barbaric Atilla, the arrogant Augustus or the fearful Cyrus. Someone has
to bear the burden of shame on the pages of history for the people of
his time, and in that sense, maybe I truly can be called their kinsman
redeemer. Perhaps it is my fate to bear witness to the wrongs of a
people, of which even you are not wholly innocent.

And yet can an individual be blamed for the faults of a society, can
personal responsibility be extended to the members of an unknown
multitude? How the enjoined conscience of one longs to say no, but in
good faith it cannot be said, for in this case the mask of ignorance
cannot supersede the face of guilt. Indeed, ignorance in this case only
adds to the shame of the guilty, this being a crime not of misdeeds but
of negligence, twisted together with the vices of humanity into a thick
and sturdy cord, a rope that cannot be pulled apart and individually
examined, yet must be taken as a whole. Insularly, the strand of
ignorance could be easily snapped, remedied by but a little education,
yet when woven together by one's own hands with prides and prejudices,
it forms an unbreakable rope, which is placed about our neck to hang us:
through means of our own doing is our fate foretold. If but one or two
of the strands were omitted, the result would be a feeble rope, easily
broken, and we would live. But by our own vices is our mortality made
manifest, by our own wrongs are we wronged.

By now you may be beginning to feel the impulses of indignation arising
in your breast, for who am I, the admittedly despicable Jehu, to group
you as my fellow convicts, my co-conspirators, in a sense? And you are
right, for I am not your judge and neither do I wish to be.

Having said that, I now request of you to put down the book and
discontinue reading.