Today I want to muse about hope.
Hope is the most powerful motivation we experience. It propels us to move beyond the present to a greater possibility beyond.
Hope is the key fundamental dynamic in human history. It moved us out of the cave into the sunlight, where better shelter and food sources might be found.
Hope moved us out of oppression into freedom.
I focus on hope today because of its critical importance to our current national dilemma.
This is not the place to recite the litany of outrages we face. They are daunting, in their number and with the failure of our system of checks and balances to restrain them.
Congress, with both chambers controlled by Republicans, has shown itself irrelevant to the current crisis.
Our lower federal courts are largely doing a heroic job of holding the
administration accountable under law.
But the administration’s strategies of ignoring court decisions and/or appealing them, coupled with the compliant Supreme Court’s strategy of deciding cases on its emergency or so-called shadow docket, without briefing or oral argument, have rendered the judicial check largely toothless.
These circumstances have caused many to feel hopeless.
I want to encourage people to rediscover hope. A brief look-back to several historical episodes is illuminating and helpful.
During the Revolutionary War things were bleak for the colonists for a long time. But George Washington had sufficient hope to undertake a daring challenge, and crossed the Delaware River at night to surprise and defeat the Hessians. This unlikely accomplishment reignited the morale of the colonists. He was eventually elected President.
Martin Luther King, Jr., forged a career of challenging racial segregation based on hope. His constant leadership, faced with hatred and violence at every turn, was founded in his deep faith in the promise of a better future for those who worked against all odds to achieve it. He was eventually assassinated.
Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years for anti-apartheid activities. He was released when internal South African pressure coupled with international pressure convinced the government that his continued imprisonment was futile. He went on to be elected President.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor and theologian, was imprisoned for his anti-Nazi activities and his participation in a plot to kill Hitler. While incarcerated he wrote Letters and Papers from Prison, a book which inspired generations. He ultimately paid the price of execution, but never lost his faith in a better future for Germany.
Mahatma Ghandi, a lawyer, became the leader of India’s independence movement. Relying on his deep commitment to nonviolence, he championed the poor and the marginalized while challenging British control. His ultimate success inspired not only India but civil rights movements throughout the world – including our own. He was eventually assassinated.
Years ago I visited El Salvador during its civil war. Tens of thousands of the populace were being killed or “disappeared” by an oppressive government. I had the opportunity to meet with the Mothers of the Disappeared, a group of women who met and demonstrated daily, exposing themselves to great danger of governmental reprisal. In talking with them it was clear that what motivated them was their faith and their hope in a better future.
These examples of the power of hope – and faith – involve several individuals who achieved great leadership and acclaim.
What is critical to understand, however, is that they were ordinary persons – they achieved greatness because they remained hopeful and motivated in the face of great adversity. Hope kept them involved – and eventually paid off with success.
Most of us will not achieve such greatness. But it is open to us to achieve some measure of success, in the fields that confront us.
If we maintain hope.
Col Owens lives in Fort Mitchell.He is a retired legal aid attorney and law professor, author of Bending the Arc Toward Justice, longtime Democratic Party activist, and member of the Boards of Directors of Gateway Community and Technical College and the Kentucky Board of Elections. He is an occasional columnist for the NKyTribune.