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Opinion

From the sea to the Mediterranean Sea

MUBARAKA SAIFEE
Opinion Columnist

Ever since we were little, we've been obsessed with making progress. In school, we had progress reports. In marriage: "Oh, we're not there yet, but we're making progress." In the work world, we move from one position to another, progressing from supervisor to assistant manager to manager. Progress is our inevitable goal. 

Even if we're doing horribly at something, at the first inkling of improvement, we're glad to be making progress. That's all someone can ask for. And even if we're doing wonderfully, we still look to improve on that, and we still want to make even more progress. The rich want to get richer while the poor toil for basic food and shelter that will take them from homeless to sheltered or from hungry to nourished. 

For some people, progress would be to finally become a legal citizen of the United States. They have made progress financially by escaping the choking grasp of poverty, taking risks and chances to cross the border and find work to earn money to send back home. Now they want more? How ungrateful can they be? Well, they want to make progress, just like the rest of us. 

Still others made progress when their country evicted an oppressive tyrant who tortured his people. Of course we, the United States, helped them with the making of this progress. Now we want them to make even more progress; we want them to democratize themselves. 

Now the thing with progress is, although other people can help you, you really have to do it yourself. And there is no real standard for progress. Whatever you do to improve yourself is progress. So to expect the homeless man to become a millionaire overnight would be unrealistic. Even to accomplish this amazing feat, next year or ten years from now might not be possible for him. 

First, he will just need to find enough food to fill his empty stomach. Then he might try to hold down a steady job. Next, he might try and find a small apartment to stay in. So he makes progress, but at a realistic pace. 

But the real problem with progress that, we all have a different version of it. Maybe he doesn't ever want to be a millionaire. Maybe he just wants to live quietly with nobody to bother him -- we really don't know. Sure, someday, he might say to himself, "Why not become a millionaire?" and see that could be a viable goal for him to reach, but, still, he initiated the process. 

To expect a country to jump from being an oppressive dictatorship to a fair and just democracy is just a tad unlikely. First of all, do the people of that country even want that? Do they know or care yet what it means? Maybe it would be enough for them to simply calm down a little and, oh I don't know, stop blowing themselves up, maybe? Now that would be progress!
 

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