Fri. Feb 14th, 2025

Politicians of the past, politicians of today

January 12, 2025
Photo: Golda Meir in Haifa, 1947. Photo: Wikipedia - Public Domain

by Mauricio Aliskevicius.

Was the past better than the present? This discussion is always present, and covers absolutely all topics. We will always hear someone with many years behind them saying that, … it was the way it was before!

I am at an age where I constantly feel the desire to repeat that phrase, which seems to be the fruit of long experience accompanied by wisdom and knowledge.

But that is not the reality. What happens deep inside us is that we try to forget what was bad before and is better today, and at the same time we try to always keep the good memories in mind.

That's why I allow myself to keep a folder with important phrases said by important people, even if I haven't met them personally, even if they are phrases that were said or written years or centuries before I was born.

And in that folder there is a lot of wisdom, a lot of truth, excellent concepts that never expire and that can teach us to live better, to face daily problems with better arguments, to shut the mouths of those who deserve a zipper with a padlock so we don't hear their nonsense.

Since the State of Israel has not been able to get out of its war situation with neighboring countries, and three quarters of a century has passed since its independence, it occurred to me to transcribe some phrases that are worth more than gold.

The author, although it may sound strange, was a simple woman, who had many things to criticize, which I will mention: she was neither pretty nor sexy, she had no idea of ​​what it means to dress elegantly or she knew, but she did not use it, she always preferred to show herself more as a good humble housewife than as a lady of class -and she did have class-, she did not know how to maintain her marriage so she lived a large part of her life without a partner. She made mistakes in her work stage for which she was investigated but finally acquitted by her judges, although her conscience never forgave her.

Many men passed through the office she occupied, but none of them were on her level. You will notice this in the following phrases that she left for eternity.  

“We will have peace when the Arabs love their children more than they love us. “They hate us.”

“Pessimism is a luxury that Jews cannot afford".

“A leader who does not hesitate before sending his nation into war is not fit to be so.”

“We don't like wars, even when we win them.”

 “When peace comes, perhaps in time we can forgive those who have committed it. Arabs for killing our children, but it will be harder for us forgive them for having forced us to kill their children.”

What do you think? Aren't these wise thoughts? Aren't each of her assertions valid? Wouldn't we be much better off if the successors of this humble lady thought like this? And were as humble?

In my time as a student, in the courses of Ancient History, which they called Prehistory, we were taught that, in times of tranquility and prosperity, the peoples or tribes in general (the concepts of country, homeland, nationalism did not yet exist) lived in matriarchy, and in times of belligerence, wars, male rulers were elected, patriarchy. It was probably not due to conceptual errors but because the human mentality was different, just as the environment in which we lived was different. Could we be wrong and what we need today is a matriarchy?

What I wouldn't give - and you too, I'm sure - to have at the head of the government someone who thought like the "old lady" who wrote those phrases.

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked with *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.