Every once in a while, you catch a glimpse of yourself in a pose that makes you cringe in shame. Picture this. I am sitting in my usual blue reading chair. It faces our TV, usually tuned to some sporting event which provides a kind of background noise for my reading. Unless it involves one of my home teams, the announcer’s running commentary rarely distracts me from my reading. What’s particularly grotesque in this scene is that I’m reading AlexeyNavalny’s prison diary, excerpted in The New Yorker.
Against the backdrop of an inconsequential football game, Navalny, without a hint of self-pity, is confronting the fact that he is likely to die in his frozen gulag, never again to celebrate his children’s birthdays and graduations or feel the embrace of his wife. After recovering from near death caused by poisoning by agents of Putin’s government, he has flown back to Russia in the full knowledge that he will be arrested immediately, ending, perhaps forever, his life as a free man. The man’s heroism is breathtaking, particularly in contrast to my current condition slouched in my reading chair, contemplating a trip to the kitchen for a snack and a glass of apple juice.
This scenario has led me to reflect on whether I’ve ever done anything heroic or even considered myself capable of such an act. Navalny is a hard man to measure yourself against, particularly knowing the price his acts ultimately exacted from him. Nonetheless, even ordinary, somewhat risk-averse mortals like me are thrust into situations that contain the possibility of and even demand courageous action. I need to comment here that I’m not entirely sure what the distinction is between courage and heroism. It feels like there’s a difference of degree, with the latter implying actions more elevated and even life-threatening. Apologies in advance if you catch me using them interchangeably.
Our decision to go to Mississippi in 1965 and to remain there for three years is the most dramatic and potentially risky choice we’ve ever made to honor our deepest beliefs. It’s certainly a choice that most of our contemporaries, even those with similar beliefs, did not make. Perhaps it falls short of heroic because we initially chose the most protected option for making that move – living on a college campus – but there were many small moments during those years that involved risk and danger. Even in that relatively safe haven we were subject to gunfire from disapproving marauders speeding through the campus and unfriendly police who chased us right up to the campus gates.
I’m remembering a book of interviews with non-Jews who sheltered Jews from the Nazis during WWII at great risk to themselves. These Righteous Gentiles, as they were known, rejected the idea that they were heroes. Instead, they simply saw themselves as doing what was obviously the right thing to do. That was certainly what Mississippi felt like for us. Perhaps it’s always what acts of courage and heroism look and feel like from the inside: in the moment acting according to your principles, not necessarily oblivious to consequences, but not paralyzed by their implications.
During the Vietnam War we stood on the steps of the Jackson, Mississippi post office with our students to mail protest letters to the governmentin a place where opposition to the war was almost as unpopular as integration. Later we participated in mass demonstrations in Washington, DC, but all the other moments that called for courage on our part involved actions in our daily lives whose outcomes were not only uncertain but were capable of sending our lives spinning off course– whether to marry, to have children, abandoning the profession for which I had trained to pursue work that was less prestigious and less financially rewarding, moving to rural New England where we knew almost no one, leaving there for Houston with no job secured, on and on. Every one of us can amass a similar list of what we could call acts of domestic courage.
But now we are faced with challenges of a different order. These issues of courage and heroism carry new weight with the results of the latest election. These years of Trump’s reemergence have brought us uncountable instances of cowardice as the Republican Congress has cowered at his feet, unwilling (with the exception of a few like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger) to act on what we dare to assume are their genuine feelings about the man and what he represents. Watching the spectacle of these profiles in non-courage has been infuriating to many of us. It’s never pleasant to see people whose naked terror of Trump’s wrath exposes his supporters’ spinelessness
Trump has been so upfront about his intentions that we can anticipate there will be continuing need for protests, demonstrations, organizing, joining and contributing, even in the face of the mobilization of police and even military force against those activities. New laws will arise that label actions once seen as protected free speech as criminal activities, punishable by imprisonment. Many of us, particularly those who already possess a backpack full of privilege, will be able to go on with our lives undisrupted if we remain silent, a tempting option for a guy almost halfway into his 86th year.
Our task in the short run is to make certain that there is still enough protective tissue remaining on the body politic to make a comeback two years from now possible. With all that power momentarily concentrated in his hands, Trump knows he must act quickly to achieve his twisted goals, so it’s going to take a strong backbone and an abundance of courage to stand up come January. There’s no arctic gulag awaiting us but make no mistake, there will be a cost for silence.
