SENTIENT TIMES
February/March 2010
Editor's Note
By Deborah Mokma
The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now
as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all
that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
Howard Zinn
Lately many of us have been feeling that while the year 2009 appeared to be about hope and change, 2010 already feels like we’ve had the hope sucked right out us thanks to a confluence of electoral, judicial and global events. When one of the most important writers and historians of our time, Howard Zinn, died last January at the age of 87, the sense of loss for many was amplified.
Howard Zinn understood the importance of history and of celebrating the power of civil disobedience, and taught that the more connections we have with each other, whether while rebelling or focusing our energies on discovering solutions, the greater joy we will find. He also understood that when faced with injustice, noncompliance is the moral imperative. Many of his writings can be found at howardzinn.org, and of his numerous books, A People’s History of the United States may be one of the most important as it provides a comprehensive volume which offers a far more accurate historical accounting seen through the eyes of working people rather than the political elite.
But, A Power Governments Cannot Suppress, Howard Zinn’s collection of essays on American history, class, immigration, justice and ordinary citizens who have made a difference offers timely inspiration when many of us may be edging toward despair. Here is just a taste of what he had to say in one of those essays:
“In this world of war and injustice, how does a person manage to stay socially engaged, committed to the struggle, and remain healthy without burning out or becoming resigned or cynical?
“I am totally confident not that the world will get better, but that we should not give up the game before all the cards have been played. The metaphor is deliberate; life is a gamble. Not to play is to foreclose any chance of winning. To play, to act, is to create at least a possibility of changing the world.
“There is a tendency to think that what we see in the present moment will continue. We forget how often we have been astonished by the sudden crumbling of institutions, by extraordinary changes in people’s thoughts, by unexpected eruptions of rebellion against tyrannies, by the quick collapse of systems of power that seemed invincible.
“I have tried hard to match my friends in their pessimism about the world (is it just my friends?), but I keep encountering people who, in spite of all the evidence of terrible things happening everywhere, give me hope. Wherever I go, I find such people, especially young people, in whom the future rests. And beyond the handful of activists there seem to be hundreds, thousands, more who are open to unorthodox ideas. But they tend not to know of one another’s existence, and so, while they persist, they do so with the desperate patience of Sisyphus endlessly pushing the boulder up the mountain. I try to tell each group that they are not alone, and that the very people who are disheartened by the absence of a national movement are themselves proof of the potential for such a movement.
“Revolutionary change does not come as one cataclysmic moment (beware of such moments!) but as an endless succession of surprises, moving zigzag toward a more decent society. We don’t have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can quietly become a power no government can suppress, a power that can transform the world.
“Even when we don’t ‘win,’ there is fun and fulfillment in the fact that we have been involved, with other good people, in something worthwhile. We need hope. An optimist isn’t necessarily a blithe, slightly sappy whistler in the dark of our time. To be hopeful in bad times is not being foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of competition and cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.
“What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, it energizes us to act, and raises at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
As for the disappointment in change not being as close at hand as we may have believed, consider one of Howard Zinn’s more recent statements, which should be a clarion call for us all:
“Obama will not fulfill that potential for change unless he is enveloped by a social movement which is angry enough, powerful enough, insistent enough that he fill his abstract phrases with some real solid content.”
By connecting with each other we can create a movement powerful enough to accomplish the transformation of our world so many of us envision. The time is now, and we are the ones to do it
SENTIENT TIMES
PO Box 1330 Ashland, OR 97520
PHONE (541) 512-1084 • FAX (541) 512-1085
dmokma@jeffnet.org
