Life is Like a Box of Chocolates

By Elize Theron

To some it will remain just a proverb in the Tom Hanks movie, to others it has become a reality in so many aspects of life. Yes, there are numerous choices we make in life, and then we have to live with those choices…so Mr Line Manager, what choice did you make today, and will you be able to live with it for the rest of your life? My closest friend, soulmate and confidant of 38 years was first in line, having an immaculate CV ranging from a 4-year B.Ed Degree, 10 year UK teaching experience, to public and private sector in many different curricula. A Top candidate with world class experience, producing the results year after year, with many Mommies demanding that their kids be placed with her. The chocolate she chose was one carefully considered and thought-through, one that changed her life the moment she announced it. She was bullied, shamed, blamed, coerced, separated, pressured, emotionally beaten, and still is, as I am writing this. All for the “greater good” narrative Mr Line Manager said, “you are not forced Mrs Teacher, you make your decision and you live with your choice”. . . it should be easy . . . When schools re-open she will most probably be suspended, as the time has lapsed for her to choose another chocolate. She will face an insubordination disciplinary and lose her job… Another close friend, having worked 35 years for a big Corporate Bank, had her hopes up, for she has been the best performer countless times . . . her records can’t be beaten. Added to that she has (after all) been working successfully from home these past 2 years. Surely her Line Manager will be in her corner of the ring? Unfortunately, the same scenario played out, bullying, shaming, blaming, pressuring, emails being sent twice a day, laying out the consequences of “her” choice, setting up discussions with her best friends trying to persuade her, constantly reminding her of the approaching deadline. . . Well, it worked, she is a single Mom with a dependant 2nd year varsity student, the decision was made last Friday, and the two days following this decision, she spent on her knees. The examples above are just two of many realities playing out today, so I want to ask you Mr Line Manager, do you know the story of the SS Officers and the chocolates they chose? Let me tell you… In 1925, Adolf Hitler established the Schutzstaffel, otherwise known as the SS. The SS were a small sub-division with approximately 300 members but by 1933, the SS had 35,000 members, known as SS Officers. Members of the SS were chosen based on their ‘racial purity’, blind obedience and fanatical loyalty to Hitler. The SS saw themselves as the ultimate defenders of the ‘Aryan’ race and Nazi ideology. They terrorized and aimed to destroy any person or group that threatened this. The SS became symbols of terror. The Nazi Party used these forces to terrify their opposition into subordination, slowly eliminate them entirely, or scare people into supporting them. In addition to receiving military training, recruits were taught that they were the elite not only of the Nazi Party but of all humankind. Above all else, they were to value allegiance and obligation to the Nazi ideal, place individual concerns aside and perform their duties diligently and as a cohesive unit. Such expectations were reflected in the SS motto: “Loyalty is my honour.”The SS was the organization most responsible for the genocidal murder of an estimated 5.5 to 6 million Jews and millions of other victims during the Holocaust. Members of all of its branches committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during World War II (1939–45). After Nazi Germany's defeat, the SS and the Nazi Party were judged by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg to be criminal organizations. Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the highest-ranking surviving SS main department chief, was found guilty of crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg trials and hanged in 1946. When all of this is over, and Judgement Day is here, what will you say Mr Line Manager? Perhaps you want to take some pointers from your predecessors? Let’s see what the SS Officers said . . . “Don’t you see, we SS men were not supposed to think about these things; it never even occurred to us. . . . We were all so trained to obey orders without even thinking that the thought of disobeying an order would simply never have occurred to anybody, and somebody else would have done just as well if I hadn’t. . . . I really never gave much thought to whether it was wrong. It just seemed a necessity.” The judges at Nuremberg rejected the “following orders” defence. They said that when an individual follows an order that is illegal under international law, he is responsible for that choice. The judges at Nuremberg maintained that it would have been impossible for members of SS not to know that murdering civilians was both illegal and immoral. An exception, the judges said, would be if a person obeyed an illegal order to avoid physical harm, torture, or death. In their judgment at the trial, the judges wrote: “No court will punish a man who, with a loaded pistol at his head, is compelled to pull a lethal lever. Nor need the peril be that imminent in order to escape punishment. But were any of the defendants coerced into killing Jews under the threat of being killed themselves if they failed in their homicidal mission?” No they weren’t . . . And that Mr Line Manager, is how the story will end for you . . . Life is like a box of chocolates