When I moved to El Salvador in 2021 there was a hopefulness among the general population which was intoxicating and contagious. In the four years since, much has changed
What I felt here in 21' rhymes with what I've felt at various times in various places over the past two decades and I've been reflecting on that a lot lately; what conditions lead to it and why it never lasts
First, some personal history. In the early 2000s I was in university in the US and heavily involved with activism. My targets then were the IMF & the military industrial complex (they still are, that’s about the most consistent thing in my life actually). As an organizer who never asked the state for permission, I found myself arrested often and one of those nights in jail I made the decision to leave and to stop spending most of my efforts trying to slow the bad and instead spend them trying to speed the good
I moved to Ecuador and in 2005 I participated in my first revolution. I was at the barricades when the president fled the country, and the military began to take off their uniforms and join us. It was euphoric. I had never in my life experienced such a feeling of 'mass hope.' Everyone believed that a corner had been turned and was supremely confident that tomorrow would be better than today
In 2011 I felt something similar while living in the encampment those first weeks at Occupy Wall Street in New York
I felt it again in Myanmar in 2016 when the military dictatorship ended, and Aung San Suu Kyi assumed office
It's a feeling I've been chasing my entire adult life and I found it again in El Salvador in 2021--this communal certainty that tomorrow would be better than today. It’s amazing to be surrounded by that and extremely motivating
There are always two things in common: it’s preceded by times with little hope, and it never lasts
In Ecuador, a charismatic academic who spoke on behalf of the social movements became president, then became authoritarian, built mega-jails, then filled them with his people. Occupy Wall Street descended into infighting, banks got more powerful, and the rich got richer. Myanmar is now in a civil war between a new military dictatorship and various ethnic minorities
For me, the honeymoon is over in El Salvador. That hope I felt in 2021 and 2022 is still there but it is far more tempered among Salvadorans now than it had been. Extreme human emotion can’t be sustained, not for the individual and not for the group—after all the basis is contrast. You need some rain to appreciate the sun
Just some morning reflections as I watch the clouds over San Salvador on a rainy Tuesday
