I was very struck by part of a Thought for the Day by Revd Giles Fraser on BBC Radio 4 on February 11. Referring in part to the scandal of clerical abuse he ventured: ‘Silence is such complicated stuff’ and went on to say ‘Silence is holy, silence is wise, silence is thoughtful … silence is God’s first language. But silence can also be deeply manipulative. There’s also evasive silence.’ He concluded that ‘There’s good silence and there’s bad silence.’
A few days later I was reminded of one of the most evasive silences of our era when watching a short interview on Channel 4 News of the Journalist and Author Omar El Akkad by Krishnan Guru Murthy.
KGM: Why do you think this culture that we live in is prepared to tolerate the images of dead children that you’ve seen every day for a year and a half?
OMA: Because there’s effectively no consequences to looking away. For the vast majority of people who live in this part of the world, if you don’t pay any attention to this, how does that change your daily life? It effectively doesn’t. The opposite is true. If you stand up and talk about this, you risk your livelihood, you risk your career. You risk being thought of as the troublesome one … because you make things awkward. But if you just look away, what are the consequences?
The name of Omar El Akkad’s book which occasioned this interview? One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This.
The UK refuses to recognise Palestine as a state (even though it promised statehood over a hundred years ago) and continues to export arms that are being used for ethnic cleansing. We have nothing to be silent about.
Jim Sikorski
