Pubdate: Fri, 11 Feb 2005
Source: Mindanao Times (Philippines)
Copyright: 2005 Mindanao Times.
Contact:  http://www.mindanaotimes.com.ph/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2980
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EDITORIAL: WHO WILL SPEAK OUT FOR US?

Why has there been no sustained campaign against the killings in the
city? This is the question we often ask ourselves. It was then
providential for us to meet a pastor who prodded our memory of the
poem written by the famous German Pastor Martin Niemoller whose life
was molded by the social and political realities of his time and who,
towards the end of his life, became an advocate for world peace.

Martin Niemoller, the son of a pastor, was born in Lippstadt, Germany
in 1892. At the age 18 he became an officer-cadet in the German Navy.
After the establishment of the Weimar Republic, he decided to study
theology but remained interested in politics. He became a supporter of
Adolf Hitler and in the 1924 elections voted for the Nazi Party. Even
after he was ordained in 1929 he remained an ardent supporter of Hitler.

He did not criticize the Nazi Party for putting its political
opponents into concentration camps. However, he spoke out when members
of the Protestant Church were arrested. The following month Niemoller
was himself arrested. He was held eight months without trial and when
his case eventually took place he was found guilty of "abusing the
pulpit" and was fined 2,000 marks. As he left the court he was
arrested by the Gestapo and sent to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp
to be "re-educated". Niemoller refused to change his views and was
later transferred to Dachau.

Much later in his life he became an active member of the World Peace
Committee and was for seven years president of the World Council of
Churches. He also published a book on his political views entitled One
World or No World (1964).

The poem "First they came for the communist" shows the folly of
fence-sitters then and now.

First they came for the communist

"First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out - because
I was not a communist;

Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out - because I
was not a socialist;

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out -
because I was not a trade unionist;

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out - because I was
not a Jew;

Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak out for
me." 
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