#211 – Dick Bernard: Creating History, "Fact" vs "Story"

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“History: 1) an account of what has happened; narrative; story; tale.”
Websters New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, 1979 edition
July 8, about 6 p.m., I arrived at Bismarck ND, where I was to attend a French in America conference. My father was 100% French-Canadian, and I’d just completed a 500 page book on his family’s history, so the conference was a great reason for a trip (and an excellent experience, by the way.)
I was tired, but before I checked into my hotel I wanted to find the site where General Henry Hastings Sibley and troops had reached the Missouri River in the summer of 1863. A long-ago relative, Private Samuel Collette, had been one of the 2800 troops under Sibley’s command. I found the site (General Sibley Campground 3 or 4 miles south of downtown Bismarck at the south end of Washington Street). The next day I was at the ND Capitol grounds, and saw a large pie-shaped monument on the grounds. It turned out to be a map of the last part of the Sibley campaign. The Sibley venture had been, apparently, a very important event in the history of North Dakota, which was to become a state 26 years later. His unit had been in what is now Bismarck July 29-August 1, 1863.

Map of the last portion of the Gen. Henry Hastings Sibley Campaign in 1863


There were some likely facts leading to my interest: I had Samuel Collette’s military records from 1862-63; I now had seen the end-point of the campaign he’d been part of, and knew the many stops in between Minnesota and the Missouri River.
Beyond this, everything was story: the varied interpretations of why Sibley went west, and their meaning etc. etc. Such it is with history: as the above definition suggests, history is simply a collection of stories, perhaps illuminating, perhaps confusing or deliberately distorting.
The family history I had written, which was many years in the making, is many things. But a primary celebration of the history was the recording of stories, particularly of my common folk ancestors: a collective story which included their own recollections, or second or third hand recollections, or documents or written records. I was lucky in that I had a cadre of past and present family members who seemed to have an interest in recording people and events, including through photographs. But my reality is similar to most common families: people lacked literacy, or the time, or the interest, to record things that later generations might find interesting or significant. And every family has pieces of their tale that they’d rather not tell – the hidden and untold story is part of every narrative, without exception. So, for me, the task became assembling a puzzle from assorted scraps of evidence. A very significant portion of those 500 pages were stories recorded by various people over many years. I didn’t call these “facts”; rather they were “stories”. I acknowledged the missing pieces in the book….
On the final afternoon of the conference, I “skipped school” for a couple of hours, just to drive around Bismarck, a city I had last visited 25 years earlier.
Driving down the Main Street of the town, towards the Missouri River bridge, I saw a most unusual sign:

My curiosity was peaked, and I set out to find this Memorial. There was a monument (below) and on two plaques at this Memorial were two very carefully written narratives defining the composers view of the “Global War on Terrorism”. The words on the plaques are reprinted below, and speak for themselves. The Memorial was dedicated September 11, 2009.

Global War on Terrorism Memorial


Were these indelible words representations of “facts”, or were they, simply, some unnamed person’s “story” – a carefully written attempt to fashion a heroic one-sided narrative of a troubling and divisive time in United States history? This “War on a Word” (Terrorism) almost ruined us economically, and severely tarnished our reputation as an ethical society through things like sanctioned use of torture. We lost standing as a part of the world community; and reputation lost is difficult to regain.
Did the permanent recording of heroic victorious words in bronze, in a public space, with a sign showing the way to them, elevate them from “story” into “fact”, more significant than other stories? Or were they, rather, simply an attempt to diminish or eliminate other stories, perhaps even more factual, from the community consciousness?
Earlier, in driving around Bismarck, on individual lawns I saw Peace signs on a couple of lawns. I wonder what their opinion of that Terrorism Memorial might be.

Peace sign in Bismarck ND July 9, 2010


Let the conversation continue.
*****
The Story as told by the plaques at the Global War on Terrorism Memorial:
#1
THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERRORISM
Operation Enduring Freedom
Operation Enduring Freedom began October 7, 2001, in Afghanistan following al-Qaeda’s attack on the United State on September 11, 2001, and has also included operations in the Philippines, Horn of Africa, Trans Sahara, and Kyrgyzstan. In October, 2006, NATO forces, led by the United States and United Kingdom, assumed command of Coalition forces. Afghani Presidential elections were held in October, 2004, and parliamentary elections followed in October, 2005. The enemy continues to resist the elected government of Afghanistan and Coalition efforts to secure freedom and democracy for Afghan citizens.
Operation Iraqi Freedom
Operation Iraqi Freedom began on March 20, 2003, with the liberation of Iraq. Coalition forces from 40 nations participated in military action in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. By mid-April, 2003, Coalition forces began restoring civil services, despite violence aimed at the new Iraqi government and Coalition forces. In 2006 the first democratic elections were held. On June 29, 2009, United States forces withdrew from Baghdad and other cities across Iraq.
“We seek peace, knowing that peace is the climate of freedom” Dwight Eisenhower
#2
Memorial to the Fallen
in the Global War on Terrorism
This Memorial is dedicated to the members of the United States military and Department of Defense civilians who lost their lives in the Global War on Terrorism. It is a place where families, friends and fellow citizens can reflect on the lives of the Fallen and remember their service to our country. It was funded through the generosity of businesses, organizations and individuals throughout North Dakota and across the United States. The memorial is a joint venture between the City of Bismarck and the North Dakota National Guard.
The Battlefield Cross
The Battlefield Cross has been used as a visible reminder of a deceased comrade since the Civil War. The helmet and identification tags signify the Fallen. The inverted weapon with bayonet signals a time for prayer, a break in the action to pay tribute to the Fallen. The combat boots represent the final march of the last battle.
“We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we we will always be free.” President Ronald Reagan

#210 – Dick Bernard: A Farm Freezer, Haiti, the Oil Spill and US

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Monday, July 12, was the six month anniversary of the catastrophic earthquake that devastated Port-au-Prince and area in Haiti.
That same day, I spent a few hours helping my Uncle and Aunt, out at their now-empty North Dakota farm. (They’ve lived in a nearby town for several years – an option they don’t like, but the only reasonable option they have. They are at an age, and their medical conditions are such, that they could no longer survive independently on this place where they lived as brother and sister for over 80 years. My uncle is 85, his sister, my aunt, turns 90 a week from today. Their house remains much as they left it, but they don’t live there, only frequent visits.)
One of Monday’s tasks was to empty their freezer which included frozen produce from their garden, some of it ten years old. They knew it had to be done: my uncle, in fact, brought up the idea. That produce in that freezer would never be used by anyone, including themselves. But the notion of wasting this food was reprehensible to him. He was nine years old during the worst year of the Great Depression in ND, 1934, and he knows what it is like to have nothing.
We unloaded the freezer, and put its contents on the back of his old pickup truck, and drove down to the family garden – a one acre plot, used by the family for many years. The garden is still used by the couple, but only a tiny portion of it is planted. They don’t have the energy to garden more, and even if they did, the produce would go to waste: for them, it is unusable.
During the Depression and other bygone years, there were eight people or more who depended on that garden, but the prospects of even a small crop to harvest and process for the winter were not always good. Once experienced, one tends not to forget such experiences.
Those bygone years, the normal process was to pressure cook and can the food, in sealed glass jars. There was no electricity and thus no freezer; there were no plastic bags – a product of the petroleum industry. Kids now-a-days would be hard-pressed to even imagine the planting/growing/harvesting/preserving process which people of my generation grew up with. Forced to live that way again, most of us would not survive, literally.
Down at the garden we emptied the plastic bags which had held the frozen produce of the farm: spinach, corn, beans, peas, broccoli, onions, apples, and on and on and on. Considering it was ten years worth, it really wasn’t a lot of, as my uncle would say, “wasted food”.
While he was sitting on the tail gate of the truck, opening and emptying the bags, he was lamenting the waste, here, while so many people were starving elsewhere. No, he didn’t think that frozen bag of kernel corn should be sent to Haiti; more so, the notion of waste was on his mind. He wants to help, but how? People his age get endless appeals for funds from all manner of agencies. My advice to him: throw them away unless you know the group is good. So many are simply scams.
I doubt that he – or I, for that matter – thought about the amount of electricity that had to be consumed to keep that food frozen….
Haiti, and that waste at the farm unexpectedly came together for me a little later in the day. Back at my temporary home in the local motel, I flipped on the television, and happened across a CSPAN program recorded earlier that day: a panel discussing Haiti six months after the earthquake. The program is well worth watching. It had not occurred to me till that moment that July 12 was indeed the six months anniversary of that humanitarian disaster.
Back home in the Twin Cities the next day, there were several e-mails with varying perspectives six months after the quake in Haiti. Mostly, though, Haiti is out of sight, out of mind, even for people like myself who have a great interest in Haiti.
More on our minds, currently, is the catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico: hundreds of millions of gallons of crude oil befouling the Gulf: oil which was to be used for the fuel that got me out to that North Dakota farm, and back; and which was used for to manufacture those plastic bags we had just emptied.
Mostly, for most of us, life goes on. “Don’t worry, be happy”. We’ll always have it all.
Don’t count on it.

From the garden, back to the garden


The farm garden, before an acre, presently only a small plot.

#207: Johan van Parys: Thoughts on Forgiveness

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Dr. Johan van Parys is Director of Liturgy at Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis, and the lead article in the Sunday June 27 church bulletin was this powerful commentary.
Thoughts on Forgiveness
Paris is one of those magical cities. No matter what time of year one visits, the city has a way of capturing a person’s imagination. I don’t quite remember how many times I have been to Paris. Growing up in neighboring Belgium it made for an easy trip. Surprisingly, there was one monument never visited until my last trip there: the Mémorial des Martyrs de la Déportation, the memorial to those deported from France during World War II.
My grandfather and the other men working in my grandmother’s shoe factory were deported to Nazi camps because she refused to make shoes for the Nazi army. The family home was occupied and my grandmother and great-grandmother were made to work for Nazi officers. When my grandmother died, I inherited her papers including the moving letters my grandfather sent from the camp as well as letters from one of the officers who had occupied my grandmother’s house. The latter include descriptions of the devastation of his village; about the death of his two sons; and about the horrors of the war. Most striking was his plea for forgiveness.
Until I read these letters I had been unable to visit any death camps or memorials for those who died in the Second World War. After getting a glimpse of the power of forgiveness that was revealed to me through these letters, I was moved to learning and visiting. Thus I went to the Mémorial des Martyrs de la Déportation. It was an amazing experience.
At the edge of one of the islands in the river Seine a narrow and steep stairway leads down to the memorial courtyard. A low-level fenced-in window is the only place that allows a glimpse of the outside. A severe sculpture representing imprisonment and torture hangs in front of this window. On the opposite side, a narrow door guarded by two oppressive columns barely allows entrance into the memorial itself.
The main installation, on the far end of the foyer, is a long narrow corridor lined with 200,000 quartz crystals, one for each man, woman, child deported from France by during the Second World War. A rod-iron gate prevents entrance. An eternal flame burns at the very end of the corridor.
This extraordinary building captures those who enter it from the very first moment, guiding them down the narrow steps, through the courtyard, into the foyer, to the wall of remembrance and the eternal flame. This journey takes each person through the reality of the suffering of these particular people and all human suffering, to the light of hope for humanity which too often seems untenable and almost absurd.
My walk back to the hotel took me past Notre Dame Cathedral. I could not but enter and light a candle for all those who are suffering at the hand of other people. I stayed for Vespers and prayed “Thy Kingdom Come” with more fervor than ever before.

#194 – Dick Bernard: Thoughts on "illegals", "Mexicans" et al.

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Four of us hit the road from the Twin Cities to Denver early tomorrow morning.
We will look like pretty typical older people, and unless we do something crazy, will probably make the trip out and back without attracting any attention whatsoever, even on Memorial Day when the police are thick as flies in a farmyard.
Not so routine today or other times is the travel of somebody who looks different than me, and I’m guessing that there’s considerable nervousness these days for people with a browner complexion down in Arizona, especially.
A couple of days ago I was in the local post office in our suburb. At a counter were a couple of young brown-skinned guys speaking Spanish, talking about some form or other that one was filling out. They seemed pretty normal to me. Did they have papers?!
A week or so earlier I had been in North Dakota visiting relatives (see the May 28 post). In the Fargo Forum was a front page article about a carload of illegals who had been arrested at a neighboring town. They, in fact, did not have papers. They were reporting to work for some farmer who was planting a very labor intensive crop. He couldn’t find locals who would do the work and he contracted with someone in Oregon to provide workers who were supposed to be legals. Not so, it turned out. Ironically, he was, as one would say legally, “aiding and abetting”, as was the contractor in Oregon, but neither of them were culpable. Only the workers without papers were in trouble. Somehow the farmer had to find some kind of labor to put in his crop. That was his penalty. I wonder if he’s succeeded.
This mornings e-mails brought a commentary which helped to explain the insanity we seem to be living under in this country. It came from a Rhode Island newspaper, reprinted in an Arizona paper, and it is very interesting, about the contrast between Canada (much tougher on immigration, it turns out) and the U.S. (much less effective and less humane in dealing with the problem.)
Succinctly, if I read the column correctly, there were active attempts as far back as the mid-1980s to change U.S. immigration law to deal with some very real problems. A law was passed, but a crucial part was pulled from the bill by someone, probably in the U.S. Senate. The portion pulled apparently was a provision that held employers responsible for making sure their hires were legals. Employer responsibility was a bit too difficult to swallow. Rather they take their chances with occasionally losing cheap labor, than to share responsibility with that same cheap labor for their sins.
I’ve seen lots of “Mexicans” working at various occupations here in the Twin Cities. By and large they do very good work. Since I only see their work, I don’t know if they’re legal or not. They are contributors to this society, rather than drags on us.
They, and others, like the Haitians in the Rhode Island column, for the most part come to our country to make a menial living – but more than in their own country – and send lots of money home to their families. Their crime is only wanting a tiny share of our great wealth, and then share it with their families back home – much like our immigrant ancestors of older days.
We don’t much like to share, except on our own terms.
I’ll end up in Denver on Wednesday.
It was in Denver a number of years ago that I had a conversation with my son, then manager of a local restaurant near a university.
Tom’s crew was by and large Spanish-speaking, with only minimal English. He thought they had the proper papers, but one never knows for sure.
He mentioned that what they sometimes lacked in promptness they more than made up in quality of work, including finding somebody to fill in for them when they were gone. They were, it was clear, his most reliable employees.
Were they “Legals”? I’m not so sure.
Immigration Law plays much better as a political issue than as an object of true reform.
Until politicians cannot play politics with the issue, the issue will remain….

#190 – Dick Bernard: Four Films

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Someone looking for me would not start at movie theaters: movies are an infrequent destination.
Still, in the past seven days I viewed four films in four very different venues. Each of the films had (and have) diverse messages…beyond the films themselves.
Last Sunday, the destination was The Minneapolis Film Festival showing of a documentary, “The Unreturned” by a couple of young filmmakers. Nathan Fisher, one of the two who made the film, was in attendance. The film covers a topic essentially untalked about: the fact that 4.7 million Iraqis, largely of the middle class, and representing perhaps a sixth of Iraq’s population, were displaced by the Iraq War, mostly to neighboring Syria and Jordan. (Iraq, before the war, was roughly the population and geographical size of California.)
The Unreturned views the world through the lens of several of these refugees, who didn’t want to leave Iraq, and would have wanted to go home to Iraq, but cannot for circumstances beyond their control. At the end of the film, one person in the audience noted that 4.7 million refugees was essentially equal to the population of Minnesota (5 million). This is a huge number, with equivalent impact: like the entire population of Minnesota uprooted and ending up in Wisconsin….
I think the 200 or so of us in the theater last Sunday would agree with the later assessment of this film, ranked among the best in the entire festival.
Monday night, a friend and I hosted a meeting at a south Minneapolis church for 30 representatives from 22 twin cities groups which have an active interest/involvement in Haiti. We showed the film “Road to Fondwa“, which can be watched on-line for free. Road to Fondwa was filmed a couple of years ago by university students. Its theme is rural life in Haiti. Since it was filmed before the earthquake of January, 2010, it shows how life was before Fondwa was devastated (Fondwa is near the epicenter of the quake). I was particularly taken by the notion of “konbit”, a Kreyol work meaning gathering, cooperation, working together. We could use a lot more of that!
Friday afternoon I attended a showing of another Minneapolis Film Fest entry, Poto Mitan, yet another young film makers entry. The Director of this film, a young professor at New York University, concentrates on five Haitian peasant women struggling to survive Haiti’s harsh economic realities. Each of the five women tell their own stories in their own language. Filming began in 2006, and the film was released in 2009. Like all of the other films, this one is subtitled. At this showing, the Director, Dr. Mark Schuller, was with us, and led a discussion afterwards. He’s a very impressive young man.
Then there is the fourth film, actually a 12 hour documentary over a period of weeks on the History Channel. It is called “America: the story of us“, and I was really looking forward to it when the first episode played a week ago Sunday night. My anticipation turned rapidly to disappointment (though I intend to watch the whole thing) because it became obvious that the intent of the film was to portray America’s history in the image of some old conservative politicians and big business and entertainers. The politicians have, so far, been regular on-screen “experts”, and the production apparently is underwritten by a major U.S. bank. It is too early to judge the entire production, but my guess is that this America will be portrayed as a heroic place with few warts, won by free enterprise, guns and military prowess. So be it. I’m waiting to see how the Iraq War will be spun, and the Obama era. Google America the Story of us and find lots of reviews of this epic….
The first three films do one thing that the fourth film does not: they allow the real people to do the speaking about the reality. In the last one, so far, it is only the experts that have the say.
If the youth of this country are represented by the first three filmmakers, we stand a chance.

#168 – Dick Bernard: Martti Ahtisaari, Peace Prize winner and a teacher

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The posts for March 7&8 relate to this post. UPDATE March 15, 2010, Minneapolis Star Tribune editorial writer John Rash wrote a column about Mr. Ahtisaari.

Friday, March 5, I had the opportunity to observe a great teacher in action: 2008 Nobel Peace Prize winner Martti Ahtisaari speaking to school children; Martti Ahtisaari participating in a low-key and very casual lunch and conversation with ordinary people; Martti Ahtisaari talking about mediation of the worlds greatest problems to an audience of adults.
In each venue he appeared to be at ease, comfortable with his company, comfortable with himself.

Martti Ahtisaari speaks to children at Augsburg Nobel Peace Prize Festival March 5, 2010


Mr. Ahtisaari is a little older than I am, and certainly far more famous, and by all accounts far more accomplished as well.
But he tended to burst that celebrity bubble by his demeanor in person, and by his comments both to school children, and later to adults, at the Nobel Peace Prize and Forum.
Ahtisaari quietly asserted that the dynamics for settling even the most difficult problems resides most effectively with leaders in local communities. He mentioned at one point a wait of two years before the most effective mediator within a particular society was identified – a person who could help bring parties together to settle a long festering conflict.
Even from far away, you could sense that this man is a listener, one who wants to know to whom he is speaking, and listening even while speaking. In the evening we were in a dark auditorium, and he asked for lights so that he could at least see those to whom he was speaking.
I have participated in many mediations over the years, and came to feel that skill as a mediator is as much a gift as it is a specific set of professional tools and tactics. Someone like Mr. Ahtisaari has to be a very keen observer and a very active listener. When he asked for lights, he was saying much about his style, talking with, more than talking at, an audience.
Another essential skill for a mediator is the ability to be very, very patient.
After receiving the Peace Prize in 2008, he was invited to join The Elders, a prestigious group of leaders with a world reputation.
Among his role models were Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu of South Africa, both of whom are legendary in reconciliation with enemies who most would have found difficult to forgive.
I don’t recall anything dramatic in Ahtisaari’s talks (at any rate, the auditorium was too dark to take notes!). He was a down-to-earth man, seeming to be completely congruent with his roots in rural Finland.
Someone asked him to comment on his successor as Nobel Peace Prize winner, Barack Obama. He said he was honored to precede President Obama. Someone else asked about Obama’s military engagement in Afghanistan. To this listener, Ahtisaari understood the quandary faced by the U.S. President.
We tend to set on a pedestal people of Martti Ahtisaari’s stature.
Mr. Ahtisaari in his quiet but persuasive way said to all of us, “you can do it, too, and you must….

Martii Ahtisaari with World Citizen founder Lynn Elling, March 5, 2010

#167 – Dick Bernard: Words Affirming Human Oneness

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The posts for March 7 and 9 relate to this post.
I would invite you to read the Affirmation of Human Oneness, and then scroll through the translations into over 40 languages of that Affirmation. Later return to the site to read more about the history of the Affirmation, about its author Joseph Schwartzberg, and also about Lynn Elling, whose Declaration at the same site is the reason for the site.
Friday, March 5, 2010, was the first appearance on the internet of the now-42 translations of Professor Schwartzberg’s Affirmation of Human Oneness, a statement he had first crafted in 1976, and over the years has been slightly modified* (link noted in previous paragraph). Also on March 5, I displayed for the first time a notebook including all of the translations for a display at the Nobel Peace Prize Festival and Forum (see #166 for March 7).
The Affirmation remains a work in progress. Dr Schwartzberg notes that amongst all the languages and dialects of the world, “at least one of these languages [on this website] will be understood by well over 95% of the world’s literate population”
It was interesting to note the reactions of people of all ages to the translations. A number of visitors either came from or had grown up in a country with a language other than English.
If their specific language appeared in the book, their eyes lit up; if not, they were disappointed.
Language, whether written or only verbal, is a very important part of the identity of people. (Dr. Schwartzberg continues to seek proper translations into many other languages.)
I noted something else from the visitors as well. Some would look at a specific translation (each prepared by someone with recognized competence in the language), and suggest that an incorrect word* or interpretation had been used to represent a specific word in Professor Schwartzberg’s original. This is an inevitable problem when persons seek to interpret a language, including their own.
But even with these disagreements, it was still enjoyable to see persons eyes light up when they saw that the Affirmation had been presented in their language, and in its own unique script. That the words were there on a piece of paper conveyed a sense that their culture was valued.
The internet, which was barely taking off by the early 1990s, when Dr. Schwartzberg sought the translations, has become a major means of conveying knowledge and understanding, and now the Affirmation in many languages is on the ‘net, instantly accessible anywhere in the world.
Diverse persons can now dialogue about the words and their significance, and about how we all, regardless of language, can better relate to each other. This is a hopeful development, and I’m happy I could be part of it.

Some of the Title Lines of the Affirmation, in 21 world languages.


* – Part of this discrepancy flows from the fact that the Affirmation is still a work in progress, and on occasion over the years a word or phrase was changed after a translation had been made.
PS: There is a footnote to this story. When I developed the idea for www.amillioncopies.info in 2007, my specific intention was to make it as a tribute to Lynn Elling. But I also knew, at the time, of Dr. Schwartzberg’s Affirmation of Human Oneness, and it seemed an ideal companion to the Declaration of World Citizenship. So the two separate works have appeared side by side, with the permission of both men.
It was not until the evening of March 5, 2010, that I learned from Prof. Schwartzberg that Lynn Elling, back in the 1970s, had in large part helped to inspire him to read the book that inspired the Affirmation (See Dr. Schwartzberg’s Prefatory Statement.)

#166 – Dick Bernard: Nobel Peace Prize Festival at Augsburg College, Minneapolis MN March 5-6, 2010

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#167 & #168, published March 8&9, relate to the following post as well. (Here’s a photo album of some pictures I took at the Festival.)
After lunch on Friday, March 5, I was seated on the dais with four others, opening the afternoon program of the 15th annual Nobel Peace Prize Festival.
Seated to my left was high school exchange student Naweed A., an impressive young man from Kabul, Afghanistan, who is spending the year in Minneapolis. Naweed and a number of his colleague students attended the Festival. They are here under the auspices of the World Link program. To my right was my friend, Lynn Elling, now 89 and co-founder of the Peace Prize Festival, founder of World Citizen, and recipient of the 2010 World Citizen Award (presenting this award was my reason for being on stage). To Mr. Elling’s right was Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb, Pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem, and Dr. Geir Lundestad, Director of the Nobel Institute in Oslo, the organization which grants the Nobel Peace Prize each year. It was inspiring for me to be part of this program, and a privilege to be on stage with them.

Dick Bernard and Naweed A, March 5, 2010


Earlier in the program, 2008 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Martti Ahtisaari, dipomat and former president of Finland, spoke to the several hundred elementary and secondary school students. He also spoke later at the more adult-oriented Nobel Peace Prize Forum, since 1988 an annual collaborative event which rotates among the five midwest Norwegian Lutheran Colleges (in Minnesota: Augsburg (Minneapolis), St. Olaf (Northfield) and Concordia (Moorhead); in Iowa, Luther (Decorah); and in South Dakota, Augustana, (Sioux Falls).
Mr. Ahtisaari is an immensely impressive diplomat, recently invited to become part of the outstanding leaders group known as The Elders. Men and women in Mr. Ahtisaari’s profession of mediating disputes know the rout to “yes” is slow, often torturous, but worth the trip. It was a privilege to meet him.

Martti Ahtisaari and Lynn Elling March 5, 2010


At the Festival (for the past 15 years an annual program at Augsburg), the program which flowed from the adults to the students was basically verbal. From the students to the adults and their fellow students the messages sent were musical and visual, singing, instrumental music, displays and interactive projects celebrating peace and past laureates.
It strikes me each time I see this dichotomy of communication, that if adult words could somehow be replaced with or at least augmented by music, art or dialogue, our conversation amongst peoples might be a bit different than it is. More on this tomorrow.

All the adult speakers were clear that the future is for the children to build.
Mr. Ahtisaari, who was born in Finland in 1937, and became a refugee at two years of age when his part of Finland was taken over by the Soviet Union, would have been the age of Naweed in about 1954. I thought of Naweed in context with the Nobel Laureate.
In not too long, Naweed and his generation will be the ones responsible for the future of their planet. My hope is that they will be better stewards of the earth than we have been. They will have to be better stewards, or there will be no future for them. Particularly in the 20th century, we had the unfortunate luxury in the west to waste and destroy earth’s riches. We also built the means to destroy ourselves. The next generations need to preserve and rebuild.
My hope for them: that they do not repeat, and indeed start to reverse, our abundant mistakes.
To Naweed and his generation all over Planet Earth, my best wishes for a great future.
I invite you to read the post to follow on Words, at this space, March 8, 2010.
And listen to this song on YouTube, forwarded by a friend today.

from left: Geir Lundestad, Lynn Elling, Ahweed Ahmadzai, Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb, Dick Bernard


World Link Exchange Students with Martti Ahtisaari at Augsburg Nobel Peace Prize Festival March 5, 2010


Naweed Ahmadzai and Martti Ahtisaari at 2010 Nobel Peace Prize Festival

#164 – Dick Bernard: Haiti, an Anniversary

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Six years ago today – actually it was February 29, 2004, Leap Year – Haiti’s President was loaded on a United States aircraft and removed from Haiti. The United States called it a “resignation” by Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Aristide – who should know – said it was not a resignation. Whatever the case, President Aristide was history, and the six subsequent years have not been kind to Haiti, not the least of which have been the natural disasters visited on Haiti by four hurricanes in 2008, and the earthquake of January 12, 2010.
Whatever problems Aristide and his government supposedly had were not solved by the coup/resignation. Haiti’s continued problems and even acceleration of those problems the last six years have simply been “disappeared” by our government and the media.
In a very sad way, the collapsed Presidential Palace in Port-au-Prince symbolizes Haiti today. Places like the Palace are symbols. Haiti’s symbol is in ruins….

Presidential Palace, Port-au-Prince, December 7, 2003


Elections which were supposed to be held in February or March, 2010, have been postponed, and in any event, the major party, Lavalas, which was Aristide’s party, was to have been kept off the ballot due to some technicality or other. Lavalas represented the poor constituency in Haiti. The poor apparently deserve no representation or right to select their own candidates. That is my “spin” of how elections are managed in Haiti..
Two personal insights come to mind this day:
1) In November, 2003, a month before I left for my first trip to Haiti, I was seated next to a Catholic Priest from Port-au-Prince at a dinner in Minneapolis. I knew next to nothing about Haiti at that point, and made the (apparent) mistake of commenting favorably about what I had heard about Aristide. The Priest, who I did not know, “bobbed and weaved” his way out of having to comment. He was very uncomfortable. It struck me as curious, then, but not for long. I entered my experience with Haiti, trusting U.S. Government sources for honest information about Haiti. Within a year I completely lost that trust. I came to find that I was either lied to, or ignored, when I asked questions.
2) Most recently, within the past two weeks, I was at a session where an American survivor of the quake spoke. The speaker had arrived in Port-au-Prince just a few hours before the quake, and a few days later was evacuated from the country. The individual had stayed in the U.S. Embassy prior to departure.
During the session, I asked about that new United States embassy in Port-au-Prince, which is a new structure, and is by all accounts one of the largest U.S. embassies anywhere in the world. It was observed by someone in the audience that photographs of the embassy are all but forbidden around the Embassy; further that while the Embassy was built to withstand earthquakes, and in fact was basically undamaged, everything in the vicinity of the Embassy, outside its walls, had been severely damaged or destroyed in the quake.
It was then I remembered an exercise in frustration during 2004-2006, when I tried to find out where a purported $50 Million in U.S. Aid for Haiti had gone. It was listed in a December, 2003, news release on the U.S. State Department website, and I had simply asked the question “who got the money?” I thought it would be an easy question to answer. But two years and a Freedom of Information Act request later, I had gotten no further than learning that the people who could answer my question were at U.S. AID and Department of Defense. It became very clear that neither one wanted to answer my question, and in the summer of 2006 I finally dropped the quest.
I wondered, sitting in the meeting room a couple of weeks ago, if some of that money – that supposed “Aid” to Haiti – had gone to build that Embassy in Port-au-Prince, that edifice that neatly survived the 2010 quake that killed well over 200,000 of its neighbors.
I don’t know.
Keep seeing Haiti.
RESOURCES: Perhaps the most comprehensive and thoroughly documented book I’ve read on the recent history of Haiti is Peter J. Hallward’s “Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide and the Politics of Containment” (Verso, 2007). Another is “Mountains Beyond Mountains”, by Tracy Kidder, the biography of Dr. Paul Farmer, long-time physician to the poor in Haiti and currently Deputy U.N. Envoy to Haiti.
My web reference to Haiti is here.

#162 – Dick Bernard: Afghanistan

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Last night I made the wise decision to attend an informative talk and ensuing conversation entitled “Afghanistan, Pakistan – and India? The Curse of Bilateralism in American Foreign Policy. Afghanistan in Regional Perspective.”
The speaker, William Davnie, had extensive experience in the U.S. State Department, some of which was in the South Asia area. He, along with informed comment from many in the filled meeting room, contributed to my too-meagre knowledge of South Asia – an area which has been reduced to bad words like Taliban, and ‘they’re all alike’ kinds of descriptors. I won’t even attempt to summarize what I thought I heard last night, since I don’t want to garble someone else’s very coherent message, but my main take-away was to convey the sense that the entire South Asia situation is very complex, and the news media, politicians and military don’t make it any simpler to understand.
In the question period I asked if there was any “Afghanistan for Dummies” books that could be recommended. No recommendation was offered (See last sentence, below.)
It was the bombing of Afghanistan in October, 2001, that prodded me into getting off the couch and into the peace and justice fray. I could see nothing good coming out of that action, which 94% of Americans approved of at the time. I haven’t seen any refutation of my snap judgement of the 2001 situation over the last eight years, but news reports, positioning of advocates, films like “Charley Wilson’s War” and “Kite Runners” haven’t been very enlightening either.
A while back, I attended another briefing on the South Asia area which was officially off the record. That session was a good complement to last nights session.
It was the richness of the group interaction at the meeting last night that helped me better understand the multiple quandaries in the south Asia quagmire.
Yes, Davnie didn’t think President Obama made the right decision in sending more troops into Afghanistan; he seemed aware, though, of the dilemma faced by the President in making this decision.
In the shorthand way that we receive, and even demand, information, “Afghanistan” has, for most of us, a single meaning. Someone, perhaps the speaker, perhaps someone in the audience, said that’s tantamount to saying that “United States” has a single meaning, including during the time when we were systematically eliminating the Native Americans, and holding slaves. It isn’t so simple.
Assorted tensions, alliances, etc between Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and other places were briefly discussed. The interests of the U.S., Russia, China, Iran in the area…the assorted ethnic groups which complicate matters in all of the countries…the long history of the region – all of these came into the conversation.
Particularly interesting note was made of the Pashtun ethnic group which makes up 40% of Afghanistan’s 32 million people. It would be one thing if the Pashtun’s were only in Afghanistan, but 15% of the population of Pakistan are also Pashtun – a significant minority in Pakistan, but nonetheless extremely significant since they number about 25 million of Pakistan’s 170 million people. There are more Pashtun’s in Pakistan than in Afghanistan. Taliban is the radical faction of the Pashtun ethnic group….
Then there’s India next door to Pakistan, with one billion people.
The U.S., of course, has a complicated and controversial role in the region, in large part governed by assorted political considerations. For example, U.S. military versus civilian agents (i.e. diplomats) is hugely disproportionate: 240:1. Even today 20% of State Department slots are unfilled; 20% are below grade. In the field, only 12% of military are in forward kinds of positions, while 68% of State Department employees are forward employees. If the military seems dominant, it is because it is dominant, and it is the American political will that it be so, the speaker suggested, and this has been true throughout our history. Politicians reflect the public.
The job for those of us who disagree with this assessment is to continue to make the case for diplomatic rather than military engagement be the most important.
Before we left the room, Mr. Davnie did recommend one writer that he trusts on the subject: Andrew Bacevich. You might want to look him up.