Neutrality is an evidence of weakness

I can remember an experience I once had walking home from high school. I came upon two friends who were quarreling and fighting physically. One was older and larger than the other. I decided to remain neutral in the scrap, for both of them were my friends and I was not aware of the reason for the quarrel.

Each one was an intelligent young man and ordinarily not combative. So, for a few minutes I did stand by — an innocent bystander with a hands-off policy. But I soon came to see that my neutrality was working to the advantage of the larger fellow. The rightness of his position was not the decisive factor, but he was winning by sheer size and strength. I was neutralizing my actions, but my policy of hands off did not neutralize my influence.

So I did decide to intervene and managed, with another who came to aid, to restrain the larger friend until tempers cooled and the argument could be settled by peaceful means.

The memory of that experience has lingered in my mind across the years. In a variety of situations I have come to see how impossible it is to be neutral. Our intentions may be neutralized but no hands-off policy can neutralize our influence. Neutrality as a lasting principle is an evidence of weakness. Consider a few historical situations where we see this truth revealed.

In 1914 and 1915 the United States publicly reiterated its neutral position among the nations, but in reality our influence worked very one-sidedly and finally we entered the war ostensibly in defense of our neutral rights. Then more recently in the early stages of World War II there was conflict between Italy and Ethiopia and we declared our neutrality by official act and proclamation. We pledged to prohibit the export of arms, ammunition and implements of war to belligerent countries, to prohibit transportation of war materials in American vessels, and to prohibit the travel of American passengers on ships of belligerents during the war. Speaking broadly, we went about as far as a government could go in proclaiming a policy of "hands-off."

But while our intentions were impartial, our influence certainly was not. All that the powerful nation of Italy desired from her neighbors was that they stand aside while she gobbled up little Ethiopia. Such alleged neutrality plays into the hands of the stronger nation. Ethiopia would have been quite right in saying to the United States or any other government — "He that is not with me is against me."

Neutral people are the devil's allies. It is well to be independent, but not to be neutral. Margaret Thatcher said, "If you stand in the middle of the road you are liable to be knocked down by traffic going in both directions."

Think of the issues in our day that are sometimes decided not on merit but by apathy of people who thought they were being neutral, but who really helped to decide the issue by default or neglect. School levies, area political campaigns. America is a land where citizens will cross a wide ocean to fight for democracy but will not walk across a narrow street to vote to preserve it.

Think of the social issues decided by absentia — capital punishment, abortion, homosexuality, euthanasia and social injustices. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, " when the historian of the future writes about his generation he will not write of a few strident voices in the Watts district of Los Angeles or the riots in Detroit, but the appalling silence of the multitude of Americans in the presence of great injustices."

Edmund Burke said, "The best way to aid the cause of evil is for good men to do nothing."

But, some may say, we must be tolerant.

Tolerance is usually conceived to be a positive word, and usually it is. There is something to say for the Methodist layman who when working in the fields heard the Anglican bells in the Catholic church. He bowed his head and said, "In my father's house are many mansions."

Broadmindedness is a gracious virtue when genuine. But there are some cheap counterfeits in circulation. Sometimes broadmindedness is just another way of justifying lazy thinking or lack of conviction. Indifference frequently masquerades as tolerance. There are two sides to every question if we are not interested in either one of them.

There is no room in the world today for moral apathy. Henry Ward Beecher said, "The hottest corner of hell is reserved for those who in a moral crises remain neutral." J. Studdert Kennedy was trying to say this when he wrote his well-known words:

When Jesus came to Golgotha they hanged him on a tree,

They drove great nails though hands and feet, and made a Calvary;

They crowned him with a crown of thorns, red were his wounds and deep,

For those were crude and cruel days, and human flesh was cheap.

When Jesus came to Birmingham, they simply passed Him by,

They never hurt a hair of Him, they only let Him die;

For men had grown more tender, and they would not give Him pain,

They only just passed down the street, and let Him in the rain.

Still Jesus cried, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do,"

And still it rained the winter rain, and drenched Him through and through;

The crowds went home and left the streets without a soul to see,

And Jesus crouched against a wall and cried for Calvary.

— J. Studdert Kennedy

1883-1929

The Rev. Dale Turner's column appears Saturdays in The Seattle Times.