THE SWEDES HAVE A WORD FOR “NOT TO SAY SOMETHING”. A Swedish friend wrote: “I saw what you wrote about ‘tycka’ and ‘tro’. Another interesting Swedish word is ‘tiga’ which means ‘not to say something’. In other words, a word for the absence of doing something.”
I would think that the existence of the Swedish word would make withholding comment an affirmative action, a deliberate choice.