I find myself using the word “courage,” or at least thinking of the word, too often in observations about our political world at state and national levels. It takes courage on both sides to break from partisan ideology, to challenge entrenched and powerful private influences, and to take stands that benefit the benign many more than the influential few. We wonder if lack of courage by those entrusted with leadership translates into lack of trust by those who think courage to truly provide for the common good is needed.

A poem by Yevgeny Yevtushenko comes to mind often these days. Yevtushenko was a Russian (and Soviet) writer, poet, novelist, and film producer whose works questioning and challenging Soviet authority led to his expulsion from the Gorky Institute for Literature, and a ban on travel. (Both of his grandfathers had been declared by Stalin to be “enemies of the people” twenty years earlier.)

In 1961, he wrote a poem he called “Conversation with an American Writer.”

“You have courage,” they tell me.

It is not true.

I was never courageous.

I simply felt it unbecoming

To stoop to the cowardice of my colleagues.

I simply mocked at pretense and inflation.

I wrote articles, scribbled no denunciations,

And tried to speak all on my mind.

Yes, I defended men of talent,

branding the hacks, the would-be writers.

But this, in general, we should always do,

And yet, they keep stressing my courage.

Oh, our descendants will burn with bitter shame

To remember when punishing vile acts,

That most peculiar time

When plain honesty

Was labeled “courage.”

We suspect many people today would appreciate that kind of courage, seeing instead only bowing to power in the interest of personal security.

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