"Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all." - Emily Dickenson
Yom Kippur 2012 is over. The Day of Atonement didn't bring any difference in the news we could find in the printed media. Do me a favor and check your newspaper right now. Ninety percent of the pictures and the articles are about problems instead of solutions, crisis instead of chances, war instead of peace. How come? Is there nothing positive to share? Is there no hope?
Hope made people sail the world, start successful companies, ask a girl for a dance. Hope, we need it so desperately, but why do we hardly find it in the printed media?
Hope sells. Wasn't 'hope' the most crucial word in the speeches of President Obama four years ago? Hope is for winners. Every week Liverpool fans - and millions of other soccer fans, in other stadiums - sing out loud: "With Hope In Your Heart, You'll Never Walk Alone". Hope even cures. For instance, doctors often say: "As long as you keep hope alive, you stay alive."
I know journalists who sometimes try to write something hopeful, but in most cases their editor in chief decides not to publish it: too positive. Positive books are often judged as not being artistic enough, positive speeches as too superficial, positive songs as too sweet. As if positivity is a disease, or what?
Is that why we do read everything about the destruction of the American Embassy in Libya by hundreds of angry Libyans and not about the 30,000 who decide to clean the street one day later and demonstrate in front of the office of the extreme Islamist attackers, saying "We are the real Libyans"? Is that why we do read about riots in front of the USA Embassy in Cairo, partly by soccer hooligans and not about the thousands who participated in a street art festival yesterday, organized by the new and locally run MasterPeace initiative? Of course we read about another angry protest march in Afghanistan against that insulting video, but why don't we hear about these courageous kids in Kabul singing heartwarming songs on the International Day of Peace, last Friday? To me this was the first positive news about Afghanistan since years and we all deserve this kind of information to be able to develop a balanced view on the reality, don't you think? Or as an imam in Syria shared with the Dutch journalist Petra Stienen lately: "Despite all the violence, please don't stop seeing us as normal human beings, longing and struggling for the same better future as you do."
If people will constantly only hear one truth and only see one reality (the violence) they finally end up believing that there's probably only one truth and one reality and act accordingly: negative. So give us hope, now! That might even change the future.