We’re at an important junction right now.
With mandatory vaccination being implemented in many countries for certain roles in society, we can see the early stages of a descent into an authoritarian dystopia.
In England all care home staff are facing mandatory vaccination. In France all health workers are under orders to be jabbed or lose their jobs. Italy and Greece have implemented similar rulings for care home workers. Germany, Australia and the USA are talking about following the herd.
I quoted Martin Niemöller in an earlier post. He was a German Lutheran pastor, and this is what he had to say in 1946 about what he experienced in Germany in the late 1930s and early 1940s:
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
This above “quote” is actually a poetic version of the story Niemöller would relate in many of the speeches he made.
His actual words are even more chilling in light of current developments:
From Wikipedia:
Niemöller made confession in his speech for the Confessing Church in Frankfurt on 6 January 1946, of which this is a partial translation:
“... the people who were put in the camps then were Communists. Who cared about them? We knew it, it was printed in the newspapers. Who raised their voice, maybe the Confessing Church? We thought: Communists, those opponents of religion, those enemies of Christians—‘should I be my brother's keeper?’
Then they got rid of the sick, the so-called incurables. I remember a conversation I had with a person who claimed to be a Christian. He said: ‘Perhaps it's right, these incurably sick people just cost the state money, they are just a burden to themselves and to others. Isn't it best for all concerned if they are taken out of the middle [of society]?’ Only then did the church as such take note.
Then we started talking, until our voices were again silenced in public. Can we say, we aren't guilty/responsible?
The persecution of the Jews, the way we treated the occupied countries, or the things in Greece, in Poland, in Czechoslovakia or in Holland, that were written in the newspapers. … I believe, we Confessing-Church-Christians have every reason to say: mea culpa, mea culpa! We can talk ourselves out of it with the excuse that it would have cost me my head if I had spoken out.
We preferred to keep silent. We are certainly not without guilt/fault, and I ask myself again and again, what would have happened, if in the year 1933 or 1934—there must have been a possibility—14,000 Protestant pastors and all Protestant communities in Germany had defended the truth until their deaths? If we had said back then, it is not right when Hermann Göring simply puts 100,000 Communists in the concentration camps, in order to let them die. I can imagine that perhaps 30,000 to 40,000 Protestant Christians would have had their heads cut off, but I can also imagine that we would have rescued 30–40 million people, because that is what it is costing us now.”
Do you feel it now? That preference to keep silent?
Or will you speak out?
Because first they came for the care home and health care workers.