A Reporter Reflects

(Excerpt from the play, Revolution)

by Sean O’Leary

(Two men huddled at a microphone in a BBC broadcast studio. It is March 1939 near the end of the Spanish Civil War . . . and the beginning of World War II.)

Newsreader

On March third, 1939, this is the BBC Overseas Service from London. I am happy to welcome back from Republican Spain our correspondent, Malcolm Ridgeley.

Malcolm, two years ago on this program you interviewed a young fellow from Huddersfield who had volunteered to defend the socialist government in Spain. But today the volunteers are gone and the Fascist forces of General Franco seem destined to prevail. Is Europe’s most destructive civil war in a generation finally over but for the formalities?

Ridgeley

In a word, yes. But I am obliged to remember that those “formalities” are a doomed struggle being waged by people I know, who continue to die even now. It’s easy to dismiss them as naive idealists. And for a time I did. But tonight as I contemplate the greater abyss into which Europe may fall, I find myself reconsidering.

Even if their politics are wrong and their reasoning childish, their willingness to sacrifice for a greater good enables them to stand against the certain evil of unvarnished self-interest. Against that, there is only this alternative: a mindset which says it is deluded vanity to presume to know the difference between good and evil and, therefore, the height of arrogance to fight for it. Rather, we should satisfy ourselves with simple wants—a long life with an occasional well-made meal a fellow named Chernovsky told me—and let history take its course doing what it will with the fools who presume to challenge it.

I fell into that mindset until I witnessed its consequences: 500,000 souls slaughtered, whole villages destroyed from the antiseptic altitude of 10,000 feet, and a child whom I loved die. Of course, through it all I’ve enjoyed a long life and many well-made meals. So, I should be satisfied—even proud. But only a monster could be so smug.

Tonight I am terrified—not for myself, but for us all. And the only ones I have to look to for consolation are those same naïve idealists whose cause is lost but whose fight goes on. I was wrong to call them fools, for they know the desperateness of their situation. They choose to die now so that their actions might inspire others to take up their cause at another time, in another place where prospects are not so bleak. For that I admire them and I pray we can find similar courage, for we may soon need it. And if I could be with them now, I suspect someone might say to me, “Of course I don’t know if there is a utopia. But I’m certain we must act as though there can be.” Amen.

Newsreader

That was our correspondent, Malcolm Ridgeley, reflecting on his two years in Spain. Now we turn to the day’s top story. German troops have crossed into Czechoslovakia.

(Blackout)