On Persistence and Not Looking Back Third In The Series
It was at the symbolic National Building Museum in Washington, DC, the first Saturday of June 2008. After 16 months of campaigning and winning more than 18 million votes in the primaries, Hilary R. Clinton, the Senator from New York, delivered a speech that signaled her bowing out of the presidential campaign.
Barack Obama, the Senator from Illinois, in the elections of the previous Tuesday, had received 2158 delegates, effectively winning the nomination. Former first lady Hilary Clinton went down in history as the first woman who had a serious chance to become the President of the United States. She did very well with 1926 delegates. In her gracious and memorable concession speech, she spoke about not looking back.
"I want to say to my supporters, when you hear people saying – or think to yourself – “if only” or “what if,” I say, “please don’t go there.” Every moment wasted looking back keeps us from moving forward. Life is too short, time is too precious, and the stakes are too high to dwell on what might have been."
This brings to mind the many rituals from different parts of the world involving ceremonies and the symbolic act of not turning back.
The Kikuyu of East Africa, for example, believe that evil spirits cause epidemics. To fight illness the elders blow war horns at night when the moon is up. Members of the community rush out with sticks, clubs and wooden weapons. They shout and sing. They beat the grass, shrubs and trees with their weapons. Then they hurry to the river where they throw their weapons and shake off all traces of evil spirits on their clothes into the running water. On their way home the villagers sing joyful songs of victory.
They never look back.
In Angola and Mozambique, soldiers returning from war go through a ritual cleansing at the river. A healer washes veterans with magical leaves. When ex-soldiers get out of the water to go home, they are forbidden to look back.
Among the Dinkas, a pastoral tribe who live on the basin of the White Nile, each family owns a sacred cow. When the people feel threatened by war, drought or plague, the village elders ask a particular clan to offer their sacred cow as scapegoat.
After escorting the sacred cow across the river, they let it go into the wild while the elders go back to their villages quietly without looking behind them. They believe that if they look back the ritual will be ineffective.
To turn back symbolizes an incomplete break with what we are getting rid of. Turning back weakens our conviction to put an end to a deplorable situation. “I will never turn back” crystallizes in our mind our determination to persist in overcoming undesirable circumstances no matter the challenges.
Another powerful expression that drives home this idea is “to burn bridges.” This idiom comes from past military strategy when neither helicopters nor bombers existed. To ensure the commitment of soldiers, commanders would burn critical bridges leaving no escape route for retreat. All options of deserting are exhausted. Victory of the army and the nation became tied to the soldier’s personal survival.
In China, for example, it is recorded that General Kiang Yu ordered his soldiers to destroy all cooking utensils and boats after crossing a river into the enemy's territory. He won the war.
Every fiber in our being must know that we have set up our mind to succeed. A decision to not look back, to burn certain symbolic bridges make it highly porbable for us to achieve our goals. Although Hilary R. Clinton did not clinch the presidential nomination for the Democratic Party in 2008, her support would be important in helping the Democrats raleigh behind Senator Barak Obama, the first African American to have the best chance to become a U.S. president.
Comments
If we never look back, we can't figure out how to do it better in the future... It is by looking back at history and teaching it to children that we hope to never have a Hitler again. Some of our greatest movies have been films that look back at history and see it from a different perspective. What a great gift to the world to be shown how to look at something differently. Looking back is not the same as getting stuck in the past. Which I believe is what Hillary was talking about. I personally have been looking back because I am confused. I don't understand how our country can call itself a democracy. I was always taught that Democracy means the majority. How can the majority of people vote for a candidate and the candidate not be nominated? This confuses me and I will never look at our country or democracy the same again....
Posted by: Debby | June 8, 2008 10:30 AM
I understand your concern. It is true that "looking back" has another meaning, which is what your comment is about. In Ghanaian symbolism, a bird called Sankofa represents the need for us to look back to learn from the past.
In this installment of my series "On Persevance And Not Giving Up," I am using the expression in the specific sense that Hilary used it. I have provided ample examples also to show that I was intending only this meaning.
But yes, I agree with the idea that if we fail to look back to history, we will repeat mistakes of the past. Here, it is more about not looking back so that we do not get discouraged or bogged down. Isn't it interesting that the same expression can mean two different things?
Posted by: Kwami | June 8, 2008 10:43 AM
It makes me sad to hear you say "How can the majority of people vote for a candidate and the candidate not be nominated?"
The fact is that the Democratic party is a political party, not an arm of government. As such, it can make its own rules as to how it nominates a candidate. In many states, like Washington, the party wanted to use caucuses to pick the candidate because caucuses are a form of very direct democracy within the party structure.
In essence, what Hillary did was to claim that the people who voted in primary states counted more than the people who actually got their butts out their houses and showed up at a neighborhood caucus to speak their mind. Obama won 34 contests to Hillary's 19, so he clearly won a majority of states.
You may not like how the Democratic Party decides these things; myself I'd like to have instant runoff voting and skip the primaries altogether. But it's hard to argue persuasively that the Dems don't have the right to decide how to apportion delegates; if you don't like how they do it, infiltrate the party and do your best to change the rules!
Posted by: R. D. N. | June 8, 2008 12:05 PM