@tansy @aral I see why the top politicians all are complicit in genocide. They receive the big bucks or have other reasons to be complicit.
I don't get though why the ordinary people (for example, the officers in the Metropolitan Police who don't receive the big bucks, only a measly salary) choose to be complicit and continue to follow their orders. I don't get why a police officer doesn't just pretend they didn't see that person wearing a sweater with the banned words on it or that peaceful protestor carrying a Palestine flag. What's in it for an ordinary police officer to arrest such people and follow such orders? They don't even get rewarded for their deeds like the politicians are, they're just not ostracized for not carrying out their orders.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer and others who analyzed how ordinary people can commit atrocities, came to the conclusion that stupidity is not an intellectual or psychological problem but a social problem. Police officers have this feeling of belonging to a group, and to not lose that feeling of still belonging to their group, they rather voluntarily give up their capability of critical thinking, of asking questions, and of refusing orders. Just look at the US soldiers who only a few months ago proclaimed they swore an oath to the constitution, not to Trump, and are committing war crimes in Iran and Venezuela regardless.
I know a few police officers in Germany who I believe are decent people, not some sadists who became officers for the power that comes with a uniform, and they keep telling me they would refuse illegal orders and report it up their chain of command, but I don't believe they would. They would be bullied and cannot change employer like other professions can.
Hannah Arendt taught us about the banality of evil, and the probable thinking of a police officer: "Well, I'm a police officer, it is my job to arrest people who display banned slogans. So I better do the best job I can do," instead of turning a blind eye and opting not to arrest literally an 80-year old protesting genocide.
