How we made it
I'm writing this while watching the memorial for the victims of the COVID plague being led by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
What's striking is that, now, with real leaders coming in, we can finally engage in the rituals which give life meaning.
The former occupant of the White House didn't let us mourn. He didn't allow us to grieve. The only real victim of the plague was himself, his political fortunes and his leprous ego, and he reminded us of that every moment. We weren't allowed to mourn as a nation, because to mourn, and to join in the mourning himself, would mean that he had failed, and that he had been lying to this country for months.
What Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris will bring back to a wounded land is the idea that we are all in this together. That with grit, and with determination, and with orneriness, and with love, we can overcome the great challenges facing us, challenges which are unique in our history.
It was that grit, determination, orneriness, and love which got us through four of the darkest years this people have ever endured. Those of us who stood against the darkness didn't waver. We didn't buckle. We may have felt despair at points, but we shook it off and continued. Some of us were on the front lines, fighting the evil face to face. But most of us carried on in the way we knew how: living decent lives; being of comfort to those who needed comforting; working in small ways which ensured that today, this day, would come to pass—small acts which collectively beat back the dark.
We are, quite simply, puny in the face of the universe, if we're alone. We are a species which cannot stand isolation, and cannot accomplish anything as atomized individuals. But when we come together, when we support each other, when we act as our brothers' and sisters' keepers, we can move mountains. We command the Shadow to begone, and we hold those who served the Shadow to account, to make lessons of them for the future.
I wish I could write that we've banished the Shadow for good. We haven't. We thought we had in 1945. But another shadow was there already. And after we vanquished that evil, the old one we thought we had chained up turned out to have never left. It was lurking, gaining in strength. The fact is that peace and plenty are boring, and human beings get distracted easily. We have yet to mature morally to match the power of our technology. Evil will come again and again, because it will find willing ears to listen to its songs.
But we know this. This is human history. And in spite of it, we're still here. We are getting better. We are becoming more like the best of us, those of us who fully embrace each others' humanity. The road is neither even nor straight, but it's there, if we only follow it.
Struggle is our human condition. But struggle against each other doesn't have to be. It's the struggle within ourselves that is the great fight. The fight to become better, to become more than we thought we were. In Islam, it's the internal jihad which is what makes us fully human, as we endeavor to be worthy of creation.
As we embark on a new chapter in this never-ending story, remember how we made it this far. It's what will steady us on the road ahead.