Will democracy prevail?
It will, if the people will it
The battle to uphold the rule of law calls for the resolve and the commitment of the ... people. Our institutions of justice, the courts and the police require the unswerving support of every law-abiding citizen. The nation faces now the most testing crisis of our times – the battle between the extremists and the rest. We are fighting for the rights of the little man as well as for the big man. We are fighting as we have always fought: for the weak as well as the strong. We are fighting for great and good causes. We are fighting to defend them against the power and might of those who rise up to challenge them. This government will not weaken. This nation will meet that challenge. Democracy will prevail.
This is an extract from a speech given by UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher on the day after an attempt was made to murder her; an attempt that, instead, took the lives of Anthony Berry, Muriel Maclean, Jeanne Shattock, Eric Taylor and Roberta Wakeham: the 1984 Grand Hotel bomb.
The attack targeted a democratically elected leader, but took no care to spare collateral damage, whoever they might be. It is not unlike attacks being made on democracy in our own times. Forty years on, democracy is bracing itself for an impending onslaught that is well within sight and that raises, again, the question of whether government of the people, by the people, for the people will perish from this Earth.
The speech was given by Margaret Thatcher in 1984. It bears echoes of a speech given by Abraham Lincoln in 1865. The sentiments of both give pause for reflection on a controversy of today. Of Margaret Thatcher, one can be confident in saying many things. She foresaw, long before it materialised for the world, the callousness and evil that resides in Vladimir Putin, in commenting on the disaster of the submarine Kursk. She was foolish to advocate the community charge as a fair tax. She was overly dismissive of her cabinet members. But: had she lost an election, she would have stood down gracefully; as gracefully as Neil Kinnock applauded her reactions to the attempt on her life. And, believer as she was in the upright traditions of the judiciary, she would have scolded soundly any member of that judiciary who failed to live up to the highest of standards. No politician is bathed in pure wisdom; many venture onto fields of folly; but the best of them recognise the difference, and they accede to it; even Honest Abe did that.
The defence by the people of the democracy that is theirs, and theirs alone, is a monumental act that faces them today, wherever they may be. And some of the challenges to that monumental act lurk within the very institutions of justice, courts and police to which the people are exhorted to lend unswerving support. As at this time, a US Supreme Court Justice has yet to accede to the difference between wisdom and folly, between government and judiciary, between government of the people and government over the people.
If the people are to be brazen to the challenge, they must be cognisant of what democracy is,
of what democracy means to them and their loved ones,
of what must be yielded to democracy to ensure it thrives,
of what democracy means to their nation, and
of what democracy in their nation means to the world.
What it will take is a global outlook, be it globally or nationally.
What it will take is inspiration towards a greater good.
What it will take is recognition of that which is good, and of that which it is greater than.
And that will be a monumental act.
Images: (top) US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas; (bottom left) US President Abraham Lincoln; (bottom right) UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.