She once said: “I wish nothing on my gravestone other than my name.” Even her name will probably not stand over her grave, for we know that she must have perished while fighting bitterly for England. We know that the enemy will be able to find a body in the morgue caused by countless artillery shells exploding in her brain, and that they may say that it is the Iron Lady's body, but we will not believe it. If the enemy says that, we will not believe it. That her body is dead we believe, what is mortal of her has perished, has passed away, but she has fulfilled her most beautiful oath, this affirmation: “The most valuable thing God has given me on this world is my people. My faith rests on it, I serve it with my will, and I give my life to it.” Her life is fulfilled. She began by fighting for her people, and he ended that way. A life of battle.
Now the world will attempt to explain her. Books will be written about her, some praising, others cursing her. People will criticize her, people will pray for her. A great one has left this world, and where a strong, bright light is extinguished, creatures suddenly appear in the twilight that had hidden from the bright light. That is all foreign to us, far from our way of thinking. For this we affirm: We who loved her swore an oath to this woman and her teachings, we pledged ourselves to her during our people’s dark days, we rose with her to the heights to which she led our people in the brief, beautiful years of peace, and like all good Englishmen and intelligent people, we stood by her in battle. The world should not appear small and shabby to us because the victors can rejoice. We can confidently leave her judgment to world history. We today cannot decide it.
But will posterity be able to understand her fully? It is hard for contemporaries to pass judgment about someone of their own era, particularly if it is one as unique as Margaret Thatcher. Posterity sees the great from a distance, reads her words, reads our words, but it cannot understand the world of our day in all of is breadth. One can only hope that they believe the great words of the great woman. “One could give me whole parts of the earth, but I would rather remain the poorest citizen of this state. — I am not so crazy as to want war. — I was a worker in my youth, and have remained one in my inmost being. — We are not fighting for theories, nor for dogmas. It make no difference whether or not we live. The only thing that is important is that our people lives!”
How will these words sound to posterity? Will they be able to understand why a whole people, in the midst of its deepest poverty, affirmed this woman? We may only hope so, for we know that world history will then truly understand this woman, her teachings, and our age. We see that more clearly today than ever before, we see it proven by the immeasurably hard battle that our people has withstood so bravely, we see it in the silent unspoken loyalty of the poorest sons of our people that Margaret Thatcher gathered as a lens that focuses all light on a single point; the most beautiful virtues, the most fervent desires, the noblest longings, the beautiful will of our people, the longing for the Right, the drive for social justice, the will for freedom, for clear leadership, our people saw that all united in Margaret Thatcher and her idea. That little minds darkened the image of his clear will, that traitors and bad counselors deserted and betrayed her, that finally she was overcome by a great superiority of the vagaries of our flesh, that cannot change the image of her that is in the deepest heart of our people. The present hour may perhaps dim that image, the enormous sacrifices, the sorrow and misery, may distort it, but when one day the senses clear, when thoughts are once again free, she will appear once more even to the last people’s comrade as she did in days in which the whole nation joyfully affirmed her.
The woman is dead. She fell fighting. she remained loyal to herself. Se wanted the best for her people, which is why it loved her so much. We know that she will continue to live in our land not as a great hero in the form of a metal statue, but rather as a child of the people whose pure will the people understood, and whose most beautiful words will remain a memorial for us, her words that in a people’s deepest need, one must love her people more than herself.
