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Quote by Os Guinness

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The Magna Carta of Humanity: Sinai's Revolutionary Faith and the Future of Freedom

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Os Guinness
Os Guinness

Os Guinness, born on September 30, 1941, is a British author, historian, and public intellectual. His works span a variety of fields including religion, politics, society, and culture, and have been well-received by readers. more

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“How does one go on after doing such unspeakable things? It's all rather simple, really," he continued, speaking in someone else's voice. "Say to yourself, 'What things?' And it becomes clear...you are blameless. They brought it on themselves. What have they ever done for you except control your life? They tore you away from your sister; they ripped you from your home. Did you ask to be saved? No! Forget them and start over...with us, your true family, my Corcitura, my own.”

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“Now that we have tons of autobiographical testimony and interviews and archive documents and, most important, now that we can see with our own eyes the "reformers of the 190s" transmogrified into Putin's lickspittles, propagandists, oligarchs, and bureaucrats, and all of them extremely rich, we should be honest, repudiating hypocrisy and any attempt to justify ourselves for our wasted years. We should admit that there never were any democrats in power in Russia, in the sense of people with a genuinely liberal, democratic outlook. And the main narrative of our recent past, the confrontation between "democrats" and Soviet conservatives, never happened either. "What do you mean, never happened? I was part of it!" Even I want to protest in response to such a radical, or naive, or wicked assertion. But it is only too obvious that it never happened, at least not in the way those involved in the events portray it. There was an objective historical process. There was the U.S.S.R., ideologically, economically, and morally bankrupt. There was a conflict between elites, in which one faction, in order to sweep away senile dotards, tricked itself out in more popular colors, those of "democrats and supporters of a market economy." With that slogan it seized power. Well, isn't that just the way of the world? Are you going to accept that one section of the elite came up with new slogans and won, or are you going to go around with a liberalometer checking everybody's ideological purity to find out who most believed in what they were saying and who was less than sincere? Actually, a device of that description would have been very helpful, and the lack of one is exactly why nothing worked out "like in America" or, for that matter, in the Czech Republic. In the countries of the Soviet bloc, those opposing the conservatives, socialists, dodderers, idiots, and saboteurs had as their leaders (or just playing a crucial role) people of the stature of Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel. They had stood their ground in the face of oppression and persecution, and over many years had shown in action a genuine commitment to the words they proclaimed from the podium. In Russia everything was different. The chief "radical democrat" was Boris Yeltisn. I was born in 1976, at which time Yeltisn was the first secretary of the Sverdlovsk regional committee of the CPSU. That is, he was the governor of the largest industrial region in the Urals with powers that were far in excess of today's governors. There he behaved like a typical Soviet petty tyrant, and just as in the mid-1970s he would climb into his official black car, live in his officially provided apartment, and acquire his official elite dacha, so until his death that is the lifestyle he and his family took for granted. He belonged body and soul to the Soviet party establishment, and what little he knew about the life of the "common people" he gleaned from his chauffeurs and servants.”

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“Traffic slowed as they entered Fort Washakie with everyone rubbernecking the spirited powwow taking place in an empty field just off the main road. Most of the audience gathered round was non-native. But everyone there was stomping and clapping and surrendering themselves to the rhythmic spell of the drums, much like the performers themselves, and the dust of the earth which coalesced with their smoky breath to envelope them together in a billowing cone of palpitation. And Joshua sat there at the stop sign a little too long because he couldn’t bring himself to look away. But no one inside the VW or in the other cars cared, or even noticed, because they were doing the same.”

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“I sigh, peering out of the window. We’re far out of central London now and I scan the streets, trying to get my bearings. We’re getting nearer to Julian’s resting place. I recognise an old police station, converted into cheap flats. This part of London feels darker than Mayfair. It’s as though the streetlights don’t shine as brightly. Cheaper models, not as many. I like it. Every time I come here, on a certain level, I relax. It almost feels more like home than Mayfair. Mayfair is who I want to be, Hayes is who I am. My veins are the dark streets, pulsing with traffic. There’s wreckage all around: craterous potholes, crumpled railings, abandoned cars, derelict homes. Nothing’s ever repaired. It’s all broken. The poverty’s inescapable. The air perpetually stinks.”

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“Since Mother's death, Father sees a sneeze as one step from pneumonia. I would rather die than confess a symptom. I don't like this new side of Father. This Father is weak, afraid, constantly worrying. I dare not encourage those fears. Instead, I nod or shake my head, keeping interchange sparse, waiting for a subject more suited to the dignified Father I remember. And I know he's in there.”

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