Eyes Wide Shut

The news is full of all commentators asking the same question over and over again. How could they not have known that Osama Bin Laden was living in that walled compound right in the midst of the town with neighbors all around him?

Listening to them, I am reminded of a trip my family took to Munich, Germany in 1983.

We traveled to Dachau, the concentration camp approximately twenty minutes outside of Munich where over 3000 Jews died. While Dachau was not an "extermination camp," it was a walled, fenced, fortress that existed between 1933 and 1945 where countless atrocities, hunger, illness, and deaths resulted due to the SS doctors' horrifying experiments on its prisoners.

I remember asking the same question.

How could they not have known?

The question allows for the benefit of doubt. Maybe they really didn't know....but how could they have not?

The naivete of the question is what hits me now. Perhaps it is that I've lived long enough to have become a tad cynical.
Perhaps it is that I understand human nature better now than I did at twenty-four.

The answer seems perfectly obvious to me.

Of course they knew.

Fear makes people do a lot of things.
I have never had to face a fear so great as retaliation by an evil government like the Nazi regime or of a terrorist organization like al Qaeda.
The courage it would take to speak up against atrocities like the Holocaust happening right in your back yard is something I can only pray I could muster.
The actions of the Nazis were legal in Germany. Hitler made sure of it. By going up against the government, a person risked everything. Would I have that kind of courage?

In our country, we go about our daily lives with a general sense of safety, security, and belief that our government, while not perfect, is just. Our homes are sanctuaries. While we are certainly grappling with a lot of issues about privacy in the age of the internet, there still is a sense that we are free to think, say, write, and act as we choose regardless of our race, religion, or culture without fear that we will be hauled off to a the ovens or be beheaded. These principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are subconsciously operating in us all the time. Because they have not been threatened.

So there sat Osama Bin Laden in a mansion in Pakistan. And nobody said anything. Eyes wide shut, someone said. Yes. I believe that is true. I've seen people look the other way on much smaller issues than whether to turn in public enemy # 1 - the most wanted, infamous terrorist on the planet.

Think about it. What have you chosen not to get mixed up in?
When have you decided to look the other way. Not get involved. Remain silent.
It bears some consideration.

A theology teacher I once had talked about how evil enters when there is an opening - a weakness - we allow evil to "happen."
The courage to stand up to evil is a choice.

I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

Elie Wiesel