Read this letter from an assassinated journalist
People often ask me why I take such risks and tell me it is a matter of time before I am bumped off. Of course I know that: it is inevitable. But if we do not speak out now, there will be no one left to speak for those who cannot, whether they be ethnic minorities, the disadvantaged or the persecuted.
An example that has inspired me throughout my career in journalism has been that of the German theologian, Martin Niemoller. In his youth he was an anti-Semite and an admirer of Hitler. As Nazism took hold in Germany, however, he saw Nazism for what it was: it was not just the Jews Hitler sought to extirpate, it was just about anyone with an alternate point of view.
Niemoller spoke out, and for his trouble was incarcerated in the Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps from 1937 to 1945, and very nearly executed. While incarcerated, Niemoller wrote a poem that, from the first time I read it in my teenage years, stuck hauntingly in my mind:
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 unionists
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.
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 unionists
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.
It reminds me of what Dr. Lee Wei Ling when she wrote about omission of guilt. If we see wrong doings and do not condemn them we are actually abetting in the commission of the wrongs.We are as guilty as they who committed.
ReplyDeleteI take my hats off to you, Mr. Tan, for championing the weak and bullied. I guess you don't want to speak from the grave. In the grave should be the insurance agents , the RMs and FIs who pilfered the poor of their hard earned saving. It is this lot of conscieceless , greedy salespeople whom we must expose their crime even we put our life in danger.
Mr. Tan , I hope the FISCA that you wish to form will soon take shape so that we can expose the insurance agents, the RMs and the insurance companies and the banks.
Hi Mr Tan:
ReplyDeleteLasantha Wickramatunga’s editorial before his assassination was posted on Singapore Kopitiam half a month before this entry:
http://forums.delphiforums.com/sunkopitiam/messages?msg=19056.1
Just to share with you.
Regards,
Victor Sun
Singapore Kopitiam - Voices of Singaporeans
http://forums.delphiforums.com/sunkopitiam