Yesterday a German artist released his exhibition of Nazi Gnomes in a square that was once used for pro-Hitler parades. The exhibition has 1250 gnomes moulded into a typical Nazi salute. This salute, and any other pro-Hitler rhetoric is illegal (for humans) in Germany. Some gnomes are golden and others are black. The artist claims to be representing the “master race” as garden gnomes which he argues is satirical. They are part of a larger exhibition entitled “dance with the devil”.
The exhibition is quite creepy — not only because there are a large number of garden gnomes in one place. It is unnerving because it seems to indicate the complete randomness of the categories of difference that Nazism places or placed emphasis on. Some of these gnomes are golden, and bear with me in my limited artistic analysis, but I think they might be indicative of the Aryan race. There are only a few of these, and there were only a few shiny golden haired Germans back then too.
More unnerving is that thousands of people stood behind a leader who was exterminating other people based on a mythological idea of the “ideal”. They tortured and gassed others because “they were told to”. Looking at these gnomes made me realise how quick people are to do what they’re told. This can sometimes have really scary effects.
I watched a documentary a while back where four survivors of torture and four torturers were interviewed. The torturers spoke with clarity about the acts that they had carried out on many (often completely innocent) people in the name of a cause. All four of these torturers expressed little remorse about what they had done and said that it was all “in the name of a cause” and often they just did “what they were told to”. It really freaked me out. Like Jon Cayzer’s blog this week I wondered about my own capabilities to hurt others, or to perform any action because “I was told to”. I hate to think that I could be involved in atrocities like this.
I like to think that I’m a person of conviction who responds and makes it clear when I think a situation or comment is not right (sexist/racist jokes) and will act against abuse whenever I can. I like to think that I’m a person who thinks and then acts, and who thinks for myself above that. But a simple incident yesterday made me think that perhaps I’m sometimes quite happy to follow the crowd.
I take the train to and from work every day and it normally runs on time. Yesterday, just one stop away from my home, the train suddenly came to a standstill. No announcements were made to explain what was going on. We were stopped at a station, and everyone just remained seated as other trains passed us by. We watched as the rain fell, and there was hardly even a murmur that we should perhaps get up and get on another train. Until, all of a sudden, someone said “I’m getting on that one”, and (to sound South African ) true’s Bob we all stood up, ready to get on the next train (which was almost empty). Suddenly, an announcement came over the speakers — “please note that this train is delayed. please wait”. So all of us climbed back into the trains, took our (same) seats and waited another five minutes before our train left the station. Nobody challenged the announcer, and none of us were any the wiser about what had happened.
How often in our lives do we just sit back and wait for someone else to tell us what to do? And how often in our lives do we actually stop and think about the practicality or the impact of those actions or in-actions? Could you be an un-acting/un-challenging supporter of the next apartheid/Holocaust/genocide? What’s stopping you?
Your last story about the train and everybody moving back and forward on the command of a voice over the public system seems to give you the answer to “why people can do things, you do not expect them to do”.
Why do we accept 50 murders a day, a rape every second, regular robberies? Nobody has gone on strike over it.
Ever experienced a basic army training? Mine was, and most still are, clearly aimed at making you listen to and obeying commands as reflexes. German armies were, and still are, the same. so are the Yanks (Vietnam, Iraq), the British (Turkey, India, Iraq) and you name them. Even our African child soldiers are not any better.
According to your German story, the Germans might slowly be able to talk about their past. This could be good for the national healing process. Keep in mind that most of the perpetrators have -by now- left this earth.
We are still waiting for the signs of forgiving from the Jewish community. But they are still busy beating up the Palestinian community.
I wonder whether it isn’t true that South Africans often do not rebel sufficiently against the large travesties (e.g. apartheid) but are often, on the small issues (road behaviour, drink driving, following standard operating procedures), almost completely anarchic.
The Brits are the opposite. They are very conformist and law-abiding on the small stuff. But extreme political solutions wouldn’t ever gain traction in the UK.
Perhaps the difference simply reduces to South Africans being, in relative terms, non-conformists or extremists while the Brits are moderates?
The people on your train excepted, of course.
I find it strange that after 70+ years the German people are constantly reminded of how their forefathers behaved.
The German people are literally made to pay every time Hitler is mentioned.
That said that act has lead to a world where we have allowed evil to walk over good. We daily Kowtow to the criminal by not taking a stand against acts of wanton violence.
I often wonder why it is that all point fingers at Germany when our politicians modified the laws, that are tolerant of despicable criminal acts that have killed or maimed millions over the years?
Oh dear, Hugh. I suppose its possible you’ll no longer be around in another 55 years to see whether overt criticism of white South Africans is still common. But I very much doubt it will have been swept under the carpet. Bad behaviour breeds obsessive reaction and it’s all too easy for the supposed perpetrators to plead lack of political sensitivity after the fact.
I am very aware that if the ANC reacreates an apartheid system (already halfway done), I’ll do what I did last time: condemn it and do very little to stop it. And you?
Hugh Robinson: “I find it strange that after 70+ years the German people are constantly reminded of how their forefathers behaved.”
The holocaust “industry” is big business in the US and Europe.
I recommend you read a book called:
Elephants on Acid: And Other Bizarre Experiments
by Alex Boese.
Among lots of interesting and sometimes disturbing experiments, there were some that explored the paradigm of “I was told to do it”.
A number of people were told to inflict “torture” on another person (this involved pressing a button which was supposedly administrating an electric shock to an actor), by an authoritative figure wearing a white hospital coat. It was found that a vast, vast majority of people will do what they are told, even though it causes them considerable personal distress to do so. Such is the power of authority on the human psyche.
The proposed explanation is that obedience was bread into humans over the thousands of years, with the “disobedience” gene purposefully bread out.
You can believe or disbelieve the explanation, but the facts remain, humans are as obedient as sheep.
Comments about the Brits being conformist (and ourselves being extremist), and the Germans constantly being reminded of their sordid past refer.
We in SA are basically a lawless society. We steal abalone, we smuggle diamonds etc etc, because we feel the relevant laws were made by “another” group to disadvantage “our” group. (English ruling the Afrikaners, Whites ruling the Blacks etc)
The difference between the Germans and the Brits is hard to understand. The Germans are constantly reminded of the holocaust, but nobody reminds the Brits about their concentration camps during the Boer War, which was also not that long ago. (Some of our parents were in those camps!)
So to say that the Brits are conformist is oversimplifying things. They conform when it suits them.The Germans did the same iunder the Nazis.
At least the Germans did apologise. I have never heard the Brits do that.
We are taught from a young age to act in way that is good. To make it easier for us to get on with our lives and not to have to sit and decide over what is right and what is not and not get around to much else, we are also handed an ideology or system, a quick fix, a do it all, with all the answers. For some it is religion, while for others it might be a philosophical view of life and its meaning. The result is, we are used to letting others make our decisions for us. For the most part it works fine, society functions relatively smoothly, but sometimes it develops a cancerous growth, Nazism, Apartheid, Stalinism, etc. that has to be cut out before the whole body is taken over. That is why society needs a free press, with the ability to point out the dangers, while allowing the rest off us the luxury to get on with earning a living and life in general.
Jen, never underestimate the banality of evil.
Liza, I’ve actually seen that experiment. It was part of the documentary. It was very very telling.
I would suggest that you listened to the voice of the train announcer as he should have been the voice of information…just like the success of the Hitler propoganda machine…it had eveyone believing that what he said was correct and jusitfiable, no matter how hainous
Unfortunately, it took a long time before the majority of South Africans acted against the attrocities of Apartheid, and it is going to take a long time before the majority acts against the BMW loving, corrupt ANC government.
As for the gnome exhibition, I actually quite liked its tongue and cheeky approach…the poor Germans are still today paying for the sins of one man, a flawed genius!
Liza/Jennifer
The experiment is well known.
What you might find it more profitable to consider is not the ones who did what they were told, but the ones who refused.
The strange part is that before the war, the Germans were not known for their antisemitism per se, given that the majority of Europe had similar ideas (the pogroms in E. europe, etc). It was only because of the effects of war on the psyche that we now reject antisemitism (let me explain): We deliberately, in any war situation, make out the enemy to be evil. Thus, we reject all his ideological foundations. Because the Germans excercised theirs to an incredible extent between 1940-45 (when they started the concentration camps), we reject them.
But can you imagine if the second world war never happened, and people were never shown the horror that racism can cause? Europe would be to this day excercising antisemitic legal practises.
Perhaps Im getting too academic here, but my point is that we reject an ideology only when its perpetrators are enemies. Like with apartheid. Once the NP government dissolved, it became the enemy, which is clearly for the best. It’s dominant ideology: the basic ideologies of the ruling class become the basic ideologies of the public.
It takes an exceptional and questioning mind to escape this, and you can tell from how few Germans opposed the third reich.