Amidst the darkness, we can choose to embrace the light
By Danielle Allen
The Washington Post
October 15, 2023
"I see our many human societies as living on a metaphorical sphere that is half in light and half in dark. The best goal of human striving is to live in the light and to help one’s own society and other societies to live in the light…
“Always and forever there are forces that pull people and societies toward or downright down into the darkness…
"To live in the light is to respect human dignity. To recognize and strive to protect basic rights. To empower people to make decisions in their own lives privately and together in public life through democratic forms of governance… where rule is for the benefit of the ruled, not the rulers…
"This requires reconnecting people to their civic experience, power and responsibility, and redesigning our institutions to make them accountable and responsive, so that when people flex their civic muscles through our institutions something happens on the other end.
"It also requires repairing the relationships among us… What we need is this: a mutual commitment to one another and a shared commitment to going on together — via nonviolent methods of conflict resolution — with people we vehemently disagree with…
"That means respecting and caring for the well-being of each other even when we find each other’s views on a conflict such as the one between the Israelis and Palestinians wrong in the extreme…
"This moral commitment is and has ever been the only starting point from which more light than dark can be brought into the world."
About Heart of a Nation
Empowering the next generation of American, Israeli, and Palestinian change-makers to embrace better, together.
אנחנו מכנסים הוגים מובילים, פעילים חברתיים, ומחוללי שינוי לעתיד, אמריקאים, ישראלים ופלסטינאים, המחויבים לשיפור החברות שלהם.
نحن أمريكيون وإسرائيليون وفلسطينيون نبني ونكوّن روابط من أجل التعلم والتفكير والمشاركة معًا حتى نشجع الحلول التقدمية بشأن القضايا التي تهمنا جميعًا.