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Missing the Bus: When Conscience Bows to Calculation
Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and ’t is prosperous to be
just;
Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside,
Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified. -- James
Russell Lowell
By Niranjan Ramakrishnan
11/05/05 "Commondreams"
-- ---
Rosa Parks was bid final farewell at a ceremony in Detroit earlier
this week.
The galaxy of notables paying tribute was like a page from The
Stargazer's Guide to the Democratic Firmament: Michigan governor
Jennifer Granholm, Senators Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow, Barack
Obama, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton. President Clinton too was
there, briefly, weaving words as only he can.
The speeches were moving, even heartfelt. But no tribute could ever
hope to surpass the original story. The very simplicity of some
actions gives them power and eternal beauty. The story here was of
one ordinary individual's decision to challenge an obviously unjust
dispensation, whose ongoing travesty yet did not appear to trouble
the establishment. By her simple act, she had electrified the
conscience of the entire country.
That at least is the legend. The truth is a lot less dramatic,
though no less powerful for that.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott continued for a year. During that time,
how many senators, governors and congressmen would you suppose
descended on Alabama to lend support to the boycotters? I don't know
exactly, but here's my wild guess: less than the fingers on one
hand. On the other hand, how many ordinary people had their lives
changed by Rosa Parks' example? My guess again: tens of thousands.
Bill Clinton recalled that after hearing of Rosa Parks, he and a
couple of his friends, all around 9 years of age, decided that they
would sit in the back of the bus as a measure of support for Rosa
Parks!
That was the boy Clinton. The politician and president would have
done things differently, waiting to see how it all shook out,
probably taking the additional safeguard of having Dick Morris run a
poll first.
It is often said that politicians have no shame, but it is their
general stupidity, borne of endless fear and calculation, that is
more distinct. Hillary Clinton spoke of how all of us can have our
"Rosa Parks Moment". John Kerry said: "the bus still comes by, again
and again, and each time we have to decide whether to go quietly to
the back, or by simple acts of courage and conviction, change the
direction of our own country's journey...The life of Rosa Parks
demands deeds, not epitaphs."
Beautiful words. Though not applicable, evidently, to the Iraq War
Resolution.
At the end of the Gandhi Centenary Year, when leaders in India were
eulogizing the father of the nation, declaring that Gandhi was
eternally valid, I recall my father writing an editorial titled,
"Mahatma Managed", where he observed how, while everyone in
authority had emphasized that Gandhi was relevant at all places and
all times, they had failed to clarify whether he was relevant for
our place and our time, besides undermining their assertion by their
own doings.
There is nothing less risky than praising a dead icon. There is
nothing more risky than standing with a living one who, to use John
Kerry's words for Rosa Parks, "speaks truth to power".
The most striking tribute of all at the Detroit ceremony was by a
preacher who spoke some words from the scripture: "he who believes
in Me shall live even if he dies", a theme echoed by Gandhi when he
launched the Quit India movement in 1942: "He who loses his life
will gain it; he who will seek to save it shall lose it. Freedom is
not for the coward or the faint-hearted."
Gandhi's words are just as true of political lives. Hillary Clinton
's Rosa Parks moment came and went last summer, when she could have
have gone to Crawford to show support for Cindy Sheehan. John Kerry
's entire campaign last year was one long saga of missed buses.
As Congressman John Conyers of Michigan exulted at the memorial, two
full planeloads of the US Congress had come to Detroit to pay
tribute to Rosa Parks. Buses were missed, but planes were caught.
Imagine if two planeloads of the US Congress, containing the same
worthies who descended on Detroit with such alacrity, had gone to
Texas this summer and camped out in the ditch outside Bush's
Ranch...
But Cindy Sheehan is alive and troublesome. Rosa Parks is dead and
safe. Therein lies the difference.
Niranjan Ramakrishnan is a writer living on the West Coast. His blog
is at http://njn-blogogram.blogspot.com.
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