A Note to My Readers
Dear Reader,
I normally devote this space to the exploration of literature. I have not maintained these pages much during this past year due to personal pressures on my time. I plan to return to active blogging on my more usual themes shortly. However, I feel that the events of this last month in the politics of my nation call for a response. Literature is always political, always bound up in its times and the conflicts of its day. From Homer’s patrician contempt for Thyrsites to Steinbeck’s championing of the downtrodden Okies, the words we leave behind reflect our values. I send out this post as a small comment on current events in my land. And, from time to time, I may use this space to express my thoughts on similar issues.
May You All Find Peace,
Jonathan
What can be said of the death of democracy? Of the triumph of populism, ignorance, and evil? What can be said when the Great and Open Society closes? When books are banned and burned? What can be said when propaganda outshouts the truth? When the poison of lies sinks into our bones and makes the taste of “freedom” bitter in our mouths? When justice is lost in a red, dead silence.
Perhaps it was always only a dream that all should be equal. The cuts on the backs of every person once enslaved, the victims of Sand Canyon, and the white light of Hiroshima might tell a different tale. Perhaps it was only a dream that we might escape Europa’s past, her tyrannies and warring faiths. That we might be noble, open-hearted, generous, and free.
And yet, even if these things are only dreams by which we cover our brutal history, then I say they are still good dreams. Dreams that we by painful sanity must cherish against the madness of the times. For this is what must be said, must always be said, in the face of tyranny and injustice.
I dream an America where the idol of racism lies shattered and fallen. I dream an America where truth is honored once again. I dream an America where none need fear being different. I dream an America where all are truly free.
And I will not cease to speak of my dream, for the dream of liberty is the terror of tyrants and the death of empires.
What Can Be Said? Copyright 2024, Jonathan Golding
Artwork: Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World! by S Ravanthi, 2017, Creative Commons
Worlds Imagined 