In the dark times, we must sing

In dark times

Will there also be singing?

Yes, there will be singing.

About the dark times.

from “Motto” by Bertolt Brecht

We are in dark times. Though I cannot sing (in tune), I can write and I do write, so that is what I am doing in these dark times. Writing about these dark times.

The world is witnessing the beginning of Year Three of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. With 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed so far and countless civilians dead or maimed, I wonder how much worse it can get. Of course, actually, the world has already gotten a whole lot worse with the October 7 invasion of Israel by Hamas last year. A stark and bloody reminder that dark times can always get darker.

How to survive?

For those fortunate enough by happenstance of birth to be nowhere close to those two conflicts (only two of 80 in the world today according to the Geneva Academy), I believe it’s important to be aware of the magnitude, to witness the horror, to hold the victims in our heart, and to keep hope alive through both knowledge and action. (Donating money to humanitarian relief agencies is one form of action: Amnesty International. MSF. Red Cross. World Central Kitchen. Etc.)

I write as a way to process the state of our world and to bear witness to what I am seeing unfold as news on my screen. I first wrote about Ukraine (my tone naive) a few weeks after the invasion, then again a few months later (my tone reflecting my greater understanding). I last wrote about Ukraine as the second year of the invasion by Russia began (my tone tinged with despair). Today, it is harder to write innocently, convincingly of hope, to believe the horrors will end soon. Yet that I must. Believe. It. Will. End. Soon. How else to keep breathing? For I am here, not there and I am able to breathe, deeply, freely, gratefully. Therefore, I must.

I have read Marge Piercy’s saga of World War II, Gone to Soldiers, several times so compelling do I find it, and every time I read that book I am keenly aware that, while I know the war will end when the story reaches 1945, the characters do not know that. They are living it as it is unfolding. For me, WWII looks like this: 1939-1945, but for the characters it looks like this: 1939 — 

Open ended, unending, endless.

So it is with Putin’s madness, Hamas’s horrors, Netanyahu’s merciless defence — open ended. But not, please not, endless.

While my knowing and my witnessing and my writing has changed by not one whit anything about any of these global horrors, my own understanding of how these horrors can come to be has changed. I know more clearly where the dangers of Trump’s ego maniacal drive for presidential power can lead the world. And what the insidious side-effects of Poilievre’s dog-whistle populism might bring Canada. 

So this knowledge is my song in the darkness, is my song about the dark times. It is my version of a weapon, for it shall inform how I participate — and vote — in the next election in my country and my community.

And that is as powerful a song as I can sing.

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Land acknowledgement: I respectfully recognize that I live on the original lands of Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation.

Photo by Aron Visuals on Unsplash