1.
Today’s story of the unfitness and emptiness of Donald Trump in the White House is his ignorance and lack of human empathy in receiving Nadia Murad, “an Iraqi who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018 for speaking out about her agonizing torture and rape in Islamic State captivity.”
Murad, who lives in Germany, told Trump that she never wanted to be a refugee but that ISIS murdered her mother and six brothers.
“Where are they now?” Trump asked.
“They killed them,” she repeated. “They are in the mass grave in Sinjar, and I’m still fighting just to live in safety.”
“I know the area very well that you’re talking about,” Trump responded.
Now we, who are reading this, know very well that Trump has no idea of the area where Nadia Murad lived. He had no idea why she won the Nobel Peace Prize. He almost certainly does not know who she is.
So why isn’t his utter emptiness a bigger deal?
2.
Today is July 20, 2019. It is the 75th anniversary of the 20 July Plot of 1945. This was an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Adolph Hitler. As Boris Ruge, Germany’s Deputy Ambassador to the US, says
On this day, 75 years ago, #Stauffenberg and others risked all to decapitate the Nazi regime and end the war. Those involved were soldiers and civilians. They came from the left and the right of the political spectrum. We will remember them.
7,000 people were arrested; nearly 5,000 executed. One of those executed for being part of the conspiracy was the Pastor and Theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was already in prison for being part of another conspiracy. His “letters and papers from prison” indicate his anticipation of 20 July and his disappointment at its failure.
I have been reading Bonhoeffer’s writings from 1932-1933, the time that Hitler took over. He says:
“Speak out for those who cannot speak” — who in the church today remembers that this is the very least the Bible asks us in such times as these?
But in the middle of his letters, there is this paragraph:
I recently came across the fairy tale of “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” which really is relevant for our times. All we are lacking is the child who speaks up at the end.
This sent me to Hans Christian Andersen.
And, in my mind, I had the question “It’s not only that we need somebody to speak up. What if someone speaks up, but nobody listens?”
3.
Hans Christian Andersen wrote “The Emperor’s New Clothes” in 1837. It’s worth reading again — especially if you haven’t looked at it since you were a child.
I won’t tell the story again. I do think it’s relevant to our times.
But sadly . . .
"But he hasn't got anything on," a little child said.
"Did you ever hear such innocent prattle?" said its father. And one person whispered to another what the child had said, "He hasn't anything on. A child says he hasn't anything on."
"But he hasn't got anything on!" the whole town cried out at last.
The Emperor shivered, for he suspected they were right. But he thought, "This procession has got to go on." So he walked more proudly than ever, as his noblemen held high the train that wasn't there at all.
. . . when the child speaks up, nothing changes.
Perhaps in a democracy things will work out differently than in an Empire, or a Reich.