Remus is the worst

[LadySawall at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 99500

In a message dated 05/25/2004 6:20:57 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Ally writes:
>I think Remus is worse.  When I think of Remus, I think of the person 
in the South during Jim Crow who didn't believe the races were 
unequal but stood by and watched a lynching occur.  I think of the 
German citizens in WWII who had nothing against the Jews but didn't 
speak out when a jewish neighbor was carted off to a concentration 
camp.

>It didn't JUST take the KKK or the Nazis to commit these atrocities.  
It took the silence and refusal to intervene of those around them.  
The actors and the passive observers were equal partners in the 
terrible things that occurred.  Their passivity was a necessary 
component of the actors' success.  But we focus so much on the 
actors - because they're out in the open - that we forget the role the 
passive observers play.
  
Jo Ann:

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."  
--Attributed to Edmund Burke  

"In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because 
I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up 
because I wasn't a Jew. They they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak 
up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I 
didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by 
that time no one was left to speak up."  --Martin Niemoeller, on the Holocaust

I think in Severus' place, I would probably rank Remus right up there with 
James and Sirius on the hate-list.  Not just because he stood by and did 
nothing, but also because on one memorable occasion he was a co-victim, betrayed by 
Sirius' carelessness, and *still* he did nothing.

I do understand Remus's dilemna, and as with Sirius, I don't believe he's 
evil.  But I do think that the Marauders' history, and Severus', and by extention 
Harry's, would be very different if Remus had stood up to his friends.  Heck, 
he wouldn't even have had to do it alone--he could have joined forces with 
Lily.

I hope that when it comes down to it, if the responsibility to stop some new 
atrocity lands in his lap, he'll find it in himself to speak out and to act, 
no matter what it might cost him.

Jo Ann 


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