“Ode to Joy” in April 2025 – are you sure?
“Friends, Not This Despair”, these are the opening lines of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. “Freunde, nicht diese Worte!”, in German. The symphony doesn’t open with triumphant choruses. It opens with confusion, anger, and darkness — low strings groping for meaning. Only later, after struggle and silence, does the melody of joy emerge.
Most movements begin this way: not with millions joining hands, but with a few isolated voices — or even just one.
A friend recently urged me to write a “happier” story for our community group.
"Your stories are good, very good," he said. "But they’re gloomy. Even the humor is bitter. Try something joyful."
I tried. I wrote about certain victory, about millions reaching out to humanity.
Some people smiled.
But my wife quietly said, "It’s a little schmalzy."
Other friends stayed politely silent.
She was right.
They were right.
We are not there yet. We don’t know when — or even if — we’ll get there.
It’s important to acknowledge there is an essential loneliness in the beginning of our struggle for a better future. Then, later, we find friends, comrades. We get stronger, many moments of joy follow, connections, laughter, and occasionally even the ecstasy of success.
But the beginning…. We are not sure if it will matter, or if anyone will join.
History books celebrate movements once they are strong, have succeeded, but they rarely capture the first, solitary steps.
We act without knowing the outcome. We hope without guarantees.
We risk being ignored, mocked, or crushed.
Beethoven knew this feeling.
So did Simon & Garfunkel, writing songs of isolation before the protests of the sixties went mainstream.
"Ten thousand people, maybe more / People talking without speaking / People hearing without listening..."
It begins in silence. It begins with fear — fear of retaliation from the authorities, and fear of social humiliation: of being the neighbor no one wants to talk to, the troublemaker who embarrasses the family.
And that is where we are. But is it?
No, I say, “that’s where we WERE”. Past tense. We are not in silence anymore, we are not petrified staring at the snake, following its every move and shuddering in fear. Our movement has found traction. On April 6, hundreds of protest marches took place across the country, they are continuing every weekend. Much doubt and counter pressures have been raised across the judiciary, the education system, and the business community. For us, this is our second community meeting – we will continue.
It is not enough and there will be setbacks, for sure. Moments of despair and loneliness. But we will pick each other up, begin again.
The fourth movement of the 9th symphony begins not with a triumphant chorus, but with cellos and basses—two voices, tentative in the dark. When I play the cello in the orchestra, I find myself moved to tears each time we join the basses to introduce that final, uplifting melody. We connect, one string player to another, basses and cellos, speaking as one voice before sharing the theme with the entire orchestra.
Just two instruments, connecting.
This is how resistance begins, again and again.
After 400 years of European wars of destruction, the Ode to Joy became the anthem of the European Union. Not because millions joined at once, but because some refused to retreat.
So: to the lonely judges, the university administrators, the business leaders who dare to stand up — thank you.
And thanks to all of you here in the room. Each of you makes it easier for the next person to find their voice.
Each of you helps to break the silence, again and again.