Draining confinement

We have now been in mandatory confinement for 2 weeks, and it is starting to weigh on everybody.

Sir Winston Churchill

The daily news has not been encouraging; there seems to be no end to depressing bulletins, compelling dispirited people to avoid listening to the news altogether.

I am a child of World War II and even though I was very young when it happened, I was still deeply marked by it. The present world situation reminds me of what Europe felt at the beginning of the war. The enemy had overwhelmed most of western Europe in a matter of weeks and everybody was frightened. The mood was dark and foreboding.

The Nazis succeeded partly because Europe was pathetically unprepared for such war. A story very similar to what is happening in America today.

In this dark period, two people stood out. Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle. They didn’t accept the status quo and continually exhorted their countrymen to resist and fight back.
Charles de Gaulle said in June 1940: “France has lost the battle but she has not lost the war.”
That’s where we are today.

At the same time, Winston Churchill most famously declared:

“We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air. We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender!”

Leaders

Leaders are not necessarily heads of state. They are people who, in extraordinary circumstances, rise to the occasion, and in America, governor Andrew Cuomo and governor Gavin Newsome are admirable examples of what leaders should be.
Furthermore, they tell it like it is, and are in the trenches organizing and encouraging the troops to fight. Cuomo and Newsome strive to provide them with the necessary weapons to battle the invisible enemy. If Andrew Cuomo was running for president, I (and a sizable chunk of the electorate) would vote for him in the blink of an eye.

Most of all, despite our President’s farfetched promises, this war won’t be won in a few weeks. It is going to be a long haul and our confinement might last months instead of weeks.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but we have to face reality.
Keep your social distances. Your life depends on it.

Alain