Today, more than ever, we need leaders who have the courage to do the right things - even if that means they may pay a price politically. In the movie, "Darkest Hour" the director included a scene in a subway in London that, historically, never occurred. The new Prime Minister, Winston Churchill has to go to Parliament to rally his party and then with oratory, persuade the other. The choice that his party was demanding was to sue for peace with Hitler and the Nazis, hoping for favorable terms. This would mean the end of the British democracy. The other option was to fight back in a costly war that would cause many deaths and great destruction. His instinct was to try to save democracy and oppose the tyranny of Facism. What should he do?
In the scene, he even quotes a British poet from the previous century, Thomas Macaulay, who wrote about the courage some of the ancient Romans showed during an invasion by the Gauls:
“Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the Gate:
To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his gods”
― Thomas Babington Macaulay, Lays of Ancient Rome
How will you act when facing a difficult right choice and an easier wrong one? Think of nurses and doctors who risked their likes daily to go into COVID-19 wards to try to save as many lives as possible. They joined Horatius on the gate to defend against the enemy.
“Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the Gate:
To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his gods”
― Thomas Babington Macaulay, Lays of Ancient Rome
How will you act when facing a difficult right choice and an easier wrong one? Think of nurses and doctors who risked their likes daily to go into COVID-19 wards to try to save as many lives as possible. They joined Horatius on the gate to defend against the enemy.
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