I want to tell a story about a guy I knew from high school. But I have to be careful, because if I make it possible for someone who knows him to identify who it is I’m talking about I could be accused of libel, and Australia has some of the strictest laws in the world in that area. So the details will be a bit sketchy.
Let’s call him T. Several years after school I met him again through my work, and discovered that he had become close friends with a nasty local crime boss. I was on speaking terms with him at that time, but not close. Then, a girl came back to the state who been away for a few years. While she was away she had acquired a heroin addiction and taken up prostitution, but she was coming back to be with her family and try to get clean. The trouble was that she met T. when she was out one night and he’s far too smart not to see her weakness straight away – he offered her drugs in return for sex, and within a couple of days she’d left the state to go back to her addiction and her life of desperation.
I held T. at least partly responsible. Later I discovered some of the things T. and the crime boss used to get up to and it made me realise that there were quite a few other people who were complicit. Gideon repeats it like a mantra here on Newsvine and he’s exactly right:
Silence is complicity.
The crime boss had drugged and raped a number of girls over a period of time, and T. had either participated in or known about these horrors. What’s more, many of T’s close friends had a good idea of what was going on and while they didn’t approve they had done nothing to prevent him. Probably there was nothing active they could have done. I doubt there would have been evidence that could be presented to the police, for example.
But they continued to associate with T.
T. is probably the only person who was in a position to get the crime boss locked up, or at least prevent him continuing. Meanwhile those people close to T allowed him to continue to live a largely normal life while supporting the crime boss’s behavior. … and perhaps more than just supporting, I have no way of knowing. I’m angry with T for being a piece of slime, but I’m also angry with the people I knew, who were close to T and knew about all this.
They kept T’s secrets. They hung out with him. They still do, and although the crime boss is now behind bars T and all those like him feel safe, feel normal, feel like members of the community and regular worthwhile human beings. People like T get away with being evil because they are allowed to by those close to them. And people like the crime boss get away with all the terrible harm they do because of the complicity of people like T. But there’s no point in appealing to the conscience of T because he hasn’t got one.
So if you know someone who is harming others call them on it. Don’t avoid the topic and don’t think you might spoil your friendship by trying to force them to change. Your implicit support, your continued friendship, this is the air they breathe. Your silence is complicity.