April, thank heavens, is nearly over. It’s been a real seesaw ride, with on-again/off-again tariffs, roll backs of environmental safeguards, and wild gyrations in the U.S. and other global stock markets. Civil rights are under attack, amid detentions and deportations of highly questionable legality. Along with all this have come near constant doses of hyperbole, vitriol, and vacuousness from various U.S. national officials. Whoa!
Outside the U.S., wars in Gaza and Ukraine grind on, causing ever-deepening destruction and human misery. Despite our current President’s boast of ending the Ukrainian conflict even before his inauguration, what talks are occurring seem far from establishing even a temporary cease fire, let alone a resolution of the status of disputed territory plus security guarantees to prevent a recurrence. In Gaza, regardless of Israeli Defense Force claims to be hunting just Hamas terrorists, the density of the Gazan population means that more and more civilians are being killed, maimed, or starved to death. Globally, various other armed conflicts simmer or worsen, less noticed in America-based publicity.
To adjust my perspective a bit, I went back to an artistic work from the previous time the world seemed on the brink of falling apart, in the early 1940’s. I watched the classic Charlie Chaplin movie, “The Great Dictator,” originally released in October, 1940. At that time, the U.S. had not yet entered the rapidly spreading conflict we now know as World War II. However, German military forces had occupied Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and much of France. Germany’s then-ally, the Soviet Union, had annexed the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, while German ally Italy had invaded Greece. The German air force was conducting frequent bombing raids over Great Britain. Jews in Warsaw, Poland were being herded into an increasingly crowded and restrictive ghetto.
In the movie, Chaplin plays both anti-semitic dictator Adenoid Hynkel, ruler of the mythical country of Tomainia, and his look-alike, an anonymous Jewish barber who’d previously fought for Tomainia during the first World War and had suffered twenty years of amnesia stemming from his injuries. The barber, after returning to his former shop, regaining his memory, and being caught up in anti-semitic raids, flees with his former commander, both of them dressed in military uniforms. The barber is mistakenly presumed to be Hynkel and is pressured into giving a speech to the citizens of the neighboring country of Osterlich, recently invaded by Hynkel’s troops. Impersonating Hynkel, the barber, instead of more bombast, gives an impassioned speech about the need for peace and justice:
“I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone – if possible – Jew, Gentile – black man – white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness – not by each other’s misery. … To those who can hear me, I say – do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed – the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.”
Though release of “The Great Dictator” was initially limited in some U.S. cities with substantial German-American populations, over time it became Chaplin’s most successful film commercially. The film has also won critical acclaim as one of the greatest comedies ever produced. In 1997, it was selected by the Library of Congress for inclusion in the National Film Registry.
As we approach the final day of this tumultuous month, it may be just coincidence that April 30 marks a couple of other transitions in recent history: On April 30, 1945, Adolf Hitler committed suicide in his Berlin bunker, as opposing troops closed in from both west and east; on April 30, 1975, the final Americans left South Vietnam after a generation of American involvement, as troops from the north shelled the presidential palace in Saigon.
This April, we’re also marking a transition of leadership in one of the world’s major faiths. We’re partway through a nine day period of mourning for Pope Francis, who died earlier in April. For over a dozen years, Francis used his papacy to speak up for the world’s underserved—our natural environment, and those of our human citizens who have least benefited from the global economy.
While watching one bombastic leader hold forth in an Oval Office centered on a toy airplane, we can remember that his style is not the only possible option. Both Chaplin’s barber and the former leader whose simple casket was recently laid to rest provide viable counterexamples.
Jinny's Occasional Poems 