Thread by @BBuchman_CNS

Reading about fascism today and the rise of Nazism. And this bit of information sticks out to me as something worth sharing about the danger of complacency in the face of authoritarianism. You prob know about it. If so, here is a reminder.

Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass, was a major turning pt for Nazism.
Nazis played it publicly as a spontaneous evening of hate unfurled against 1000s of Jews due to the assassination of
a German political figure, when truly it was organized/encouraged by Nazi ldrshp.

The destruction of Jewish property, leaving broken glass to litter the streets, was not the only offense that night. It also resulted in murders, rapes and the removal of 30,000 Jewish people to concentration camps in the following days.

Book after book, historian after historian, can & do regularly point to Kristallnacht as the catalyst for the full concentration of power among the SS, the Nazi's murderous goon squad.

Perhaps one of the more chilling aspects: the campaign to oust Jews was received by...

many German civilians so passively, historians argue it was in their tepid reaction that signaled, for once and all to Nazis in charge, that the public would accept whatever extreme measures befell them.

You didnt even have to be anti-Semitic; you didn't have to even lift a finger in the service of hate.

You just had to be passive.

So let's look at another moment in time and how leadership manipulated existing systems and the public to both hide and/or carry out its crimes.
From the early 1970s through 1990, Augusto Pinochet in Chile tortured roughly 30k and executed at least 3,200, he disappeared many more

It's believed that nearly a quarter million people were forced into exile under his regime, one which began after the U.S. - according to many historians who rely on CIA documents to support this claim - backed a coup to overthrow Chile's then socialist president Salvador Allende

In 1980, Pinochet called for something known as a national plebiscite, or a public referendum on a question only voters could answer.
That resolution read:

"In the faces of the int'l aggression unleashed against the gvt of the fatherland, I support Pinochet in his defense of the dignity of Chile & I reaffirm the legitimate right of the republic to conduct the process of institutionalization in a manner befitting its sovereignty."

According to a report on the referendum by the Int'l Commission of Latin American Studies Association, some 75 percent of the people voted in favor of the resolution.

With that question resolved and an emboldened leader, a new constitution was ratified, securing presidential power for Pinochet for a term of 8 years w/the option for reelection still on the table afterwards.

It also called for the dissolution of lower governing bodies and the installation of a military junta, or a gov't run by the military.
It may seem obvious with hindsight that something horribly undemocratic could happen when a military is suggested to lead the governing body.

But why would a people ever agree to the prospect to begin with?
What could possibly convince people to go along?
Pinochet understood that a dictatorship is far more appetizing when it shows up dressed in the refineries of bureaucracy.
It's the normalization.

By holding a referendum, it made the the process legal. Arguably, members inside the military who may have questioned it quietly or internally, well, what does it matter when after all, it was a constitutional duty they were being called to fulfill from their commander-in-chief?

And in the run-up to the referendum, there were even meetings between military officials and the public where allowances for voter registration were made + allowances for former exiles to return to the country. The int'l media was also welcomed to bear witness to the process

The attitude, as reported by many at the time, seemed to suggest: "Well, it's Pinochet, but, we can keep him in check if needed. Plus, look at these shows of good faith."

Plus, if you were a disenfranchised Chilean, were you really going to throw your lot in with anyone else? No one else could promise you any kind of security. (This alone speaks volumes to to the influence class disparity has true democracy)

But once you're a man like Pinochet and you have power, you have to keep it. And you have to silence those who would speak against you.
So through the veil of bureaucracy, bodies like the Direccion de Inteligencia Nacional soon became the secret police.

And they carried out torture, repression and state-sanctioned killings against intellectuals, leftists and dissidents. (Look into Operation Condor and Operation Colombo for more about this).

In an interview with Amnesty International, Isabelle Allende, a renowned Chilean writer whose own father was a first cousin of Salvador Allende, said this about the mood in Chile as Pinochet rose to power:

"In 1973 and 1974 the atmosphere among the people I knew – students, journalists, intellectuals, artists, workers, etc. – was very somber. We were scared, almost paralyzed by fear. Most people didn’t want to get in trouble, just go on with their lives in a quiet way...

"keeping a low profile. There was almost no information, only rumors. We heard about torture center, concentration camps, assassinations, raids in poor neighborhoods, how thousands were arrested and many more had fled the country, but there was no way of confirming these rumors..

"...we were cautious when we spoke, even within the extended family... at the beginning we were not aware of how serious the consequences could be."

She continued: "For a tourist at that time in Chile, this terror was not apparent. The tourist would find himself in a clean city, with almost no urban crime; he would meet polite and meek people; and he would conclude that Chile was a very organized country."

When asked if people were aware of the killings, the rapes, the abuse, the torture, the disappearance of people deemed "the other" by Pinochet's regime, she said: "I’m sure that most people were aware. I certainly was, and so were all my friends....

"However, many people managed to, or pretended to, ignore the violence and corruption of the dictatorship... It is very hard to live in fear. Out of necessity, one adapts rapidly. Denial is a way of protecting oneself."

"There is a feeling of impotence + loneliness.Terror works by isolating people. Ideally every family is at home watching the official version of the news on TV, there's no interaction, no public discourse, no dialogue or discussion no exchange of ideas that might stir rebellion."

I think its important to take things like this and evaluate them, discuss them and draw on the lessons learned, if any, from them. We, the collective lot of humanity, know where we are going based on where we have been.

And let me perfectly transparent with why I am tweeting this. I'm not looking to draw political comparisons between one leader or another. I want people to understand how collective attitudes can be manipulated so deftly, that "good people" stand by and do nothing.

It seems easier to me, to point to verified moments in history to illustrate this. And given the platform of social media, we can discuss these events more effectively than ever before.

And if you feel downtrodden about what has gone on or what goes on in the world, recall this quote from Elie Wiesel:

"Only human beings can move me to despair. But only human beings can remove me from despair."