آرشیف

Political reflections
Generally speaking a man should not publicly take part in politics before he has reached the age of thirty, though, of course, exceptions must be made in the case of those who are naturally gifted with extraordinary political abilities. That at least In my opinion today and the reason for it is that until he reaches his thirtieth year or thereabouts a man’s mental development will mostly consist in acquiring and sifting such knowledge as is necessary for the groundwork of a general platform from which he can examine the different political problems that arise from day to day and be able to adopt a definite attitude towards each. A man must first acquire a fund of general ideas and fit them together so as to form an organic structure of personal though or outlook on life. Then he will have the mental equipment without which he cannot form his own judgments on particular questions of the day, and he will have acquired those qualities that are necessary for consistence and steadfastness in the formation of political opinions. Such a man is now qualified, at least subjectively, to take his part in the political conduct of public affairs.
If these pre requisite conditions are not fulfilled, and if a man should enter political life without this equipment, he will run a twofold risk. In the first place, he may find during the course of events that the stand which he originally took in regard to some essential question was wrong. He will now have to abandon his former position or else stick to it against his better knowledge and riper wisdom and after his reason and convictions have already proved untenable. If he adopt the former line of action he will find himself in a difficult personal situation; because in giving up a positon hitherto maintained he will appear inconsistent and will have no right to expect his followers to remain as loyal to his leadership as they were before. And as regards the followers themselves, they may easily look upon their leader changes of policy as showing a lack of judgment inherent in this character. Moreover, the changes must cause in them a certain feeling of discomfiture those whom the leader formerly opposed.
If he adopts the second alternative, which so very frequently happens today, then public pronouncements of the leader have no longer his personal persuasion to support them, he now descend to the adoption of vulgar means in his defense. While he himself no longer dreams seriously of standing by his political protestations to the last for no man will dies in defense of something in which he does not believe he makes increasing demands on his followers. Indeed. The greater be the measure of his own insincerity, the more unfortunate and inconsiderate become his claims on his party adherents. Finally, he throws aside the last vestiges of true leadership and begins to play politics. This means that he becomes one of those only consistency is their inconsistency, associated with overbearing insolence and oftentimes and artful mendacity developed to a shamelessly high degree.

Gull Ahmad Mohammadi
4/1/2016