An old high school friend, now in New York, pointed out to me the Funeral
Oration given by Pericles in 431BC to honour the soldiers killed in the early
part of the Peloponnesian War which broke out in that year. His oration weas
recorded by the Greek historian Thucydides.
The middle part of his speech is of particular relevance to the current
hostilities around the world. Although it speaks of the strength of a
democratic state, it also exposes the fragility of such a state, in that, such
rhetoric is unfortunately usually brought forth to honour those who have died
trying to preserve its very existence. That
democracy is so frequently subjected to attack, resulting in so much death and destruction,
is the great tragedy of man. Why must a state so obviously beneficial to its
citizen’s be so constantly assaulted and excoriated?
I have copied here the middle part of Pericles’s oration. I believe it
is worth the read.
But what was the road by which we reached our position, what the form of
government under which our greatness grew, what the national habits out of
which it sprang; these are questions which I may try to solve before I proceed
to my panegyric upon these men; since I think this to be a subject upon which
on the present occasion a speaker may properly dwell, and to which the whole
assemblage, whether citizens or foreigners, may listen with advantage.
Our constitution does not copy
the laws of neighbouring states. We are rather a pattern to others than
imitators ourselves. Its administration favours the many instead of the few;
this is why it is called a democracy. If we look to the laws, they afford equal
justice to all in their private differences; if no social standing, advancement
in public life falls to reputation for capacity, class considerations not being
allowed to interfere with merit; nor again does poverty bar the way, if a man
is able to serve the state, he is not hindered by the obscurity of his
condition.
The freedom which we enjoy in our government extends also to our
ordinary life. There, far from exercising a jealous surveillance over each
other, we do not feel called upon to be angry with our neighbour for doing what
he likes, or even to indulge in those injurious looks which cannot fail to be
offensive, although they inflict no positive penalty. But all this ease in our
private relations does not make us lawless as citizens. Against this fear is
our chief safeguard, teaching us to obey the magistrates and the laws,
particularly such as regard the protection of the injured, whether they are
actually on the statute book, or belong to that code which, although unwritten,
yet cannot be broken without acknowledged disgrace.
Further, we provide plenty of
means for the mind to refresh itself from business. We celebrate games and
sacrifices all the year round, and the elegance of our private establishments
forms a daily source of pleasure and helps to banish the spleen; while the
magnitude of our city draws the produce of the world into our harbour, so that
to the Athenian the fruits of other countries are as familiar a luxury as those
of his own.
If we turn to our military
policy, there also we differ from our antagonists. We throw open our city to
the world, and never by alien acts exclude foreigners from any opportunity of
learning or observing, although the eyes of an enemy may occasionally profit by
our liberality; trusting less in system and policy than to the native spirit of
our citizens; while in education, where our rivals from their very cradles by a
painful discipline seek after manliness, at Athens we live exactly as we
please, and yet are just as ready to encounter every legitimate danger.
In proof of this it may be
noticed that the Lacedaemonians do not invade our country alone, but bring with
them all their confederates; while we Athenians advance unsupported into the
territory of a neighbour, and fighting upon a foreign soil usually vanquish
with ease men who are defending their homes. Our united force was never yet
encountered by any enemy, because we have at once to attend to our marine and
to dispatch our citizens by land upon a hundred different services; so that,
wherever they engage with some such fraction of our strength, a success against
a detachment is magnified into a victory over the nation, and a defeat into a
reverse suffered at the hands of our entire people. And yet if with habits not
of labour but of ease, and courage not of art but of nature, we are still
willing to encounter danger, we have the double advantage of escaping the
experience of hardships in anticipation and of facing them in the hour of need
as fearlessly as those who are never free from them.
Nor are these the only points
in which our city is worthy of admiration. We cultivate refinement without
extravagance and knowledge without effeminacy; wealth we employ more for use
than for show, and place the real disgrace of poverty not in owning to the fact
but in declining the struggle against it. Our public men have, besides
politics, their private affairs to attend to, and our ordinary citizens, though
occupied with the pursuits of industry, are still fair judges of public
matters; for, unlike any other nation, regarding him who takes no part in these
duties not as unambitious but as useless, we Athenians are able to judge at all
events if we cannot originate, and, instead of looking on discussion as a
stumbling-block in the way of action, we think it an indispensable preliminary
to any wise action at all.
Again, in our enterprises we
present the singular spectacle of daring and deliberation, each carried to its
highest point, and both united in the same persons; although usually decision
is the fruit of ignorance, hesitation of reflection. But the palm of courage
will surely be adjudged most justly to those, who best know the difference
between hardship and pleasure and yet are never tempted to shrink from danger.
In generosity we are equally singular, acquiring our friends by conferring, not
by receiving, favours. Yet, of course, the doer of the favour is the firmer
friend of the two, in order by continued kindness to keep the recipient in his
debt; while the debtor feels less keenly from the very consciousness that the
return he makes will be a payment, not a free gift. And it is only the
Athenians, who, fearless of consequences, confer their benefits not from
calculations of expediency, but in the confidence of liberality.
The confidence of liberality. There’s
the rub. For some obscure reason there are those who cannot distinguish between
liberality and self-interest or greed. For some time now, the governments of
the United Kingdom and the United States have embraced a leadership with
equivalent slogans, “Take back control’ and “America First”. That leadership has
embraced an almost militaristic approach to democratic protest, and a laissez
faire attitude to political integrity allowing hypocrisy and mendacity to rule
as never before. The tenacity with which some representatives cling to incompetence,
duplicity and stupidity is astonishing. That the electorate allows them to get away
with it is depressing.
There was a glimmer of hope in
the United States with the ousting of Donald Trump from office; however, he
still seems to wield strong influence over a republican party that is solely
intent on getting into office and cares little about legislation. The very fact
that polls seem to indicate that the republican party may gain a majority in
congress, despite the mounting evidence exposing the criminality of Mr Trump
and his acolytes, is a deplorable indictment of the American citizens’ misunderstanding
of their own constitution.
As to British and American legislatures, the continued presence in
office of the likes of Boris Johnson, Ted Cruz, Priti Patel, Lindsey Graham, Kevin
McCarthy, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tim Loughton MP for East Worthing and Shoreham
and many others whose grasp of reality is smothered by their narrow feeble
minded thinking, is regrettable and unfortunate. How did
any of these people get elected to office in the first place?
I equate British and American politicians who appear able to manage lying
with the conviction, ease and slipperiness of an eel through water. As to Mr.
Loughton, although allegedly demanding Mr. Johnson’s resignation, he is in full
support of the Rwandan concentration camp proposals, which is why I include him
in the list. Somehow, in spite of these unwholesome representatives, the
concept of democratic freedom soldiers on in the western world.
Similarly to Pericles, Abraham
Lincoln made a shorter but powerful speech over another burial ground during a
war, in which he too praised the idea of democratic government:
It is
rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that
from these honoured dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which
they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that
these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have
a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for
the people, shall not perish from the earth.
How many more orations over the dead will it be necessary to make for
the preservation of real democratic governance and the confidence of liberality.
On top of the calamities brought
on by Mr Putin and his breach of international law, there is also an alarming
rise of domestic criminality elsewhere in the world. There is an article by
Alaa Elassar, a CNN journalist, published on 30th April 2022,
entitled “New Yorkers don’t feel safe at home anymore”, with the tag “Residents
say they’re overwhelmed with fear and anxiety, as the NYPD struggles to rein in
crime.” The article claims that:
To date, the city
has recorded a 42.7% increase in major crimes compared to the same period in
2021, according to the New York City Police Department. That includes a 46.7%
increase in robberies, a 54% spike in grand larceny incidents and a 14.9% jump
in rape reports. Murder rates have decreased 13.1% over last year, but they are
still up 9.2% over the last two years.
…the fear of
ending up another crime statistic has cast a shadow over the city.
If correct this is an extremely
worrying time, and one fears the same statistics can be arrived at in other
cities round the globe. So far as grand larceny is concerned, it very much applies
to the United Kingdom.
Whether this state of affairs is
the result of liberality, too little control, or simply a lowering of standards of our individual duty of care, and
a decline in respect for the rule of law, I do not know; however, the problem must be addressed, not just by our
elected representatives, but by each and every one of us.
