Z Essay: Elie Wiesel’s “The Perils of Indifference” Speech 20/5 Kl 22:30

Analytical essay of Elie Wiesel’s “The Perils of Indifference” Speech

Eliezer Wiesel, more known as Elie Wiesel is a Jewish author, Political activist and very much
know for receiving a Noble Prize and being a Holocaust survivor. On the 12th of April 1999 he is
invited up on the stage in the White house to say his speech known as “The Perils of Indifference”
He starts off by admiring the receivers or main audience of the speech the leaders at the White
House, he goes on to making a flashback and reminding listeners how he is a victim of the ugly
Holocaust. Eliezer Wiesel marks the US president William Jefferson Clinton and the first lady as
fighters for peace and humanity. While marking the president and the first lady as champions of
peace, Eliezer Wiesel takes use of his author skills to make the leaders attending the event feel
guilty. He makes the leaders feel like they are some of the small bits which contributed to Holocaust
happening, but his speech doesn’t have the intention of making the leaders quit, moreover the
intention is to make them act right when tragedies occur.

How much are humans willing to shed their eyes on horrifying tragedies around the globe to stay in
the realm of their comfort zone? If that thought doesn’t appear in your mind when hearing or
reading Eliezer Wiesel’s speech in the White House on 12th April 1999, then either are your
emotions cold or you are a dictator. Elie Wiesel is able to touch our thoughts and regulate them
toward his intention of the speech by using many rhetorical devices while appealing to us by using
cold facts and his own heartwarming story as a kid and man.

It is crystal clear that Eliezer Wiesel tries to tie our feeling of guilt in his use of logos to act better
tomorrow and to make the world a better place. For example, after talking about the 1000 Jews
abroad the ship that got sent back to Germany although the US knew what was happening “The
depressing tale of the St. Louis is a case in point. Sixty years ago, its human cargo — nearly 1,000
Jews was turned back to Nazi Germany. And that happened after the Kristallnacht,14 after the first
state sponsored pogrom,15 with hundreds of Jewish shops destroyed, synagogues burned,
thousands of people put in concentration camps. And that ship, which was already in the shores of
the United States, was sent back” (P3. Second last paragraph) He makes us feel guilty by hitting us
with freezing facts and a known story, although he has the power to continue, he stops and marks
himself confused at the decisions which got made by saying “I don’t understand” (P3. Second last
paragraph).

Wiesel continues to make himself credible through his language after using advanced or academic
adjectives such as “Etymologically” (P2 Second paragraph) which means according to word origin
and the understanding of it, or the word “Harrowing” (P2 Second paragraph) with the means of
something being very difficult or distressing. The speech has some type of activist to it, it is visible
through his use of pronouns compared to what he is saying, for example “Rooted in our tradition,
some of us felt that to be abandoned by humanity then was not the ultimate. We felt
that to be abandoned by God was worse than to be punished by Him.” (P2 5th paragraph) Where he
uses, We and our to make himself and the Jews stand aside from what non-Jews were thinking back
when Holocaust was happening. Another good example where Eliezer Wiesel’s activism shines
Z Essay: Elie Wiesel’s “The Perils of Indifference” Speech 20/5 Kl 22:30

through his use of personal pronouns is “But this time, the world was not silent. This time, we do
respond. This time, we intervene.” (P4 Third paragraph). In this example Wiesel gets the audience
on his side and makes them feel good while he embraces the decision of stepping in when Kosovo
was in a war. He uses “We” to unite himself and the audience together after splitting them earlier,
he also uses anaphora through saying the phrase “This time” three times which only makes the
message stronger.

Elie Wiesel is a smart author, the intention of his with this speech indeed is to persuade the
audience and convince them to react to anything inhumane they might hear about, this is never
mentioned directly but can be seen through the structure of the speech. The speech starts off by
appealing to our feelings, he uses a historical event and talks withing his point of view, this makes
his beginning credible, emotional, and logical all at the same time. Wiesel goes on then to talk about
the ship with the 1000 Jews, here he makes it clear that Jews still remember the sad tragedy that
president of the US back then didn’t do anything about. As he finishes off with story, he calls on
those who fought for the Jews, the so called “Righteous Gentiles” (P3 last paragraph) here he picks
up the motivation in the audience. He then calls on the great things that happened in the past where
he alludes so much that pictures start to rain in the minds of listeners, readers, and attendants. The
allusions happen in this paragraph: “And yet, my friends, good things have also happened in this
traumatic century: the defeat of Nazism, the collapse of communism, the rebirth of Israel on its
ancestral soil, the demise of apartheid, Israel’s peace treaty with Egypt, the peace accord in
Ireland. And let us remember the meeting, filled with drama and emotion, between Rabin and
Arafat that you, Mr. President, convened in this very place. I was here and I will
never forget it.” By his allusions we understand that Nazism got stopped as defeated, communism
got ceased as collapsing like a building, and Israel was to be found again on its ancestral soil as if it
was reborn as a child.

Elie Wiesel goes on from making the latest good events shine in our minds to questioning whether
humans have learned anything yet from wars and blood baths, he ends his speech with a clear
message, humanity must unite, the feature will probably drag us out of our comfort zone, tragic
events will probably happen and that’s why Elie Wiesel choses to go towards the feature with fear
and hope.

One can argue if humans are able to create a better feature off of learning from the awful past, Elie
Wiesel’s meaning is pretty visible when you look from his angle towards humans and leaders. He
states clearly in 65% of his speech that most of humanity failed the Jews and it wasn’t until a lot of
bad events happened that people reacted. It is not butterflies and rainbows at all when it comes to
his view about humans learning from the past that’s why he ends his speech with a sense of
nervosity about the feature when he says “And together we walk towards the new
millennium, carried by profound fear and extraordinary hope.”
Z Essay: Elie Wiesel’s “The Perils of Indifference” Speech 20/5 Kl 22:30

However, in his speech Elie Wiesel appears to be making humans look good because of the fast
reaction of world leaders on the events of Kosovo “And then, of course, the joint decision of the
United States and NATO to intervene in Kosovo and save those
victims, those refugees, those who were uprooted by a man, whom I believe that because of his
crimes, should be charged with crimes against humanity. But this time, the world was not silent.
This time, we do respond. This time, we intervene.” So it is unclear if Elie Wiesel what so ever
actually believes in a brighter feature because of the past.
Human psychology says that if you can’t fail you can’t learn, but the term might be more pointed
towards children when learning to walk, not world leader trying to avoid bloodbaths.