Hope as a Warrior Emotion

Song of a Blackbird is many things: a story of resistance, a tribute to the power of art to fight hate and save lives, and a meditation on how children carry the trauma of war throughout their lives.

Ultimately, it is about hope as the precursor to a better future.

There were many reasons the courageous artists in the Amsterdam Resistance risked their lives to save others. Some were driven by loyalty to Queen and country; others believed their faith called them to act. Some felt their political convictions clashed with Nazi ideology, while basic humanity drove others to stand up. But all were driven by a higher purpose and, I believe, by hope for a better future. Without this sense of hope, we become complacent, desperate or cynical.

Nick Cave expressed this beautifully after the death of his son:

“Unlike cynicism, hopefulness is hard-earned, makes demands upon us, and can often feel like the most indefensible and lonely place on Earth. Hopefulness is not a neutral position either. It is adversarial. It is the warrior emotion that can lay waste to cynicism. Each redemptive or loving act, as small as you like… keeps the devil down in the hole. It says the world and its inhabitants have value and are worth defending. It says the world is worth believing in. In time, we come to find that it is so.”

I believe that the blackbird that sang to my mother and grandmother during the grim Hunger Winter of 1944/45 was telling them that the world was still worth believing in. Its song offered inspiration and hope at a time when everything around them screamed despair. Months later, fascism was defeated, and Amsterdam rose above the carnage.

If they could still believe in this world, and even fight for it, after their loved ones had been executed and imprisoned, and their home had been bombed, then who are we to be anything but hopeful in the face of today’s challenges?

We must keep fighting for a better future for all. And that begins with the conviction that such a future is possible, and the belief that a loving act will keep the devil in the hole.

It begins with hope.

Open mind. Open heart,

Maria van Lieshout

PS: Tell stories. Make ART🐦‍⬛

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