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<font size=3><br><br>
</font><font face="arial" size=3><b>The Optimism of Uncertainty
<br><br>
By Howard Zinn<br><br>
</b> <br><br>
Published on </font>Monday, November 8, 2004 <br><br>
<font face="arial" size=3>By CommonDreams.org<br><br>
<a href="http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1108-21.htm">http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1108-21.htm</a>
<br><br>
<br><br>
>From an excerpt of Paul Rogat Loeb's book "The<br><br>
Impossible Will Take a Little While":<br><br>
<br><br>
In this awful world where the efforts of caring people<br><br>
often pale in comparison to what is done by those who<br><br>
have power, how do I manage to stay involved and<br><br>
seemingly happy? I am totally confident not that the<br><br>
world will get better, but that we should not give up<br><br>
the game before all the cards have been played. The<br><br>
metaphor is deliberate; life is a gamble. Not to play<br><br>
is to foreclose any chance of winning.<br><br>
<br><br>
To play, to act, is to create at least a possibility of<br><br>
changing the world. There is a tendency to think that<br><br>
what we see in the present moment will continue. We<br><br>
forget how often we have been astonished by the sudden<br><br>
crumbling of institutions, by extraordinary changes in<br><br>
people's thoughts, by unexpected eruptions of rebellion<br><br>
against tyrannies, by the quick collapse of systems of<br><br>
power that seemed invincible. What leaps out from the<br><br>
history of the past hundred years is its utter<br><br>
unpredictability. This confounds us, because we are<br><br>
talking about exactly the period when human beings<br><br>
became so ingenious technologically that they could<br><br>
plan and predict the exact time of someone landing on<br><br>
the moon, or walk down the street talking to someone<br><br>
halfway around the earth.<br><br>
<br><br>
Let's go back a hundred years. A revolution to<br><br>
overthrow the tsar of </font>Russia, in that most sluggish of<br><br>
<font face="arial" size=3>semi-feudal empires, not only startled the most<br><br>
advanced imperial powers, but took Lenin himself by<br><br>
surprise and sent him rushing by train to </font>Petrograd.<br><br>
<font face="arial" size=3>Given the Russian Revolution, who could have predicted<br><br>
Stalin's deformation of it, or Khrushchev's astounding<br><br>
exposure of Stalin, or Gorbachev's succession of<br><br>
surprises? Who would have predicted the bizarre shifts<br><br>
of World War II-the Nazi-Soviet pact (those<br><br>
embarrassing photos of von Ribbentrop and Molotov<br><br>
shaking hands), and the German army rolling through<br><br>
Russia</font>, apparently invincible, causing colossal<br><br>
<font face="arial" size=3>casualties, being turned back at the gates of<br><br>
Leningrad</font>, on the western edge of Moscow, in the<br><br>
<font face="arial" size=3>streets of </font>Stalingrad, followed by the defeat of the<br><br>
<font face="arial" size=3>German army, with Hitler huddled in his </font>Berlin bunker,<br><br>
<font face="arial" size=3>waiting to die?<br><br>
<br><br>
And then the post-war world, taking a shape no one<br><br>
could have drawn in advance: The Chinese Communist<br><br>
revolution, which Stalin himself had given little<br><br>
chance. And then the break with the </font>Soviet Union, the<br><br>
<font face="arial" size=3>tumultuous and violent Cultural Revolution, and then<br><br>
another turnabout, with post-Mao </font>China renouncing its<br><br>
<font face="arial" size=3>most fervently held ideas and institutions, making<br><br>
overtures to the West, cuddling up to capitalist<br><br>
enterprise, perplexing everyone. No one foresaw the<br><br>
disintegration of the old Western empires happening so<br><br>
quickly after the war, or the odd array of societies<br><br>
that would be created in the newly independent nations,<br><br>
from the benign village socialism of Nyerere's </font>Tanzania<br><br>
<font face="arial" size=3>to the madness of Idi Amin's adjacent </font>Uganda.<br><br>
<font face="arial" size=3> <br><br>
Spain</font> became an astonishment. A million died in the<br><br>
<font face="arial" size=3>civil war, which ended in victory for the Fascist<br><br>
Franco, backed by Hitler and Mussolini. I recall a<br><br>
veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade telling me that<br><br>
he could not imagine Spanish Fascism being overthrown<br><br>
without another bloody war. But after Franco was gone,<br><br>
a parliamentary democracy came into being, open to<br><br>
Socialists, Communists, anarchists, everyone. In other<br><br>
places too, deeply entrenched dictatorships seemed<br><br>
suddenly to disintegrate-in </font>Portugal, Argentina, the<br><br>
<font face="arial" size=3>Philippines</font>, Iran.<br><br>
<font face="arial" size=3> <br><br>
The end of World War II left two superpowers with their<br><br>
respective spheres of influence and control, vying for<br><br>
military and political power. The </font>United States and the<br><br>
<font face="arial" size=3>Soviet Union</font> soon each had enough thermonuclear bombs<br><br>
<font face="arial" size=3>to devastate the Earth several times over. The<br><br>
international scene was dominated by their rivalry, and<br><br>
it was supposed that all affairs, in every nation, were<br><br>
affected by their looming presence. Yet the most<br><br>
striking fact about these superpowers was that, despite<br><br>
their size, their wealth, their overwhelming<br><br>
accumulation of nuclear weapons, they were unable to<br><br>
control events, even in those parts of the world<br><br>
considered to be their respective spheres of influence.<br><br>
The failure of the </font>Soviet Union to have its way in<br><br>
<font face="arial" size=3>Afghanistan</font>, its decision to withdraw after almost a<br><br>
<font face="arial" size=3>decade of ugly intervention, was the most striking<br><br>
evidence that even the possession of thermonuclear<br><br>
weapons does not guarantee domination over a determined<br><br>
population.<br><br>
<br><br>
The </font>United States has faced the same reality. It waged<br><br>
<font face="arial" size=3>a full-scale war in lndochina, conducted the most<br><br>
brutal bombardment of a tiny peninsula in world<br><br>
history, and yet was forced to withdraw. In Latin<br><br>
America</font>, after a long history of U.S. military<br><br>
<font face="arial" size=3>intervention having its way again and again, this<br><br>
superpower, with all its wealth and weapons, found<br><br>
itself frustrated. It was unable to prevent a<br><br>
revolution in </font>Cuba, and the Latin American<br><br>
<font face="arial" size=3>dictatorships that the </font>United States supported from<br><br>
<font face="arial" size=3>Chile</font> to Argentina to El Salvador have fallen. In the<br><br>
<font face="arial" size=3>headlines every day we see other instances of the<br><br>
failure of the presumably powerful over the presumably<br><br>
powerless, as in </font>Brazil, where a grassroots movement of<br><br>
<font face="arial" size=3>workers and the poor elected a new president pledged to<br><br>
fight destructive corporate power.<br><br>
<br><br>
Looking at this catalog of huge surprises, it's clear<br><br>
that the struggle for justice should never be abandoned<br><br>
because of the apparent overwhelming power of those who<br><br>
have the guns and the money and who seem invincible in<br><br>
their determination to hold on to it. That apparent<br><br>
power has, again and again, proved vulnerable to human<br><br>
qualities less measurable than bombs and dollars: moral<br><br>
fervor, determination, unity, organization, sacrifice,<br><br>
wit, ingenuity, courage, patience-whether by blacks in<br><br>
Alabama</font> and South Africa, peasants in El Salvador,<br><br>
<font face="arial" size=3>Nicaragua</font>, and Vietnam, or workers and intellectuals in<br><br>
<font face="arial" size=3>Poland</font>, Hungary, and the Soviet Union itself.<br><br>
<font face="arial" size=3> <br><br>
No cold calculation of the balance of power need deter<br><br>
people who are persuaded that their cause is just. I<br><br>
have tried hard to match my friends in their pessimism<br><br>
about the world (is it just my friends?), but I keep<br><br>
encountering people who, in spite of all the evidence<br><br>
of terrible things happening everywhere, give me hope.<br><br>
Especially young people, in whom the future rests.<br><br>
Wherever I go, I find such people. And beyond the<br><br>
handful of activists there seem to be hundreds,<br><br>
thousands more who are open to unorthodox ideas. But<br><br>
they tend not to know of each other's existence, and<br><br>
so, while they persist, they do so with the desperate<br><br>
patience of Sisyphus endlessly pushing that boulder up<br><br>
the mountain.<br><br>
<br><br>
I try to tell each group that it is not alone, and that<br><br>
the very people who are disheartened by the absence of<br><br>
a national movement are themselves proof of the<br><br>
potential for such a movement. It is this change in<br><br>
consciousness that encourages me. Granted, racial<br><br>
hatred and sex discrimination are still with us, war<br><br>
and violence still poison our culture, we have a large<br><br>
underclass of poor, desperate people, and there is a<br><br>
hard core of the population content with the way things<br><br>
are, afraid of change. But if we see only that, we have<br><br>
lost historical perspective, and then it is as if we<br><br>
were born yesterday and we know only the depressing<br><br>
stories in this morning's newspapers, this evening's<br><br>
television reports.<br><br>
<br><br>
Consider the remarkable transformation, in just a few<br><br>
decades, in people's consciousness of racism, in the<br><br>
bold presence of women demanding their rightful place,<br><br>
in a growing public awareness that gays are not<br><br>
curiosities but sensate human beings, in the long-term<br><br>
growing skepticism about military intervention despite<br><br>
brief surges of military madness. It is that long-term<br><br>
change that I think we must see if we are not to lose<br><br>
hope. Pessimism becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy; it<br><br>
reproduces itself by crippling our willingness to act.<br><br>
Revolutionary change does not come as one cataclysmic<br><br>
moment (beware of such moments!) but as an endless<br><br>
succession of surprises, moving zigzag toward a more<br><br>
decent society.<br><br>
<br><br>
We don't have to engage in grand, heroic actions to<br><br>
participate in the process of change. Small acts, when<br><br>
multiplied by millions of people, can transform the<br><br>
world. Even when we don't "win," there is fun and<br><br>
fulfillment in the fact that we have been involved,<br><br>
with other good people, in something worthwhile. We<br><br>
need hope. An optimist isn't necessarily a blithe,<br><br>
slightly sappy whistler in the dark of our time. To be<br><br>
hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It<br><br>
is based on the fact that human history is a history<br><br>
not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice,<br><br>
courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this<br><br>
complex history will determine our lives. If we see<br><br>
only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do<br><br>
something. If we remember those times and places-and<br><br>
there are so many-where people have behaved<br><br>
magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at<br><br>
least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a<br><br>
world in a different direction. And if we do act, in<br><br>
however small a way, we don't have to wait for some<br><br>
grand utopian future. The future is an infinite<br><br>
succession of presents, and to live now as we think<br><br>
human beings should live, in defiance of all that is<br><br>
bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.<br><br>
<br><br>
Adapted from "The Impossible Will Take a Little While:<br><br>
A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear", edited by<br><br>
Paul Rogat Loeb. Parts of this essay appeared in You<br><br>
Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train and Howard Zinn on<br><br>
History.<br><br>
<br><br>
###<br><br>
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