Authors, German -- 19th century -- Biography; May, Karl Friedrich, 1842-1912
guilt of the guilty ones; but that it is also a mistake for the
latter ones to keep their past guilt a secret. Our lives, my
life, their lives shall be spread out openly before the eyes of
God, but in particular also openly before our own eyes. Then, we
will not bear a grudge, and then, we will not be resentful.
Because then, we will realise why it was possible for us to fall:
We made ourselves fall. And once we realise this, we are able to
forgive ourselves; and he who may forgive himself, will be
forgiven. So, do away with the inappropriate feeling of being
ashamed, and bring out openness! Only the secret we veil
ourselves in gives that article and every unscrupulous person the
power to think himself higher and better than us and still to be
our - - - executioner!
I am only giving you an outline here. Like everything up to this
point, this can also be nothing but a sketch for now. But I am
feeling the need to transform the evil things which others have
done to me into something good for my fellow human beings. I will
enable those who had the same fate as I to draw those conclusions
from my inhumane persecution which are beneficial to them. What
good is all so-called "justice", all so-called "clemency of the
court", all so-called "humane punishment", all so-called "care for
released prisoners", if all it takes is one cunning lawyer or one
questionable article to destroy all the good things which had come
out of these efforts in a single moment? How can anybody expect a
fallen man to get up again and to be a better person, as long as
they fail to create better conditions as well in the surroundings
he is put back into? Does it encourage him to know that, in spite
of all efforts to become a better person, he must still continue
to be, as long as he shall live, the ostracised one, the
suppressed one, the one without rights, and will continue to be
like this, because he is forced to remain silent, no matter what
is happening to him, and to let them do everything to him?
Because if he does not do this, he is doomed. If he should go
ahead and seek his rightful justice against those who insult, rob,
and cheat him, his old files are dragged forward, and he is
pilloried. Let me just remind you that a public prosecutor form
Dresden, even just for purely "scientific" reasons, had nailed me
to the pillory, while I am still alive! He could not even wait
for my death and maintained that an article of the law gave him
the right to conduct this vivisection. In such a situation one
cannot help but look into the faces of those who talk about
humaneness, to see whether there might be a sardonic smile coming
through, revealing how things really are. And one feels, together
with the hundreds of thousands who are suffering from this, the
burning urge to take all of these articles, because of which
mankind's good intentions fail, drag them to the light of day, and
put them there where they must be, in order to be seen as what
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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