Munich Revisited

A very pessimistic poem, contemplating recent world events, and looking back at the past. J.D. Vance in a speech in Munich has just said that "Democracy rests on the sacred principle that the voice of the people matters" in advocating that the strident far right parties in Europe reflect the voice of the people, and this is all that matters. It seems that nowadays, all kinds of hate speech, gross malice and intolerance are justified by freedom of speech.

He seems not to have read John Stuart Mill: “The will of the people, moreover, practically means the will of the most numerous or the most active part of the people; the majority, or those who succeed in making themselves accepted as the majority, consequently, may desire to oppress a part of their number; and precautions are as much needed against this as against any other abuse of power.”

Munich Revisited

Peace in our time, but the price of peace?
Maybe that the fighting will come to cease,
Only because the rise again of dark forces,
As if once more the stars in their courses,
Warned of evil times, of no friendly word:
But only that the politics of hate are heard;
Immigrants looked at with loathing, fear:
Violence erupts to destroy all we hold dear;
The strident tones of past dictator’s ghost,
Raising strange salutes, with a new toast
To a time of chaos. The centre cannot hold,
When the demagogue sounds forth bold,
To tear up the rules of law, and fight,
And like the red weed infested blight,
Spread across the world. Things to come,
Beginning with the beating of the drum,
And then war? Who can tell, who can say?
An avalanche tearing forth without delay,
Destroying all in its wake. Speak out?
Voices drowned with fear and doubt;
And no one to speak truth to power,
But to give obeisance, and just cower;
As into times of chaos we now fall,
Will not one person stand up tall?
The world carved up like a cake
And truth and justice do forsake.