Dear Zeresenay,

One of Eichmann’s defenses was that he was, after all, merely a tiny cog in the wheel of the Nazi machine. A mere cog. If he hadn’t done what he did, someone else would have.

But the whole question of being a part of the machine is a different one from personal responsibility. Personal responsibility does not subside even under oppressive regimes. One can always refuse to participate in evil.

You were arrested in February last year in Texas. By whom? You were kept in detention, for sixteenth months. Who were these prison guards in Florida and Ohio? Who was processing your deportation case? Who wrote the policy? Who was the judge who finally approved your deportation? Who carried you, finally, kicking and screaming, to the plane? Who kept you confined during the flight? Who handed you over to Egyptian authorities at Cairo Airport? Were they all mere cogs?

Who found your dead body, dear Zeresenay? Who wrote the statement on ICE’s website, in the reptilian language of functionaries: “passed away,” “deceased in a shower area,” “he attempted to unlawfully enter the United States.” Whose logic is this? Another cog in the machine!

So many who could have said, “No, this is wrong. We cannot send this man back to Eritrea, to a fate of unspeakable suffering or even death.” But who dared say it? And they don’t think of themselves as murderers. Nevertheless, a man died.

I am sorry for your despair, Zeresenay. I’m sorry that you ran out of hope. You are beyond consoling now, but we the living console ourselves with Simone Weil’s words:

“Whether the mask is labeled fascism, democracy, or dictatorship of the proletariat, our great adversary remains the apparatus—the bureaucracy, the police, the military. [...] No matter what the circumstances, the worst betrayal will always be to subordinate ourselves to this apparatus and to trample underfoot, in its service, all human values in ourselves and in others.”

This is our refusal. And we cannot claim it is for you, who are now beyond reach. No, it is for ourselves.

May God comfort those who loved you.