By Heba Raouf One of the lessons of history is that every historical event has many faces and multiple dimensions. For me, 9/11 marks the moment in my life when I became exposed to what recently has been called "global civil society". At that time I was heavily engaged with the website islamonline.net. Minutes after the horrific attack we were flooded by thousands of e-mails from all parts of the world. The passion and the anger, two sides of the human psyche, were unbelievable. Weeks after 9/11, the American empire decided the moment was good to implement its bid for hegemony, declaring a global war on terror while bombing and occupying Afghanistan and Iraq. I was stunned by the reaction of global citizens. Millions joined the anti-war movement, demonstrating and protesting, with thousands of activists organising campaigns on the Internet and on the ground, and even some forefront comrades sacrificing their lives in Palestine and other places where hegemony politics threatened to eradicate the basic human notions of human civility we share across civilisations and cultures. The brutality of the 9/11 attacks tested indeed the capacity of many Western citizens to transcend anger and defend justice, advocate freedom and struggle for peace and reconciliation, positioning themselves as human beings not as silent subjects of their respective countries. I have no illusions. As wars continue, so does the human spirit of hope. This is what life is all about: the dialectic between opposites and the endeavour of coming to terms with paradoxes, failures and catastrophes that form landmarks on the map of history. I learned that the "soft power" of the human heart and soul is destined to win in its struggle against the hard power of the modern state and its military arsenals. The struggle to make sense of the world continues, but I am more optimistic than I have ever been. Those who believe a better world is possible are on the right track. And we are not a minority. We are everywhere. This week's Soapbox speaker is a lecturer at Cairo University's Faculty of Economics and Political Science and a democracy activist.
