Thoughts on France´s expulsion of Romani

Reverend Martin Niemöller (1892–1984), a pastor in the German Confessing Church who spent seven years in a concentration camp, said in hindsight:.


"First they came for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Communist.

Then they came for the Socialists,
and I didn´t speak up,
because I wasn´t a Socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn´t speak up,
because I wasn´t a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Jew.

Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me,
and by that time there was no one
left to speak up for me."

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Evil wrongdoings usually don´t just suddenly happen. There are warnings but we are not willing to act or react out of complacency, cowardice or just pure laziness.

The good reverend could of course also have added mental patients, disabled, romani and homosexuals at the start of his list. And if he had lived in this day and age he would surely have added muslims.