Okay, so I am from a country where we got rid of a fascist government less than 50 years ago, thus ending 4 decades of dictatorship. The memory of those days are still quite fresh in our collective memory, regardless the new right wing zealots going to far lenghts to retell a very well and publicly documented history.
And that history is an history of repression, social stagnation and political persecussion. And denunciation.
KGB, the famous KGB, created a reputation for repression by brutality but here it was impossible to tell who you could trust. Your neighbour, your loved ones, that person you encountered every day on the bus, your coworkers… besides the very easy to spot and identify agents that could at random approach you on the street, question and drag you off to the nearest police station or detention center, with no expected time to return home, if ever.
It took, technically a military coup, an inside job, to take this repressive regime. Luckily, it was never their intention to instate a military junta and democracy was instead established.
People could either support, tolerate or endure the regime. There was no other options. Thousands conspired for decades and died in the process. The slightest suspicion and any one could end behind bars, deported to one of the colonies, where prison conditions were even worse, as if such thing could be possible or simply gone, occasionally dragged out of their house, in the middle of the night, in a very loud and public exibition of force for everyone to see and never to comment but by whispers.
That is how fascism, and by extension, any dictatorship enforces complacency.
Not many are willing to become heroes and even less survive to tell the tale. The notion that when dark times arise a great hero will come is an hollywood creation.
Okay, so the people at the top of that company were terrified for their lives too. Everyone complied or died. They chose to comply. Just like you would have.
Do I think the money earned during that time should be given to survivors and their families? Yes. Do I blame them for complying? No.
Okay…?
Okay, so I am from a country where we got rid of a fascist government less than 50 years ago, thus ending 4 decades of dictatorship. The memory of those days are still quite fresh in our collective memory, regardless the new right wing zealots going to far lenghts to retell a very well and publicly documented history.
And that history is an history of repression, social stagnation and political persecussion. And denunciation.
KGB, the famous KGB, created a reputation for repression by brutality but here it was impossible to tell who you could trust. Your neighbour, your loved ones, that person you encountered every day on the bus, your coworkers… besides the very easy to spot and identify agents that could at random approach you on the street, question and drag you off to the nearest police station or detention center, with no expected time to return home, if ever.
It took, technically a military coup, an inside job, to take this repressive regime. Luckily, it was never their intention to instate a military junta and democracy was instead established.
People could either support, tolerate or endure the regime. There was no other options. Thousands conspired for decades and died in the process. The slightest suspicion and any one could end behind bars, deported to one of the colonies, where prison conditions were even worse, as if such thing could be possible or simply gone, occasionally dragged out of their house, in the middle of the night, in a very loud and public exibition of force for everyone to see and never to comment but by whispers.
That is how fascism, and by extension, any dictatorship enforces complacency.
Not many are willing to become heroes and even less survive to tell the tale. The notion that when dark times arise a great hero will come is an hollywood creation.
Okay, so the people at the top of that company were terrified for their lives too. Everyone complied or died. They chose to comply. Just like you would have.
Do I think the money earned during that time should be given to survivors and their families? Yes. Do I blame them for complying? No.
You conveniently omit the third group: the ones that perpetrate and take advantage of the narrative for their own gain.
If “we’d all be nazis”, maybe we all deserve criticism. That’s not a defense.