The Right to Hope
By - Vish Carvaka
The news of the death of American novelist Tom Clancy on October 1st of
this year made me recall reading his greatest work (in my humble opinion),
The Hunt For Red October. As a work of fiction, it was realistic and detailed;
a tightly-woven yarn that left no loose ends and a set of complex characters
who belonged. The yarn centered around the mind of Captain Marko Ramius,
the highly respected submarine commander in the Soviet navy, defecting
with the newly-commissioned submarine Red October, to the United States.
I especially recalled how Clancy carefully described the true reason for
Ramius' defection – not the suffocating bureaucracy and frustrated political
in-fighting; not any particular ambition for peace or concern over the USSR's
desire to strike first; not even the political corruption that protected the
doctor whose negligence killed his wife. It was the State's Communisminspired atheism, which forbade him from hoping and praying that his wife
was headed to a better place, or contemplating the possibility that he would
see her again one day. This sweeping intrusion, this stifling of his soul was
the straw that broke the camel's back. Recalling it today, as someone who
crossed the line of atheism, and with a handful of painful, personal
experiences of his own, I can't help but ponder as to what atheism can offer
to such a person.
It would not be Soviet-style atheism, for sure. Without the freedom of
expression, there can be no natural atheism, for it is an arm of reason.
Communist states use atheism to destroy the political power of the religions
and then claim that spot for themselves. It is not that Communism sought to
replace religion with atheism; it was Communism wanting to become a
religion. However, when life around and within you just doesn't make sense,
when the world seems to be racing past at an unnatural speed, with people
coming and going, you will find yourself looking up to the vast skies with
little, twinkling stars, hoping for someone or something to lend you a hand.
Most of the religious claim that atheism seeks to rob you of the very
opportunity to hope; and they are wrong.
The Right to Hope
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