You are not citizens. You are complicit in your own slavery. Every time another post appears online about how the system breaks, imprisons or destroys a person who tried to open your eyes, you do three things: put a sad emoticon, write “what a horror” and wrap yourself tighter in the blanket of your imaginary comfort. You think you'll sit it out. That the repressive machine will devour the “rebels” and calm down. It won’t calm down. You're next in line. It's just that your farm hasn't gone under the knife yet. The historical conveyor belt of cowardice: how you surrender your future Do you think your silence is a unique survival strategy? No, this is an age-old stupidity for which humanity has always paid with rivers of blood. The system is not strong - it simply takes advantage of your paralysis. Remember the history you were taught so poorly: Germany, 1930s: Pastor Martin Niemöller described it perfectly: “When they came for the communists, I was silent - I was not a communist... When they came for me, there was no one to stand up.” Millions of Germans thought that if they kept their heads down, they would not be touched. As a result, the system crushed them too, sending them to the fronts of a senseless war and under bombing. Your hut on the edge is always the first to burn. USSR, 1937: The neighbors listened in silence as the steps of the NKVD behind the wall took away the man who had spoken the truth yesterday. They thought: “What are you doing me for? I'm loyal." And a month later they were taken away in the same way, under the silence of those remaining. The system does not value the loyalty of slaves. She only needs meat to maintain her contour. The fate of the prophets: Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake to the hooting of the crowd he was trying to save from the darkness of the Middle Ages. Jan Hus was betrayed by those for whose freedom he went against the dictates of the church. History is filled with the corpses of those who tried to open people’s eyes, while these same people choked on popcorn, looking at their execution. Analytics of selfish interest: why turning over “our own” is mathematical suicide. Let's remove emotions and turn on pure logic. Why do you need to stand up for those who stand up for you and fight for them to the end? They are your only shield. The person who opens his mouth against the system takes the full blow of its radiation. While he is talking, the system is busy with him. As soon as you allow it to be "retracted" or planted, the front moves. Now the system is looking right at you. You are destroying the motivation to save yourself. What fool would defend a herd that scatters at the first noise or, worse, helps the wolves eat it? If a society does not protect its leaders, it deserves the tyrants who rule over it. The system cannot be “endured.” The anatomy of any authoritarian or unjust system is that it cannot stop. She needs constant expansion of control. If you gave her freedom of speech, tomorrow she will take away freedom of movement, the day after tomorrow - your property, and then your children. Stop adjusting slavery to the standards of “normality” Freedom is not a gift that will be brought to you on a silver platter by those who are now being packed into paddy wagons and given sentences. Freedom is an architecture that needs to be built every day, breaking the old, rotten system. When the system eats the person who opened your eyes, and you continue to go to work, pay taxes and pretend that nothing is happening, you are an accomplice. You are an accomplice in the murder of your own future. You are not betraying this particular activist or politician - you are betraying your children, dooming them to live in a pen that you were too lazy to destroy. Stop being fodder. Stop being spectators at the execution of those who tried to pull you out of the swamp. Either you learn to stand up for each other to the end and change the system for yourself, or continue to quietly rot in your gadgets until they come knocking for you. And they will knock for you. It's only a matter of time.
