A review of Richard Harwood’s book, Make Hope Real: How We Can Accelerate Change for the Public Good, by Folorunsho Moshood.

Hope is an unquantifiable feeling of expectation and desire for a change that succors to occur. It is that glimpse of light that transcends all things in every gloomy situation.

Authentic hope strives to sustain courage until the expectation is met while false hope destroys courage because the supposedly glimpse of light will fade quickly and pave the way for a gloomier situation.

People’s authentic hope in politics should transcend the expectation of dividends of democracy and should encompass democratic practices that people are using to govern themselves. Richard Harwood’s Make Hope Real, a sequel to Hope Unraveled, is divided into three chapters — The Bottom Line, Getting To A New Reality and The Centrality Of Authentic Hope.

The book shows the practical way of executing what Ernesto Cortex Jr. and Robert Putnam have expressed in their various works on how to create social capital for change. Chapter one reveals Harwood’s deep concern about the foundation — the capacity, conditions, or collective will — necessary to produce the widespread change that does not exist. But people’s yearning for real and long-term change exist.

Having realised that there are pockets of change here and there, Harwood uses chapter two to ask the reader a two-in-one question, ‘How can we understand the important change that is occurring and help accelerate it in the right direction?’ He explores five key ideas for public thinking and action towards answering the question; ‘Focus on the Sweet Spot of Public Life’, ‘Embrace Citizen-Based Values, or Lose Relevance’, ‘A New Breed of Leaders –Who Will Stand Beside Them?’, ‘Activity Happy, yet Action Deprived’ and ‘Create Civic Mind-share’.The first idea reveals where Harwood found the people’s yearning for real change.

On the tour of Hope Unraveled, he found “Sweet Spot of Public Life” that addresses pressing public issues and builds community by strengthening local norms, relationships, networks, organisations, and leaders. In the nurturing process, this brings a demanding two-part challenge.

First, the pockets of change need to be connected to become a deeper force to accelerate progress. Second, the meaning of these pockets should be connected to the broader aspirations within people for public life and politics. The second idea is centered on the re-engagement around citizen-based values.

These are not values that demand ‘do-or-die’ victory and unity at all cost rather they are values that demand simple courtesy rooted in two basic principles of life; an acknowledgement of others even in the face of sharp disagreements, and a mutual understanding of our interdependence. These values have components that call for total commitments of people in discharging their duties and responsibilities to politics and public life taking into consideration integrity, honesty, sincerity, discipline, trust, respect and good attitude.

The third idea opines that followers should always stand beside their good leaders in the face of unwarranted public criticism. It evolves from the fact that politics is now booming with new breed of young and dynamic leaders. Harwood believes that, “Too many of our good leaders are left standing alone naked in the public square just at the moment when they most need us to stand beside them and vouch for their worthiness”.

Even in Nigeria, people kill some of the good ideas of our leaders right from the conception stage. Uniquely public knowledge by the people will nudge good ideas into great ones. The fourth idea reveals how to build a community from the scratch. Building a community from the scratch should eschew setting of unrealistic goals. When people think big and act big, they become a heavy pendulum that gets stuck in the middle.

This is usually characterised by ‘Anti-norms- a lack of positive norms to support and sustain civic work over time’, ‘Lack of knowledge on how to pursue civic engagement’, ‘Lack of political will to support public issues’, ‘Insufficient Boundary Spanning Organisations’ and ‘The impulse to be mechanistic’. The last idea touches on one of the ‘Broken Covenants’ in Hope Unraveled, ‘Materialism and Consumerism Run Amuck’. In Hope Unraveled, Harwood reports how this broken covenant led to the frustrations of people in politics.

But in Make Hope Real, he reports a new dimension, ‘People are not only talking about this mindset as it affects them; they are now talking about their own inability to create room in their lives for meaningful relationships and connections that will address it’. Though people have retreated from politics because of the ‘Broken Covenants’, they do not wish to remain in retreat.

The last chapter warns against peddling the false hope. The path of setting ambiguous and big expectations and exaggerating success can only lead to false hope, which will pave the way for a gloomier situation. Building, spreading and connecting pockets of change, and designing them to accommodate all the five ideas will bring about the authentic hope that sustains courage.

Harwood has written an inspiring and thought-provoking book that scratches beneath the surface of what is required to institute an enduring foundation to make hope real. It is a must read for advocates who will like to sharpen their skills on democratic practices that people are using to govern themselves
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