#31: Shema

Primo Levi on a personal role for every single person

Primo Levi, an Italian of Jewish origin and a survivor of Auschwitz, wrote this poem shortly after the Second World War. It is titled Shema (pronounced shuh-MA). It is one of the most important poems ever written.

               Shema

You who live secure
In your warm houses
Who return at evening to find
Hot food and friendly faces:

Consider whether this is a man,
Who labours in the mud
Who knows no peace
Who fights for a crust of bread
Who dies at a yes or a no.
Consider whether this is a woman,
Without hair or name
With no more strength to remember
Eyes empty and womb cold
As a frog in winter.

Consider that this has been:
I commend these words to you.
Engrave them on your hearts
When you are in your house, when you walk on your way,
When you go to bed, when you rise.
Repeat them to your children.
Or may your house crumble,
Disease render you powerless,
Your offspring avert their faces from you.

There is evil intent afoot in the world. Nationalisms thrive; racism and bigotry are spouted by so-called leaders as authentic parlance; hatred, expulsions, and insulation of elites are common practice. These types of self-superior rationalisations are bedded in greed, stupidity, fear of the other, and narrow-mindedness. But as I have asked before: what is the appropriate liberal (in the sense of a tolerance of otherness, respect for fellow men, love of social justice and the dignity of all people) response to the encroaching tsunami of these types of behaviours, the erection of walls, both literal and figurative? The ‘live and let live ethic’ is to turn the other cheek, to allow this type of discourse, to be self-contained lest by criticising one becomes as unrestrained as one’s opposite. As liberals, we admit this latter effect to be a possibility – and meanwhile we lose sight of the threat of nationalisms, climate changes, financial upheavals until it is too late. These outcomes creep up on us until one morning we wake up and suddenly discover the world is an irreversibly changed place.

Primo Levi witnessed the most abhorrent example of this ‘sudden waking up’ in recent history. Nothing has come close. With hindsight, of course, we can see the rise of fascism was by no means a ‘sudden waking up’. There were obvious signs of the forthcoming dystopia – who is to say these signs are not manifest now?

This poem is so important because it tells us what to do. ‘Engrave these words on your heart, all the time, all your conscious moments’ and ‘Repeat them to your children’. If you do not, the most terrible punishments await you. The worst Levi leaves to the last: ‘[may] your offspring avert their faces from you’. As you sit ‘secure in your warm houses’, consider the awful nature of that sentence. The disrespect of your children.

So – and here is another example of the bravery of the poet – put it out there. Speak about the awful things that are happening and how they shame us all. Ask difficult questions that may cause you to feel uneasy. Debate the uncertainties of your life. Embrace doubt and change proactively to become comfortable with those elements. And uncomfortable with ignorance and isolation.

This is your job, my job, his job, her job, forever. Until you die. Before then you will have ensured that your children carry your banner and make it theirs. This is the only way.