"Complicit" is the exact word I used when I told myself that I could no longer sit in my chair in the Hall I had attended for many years. "Complicit" is the concept that gave me the courage to get up and leave in the middle of a Public Talk one Sunday when I decided that I could not sit silently in my seat and listen to what I was hearing from the platform while knowing several things that were dramatically wrong in just my hall.
At the time, I felt there was no way to express my concerns about mistreatment/disregard of children and women and the general lack of love and appreciation of congregation members without being brought under judicial inquiry for speaking against the organization.
To remain silently seated was to be complicit with the actions of the leaders and the congregation members. My conscience would not let stay put. I was a 'walk-away believer', though. So my leaving honestly and sincerely an act of loyalty to Jehovah.
I up and left. They never came looking for me. My family never asked 'why'.
A few have invited me back over the past 20 years. I (mostly) politely decline.
Others feel a need to stay - for a variety of reasons. I kind of get it. They have to do what they feel is right for themselves and their family - even if I think the better decision is to leave and find unconditional friends. You, unfortunately, inherited a cultic mess. Good luck with that! If I were you, I'd probably be inclined to laugh and tell them that I think they are ALL f'in nuts and the shunning is the most *UN*-christian thing I've ever seen. And tell them that until they get rid of that non-christian behaviour, I don't even want to waste my precious time listening to anything remotely religious that they have to say.
Please keep in touch here and let us know how things progress. But yes, I agree that 'complicit' is what JWs are - especially the ones who have woken up.
-Aude.