https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7GY1Xg6X20
Meer dan zeventig jaar later is in Oekraïne een herhaling van de gruwelijkheden van de Tweede Wereldoorlog in de maak. Deze speech van Charlie Chaplin bijzonder actueel. In 1940 kwam de legendarische film The Great Dictator uit, geschreven en geregisseerd door Charlie Chaplin, die ook de hoofdrol speelt. Het is vooral een satirische kijk op de toenmalige dictator Adolf Hitler, die in de film Adenoid Hynkel heet. Alhoewel Chaplin al eind jaren 1930 aan de film werkte, verscheen hij uiteindelijk pas in 1940 in de zalen, toen Hitler al grote delen van Europa veroverd had. De populariteit van de film steeg pas toen de VS in 1941 ook bij de Tweede Wereldoorlog betrokken raakte vanwege de aanval op Pearl Harbor. Aan het eind van de film houdt Chaplin een toespraak die wordt gezien als een van de beste toespraken in de filmgeschiedenis. Gulzigheid vergiftigt de ziel, haat blokkeert de wereld.
(Stukken uit) speech
‘I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone – if possible – Jew, Gentile – black man – white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness – not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. (…) Soldiers! don’t give yourselves to brutes – men who despise you – enslave you – who regiment your lives – tell you what to do – what to think and what to feel! Who drill you – diet you – treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men – machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t hate! Only the unloved hate – the unloved and the unnatural! Soldiers! Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! (…) Let us fight for a new world – a decent world that will give men a chance to work – that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfil that promise. They never will! Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people! Now let us fight to fulfil that promise! Let us fight to free the world – to do away with national barriers – to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness. Soldiers! In the name of democracy, let us all unite!’