The Revival of Hope

By: Doug Goodkin

What cause for hope? Can things get any worse? Three dictators rule who were not put into power by the will of the people, who ignore the needs of their people, and who pose a grave danger to the rest of the world - Kim Jong II, Saddam Hussein, and George W. Bush. From his place of hiding, Osama Bin Laden sends terrorists out to wreak havoc, death, and destruction. From their place of hiding, World Bank leaders and corporate CEO's hold closed meetings and send out their public relations people, ad men, and businessmen to wreak their own form of havoc, destruction, and death. People educated in our elite universities use their training and intelligence to make smart bombs while schools dedicated to make smart children have their budgets cut out from under them.

In China, people are told to accept, obey, and don't ask questions. In the U.S., people are told to shop, watch TV, and don't ask questions. Add to the mix suicide bombers, global warming, ethnic purging, SUV's and Hummers, John Ashcroft, shooter video games, lingerie Barbie, teen porn, and penis enlargement spam on the Internet and only an idiot would think that there's any cause for the least shred of hope for the human experiment.

And yet today I feel more hopeful than at any time I can remember in the last 30 years. Why? I can answer in two words - six million. Or eight million or ten million, depending whose numbers you want to count for the number of people who turned out worldwide in the recent protests to say: "No War in Iraq. No business as usual." This time, the media couldn't ignore it. But they certainly chose not to highlight this extraordinary fact - never before in human history have so many people in so many places turned out at one time to protest! Rarely have so many people spoken out against an intended act before the damage has been done! Seldom have so many people not immediately threatened or directly oppressed by an act spoken out on behalf of others!

Who could not feel hopeful in the face of this? Keep in mind that this is markedly different from millions of people watching the Super Bowl, the Academy Awards, or the OJ trial. To protest something takes effort. It takes effort to be informed and not be lulled to sleep by mainstream media and entertainment. It takes effort to make a moral decision based on one's examined values. It takes effort to summon the courage and determination to act. It takes effort to give up a weekend day to have your voice be heard. It takes effort to make a sign that speaks to your specific concern (as opposed to, say, wave a pre-manufactured flag) and it takes effort to walk with that sign.

It also takes imagination and foresight to speak up before an act is committed, to preview the consequences and a make a conscious choice to avoid probable damage. It takes compassion to speak from a place of privilege - so many on the street have benefited from the unfair division of the world's riches and the acts taken to protect that privilege - and yet they still turned out to ask for change. It takes self-examination - in speaking out against something, one must come to grips with what one stands for. In short, the six or eight or ten million people who turned out were not a mob acting reflexively, unthinkingly mouthing the same old tired slogans. They were six or eight or ten million individuals who had to go through some form of independent thought and moral reflection before taking to the streets.

The diversity of nationalities, races, religions, ages, political philosophies, and more in the marches was indeed impressive, but they were all united by one common sentiment - the old way of doing business must go. Not only because it is morally reprehensible, self-serving, greedy, hurtful, but ultimately because it will get us all. There are short-term winners and losers, but ultimately, we all will lose - even the grandchildren of the CEO's. This game is played on borrowed time.

The poet Kenneth Rexroth wrote "In a dark time, the eye begins to see." But now it's not just an isolated poet's eyes that see - it's at least 20 million eyes!!! People are waking up, rubbing the lies and secrets and sugar-coated words of the vicious beasts in power out of their sleepy eyes and looking at the raw truth of how greed and avarice tries to have its way. Who could not feel hopeful at that? The details of how to dismantle archaic institutions and self-serving blocks of power are ominous and not easily dismissed. But think what active minds, open hearts, and courageous acts have accomplished in this world and multiply that times ten million. That's hope.

I marched against the Vietnam War in the early 70's with all those other visionaries under the age of thirty and felt the surge of optimism about creating a new future. But something stopped that wave from cresting - I think it was called getting a job and raising a family. The world cannot be changed by the young only. I worked for the Nuclear Freeze movement in the early 80's - along with what felt like 20 other people. I worked in the early 90's speaking out for arts in the school, a topic so small it doesn't even enter the room, never mind make it to the table. But this was different.

There's every reason to believe it's hopeless to change. But when ten million people get out and say: "Let's give it a try", the force is formidable. As I marched with the 300,000 + recently in San Francisco, as I moved with that crowd of individuals singing, dancing, smiling, grieving, chanting, touching, walking in silence, I felt that force moving through us. Every time we reached an intersection, an enormous, ground-shaking, powerful shout surged through the crowd. Why? Because we had moved forward one block and prepared ourselves for the next few hundred yards. That's how it works - one step at a time, moving forward with thousands in front and thousands behind, millions in front, millions behind, led by active thought, open hearts, courageous acts, and harmonious vision. Hope begetting hope, a new force has been unloosed in the world, reversing Yeats' prophecy - now the best are all full of passionate intensity while the worst lack all conviction.

Hope begins with awakening, and awakening begins with thinking, and thinking begins with questioning, and questioning is connected to feeling, and feeling is intertwined with examining values, and values lead to vision, and the whole loop is completed by conscious acts backed by Spirit. To those on the journey towards hope, I offer the following:

Don't hide your intelligence under a flag.
Don't cover your heart with religion.
Don't harm your spirit by shopping too much.
Hold fast to harmonious vision.