Many people live on the margins of our society.
They are vulnerable and often have no voice of their own.
They are the homeless, the addicted, those struggling with poverty,
They are refugees fleeing from persucution.
They are the children of the marginalised.
Who will stand for them? Many of us do not give them much thought.
We argue that we have enough problems of our own.
These thought provoking words from Martin Niemöller
a German pastor in the 1930s may give us food for thought.
In Germany, they came first for the Communists,
And I didn’t speak up
because I wasn’t a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists,
And I didn’t speak up
because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews,
And I didn’t speak up
because I wasn’t a Jew;
And then . . . they came for me . . .
And by that time
there was no one left to speak up.
Martin Niemöller