Avoiding the mirror

Sherwin P. Hicks (V935CF54@TEMPLEVM.BITNET)
Wed, 2 Nov 1994 10:22:18 EST

Levity??? The issue of Rushton is put away as if it were a box of summer
clothes. How convenient. Obviously, the majority of respondents on anthro-l
are quite comfortable with Rushton's and Murray's theories. Here's a little
something I hope many of you take to heart.


Beyond the world of police, courts, jails and asylums, we were faced with
the perhaps even more sickening outside world. Within this world, respectable
people, smart and secure work, day in, day out, to maintain the lie. They know
about the abuse and cruelty, they know about the dishonesty and corruption,
they know about the complex falsity of the reality in which they live, but they
daren't turn against it, they would be turning against themselves, so they
remain silent - the silent, voilent, majority.
Beneath the glossy surfaces of neatly combed hair and straightened nylons,
of polished cars and sponged-down cookers, of pub on Friday and occasional
church on Sunday, of well planned family and better planned future, of wealth
and security, of power and glory, are the 'real' fascists. They know, but they
remain silent.

'First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out - because I was
not a Jew. Then they came for the communists and I did not speak out - because
I was not a communist. Then they came for the trade unionist and I did not
speak out because I was not a trade unionist, Then they came for me - and there
was no one left to speak out for me.'
Pastor Niemeoller, victim of the Nazis.


They remain silent when the windows of the house across the street are
smashed and the walls daubed with racist abuse. Silent when they hear the
footsteps at night and the beating of doors and the sobbing of those inside.
Now, perhaps, a whisper, the quietest whisper, 'They're Jews you know' - or
Catholics, West Indians, Pakistanis, Indians, Arabs, Chinese, Irish, Gypsies,
gays, cripples, or any minority group, in any society, anywhere - they only
whisper it once before the warmth of the duck-down continental quilt soothes
away their almost accidental guilt. Silent again as they hear them led away in
to the darkness. Silent, as through the cold mist of morning, they hear the
cattletrucks roll by. And when they hear of the death-pits, of the racks,
of the ovens, of the thousands dead and thousands dying -they remain silent.
Because security is their god and compliance is his mistress, they remain
silent. Against all the evidence, against all that they know, they remain
silent, because convention decrees they should. Silence, security, compliance,
and convention - the roots of fascism. Their silence is their part in the
violence, a huge and powerful, silent voice of approval - the voice of fascism.



The above was published and released by Crass in August 1992