Hope's Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet

BY KAT

I just got back from a trip during Spring Break, and I'm feeling really inspired.

There were a lot of challenges to my psyche, but I'd like to focus on one: a book.

The book is called "Hope's Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet" and I only got halfway through it because it belongs to someone else and I was borrowing it--but even just the first half is really amazing.

One part in particular caught my attention. The authors go to Brazil, and meet up with members of the MST, a group dedicated to re-dividing land, taking land that is not being used from rich landowners and re-allocate it to poor landless who would use the land to feed themselves. When asked about how he can continue with his work, one of the persons interviewed has an interesting response.

He said that people need to be shaken out of the naive belief that nothing will ever change, that they are incapable of making change. This idea is something that is taught to them from childhood to keep things from changing, to allow people in power to stay in power. Maturity, he claimed, comes when people shed off this naive belief that they can do nothing, and take the responsibility to do something.

Isn't it interesting, the author (Franes Lappe) notes, that in the USA we have the opposite idea: the people who believe they can change things are the ones who are "naive," and with maturity supposedly comes cynicism and a sense of powerlessness, that nothing you can do will ever matter and therefore you shouldn't even bother.

Reading this made me feel really, really happy. I believe in activism; I believe in people gathering together for a good cause; I believe in the feminist movements of the past, and I believe that one cannot just wait for someone else, someone "better" to get the job done--that if I don't do it, I can't expect someone else to, and the likelihood of it happening is slim. I'm tired of cynicism; I believe submitting to the belief that things won't change is admitting defeat and pushing away personal responsibility to do what's right.

I can't wait for my $3 copy to arrive from bigwords.com, and I think everyone should read this book :D