I often find myself turning to the words of the Indian poet, Rabindranath Tagore. He always seems to express what I am feeling, but cannot say.
Rabindranath Tagore was born in 1861 in Calcutta, India into a wealthy family. After a brief stay in England he returned to India, and pursued a career as a writer, songwriter, poet, philosopher and educator. In 1913, Rabindranath became the first non-Westerner to receive the Nobel Prize for literature. He was knighted by King George V but in 1919, following the Amritsar massacre of 400 Indian demonstrators by British troops, Tagore renounced his knighthood. He was opposed to nationalism and miltiarism and instead promoted spiritual values, multi-culturalism, diversity and tolerance.
One of his quotes is as follows:
Those who own much have much to fear
The reactions of many of the 1% to the Occupy Wall Street protests seem to me to bear this out. The Eric Cantors, Rush Limbaughs and John Boehners are afraid. Afraid that their lives of wealth and privelege are at risk. Afraid that those who have somehow been manipulated into supporting policies not in their own best intersts will wake up and see that they have been cruelly used. Afraid that the truth is about to put an end to everything they have come to expect will be theirs.
And so they react to this fear with insults, derision and threats. How far will they go to protect what they have? Will they do whatever it takes?
Or will some of them be moved to remember the words of Luke 12:48 once quoted by
John Fitzgerald Kennedy:
of those to whom much is given, much is required”