On the Wrong Side of History
One of the sobering things about the study of history is to realise that ordinary, well-intentioned people have often cooperated with deeply inhumane practices. There were well-intentioned people who were involved with, or who at least failed to oppose, the horrors of the slave trade. There were well-intentioned people, both male and female, who opposed women’s suffrage and the rights of women to own property, to access bank loans, have equal pay for equal work and so on. There were well-intentioned Germans who felt that handing Jews over to the Nazi authorities was for the good of society. There were well-intentioned Australians who took “half-caste” indigenous children off their parents. Others who forcibly took children off single mothers for adoption. There were well-intentioned people who supported apartheid in South Africa. All of these actions, with the clarity of hindsight, involved cooperation with evil systems. Yet with that hindsight, they are exposed as profoun...