On Tyranny - Lesson 8: Stand Out

Number 8 of 20 lessons on how to prevent authoritarian rule by learning from those who saw such backslides in the 20th Century: Stand out.

This goes along with Lesson 7. Be the one to act differently.  Snyder points out how much of Europe was unresponsive when Germany annexed Austria, and several countries actually helped Germany to partition Czechoslovakia. The Polish government was the first to really fight back, which activated agreements with Great Britain and France to fight against Germany. And then Churchill, despite pressure from British public opinion to end the war, pushed a defining narrative of Brits as proudly and calmly fighting evil. I think what Snyder is getting at, is that if Poland hadn't resisted, none of this would have happened. Churchill wouldn't have foiled Hitler's plans of an air raid over London, which caused Hitler to pivot and attack the Soviet Union before taking Great Britain out of the war. This ignited an unlikely allyship between Great Britain and the Soviet Union, which in combination with Pearl Harbor bringing the US into the fold, changed the trajectory of the war as a whole, leading to the fall of Nazi Germany. Resistance starts with one person, or in this case one government, and expands from there.

Another example Snyder provides is a young woman who was forced with her family to Poland after they lost their land in Germany. It was commonplace at the time to think only about self-preservation rather than to consider one's neighbors. Teresa Prekerowa repeatedly entered a Germany-mandated Jewish ghetto in Warsaw to bring food and medicine to the inhabitants there. She helped one family escape before the German Great Action which deported and killed almost 300,000 Jews. When she later became a historian and wrote about people who aided Jews, she actively chose not to write about herself. When questioned about her involvement, she described what she did as normal. It was normal to her because it was the right thing to do, not because everyone was doing it. 

In a world where conformity is rewarded, it can be hard to challenge the status quo or push back against the norm. Not only is it okay to stand out, to break the mold, or to challenge what everyone else is calling normal; it's exceptional. It can lead to a domino effect and you never know how many people might be willing to take a stand just because they know it's right and they saw someone else do it too. Even if you only change what one other person might have done, even if you don't change anyone's mind, standing up for what you believe in will always be the right move. Snyder says that when you dare to stand out, a spell binding the status quo is broken, and others will follow. Sometimes, all people need is an example to follow to do the right thing. So don't hesitate to set that example.