It's been awhile since I have written. I guess I have been distracted by the unseasonable warm winter that has lured me away from my computer and into the great outdoors. Yes, I will blame it on that ;) It has been truly beautiful outside. We have had perfectly cool mornings and warm afternoons and I have enjoyed every minute of it. I don't think I have turned on my heat more than a few days the whole winter. I hope it lasts. For now, belly full of grits and coffee on the way, I have plenty of time to kick back and think about what we've been studying in school.
Between our recent studies, and what is going on all over the world, my mind full of ideas of revolution. If you don't know about the Arab Spring and the events that have transpired in the last year in the Arab world, then you should become informed. The world is changing at a rapid pace. Sometimes that change has come through peaceful protest (think Thoreau and King) and sometimes through unfortunate violence, yet in whatever form it occurs, change is happening. People round the world are longing for rights and freedoms that their governments have long denied them. They are desperate to believe that their voices will be the catalyst for that change, and they are not willing to back down. They seem unafraid of death. Martyrs for a cause? I guess that remains to be seen, but how similar they seem to me today to the voices of the past.
The Transcendentalists spoke about the value of being true to yourself. They called for personal growth and those like Thoreau called for governmental change. Their voices echoed in the ears of people like Whitman who wrote of equality. Slowly, the match lit the paper and the paper lit the sticks and the sticks set the nation on fire. The words of a few men became the voice of a people who spoke against the institution of slavery. Escaped slaves added their own voices and the power of the abolitionist movement drove the nation toward change. Change came - in the form of a war. And while perhaps Emerson had a point when he quipped, "Sometimes gunpowder smells good," let us hope that the seeds of change grow at a lesser cost for Arab citizens who seek to find new life.
Today, I encourage you to think about what it means to be a revolutionary. Not a rebel. Any punk can be a rebel. Anyone can yell about an "unfair" rule or whine about what they didn't get or break the law just because it can be broken. None of that is revolution. Revolution is seeded somewhere else. It grows out of desperation. It grows from the soul. And when it is sparked, it cannot be killed. It's leaders might be slaughtered. It's people might go into hiding. But true revolution is built on the power of an unsilenceable voice.
EC. Write a one page summary (all in your own words) of the events referred to as the "Arab Spring."
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete