Hello all,
This is a paper defending Elie Wiesel's speech about how humans must take sides and stop oppression.
Feel free to say anything about it.
Thanks
William
Mankind's Duty
Why would anyone turn their back on the suffering of innocent human beings? Why should they have to feel alone in their suffering? It is mankind's duty to protect and liberate anyone who is being oppressed or suffering, despite any circumstances, or terrible things can happen. If no one steps in to help, the oppressor will believe they are right in their actions. Trying to forget about the problem or turning a blind eye will only increase the problem.
If a ruler or oppressor has no opposition, they will believe that what they are doing is not a problem since no one has stopped them. Humanity can not let that happen, but unfortunately it did. Adolf Hitler is a perfect example of this, and Night by Elie Wiesel shows what horrible events he caused. During the Holocaust, the Germans believed it was their duty to exterminate all of the Jews. They did not feel guilty about making them suffer. The Germans played with the Jews as if they were pets. A German worker "took a piece of bread out of his bag and threw it into a wagon. There was a stampede... The worker watched the spectacle with great interest" (Wiesel 100). This man had been told that the Jews were not even human and that harming them was all right. He had no opposition to this view so he believed it as correct. If an external body had stepped in and showed how cruel his actions were, he would not have done them. By not showing their views of the Nazi's horrible actions, the rest of the world had convinced them that everything was all right.
This same type of horrible silence happened even in America. During the middle 1800's, the Native Americans were viewed as "a savage and inferior race" by the white man, who would "invade, plunder and murder" any Indians who were troublesome (Irene ustrek) . This is exactly like what happened to the Jews. No body tried to stop the white man so he oppressed and persecuted for pleasure. If mankind had stepped in and said that it was wrong to cause suffering to people who have done nothing wrong, all of the terrible thing that happened to the Native Americans could have been avoided.
While some may know that a problem exists, many just turn a blind eye and forget about it. This is never the answer. Turning a blind eye will only increase the problem. The Americans knew about the Holocaust and the treatment of the Jews, but they did not try to stop it until the very end of the war. It took many years for "the first American tank [to stand] at the gates of Buchenwald" (Wiesel 115). Millions of Jewish Europeans were killed because the Americans did not try come to stop the Nazis in time. By trying to forget about the problem in Germany, the world only ended up making it worse.
America has had a bad record of knowing about problems, but not doing anything to fix them. This is also evident in the second war the US was fighting in World War II, Japan. Americans had an idea that all Japanese Americans were spies relaying secret information back to Imperial Japan, so they rounded up all the Japanese and put them in Internment camps. The Japanese Americans "were incarcerated for up to 4 years, without due process of law or any factual basis, in bleak, remote camps surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards" (PBS). The internment were very similar to the concentration camps, and America's action was very similar. Many Americans knew about the camps but no one did very much to try to stop them. They tried to forget about them, focusing their efforts elsewhere. Instead of fixing the problem, they ended up creating one of the darkest times in American History.
For as long as humans walk the Earth, there will be suffering and oppression. It will never be possible to totally get rid of it, but there are steps that can be taken to help. Humanity must step in to protect and free anyone who is being oppressed or suffering, no matter the circumstances. If outside bodies do not liberate and free, we will be forced to relive the terrible events in the worlds history that we try so hard to forget.
