Tonight in weirdness

I met my lovely friend Priya for a drink this evening (elle est ma faux-belle-fille). She has very curly hair that was recently cut very short and is now growing out a bit. We wondered if she could grow "Angela Davis hair". About ten minutes later my friend Liam arrives and asks me if I can remember a poem by either Primo Levi or Anegla Davis that began "first they came for the Jews..."

I do remember the poem which was not written by either of them (I think Levi used it as an epigram for one of his books and Davis may have quoted it at some point) but by a German minister by the name of Martin Niemöller.


I remember it because I had a t-shirt 15 years ago from the Anti-Nazi league that reproduced it on the back and it goes as follows.

" First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out because I was not a Communist

Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out because I was not a Socialist

Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist

Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out because I was not a Jew

Then they came for me
And there was no one left to speak out for me"

The Reverend Niemöller survived the Nazis and died in 1984.

Strange.....

I am willing Priya to manage Angela Davis hair in any case.