"Hopes" and "Hope": Syria and Afghanistan

 Watching the scenes of rejoicing from Syria, and listening to some of the hopes being expressed by Syrians in conversations with news reporters, a reflection is prompted on the exact nature of the hopes being described. It is noteworthy that, after an initial expression of joy in achieving freedom after the fall of the previous regime, some of the hopes for the future of their country have been expressed with a tinge of uncertainty and caution. There is also the sadness of those who are searching for news of relatives imprisoned or killed during the previous regime.

Towards the end of the first of his lectures published in the short book Hope and History, Josef Pieper draws attention to a distinction that an author contemporary to him had made between specific "hopes", which linguistically are linked to identifiable possibilities in worldly life, and a more "fundamental hope", that looks beyond the immediate experience of life and is sustained without connection to a specifically stated object. This latter fundamental hope is more about what a person "is" rather than what a person might "have". The distinction was initially developed in the context of incurable illness, but Pieper extends it to a wider context.

The aspect of Plugge's finding that is really worth thinking about, if also likely to surprise at first, seems to me to be his observation that true hope does not emerge and show its face until the moment when one's various "hopes" are finally disappointed.... Every deep disappointment of some hope whose object was to be found in the worldly sphere potentially harbors an opportunity for hope per se to turn ... towards its true object and, in a process of liberation, for existence to expand, for the first time ever, into an atmosphere of wider dimensions. Precisely in disappointment, and perhaps in it alone, we are offered the challenge of entering into this broader existential realm of hope per se.

 It is possible to identify at least seeds of the more fundamental idea of hope in the use by Syrians of the word "freedom" to characterise the new situation in their country. The wish for democratic elections might be seen as a hope in the more restricted sense; and there is no certainty at the moment as to whether such elections will take place, and, if they do, the extent to which they will live up to the expectation that might be placed upon them. There is an inevitable eye towards events in Afghanistan, where the news this week that women would be barred from training as nurses or midwives appears to remove a last hope for women to play any part in the public life of the country.

In both countries, we might pray that a genuine hope be sustainable against the background of specific material hopes that might not be met.