The future latent in the people

Returning to Les Mis, one entire chapter later, I was knocked off my socks by this little paragraph. I couldn't sleep for another thirty minutes. I really like it, and I'll explain why after you read it.

Part 3, Book 1, Chapter 12:

[The narrator is talking about the Parisan street kids] "They cannot read. So much the worse. Will you abandon them for that? Would you make their misfortune their curse? Cannot the light penetrate these masses? let us return to that cry: Light! and let us persist in it! Light! light! Who know but that these opacities will become transparent? are not revolutions transfigurations? Proceed, philosophers, teach, enlighten, enkindle, think aloud, speak aloud, run joyously towards the broad daylight, fraternise alphabets, proclaim human rights, sing your Marseillaises, sow enthusiasms broadcast, tear off green branches from the oak trees. Make thought a whirlwind. This multitude can be sublimated. Let us learn to avail ourselves of this vast combustion of principles and virtues, which sparkles, crackles, and thrills at certain periods. These bare feet, these naked arms, these rags, these shades of ignorance, these depths of abjectness, these abysses of gloom may be employed in the conquest of the ideal. Look through the medium of the people and you shall discern truth. This lowly sand which you trample beneath your feet, if you cast it into the furnace, and let it melt and seethe, shall become resplendent crystal, and by means of such as it a Galileo and a Newton shall discover stars."

One of my heart's rationalizations for helping the poor and oppressed (other than the sheer morality of it, and Jesus' insistence upon it) is that if, for example, all of Africa was given the same level of opportunity we in the "developed" world are offered, that continent would throw off its misnomer, "The Dark Continent", and quite probably supercede our innovation. It's not like Africans are stupid! The library of Alexandria and the University at Timbuktu are both African institutions. There is proof that African's landed in the Americas long before they were named for Amerigo, or by Columbus. If they were only given a chance to breathe and think instead of having to scramble for the scraps of our tables, they might just change the world and change our cliche lives. If this sand which we trample beneath our feet and upon which we offer our libations were allowed to feed themselves, were stirred up by education, were allowed to self-determine the course of their lives without the spectre of AIDS hung by a string above their heads, perhaps, through this replendent crystal, a Mandela and an Achebe will discover stars.