Hopefully tonight, on Remembrance Day in the Netherlands, we will all pause for two minutes to reflect on the atrocities committed in the past, and say to ourselves: This, never again.

But what does “this” mean?

Does it mean we will never again allow a government to demonise a minority and normalise hatred toward them?

Does it mean we will never again permit a foreign government to imprison, starve, and exterminate millions of people because of their faith and heritage, without doing everything in our power to stop them?

Does it mean we will never again stand by as our own government not only downplays the suffering of a group of people, but even cheers on the war criminals?

All my life I’ve heard people ask the question: What would you have done during the Second World War? And everyone always answers: “I would have joined the resistance.” But what are those people doing now? Today they are silent for two minutes, and then?

Our two minutes of silence should not be just a symbolic tribute. Two minutes of thinking about what we never want to happen again are meaningless if we remain silent in the moments when it actually happens. Because it is still happening. All over the world, people continue to die because of the same false and narrow-minded ideas that caused so much pain and suffering in the past.

Silence is consent. So don’t ask what you would have done back then.

Ask: what are you doing now?

Are you still standing up for what’s right?

Then join DiEM25, a transnational movement that fights for equality, regardless of who you are or where you come from.

I’ll see you there. 

Carpe Diem.

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