They say absolute power corrupts absolutely. You certainly might think that after the recent American elections. The privilege and honour of leading the most powerful democracy in the world became a shambles of bitter legal wrangling.
We should not be surprised at this, given the Western world’s obsession with ‘rights’. Sometimes one would think that each child is given a legally-binding document at birth, entitling them to an idyllic childhood and (later) a good job, cheap petrol, and two point four children. (If you’re a politician, you have the right to become president; if you’re a young woman in your teens, you have the right to perfect breasts.) Quite where my father-in-law, disabled by polio at an early age, fits into all this, I’m not sure.
Thankfully, there is a strength beyond the political. Some people believe that the Absolute Power of the universe, far from being corrupted by that authority, sought perfection as a defenceless baby, wholly reliant on a human mother for food and a clean nappy. It’s difficult to remember this, given that Christmas has become a lie we tell to children about a man in a Coca Cola-coloured suit who comes down the chimney, bearing gifts. (Incidentally, the closest I came to seeing the nativity represented on TV over the festive period was a sketch on So Graham Norton.)
But, as this new year begins, perhaps we should remember that true power is found in trying to serving others, and putting ourselves at the back of the queue.