Читать книгу Peaceful Revolution - Paul K. Chappell - Страница 12

Beware the dangers of hope. In our society the most common form of hope isn’t realistic hope, based on evidence and experience. It is naive hope, which is dangerous for several reasons. When we feel threatened by significant challenges, naive hope leads us to think, Everything will work itself out. We just have to wait for a miracle to happen. It also urges us to put all our faith in a “great leader” who will magically solve our problems. Naive hope misleads us into believing that if we just elect the right president, we can sit back and watch all the world’s conflicts vanish. Unlike realistic hope, which grows from the trust we have in ourselves, others, and our ideals, naive hope is a result of helplessness.

On the other hand, realistic hope encourages us to think, Because I believe in myself and trust my abilities, I can do something to help solve this problem. Because I trust others, I can work with them to solve this problem. Because I trust in my ideals, I’m empowered with the determination to persevere, and I have a vision of what a brighter future could look like and how we might get there.

Unlike realistic hope, which empowers us to take action and make a difference, naive hope causes us to think, Because I feel helpless and don’t know what I can do to make a difference, I need a miracle, great leader, or God to solve these problems for me. When we feel helpless, our only choices are either naive hope or cynicism. We should not ridicule others for having naive hope, but empower them by revealing what is possible and how they can take action. When we empower people and combat their helplessness, we give them options other than naive hope.

Woody Guthrie wrote the famous song “This Land Is Your Land” because he was irritated by another popular song at the time, “God Bless America.” He felt that, in the midst of the suffering of the Great Depression, “God Bless America” promoted apathy and failed to reflect reality. He did not see how God had blessed America for the starving poor and oppressed racial minorities. One of the many verses he wrote for “This Land Is Your Land” was “One bright sunny morning in the shadow of the steeple, / By the relief office I saw my people. / As they stood hungry, / I stood there wondering if God blessed America for me.”8

During their efforts to build a more humane and peaceful world, religious figures like Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu realized prayer in the form of words is no substitute for action. They knew it is our responsibility to solve society’s problems, and action is the highest form of prayer.

During the civil rights movement, people with realistic hope prayed not only with words but also with action by marching, boycotting, and protesting. They prayed not just on their knees but also on their feet. Rabbi Abraham Heschel, who marched with King during the civil rights movement, said: “For many of us the march from Selma to Montgomery was about protest and prayer. Legs are not lips and walking is not kneeling. And yet our legs uttered songs. Even without words, our march was worship. I felt my legs were praying.”9

These people embraced participation, a higher expression of realistic hope. Participation is realistic hope transformed into action. It is a committed effort to transform our hope into reality. As I mentioned in the last section, the hope something can be accomplished is necessary before attempting to accomplish it. Accordingly, if we lack the realistic hope that it is possible to solve our national and global problems, we will quit before we even start trying. What evidence do we have that we can solve these problems and create a brighter future?

Five hundred years ago, democratic countries with the right to vote, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, women’s and civil rights, and the intellectual freedom to say the earth revolves around the sun virtually did not exist. Today these liberties are widespread.

When my father was drafted into the army as an African American in 1949, the military was segregated; the government upheld an official policy that viewed African Americans as inferior and subhuman. Fifty years before then, the government would not allow women to vote, and only fifty years prior to that, the government supported and protected slavery. Because Americans participated in the democratic process of improving their country, America has journeyed from a society where all people except white, male landowners were oppressed, to a country where I could graduate from West Point and write these words today, despite having grown up in Alabama part African American, part Asian.

In addition to the abundant historical evidence that proves people can make a difference, my existence is also evidence that positive change can happen. My life and the lives of so many others demonstrate that progress is possible if people take action. Every woman in America allowed to vote and own property is also living proof that participation can advance us on the road to peace.

Peace is more than just the absence of war. It is also the presence of liberty, justice, opportunity, fairness, environmental sustainability, and other ingredients that create a healthy society. Participation makes peace and its ingredients possible, but not inevitable. The notion that world peace is inevitable derives from naive hope. This makes us complacent, because if a peaceful future is unavoidable then our actions are not needed. I speak with realistic hope, because I do not believe peace is inevitable. It depends on what we do.

People often ask me, “How long will it take us to end war?” I respond by saying, “That’s a great question, and I can answer it by posing another question. How long does it take to run a mile? A person can run a mile in under four minutes or walk it in over an hour. A person can also fail to complete the mile because he or she stops halfway through or quits before taking the first step. Similar to running a mile, how long it takes to end war will be determined by what we do. Depending on the quality and quantity of our actions, we might end war in twenty years or two hundred, or we might never end it and humanity will become extinct. It’s up to us.”

Like the gradual transition from dark to light that occurs at sunrise, our journey on the road to peace is a continuum where change occurs in increments, not all at once. Every step we take on the road to peace represents progress. A world where half the women on the planet can vote is preferable to a world where only a third can. A world with less war is preferable to a world with more. Even if it takes years to reach our destination, every step we take in the direction of peace, universal women’s rights, or any worthwhile goal has positive consequences for all of us. Real progress is not an all-or-nothing endeavor. Like gradual steps on a path, it is composed of many small victories that eventually add up to the change our world needs.

The steps on the road to peace require us to dissent from the destructive attitudes that perpetuate violence and war. General Dwight D. Eisenhower believed all worthwhile progress requires dissent and that questioning injustice is the highest form of patriotism. He said: “Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionaries and rebels—men and women who dared to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.”10

While naive hope tells us that the best way to save our country and planet is to elect a messianic president or great leader who will magically solve all our problems, realistic hope tells us that nothing could be further from the ideal of democracy. One of the most undemocratic things I have ever heard, which I hear often, is that the American president is the leader of the free world. If we understand what the ideal of democracy truly means, we realize that the people are supposed to lead, and the president is supposed to be the administrator of the people’s will. Although we live in a representative democracy instead of a direct democracy, we still have methods to pressure our politicians to do what we want. The evidence from American history shows that nothing will change for the better unless Americans tell the president what to do. American history also shows that ordinary citizens, not presidents, are the brightest visionaries and the true engine of progress.

For example, Lyndon Johnson was not a strong advocate for civil rights when he became president, but he later supported racial equality because Martin Luther King Jr. and other members of the civil rights movement pressured him to do so. Franklin Roosevelt was not a strong advocate for workers’ rights, which included child labor laws and a five-day workweek, when he became president, but the workers’ rights movement changed his viewpoint. Woodrow Wilson opposed women’s equality when he became president, but he later supported the constitutional amendment that gave women the right to vote because Alice Paul and other members of the women’s rights movement pressured him to do so. Abraham Lincoln was not a visionary who believed slavery should be completely abolished when he began his political career, but his views changed due to the influence of the abolitionist movement.

If we have naive hope that an American president will act as a messiah and magically solve all our problems, we are neglecting the ideal of democracy and setting ourselves up for a big disappointment. As we increase our realistic hope, fortitude replaces disappointment, empowerment replaces helplessness, and participation replaces complacency.

As a child I was taught that voting was the be-all and end-all of citizenship, and if I showed up at the polls to vote I was fulfilling my civic duty. But the women’s and civil rights movements created dramatic change, even though many of their participants had little or no voting rights. Voting is just one tool in the democratic toolbox, and we cannot build a house with just a hammer. Realistic hope tells us voting is only one of many ways to participate in democracy. Susan B. Anthony and Martin Luther King Jr. knew that hope for a brighter future is only realistic when we exercise many democratic methods such as protests, petitions, boycotts, pressuring the legal system, and changing people’s attitudes for the better. Historian Howard Zinn said: “Democracy doesn’t come from the top. It comes from the bottom. Democracy is not what governments do. It’s what people do.”11

If we do not have realistic hope that progress is possible, and if we do not transform our realistic hope into participation, nothing will ever change for the better. Although General Eisenhower believed citizens must be peaceful revolutionaries, we must never forget that citizens must also perform a duty as sacred gardeners.

Peace and justice are similar to gardens that must be nurtured and maintained, and every citizen who wages peace protects humanity’s most sacred garden. Victories for peace and justice are not achievements permanently etched in stone. They are similar to living organisms that must be kept healthy through our care, attention, and participation. Victories for peace and justice, like delicate plants, will wilt and die if we take them for granted.

Every liberty and human right can be taken away by an oppressive government, especially during times of crisis when people are desperate. If citizens are complacent, do not be surprised if the victories our ancestors worked so hard for begin to slip away. If citizens do not use participation to protect the peace and justice our ancestors struggled to achieve, do not be shocked if slavery and the oppression of women begin to reemerge in new forms.

Abundant historical evidence and the fact that I exist give me realistic hope that progress is possible if we take action. In addition, my understanding of human nature also gives me a great deal of realistic hope. When we understand who we truly are and look deeply into our hearts and the humanity of others, we will see why hope in the twenty-first century is so realistic.