A few honorable men

In any major crisis in which passions run high and the future seems too grim to accept, there are two streams within the population- one which embraces and indeed leads the movement and the other a few- an honorable few - that emerge as voices of calm and reason. 


Last year saw the rise of the so called Tea party movement in the US. This was accompanied with angry words and vitroil that really were beyond any reasonable discourse. That they covered a subtle racism was a given but that it took over some of the moderates in its ugly wake was even more distressing. In fact at times it looked as if it was what Yeats spoke of:


   "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity."


In recent weeks the world has seen emergence of the Occupy the Wall Street (OWS) movement and its rapid spread throughout the world. This voice from below comes close on the heels of the Arab spring in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Syria as well as the populist movement against corruption in India. In all these cases the spirit and the stimulus came from ordinary men and women railing against an unjust system and an unfair distribution of power and pelf. It pitted itself against recalicitrant governments as well an authority ( the Wall street epitomized the financial elite) that was neither honest nor accountable. These untidy movements will inevitable wind through their way as they have  in the past with their heroes and villains. In all these cases we have seen ordinary men being transformed into spearholders of change and in many cases leaders have left their comfortable perches to praise these revolutionary movements.


In the US however, the one element that has been missing even till now has been the unaccountalbe absence of any honorable men standing openly against the tide of hate and disguised racism during the tea pary days. It is so disheartening to see both the republican leadership and the main stream media willingness to tolerate the kind of hatred for their president that has now become commonplace. One group argues that this has always been the case and cite incidents of worst occourennces in the past, the other seeks shelter behind a cowardly plea of objectivity. Here there are no leaders or media editors who will take out one page ads to denounce these descents into hatred as was the case a few years ago in india when the muslim massacres in Gujarat led to a countrywide outcry. Here in the US there has been only silence  broken by the Fox channels anchors and commentators wantonly encouraging hatred. No one but no one dared to challenge the drug induced paranoi of Beck or Rush Limbaugh, certainly no one from the main stream, with a few honorable exceptions in MSNBC, took a stand and there was no one from the elders of the republican party who challenged the birther movement or worse epithets flung at the president of the country. 


The real question in my mind is where were the doyens of the republican party - the senior Bush, the last president, Dole, Danforth? Did they not see the damage these movements were and doing to the party of Lincoln and to the country. Why is it that they did not speak out and still refuse to? And what about the leaders of the various churches - do they think it is all right that the public discourse is now in the gutter? 


The words of Dante spring to mind“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crises maintain their neutrality”.