You have to stand for something

We look back at history and see such atrocities that it is hard to comprehend.

Capurting humans and shipping them across the seas, an estimated 12.5 million of them, with 1.8 million of them dying in transit. Then to subject these people to brutality and cruelty, still ongoing to this day. 

Between 12 and 29 Indians died at the hands of the British from starvation, and an estimated 165 million died from other massacres and famines instigated by the British.

55 million indigenous Indians died at the hands of the American Colonists.

Between 1.2 to 10 million Congolese died at the hands of King Leopold of Belgium. 

6 million Jews died at the hands of Nazi Germany in World War 11. 60 to 75 million people died across the world in World War 11.

Between 150,000 and 400,000 people have been killed in Sudan recently.

More than 73,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 2023. At least 21,240 children.

How do we do this? How do we consider a human is not human, not worthy of life and dignity? 

You have to stand for something. If not, your stance is with the acceptance of horror and atrocity.

Why do I write and speak about Palestine? Because to remain silent is to be complicit in atrocity. I would hope that if I had been alive during World War 11 I would have written and spoken about the Holocaust with as much passion. About the evil that allowed such horror. It is not the race, caste, religion or colour that matters. It is the evil that says anyone’s race, religion, caste or colour makes them superior, and therefore they can eradicate, debase or abuse another. 

My stand is clear. Zero exploitation. Zero colonisation. All life is sacred. There are evil, cruel and bad people everywhere. They begin in the minority. Give them a context, and they become a majority. The context changes when more and more people speak up, stand up, protest, write, call, and name. Until the voice of all human dignity and all human justice becomes the tipping point.

So every day I return to the fray. As I will until I die. 

The first little atrocity, the first time we step over evil, we seed horror.

Published June 8th 2026. Photo taken June 8th 2026