“You know, we always cling to the hope something is going to
happen. They're not going to let us rot on the ocean. I mean, something had to
happen to us.” Gerda Blachmann Wilchfort – passenger on the St. Louis.
When fear overrides humanity (the
better angles of our humanity), we ought to fear. That is when we become the
animals who lose the gift of speech – to borrow from C.S. Lewis in The Magician’s
Nephew.
“We will be your neighbor unless
you are on cruise ship with a disease. We will be your neighbor unless you are
on a cruise ship fleeing Nazi Germany.”
At least we are consistent.
The difference between the USA
today and the USA preceding and during the Holocaust, is that we probably can’t
measure how many lives were lost because we refused to allow Jewish refugees
into our “welcoming” land. But we will probably be able to measure how many
lives were lost because we shut our ports to those in need during the current
crisis.
Perhaps those who survive the cruise
ship tragedy will take another look at their attitudes toward refugees fleeing violence
in countries south of our borders.
You can read about Gerda at this
link:
No comments:
Post a Comment