Victimisation

and other services the people who are denied these amenities become victims, scapegoats for some other agenda which the dispensers of funds hold as more vital than services to people. And when money itself loses its value people are further victimized. The crowds milling about our shops and stores over the past week trying to secure bargains and basics are witnesses to this.
There is a further form of victimization when a person is trapped in their work. They fear to say a word when they see the abuse of others and of themselves. The servants of the state, recruited to protect citizens, find themselves ordered to abuse those very citizens often in brutal ways. They too are victims. They live in fear and their job is to instill fear in others. Arkadii Babchenko wrote of the soldiers returning from the war in Chechnya;
No one returns from the war. Ever. Only pitiful likenesses of sons are returned to their mothers – malicious aggressive beasts, embittered against the whole world and believing in nothing but death. Yesterday’s soldiers no longer belong to their parents. They belong to the war, from which only their bodies have returned. Their souls stayed there.
Victimisation becomes contagious and, like a virus, penetrates any organized body in society – churches, businesses and even families – places where there should be no room for fear. People begin to see it even when it is not there. We interpret remarks and decisions of superiors in this light. A person is not promoted or is excluded from some opportunity. There may be perfectly good reasons, but no, we are being victimised. The experience of real victimization prompts us to see it everywhere so that the whole of society is contaminated by this virus.
Jesus uses strong language about the one who considered his master ‘a hard man, reaping where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered; so I was afraid and I went off and hid your talent.’ He called him ‘wicked and lazy’ (Matthew 25:24). The man felt exploited so he kept quiet and sat on his hands. To give in to victimization – real or imaginary – is to collaborate with the oppressor.
There is much that can make us afraid in our society but we do not have to give into it. We can refuse to be victimized even when he are in the act of experiencing it. Martyrs who go to their death cheerfully can be at inspiration for us. Thomas More, the chancellor of England condemned by Henry VIII, asked for help to mount the scaffold where he was to be beheaded. ‘Help me up, my good man,’ he said to the executioner, ‘as for my coming down I shall shift for myself.’