Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never Is, but always To be blest:
The soul, uneasy and confin'd from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.
-Alexander Pope,
An Essay on Man, Epistle I, 1733
When a person has nothing to look forward to, no opportunity to improve his condition, when a view of the future is as bleak as the past and the present, then that person has not hope.
Old people consign themselves to their condition and bitterly live out their remaining days. Young people are also bitter but lash out at what they see as their future -- the same as that of the old people around them -- and are filled with resentment and hostility.
Think of the kid who grows up fatherless and uneducated in a slum in some Islamic, tyrannical third world country. For many in this condition, the only future they see is a prison cell or an early, violent death, unless they succumb to disease. They have not hope and, too often, become a living examples of the self-fulfilling prophecy. Life, whether their own or that of others, has little value.
This is the grist for the mill of terrorism. These are the folks who have nothing, and so, have nothing to lose. They are easily recruited to join any group that tells a good story; especially if it includes a full stomach and the promise of adventure.
When the President speaks of an "Ideology of Hope" he recognizes that so long as conditions in many countries remain the way they are, that there can be no improvement in the lives of their people. He recognizes that the prime factor in the condition of many countries is a corrupt, tyrannical government that is concerned only with the welfare of the few at the top and perfectly content to let the people suffer in misery. He believes that the political changes in Afghanistan and Iraq are improving the lives of the people there much the same as the political changes in Poland and the rest of the former satellites of the USSR greatly improved the lives of the people in those countries.
Freely elected governments coupled with opportunities afforded by capitalistic economies raise living standards and provide hope that was formerly non-existent. Countries whose people are enjoying economic prosperity rarely cause trouble for their neighbors.
Witness the Asian countries. Those which have improved their economies by creating a climate which encourages foreign investment have prospered, their people have prospered, and they are benign. Those who have stuck to the old ways are doing poorly, their people live in poverty, and their governments are thorns in the sides of their neighbors.
The situation in Africa is the same.
The President has the right idea. However, the professional Bush haters continue to mock and scoff at anything and everything he proposes. That is understandable. That's the way they are.
