Beyond Hope

When I was a union organizer in my workplace in London a colleague came up to my desk with a petition and said something about getting things moving. Reflexively, I signed it (I knew him to be a smart, progressive guy, and if this thing was of concern to him, then I wanted to lend my support), only to look up and see that he had walked off without waiting to collect it. Before chasing him down the corridor, I took the trouble to read what I had put my name to. It was a demand that the union stop dragging its feet on a particular issue and mount an effective challenge to management. In other words, it was not for me to sign but to receive. I had in effect signed a petition against myself.

The transfer from protest to power is not an easy one, particularly for the left. We live in a state of dissidence, which makes the notion that we might one day take over the state apparatus--or indeed any apparatus--all the more difficult. That does not necessarily make us oppositional by nature--though some are--but we are antagonistic by temperament. Our work is never done. If it were, we would no longer need a left. Unaccustomed as we are to office and power, we are more likely to sign than to receive.

So it is that even as Obama settles in to the Oval Office, with the full might of the wealthiest and most powerful state in the world at his disposal, many of his supporters still consider him the underdog. Having made this unlikely journey happen, they want to keep traveling in the style to which they have become accustomed even after they have reached the terminus. They wear buttons and display posters that demand that we "Hope" and "Believe," even as what they hoped for has happened and what once seemed incredible is now real.

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