Doing that feels that bit harder this morning after last night's news here in the UK. On top of that the pandemic got a lot more personal for me over the Christmas break. My 85 year old uncle came down with it and was taken to hospital on Boxing Day. He's not out yet, although thankfully he seems to be on the mend.
But, in this time more than ever - with the pandemic raging out of control, with the UK having left the EU and with incompetent leaders clinging on to the reins of power across much of the world - hope is what we need. I came across this quote, from Paulo Freire's magnum opus Pedagogy of the Oppressed* the other day and it gave me a new perspective on it:
"Hope is rooted in men's incompletion, from which they move out in constant search - a search which can be carried out only in communion with others. Hopelessness is a form of silence, of denying the world and fleeing from it. The dehumanisation resulting from an unjust order is not a cause for despair but for hope, leading to the incessant pursuit of the humanity denied by injustice. Hope, however, does not consist in crossing one's arms and waiting. As long as I fight, I am moved by hope; and if I fight with hope then I can wait."
So here's to hope in 2021. And to patient effort towards the pursuit of humanity and the struggle against oppression.
*With another quote of Paulo's having inspired this whole endeavour I felt it made sense to actually read one of his books...
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