Hope In The Dark: The Untold History of People Power

Both the title and subject matter of Solnit’s book derive from a diary entry of British modernist writer Virginia Woolf from 1915, the time of the First World War: “‘The future is dark, which is on the whole, the best thing the future can be’” (1). Solnit shares Woolf’s understanding that amid unspeakable human tragedy, the best future to hope for is a dark one, or one that can’t be clearly seen. Like Woolf, Solnit sees possibilities in uncertainty, and her book is a manifesto inciting an embrace of the hopefulness inherent in this.

Although Solnit admits that Woolf’s hope ended in her 1941 suicide during the next war, her work contradicted this sad fact through its “extraordinary beauty and power, power to put to use by women to liberate themselves in the years after Woolf was gone” (108). Thus, Woolf’s example continues the close interplay of hope and devastation that punctuates the rest of Solnit’s book.

George W. Bush, the Republican president of the US from 2001 to 2009, is remembered for his aggressive and militant response to the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001. In a quest to eliminate Islamic fundamentalism from the world, he launched the War on Terror and invaded Iraq in 2003 on the pretense that the country was hoarding weapons of mass destruction.

Many on the liberal left, including Solnit, opposed the invasion, and millions participated in a worldwide peace protest on February 15, 2003. Solnit views Bush and his administration in the harshest terms, charging them with stifling the potential for a better version of humanity that could have emerged after the September 11 attacks. Solnit writes:

It seemed as though the Bush administration recognized this extraordinary possibility of the moment and did everything it could to suppress it, for nothing is more dangerous to them than that sense of citizenship, fearlessness, and communion with the world that is distinct from the blind patriotism driven by fear (56).

Moreover, she posits that Bush’s surveillance practices were a threat to democracy, as he pushed Republicanism from “what might be thought of as right-wing to something a little more totalitarian” (84). Despite opposition on the left, Bush managed to campaign successfully for a second term in 2004, on the grounds that he was keeping the country safe from terror. Solnit saw Bush’s war and his reelection as key factors in causing activists to give up and stay at home.

Subcomandante Marcos, born Rafael Sebastián Guillén Vicente, was the Mexican spokesperson of the Zapatistas, a grassroots movement that embodied taking back indigenous power and land from the Mexican government. Solnit notes how Subcomandante Marcos, “a tall, green-eyed intellectual” (42), stood out from the more agrarian campesinos yet never wanted to steal the spotlight from them. Remaining “masked and pseudonymous” (42) enabled Subcomandante Marcos to use his eloquence without becoming the type of charismatic revolution leader who stole attention away from the campaigning populace. He was critical of the liberation movements of the 1960s and 1970s for their violence and cult of personality, holding that “what always remained unresolved was the role of the people, of civil society, in what became ultimately a dispute between two hegemonies” (43). His goal was to restore power to civil society rather than for a single individual or group to take it for themselves. The Zapatistas’ struggle is a microcosm of Solnit’s vision for the rest of humanity: In several other examples in the book, she shows how people attempt to redirect power away from individual corporations and reclaim it for the hands of the multitude.