Nine-score-and-one years ago, as Abraham Lincoln would put it, “our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” The ideas of liberty and equality, expressed so eloquently in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, are the very foundation stones of American citizenship.

Not since the tenth century has Islam been confronted with a greater challenge of self-examination than in the first half of the twentieth century. During its early expansion Islam came into contact with Greek science and philosophy. Its failure to adapt itself to Greek science and philosophy, and to integrate Greek methods and teachings into its own, determined the character of subsequent Islamic thought and institutions. Between the twelfth and nineteenth centuries, Islamic society lapsed into scientific and cultural stagnation, accompanied by political corruption and social disorganization. The Muslims transmitted Greek science and philosophy to Europe without having been influenced by it to any great degree. Whereas Western Europe accepted the Greek heritage and tried to harmonize it with Christian teachings, the Muslim world remained essentially unaffected. Assuming a negative attitude, it finally rejected Greek thought and learning as heretical and, in self-defense, returned to literalism and orthodoxy. Ever since, Islam has been dominated by the theology of its medieval ulama or doctors of Islamic Law.

The first quarter of the twentieth century saw the emergence within the British Empire of a commonwealth of autonomous dominions, each completely self governing in its internal affairs, each asserting its economic independence by assessing a tariff on British goods, and each aspiring towards a position of constitutional equality with the United Kingdom. Since 1945, a new commonwealth has emerged, including in its membership not only British nations beyond the seas but also nations of Asia, with cultures of their own and with a history reaching farther into the past than that of Britain, and to which are being added new communities in Africa. The appearance of this new commonwealth has raised the question of the relations between these non-European nations and the older members. It has also raised the question, once British control has been removed, how deeply the superimposed British political, legal, and social institutions have penetrated into non-British communities. The new commonwealth is thus an experiment in a unique, multi-national association of peoples, and upon the success of the experiment depends its future existence.

In the diverse humanity that makes up the United States of America many groups such as the farmers appear to be both separate and integrated, at once distinct and blended in the common image. Others have been more despised and mocked than farmers, and occasionally some have been equally praised. But none other has been the subject of as much idolatry and contempt as the hayseedy son of honest toil and sweat, the noble yokel, the independent and thoughtful clodhopper, the bucolic philosopher, the industrious sucker, the indispensable hick, and the God-fearing, hell-fire-and-brimstone breathing last stronghold of woolhatted democracy — the farmer. Let us look at his political, economic, and cultural significance.

On january 20, 1925, the German Foreign Minister, Gustav Stresemann, handed* a memorandum to the British Ambassador, Lord D'Abernon, stating the willingness of Germany to conclude a pact guaranteeing the territorial status quo on the Rhine and her readiness to enter into a multilateral agreement for the purpose of securing peace between Germany and France. He repeated this proposal in the famous memorandum of February 9, 1925, presented to the French Government. True, his overture amounted to no more than a revival in a modified form of the Cuno offer of December, 1922, but it was put forward at a far more opportune moment when the Powers, having settled for the time being the thorny questsion of reparations, turned to tackling the pressing problem of security, realizing that without security Europe could not expect the return of confidence and peace.

To include in the same sentence the name of Bernanos and the term “political” or “politics” suggests an initial difficulty. Nothing was farther from his impatient and burning temperament than the meticulousness of the news analyst, or the specialist's careful dissection of the political animal. His domain was, rather, the philosopher's insight and intuition, the social critic's scorn and wrath, and the prophet's prediction of doom. He stated about himself:

People say that Bernanos is never pleased about anything or anyone. When the righteous were wishing success to the crusade of our good neighbour, Señor Franco, he wrote Les Grands Cimetiéres sous la lune, and defended himself as being above all democratic. Now [1947] that all righteous are each more democratic than the other, he still proclaims himself Catholic, and no more democratic than before. A peculiar fellow, that Bemanos.