Paul
Goble
Staunton, September 9 – Nurlan Turekhanov,
a Kazakh designer, has updated German Pastor Martin Niemoeller’s explanation for
why Hitler was able to pick off one group after another and why groups whose
members think they are beyond being victimized should not be so certain.
In a poster that has gone viral in
the Kazakh, Russian and Belarusian blogosphere but that deserves to be even
more widely known, Turekhanov writes the following: “When they came for the
Moldovans, I didn’t say anything because I wasn’t a Moldovan. When they came
for the Georgians, I didn’t say anything because I wasn’t a Georgian.”
“When they came for the Ukrainians,
I didn’t say anything because I wasn’t a Ukrainian. When they came for me,
there wasn’t anyone left to speak out on my behalf” (szona.org/kogda-oni-pridut-za-mnoi/,
repeated on many sites, including stopputler.org/index.php/news/190-kazakh-designer
and charter97.org/ru/news/2014/9/4/114215/).
Many writers
have referred to Niemuller’s observation in recent months, but to the extent
that many in the populations of the post-Soviet states are now doing so,
Vladimir Putin’s aggression against Ukraine may come to be viewed by an
increasing number of them as a direct threat to all of them, as an indication
that an attack on one is an attack on all.
And the spread of such attitudes
will not only represent another obstacle for the Kremlin leader but also and
potentially more importantly create the basis for cooperation among groups of
these countries, cooperation that could help them resolve some of their own
problems even as they help to block Moscow’s aggression.
No comments:
Post a Comment