Injustice by omission is still injustice!
Whether you pulled the trigger of the gun yourself or not, if you keep mum when you could have spoken out, you are as guilty as the person who pulled the trigger.
One question my grandma repeatedly asked when I got back home was, ‘And what did my son do?’ As already stated, in my culture, one’s nephew or niece is regarded as one’s own child. And so, Nne always referred to Uncle as her son.
‘He never treated me unkindly,’ I responded when my grandmother first posed the question.
‘That may well be,’ Nne said, ‘but did he prevent his wife from treating you unkindly? Did he enquire if you were alright?’
‘Whenever he returned from work, he always said: “How are you?”
‘And what was your response?” Nne persisted.
‘I said that I was fine.’
‘But were you fine?’ I looked at her and slowly shook my head.
Accurate knowledge of the self understands that injustice by omission is no less an injustice!
My grandma wasn’t the only one who wanted to know what part Uncle played in protecting me from the excesses of his wife. In my naivety, I’d been so grateful to him for never directly being unkind to me that I’d absolved him from all blames visited upon me by his wife and children. But the truth of the matter is the one who does nothing when witnessing a wrong is equally as guilty as the one directly responsible for the wrong. When you keep silent over an injustice, you indirectly say that it is okay to carry out that injustice. A few words spoken at the right time can right a terrible wrong. My uncle had chosen to stay silent.
