In a recent article in the British press, Sacha Baron Cohen is defending his alter ego Borat. In his movie, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, Cohen plays an anti-Semitic sexist. In reality, Cohen is a "devout Jew, observing Sabbath and eating kosher foods". He spoke out because of the criticism he has received from both the Jewish community and the nation of Kazakhstan.What interested me most is Cohen's rationale for doing this movie.
"Borat essentially works as a tool. By himself being anti-Semitic, he lets people lower their guard and expose their own prejudices, whether it's anti-Semitism or an acceptance of anti-Semitism. 'Throw the Jew Down the Well' was a very controversial sketch, and some members of the Jewish community thought it was actually going to encourage anti-Semitism.
"But to me it revealed something about that bar in Tuscon. And the question is: did it reveal that they were anti-Semitic? Perhaps. But maybe it just revealed that they were indifferent to anti-Semitism," he said.
Baron Cohen said the concept of "indifference towards anti-Semitism" had been informed by his study of the Holocaust while at Cambridge University, where he read history. "I remember, when I was in university, and there was this one major historian of the Third Reich, Ian Kershaw. And his quote was, 'The path to Auschwitz was paved with indifference.'
"I know it's not very funny being a comedian talking about the Holocaust, but I think it's an interesting idea that not everyone in Germany had to be a raving anti-Semite. They just had to be apathetic," he said.
That last paragraph really rings true to me. In our world, it is apathy that can cause the most harm---whether its about a tyrannical dictator, a genocidal war, or racism. I hope that you can look at your life's experiences and see that you have not been apathetic to events around you. I'll try to do the same.
