When victory feels close and unity seems paramount, we are often told to silence our doubt and shut down dissent. But history teaches that real strength lies not in unwavering certainty, but in holding space for uncomfortable questions and the unique voices complicating our established narratives. My essay below reflects on why enduring progress and genuine reconciliation require us to honor hesitation, understand regret, and ask whether things could have been otherwise.
In moments of crisis or great hope, it may be tempting for individuals to find comfort in the language of unity and victory. Throughout history, peoples and movements have looked for turning points, or moments that divide the world neatly into a “before” and “after”, “right” and “wrong”, and perhaps most distinctly “us” and “them”. It is in such moments that we are told to think clearly and that dissent is a distraction.
I nonetheless hesitate in these moments. What about that which we lose when prizing unwavering solidarity over the quiet and oftentimes discomforting questions lingering at the edge of every “victory”?
The most enduring challenges, in a nation or individual, rarely come from a single voice or movement devoid of ambiguity. In fact, the most persistent of legacies are those shaped in the gray space between conviction and doubt. These are, in other words, the long discussions had between the like-minded and the simply unconvinced. The coalitions that define one era often seem, retrospectively, less solid than they may have appeared, given that time’s certainties may perhaps prove worthless later.
I will admit that it is tempting to treat hesitation, like my aforementioned own, as a sort of weakness. We are repeatedly told in this world that history belongs to those who don’t bend, who don’t break, who never give in, never never never. That is to quote Churchill. But circumstances change. I argue it is just as critical to remember those who do hesitate, who tried to listen for voices moving against the current or who refused to be rushed. Because sometimes, it is the doubters and slow-changers of the world who sense deeper currents beneath the visible surface; who, afterwards, can truly say they rightly feared our collectively attained wounds and regrets.
I am therefore wary of movements seeking to close the ranks so tightly that the air grows thin. In every story I have found memorable, there are always those who kept faith in the possibility of recourse even when it threatened to complicate both their own position and the larger narrative. These individuals understood no coalition, irrespective of nobility or necessity, can fairly remain unexamined, and that the health of any community rests as much on its willingness to listen as on the same to act.
Strength is not found in the eradication of differences, but in the ability to hold firm in moments of tension. There is certainly always a risk of, in a moment of urgency, retreating into the mass applause and shutting out what we deem uncomfortable. But I would argue true reconciliation can begin only when we acknowledge every cause no matter its justness must leave room for reflection and, even, regret.
We live with the consequences of how we win, you know. The echoes of the voices left out in every victory we attain can forever ring even if ignored. The past can always be close, and whether in the form of pride or shame, it serves as a question.
That question, which we pass on to future generations, is not a perfectly defended boundary, but the possibility that someone, somewhere, will ask: “Could it have been otherwise?”
I don’t want certainty. I want to be convinced that the future memory of how we navigated the crises of today is regarded as hope-inducing.