The Mathematics of Your Complicity
Complicity: the fact or condition of being involved with others in an activity that is unlawful or morally wrong (Oxford Online Dictionary).
The term “complicity” has been used so much recently with respect to the “Israel”-Palestine conflict, that those who are complicit have probably grown numb to the word.
Firstly to unpick “complicity” as used by the highly paranoid and belligerent state of “Israel” and its supporters. These people usually claim that everybody is “complicit” in wrongly condemning them and that reputable humanitarian bodies like Amnesty, WHO and the UN are therefore complicit in anti-semitism.
If these bodies were indeed being anti-semitic rather than just pointing out “Israel’s” apartheid, illegal actions and genocide of the Palestinians, then they would be complicit. But since “complicity” implies something morally wrong, anybody condemning “Israel” cannot by definition be truly complicit; and the unlawful and morally wrong behaviour is that of the settler colonial occupation.
Secondly, to unpick “complicity” as used by humanitarians and supporters of Palestine.
Let’s imagine someone starts to beat up a kid for no reason. There are ten other people watching. The 10% - i.e. one out of ten - decides to intervene, but it’s not enough. Another 10% - i.e. another one in ten - tries to join in the violence.
That leaves 80% standing there dithering, walking off because it isn’t their own child, they don’t care, it doesn’t concern them and theirs, the child doesn’t fit their own racial demographic and so on, or that classic excuse of the cowardly: “I don’t want to get involved.”
To all intents and purposes, this makes those “complicit” exactly the same, morally, as the people carrying out the abuse. The effect of them turning away is the same, and allows the abuser to continue.
Moral Stupidity of the Silent
Today, there is a section of society that is rabid, murderous and a danger to everybody, and they are being allowed to continue their actions unabated because of the silence of the majority. And this majority includes people who have a platform, which makes it incumbent on them to use it for something so important as the genocide unfolding at this moment.
I’ve talked before about mothers who are precious about their own children and yet don’t seem to be too bothered by other people’s children being brutalized; journalists who are intellectually dishonest; medics who have taken the Hippocratic oath and yet are happy to passively watch, or ignore, the raping and killing of Palestinian Doctors. What the hell will it take you to speak up?
Some of these people are more bothered about saying something “controversial” about “Israel” than the fact that human beings are being raped, tortured, blown up, amputated with no anaesthetic, starved and brutalized every minute of the day. If this is you – then this is what complicity means.
Age of Influencers
“Influencer”. A term I often hear today, from many people. We live in an age of “influencers” – or in my opinion, an age of the easily influenced – but that is a conversation for another time.
The point is, that todays “influencer” is a person with a platform and a following, which they can use to influence people. This includes celebrity influencers. I often wonder whether these people are wilfully blind, or simply don’t understand what is happening.
Apart from the really uncritical thinkers, of which I guess there are woefully large numbers these days, and who parrot the mainstream news recycled hasbara propaganda talking points, allowing this mental fug to obscure their view of what is really unfolding in the world – there are actually people who don’t have an opinion.
Of course, I still can’t believe this, that in light of what is happening, they’re still preoccupied with their domestic mundanities, reality TV and the “politics” of dancing on shite (excuse me while I take a moment to contemplate this in disbelief).
People have all kinds of excuses to be unbothered, and we don’t all have to be informed of every political nuance – but this is pivotal and it will change the world forever – the world, which has already become crooked on its axis, so momentous and monstrous are these events.
A whole population of civilians are being starved to death, Israel has closed every border and trucks of rotting aid are sitting outside these sealed borders while people are being bombed to death inside.
Does this have any effect on you whatsoever? If not, then the lights are on – but there is woefully, nobody home.