It consists, I conceive, in two very different determinations: two very
different but allied lines of conduct to which we must pledge ourselves.
The first, until recently the most difficult, is the determination to
speak of the Jewish people as openly, as continuously, with as much
interest, with as close an examination as we speak of any other foreign
body with which we are brought in contact.
The second, which will perhaps be the more difficult duty to practise in
the future, will be to avoid, in the individual public recognition of
those with whom we must live, all futile anger and all mere reaction. I
mean by mere reaction, blind reaction. The instinctive thrusting back
against a thing which presses on us, the uncalculated and animal return
blow, the consequences of which, either to ourselves or to others, are
not weighed when it is delivered; the futile complaint, the futile rage,
the futile cruelty.
Unless those two duties are undertaken together, unless the
determination to practise both be of equal weight, the solution I
propose will fail. To discuss the problem presented by the presence of
the Jewish people, to talk of them as one would of any other, openly and
frankly, to interest oneself in their history and in their present
doings: all this is only to aggravate the trouble if we use that open
dealing for the purpose of doing them a hurt, or if, in the course of
it, we allow ourselves (merely from irritation or contrast, from the
sense which all must have of opposition to things alien) to react
against them without consideration of the immediate and ultimate
consequences not only to themselves but to us.
Conversely, the determination to regard their interests and to avoid
every possible occasion of conflict, to hold a just measure with them,
is quite useless if we falsify the whole relation by secrecy and false
convention.
The moment that comes in, there comes in with it a secret
dissatisfaction with oneself and with the whole situation. The position
is falsified, the seed of animosity greatly stimulated, the danger of
mutual contempt made inevitable.
Now let us look at these two branches of what we have to do in the
matter, and see what difficulties lie in the way.
In the way of frankly recognizing, examining, taking an open interest in
the Jewish minority in our midst there lie three very powerful
obstacles. First the inherited convention of polite society; secondly,
and much the most powerful, fear; and thirdly, the very reputable desire
to avoid offence.
The first of these, the fear of convention, has many roots--the
necessity for harmony in a leisured life, that is, the desire to avoid
friction even at the expense of truth, the mere momentum of a quiet
habit, the fear of misunderstanding which may come from one side casting
ridicule upon the other, which may offend the person whom we have
misunderstood, or make us ridiculous in his eyes and those of our
audience.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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