Sara Silverstein
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sarasilverstein.bsky.social
Sara Silverstein
@sarasilverstein.bsky.social
Historian. Writer. Public & global health, rights, internationalism, migration, citizenship & statelessness, Modern & Eastern Europe. Associate Professor at the University of Connecticut, Department of History and Human Rights Institute. Views my own.
(7/7) "what would you think
To be thus used? This is the strangers’ case;
And this your mountainish inhumanity."
William Shakespeare, in "Sir Thomas More," Act 2, Scene 4 (c. 1590s)
February 5, 2026 at 8:53 PM
(6/7) "would you be pleased
To find a nation of such barbarous temper,
That, breaking out in hideous violence,
Would not afford you an abode on earth,
Whet their detested knives against your throats,
Spurn you like dogs, and like as if that God
Owed not nor made not you [...]
February 5, 2026 at 8:53 PM
(5/7) "Say now the king [...]
Should so much come too short of your great trespass
As but to banish you, whither would you go?
What country, by the nature of your error,
Should give you harbor? [...]
Why, you must needs be strangers:
February 5, 2026 at 8:53 PM
(4/7) "For other ruffians, as their fancies wrought,
With self same hand, self reasons, and self right,
Would shark on you, and men like ravenous fishes
Would feed on one another.
February 5, 2026 at 8:53 PM
(3/7) "I’ll tell you. You had taught
How insolence and strong hand should prevail,
How order should be quelled; and by this pattern
Not one of you should live an aged man,
February 5, 2026 at 8:53 PM
(2/7) "Imagine that you see the wretched strangers,
Their babies at their backs and their poor luggage,
Plodding to the ports and coasts for transportation,
And that you sit as kings in your desires,
Authority quite silent by your brawl,
And you in ruff of your opinions clothed;
What had you got?
February 5, 2026 at 8:53 PM