By Robert Clements
Switching Channels and Weak Leaders..!
It’s a day and night journey by car between Dubai and Israel. In Dubai, the Women’s T20 championship is being held, and cricketing countries wait with bated breaths as their women slog balls all over the field. A car’s journey away, women and children lie dead and wounded, maimed, crippled and fatally wounded as bullets and missiles are slogged all over, with ruthless preciseness.
And the rest of the world watches both, with spectator interest.
Have we become so immune to death and suffering? We are so good at flying our flags at half mast, for some political leader we hardly know, but when thousands cry, we just switch channels: ‘Oh look at Smriti Mandhana hitting a six!’ we cheer, even as a missile crashes into a house and a little girl with a doll in her hand lies dead!
Ah, dear readers, just like you would like to imagine your son or daughter to be another, Virat Kohli or Harmanpreet Kaur, and work hard to send them to cricket academies to achieve the same, use that same imagination to see your same child lying dead because the world was watching a cricket match, or was it soccer or tennis?
The world just switched channels.
But should we?
When I drive past a funeral in my country, and watch mourners streaming all over the road, I see grief, but also as they look at me in the car, I see anger, and if perchance my driver were to blow his horn and try to make them move aside, I would have to chastise him for being so insensitive. Because in that callous, thoughtless act, I showed my lack of concern for the intensity of grief they were going through.
But aren’t we doing the same, as we switch channels?
Aren’t we saying, “I couldn’t care less!”
We blow our horns, we switch channels, and suddenly a missile crashes into our homes, into our lives. That’s what happened in the second world war when the US allowed the British to fight the Germans, and for years didn’t join in, till Pearl harbour happened.
Suddenly, the missile hit home.
Are we waiting for this to happen? Instead of these artificial gestures of peace that are so meaningless from our political leaders, shouldn’t we as a people start a huge ‘people movement’ to stop these two wars?
Even as I write this, I can hear you say, ‘Israel is right,’ or ‘Palestine is right,’ ‘Ukraine is right’ or ‘Russia is right’!
Stop it. You don’t show respect to the funeral procession, asking who it is, or how they died. You mourn with the mourners, knowing that grief is terrible. In the same way, let’s stop asking who is right, but only see the homeless, orphaned, maimed and injured, and then stop switching channels!
Now here’s why you need to become decision makers in your own right and stop depending on our leaders: Because what is missing today in our nation, in churches and those who hold public office, are strong leaders. We have replaced strong leadership with popular figures, mistakenly thinking that they are strong leaders.
How wrong we are, because a strong leader is hardly ever popular. Strength is not seen when you please everybody, strength more often than not is when a leader goes against popular sentiment because of his or her belief in what is right.
Tragically, we see such a lack in Governor Pilate.
Right before him, stands the most innocent man in the history of mankind, and let’s give Pilate his due, in that he’s been blessed with the power of discernment.
But does he listen to his discerning voice?
No!
In the Gospel of John 19: 38, after questioning Jesus in his inner chamber, he goes out to the people and says, “He is not guilty of any crime!”
Now that’s a huge statement, right?
But look at what he says next, “If you want me to, I’ll release him.”
Hey Governor, it’s in your hands man, you don’t need to ask anybody. Your job is to check if someone’s guilty or not, then release the person found innocent, right?
“No”, says Pilate, “my job is to remain popular!”
Sounds familiar, right? In leaders who support a bully Russia, despite knowing it’s an invader?
There are many such men and women, not just in our political landscape, but among our religious leadership. Leaders not guided by the holy scriptures, but who’s only ambition is to make it to Bishop or chairman of their organisation, and whose only vision is their flock venerating them.
But, the God above, doesn’t.
And even as a Bishop’s Palace or a huge parsonage or the guruji status, is what they aim for, it’s just a matter of years before they feel the heat of hell’s fires and an eternity without a God who they’d promised to serve.
Is popularity really worth this end?
Oh, there’s another thing; popular decisions may give you a momentary standing ovation, but soon, what’s lost is respect.
People might have roared with approval at the decision of burning Giordano Bruno at the stake. His crime? Stating that the earth moved round the sun, and not the other way around as the church believed. The bishops and hierarchy must have been applauded, like Pilate was, but today, those popular men are thought of as murderers.
What about you?
Are you, like Pilate, asking, “What shall I do with Jesus?”
“What shall I do with this problem?”
“Shall we nail this guy in our WhatsApp group?”
Or are you willing to leave aside your popularity, take a stand, and go down in history as a man or woman of strength?
You decide, even as you decide whether to switch channels or not…!
The Author conducts a Writers and Speakers Course for schools, colleges and corporates. For more details call him on 9892572883 or send a message to [email protected]