"Despair is a black leather jacket in which everyone looks good, while hope is a frilly pink dress few dare to wear. Rebecca Solnit thinks this virtue needs to be redefined.

Here she takes to our pulpit to deliver a sermon that looks at the remarkable social changes of the past half century, the stories the mainstream media neglects and the big surprises that keep on landing.

She explores why disaster makes us behave better and why it's braver to hope than to hide behind despair's confidence and cynicism's safety.

History is not an army. It's more like a crab scuttling sideways. And we need to be brave enough to hope change is possible in order to have a chance of making it happen."

"From revolutions and protests to riots and unrests: young people are taking their fight for the future to the streets. Intergenerational contracts have become obsolete, with many young people feeling robbed of their future in the light of the employment crisis, a damaged environment and social inequality. Observers and activists describe a world awakening with rage, and a revolt of the young that has only just begun. But what will happen next?"

"My sarcasm is, of course, a thinly veiled attempt to point out how absurd it is to refer to events in Iran, Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere as the Twitter Revolution, the Facebook Revolution, and so on. What we call things, the names we use to identify them, has incredible symbolic power, and I, for one, refuse to associate corporate brands with struggles for human dignity."

"a Tunisian street vendor who burned himself to death on December 17, 2010, in protest of the confiscation of his wares and the humiliation that was inflicted on him by a female municipal official. This act became the catalyst for the 2010–2011 Tunisian uprising, sparking deadly demonstrations and riots throughout Tunisia in protest of social and political issues in the country. Anger and violence intensified following Bouazizi's death, leading then-President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to step down after 23 years in power.<br />
<br />
Following Bouazizi's self-immolation, several other men have emulated this act in other Arab republics in an attempt to bring an end to the oppression they face from corrupt autocratic governments. Although none have elicited significant results, they and Bouazizi are being hailed by some as "heroic martyrs of a new Middle Eastern revolution."

"Does Facebook have to go the extra mile to support activists? …preliminary work has been done to create a special complaint reporting process for NGOs & other activists…<br />
…certainly don't seem to be under any obligations to provide special treatment. But if Facebook really is becoming the public sphere—& wants to remain central to people's real sociopolitically embedded lives—maybe they're going to have to think beyond the situational technical fix. Facebook needs to own its position as a part of The Way the World Works & provide protections for political speech & actors.<br />
…protests & overthrow of Ben Ali were just beginning of story. Hopes are high, but…so many times in global south, exit of one corrupt dictator usually means entrance of another. To avoid that fate, politically active Tunisians will be using all of tools at disposal, including & maybe especially, Facebook. In fact, Rim said, it's already being used to debate how to create a new government & a better Tunisia."