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Arnold Schwarzenegger recently won hearts across the internet after sharing a 12-minute speech condemning anti-Semitism and denouncing all forms of hate. The former California governor also took to Twitter to share his message amid the rising hate and anti-Semitism in America.
He also asked his followers to share the video with “someone who needs to hear” the message and said that the goal is to make such individuals “listen”:
Schwarzenegger also said that he made the video because he cares about people and does not want them to end up “broken” like his father, Gustav Schwarzenegger, who was an Austrian police chief and member of the Nazi party:
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s video was posted on his YouTube channel after the he took an emotional trip to the former site of the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp operated by the Nazis during the Holocaust.
A look into Arnold Schwarzenegger’s speech against hate and anti-Semitism
On March 6, Arnold Schwarzenegger took to his YouTube channel to share a moving video about the rising hate and anti-Semitism all over the world.
The former bodybuilder shared that he toured the Auschwitz concentration camp “where 1.1 million men, women, and children lost their lives” and majority of them were “ruthlessly murdered simply because they were Jewish.”
Sharing his experience from the tour, Schwarzenegger said:
“When you walk through a place like Auschwitz, you feel a tremendous weight. There are reminders everywhere of the horrors that happened there.”
He then remembered the brutal torture that the Jews suffered at the hands of the Nazis within the concentration camp and commemorated lives lost during the Holocaust. The politician continued:
“Let me tell you something. The weight on your back hits you at the very beginning, heavier than a squat I've ever done, and it never goes away. It’s the feeling of history, of millions of voices that were silenced decades ago begging you, not to just look at their shoes but to spend a few hours in them.”
Remembering the brutal suffering of the Jews, Arnold Schwarzenegger asked how people can stop the same from happening again:
“‘Never Again’ is the rallying cry of all the people who fight to prevent another Holocaust. You would never question that.”
Schwarzenegger then said that he does not want to “preach to the choir” but wants to talk to people “who might have already stumbled in the wrong direction and into a wrong path.”
“I want to talk to you if you've heard some conspiracies about Jewish people, or people of any race, or gender, or orientation, and thought, ‘That makes sense to me.’ I want to talk to you if you found yourself thinking about anyone is inferior and out to get you because of their religion or the color of their skin or their gender.”
He said that he wanted to talk to such people before they start regretting their actions:
“I don't know the road that has brought you here, but I've seen enough people throw away their futures for hateful beliefs. So, I want to speak to you before you find your regrets on the end of the path.”
The Terminator star also spoke about his father and the “broken men” he was surrounded with when he grew up in Austria after the Second World War. He said that those men “drank to numb their pain.”
Their bodies were full of injuries and shrapnel from the eve of the war, and their “hearts and minds were equally riddled with guilt.” Arnold Schwarzenegger added that those men mainly felt like “losers”:
“Besides the guilt and the injuries, they felt like losers. Not only because they lost the war, but also because fell for a horrible, loser ideology. They were lied to and misled into a path that ended in misery... they bought into the idea that the only way to make their lives better was to make other lives worse.”
He shared that it did not matter why those men joined the Nazis, but the bottom line was “they were all broken in the same way.”
Arnold Schwarzenegger told viewers that if anyone finds themselves at a crossroads, wondering if “the path of hate might make sense,” he would want them to know that “throughout history hate has always been the easy path.”
He said it was the path of “least resistance” because it is easier to “find a scapegoat for a problem than to try to make things better by ourselves.”
However, Schwarzenegger stated that no one would find success on the road that ends with hate:
“You will not find success at the end of that road. You will not find fulfillment or happiness, because hate burns fast and bright, and it might make you feel empowered for a while, but it eventually consumes whatever vessel it fuels.”
He also noted that there has never been a successful movement based on hate:
“It breaks you. It makes you weak. And that’s why there has never been a successful movement based on hate. I mean think about it, the Nazis? Losers. The Confederacy? Losers. The Apartheid movement? Losers. The list goes on and on.”
The Republican continued:
“I don’t want you to be a loser. I don’t want you to be weak.”
He said that he knows “nobody is perfect” and he understands that it is easy to “fall into a trap of prejudice and hate” and believes everyone has some kind of prejudice that they have to fight against the same their whole lives:
“I know this is not the path of least resistance. It’s easier to just throw around some bogus science claiming that you are superior to someone else that it is to actually work on becoming better yourself.”
Arnold Schwarzenegger mentioned that it is easier to believe that “Jewish people conspired to hold you back” than admitting that “you just needed to work harder” and that it is “easier to hate than to learn.”
However, he clarified that people should remember “easier isn’t better.” He said that people who chose the path of hate have always died as “miserably” as they lived:
“When you spend your life looking for scapegoats, you take away your own responsibility. You remove your own power, you steal your own strength. Nobody who has chosen the easy path of hate has gotten to the end of the road and said, ‘Oh, what a life.’ No. They die as miserably as they lived.”
Arnold Schwarzenegger noted that people who have gone far into the path of hate still have the chance to choose their strengths while giving up on the hate:
“No matter how far you've gone, I want you to know that you still have the chance to choose a life of strength. But you have to give up your war against everyone that you hate.”
He said that the war people need to fight is “the war against yourself.” Even though he acknowledged that the action to change oneself is “hard as hell,” Schwarzenegger urged people to take responsibility and to learn new things.
The former Mr. Olympia referred to his lessons at the gym during his days as a bodybuilder and said that people have to “struggle and build strength” and remembers that their mind and their character are no different than their body and muscles:
"If you want to grow as a person, you really have to make friends with pain. Embrace the discomfort, enjoy the struggle. You have two paths in front of you right now. One of them is going to be the harder one today. It's going to be downright painful. You will have to force your brain to think in new ways.”
Arnold Schwarzenegger shared that during the journey, people may lose friends “who want to hold onto their weak beliefs” but once a person successfully pulls themselves away from anger and hate, they will eventually, “start to feel empowered.”
“You will realize you have the greatest power of all -- the power to change your own life. You will be stronger than you've ever known.”
He noted that the path of hate is easy and would not require people to “change anything” as they will be convinced that everything in their life that they are unhappy about is “somebody else’s fault.”
However, the actor also mentioned that people will “end up broken” if they follow that path and continue searching for ways to “numb your pain and misery.”
Arnold Schwarzenegger recalled that it was “horrifying” to walk through the Auschwitz concentration camp. He said imagining himself in the shoes of the ones who suffered at the camp was “one of the darkest” moments of life.
He shared that despite the darkness, a woman who survived the horrors of Auschwitz helped him find the light. Schwarzenegger shared that the woman told him that the Nazis took everything away from her but they could not conquer her mind.
Arnold Schwarzenegger concluded his speech by saying that there is “still hope” for people who have written hateful things online, marched with the hateful flag or said any hateful things in anger and urged them to “choose strength, chose life” and to “conquer” their mind.
Netizens praise Arnold Schwarzenegger for moving message against hate and anti-Semitism
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s video condemning hate and anti-Semitism recently went viral online and left social media users highly impressed and moved.
Many also took to Twitter to praise the former Governor of California for his inspiring message and his urge to stop any form of hate based on race, religion, caste, gender and orientation, among others:
According to ET News, Arnold Schwarzenegger visited Auschwitz in September 2022 after the Anti-Defamation League reported that the number of documented reports of violence, harassment, and vandalism against Jews hit a record high in 2021 since 1979, with 2022 showing similar numbers.
