid. I think it would be a great idea for you to do a post on the subject of social apartheid. Clearly you have an interest and some passion for the subject.
I disagree. Our focus is not exclusive from one another.
Apartheid takes up a third of your post and Desmond Tutu was a part of South African society.
You final subject conclusion is to relate it to bullying.
As you have made the relation yourself I see no distinction between apartheid in any situation - past or modern - and bullying in a social setting.
You could have used any other apartheid situation and any other leader's quote from 'that' situation.
The designation of where it happened is irrelevant.
I am not sure how you see a difference.
If you can't see the link between bullying and apartheid, this discussion just became a total waste of time and energy. You maybe should have made that clearer sooner and saved us both a lot of time.
As you read in the post, the quote came to me, I didn't seek it out. I did choose to work with it.
So, once again, you want to talk about social apartheid have at it on your own post. This discussion just ended.
Excuse me - we have another disagreement caused by language.
This means... I see no separation between apartheid in any situation and bullying in a social setting.
To be honest I can find it hard at times I was always scared to say something or intervene in a lot of situations for that exact reason. Some people have it in them to stand up for others and some don't. I would like to think I have changed and if I saw it now I would step up and say something but I still think situations arise where we are too scared or nervous to act.
Great read though and love the quotes in the post.
it's always a tough call. Especially when the bully is being physical or is in actual position of power that can be used to retaliate.