Accountability in a Small Community

In small communities like ours, the lines between private life and public duty are impossibly thin. We go to church with the same people we report on or debate with. Our children sit beside one another in school, we serve together on NGO boards, and we meet in the same grocery aisles. Whether as journalists or elected representatives, we are bound together by family, friendship, and familiarity. Yet, these very ties can make it harder to uphold the standards of accountability that our roles demand.

It is important to acknowledge a truth that is often left unspoken: more olive branches are extended than the public ever sees. There are moments when compromise is possible, when patience and dialogue can help avoid unnecessary division. There are moments when one is truly torn. But there are also times when compromise cannot and should not be entertained, not because of malice or ill will, but because the consequences of looking away are too damaging, not only today, but for years to come.

The danger lies in defending the indefensible. Even when it comes from those we admire, respect, or love, our willingness to excuse wrongdoing sets a precedent. Once set, that precedent becomes a marker against which future generations will measure our integrity. Our children—those now in college, preparing to take on the world, may one day find themselves shortchanged, held back, or treated unjustly because we chose to ignore something we should have confronted.

This is why accountability in a small community must be an act of care, not condemnation. To look someone in the eye and say, “I cannot support this, because it will harm us in the long run,” is not an act of betrayal, it is an act of love. It is a way of saying: I do this for you, even if you cannot see it now. I do this because I want your legacy, and mine, to be one our children can be proud of, not one they regret.

We are a forgiving people. We are a people who embrace our own, who know the strength of community and the healing power of reconciliation. But forgiveness does not mean silence. Compassion does not mean complicity. In a community as small and as close-knit as ours, history will judge us more harshly if we are remembered not as those who stood for truth, but as those who quietly enabled the erosion of our own moral fabric.

We owe it to our children and grandchildren to set a higher standard. To ensure that when they look back in 25 years, they will see us not as enablers of decline but as guardians of integrity. That is the responsibility that comes with leadership, with journalism, with citizenship. It is the responsibility that comes with love for a community too small, and too precious, to lose.

Be careful what we defend, for in defending it, we define the future.