Hope for change more than enough

By Maryann Dakkak

I have decided to take the word "effectiveness" out of the dictionary. When I came back from Africa, a popular question was: "what did you do?" In response, I often went through an itinerary of the miscellaneous projects I did. But after a while, I'd answer: "nothing, not a darn thing."

It made me realize how bent our country is on doing. I feel that often people are objectified and only seen as what they produce, like we're machines or something. Not that I believe in sitting around and doing nothing, I just feel that it's more important to be and then to do.

In Africa, I was with the people, I lived with the people, struggled with the people, taught the people and learned from the people. I didn't save them or revolutionize their way of life, I was just present to them, and both they and I will hold onto that forever (hmm, sounds corny, huh?).

Just this weekend, I was in Georgia with about 15,000 other people to protest the School of the Americas, a training camp for Latin American soldiers who return to their countries and are often found to be the perpetrators of huge human-rights violations. There was a point where I felt completely hopeless. There is so much destruction, so much torture, starvation, death and ugliness in this world. So what if they close the SOA down? There will be hundreds of more things to change.

And often friends ask if I really think anything I do, or anything some of my friends do will actually change anything. I defend them and myself strongly, but sometimes I can't help wonder what we're fighting for.

But then I really looked deep inside myself and realize I couldn't be anywhere else. Because to not be true to my heart and fight for what I believe in would be to live in fear and to be giving up on the dreams I hold. And I know I'm not alone. As I stood in the crowd, I knew that we came from all different places and were fighting and believing in the same thing: nonviolent peaceful means to a world of justice and complete respect for everyone's humanity.

I feel that Martin Luther King Jr., Dorothy Day and Jesus Christ would be standing with us as well, and that gives me hope. They didn't leave the world perfect. And neither will I. But I hope to have the courage to die trying.