INDIFFERENCE; THE WRONG CHOICE WE ARE ALWAYS QUICK TO CHOOSE

Today like every other day of my life; especially in this my times of self awakening. I woke up to a lot of hopes and strives for a better today because tomorrow never comes it is always keep moving forward and thus I will call it an infringement of our aloofness. Tomorrow just that day which will never come. This my strives are offshoots of my decisions and then as I lay on my sofa before the day begins I pondered and reminisced over my past life which was a total tale of indecisiveness and I could not help but laugh and hate at my former me for been enshrined in a such an indifferent filled past that have kept me in a state of stagnancy, aloofness, slavery, and self deceit, which led to the failure of others and my past life in irrelevance. I wonder how I could have lived in such an inglorious, indecisive and yet shameful past of indifference. Some tales of yore I remember and I just get happy I am no more that. 

I know I bored you already with my past, I deeply apologize because we are better preachers if we have experienced what we now fight against. It is a factual fact that I found recourse and strength in my past, especially in moments like this I backlash myself. That is actually a way I look up to a future I intend fulfilling and smile at a present laced with braveness, confidence, risks and full of decisions- sometimes wrong and other times right. These decision mine and I am elated I can for once be accountable and responsible for the life I now lead. 

I will urge you ride with me on this and take every of my paulinity, lol. I coined it paulinity is my state of writing gotten from been Pauline. Please do take my paulinity seriously it will serve as the footpath to the point I intend to hit as we go through this article of decisiveness.

So I urge you stay with me as I love to be with you. I know a lot of us that will be opportune to read this will wonder what I intend discussing or passing on, in this pale looking topic of discussion called INDIFFERENCE but I will urge we first consider defining the word Indifference.

Firstly, what is indifference? INDIFEFERENCE is etymologically defined as “NO DIFFERENCE” I know you wonder is this all I have to say after narrating my whole autobiography but I must disappoint us that words are sometimes not just what we think of them at the surface. Words sometimes are beyond just mere words with straight meanings but most times they are actions and inactions frequently controlling our daily living, ideologies that stand alone and that’s what INDIFFERENCE mean. According to Elie Wiesel, a world war 2 survivor of the Death camps of the Nazis, he said Indifference is a strange and most unnatural state in which the lines blur between; good and evil, peace and war, dusk and dawn, Light and darkness, crime and punishment, viciousness and compassion, love and hatred, and I will add being hero and being villain, bravery and cowardice. I will encompass all these into the ascertainable boundary that is invisible to all that is positive and their various negativities. Indifference lies in between this point.

A good instance that helps speak so much on the danger of indifference is the story of Rev. Martin Niemollar; a German protestant preacher, who was in support of the Hitler Reich(world war @) but was later punished by the same movement he once refused to speak against. Let me add that when you refuse to speak against evil, you are indirectly supporting it. I am so much sure he wrote this piece in agony and awful regret on how the Nazis took over Germany, mentally and territorially. He said and I quote;

“First they came for the socialist and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. 

Then they came for the tribal unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a tribal 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 for me.”

These words from the mouth of this famous German preacher explain indifference in the most simple language and that is that the indifferent person is an enemy of the victim and a friend of the oppressor without him knowing.

To buttress and expantiate more on this discourse, I'll like to classify humans into these three distinctive set; The oppressor, the oppressed and the bystanders - the indifferent person. The bystanders are the set of persons who sit on the fence and do not contribute anything whether good occurs or evil befalls people as far as it doesn't affect them. They're the set of persons who stay indecisive waiting on those who will turn up the winner in any fight, struggle or debate. The bystanders and the repercussion of been so is also explained in the biblical tale of the war between God and Lucifer. While the war went on some certain angels sat at side and watch on, hoping to move in with the winners but when God won, they were pushed off with the devil and definitely you know they won't be so welcomed in hell likewise because of their indecisiveness. Punishment will end up been unleashed on them just for not taken a stand. 

I know deep down, at this point you have your own instances and stories on indifference and the very end of each story and dangers it actually pose to the society. I also know how much the Indifference of America during the world war 2 caused, the singular act of not intervening till the excesses of Hitler was going to wreck them, the callousness of turning back over a thousand Jews at the marine border of America back to Germany, which led to their untimely death. Just a single act of indifference led to the death of persons and the truncation of many dreams and brought bitterness to the faces of people even after eight decades. History still recognizes it as indifference. 

The height of indifference is mostly encountered in wars, the biafra war, the Rwanda(Hutu-tutsi) war and many other uncountable crises that a single act of concern could have brought to an abrupt end and saved quantum of lives, hopes and dreams.

Indifference is dangerous too, in a very cunningly subtle form. We engage in it subconsciously because we do it and our conscience doesn't pick it up. We become indifferent in the most ignoble manner. 

You become indifferent when you watch a guardian or master maltreat his ward without you intervening. 

You become indifferent when you watch people being bullied and mocked by people stronger than them, that's been indifferent if you do not try to stop them because it doesn't affect you. 

You become indifferent when you don't lend your voice no matter how small to the plight of the less privileged because you're above their means and standard.

You become indifferent when you snub the cry of others against the government, with their policies and agendas because it's not affecting you at all. You become indifferent and heartless when you do all these.

Indifference also, is a major cause of intellectual dwarfism amongst youths of today. They shy away from important discourses and topics because they're lazy to research and read and discover and contribute to issues. Indifference is a serious endemic that negates our total existence, it's better to become backward at times than to stay stagnant and irresponsive to issues. Indifference causes stagnancy and eventually the deterioration of our mind, till we become vegetables.

I would really like to keep preaching but I will tell you that to pick a stand is been brave than to stay indifferent, because indifference is the modern height of cowardice. Indifference like I said earlier does not help intellectually, it doesn't provoke us to learn by researching and also improving and add to a topic that instigated the research. Like I've said indifference is never an option, if you're kindly drop it. Be decisive, it's better to be the oppressor, which I crave your indulgence not to be but to rather be a champion to liberate the oppressed by speaking for them.

Do not ever be a bystander, be decisive!!!

Emmanuel Kelechi Ejionye writes from Abuja and he is a Writer, speaker, activist, grassroot leader, photographer, humanitarian and many more. He's also a graduate of Engineering from the prestigious University of Nigeria. He can be reached through 

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