A Quote by Elie Wiesel
What hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor, but the silence of the bystander.
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When someone hurts you or harms you, even if it is a deep wound, forgive them. Forgive them NOT for their sake, but as a sign of gratitude to Allah. Why you ask? For making you the victim and not the oppressor. There is no crime in being a victim, rather it brings you closer to Allah and rids you of sins. But as for the oppressor, they'll have to face their Lord one day. So in reality, they are their own greatest victims.
It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing. He appeals to the universal desire to see, hear, and speak no evil. The victim, on the contrary, asks the bystander to share the burden of pain. The victim demands action, engagement, and remembering.
We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.
Atonement is a journey of healing that moves from the pain between a victim and an oppressor, through forgiveness, the making of amends, the relief of anger and compassion for the victim, to deep reconciliation.
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.
It would be hard to find a single example in history in which a group that cast more than 50 percent of the vote got away with calling itself the victim... Women are the only 'oppressed' group to share the same parents as the 'oppressor'; to be born into the middle class and upper class as frequently as the 'oppressor'; to own more of the culture's luxury items than the 'oppressor'.
If you are not the victim, don't examine it entirely from your point of view because when YOU'RE not the victim, it becomes pretty easy to rationalize and excuse cruelty, injustice, inequality, slavery, and even murder. But when you're the victim, things look a lot differently from that angle.
We cannot have two hearts, one for the animals and one for men. In cruelty towards the former and cruelty to the latter there is no difference but in the victim.
If you're on the side of the oppressor, or you're defending the oppressor, or you're actually trying to humanize the oppressor, then that's a problem.
Silence is consent. And silence where life and liberty is at stake, where by a timely protest we could stay the destoyer's hand, and do not do so, is as criminal as giving actual aid to the oppressor, for it answers his purpose.
To answer oppression with appropriate resistance requires knowledge of two kinds: in the first place, self-knowledge by the victim, which means awareness that oppression exists, an awareness that the victim has fallen from a great height of glory or promise into the present depths; secondly, the victim must know who the enemy is. He must know his oppressor's real name, not an alias, a pseudonym, or a nom de plume!
Take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.
Violence just hurts those who are already hurt...Instead of exposing the brutality of the oppressor, it justifies it.
All Profound things, and emotions of things are preceded and attended by Silence... Silence is the general consecration of the universe. Silence is the invisible laying on of the Divine Pontiff's hands upon the world. Silence is at once the most harmless and the most awful thing in all nature. It speaks of the Reserved Forces of Fate. Silence is the only Voice of our God.
Being a victim doesn't take much. There are built-in excuses for failure. Built-in excuses for being miserable. Built-in excuses for being angry all the time. No reason to trying to be happy; it's not possible. You're a victim. Victim of what? Well, you're a victim of derision. Well, you're a victim of America. You're a victim of America's past, or you're a victim of religion. You're a victim of bigotry, of homophobia, whatever. You're a victim of something. The Democrats got one for you. If you want to be a victim, call 'em up.
These weren't encouraged in the city, since the heft and throw of a longbow's arrow could send it through an innocent bystander a hundred yards away instead of the innocent bystander at whom it was aimed.
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