What Gaza Reveals About Who We Really Are

 

Silence Then and Now

What Gaza Reveals About Who We Really Are 

By Kieran Beville

Have you ever truly stopped to wonder what choices you might have made as an adult living in Nazi Germany between 1936 and 1945? Would you have stood against a monstrous ideology rooted in hate, violence, and dehumanisation? Would you have dared to speak up, knowing that your dissent could cost you your freedom—or even your life? Or would fear, apathy, or the comfort of your own position have kept you quiet? Would you have pleaded ignorance, claiming you didn’t know what was happening? Would you have shrugged and said, “I’m not political,” or told yourself that the Nazi regime was simply too powerful to challenge?

It’s a question that haunts us because it strips us of comforting illusions. We like to imagine ourselves as brave, principled, and moral—people who would have risked something to do what’s right. But history is rarely shaped by what we imagine we would do. It is shaped by what we actually do when faced with injustice. And today, you don’t have to wonder anymore.

Look to Gaza. Look at what is happening to the Palestinian people: entire families wiped out in moments, entire neighbourhoods reduced to rubble, children pulled mutilated or lifeless from the debris, hospitals and schools destroyed, a population trapped with nowhere safe to go. It is a horror that unfolds in real time, streamed onto our screens, reported by journalists, documented by human rights organisations. The facts are there for anyone willing to look, yet so many remain silent. And by your silence, you have your answer: this is what you would have done back then.

The Comfort of Distance

We often talk about historical atrocities as if they belong to some distant, unimaginable past—as if people then were somehow different from us. We assume that, had we lived under Nazi rule, we would have seen through the propaganda, recognised evil for what it was, and risked something—anything—to resist. But this assumption ignores a painful truth: people living through those years were not so different. They too had families, jobs, fears, and ambitions. They too feared consequences, arrest, social ostracism, violence. Many, perhaps most, turned away not because they were fanatical Nazis, but because they felt powerless or told themselves it wasn’t their responsibility.

Today, the situation in Gaza forces us to confront that same moral test, but without the excuses of distance or ignorance. In the age of instant communication and global media, we can no longer claim “I didn’t know.” We see it, read it, hear it. And still, many of us remain silent.

To say, “I’m not political,” is to echo the words of countless bystanders in history. To say, “It’s too complicated,” is to look away from suffering because it unsettles us. To say, “What can I do?” is to choose helplessness over responsibility. Each of these choices is, in effect, a decision to do nothing—and doing nothing is a decision with consequences.

The Myth of Neutrality

Neutrality in the face of injustice isn’t moral. It isn’t compassionate. It isn’t even truly neutral. It’s complicity. When an atrocity is happening, there is no balanced middle ground between the oppressed and the oppressor. Refusing to speak out doesn’t absolve you; it empowers those committing the violence. Silence tells the perpetrators: the world is watching—and the world does not care enough to stop us.

History makes this painfully clear. The Nazi regime was enabled not just by fervent supporters, but by the millions who looked away, who insisted they were “just trying to live their lives,” who said nothing as their Jewish neighbours disappeared.

In South Africa, apartheid survived for decades not only because of its enforcers, but because of those around the world who accepted trade, travel, and polite diplomatic relations instead of demanding an end to racial terror.

In the American South, segregation persisted because so many white citizens refused to challenge it—even if they claimed, privately, to disagree.

In each case, the silence of ordinary people played an active role in sustaining the machinery of oppression.

Fear and Self-Interest – Powerful Incentives to Stay Silent

Let’s be honest: there are real reasons why people remain silent. Some fear backlash—from employers, friends, or family. Some worry about being labelled, attacked online, or losing social standing. Others fear feeling powerless, believing that a single voice means nothing against the might of states and armies.

But these are the same fears that shaped the choices of millions before us. Fear of “consequences” isn’t new. It’s what kept so many people in Nazi Germany silent while their Jewish neighbours were rounded up. It’s what kept so many white Americans silent during the lynching era, knowing that to speak out meant to risk ostracism or violence. And it is what keeps many silent today as Palestinian lives are extinguished.

The truth is that silence has consequences, too—not just for the victims of oppression, but for us. It corrodes our moral sense, teaching us to live comfortably alongside horror. It makes us smaller, colder, and ultimately complicit.

The Power of a Single Voice

It’s easy to dismiss our individual voices as insignificant. But history is full of moments when the courage of even a few people made a difference—when a letter to a newspaper, a protest sign, or a conversation changed minds and built momentum for change.

We don’t need to be famous activists or politicians to matter. Speaking out—on social media, in conversation, in our communities—can shift what is seen as normal, what is seen as acceptable. It sends a message to those in power: people are watching, people do care, and people will remember. We may not be able to stop bombs from falling. But we can refuse to be silent as they do.

Words Alone Are Not Enough—But Silence Is Worse

Some will say: “Talking isn’t enough.” And they’re right. Real change requires action: donating to humanitarian aid, lobbying politicians, protesting, boycotting and educating others. But silence ensures nothing changes at all. Silence kills empathy, buries truth, and shields injustice.

We can’t allow the enormity of the problem to paralyse us. Instead, we must see it as a call to act—to do what we can, where we can, even if it feels small.

The Cost of Looking Away

History will judge us, as it judges all generations. And when it does, it will not be kind to our excuses. Already, children in Gaza are growing up under unimaginable trauma—or not growing up at all. Families mourn loved ones buried under rubble. And as they do, the world debates language, questions definitions, and turns away.

In decades to come, people will ask what we did—what we said—while this happened. They won’t ask what we felt in our hearts. They will ask what we did with our voices, our votes, our platforms, and our privilege.

To say “I was not political” or “I was afraid of consequences” will not sound noble. It will sound hollow. It will sound like what it is: complicity.

A Mirror to Ourselves

When we ask, “What would I have done in Nazi Germany?” or “What would I have done during segregation?” the answer isn’t in our imagination. It’s in our actions today. Are we willing to raise our voices, risk discomfort, challenge our circles, and reject the comfort of neutrality? Or do we look away hoping someone braver will do it for us? If your answer today is silence, then you have your answer to that question of history. You would have been silent then, too.

A Call to Conscience

This is not about being perfect. It’s about refusing to let fear and convenience silence us. It’s about recognising that silence isn’t neutral—it’s a choice. And it’s a choice that, once made, cannot be undone. Speak up—even if your voice trembles. Refuse to let horror be normalised. Refuse to be a bystander, because history is not written only by those in power. It is also written by those who stayed silent—and by those who refused to.