Many people across the country have become involved with the ‘No Kings’ movement and rallies. We had more than 1,000 participate in our small town of Willits, California. I have been a rebel with a purpose all my life. My parents were active in the human rights and labor movements in the 1950s, and my father was one of the blacklisted writers in Hollywood who resisted McCarthyism. My causes include love, compassion and dignity for all people and true cooperation with the communities of life on planet Earth.
Timothy Snyder is a widely respected professor and author of several books including About Freedom and About Tyranny. He says,
“The Founders sought to protect us from the threat they knew, the tyranny that defeated ancient democracy. Today, our political class faces new threats, not unlike twentieth-century totalitarianism. We are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy give way to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Their only advantage is that we may learn from experience.”
Snyder goes on to ask,
“What does it mean to celebrate 250 years of American democracy? To an unusual degree, what Trump’s people are doing in this 250th year is repeating the abuses America’s founding fathers complained about: arbitrary taxation; taxation without representation. imperial attitudes; wars without consent”.
It calls us to fight for democracy the same way our founders did.
“Honoring the beginnings of our democracy,” says Snyder, “doesn’t mean going back to the eighteenth century. It means to be revolutionaries in our time. It means a demand for freedom, a goal for something radically better in the future.”
Certainly men are not the only ones who can fall under the spell of fascism, but there is a reason that historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat said in her prophetic book Strong: Mussolini to date published in 2020,
“Our age is the age of authoritarian rulers: self-proclaimed saviors of the nation who avoid accountability while robbing their people of the truth, treasure and protections of democracy. They use masculinity as a symbol of power and a political weapon. Getting what you want and getting away with it becomes proof of male power. They use propaganda, corruption and violence to stay in power.”
In her book she described seventeen examples of authoritarian leaders, all men including:
- Benito Mussolini, Prime Minister of Italy
- Adolf Hitler, Chancellor of Germany
- Saddam Hussein, Prime Minister of Iraq
- Viktor Orban, Prime Minister of Hungary
- Vladimir Putin, President of Russia
- Donald J. Trump, President of the United States of America
Ben-Ghiat concludes by saying:
“They promise law and order then legitimize the breaking of the law by financial, sexual and other predators.”
MenAlive: A Community of Rebels For Men and Their Families
Another step in my own “rebellion” occurred during the birth of our first child, on November 21, 1969. After instructing my wife in the prenatal Lamaze breathing methods we had learned, I was told she was ready to move into the delivery room.
“Your work is done now Mr. Diamond,” the nurse told me. “You can go out into the waiting room and we’ll let you know when you can see your wife and child.”
The hospital rules had been explained to them both: Fathers were not allowed in the delivery room. That was fine by me. Although I felt I was able to coach my wife through the early stages of labor, I was afraid that I might pass out or otherwise be more of a hindrance than a help during the actual birth.
I hugged my wife and wished her luck as she was led to the delivery room and I went the other way to the waiting room. But I never made it past the waiting room doors. I felt a call from my unborn child: I don’t want a father in the waiting room. Your place is here with us.
I turned and went back the way I had come and found the delivery room. I walked through the doors and took my place at the head of the table. There was no question of leaving, if requested. My child needed me and my response was more important than following the rules. In tears of relief and joy, our son, Cemal, was born and handed over to me.
Holding him for the first time, I vowed to be a different father than my father could be to me, and to do all I could to create a world where fathers were fully healed and involved with their families throughout their lives.
When we met and fell in love in college, my future wife and I talked about our desire for children. We decided to have a child and then adopt a child. Even in 1964 we felt that the world was becoming overcrowded. Three years after Jemal was born, we adopted a 2 ½ month old African American girl we named Angela.
My website MenAlive started in 1972 as my window to the world. The purpose of MenAlive is to share ways we can come together to create a world of true collaboration. I want everyone to live fully authentic lives, love deeply and well, and make a positive difference in the world.
My first book, Inside Out: Becoming My Own Man, published in 1983. I have now written 17 books, including international bestsellers, Looking for love in all the wrong places, surviving the male menopause, and The Irritable Man Syndrome: Understanding and Managing the 4 Root Causes of Depression and Aggression.
I write articles and interview experts on various aspects of men’s mental, emotional and relational health. One of my recent articles, “Father Time: How Dad’s Are Being to Change the World for Good,” featured one of my colleagues, Dr. Sarah Hrdy. Dr. Hrdy is an anthropologist and primate and one of the world’s leading experts on the evolutionary basis of female behavior in both nonhuman and human primates. Recently she has turned her attention to men.
After seeing how her own sons connected with children in ways she had previously assumed were only natural to women, she researched and eventually wrote a book called Father Time: A Natural History of Men and Babies. He found that fathers are biologically capable of raising young children just as mothers are.
He said, “My unexpected discovery is that within every man lie ancient nurturing tendencies that make a man as protective and nurturing as the most devoted mother. It’s a journey that has forced me to rethink long-held assumptions about man’s innately selfish, competitive and violent nature, what Darwin described as his unfortunate birthright.”
At MenAlive we’ve always known that men and women can be different in many ways, but when it comes to love and parenting, we’re both biologically programmed and capable of developing the same skills that mothers learn to develop. I will soon be introducing our MenAlive community to other fellow experts. I describe what is coming in my recent article: “The Future of MenAlive: From Men’s Health to Relational Healing and Transformation.”
Come with us. You can read my latest blog posts here. If you feel called to change the world for good, I invite you to join us.
