The evil men are not the people you need to worry about

 I am sorry to say that when I look at the news, it is hard to take solace in anything right now. It seems to me that we are going through a difficult period of history, where being calm, rational, reasonable and honest are not qualities that are deemed necessary for leadership. I'm not going to bother to list the latest examples, because by this time next week, they will be forgotten, swamped under the next layer of depressing news, and the the next three layers after that. A friend asked last night what I thought could be done about the seemingly evil men, who are running the world. My response surprised them. I said "They are not the problem". I have no idea how the current situation will play out. I have no idea what the history books will say (should there be anyone around to read them). I may even be wrong about the whole thing, who knows? I am not arrogant enough to think that just because I don't like someone, they are actually bad and evil. But I write a blog and can only write what I see, through the prism of my own experience and circumstances. 

So you may ask, if the evil men at the top are not the problem, who are the problem. Sadly if we look at the rise and fall of the Third Reich in Germany, the answer is there to see. It is the ordinary man in the street. The man who is normally decent and moral, but who does not think for himself and question what is going on. The man who falls into line behind despots like Adolf Hitler, out of a misguided sense of patriotism. The man who does not see the obvious lies and does not question them. The man who finds themself in a position of power, which they didn't seek or expect, but they find themselves with power over other human beings and enjoy the culture that is emerging where that culture removes the sense of morality that keeps us all in check. The man who is convinced that another human being has less worth, no worth at all or, due to ethnicity or religion, is someone to be despised, attacked murdered, robbed, beaten. the Third Reich could only function because people who had previously been honest, decent citizens, where educed by a cult of hate. 

I have mentioned this before, but one of the things of my formative years left the most lasting impression was listening to my Dad, who was a bomber pilot for the RAF talk with a German fighter pilot, when they met during a friendship exchange organised, I think, by the Rotary Club. The two men, who may well have killed each other without a second thought in 1944, were having scotches, joking and discussing tactics in 1984, in a sense of amicable friendship and a shared experience that few could really understand. Toward the end of the evening, the German told my father, with a tear in his eyes, that the most difficult thing was that after the war, he'd realised Hitler was a maniac and that he was morally on the wrong side. He said that for him, he could live with it, because he was raised in an environment that he only saw one side of the argument. He saw Germany being rebuilt and becoming strong and as a patriotic German, he felt proud to serve in the armed forces. It was only after the war, when he read about the true nature of the Nazis, did he realise that the sacrifice of him and all of his comrades who died was something to be ashamed of, not to celebrate. My Dad simply said "I guess you never really know the truth at the time. I just thought I was doing my duty too". It made me realise that many young men never questioned anything and signed up. Many more were conscripted. In a totalitarian state, you'd have to be very brave to question orders. However soldiers do question orders. In Bosnia, General Michael Jackson defied a direct order from General Wesley Clarke to order his men to engage a brigade of Russians at Sarejevo airport. Instead he went to the airport with a bottle of Whisky and de-escalated the situation. He told Clarke "I am not starting World War three for you".

Good men can stop wars, just as bad men can start them. But it needs backbone and you need to be prepared to take risks. Bad leaders get rid of advisors who disagree with them. All this does is make them into even worse leaders, because there is no one around to explain the error of the ways. The sad truth though, is that there are always a lot of decent people, who don't stand up and be counted. Last week, I tried to persuade a foolish man to see the error of his ways. He opened the conversation by saying "I don't want to talk to you". He ended it by saying "I don't need your advice". My parting words to him were "Well at least I tried". That is all we can do sometimes. I'd rather have a clear conscience personally.