I Was Perpetrator and Witness

When you tell a story you’re part of, people want to know who you are in that story. Are you the victim? The hero? The bad guy who has now seen the light?

I’m none of those.

I was part of a machine. I didn’t invent it, but I kept it running. I made money from it. I watched it grow. And I watched it tip over. I wasn’t on the outside. I was right in the middle.

The victim role would be easy. I got pulled in. I didn’t know better. The others were to blame. The story practically writes itself, and it has a clear advantage: you come out looking good. Everyone understands you. Everyone nods.

But it’s not true.

The hero role would also be easy. I recognized the truth. I got out. Now I’m telling everything so others can learn from it. That story writes easily too. And it has an advantage as well: you come out looking even better. Not just a victim, but brave.

Also not true.

And the whistleblower? He goes to the press, spills everything, names names, points fingers at others. He says: look what they did. That’s the last thing I am. I never settle scores with others. Only with myself.

The truth is less comfortable than any of those roles. I was simultaneously someone who profited and someone who watched. Perpetrator and witness. In one person. Without it ever splitting neatly apart.

I felt the dissonance. The scientist says no. The customer says yes. I stand in the middle and earn money. That’s not a tragic constellation. That’s everyday life. In more professions and situations than we want to admit.

What makes this position rare isn’t the experience itself. It’s the willingness to tell it this way. Without excuses, without whitewashing, without the version that sounds better. Most insiders who speak up later tell a sanitized version. One where they woke up at some point. Where there was a turning point, a moment of clarity, after which everything was different.

For me, there was no such moment. It was a process. Slow, unspectacular, without fanfare. No lightning bolt. More like a fog lifting. Piece by piece. Over years.

I don’t wave a moral stick. I don’t stand on a stage and say: you must not act this way. Because I know what it’s like to stand in the middle of it. Because I know that most people in the same situation would have done the same thing. Not out of malice. Out of normalcy.

What I’m saying is simpler and more uncomfortable: this is how it works. This is the mechanism. And this is the price you pay. Not the price others pay. Your own.

I haven’t become purer. I’ve become more honest. That’s a difference. Purer means: I switched sides. That’s just another role. More honest means: I now see where the lines run. Between what I did and what I told myself about it.

The convenient thing about roles is that they assign you a place. Victims sit on one side, perpetrators on the other, heroes on stage. Everyone knows where they stand. Everyone knows what they’re supposed to feel.

When you say, I was both, people don’t have a category for that. They don’t know whether they should like you or not. Whether you’re trustworthy or dangerous. Whether they can believe you.

Good. That’s exactly the point. Reality doesn’t fit into categories. It doesn’t fit into roles. It’s messy, contradictory, and uncomfortable.

I don’t spare myself. But I don’t put myself on trial either. Both would be too easy. Instead, I look and tell what I see. As clearly as possible. Without the version that sells better.

Yes, I made money from it. Yes, I knew what I was doing. No, I don’t regret looking at what it does to us.

And to me.