Although I selected the topic myself, at the time I wrote this paper I knew very little about the Japanese student movement. There's a shortage of English sources on it, and the Calvin library was not a great help. (Also these days there's more stuff on the internet, but 6 years ago not quite as much). Anyway, I did the best I could with the information I had. After having lived in Japan for 5 years and having read up a lot more on this topic, I've often thought how different this paper would be if I had to redo it now. But I think this still serves as a decent introduction.
May 10, 2000
The 1960s were a time of student revolution and discontent all over the globe, and Japan was no exception. The New Left in Japan begat to be active in 1960, and would remain so until the 1970s. To understand the Japanese New Left, it is useful to look at student protests, various results of the new left, and a brief analysis of the character of the New Left.
Student Protesters
Massive student protests began in Japan in 1960. The movement wielded together two different causes. The first was opposition to the renewal of the Security Treaty with the United States. The left feared that this would draw Japan into the foreign wars of the United States. The second reason for protesting was Nobusuke Kishi becoming prime minister in 1957. Since Kishi had been the vice minister of munitions under Tojo, the left saw both of these events as signs that Japan was giving up on its post war ideals of democracy and demilitarization.1
When Kishi left Tokyo to sign the security treaty on January 16, 1960, the airport had to be cleared of 700 students, members of the All-Japan Federation of Student Self Government Associations (or Zengakuren for short, in Japanese), who had occupied and vandalized it the night before. The same group clashed with police four times that year as they attempted to enter the Diet Compound. They also succeeded twice in entering the Prime Minister’s residence and burning police cars. When the treaty was passed, left-wing demonstrations increased. On the night of June 15, 1960, a massive demonstration occurred in which 236 students along with 570 police were injured and one female student, Michiko Kamba, was killed. Although the demonstrators were never successful in overturning the treaty, they were able to force Kishi to resign from his post as prime minister.2
After these demonstrations Japan had relative quiet until the end of the 1960s, when the whole globe erupted in student movements. However the experience of that first year in 1960 was a radicalizing one for the Japanese students involved, and it would sow the seeds for many of them to become active again later. It is also believed that these first demonstrations in Japan had an influence on American student radicals. Clark Kerr, the administrator at Berkeley during the Free Speech Movement, is on record as saying that given what was happening in Japan, it was inevitable student unrest would eventually spread to America.
Japanese student protest in the late 60s, as in America, were largely fueled by opposition to the Vietnam war. Because of the security treaty between Japan and America, and because of the many US military bases on Japan, the Japanese students felt that Japan bore some responsibility for the Vietnam War. Also the Japanese government officially support US policy in Vietnam. Thus in 1967, when Prime Minister Sato attempted to visit South Vietnam, rioters blockaded the approaches to Tokyo National Airport and burned police vehicles. They were ultimately unsuccessful in stopping the visit.3
Another issue of discontent in the late 1960s was the students demand for campus reforms. In 1968 almost 100 incidents of protest occurred in Japanese Universities. At Tokyo University, medical students objected to the medical practitioners law and began a year long strike. The police were finally called in on June 17 to evict students who were barricaded in the administration building. Students boycotted all classes in response, and ultimately the president, dean of the faculty of medicine, and the director of the university hospital were forced to resign. The following January 400 students were arrested at Tokyo University when they occupied Yasuda Hall. The police were able to clear the students out only after two days of “pitched battles.”4 In another Tokyo protest in 1968, to mark the anniversary of the death of a student protester the year before, 140 students were arrested and 110 policemen injured. Students also protested against tuition increases, and pressed the University to become more democratic, sometimes even asking for a vote in choosing the university president.
By 1969, United States occupation of Okinawa was becoming an issue in the student movement. The Vietnam War had made the United States military presence in Japan even more unpopular. 6000 people were arrested for protesting in the first half of 1969. On Okinawa Day, April 28, Students took over the trains in Tokyo and brought them to a halt. Student organizations such as the anti-war youth committee and the Peace-For-Vietnam Committee were active student groups that always had riot police surrounding their meetings. On International Antiwar Day, October 21, police arrested more than 1,400 students from these organizations.
Images of students battling riot police became increasingly common, and in some cases students even fire bombed university buildings. The government reacted to the increasing social unrest by legislating a bill to restore order. It included a greater concentration of power in the hands of the University administration, severe penalties for disruptive students, staff and faculty, and even a provision for dissolution of the universities in cases of prolonged trouble.
The Liberal Democratic Party was able to pass this bill through the Diet despite intense opposition. Once it passed, college presidents all over Japan resigned in protest. In Kyoto University, students reacted so adversely to this bill that 2,000 riot police were used to clear student barricades and arrest radical students. When classes finally began again, they did so under police guard. 5
The Results of the New Left
As in Europe, some of the more radical student groups of the 1960s turned to terrorism in Japan. The most famous of these was the Red Army Faction. The Red Army Faction was responsible for hijacking a Japan Airlines plane to North Korea in March of 1970. The Red Army also hijacked a Japan Airlines plane in Libya in 1973, and in 1974 blew up an oil storage tank in Singapore. Their most famous action was an attack on Lod Airport in Israel, in which 26 people were killed. Yet perhaps the greatest enemy the Red Army Faction ever had was itself. Factional fighting almost tore it apart, and in 1972 fourteen members of the group were killed by more radical elements. These fourteen included five women, and several of them were killed by being tied naked to trees and left to freeze to death.6
Another event at the end of the student movement was the Narita Airport incident. Although opposition to the proposed airport began as soon as it was announced in 1966, most of the fighting took place in the 1970s. The plans for the Narita Airport generated opposition from farmers who would lose their land. The student radicals were able to give ideological justification to the farmer’s opposition, and at the same time enjoyed the public sympathy for the farmers. There was also fear among the left that, because of the size of the proposed airport, it could be used to land U.S. military planes. 7
Throughout the 1970s, students opposed to the airport constructed forts, towers, tunnels and underground bunkers as they battled the police. In the end two students were killed as well as four riot police. (Three of the riot police were killed by the Red Army Faction, which used Bamboo spears). The airport was completed in 1978. 8
Comments on the Students
Many of the same remarks that have been made on the 1960s movement in Europe and in the United States can also be made about Japan. There was a generation gap between the old left in Japan and the new left. The old communist left had focused on sacrifice and misery, enduring torture and imprisonment in the 1930s. The new student left focused on joy, hedonism, excitement and happiness. The old left was dogmatically Marxist, while the new left showed a high interest in Marx, but also borrowed heavily from humanist and existentialist thinkers. In fact the student protests in 1960 were significant because they were the first leftist protests in Japan not controlled by the Communist party. 10
Also similar to Europe and America, many of the student organizations resisted the urge to organize themselves into well structured hierarchies despite large public support. A minimalist approach to structure was adopted, with an egalitarian emphasis. Visible leaders were discouraged. The Peace-in-Vietnam committee is an excellent example of this. 11
However despite all the efforts of the students, the movement had little success in affecting the firmly entrenched power of the Liberal Democratic Party. The student movement died out due to the end of an American presence in Vietnam, continuing national prosperity, and a negative public reaction as the student radicals turned violent. 12
Bibliography
Burks, Adrath. Japan. New York: Americana Corporation. 1969
–. Japan. New York: Americana Corporation. 1970.
Dower, John. Peace and Democracy in Two Systems: External Policy and Internal Conflict. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1993.
Hayes, Louis. Introduction to Japanese Politics. Missoula: University of Montana. 1992
Koschmann, Victor. Intellectuals and Politics. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1993.
Kublin, Hyman. Japan. New York: Americana Corporation. 1968.
Milieu, Its and Kazuko Tsurumi. “The Japanese Student Movement.” Japan Quarterly: Oct-Dec. 1968.
Seligmann, Albert. Japan. New York: Americana Corporation. 1968.
Tsurumi, Kazuko. Student Movements in 1960 and 1969: Continuity and Change. Tokyo: tokyo Press. 1975.
White, James. Dynamics of Political Opposition. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1993.
Footnotes
1. John Dower, Peace and Democracy in Two Systems: External Policy and Internal Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993) 21
2. Albert Seligmann, Japan (New York: Americana Corporation, 1968) 396
3. Hyman Kublin, Japan (New York: Americana Corporation, 1968) 378
4. Adrath Burks, Japan (New York: Americana Corporation, 1969) 384
5. Adrath Burks, Japan (Americana Corporation: New York, 1970) 389
6. Louis D. Hayes, Introduction to Japanese Politics (Missoula: University of Montana, 1992) 120
7. James White, Dynamics of Political Opposition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993) 440
8. Hayes 120
9. Kazuko Tsurumi, Student Movements in 1960 and 1969: Continuity and Change (Tokyo: Tokyo Press 1975) 202
10. Its Milieu and Kazuko Tsurumi, The Japanese Student Movement (Japan Quarterly: Oct-Dec 1968) 431
11. J Victor Koschmann, Intellectuals and Politics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993) 414
12. Hayes 120.
Professor's Comments: Well done. A good summary and Evaluation
Grade: A-
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
The Formation of the Chinese Communist Party
May 1, 1998
China’s civilization is one of the two oldest in the world. It has a rich history stretching back thousands of years, and a well-established culture which is thick with tradition. This leads into the question: why did China become fascinated with communism, a Western philosophy? One key to solving this puzzle is to look at the formation of the Chinese Communist Party, and determine whether it was the result of forces within China, or the result of outside influence, more specifically the Soviet Union and the Third Communist International. In the end we might find that either position is to be avoided. By looking at the intellectual history of Marxism in China, the theories of Chen Duxiu, party founder, and the actual formation of the party itself, the influence of both internal and external forces can be seen.
History of Marxism in China
Marxism in China does not have a deep historical legacy. Although Karl Marx wrote his famous “Communist Manifesto” in 1848, the first references to Marxism in China were not until the beginning of the twentieth century, by reformers Kang Yu Wei and Liang Qichao. But these were brief references, and nobody seemed to have cared much about them (Ladany 4).
Marx’s influence had not increased ten years later, even though plenty of other things in China had. The 1911 Revolution, and the resulting chaos it brought with it, had sparked new modes of thought in China. On September 15, 195, in Shanghai, Chen Duxiu began his publication of “New Youth” (Chang 41). The Magazine’s impact on the youth of China was immense. New Youth “had a devoted following that took its every editorial pronouncement as an article of faith” (Bianco 35). Because the magazine was written in the vernacular language, instead of the formal writing style, Chang Kuo-t’ao, one of the founders of the Chinese Communist Party, was later to write that the magazine “was to thought and scholarship what the abolition of bound feet was to women. Hu Shih called it ‘the birth of a living literature’ and Chen Duxiu hoisted high the banner of the literary revolution. Thus began the debate between new and old Literatures” (Chang 41). Although Chen originally wrote New Youth himself, he was soon joined by many of the most brilliant minds in China’s intellectual sphere (Bianco 34).
Yet despite this revolution in thought, the question in 1915 was not why was Marxism so prevalent, but rather why was it lacking? New Youth featured articles on just about every Western thinker imaginable except Marx. The reason for this absence was certainly not fear of radicalism. The thinkers of the time could not seem to get radical enough. Rather, the explanation is that Marxism did not apply to China. Marx expected capitalism to crumble at its most advanced point, Western Europe. China was still largely under a feudal system at the time, and could not participate in the revolution (Schwartz 7).
The May Fourth movement in 1919 soon joined the literary revolution of 1915, and that was when things really began to happen in China. It is not surprising that the Chinese Communist historians see this as the beginning of the modern China era, and not the 1911 Revolution (Bianco 26). The May Fourth movement contained many radical ideas. Because it was a mass movement though, extreme radicals never grew to more than a little clique (Bianco 31). Within the May Fourth movement, many different streams of thought were contained, and it became the intellectual base of both the Communists and the Kuomintang (Bianco 43).
“The May Fourth Movement had united all the ‘new intellectuals’ around such vague or general concepts as democracy, science, humanitarianism, liberalism, and reason, and even more around a common desire for destruction. Success having been won–and so swiftly!–it was inevitable that differences should arise” (Bianco 45). Division soon occurred within New Youth itself. One one side were the liberals: Hu Shih and Lu Hsun, on the other, the Radicals: Chen Duxiu and Li Ta-Chao. Chen and Li founded the “Weekly Critic” in 1918, in an effort to build up more support fo their increasingly Marxist beliefs. Hu, meanwhile, attacked all “systems of thought with universal claims or appeal, notably Communism and Socialism” (Bianco 45).
It was the Russian Revolution that brought Marxism to the attention of China. Lenin’s twisting of Marx now allowed the theory to be applied to pre-industrial nations, and his writings on imperialism appealed to the Chinese, who were victims of imperialism. More importantly, the Chinese were impressed by the policies of the new Soviet Union (Schwartz 7-8). On July 25, 1919, the Soviet Union formally announced its plan to return the Chinese Eastern Railroad to the Chinese people, as well as giving up any concessions enjoyed by the Czarist government. The Soviets also pledged to help the Chinese in their struggle for freedom. Within less than a month, over thirty important Chinese organizations expressed thanks to the Soviet Union (Houn 16). In contrast, at the same time the Chinese experienced continued exploitation by the rest of the Western powers, most evident at the Paris Peace Conference. This caused many Chinese to become disillusioned with the capitalist powers (Houn 15).
As a result of the Soviet Union, interest in Marxism exploded. In May 1919, New Youth devoted a special section to Marxism, edited by Li Ta-Chao. By the fall of the same year, a large number of Socialist Study groups were organized among intellectuals. By December, the Society for the Study of Socialism was founded at the National Peking University, containing Chen Duxiu, Li Ta-Chao, Mao Zedong, and over 100 others. In May 1920, the Communist Manifesto was published for the first time in Chinese. It enjoyed great success (Houn 15-17).
By the fall of 1920, the pragmatism of Hu-Shih and Lu Hsun could no longer be reconciled with the growing radicalism of Chen Duxiu and Li Ta-Chao. Hu and Lu quite the magazine, and New Youth became a Communist publication (Bianco 45).
Chen Duxiu
Before going into the history of the Chinese Communist Party, it is worthwhile to spend some time looking at its founder, Chen Duxiu. Chen was born in 1879 to a wealthy family. Instead of training for the examinations, Chen opted for a Western education. Chen, like many of his generation, was pro-Western and looked down on Chinese things. He even refused to join Sun Yatsen’s Revolutionary alliance because he considered it too nationalistic (Bianco 34). Shortly after beginning New Youth in 1915, Chen was appointed dean of Faculty of Letters of Peking University in 1918. At thirty eight, Chen was simultaneously one of the oldest and most influential figures in the May Fourth Movement (Bianco 36).
Chen Duxiu’s changing ideologies reflected the turbulent times he lived in. After being attracted to anarchism as a youth, Chen later became a staunch believer in what he believed were the twin pillars of Western Civilization: democracy and science (Schwartz 8). So dedicated was he to the concept of democracy, that Chen was initially unfazed by the revolution in Russia that affected so many others of the time (Schwartz 14). Rather, it was the growing interest that his students exhibited in Lenin that caused Chen to start studying him (Schwartz 18-19).
In 1919, John Dewey came to Peking University as a sort of visiting professor. His impact on Chen was profound. Dewey’s speeches on democracy caused Chen to come to the conclusion that the reason democracy had failed to take root in China was because it had been imposed from above, instead of being organized by the people. Dewey also raised questions in Chen’s mind about economic democracy, something Chen had given little thought to before. Although this began to open Chen’s mind to class oppression, as late as December 1919, he still advocated that capitalism was good for China (Schwartz 19-20).
By February of 1920, Chen was beginning to become committed to socialism. At about the same time, he converted to Christianity, inspired by the Christian socialism practiced by idealistic young Koreans. This conversion is perhaps not all that surprising, given that both were aspects of Chen’s love affair with the West. Chen claimed that Christianity was originally a doctrine of the poor. His conversion to Christianity helped to quicken his transition to communism. However, as influential as this phase was, his Christian phase proved to be extremely short lived (Feigon 144).
Chen advocated a synthesis between socialism and democracy for a brief period, but by September 1920, he had made a total conversion to Marxism-Leninism. The lateness of this conversion is astonishing, considering Chen founded the Chinese Communist Party in May of the next year (Schwartz 23). However, there remained several differences between Lenin and Chen.
Lenin’s influence on Chen should not be underestimated. Not only did Lenin turn Chen’s attention to the problem of the proletariat, but Lenin’s adaptation of Marx’s theory allowed for “backwards nations” to be included. However, it is questionable if Lenin would have approved of Chen stretching his theories to apply to China. Russia may not have been an industrial nation, but capitalism had made its impact. China, by contrast, fell in Lenin’s category of “semi-colonial”. Although Lenin’s writings are somewhat open to interpretation, it seems he would have thought a proletariat revolution impossible in such a state (Schwartz 30).
Beyond this, Chen also differed from Lenin in his concept of party organization. Lenin’s party was based on seizing power, but Chen was more concerned with what would happen once power was seized. Chen was also worried about the way Sun Yatsen had initially dominated the Koumintang, and instead of a strong chief he wanted a party general secretary elected by the committee heads and held responsible to the party. A final, but significant difference between Chen and Lenin is that Chen’s qualifications for party membership were quite different from the strictness of Lenin. Although government officials were excluded from membership, anyone else who was vaguely sympathetic to Marxist ideas was allowed membership (Feigon 153).
The Formation of the Party
The Chinese radicals were there; all they needed was organization. The Soviets realized this, and their visits began in the summer of 1919 to Li Ta-Chao. Two Russian Communists, N. Burtman and A.A. Muller made contact with Li and worked to promote Marxist ideas, as well as strengthen ties between workers and student groups. Other Russian visitors followed, and in late 1919 official representatives of the Third Communist International (Comintern) approached Li. Comintern wanted to establish a Chinese Communist party, but Li did not think that China was ready. Instead, Li referred Comintern to Chen Duxiu, writing in a letter that Chen was the only one who could establish a communist party in China (Feigon 163-164).
In the Spring of 1920, Chen met in Shanghai with Gregory Voitinski, the head of the Department for Eastern Affairs of the Communist International. Chen introduced Voitinski to various revolutionaries, who included Anarchists, Socialists, Marxists, and some Koumingtang members. At a secret meeting in May 1920, these diverse revolutionaries formed the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). A Communist Youth League was established in August (Houn 17).
In addition, Voitinski and Chen also established a Russian News Agency and a Foreign Language school in Shanghai. The Russian News Agency was supposed to function as a propaganda medium. The language school was to be a disguised training center for communists, and included those sent to Russia for further training. Two publications for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) were formed as well, the Labor Circle and The Communist. At the same time, Chen paid close attention to the labor movement, which was going on in Shanghai at the time, hoping to forge links with the working class (Houn 17).
Inspired by Chen’s accomplishments in Shanghai, other communist groups started appearing throughout China. Li Ta-Chao organized a group in Peking, while Mao Zedong, who was an elementary school teacher at the time, started a group in Changsha. With the help of Comintern, groups appeared in Wuhan, Hangchow, Tsinan, Tientsin, and even among Chinese students studying in Japan and France (Houn 17).
In its earliest stage, the members of this fledgling Communist party were far from orthodox Marxists. In fact, in 1920 the CCP was made up largely of anarchists, who were very suspicious of the “Dictatorship of the Proletariat” (Feigon 154, 192). The Communist Youth League, when it was founded, consisted of Marxists, anarchists, and anti-Confucists (Schwartz 31). The party was vague enough to accommodate these differing ideologies in its early stages (Feigon 163).
It is unknown why Voitinski showed such un-Leninist toleration in allowing such diverse views into the party. It has been suggested that he either hoped he could turn the young radicals into communists, or that his limited Chinese made him unable to distinguish between the various factions among Chinese radicals (Schwartz 32).
In September 1920 another meeting was called. At this meeting, they discussed what steps could be taken to produce a more orthodox party. The process of eliminating non-communist from the ranks began, most notably the anarchists. For the next year, most of Chen’s writings were directed against the anarchists, who refused to buy into the essential communist tenet that “coercion could be used for good in the proper hands” (Chen as quoted by Schwartz 33). By May of 1921, Chen had become so frustrated with anarchists that he accused them of not subscribing to Western thought at all, but rather a revival of Taoism. In the atmosphere of the May Fourth Movement, this was no light accusation (Schwartz 33). The attraction anarchism held for the Chinese at the time should not be underestimated. Chen himself used to be an anarchist, as well as Mao Zedong and many of the Chinese intellectuals in France (Schwartz 26). In a famous debate, Chen defended the “dictatorship of the proletariat” against a group of anarchists, which included his two oldest sons (Feigon 154).
The party had its official birth on July 1, 1921, at the First National Congress. The Congress took place at a girls school in a French Concession in Shanghai. The participants were therefore safely out of the reach of Chinese law. Although Chen himself was unable to attend, being busy in Canton at the time, twelve delegates, representing about fifty members each, were present, as well as two representatives from Comintern. Fearing surveillance by concession police, the delegates cut off the meeting on the fourth day. They went to South Lake in Chekiang province “where they hired a boat, brought food and wine, and carried through the work of the Congress under the pretense of having a quiet respectable outing” (North in Houn 18).
Although no records of the meeting exist, the delegates decided to base the party strictly on Marxist-Leninist philosophy, restricting all those who were not genuine Communists from party membership. A party constitution was formed, as well as a Central Committee to which Chen was elected to General Secretary in his absence (Houn 17). Other than that, there was little agreement among the delegates. Chen Duxiu’s goal of eventually having a people’s government led by the Chinese Communist Party was considered to radical by some in attendance. A suggestion was made by one of the delegates, Li Han-chun, to send delegates to Russia and Germany and compare the merits of each Revolution. This proposal received some support. The question of joining Comintern never even came up (Schwartz 34).
Although Chen had made some steps towards the formation of a Communist Party before the arrival of the Comintern, their help was invaluable to him. However, despite his agreement to associate with the Comintern and listen to their advice, Chen was worried about the initial attempts of Comintern to dominate the party. He even went as far as to refuse financial adid from Comintern (Feigon 167). The new Comintern representative, a Dutch Communist called Maring, whose real name was Hendricus Sneevliet, was rather untactful in his dealings with the Chinese. Not only did he strike them as unbearable arrogant, but his attempt to gain control of the party by offering financial help from Comintern was seen by Chen for the blatant bribe that it was (Chang 161-165). However, idealism soon gave way to necessity, as Chen realized how important money was in keeping the party afloat. He reluctantly accepted Comintern aid (Feigon 168). Fear of Comintern domination turned many nationalists away from the Communist party such as Tai Chi-t’ao (Schwartz 32).
Although it would be almost thirty years before the CCP would gain control of China, the idealism and motivation that would contribute to their eventual success was present early on. When one considers how small the party was at its conception, it is amazing how quickly support for it grew, making the CCP one of the most successful parties in modern history.
Conclusion
After looking at the history of Marxism in China, the ideologies of Chen Duxiu and the formation of the Chinese Communist Party, we can see how the party was formed both as a result of internal forces within China, and the external influence of the Soviet Union and Comintern. Without the atmosphere of the May Fourth Movement, or Chinese figures like Chen Duxiu, the CCP would never have come into being. Likewise, without the example of the Soviet Union and the help of Comintern, the CCP would also never have been created. Both internal and external forces combined to produce the entity of the Chinese Communist Party.
Bibliography
Bianco, Lucien. Origins of the Chinese Revolution. Stanford University Press. Stanford. 1971. (Translated by Muriel Bell).
Chang Kuo-t’ao. The Rise of the Chinese Communist Party, 1921-1927. University Press of Kansas. Lawrence. 1971.
Ch’en Kung-Po. The Communist Movement in China. Octagon Books, Incorporated. New York. 1966.
Feigon, Lee. Chen Duxiu: Founder of the Chinese Communist Party. Princeton University Press. Princeton. 1983
Fitzgerald, C.P. The Birth of Communist China. Penguin Books. Hammondsworth. 1964.
Han Suyin. The Morning Deluge: Mao TseTung and the Chinese Revolution, 1893-1954. Little Brown and Company. Boston. 1972.
Houn, Franklin W. A Short History of Chinese Communist. Prentice-Hall. Englewood Cliffs. 1967.
Ladany, Laszlo. The Communist Party of China and Marxism, 1921-1985. Hoover Institution Press. 1988.
Levine, Marylin A. The Found Generation: Chinese Communists in Europe during the Twenties. University of Washington. Seattle. 1993.
Price, Don C. Russia and the Roots of the Chinese Revolution, 1896-1911. Harvard University Press. Cambridge. 1974.
Scwartz, Benjamin I. Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao. Harvard University Press. Cambridge. 1961.
Professor’s Comments: Good clear paper based on a good number of sources–but not the most influential recent study of this very question, Arif Dirlik’s Origins of Chinese Communism. I think I mentioned this work to you. Well written
Grade: A-, 92%
China’s civilization is one of the two oldest in the world. It has a rich history stretching back thousands of years, and a well-established culture which is thick with tradition. This leads into the question: why did China become fascinated with communism, a Western philosophy? One key to solving this puzzle is to look at the formation of the Chinese Communist Party, and determine whether it was the result of forces within China, or the result of outside influence, more specifically the Soviet Union and the Third Communist International. In the end we might find that either position is to be avoided. By looking at the intellectual history of Marxism in China, the theories of Chen Duxiu, party founder, and the actual formation of the party itself, the influence of both internal and external forces can be seen.
History of Marxism in China
Marxism in China does not have a deep historical legacy. Although Karl Marx wrote his famous “Communist Manifesto” in 1848, the first references to Marxism in China were not until the beginning of the twentieth century, by reformers Kang Yu Wei and Liang Qichao. But these were brief references, and nobody seemed to have cared much about them (Ladany 4).
Marx’s influence had not increased ten years later, even though plenty of other things in China had. The 1911 Revolution, and the resulting chaos it brought with it, had sparked new modes of thought in China. On September 15, 195, in Shanghai, Chen Duxiu began his publication of “New Youth” (Chang 41). The Magazine’s impact on the youth of China was immense. New Youth “had a devoted following that took its every editorial pronouncement as an article of faith” (Bianco 35). Because the magazine was written in the vernacular language, instead of the formal writing style, Chang Kuo-t’ao, one of the founders of the Chinese Communist Party, was later to write that the magazine “was to thought and scholarship what the abolition of bound feet was to women. Hu Shih called it ‘the birth of a living literature’ and Chen Duxiu hoisted high the banner of the literary revolution. Thus began the debate between new and old Literatures” (Chang 41). Although Chen originally wrote New Youth himself, he was soon joined by many of the most brilliant minds in China’s intellectual sphere (Bianco 34).
Yet despite this revolution in thought, the question in 1915 was not why was Marxism so prevalent, but rather why was it lacking? New Youth featured articles on just about every Western thinker imaginable except Marx. The reason for this absence was certainly not fear of radicalism. The thinkers of the time could not seem to get radical enough. Rather, the explanation is that Marxism did not apply to China. Marx expected capitalism to crumble at its most advanced point, Western Europe. China was still largely under a feudal system at the time, and could not participate in the revolution (Schwartz 7).
The May Fourth movement in 1919 soon joined the literary revolution of 1915, and that was when things really began to happen in China. It is not surprising that the Chinese Communist historians see this as the beginning of the modern China era, and not the 1911 Revolution (Bianco 26). The May Fourth movement contained many radical ideas. Because it was a mass movement though, extreme radicals never grew to more than a little clique (Bianco 31). Within the May Fourth movement, many different streams of thought were contained, and it became the intellectual base of both the Communists and the Kuomintang (Bianco 43).
“The May Fourth Movement had united all the ‘new intellectuals’ around such vague or general concepts as democracy, science, humanitarianism, liberalism, and reason, and even more around a common desire for destruction. Success having been won–and so swiftly!–it was inevitable that differences should arise” (Bianco 45). Division soon occurred within New Youth itself. One one side were the liberals: Hu Shih and Lu Hsun, on the other, the Radicals: Chen Duxiu and Li Ta-Chao. Chen and Li founded the “Weekly Critic” in 1918, in an effort to build up more support fo their increasingly Marxist beliefs. Hu, meanwhile, attacked all “systems of thought with universal claims or appeal, notably Communism and Socialism” (Bianco 45).
It was the Russian Revolution that brought Marxism to the attention of China. Lenin’s twisting of Marx now allowed the theory to be applied to pre-industrial nations, and his writings on imperialism appealed to the Chinese, who were victims of imperialism. More importantly, the Chinese were impressed by the policies of the new Soviet Union (Schwartz 7-8). On July 25, 1919, the Soviet Union formally announced its plan to return the Chinese Eastern Railroad to the Chinese people, as well as giving up any concessions enjoyed by the Czarist government. The Soviets also pledged to help the Chinese in their struggle for freedom. Within less than a month, over thirty important Chinese organizations expressed thanks to the Soviet Union (Houn 16). In contrast, at the same time the Chinese experienced continued exploitation by the rest of the Western powers, most evident at the Paris Peace Conference. This caused many Chinese to become disillusioned with the capitalist powers (Houn 15).
As a result of the Soviet Union, interest in Marxism exploded. In May 1919, New Youth devoted a special section to Marxism, edited by Li Ta-Chao. By the fall of the same year, a large number of Socialist Study groups were organized among intellectuals. By December, the Society for the Study of Socialism was founded at the National Peking University, containing Chen Duxiu, Li Ta-Chao, Mao Zedong, and over 100 others. In May 1920, the Communist Manifesto was published for the first time in Chinese. It enjoyed great success (Houn 15-17).
By the fall of 1920, the pragmatism of Hu-Shih and Lu Hsun could no longer be reconciled with the growing radicalism of Chen Duxiu and Li Ta-Chao. Hu and Lu quite the magazine, and New Youth became a Communist publication (Bianco 45).
Chen Duxiu
Before going into the history of the Chinese Communist Party, it is worthwhile to spend some time looking at its founder, Chen Duxiu. Chen was born in 1879 to a wealthy family. Instead of training for the examinations, Chen opted for a Western education. Chen, like many of his generation, was pro-Western and looked down on Chinese things. He even refused to join Sun Yatsen’s Revolutionary alliance because he considered it too nationalistic (Bianco 34). Shortly after beginning New Youth in 1915, Chen was appointed dean of Faculty of Letters of Peking University in 1918. At thirty eight, Chen was simultaneously one of the oldest and most influential figures in the May Fourth Movement (Bianco 36).
Chen Duxiu’s changing ideologies reflected the turbulent times he lived in. After being attracted to anarchism as a youth, Chen later became a staunch believer in what he believed were the twin pillars of Western Civilization: democracy and science (Schwartz 8). So dedicated was he to the concept of democracy, that Chen was initially unfazed by the revolution in Russia that affected so many others of the time (Schwartz 14). Rather, it was the growing interest that his students exhibited in Lenin that caused Chen to start studying him (Schwartz 18-19).
In 1919, John Dewey came to Peking University as a sort of visiting professor. His impact on Chen was profound. Dewey’s speeches on democracy caused Chen to come to the conclusion that the reason democracy had failed to take root in China was because it had been imposed from above, instead of being organized by the people. Dewey also raised questions in Chen’s mind about economic democracy, something Chen had given little thought to before. Although this began to open Chen’s mind to class oppression, as late as December 1919, he still advocated that capitalism was good for China (Schwartz 19-20).
By February of 1920, Chen was beginning to become committed to socialism. At about the same time, he converted to Christianity, inspired by the Christian socialism practiced by idealistic young Koreans. This conversion is perhaps not all that surprising, given that both were aspects of Chen’s love affair with the West. Chen claimed that Christianity was originally a doctrine of the poor. His conversion to Christianity helped to quicken his transition to communism. However, as influential as this phase was, his Christian phase proved to be extremely short lived (Feigon 144).
Chen advocated a synthesis between socialism and democracy for a brief period, but by September 1920, he had made a total conversion to Marxism-Leninism. The lateness of this conversion is astonishing, considering Chen founded the Chinese Communist Party in May of the next year (Schwartz 23). However, there remained several differences between Lenin and Chen.
Lenin’s influence on Chen should not be underestimated. Not only did Lenin turn Chen’s attention to the problem of the proletariat, but Lenin’s adaptation of Marx’s theory allowed for “backwards nations” to be included. However, it is questionable if Lenin would have approved of Chen stretching his theories to apply to China. Russia may not have been an industrial nation, but capitalism had made its impact. China, by contrast, fell in Lenin’s category of “semi-colonial”. Although Lenin’s writings are somewhat open to interpretation, it seems he would have thought a proletariat revolution impossible in such a state (Schwartz 30).
Beyond this, Chen also differed from Lenin in his concept of party organization. Lenin’s party was based on seizing power, but Chen was more concerned with what would happen once power was seized. Chen was also worried about the way Sun Yatsen had initially dominated the Koumintang, and instead of a strong chief he wanted a party general secretary elected by the committee heads and held responsible to the party. A final, but significant difference between Chen and Lenin is that Chen’s qualifications for party membership were quite different from the strictness of Lenin. Although government officials were excluded from membership, anyone else who was vaguely sympathetic to Marxist ideas was allowed membership (Feigon 153).
The Formation of the Party
The Chinese radicals were there; all they needed was organization. The Soviets realized this, and their visits began in the summer of 1919 to Li Ta-Chao. Two Russian Communists, N. Burtman and A.A. Muller made contact with Li and worked to promote Marxist ideas, as well as strengthen ties between workers and student groups. Other Russian visitors followed, and in late 1919 official representatives of the Third Communist International (Comintern) approached Li. Comintern wanted to establish a Chinese Communist party, but Li did not think that China was ready. Instead, Li referred Comintern to Chen Duxiu, writing in a letter that Chen was the only one who could establish a communist party in China (Feigon 163-164).
In the Spring of 1920, Chen met in Shanghai with Gregory Voitinski, the head of the Department for Eastern Affairs of the Communist International. Chen introduced Voitinski to various revolutionaries, who included Anarchists, Socialists, Marxists, and some Koumingtang members. At a secret meeting in May 1920, these diverse revolutionaries formed the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). A Communist Youth League was established in August (Houn 17).
In addition, Voitinski and Chen also established a Russian News Agency and a Foreign Language school in Shanghai. The Russian News Agency was supposed to function as a propaganda medium. The language school was to be a disguised training center for communists, and included those sent to Russia for further training. Two publications for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) were formed as well, the Labor Circle and The Communist. At the same time, Chen paid close attention to the labor movement, which was going on in Shanghai at the time, hoping to forge links with the working class (Houn 17).
Inspired by Chen’s accomplishments in Shanghai, other communist groups started appearing throughout China. Li Ta-Chao organized a group in Peking, while Mao Zedong, who was an elementary school teacher at the time, started a group in Changsha. With the help of Comintern, groups appeared in Wuhan, Hangchow, Tsinan, Tientsin, and even among Chinese students studying in Japan and France (Houn 17).
In its earliest stage, the members of this fledgling Communist party were far from orthodox Marxists. In fact, in 1920 the CCP was made up largely of anarchists, who were very suspicious of the “Dictatorship of the Proletariat” (Feigon 154, 192). The Communist Youth League, when it was founded, consisted of Marxists, anarchists, and anti-Confucists (Schwartz 31). The party was vague enough to accommodate these differing ideologies in its early stages (Feigon 163).
It is unknown why Voitinski showed such un-Leninist toleration in allowing such diverse views into the party. It has been suggested that he either hoped he could turn the young radicals into communists, or that his limited Chinese made him unable to distinguish between the various factions among Chinese radicals (Schwartz 32).
In September 1920 another meeting was called. At this meeting, they discussed what steps could be taken to produce a more orthodox party. The process of eliminating non-communist from the ranks began, most notably the anarchists. For the next year, most of Chen’s writings were directed against the anarchists, who refused to buy into the essential communist tenet that “coercion could be used for good in the proper hands” (Chen as quoted by Schwartz 33). By May of 1921, Chen had become so frustrated with anarchists that he accused them of not subscribing to Western thought at all, but rather a revival of Taoism. In the atmosphere of the May Fourth Movement, this was no light accusation (Schwartz 33). The attraction anarchism held for the Chinese at the time should not be underestimated. Chen himself used to be an anarchist, as well as Mao Zedong and many of the Chinese intellectuals in France (Schwartz 26). In a famous debate, Chen defended the “dictatorship of the proletariat” against a group of anarchists, which included his two oldest sons (Feigon 154).
The party had its official birth on July 1, 1921, at the First National Congress. The Congress took place at a girls school in a French Concession in Shanghai. The participants were therefore safely out of the reach of Chinese law. Although Chen himself was unable to attend, being busy in Canton at the time, twelve delegates, representing about fifty members each, were present, as well as two representatives from Comintern. Fearing surveillance by concession police, the delegates cut off the meeting on the fourth day. They went to South Lake in Chekiang province “where they hired a boat, brought food and wine, and carried through the work of the Congress under the pretense of having a quiet respectable outing” (North in Houn 18).
Although no records of the meeting exist, the delegates decided to base the party strictly on Marxist-Leninist philosophy, restricting all those who were not genuine Communists from party membership. A party constitution was formed, as well as a Central Committee to which Chen was elected to General Secretary in his absence (Houn 17). Other than that, there was little agreement among the delegates. Chen Duxiu’s goal of eventually having a people’s government led by the Chinese Communist Party was considered to radical by some in attendance. A suggestion was made by one of the delegates, Li Han-chun, to send delegates to Russia and Germany and compare the merits of each Revolution. This proposal received some support. The question of joining Comintern never even came up (Schwartz 34).
Although Chen had made some steps towards the formation of a Communist Party before the arrival of the Comintern, their help was invaluable to him. However, despite his agreement to associate with the Comintern and listen to their advice, Chen was worried about the initial attempts of Comintern to dominate the party. He even went as far as to refuse financial adid from Comintern (Feigon 167). The new Comintern representative, a Dutch Communist called Maring, whose real name was Hendricus Sneevliet, was rather untactful in his dealings with the Chinese. Not only did he strike them as unbearable arrogant, but his attempt to gain control of the party by offering financial help from Comintern was seen by Chen for the blatant bribe that it was (Chang 161-165). However, idealism soon gave way to necessity, as Chen realized how important money was in keeping the party afloat. He reluctantly accepted Comintern aid (Feigon 168). Fear of Comintern domination turned many nationalists away from the Communist party such as Tai Chi-t’ao (Schwartz 32).
Although it would be almost thirty years before the CCP would gain control of China, the idealism and motivation that would contribute to their eventual success was present early on. When one considers how small the party was at its conception, it is amazing how quickly support for it grew, making the CCP one of the most successful parties in modern history.
Conclusion
After looking at the history of Marxism in China, the ideologies of Chen Duxiu and the formation of the Chinese Communist Party, we can see how the party was formed both as a result of internal forces within China, and the external influence of the Soviet Union and Comintern. Without the atmosphere of the May Fourth Movement, or Chinese figures like Chen Duxiu, the CCP would never have come into being. Likewise, without the example of the Soviet Union and the help of Comintern, the CCP would also never have been created. Both internal and external forces combined to produce the entity of the Chinese Communist Party.
Bibliography
Bianco, Lucien. Origins of the Chinese Revolution. Stanford University Press. Stanford. 1971. (Translated by Muriel Bell).
Chang Kuo-t’ao. The Rise of the Chinese Communist Party, 1921-1927. University Press of Kansas. Lawrence. 1971.
Ch’en Kung-Po. The Communist Movement in China. Octagon Books, Incorporated. New York. 1966.
Feigon, Lee. Chen Duxiu: Founder of the Chinese Communist Party. Princeton University Press. Princeton. 1983
Fitzgerald, C.P. The Birth of Communist China. Penguin Books. Hammondsworth. 1964.
Han Suyin. The Morning Deluge: Mao TseTung and the Chinese Revolution, 1893-1954. Little Brown and Company. Boston. 1972.
Houn, Franklin W. A Short History of Chinese Communist. Prentice-Hall. Englewood Cliffs. 1967.
Ladany, Laszlo. The Communist Party of China and Marxism, 1921-1985. Hoover Institution Press. 1988.
Levine, Marylin A. The Found Generation: Chinese Communists in Europe during the Twenties. University of Washington. Seattle. 1993.
Price, Don C. Russia and the Roots of the Chinese Revolution, 1896-1911. Harvard University Press. Cambridge. 1974.
Scwartz, Benjamin I. Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao. Harvard University Press. Cambridge. 1961.
Professor’s Comments: Good clear paper based on a good number of sources–but not the most influential recent study of this very question, Arif Dirlik’s Origins of Chinese Communism. I think I mentioned this work to you. Well written
Grade: A-, 92%
Saturday, September 02, 2006
Organized Gang Warfare in the Late Republic
December 9, 1998
His exploits caused the forum to be soaked with blood, and led to armed conflict in the streets as a part of daily life in ancient Rome. To a Republican government that was already outdated, Clodius helped deliver the final deathblow. His actions showed the flaws of the Roman Republic, and ultimately necessitated the rise of dictators such as Pompey and Caesar who could restore order.
Mob violence had always played an important role in the Republic. In the late Republic it was much more evident. Demagogues such as the Gracchi and Saturninus based their power on the support of the Roman Proletariat, which was politically emasculated but physically a force to deal with. However, the organized gangs that Clodius and his opponent Milo used were unprecedented. We can see the significance of these gangs by looking briefly at the history of Clodius himself, the nature of the coalition he assembled, and at the reign of violence he brought to the city of Rome, and its effects.
Born Publius Pulcher Claudius, Clodius changed his last name to make it less respectable. Clodius’s early political career is known only in fragments. Surprisingly he, like many of the young nobles who would later join him, was from an optimate family (Rome’s conservative party) (Huzar 25). Clodius’s father was one of Sulla’s patrician officers and was killed at the Colline Gate in 82 BCE (Weigal 93), leaving Clodius to be raised by his older brother Appius Pulcher Claudius (Gruen 59). In 70 BCE Clodius joined his brother-in-law Lucullus (Weigal 93) as an officer in Lucullus’s army against Mithridates. Here, Clodius started a mutiny from the headquarters of the army. Declaring himself the “soldier’s friend”, Clodius successfully encouraged the soldiers to rebel by contrasting Lucullus’s tightness with the spoils to Pompey’s generosity. Lucullus was unable to continue the war on account of his brother-in-law, and Clodius soon found himself unwelcome (Kahn 115). Clodius transferred to the army of his other brother in law, and had many adventures (such as joining the Syrian army against the Arabs, or being captured by pirates) before returning to Rome in 65 BCE (Weigal 93).
Clodius became the leader of what Cicero described as a “gang of young incorrigibles” (as qouted in Huzar 24). These youths from powerful families were involved in drinking and playing dice. They seemed almost to desire that their actions would shock respectable Rome. Among Clodius’s gang were Mark Antony and Curio, who would later become rising political stars on their own.
Although Clodius and his company loved to shock their fellow citizens, Clodius was unprepared for the backlash that followed his most outrageous stunt. Clodius disguised himself as a woman and attended the Bona Dea (good goddess) festival. For a man to attend this fextival was a sacrilege that the Romans were terrified would upset the Pax Deorum. When Clodius was found out, he was attacked by a mob of furious women and barely made his escape. Since Julius Caesar was Pontifex Maximus at the time, the festival had been held at his house. It was rumored that Clodius was having an affair with Caesar’s wife. Caesar divorced his wife because of this, but appears to have held no grudge against Clodius (Ward 205-209).
Clodius was brought to trial for his sacrilege, but insisted he was innocent since he had been in Interama on the day in question, fifty miles away from Rome. Cicero destroyed Clodius’s alibi by revealing that Clodius had visited him on that same day. Clodius was acquitted, but he never forgave Cicero (Weigal 95).
Desirous of increased political power, Clodius wanted to get elected into the Tribune of Plebs. However, since he was a patrician, he was ineligible. With the help of Julius Caesar, acting as Pontifex Maximus, Clodius arranged to have himself adopted into a Plebeian family (Kahn 203). Clodius was elected as a Tribune, just as he desired. Clodius made it clear he was out to get Cicero from his new position of power. During the Catiline conspiracy, Cicero as Consul had put to death Roman citizens without a trial. Clodius hoped to condemn him for this. Without waiting to see what Clodius would do to him, Cicero fled into voluntary exile (Furhmann 94-96).
As a Tribune, Clodius worked to increase his power base. He succeeded in passing two bills, one of which reconstituted the collegia, previously outlawed in 64 BCE, and allowed the formation of new collegia. The second bill provided free grain to all citizens, dramatically increasing Clodius’s support with the urban poor. Despite optimate criticism, Clodius opened up the temple of Castor to registration in the new collegia (Kahn214, 215).
“Despite his adventurism and the instability of the coalition he assembled, Clodius represented Caesar’s most effective ally,” (Kahn 214). However, regardless of how useful Clodius was, Caesar was soon to regret the support he had lent to him. “Whilst it is true that each of the triumvirate at various times hoped to use Clodius for his own ends, the fact remains that the tribune’s program was of his own construction to suit his own ambition for dominance,” (Shotter 71). Once Caesar left for Gaul, Clodius was unleashed.
Pompey and Caesar were both becoming unpopular, and Clodius saw this as a chance to switch his allegiance. Clodius picked apart some of Caesar’s legislation, but as the self-declared champion of the people, his primary target was Pompey. Pompey and Crassus were competing with each other. Clodius supported Crassus in this competition in return for interest-free loans from the richest man in Rome (Huzar 25). Clodius undermined Pompey’s treaties in the East, attacked him verbally, and even had his roughs assault Pompey in public. Soon, Pompey would not even leave his house because of Clodius (Gruen 99).
The worst insult of all concerned the son of Tigranes, who was a hostage Pompey had brought back from the East. He was kept captive in the house of Praetor Lucius Flavius. Clodius liberated the captive, and when Flavius tried to recapture him, a battle was fought outside the city gates. Clodius was ultimately successful, but not without heavy losses on both sides (Greenhalgh 11-13).
In retaliation, Pompey gave his support to Titus Annius Milo, an impoverished nobleman who would soon become Clodius’s worst enemy (Heaton 71). Milo formed his own gang to counteract that of Clodius, and thereafter, until the death of Clodius in 52 BCE, the streets of Rome were filled with blood as the two rival gangs battled each other for control.
Before proceeding further, it is worthwhile to examine the nature of Clodius’s support, as well as that of Milo’s. Clodius’s supporters were mostly the urban poor, recruited through the collegia and organized either by profession (guilds) or district (Lintott 193). Clodius’s gang consisted largely of slaves, but included a large number of freemen and urban poor. Of the latter, many were down and out, but many were also skilled men with trades who felt exploited by those who strived to maintain the status quo (Lintott 196-197). Clodius had several other gang leaders to help him keep his men organized. Their names are given to us by Cicero, but little other information remains of them (Lintott 83).
The tactics of Clodius were unique to his time. Outside of the city lay proconsular armies that could crush Clodius and his gang. However, as long as the law was observed and these armies could not enter Rome, Clodius was more than a force to be reckoned with. His gang was equivalent to a miniature army. Futhermore, Clodius was not interested in votes outisede of the city of Rome, as both the Gracchi and Saturninus had been. Clodius “pursued urban political power as an end to itself,” (Lintott 196).
Under these circumstances, the only way Clodius could have been opposed was by a man like Milo. Milo’s gang consisted not of dedicated volunteers like that of Clodius, but mostly gladiators he had bought. His success against Clodius’s forces “showed that a small group of professionals could be as satisfactory as Clodius’s mass movement where violence alone was required” (Lintott 85). Also, whereas Clodius only relied on the City for support, Milo had men outside of Rome he could call in for support when he needed to.
Because the activities of these gangs were legally defensible if it could be proved that the other gang had struck first, they were largely immune to the courts, although gang leaders were occasionally brought to trial (Lintott 29).
With two rival gangs now in place, the violence increased dramatically. Sympathy turned against Clodius, and many began to wish taht Cicero was back in Rome to make trouble for him. When the question of Cicero’s recall was discussed in 57 BCE, Clodius and his forces attacked the assembly, killing many. Cicero’s brother, Quintus Cicero, escaped the slaughter only by hiding under a pile of corpses. The senate continued to deliberate the question of Cicero, and when Clodius tried to stop them, Milo retaliated in kind. By midsummer, Clodius’s forces were worn out, and the vote was Cicero’s recall (Heaton 72).
Cicero returned and attached himself to Milo for support against Clodius. Since Cicero returned a hero, he was able to convince the Senate to restore his house (which Clodius and his gang had destroyed) at public expense (Fuhrmann 96). Clodius and his company drove away the workers from Cicero’s house, and destroyed what was already there. Clodius also burned Quintus Cicero’s house, and then went to storm Milo’s property. After doing battle with Milo’s forces, Clodius succeeded in setting fire to his house, but not before losing many of his men (Gruen 294).
Often, Clodius attacked Cicero directly with his gang, doing battle with Cicero’s bodyguards. In one of these encounters, Clodius apparently got himself into a position were he was at the mercy of Cicero, but Cicero gave his bodyguard the signal to let Clodius go (Furhmann 119).
Clodius ran for Aedile in 56 BCE. Although Milo as a tribune tried to postpone the elections, he was unsuccessful. Clodius attempted to bring Milo to trial for using gladiators to defend himself, even though Clodius was guilty of this as well. Pompey tried to speak in Milo’s defense, but he was constantly interrupted by personal abuse from Clodius. Clodius acted like a cheerleader with the crowd, shouting out, “Who is starving the people to death? Who wanted to be sent to Alexandria? Who is the dissolute general? Who scratches his head with one finger?” After each question the crowd would shout out “Pompeius!” Clodius than asked, “Whom do you want to go to Alexandria?” and the crowd replied, “Crassus!” Pompey was forced to listen to these insults until Milo and his men rushed forward chasing Clodius off the rostra (Seager 119).
Clodius continued his hostility toward Pompey, even going to the extent of plotting against his life. Pompey was irritated by Clodius, and summoned more men from the country for his defense. The Senate did not like Clodius, but they like Pompey even less, and so Clodius was allowed to continue his antics (Heaton 76).
Clodius’s positions were always changing though, making it hard for both his friends and enemies to know where he stood. “Clodius’s explosive political strands were combined with dramatic transfers of allegiance” (Gruen 59). By 54 BCE, Clodius shifted his alliance back to the Triumvirs, and reconciled himself to Pompey. The reasons for this drastic change of position are not clear. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that Pompey’s son married Clodius’s niece (the daughter of Appius Claudius) (Rawson 139).
Despite his reconciliation to Pompey, Clodius and Milo remained bitter enemies. This had the effect of straining Pompey’s relationship with Milo. Milo asked Pompey for more support, but Pompey promised him nothing, and increasingly began to distance himself from Milo (Gruen 150). Pompey also claimed to have reconciled Cicero to Clodius, but the fact that relationships remained poor between the two cast doubts on the validity of this reconciliation (Rawson 136).
Also in 54 BCE, one of Caesar’s henchmen, Publius Vatinius was put on trial for violence through the collegia and corruption. Cicero had by this point submitted to the Triumvirs in return for their protection, and agreed to defend Vatinius. Clodius also came to Vatinius’s aid, ascending the tribunal and scattering the lots for jurors. Vatinius was acquitted (Heaton 80).
In 53 BCE, Clodius decided to become a candidate for praetorship. In the same year, Milo ran for consul, feeling that the current chaos Rome ws in would allow him to win despite his unorthodox methods. Clodius was terrified of the idea of his enemy obtaining the most powerful political position in Rome, and supported Hypsaeus as an opponent candidate to Milo. Clodius used all the violence and murder for which he was famous to try and stop Milo. Pompey may have even helped Clodius gather rustics and slaves from the Apennines. Clodius openly declared that Milo was going to be killed.
Milo had already demonstrated he was able to play the same game, however. The two gangs continually fought it out in the streets of Rome, with elections being postponed repeatedly until it was necessary to appoint an interregna (Gruen 300).
In one of these battles in the Forum, Mark Antony, having long since left Clodius’s gang, attacked his former leader with a sword. Clodius escaped only by barricading himself in the stairs of a nearby bookstore. Why Mark Antony did this is a mystery. Since Antony was without question Caesar’s man at this point, it is hypothesized that Caesar, realizing that Clodius had once again gotten out of control, ordered his death. However it was unlike Caesar to order an execution in the Forum in broad daylight. Another possibility is that Antony was acting on his own impulse in what he thought was Caesar’s best interest. A third possibility is that Antony had a personal vendetta against Clodius. Clodius had accused Antony of having an affair with Clodius’s wife Fulvia (who would in fact later marry Mark Antony, after the death of both Clodius and her second husband Curio), and if this is true, then perhaps Antony wanted Clodius out of the way. In any case, Antony was soon to see what good luck it was to fail, for if he had been responsible for the death of Clodius, it would certainly have ended his political career (Huzar 37).
On January 18, 52 BCE, Clodius and Milo met on the Appian Way, and Clodius was killed as a result. Exactly how it happened was never quite clear. Cicero claimed that Clodius was waiting in ambush for Milo, and when Milo and his escort passed through, Clodius and his roughs attacked them. In the course of the fight, Clodius was wounded and carried by some of his men into a nearby inn. Cicero claims that Milo, once he realized what happened to Clodius, was unsure of what to do. However, when realizing that he would be blamed for the murder either way, he sent his men into the inn to drag Clodius out. When they went into the inn, Clodius was already dead from his wounds, and so Milo was saved from his guilt.
Other stories were not quite as sympathetic to Milo. Some claimed that Milo initiated the battle. When Clodius was injured, Milo’s men went into the inn, killed the innkeeper, dragged Clodius out, stabbed him several times, and left his corpse on the road. Another version is that Clodius and Milo passed each other with their escort without incident. Then, one of Milo’s men managed to slip into Clodius’s gang, and after following Clodius fora while, stabbed him in the back (Kahn 280).
Clodius’s widow, Fulvia, sent runner throughout the city to alert the people of his death. That same night, a large crowd gathered outside of Clodius’s house, and Fulvia’s lamentation excited the crowd. After the multitudes were further riled up by two tribunes, Titus Munatius Plancus, and Quintus Pompeius Rufus, the city was soon to see how much the people valued their champion. A huge crowd carried Clodius’s body through the streets and into the Senate house, naked so as to show his wounds. Then, the whole Seante house was burned down as a funeral pyre for Clodius (Kahn 281).
Anarchy reigned in Rome following the death of Clodius. Many optimates were murdered, as well as any well dressed person foolish enough to be caught walking in the streets (Weigal 132-133). “The commoners ranged through the city beating and murdering all whom they suspected of sympathy with their hero’s murderer, and wreaked their fury on the rich, attacking especially those who wore fine clothes and gold rings” (Kahn 281). Milo was prudent enough to stay hidden for most of the ordeal, but when he was convinced to make a speech in his defense, a riot ensued. Milo escaped only by disguising himself as a slave. Lepidus’s house was besieged, and his family saved only by Milo’s gladiators. Clodius’s relative, Sextus Clodius, assumed leadership of the gang. He led them on an attack of Milo’s house, but they were driven off by arrows from Milo’s defenders.
The Senate, in desperation, decided to vote Pompey an unprecedented and illegal sole consulship, with power to raise troops and restore order. Because of the circumstances, even strict constitutionalists, such as Cato, approved the measure. Although other consuls were later appointed, Pompey was to retain this power in fact if not in name until the civil war with Caesar. In an effort to maintain order, Pompey implemented many laws that were thought by Caesar’s allies to be indirectly against Caesar, and this helped to hasten the civil war (Greenham 83).
Cicero undertook the defense of Milo. Despite Pompey’s soldiers, Cicero was so intimidated by the howling crowd that he probably would not have been able to deliver his speech even if the crowd had let him speak. There was often violence between the crowd and Pompey’s soldiers, and many of the crowd was killed. In the end, Milo was ultimately condemned and exiled (Heaton 81).
Clodius’s politics were far from orthodox, and the rules of his game were much different than the rules of Caesar and Pompey, but for a period of time it can be said that he was the most powerful man in Rome. That Clodius’s methods could be so successful demonstrates the frustration of the urban poor in Rome, and should be taken as a sign that the Republic was on its way out. Clodius hastened this departure. The anarchy he created in the ciy was only restored by giving Pompey sole power, which was one of the factors leading to civil war and Caesar’s eventual dictatorship. Also, the reign of violence he unleashed on the city of Rome caused both rich and poor to wish for law and order as opposed to freedom under the republic. Clodius is certainly one of history’s most colorful characters. He took mob violence to an extreme no one had done before him, and his effects on history remain visible.
Bibliography
Furhmann, Manfred. Cicero and the Roman Republic. Blackwell. Cambridge. 1990
Greenhalgh, Peter. Pompey: The Republican Prince. University of Missouri Press. Columbia. 1982
Gruen, Erich. The Last Generation of the Roman Republic. University of California Press. Berkeley. 1974
Heaton, J.W. Mob Violence in the Late Roman Republic: 133-49 B.C. University of Illinois. Urbana. 1939.
Huzar, Eleanor. Mark Antony. University of Minnesota Press. Minneapolis. 1978
Kahn, Arthur. The Education of Julius Caesar. Shocken Books. New York. 1986.
Lintott, A.W. Violence in Republican Rome. Clarendon Press. Oxford. 1968.
Rawson, Beryl. The Politics of Friendship: Pompey and Cicero. Sydney University Press. Forest Grove. 1978.
Seager, Robin. Pompey: A Political Biography. University of California Press. Berkeley. 1979.
Shotter, David. The Fall of the Roman Republic. Routledge. New York. 1994.
Ward, Allen. Marcus Crassus and the Late Republic. University of Missouri Press. Columbia. 1977.
Weigal, Arthur. The Life and Times of Mark Antony. Garden City Publishing Company. 1931
Professor's comments: Generally well done, if somewhat rough around the edges. The most serious flaw is the lack of adequate explanation at certain points (see comments throughout). [Editor's note: I have not duplicated margin comments throughout].
Grade: B
His exploits caused the forum to be soaked with blood, and led to armed conflict in the streets as a part of daily life in ancient Rome. To a Republican government that was already outdated, Clodius helped deliver the final deathblow. His actions showed the flaws of the Roman Republic, and ultimately necessitated the rise of dictators such as Pompey and Caesar who could restore order.
Mob violence had always played an important role in the Republic. In the late Republic it was much more evident. Demagogues such as the Gracchi and Saturninus based their power on the support of the Roman Proletariat, which was politically emasculated but physically a force to deal with. However, the organized gangs that Clodius and his opponent Milo used were unprecedented. We can see the significance of these gangs by looking briefly at the history of Clodius himself, the nature of the coalition he assembled, and at the reign of violence he brought to the city of Rome, and its effects.
Born Publius Pulcher Claudius, Clodius changed his last name to make it less respectable. Clodius’s early political career is known only in fragments. Surprisingly he, like many of the young nobles who would later join him, was from an optimate family (Rome’s conservative party) (Huzar 25). Clodius’s father was one of Sulla’s patrician officers and was killed at the Colline Gate in 82 BCE (Weigal 93), leaving Clodius to be raised by his older brother Appius Pulcher Claudius (Gruen 59). In 70 BCE Clodius joined his brother-in-law Lucullus (Weigal 93) as an officer in Lucullus’s army against Mithridates. Here, Clodius started a mutiny from the headquarters of the army. Declaring himself the “soldier’s friend”, Clodius successfully encouraged the soldiers to rebel by contrasting Lucullus’s tightness with the spoils to Pompey’s generosity. Lucullus was unable to continue the war on account of his brother-in-law, and Clodius soon found himself unwelcome (Kahn 115). Clodius transferred to the army of his other brother in law, and had many adventures (such as joining the Syrian army against the Arabs, or being captured by pirates) before returning to Rome in 65 BCE (Weigal 93).
Clodius became the leader of what Cicero described as a “gang of young incorrigibles” (as qouted in Huzar 24). These youths from powerful families were involved in drinking and playing dice. They seemed almost to desire that their actions would shock respectable Rome. Among Clodius’s gang were Mark Antony and Curio, who would later become rising political stars on their own.
Although Clodius and his company loved to shock their fellow citizens, Clodius was unprepared for the backlash that followed his most outrageous stunt. Clodius disguised himself as a woman and attended the Bona Dea (good goddess) festival. For a man to attend this fextival was a sacrilege that the Romans were terrified would upset the Pax Deorum. When Clodius was found out, he was attacked by a mob of furious women and barely made his escape. Since Julius Caesar was Pontifex Maximus at the time, the festival had been held at his house. It was rumored that Clodius was having an affair with Caesar’s wife. Caesar divorced his wife because of this, but appears to have held no grudge against Clodius (Ward 205-209).
Clodius was brought to trial for his sacrilege, but insisted he was innocent since he had been in Interama on the day in question, fifty miles away from Rome. Cicero destroyed Clodius’s alibi by revealing that Clodius had visited him on that same day. Clodius was acquitted, but he never forgave Cicero (Weigal 95).
Desirous of increased political power, Clodius wanted to get elected into the Tribune of Plebs. However, since he was a patrician, he was ineligible. With the help of Julius Caesar, acting as Pontifex Maximus, Clodius arranged to have himself adopted into a Plebeian family (Kahn 203). Clodius was elected as a Tribune, just as he desired. Clodius made it clear he was out to get Cicero from his new position of power. During the Catiline conspiracy, Cicero as Consul had put to death Roman citizens without a trial. Clodius hoped to condemn him for this. Without waiting to see what Clodius would do to him, Cicero fled into voluntary exile (Furhmann 94-96).
As a Tribune, Clodius worked to increase his power base. He succeeded in passing two bills, one of which reconstituted the collegia, previously outlawed in 64 BCE, and allowed the formation of new collegia. The second bill provided free grain to all citizens, dramatically increasing Clodius’s support with the urban poor. Despite optimate criticism, Clodius opened up the temple of Castor to registration in the new collegia (Kahn214, 215).
“Despite his adventurism and the instability of the coalition he assembled, Clodius represented Caesar’s most effective ally,” (Kahn 214). However, regardless of how useful Clodius was, Caesar was soon to regret the support he had lent to him. “Whilst it is true that each of the triumvirate at various times hoped to use Clodius for his own ends, the fact remains that the tribune’s program was of his own construction to suit his own ambition for dominance,” (Shotter 71). Once Caesar left for Gaul, Clodius was unleashed.
Pompey and Caesar were both becoming unpopular, and Clodius saw this as a chance to switch his allegiance. Clodius picked apart some of Caesar’s legislation, but as the self-declared champion of the people, his primary target was Pompey. Pompey and Crassus were competing with each other. Clodius supported Crassus in this competition in return for interest-free loans from the richest man in Rome (Huzar 25). Clodius undermined Pompey’s treaties in the East, attacked him verbally, and even had his roughs assault Pompey in public. Soon, Pompey would not even leave his house because of Clodius (Gruen 99).
The worst insult of all concerned the son of Tigranes, who was a hostage Pompey had brought back from the East. He was kept captive in the house of Praetor Lucius Flavius. Clodius liberated the captive, and when Flavius tried to recapture him, a battle was fought outside the city gates. Clodius was ultimately successful, but not without heavy losses on both sides (Greenhalgh 11-13).
In retaliation, Pompey gave his support to Titus Annius Milo, an impoverished nobleman who would soon become Clodius’s worst enemy (Heaton 71). Milo formed his own gang to counteract that of Clodius, and thereafter, until the death of Clodius in 52 BCE, the streets of Rome were filled with blood as the two rival gangs battled each other for control.
Before proceeding further, it is worthwhile to examine the nature of Clodius’s support, as well as that of Milo’s. Clodius’s supporters were mostly the urban poor, recruited through the collegia and organized either by profession (guilds) or district (Lintott 193). Clodius’s gang consisted largely of slaves, but included a large number of freemen and urban poor. Of the latter, many were down and out, but many were also skilled men with trades who felt exploited by those who strived to maintain the status quo (Lintott 196-197). Clodius had several other gang leaders to help him keep his men organized. Their names are given to us by Cicero, but little other information remains of them (Lintott 83).
The tactics of Clodius were unique to his time. Outside of the city lay proconsular armies that could crush Clodius and his gang. However, as long as the law was observed and these armies could not enter Rome, Clodius was more than a force to be reckoned with. His gang was equivalent to a miniature army. Futhermore, Clodius was not interested in votes outisede of the city of Rome, as both the Gracchi and Saturninus had been. Clodius “pursued urban political power as an end to itself,” (Lintott 196).
Under these circumstances, the only way Clodius could have been opposed was by a man like Milo. Milo’s gang consisted not of dedicated volunteers like that of Clodius, but mostly gladiators he had bought. His success against Clodius’s forces “showed that a small group of professionals could be as satisfactory as Clodius’s mass movement where violence alone was required” (Lintott 85). Also, whereas Clodius only relied on the City for support, Milo had men outside of Rome he could call in for support when he needed to.
Because the activities of these gangs were legally defensible if it could be proved that the other gang had struck first, they were largely immune to the courts, although gang leaders were occasionally brought to trial (Lintott 29).
With two rival gangs now in place, the violence increased dramatically. Sympathy turned against Clodius, and many began to wish taht Cicero was back in Rome to make trouble for him. When the question of Cicero’s recall was discussed in 57 BCE, Clodius and his forces attacked the assembly, killing many. Cicero’s brother, Quintus Cicero, escaped the slaughter only by hiding under a pile of corpses. The senate continued to deliberate the question of Cicero, and when Clodius tried to stop them, Milo retaliated in kind. By midsummer, Clodius’s forces were worn out, and the vote was Cicero’s recall (Heaton 72).
Cicero returned and attached himself to Milo for support against Clodius. Since Cicero returned a hero, he was able to convince the Senate to restore his house (which Clodius and his gang had destroyed) at public expense (Fuhrmann 96). Clodius and his company drove away the workers from Cicero’s house, and destroyed what was already there. Clodius also burned Quintus Cicero’s house, and then went to storm Milo’s property. After doing battle with Milo’s forces, Clodius succeeded in setting fire to his house, but not before losing many of his men (Gruen 294).
Often, Clodius attacked Cicero directly with his gang, doing battle with Cicero’s bodyguards. In one of these encounters, Clodius apparently got himself into a position were he was at the mercy of Cicero, but Cicero gave his bodyguard the signal to let Clodius go (Furhmann 119).
Clodius ran for Aedile in 56 BCE. Although Milo as a tribune tried to postpone the elections, he was unsuccessful. Clodius attempted to bring Milo to trial for using gladiators to defend himself, even though Clodius was guilty of this as well. Pompey tried to speak in Milo’s defense, but he was constantly interrupted by personal abuse from Clodius. Clodius acted like a cheerleader with the crowd, shouting out, “Who is starving the people to death? Who wanted to be sent to Alexandria? Who is the dissolute general? Who scratches his head with one finger?” After each question the crowd would shout out “Pompeius!” Clodius than asked, “Whom do you want to go to Alexandria?” and the crowd replied, “Crassus!” Pompey was forced to listen to these insults until Milo and his men rushed forward chasing Clodius off the rostra (Seager 119).
Clodius continued his hostility toward Pompey, even going to the extent of plotting against his life. Pompey was irritated by Clodius, and summoned more men from the country for his defense. The Senate did not like Clodius, but they like Pompey even less, and so Clodius was allowed to continue his antics (Heaton 76).
Clodius’s positions were always changing though, making it hard for both his friends and enemies to know where he stood. “Clodius’s explosive political strands were combined with dramatic transfers of allegiance” (Gruen 59). By 54 BCE, Clodius shifted his alliance back to the Triumvirs, and reconciled himself to Pompey. The reasons for this drastic change of position are not clear. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that Pompey’s son married Clodius’s niece (the daughter of Appius Claudius) (Rawson 139).
Despite his reconciliation to Pompey, Clodius and Milo remained bitter enemies. This had the effect of straining Pompey’s relationship with Milo. Milo asked Pompey for more support, but Pompey promised him nothing, and increasingly began to distance himself from Milo (Gruen 150). Pompey also claimed to have reconciled Cicero to Clodius, but the fact that relationships remained poor between the two cast doubts on the validity of this reconciliation (Rawson 136).
Also in 54 BCE, one of Caesar’s henchmen, Publius Vatinius was put on trial for violence through the collegia and corruption. Cicero had by this point submitted to the Triumvirs in return for their protection, and agreed to defend Vatinius. Clodius also came to Vatinius’s aid, ascending the tribunal and scattering the lots for jurors. Vatinius was acquitted (Heaton 80).
In 53 BCE, Clodius decided to become a candidate for praetorship. In the same year, Milo ran for consul, feeling that the current chaos Rome ws in would allow him to win despite his unorthodox methods. Clodius was terrified of the idea of his enemy obtaining the most powerful political position in Rome, and supported Hypsaeus as an opponent candidate to Milo. Clodius used all the violence and murder for which he was famous to try and stop Milo. Pompey may have even helped Clodius gather rustics and slaves from the Apennines. Clodius openly declared that Milo was going to be killed.
Milo had already demonstrated he was able to play the same game, however. The two gangs continually fought it out in the streets of Rome, with elections being postponed repeatedly until it was necessary to appoint an interregna (Gruen 300).
In one of these battles in the Forum, Mark Antony, having long since left Clodius’s gang, attacked his former leader with a sword. Clodius escaped only by barricading himself in the stairs of a nearby bookstore. Why Mark Antony did this is a mystery. Since Antony was without question Caesar’s man at this point, it is hypothesized that Caesar, realizing that Clodius had once again gotten out of control, ordered his death. However it was unlike Caesar to order an execution in the Forum in broad daylight. Another possibility is that Antony was acting on his own impulse in what he thought was Caesar’s best interest. A third possibility is that Antony had a personal vendetta against Clodius. Clodius had accused Antony of having an affair with Clodius’s wife Fulvia (who would in fact later marry Mark Antony, after the death of both Clodius and her second husband Curio), and if this is true, then perhaps Antony wanted Clodius out of the way. In any case, Antony was soon to see what good luck it was to fail, for if he had been responsible for the death of Clodius, it would certainly have ended his political career (Huzar 37).
On January 18, 52 BCE, Clodius and Milo met on the Appian Way, and Clodius was killed as a result. Exactly how it happened was never quite clear. Cicero claimed that Clodius was waiting in ambush for Milo, and when Milo and his escort passed through, Clodius and his roughs attacked them. In the course of the fight, Clodius was wounded and carried by some of his men into a nearby inn. Cicero claims that Milo, once he realized what happened to Clodius, was unsure of what to do. However, when realizing that he would be blamed for the murder either way, he sent his men into the inn to drag Clodius out. When they went into the inn, Clodius was already dead from his wounds, and so Milo was saved from his guilt.
Other stories were not quite as sympathetic to Milo. Some claimed that Milo initiated the battle. When Clodius was injured, Milo’s men went into the inn, killed the innkeeper, dragged Clodius out, stabbed him several times, and left his corpse on the road. Another version is that Clodius and Milo passed each other with their escort without incident. Then, one of Milo’s men managed to slip into Clodius’s gang, and after following Clodius fora while, stabbed him in the back (Kahn 280).
Clodius’s widow, Fulvia, sent runner throughout the city to alert the people of his death. That same night, a large crowd gathered outside of Clodius’s house, and Fulvia’s lamentation excited the crowd. After the multitudes were further riled up by two tribunes, Titus Munatius Plancus, and Quintus Pompeius Rufus, the city was soon to see how much the people valued their champion. A huge crowd carried Clodius’s body through the streets and into the Senate house, naked so as to show his wounds. Then, the whole Seante house was burned down as a funeral pyre for Clodius (Kahn 281).
Anarchy reigned in Rome following the death of Clodius. Many optimates were murdered, as well as any well dressed person foolish enough to be caught walking in the streets (Weigal 132-133). “The commoners ranged through the city beating and murdering all whom they suspected of sympathy with their hero’s murderer, and wreaked their fury on the rich, attacking especially those who wore fine clothes and gold rings” (Kahn 281). Milo was prudent enough to stay hidden for most of the ordeal, but when he was convinced to make a speech in his defense, a riot ensued. Milo escaped only by disguising himself as a slave. Lepidus’s house was besieged, and his family saved only by Milo’s gladiators. Clodius’s relative, Sextus Clodius, assumed leadership of the gang. He led them on an attack of Milo’s house, but they were driven off by arrows from Milo’s defenders.
The Senate, in desperation, decided to vote Pompey an unprecedented and illegal sole consulship, with power to raise troops and restore order. Because of the circumstances, even strict constitutionalists, such as Cato, approved the measure. Although other consuls were later appointed, Pompey was to retain this power in fact if not in name until the civil war with Caesar. In an effort to maintain order, Pompey implemented many laws that were thought by Caesar’s allies to be indirectly against Caesar, and this helped to hasten the civil war (Greenham 83).
Cicero undertook the defense of Milo. Despite Pompey’s soldiers, Cicero was so intimidated by the howling crowd that he probably would not have been able to deliver his speech even if the crowd had let him speak. There was often violence between the crowd and Pompey’s soldiers, and many of the crowd was killed. In the end, Milo was ultimately condemned and exiled (Heaton 81).
Clodius’s politics were far from orthodox, and the rules of his game were much different than the rules of Caesar and Pompey, but for a period of time it can be said that he was the most powerful man in Rome. That Clodius’s methods could be so successful demonstrates the frustration of the urban poor in Rome, and should be taken as a sign that the Republic was on its way out. Clodius hastened this departure. The anarchy he created in the ciy was only restored by giving Pompey sole power, which was one of the factors leading to civil war and Caesar’s eventual dictatorship. Also, the reign of violence he unleashed on the city of Rome caused both rich and poor to wish for law and order as opposed to freedom under the republic. Clodius is certainly one of history’s most colorful characters. He took mob violence to an extreme no one had done before him, and his effects on history remain visible.
Bibliography
Furhmann, Manfred. Cicero and the Roman Republic. Blackwell. Cambridge. 1990
Greenhalgh, Peter. Pompey: The Republican Prince. University of Missouri Press. Columbia. 1982
Gruen, Erich. The Last Generation of the Roman Republic. University of California Press. Berkeley. 1974
Heaton, J.W. Mob Violence in the Late Roman Republic: 133-49 B.C. University of Illinois. Urbana. 1939.
Huzar, Eleanor. Mark Antony. University of Minnesota Press. Minneapolis. 1978
Kahn, Arthur. The Education of Julius Caesar. Shocken Books. New York. 1986.
Lintott, A.W. Violence in Republican Rome. Clarendon Press. Oxford. 1968.
Rawson, Beryl. The Politics of Friendship: Pompey and Cicero. Sydney University Press. Forest Grove. 1978.
Seager, Robin. Pompey: A Political Biography. University of California Press. Berkeley. 1979.
Shotter, David. The Fall of the Roman Republic. Routledge. New York. 1994.
Ward, Allen. Marcus Crassus and the Late Republic. University of Missouri Press. Columbia. 1977.
Weigal, Arthur. The Life and Times of Mark Antony. Garden City Publishing Company. 1931
Professor's comments: Generally well done, if somewhat rough around the edges. The most serious flaw is the lack of adequate explanation at certain points (see comments throughout). [Editor's note: I have not duplicated margin comments throughout].
Grade: B
Friday, December 30, 2005
Nato Airstrikes in Yugoslavia
May 1, 2000
Although it has been over a year now since NATO started its bombing campaign in Kosovo, I believe the air war still deserves to be examined. As the popular saying goes, "those who fail to learn the lessons of history are bound to repeat them." I believe the media interpretations of the U.S. led air strikes was misleading, and unless the record is set straight the wrong lessons will be drawn. Washington and the mainstream media seek to spin the events as an example of a humanitarian victory, not the reality.
I consider myself a Christian pacifist, and believe strongly that the use of military force is never justified. I find myself in agreement with Gandhi when he says, "It is blasphemy to say that non-violence can be practiced by individuals and never by nations which are composed of individuals"1. I also agree with Martin Luther King Junior, who said, "World peace though nonviolent means is neither absurd nor unattainable. All other methods have failed. We must begin anew"2. The problem with the Yugoslavian air strikes is that they are often portrayed as a positive example of military intervention. This view is not only wrong, but believing it will lead to support of further military activities in the future. That is why it is important to see that NATO’s actions demonstrate all too well that "aggression and militarism go hand in hand"3.4
United States Hypocrisy
To begin with, the whole concept of the United States intervening in Yugoslavia for humanitarian reasons is sickening in its hypocrisy. As David McReynolds, War Resisters League Emeritus and current Presidential Candidate of the Socialist Party, said, "While I am not clear why the US is doing this, I am very clear why it is NOT doing it. It is not doing it because of the slightest humanitarian concerns.5" This is all too evident by examining the United States track record internationally. Two thousand people had died in Kosovo prior to NATO intervention, but 80,000 were killed in Algeria, 820,000 were killed in Rwanda, and 1,500,000 were killed in the Sudan. The United States did nothing6. The United States have never threatened to intervene to stop the Russian led massacres in Cheneya, despite the fact that the situation there is very similar to Kosovo (a renegade province)7. In Laos the death toll is also very similar to that of Kosovo, only it is more concentrated among children8.
The United States supported Saddam Hussien during his bloody war with Iran in the 1980s9. We supported the Shah in Iran when his secret police conducted tortures at least as bad as anything occurring in Kosovo10. The list goes on and on. The United States supported the Contras in Nicaragua, and mined Nicaragua’s harbors in 198411. The U.S. colluded in the Indonesian slaughters in East Timor12. Through covert aid, financial and military help, and training at the school of Americas in Fort Benning, we have been actively involved in Massacres in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. United States aggression in Vietnam is not even ancient history13.
But the hypocrisy does not stop there. Currently Colombia is the leading recipient of U.S. arms and training, despite the fact that "the annual level of political killing by the government and its paramilitary associates is about at the level of Kosovo, and refugee flight is well over a million." The Clinton administration has praised President Gaviria even though human rights abuses during his time in office have even surpassed that of his predecessors14.
Turkey, itself a member of NATO, has been involved in a horrific repression of the Kurds which "by very conservative estimate … falls in the category of Kosovo15." Events in Turkey have been called some of the most extreme examples of ethnic cleaning in the mid 90s. Tens of thousands have been killed, and 3,500 villages have been destroyed (seven times the number in Kosovo). Some 2.5 to 3 million refugees have been created. However because Turkey is an ally of the United States not only do these atrocities not get picked up by the media but Turkey carries out its genocide with massive military support from the United States, increasing under Clinton16. When human rights groups made public how US jets were bombing villages in Turkey, the Clinton administration simply found ways around laws requiring the suspension of arms deliveries17. Several of these atrocities occurred in 1998, but no one seemed to notice them during the celebration of 50 years of NATO18.
Both Turkey and Colombia will defend their US supported atrocities on the grounds that they are fighting terrorists. Milosevic has made the same defense for his activities in Kosovo19.
In Iraq, half a million children were killed in five years as the result of United States weaponry. Madeleine Albright commented that it was "a very hard choice …[but] we think the price is worth it.20" At the time of the Air strikes, 5000 Iraqi Children were killed a month from United States policies concerning Iraq21.
So, I think it is firmly established that the United States could not care less about humanitarian concerns. Why then the bombing campaign? Much has already been made how this occurred shortly after the impeachment proceedings, and so causing many critics to wonder about a "Wag the Dog" type scenario.
However, the United States record in Yugoslavia goes back much further. The structural adjustment policies of the U.S. dominated International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank have bankrupted Yugoslavia’s industrial sector (causing large amounts of the labor force to be laid off), and restructured the economy to divert money from social programs to paying off debt. These debts were passed onto the newly independent republics of the former Yugoslavia. For these reason many accuse the IMF and the World Bank of being primarily responsible for the destabilization of the Balkans22.
The Dayton Agreement for a peace Accord in Bosnia seems to be more concerned with protecting Western economic rights in the Former Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) than human rights. Bosnia is not allowed self-determination, but its government and economy are put under the control of a European Union (E.U.) governor and the IMF23.
Did the United States engineer the break up of Yugoslavia to gain access to Bosnian oil and oil pipelines connecting the Caspian and the Black Sea across the Balkans? Was the air war to protect economic interests? Many people think so. Many also think that the air strikes were designed to strengthen NATO, undermine the United Nations Security Consul, and further suppress Russia24. As Noam Chomsky pointed out, now that the cold war is gone, suppressing Communism is no longer a convenient cover for United States Imperialism. Humanitarian concerns must replace it instead25.
Failure to Seek Non-violent Alternatives
Although it has been called one of the most censored news stories of the year, Yugoslavia was virtually forced into a war with the United States. On March 23, there were two potential peace plans on the table. One of which was the Rambouillet agreement proposed by NATO, the other was the Serbian National Assembly Resolutions.
Diplomatic options appeared to be open, until last minute conditions were added to the Rambouillet agreement, in the form of Appendix B: the Status of Multi-National Military Implementation force. This appendix outlined that a NATO’s forces would be stationed in the former Yugoslavia. Tens of thousands of NATO soldiers can not legitimately be called a peace-keeping force. An occupation force is perhaps more accurate. The very wording of the Appendix is so harsh that it is speculated that this Appendix was designed to be rejected. Either way, "It is hard to imagine any country would consider such terms except in the form of unconditional surrender26."
The Serbian proposal called instead for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the UN to facilitate peaceful settlement. The Serbians were ready to enter negotiations leading to "wide ranging autonomy for Kosovo," and even to review the size and character of the international presence in Kosovo. However, NATO refused to budge.27
And what happened on the Kosovo peace accord of June 3? It was a compromise between the two peace agreements, and NATO abandoned its major demands that the Serbs had objected to. Instead NATO agreed to an international peace keeping force, among other concessions28. This outcome suggests diplomatic initiatives could well have been successful, and the whole tragedy of the air strikes could have been avoided.
Even if one assumes that diplomatic relations would not have been successful, violence is never the only solution. NATO instead could have sent unarmed peacekeepers trained in the principles of non-violence and non-violent resistance. Unarmed observers would have accompanied them from the OSCE. Non violent tactics have worked in South Africa, in the Philippines, and even before in the Balkans. In fact up until 1996 there was a non-violent resistance movement in Kosovo, which received no United States support and consequently died out. The terrorist group KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) emerged instead29.
Do No Harm Principle
Suppose one makes another false assumption and pretends that non-violent alternatives would not work. Is war then justified? By no means. Noam Chomsky describes it eloquently. "One choice, always, is to follow the Hippocratic principle: "First, do no harm." If you can think of no way to adhere to that elementary principle, then do nothing30." Chomsky reiterates himself in another article. "Suppose you see a crime in the streets, and feel that you can’t just stand by silently, so you pick up an assault rifle and kill everyone involved: criminal, victim, bystanders31." Surely this is a ridiculous approach to dealing with a crisis. David McReynolds also expressed the same sentiment. "If I hear one more sweet soul say ‘yes, but do you mean you won’t do anything for the poor people there’ I may bloody well scream. There are people being butchered and murdered and raped all over the world and I live in horror of it. There is almost nothing I can do about these actions in Sudan, Congo, Indonesia, etc. But where my country is involved … then I have to give priority to stopping my country from making a very nasty world much worse32."
Milosevic and his crew are not nice figures. However this fact does not justify NATO’s actions. What’s more, Clinton and NATO have offered no long-term solutions to the problem in Yugoslavia, other then just dropping a few bombs.
International Law
NATO actions also violate many international laws. For instance, both the United Nations charter and NATO’s charter state that every effort should be made to resolve conflicts peacefully. If the matter can not be resolved peacefully, the UN’s charter states that the UN Security Council must vote to act against an aggressor33. In the case of Serbia, the UN Security Council was completely by-passed. France’s call to refer the matter to the UN was flatly refused34. NATO also ignored calls for larger input, including one from Russia that recommended the Group of seven be involved35.
Without the authorization of the UN security consul, force can only be used in cases of legitimate self-defense, which the air strike was clearly not. Even threats to use force are prohibited under articles 2 and 4 of the UN charter, and yet threats to bomb Serbia were made as early as 1998. Also it is good to keep in mind that under international law Kosovo is legally part of Serbia36.
Harm Done by NATO
The harm done by NATO’s actions in the FRY will be hard to repair. For one thing it caused all of Serbia to become united against NATO, and destroyed the possibility of any true democratic change from opposition parties. It also enraged much of the rest of the world, hurting our relationships internationally37.
Worse, since January 1, 1999, the atrocities committed by the Serbs had been proceeding at a very steady level. Once the bombing campaign started, the atrocities sky rocketed38. As David McReynolds pointed out, the bombing campaign only made the Albanians more of a threat to the Serbs, causing more of a need to kill them39. What’s more, the casualties among Serb civilians in the first three weeks of the air war are higher then all the casualties on both sides of the Kosovo conflict in the three months preceding the NATO strikes, and yet these three months are considered the humanitarian crisis40.
A huge amount of refugees were created, which threaten stability with in the region. A group of international experts estimate that NATO bombings produced more refugees and victims then any other conceivable solution. Many non-Albanians fled the region, including Serbs, Gypsies, Slavs, Muslims, Jews, Turks and Croats41. In the year before the bombings, NATO estimates some 2-300,000 refugees were created within Kosovo. Three days after the bombing started the United Nations Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) registered 4000. The toll increased until by June 4 there were 670,000 refugees in the neighboring countries, Albania, and Macedonia. This does not count the 70,000 in Montenegro, and 75,000 in various other countries42.
NATO also deliberately hit civilian targets, including Serbian radio, television, and factories that produced consumer good43.
Perhaps most puzzling is the use of Depleted Uranium weapons in NATO’s air campaign. From a military standpoint these weapons are very nice. They are able to slice through the thick armor of military vehicles and underground bunkers very easily. However from a humanitarian standpoint they are not so nice. Its chemical and toxic effects are long standing. They enter the food chain and can poison it for a significant amount of time. Depleted Uranium weapons were also used in the campaign against Iraq, and have caused many fetuses to develop deformed. The United States showered the Southern region of Kosovo with depleted Uranium, firing 31,000 rounds of it during 100 missions. Concern is now developing over whether it was used in other regions as well. Many of the depleted uranium weapons were used in highly populated areas. NATO has effectively destroyed the environment of the very region it claimed it was going to save.
What is more, dozens of oil refineries, petrochemical complexes and factories were destroyed. Thousands of tons of toxic chemicals were released into the air, soil and water. Cancers are predicted to rise in the area over the years to come. Local gynecologists in the area recommended termination of early pregnancies after the air strike because of the health hazards to the unborn children. Some gynecologists recommend women wait two years before attempting to have children44.
And what are the results of NATO’s campaign? A sustainable peace has not returned to the region. In fact violence is regularly reported. Serbs and Albanians have now found it impossible to live side by side with each other. There have even been reports of human rights abuses, including rape, by the "Peacekeepers.45" The whole affair has only confirmed the futility of military means as a way to peace.
Footnotes
1. As quoted by Mark Mattison (member of the Michigan Peace Team) in an E-mail to the author. 13 Mar. 2000
2. As quoted by Mattison
3. Mattison
4. Of course this paper is by no means meant to downplay the atrocities committed by either side prior to NATO’s involvement.
5. David McReynolds. "Nato and Kosovo/ Part two". (Nonviolence Web Upfront. 28 Mar. 1999: http://www.nonviolence.org/board/messages/6890.htm). 1.
6. Mattison
7. David McReynolds. "Quick Analysis of Kosovo." (Nonviolence Web Upfront. 23 Mar. 1999: http://www.nonviolence.orb/board/messages/6749.htm). 2
8. Noam Chomsky. "The Current Bombings: Behind the Rhetoric." (http://www.zmag.org/crisescurevts/current_bombings.htm) 3
9. McReynolds. "Quick Analysis of Kosovo." 1
10. McReynolds. "Quick Analysis of Kosovo." 1
11. McReynolds. "NATO and Kosovo/ Part Two." 1-2
12. McReynolds. "NATO and Kosovo/ Part two." 1
13. McReynolds. "NATO and Kosovo/ Part two." 2
14. Chomsky. "The Current Bombings: Behind the Rhetoric." 3
15. Chomsky. "The Current Bombings: Behind the Rhetoric." 3
16. Noam Chomsky. "Kosovo Peace Accord." (Z-Magazine. July 2000: http://www.zmag.org/crisecurevts/peace_accord.htm) 2
17. Chomsky. "The Current Bombings: Behind the Rhetoric." 3
18. Chomsky. "Kosovo Peace Accord." 3
19. Chomsky. "The Current Bombings: Behind the Rhetoric." 3
20. As quoted in Chomsky. "The Current Bombings: Behind the Rhetoric." 4
21. Chomsky. "The Current Bombings: Behind the Rhetoric." 4
22. Mattison
23. Mattison
24. Mattison
25. Chomksy. "The Current Bombings: Behind the Rhetoric." 7
26. Chomsky. "Kosovo Peace Accord." 4
27. Chomsky. "Kosovo Peace Accord." 4-5
28. Chomsky. "Kosovo Peace Accord." 4
29. Mattison
30. Chomsky. "The Current Bombings: Behind the Rhetoric." 7
31. Noam Chomksy. "World Order and its Rules." (Z-magazine. Oct. 1999: http://www.zmag.org/crisecurevts/current_bombings.htm) 10
32. McReynolds. "NATO and Kosovo/ Part two." 3-4
33. Mattison
34. Chomsky. "The Current Bombings: Behind the Rhetoric." 5
35. Oliver Corten, et al. "Kosovo Must not be Forgotten: Brussels Appeal."
(http://www.zmag.org/brusappeal.htm). 1
36. Oliver Corten et al. 1
37. Mattison
38. Chomsky. "Kosovo Peace Accord." 2
39. McReynolds. "NATO and Kosovo/ Part 2." 2
40. Chomsky. "Kosovo Peace Accord." 2
41. Oliver Corten et al. 2
42. Chomsky. "Kosovo Peace Accord." 2
43. Oliver Corten et al. 2
44. Vesna Peric Zimonic. "Enviroment-Yugoslavia: NATO’s Chemical Warfare." (One World. Mar.2000: http://www.oneworld.org/ips2/mar00/10_22_031.html). 1-3
45. Mattison
Bibliography
Chomsky, Noam. "Kosovo Peace Accord." Z-Magazine. July 2000. Available http://www.zmag.org/crisecurevts/peace_accord.htm
---. "The Current Bombings: Behind the Rhetoric." Available
http://www.zmag.org/crisecurevts/current_bombings.htm
---. "World Order and its Rules." Z-Magazine. Oct. 1999. Available http://www.zmag.org/Zmag/articles/oct1999chomsky.htm
Corten, Oliver, et al. "Kosovo Must not Be Forgotten: Brussels Appeal." http://zmag.org/brusappeal.htm
Mattison, Mark. E-mail to the author. 13 Mar. 2000.
McReynolds, David. "NATO and Kosovo/ Part two." Nonviolence Web Upfront. 28 Mar. 1999. Available http://www.nonviolence.org/board/messages/6890.htm
---. "Quick Analysis of Kosovo." Nonviolence Web Upfront. 23 Mar. 1999. Available http://www.nonviolence.org/board/messages/6749.htm
Zimonic, Vesna Peric. "Environment-Yugoslavia: NATO’s Chemical Warfare." One World. Mar. 2000 On line. Available http://www.oneworld.org/ips2/mar00/10_22_031.html
Professors Comments: Joel, in spite of my comments throughout [Ed. note--I have not duplicated the marginal comments] I share a number of your concerns and you make some good points. My problems with your paper in brief are these:
1). Too many sweeping generalizations and unqualified and unsupported positions are taken and
2). Your sources are questionable and I think too extreme (which helps explain #1). Chomsky, of course, is well known, but hardly the most credible or knowledgeable source on the Balkans. The others I have not heard of. You needed to have looked at some more scholarly sources--even those for the alert general public such as Foreign Affairs and the NY Review of books a vigorous debate took place.
Grade: B+/A-
Although it has been over a year now since NATO started its bombing campaign in Kosovo, I believe the air war still deserves to be examined. As the popular saying goes, "those who fail to learn the lessons of history are bound to repeat them." I believe the media interpretations of the U.S. led air strikes was misleading, and unless the record is set straight the wrong lessons will be drawn. Washington and the mainstream media seek to spin the events as an example of a humanitarian victory, not the reality.
I consider myself a Christian pacifist, and believe strongly that the use of military force is never justified. I find myself in agreement with Gandhi when he says, "It is blasphemy to say that non-violence can be practiced by individuals and never by nations which are composed of individuals"1. I also agree with Martin Luther King Junior, who said, "World peace though nonviolent means is neither absurd nor unattainable. All other methods have failed. We must begin anew"2. The problem with the Yugoslavian air strikes is that they are often portrayed as a positive example of military intervention. This view is not only wrong, but believing it will lead to support of further military activities in the future. That is why it is important to see that NATO’s actions demonstrate all too well that "aggression and militarism go hand in hand"3.4
United States Hypocrisy
To begin with, the whole concept of the United States intervening in Yugoslavia for humanitarian reasons is sickening in its hypocrisy. As David McReynolds, War Resisters League Emeritus and current Presidential Candidate of the Socialist Party, said, "While I am not clear why the US is doing this, I am very clear why it is NOT doing it. It is not doing it because of the slightest humanitarian concerns.5" This is all too evident by examining the United States track record internationally. Two thousand people had died in Kosovo prior to NATO intervention, but 80,000 were killed in Algeria, 820,000 were killed in Rwanda, and 1,500,000 were killed in the Sudan. The United States did nothing6. The United States have never threatened to intervene to stop the Russian led massacres in Cheneya, despite the fact that the situation there is very similar to Kosovo (a renegade province)7. In Laos the death toll is also very similar to that of Kosovo, only it is more concentrated among children8.
The United States supported Saddam Hussien during his bloody war with Iran in the 1980s9. We supported the Shah in Iran when his secret police conducted tortures at least as bad as anything occurring in Kosovo10. The list goes on and on. The United States supported the Contras in Nicaragua, and mined Nicaragua’s harbors in 198411. The U.S. colluded in the Indonesian slaughters in East Timor12. Through covert aid, financial and military help, and training at the school of Americas in Fort Benning, we have been actively involved in Massacres in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. United States aggression in Vietnam is not even ancient history13.
But the hypocrisy does not stop there. Currently Colombia is the leading recipient of U.S. arms and training, despite the fact that "the annual level of political killing by the government and its paramilitary associates is about at the level of Kosovo, and refugee flight is well over a million." The Clinton administration has praised President Gaviria even though human rights abuses during his time in office have even surpassed that of his predecessors14.
Turkey, itself a member of NATO, has been involved in a horrific repression of the Kurds which "by very conservative estimate … falls in the category of Kosovo15." Events in Turkey have been called some of the most extreme examples of ethnic cleaning in the mid 90s. Tens of thousands have been killed, and 3,500 villages have been destroyed (seven times the number in Kosovo). Some 2.5 to 3 million refugees have been created. However because Turkey is an ally of the United States not only do these atrocities not get picked up by the media but Turkey carries out its genocide with massive military support from the United States, increasing under Clinton16. When human rights groups made public how US jets were bombing villages in Turkey, the Clinton administration simply found ways around laws requiring the suspension of arms deliveries17. Several of these atrocities occurred in 1998, but no one seemed to notice them during the celebration of 50 years of NATO18.
Both Turkey and Colombia will defend their US supported atrocities on the grounds that they are fighting terrorists. Milosevic has made the same defense for his activities in Kosovo19.
In Iraq, half a million children were killed in five years as the result of United States weaponry. Madeleine Albright commented that it was "a very hard choice …[but] we think the price is worth it.20" At the time of the Air strikes, 5000 Iraqi Children were killed a month from United States policies concerning Iraq21.
So, I think it is firmly established that the United States could not care less about humanitarian concerns. Why then the bombing campaign? Much has already been made how this occurred shortly after the impeachment proceedings, and so causing many critics to wonder about a "Wag the Dog" type scenario.
However, the United States record in Yugoslavia goes back much further. The structural adjustment policies of the U.S. dominated International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank have bankrupted Yugoslavia’s industrial sector (causing large amounts of the labor force to be laid off), and restructured the economy to divert money from social programs to paying off debt. These debts were passed onto the newly independent republics of the former Yugoslavia. For these reason many accuse the IMF and the World Bank of being primarily responsible for the destabilization of the Balkans22.
The Dayton Agreement for a peace Accord in Bosnia seems to be more concerned with protecting Western economic rights in the Former Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) than human rights. Bosnia is not allowed self-determination, but its government and economy are put under the control of a European Union (E.U.) governor and the IMF23.
Did the United States engineer the break up of Yugoslavia to gain access to Bosnian oil and oil pipelines connecting the Caspian and the Black Sea across the Balkans? Was the air war to protect economic interests? Many people think so. Many also think that the air strikes were designed to strengthen NATO, undermine the United Nations Security Consul, and further suppress Russia24. As Noam Chomsky pointed out, now that the cold war is gone, suppressing Communism is no longer a convenient cover for United States Imperialism. Humanitarian concerns must replace it instead25.
Failure to Seek Non-violent Alternatives
Although it has been called one of the most censored news stories of the year, Yugoslavia was virtually forced into a war with the United States. On March 23, there were two potential peace plans on the table. One of which was the Rambouillet agreement proposed by NATO, the other was the Serbian National Assembly Resolutions.
Diplomatic options appeared to be open, until last minute conditions were added to the Rambouillet agreement, in the form of Appendix B: the Status of Multi-National Military Implementation force. This appendix outlined that a NATO’s forces would be stationed in the former Yugoslavia. Tens of thousands of NATO soldiers can not legitimately be called a peace-keeping force. An occupation force is perhaps more accurate. The very wording of the Appendix is so harsh that it is speculated that this Appendix was designed to be rejected. Either way, "It is hard to imagine any country would consider such terms except in the form of unconditional surrender26."
The Serbian proposal called instead for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the UN to facilitate peaceful settlement. The Serbians were ready to enter negotiations leading to "wide ranging autonomy for Kosovo," and even to review the size and character of the international presence in Kosovo. However, NATO refused to budge.27
And what happened on the Kosovo peace accord of June 3? It was a compromise between the two peace agreements, and NATO abandoned its major demands that the Serbs had objected to. Instead NATO agreed to an international peace keeping force, among other concessions28. This outcome suggests diplomatic initiatives could well have been successful, and the whole tragedy of the air strikes could have been avoided.
Even if one assumes that diplomatic relations would not have been successful, violence is never the only solution. NATO instead could have sent unarmed peacekeepers trained in the principles of non-violence and non-violent resistance. Unarmed observers would have accompanied them from the OSCE. Non violent tactics have worked in South Africa, in the Philippines, and even before in the Balkans. In fact up until 1996 there was a non-violent resistance movement in Kosovo, which received no United States support and consequently died out. The terrorist group KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) emerged instead29.
Do No Harm Principle
Suppose one makes another false assumption and pretends that non-violent alternatives would not work. Is war then justified? By no means. Noam Chomsky describes it eloquently. "One choice, always, is to follow the Hippocratic principle: "First, do no harm." If you can think of no way to adhere to that elementary principle, then do nothing30." Chomsky reiterates himself in another article. "Suppose you see a crime in the streets, and feel that you can’t just stand by silently, so you pick up an assault rifle and kill everyone involved: criminal, victim, bystanders31." Surely this is a ridiculous approach to dealing with a crisis. David McReynolds also expressed the same sentiment. "If I hear one more sweet soul say ‘yes, but do you mean you won’t do anything for the poor people there’ I may bloody well scream. There are people being butchered and murdered and raped all over the world and I live in horror of it. There is almost nothing I can do about these actions in Sudan, Congo, Indonesia, etc. But where my country is involved … then I have to give priority to stopping my country from making a very nasty world much worse32."
Milosevic and his crew are not nice figures. However this fact does not justify NATO’s actions. What’s more, Clinton and NATO have offered no long-term solutions to the problem in Yugoslavia, other then just dropping a few bombs.
International Law
NATO actions also violate many international laws. For instance, both the United Nations charter and NATO’s charter state that every effort should be made to resolve conflicts peacefully. If the matter can not be resolved peacefully, the UN’s charter states that the UN Security Council must vote to act against an aggressor33. In the case of Serbia, the UN Security Council was completely by-passed. France’s call to refer the matter to the UN was flatly refused34. NATO also ignored calls for larger input, including one from Russia that recommended the Group of seven be involved35.
Without the authorization of the UN security consul, force can only be used in cases of legitimate self-defense, which the air strike was clearly not. Even threats to use force are prohibited under articles 2 and 4 of the UN charter, and yet threats to bomb Serbia were made as early as 1998. Also it is good to keep in mind that under international law Kosovo is legally part of Serbia36.
Harm Done by NATO
The harm done by NATO’s actions in the FRY will be hard to repair. For one thing it caused all of Serbia to become united against NATO, and destroyed the possibility of any true democratic change from opposition parties. It also enraged much of the rest of the world, hurting our relationships internationally37.
Worse, since January 1, 1999, the atrocities committed by the Serbs had been proceeding at a very steady level. Once the bombing campaign started, the atrocities sky rocketed38. As David McReynolds pointed out, the bombing campaign only made the Albanians more of a threat to the Serbs, causing more of a need to kill them39. What’s more, the casualties among Serb civilians in the first three weeks of the air war are higher then all the casualties on both sides of the Kosovo conflict in the three months preceding the NATO strikes, and yet these three months are considered the humanitarian crisis40.
A huge amount of refugees were created, which threaten stability with in the region. A group of international experts estimate that NATO bombings produced more refugees and victims then any other conceivable solution. Many non-Albanians fled the region, including Serbs, Gypsies, Slavs, Muslims, Jews, Turks and Croats41. In the year before the bombings, NATO estimates some 2-300,000 refugees were created within Kosovo. Three days after the bombing started the United Nations Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) registered 4000. The toll increased until by June 4 there were 670,000 refugees in the neighboring countries, Albania, and Macedonia. This does not count the 70,000 in Montenegro, and 75,000 in various other countries42.
NATO also deliberately hit civilian targets, including Serbian radio, television, and factories that produced consumer good43.
Perhaps most puzzling is the use of Depleted Uranium weapons in NATO’s air campaign. From a military standpoint these weapons are very nice. They are able to slice through the thick armor of military vehicles and underground bunkers very easily. However from a humanitarian standpoint they are not so nice. Its chemical and toxic effects are long standing. They enter the food chain and can poison it for a significant amount of time. Depleted Uranium weapons were also used in the campaign against Iraq, and have caused many fetuses to develop deformed. The United States showered the Southern region of Kosovo with depleted Uranium, firing 31,000 rounds of it during 100 missions. Concern is now developing over whether it was used in other regions as well. Many of the depleted uranium weapons were used in highly populated areas. NATO has effectively destroyed the environment of the very region it claimed it was going to save.
What is more, dozens of oil refineries, petrochemical complexes and factories were destroyed. Thousands of tons of toxic chemicals were released into the air, soil and water. Cancers are predicted to rise in the area over the years to come. Local gynecologists in the area recommended termination of early pregnancies after the air strike because of the health hazards to the unborn children. Some gynecologists recommend women wait two years before attempting to have children44.
And what are the results of NATO’s campaign? A sustainable peace has not returned to the region. In fact violence is regularly reported. Serbs and Albanians have now found it impossible to live side by side with each other. There have even been reports of human rights abuses, including rape, by the "Peacekeepers.45" The whole affair has only confirmed the futility of military means as a way to peace.
Footnotes
1. As quoted by Mark Mattison (member of the Michigan Peace Team) in an E-mail to the author. 13 Mar. 2000
2. As quoted by Mattison
3. Mattison
4. Of course this paper is by no means meant to downplay the atrocities committed by either side prior to NATO’s involvement.
5. David McReynolds. "Nato and Kosovo/ Part two". (Nonviolence Web Upfront. 28 Mar. 1999: http://www.nonviolence.org/board/messages/6890.htm). 1.
6. Mattison
7. David McReynolds. "Quick Analysis of Kosovo." (Nonviolence Web Upfront. 23 Mar. 1999: http://www.nonviolence.orb/board/messages/6749.htm). 2
8. Noam Chomsky. "The Current Bombings: Behind the Rhetoric." (http://www.zmag.org/crisescurevts/current_bombings.htm) 3
9. McReynolds. "Quick Analysis of Kosovo." 1
10. McReynolds. "Quick Analysis of Kosovo." 1
11. McReynolds. "NATO and Kosovo/ Part Two." 1-2
12. McReynolds. "NATO and Kosovo/ Part two." 1
13. McReynolds. "NATO and Kosovo/ Part two." 2
14. Chomsky. "The Current Bombings: Behind the Rhetoric." 3
15. Chomsky. "The Current Bombings: Behind the Rhetoric." 3
16. Noam Chomsky. "Kosovo Peace Accord." (Z-Magazine. July 2000: http://www.zmag.org/crisecurevts/peace_accord.htm) 2
17. Chomsky. "The Current Bombings: Behind the Rhetoric." 3
18. Chomsky. "Kosovo Peace Accord." 3
19. Chomsky. "The Current Bombings: Behind the Rhetoric." 3
20. As quoted in Chomsky. "The Current Bombings: Behind the Rhetoric." 4
21. Chomsky. "The Current Bombings: Behind the Rhetoric." 4
22. Mattison
23. Mattison
24. Mattison
25. Chomksy. "The Current Bombings: Behind the Rhetoric." 7
26. Chomsky. "Kosovo Peace Accord." 4
27. Chomsky. "Kosovo Peace Accord." 4-5
28. Chomsky. "Kosovo Peace Accord." 4
29. Mattison
30. Chomsky. "The Current Bombings: Behind the Rhetoric." 7
31. Noam Chomksy. "World Order and its Rules." (Z-magazine. Oct. 1999: http://www.zmag.org/crisecurevts/current_bombings.htm) 10
32. McReynolds. "NATO and Kosovo/ Part two." 3-4
33. Mattison
34. Chomsky. "The Current Bombings: Behind the Rhetoric." 5
35. Oliver Corten, et al. "Kosovo Must not be Forgotten: Brussels Appeal."
(http://www.zmag.org/brusappeal.htm). 1
36. Oliver Corten et al. 1
37. Mattison
38. Chomsky. "Kosovo Peace Accord." 2
39. McReynolds. "NATO and Kosovo/ Part 2." 2
40. Chomsky. "Kosovo Peace Accord." 2
41. Oliver Corten et al. 2
42. Chomsky. "Kosovo Peace Accord." 2
43. Oliver Corten et al. 2
44. Vesna Peric Zimonic. "Enviroment-Yugoslavia: NATO’s Chemical Warfare." (One World. Mar.2000: http://www.oneworld.org/ips2/mar00/10_22_031.html). 1-3
45. Mattison
Bibliography
Chomsky, Noam. "Kosovo Peace Accord." Z-Magazine. July 2000. Available http://www.zmag.org/crisecurevts/peace_accord.htm
---. "The Current Bombings: Behind the Rhetoric." Available
http://www.zmag.org/crisecurevts/current_bombings.htm
---. "World Order and its Rules." Z-Magazine. Oct. 1999. Available http://www.zmag.org/Zmag/articles/oct1999chomsky.htm
Corten, Oliver, et al. "Kosovo Must not Be Forgotten: Brussels Appeal." http://zmag.org/brusappeal.htm
Mattison, Mark. E-mail to the author. 13 Mar. 2000.
McReynolds, David. "NATO and Kosovo/ Part two." Nonviolence Web Upfront. 28 Mar. 1999. Available http://www.nonviolence.org/board/messages/6890.htm
---. "Quick Analysis of Kosovo." Nonviolence Web Upfront. 23 Mar. 1999. Available http://www.nonviolence.org/board/messages/6749.htm
Zimonic, Vesna Peric. "Environment-Yugoslavia: NATO’s Chemical Warfare." One World. Mar. 2000 On line. Available http://www.oneworld.org/ips2/mar00/10_22_031.html
Professors Comments: Joel, in spite of my comments throughout [Ed. note--I have not duplicated the marginal comments] I share a number of your concerns and you make some good points. My problems with your paper in brief are these:
1). Too many sweeping generalizations and unqualified and unsupported positions are taken and
2). Your sources are questionable and I think too extreme (which helps explain #1). Chomsky, of course, is well known, but hardly the most credible or knowledgeable source on the Balkans. The others I have not heard of. You needed to have looked at some more scholarly sources--even those for the alert general public such as Foreign Affairs and the NY Review of books a vigorous debate took place.
Grade: B+/A-
Thursday, December 29, 2005
Nato in Kosovo
May 11, 2000
Although the NATO bombings in Yugoslavia are a year in the past, questions about the effectiveness are far from over. Even during the NATO air strikes a vocal element of the American population claimed that they were doing more harm then good. Now, evidence is coming out that the military figures were vastly inflated. The subject seems to be still controversial.
To begin with, NATO’s actions violated many international laws. For instance, both the United Nations charter and NATO’s charter state that every effort should be made to resolve conflicts peacefully. If the matter can not be resolved peacefully, the UN’s charter states that the UN Security Council must vote to act against an aggressor1. In the case of Serbia, the UN Security Council was completely by-passed. France’s call to refer the matter to the UN was flatly refused2. NATO also ignored calls for larger input, including one from Russia that recommended the Group of seven be involved3.
Without the authorization of the UN security consul, force can only be used in cases of legitimate self-defense, which the air strike was clearly not. Even threats to use force are prohibited under articles 2 and 4 of the UN charter, and yet threats to bomb Serbia were made as early as 1998. Also it is good to keep in mind that under international law Kosovo is legally part of Serbia4.
Perhaps more troubling is the fact that diplomatic alternatives were ignored. At the Rambouillet talks, the Serbs were willing to agree to some sort of international presence in Kosovo, as well as allow the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the United Nations (UN) to negotiate a peaceful settlement. The Serbs even indicated they would be willing to enter negotiations for increased autonomy for Kosovo. What the Serbs were not willing to agree to was Appendix B: the status of Multi-National Military Implementation Force.
The appendix outlined that tens of thousands of NATO forces would enjoy free reign throughout Yugoslavia and would not be subjected to Yugoslavian laws. This is not so much a peacekeeping force at it is an occupation. It is difficult to imagine any country agreeing to this.
However the peace accord on June 3 was a compromise, allowing an international peacekeeping force instead of a purely NATO one. Other demands the Serbs had objected to were withdrawn. This suggests that the tragedy of the air strikes could have been avoided.5
And the air strikes were a tragedy. Ever since January 1999, Atrocities in Kosovo had been preceding at a rather steady level. Once the bombing began, the atrocities sky rocketed upwards. The number of refugees went off the charts as well. According to NATO estimates, the number of refugees in Kosovo the year before had between 200,000 and 300,000. The days after the bombing alone the United Nations Commissioner for Refugees reported that 4000 refugees were registered outside of Kosovo. By June 4, that toll had increased to 670,000 refugees in Albania and Macedonia, 70,000 in Montenegro, and 75,000 who had fled to other countries. Most non-Albanian ethnic peoples in the region fled, including Serbs, Gipsies, Slavs, Muslims, Jews, Turks and Croats. The huge amount of refugees created has threatened stability in the region even more.6
NATO also openly targeted civilian targets, including factories that produced consumer goods and Serbian radio or television.7 In fact the casualties among the Serbs in the first three weeks of the air war were higher then the casualties on both sides in the three months that proceeded it.
Even less defendable is the environmental damage done to Kosovo. NATO has confirmed that it did in fact use depleted uranium (DU) weapons in its campaign. These weapons are convenient from a military standpoint because they are able to penetrate armored vehicles or underground bunkers. However, many groups fear that they present a health risk.
NATO has admitted to having used 31,000 rounds of DU in its missions in Southern Kosovo last spring. Questions are now arising as to whether they were used in Serbia or Montenegro. The United States pentagon claims that the 31,000 rounds do not present a significant health risk, but the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is not so sure. Members of the UNEP along with other scientists are concerned that the DU will result in the contamination of land and water. There are also concerns that it will enter the food chain and remain there for a long period.
However, DU is not the only environmental problem. During the air strikes "dozens of oil refineries, petrochemical complexes and factories were destroyed." One hundred twenty one industrial plants with hazardous chemicals were also bombed. Thousands of tons of dangerous chemicals were released into the environment.
Because of all this, it is feared that cancers in the area will rise in the coming years. Many local gynecologists recommended that pregnant women choose abortion due to health risks.8
In addition, information is now coming out that the NATO air strikes were not near as effective as the Pentagon claimed.
These new reports indicated that Yugoslavian army was only slightly smaller after the air strikes then what it had been before. Because of a zero casualty tolerance, NATO did not want its pilots flying low to the ground, despite the fact that this is the only sure way to destroy mobile ground targets.10
And the situation in Kosovo is still volatile. The NATO bombing provided no long term plans for peace. Violence is still regularly reported, and there have even been some reports of human rights abuses by the "peacekeepers", including rape. The air strikes actions have also caused all of Serbia to become united against NATO, undermining any possibility of true democratic change from opposition parties.11 We can only hope the situation does not further deteriorate.
Footnotes
1. Mark Mattison (member of the Michigan Peace Team) in E-mail to the author. 13 Mar. 2000
2. Noam Chomsky. "The Current Bombings: Behind the Rhetoric."
(http://nonviolence.org/board/messages/6749.htm)
3. Oliver Corten, et al. "Kosovo Must not be Forgotten: Brussels Appeal."
(http://www.zmag.org/brusappeal.htm).
4. Oliver Corten et al.
5. Noam Chomsky. "Kosovo Peace Accord." (Z-Magazine. July 2000: http://www.zmag.org/crisecurevts/peace_accord.htm) 4-5
6. Noam Chomsky. "Kosovo Peace Accord." 3
7. Oliver Corten , et al. 1
8. Vesna Peric Zimonic. "Enviroment-Yugoslavia: NATO’s Chemical Warfare." (One World. Mar.2000: http://www.oneworld.org/ips2/mar00/10_22_031.html). 1-3
9. John Barry and Evan Thomas. "The Kosovo Cover-Up." (Newsweek. 15 May 2000.) 23
10. John Barry and Evan Thomas. "The Kosovo Cover-Up." (Newsweek. 15 May 2000.) 23-26
Bibliography
Barry, John and Evan Thomas. "The Kosovo Cover-up." Newsweek. 15 May 2000. pp: 23-26
Chomsky, Noam. "Kosovo Peace Accord." Z-Magazine. July 2000. Available http://www.zmag.org/crisecurevts/peace_accord.htm
---. "The Current Bombings: Behind the Rhetoric." Available
http://www.zmag.org/crisecurevts/current_bombings.htm
---. "World Order and its Rules." Z-Magazine. Oct. 1999. Available http://www.zmag.org/Zmag/articles/oct1999chomsky.htm
Corten, Oliver, et al. "Kosovo Must not Be Forgotten: Brussels Appeal." http://zmag.org/brusappeal.htm
Mattison, Mark. E-mail to the author. 13 Mar. 2000.
McReynolds, David. "NATO and Kosovo/ Part two." Nonviolence Web Upfront. 28 Mar. 1999. Available http://www.nonviolence.org/board/messages/6890.htm
---. "Quick Analysis of Kosovo." Nonviolence Web Upfront. 23 Mar. 1999. Available http://www.nonviolence.org/board/messages/6749.htm
Mostert, Mary. "The Problem Forgotten by our Presidential Candidates: No Peace in Kosovo." http://www.originalsources.com
Zimonic, Vesna Peric. "Environment-Yugoslavia: NATO’s Chemical Warfare." One World. Mar. 2000 On line. Available http://www.oneworld.org/ips2/mar00/10_22_031.html
Professor's Comments: A solid indictment of the bombing. I tend to agree with much of what you write, but I don't know if the Serbs actually intended to implement ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. If they did plan to do so, then some of these concerns are of less weight.
Grade: A-
Although the NATO bombings in Yugoslavia are a year in the past, questions about the effectiveness are far from over. Even during the NATO air strikes a vocal element of the American population claimed that they were doing more harm then good. Now, evidence is coming out that the military figures were vastly inflated. The subject seems to be still controversial.
To begin with, NATO’s actions violated many international laws. For instance, both the United Nations charter and NATO’s charter state that every effort should be made to resolve conflicts peacefully. If the matter can not be resolved peacefully, the UN’s charter states that the UN Security Council must vote to act against an aggressor1. In the case of Serbia, the UN Security Council was completely by-passed. France’s call to refer the matter to the UN was flatly refused2. NATO also ignored calls for larger input, including one from Russia that recommended the Group of seven be involved3.
Without the authorization of the UN security consul, force can only be used in cases of legitimate self-defense, which the air strike was clearly not. Even threats to use force are prohibited under articles 2 and 4 of the UN charter, and yet threats to bomb Serbia were made as early as 1998. Also it is good to keep in mind that under international law Kosovo is legally part of Serbia4.
Perhaps more troubling is the fact that diplomatic alternatives were ignored. At the Rambouillet talks, the Serbs were willing to agree to some sort of international presence in Kosovo, as well as allow the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the United Nations (UN) to negotiate a peaceful settlement. The Serbs even indicated they would be willing to enter negotiations for increased autonomy for Kosovo. What the Serbs were not willing to agree to was Appendix B: the status of Multi-National Military Implementation Force.
The appendix outlined that tens of thousands of NATO forces would enjoy free reign throughout Yugoslavia and would not be subjected to Yugoslavian laws. This is not so much a peacekeeping force at it is an occupation. It is difficult to imagine any country agreeing to this.
However the peace accord on June 3 was a compromise, allowing an international peacekeeping force instead of a purely NATO one. Other demands the Serbs had objected to were withdrawn. This suggests that the tragedy of the air strikes could have been avoided.5
And the air strikes were a tragedy. Ever since January 1999, Atrocities in Kosovo had been preceding at a rather steady level. Once the bombing began, the atrocities sky rocketed upwards. The number of refugees went off the charts as well. According to NATO estimates, the number of refugees in Kosovo the year before had between 200,000 and 300,000. The days after the bombing alone the United Nations Commissioner for Refugees reported that 4000 refugees were registered outside of Kosovo. By June 4, that toll had increased to 670,000 refugees in Albania and Macedonia, 70,000 in Montenegro, and 75,000 who had fled to other countries. Most non-Albanian ethnic peoples in the region fled, including Serbs, Gipsies, Slavs, Muslims, Jews, Turks and Croats. The huge amount of refugees created has threatened stability in the region even more.6
NATO also openly targeted civilian targets, including factories that produced consumer goods and Serbian radio or television.7 In fact the casualties among the Serbs in the first three weeks of the air war were higher then the casualties on both sides in the three months that proceeded it.
Even less defendable is the environmental damage done to Kosovo. NATO has confirmed that it did in fact use depleted uranium (DU) weapons in its campaign. These weapons are convenient from a military standpoint because they are able to penetrate armored vehicles or underground bunkers. However, many groups fear that they present a health risk.
NATO has admitted to having used 31,000 rounds of DU in its missions in Southern Kosovo last spring. Questions are now arising as to whether they were used in Serbia or Montenegro. The United States pentagon claims that the 31,000 rounds do not present a significant health risk, but the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is not so sure. Members of the UNEP along with other scientists are concerned that the DU will result in the contamination of land and water. There are also concerns that it will enter the food chain and remain there for a long period.
However, DU is not the only environmental problem. During the air strikes "dozens of oil refineries, petrochemical complexes and factories were destroyed." One hundred twenty one industrial plants with hazardous chemicals were also bombed. Thousands of tons of dangerous chemicals were released into the environment.
Because of all this, it is feared that cancers in the area will rise in the coming years. Many local gynecologists recommended that pregnant women choose abortion due to health risks.8
In addition, information is now coming out that the NATO air strikes were not near as effective as the Pentagon claimed.
The number of targets verifiably destroyed was a tiny fraction of
those claimed: 14 tanks, not 120; 18 armored personnel carriers, not 220; 20 artillery pieces, not 450. Out of the 774 ‘confirmed’ strikes by NATO pilots during the war, the Air Force investigators ... found evidence of just 58.9
These new reports indicated that Yugoslavian army was only slightly smaller after the air strikes then what it had been before. Because of a zero casualty tolerance, NATO did not want its pilots flying low to the ground, despite the fact that this is the only sure way to destroy mobile ground targets.10
And the situation in Kosovo is still volatile. The NATO bombing provided no long term plans for peace. Violence is still regularly reported, and there have even been some reports of human rights abuses by the "peacekeepers", including rape. The air strikes actions have also caused all of Serbia to become united against NATO, undermining any possibility of true democratic change from opposition parties.11 We can only hope the situation does not further deteriorate.
Footnotes
1. Mark Mattison (member of the Michigan Peace Team) in E-mail to the author. 13 Mar. 2000
2. Noam Chomsky. "The Current Bombings: Behind the Rhetoric."
(http://nonviolence.org/board/messages/6749.htm)
3. Oliver Corten, et al. "Kosovo Must not be Forgotten: Brussels Appeal."
(http://www.zmag.org/brusappeal.htm).
4. Oliver Corten et al.
5. Noam Chomsky. "Kosovo Peace Accord." (Z-Magazine. July 2000: http://www.zmag.org/crisecurevts/peace_accord.htm) 4-5
6. Noam Chomsky. "Kosovo Peace Accord." 3
7. Oliver Corten , et al. 1
8. Vesna Peric Zimonic. "Enviroment-Yugoslavia: NATO’s Chemical Warfare." (One World. Mar.2000: http://www.oneworld.org/ips2/mar00/10_22_031.html). 1-3
9. John Barry and Evan Thomas. "The Kosovo Cover-Up." (Newsweek. 15 May 2000.) 23
10. John Barry and Evan Thomas. "The Kosovo Cover-Up." (Newsweek. 15 May 2000.) 23-26
Bibliography
Barry, John and Evan Thomas. "The Kosovo Cover-up." Newsweek. 15 May 2000. pp: 23-26
Chomsky, Noam. "Kosovo Peace Accord." Z-Magazine. July 2000. Available http://www.zmag.org/crisecurevts/peace_accord.htm
---. "The Current Bombings: Behind the Rhetoric." Available
http://www.zmag.org/crisecurevts/current_bombings.htm
---. "World Order and its Rules." Z-Magazine. Oct. 1999. Available http://www.zmag.org/Zmag/articles/oct1999chomsky.htm
Corten, Oliver, et al. "Kosovo Must not Be Forgotten: Brussels Appeal." http://zmag.org/brusappeal.htm
Mattison, Mark. E-mail to the author. 13 Mar. 2000.
McReynolds, David. "NATO and Kosovo/ Part two." Nonviolence Web Upfront. 28 Mar. 1999. Available http://www.nonviolence.org/board/messages/6890.htm
---. "Quick Analysis of Kosovo." Nonviolence Web Upfront. 23 Mar. 1999. Available http://www.nonviolence.org/board/messages/6749.htm
Mostert, Mary. "The Problem Forgotten by our Presidential Candidates: No Peace in Kosovo." http://www.originalsources.com
Zimonic, Vesna Peric. "Environment-Yugoslavia: NATO’s Chemical Warfare." One World. Mar. 2000 On line. Available http://www.oneworld.org/ips2/mar00/10_22_031.html
Professor's Comments: A solid indictment of the bombing. I tend to agree with much of what you write, but I don't know if the Serbs actually intended to implement ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. If they did plan to do so, then some of these concerns are of less weight.
Grade: A-
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
The Conditions Leading Up to the Berkeley Free Speech Movement
May 10, 1999
The Berkeley Free Speech movement was one of the most important events of the 1960s. It represented the birth of the New Left. Student support for the movement was overwhelming, and the movement’s victory was total. Never again would students be as successful as they had been at Berkeley. Columbia was a stunning example of the defeat of the New Left. What was it about Berkeley that inspired the Free Speech Movement and what were the conditions that caused it to be so successful?
The Free Speech Movement occurred when Clark Kerr attempted to ban all political activity on campus. When political activity continued, the police arrested Jack Weinberg. Thousands of students surrounded the police car, and refused to let it drive off. A Free Speech Committee was formed, which included representatives from all of the affected organizations. An agreement was worked out with the administration, but when the administration attempted to go back on its part of the deal, enraged students occupied a University building. When they were forcibly cleared by policeman, students used tactics of non-violent resistance that they had learned during the civil rights movement. Faculty, student, and public sympathy for the Free Speech Movement became overwhelming, and the administration had no choice but to concede to the students demands.
When writing about the Free Speech Movement, Alexander Worst asserts, "If there was going to be a student rebellion, then certainly Berkeley, California was a logical place for it to start" (Worst 276). Clark Kerr, the administrator unfortunate enough to be in charge during this turbulent time, later said
What was it about San Francisco and Berkeley that caused this attitude?
Mario Savio, one of the leaders of the Free Speech Movement, wrote:
Berkeley was located right on the San Francisco Bay, only a short distance away from San Francisco (Worst 276). San Francisco had long been a haven of radicalism: "From the time of Jack London, the Bay Area has tolerated all shades of political radicalism" (Bacciocco 149). Compared to the rest of the nation, San Francisco had a relatively strong Communist presence (Unger 82). Mario Savio, called the Bay Area "one of the few places left in the United States where a history of personal involvement in radical politics was not a form of leprosy" (Savio 2).
Both Berkeley and San Francisco had been favorite hangouts of the Beat poets. Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and Neal Cassady all lived in Berkeley for a period (Gitlin 46). David Steigerwald described Berkeley as the "mecca of the Beats" (Steigerwald 132). When Allen Ginsberg arrived in Berkeley, he encountered, "a kaleidoscope of poets, dedicated feverishly to their work" (Worst 68). Ginsberg wrote back to New York that in Berkeley "there are a few hidden and excellent poets -- a kind of buddhist influenced post Pound post Williams classicism full of independence and humor AND gift of gab, native word-slinging" (Ginsberg in Worst 68).
Berkeley, along with Greenwich Village, had become the nation’s post-bohemian center. Described as "quick to the point of faddishness in responding to the times" (Worst 276), in the years following the Free Speech Movement, Berkeley would become home to hippies, psychedelics and acid rock. Like its neighboring San Francisco, Berkeley was no stranger to leftist movements. "FSM's [Free Speech Movement’s] appearance at Berkeley, though spontaneous, was not accidental. Leftist students had been organizing there for years" ( Steigerwald 132).
Even though Berkeley had a strong leftist presence, it was no stranger to communist repression. In an effort to squash campus communists, who were organizing at Berkeley in the 1930s, the administration banned all forms of politics (Steigerwald 132). This was the issue over which the Free Speech Movement would be fought. During the height of McCarthyism, Berkeley joined in the fray. It required a loyalty oath of its entire faculty that they were not, nor ever had been, members of the Communist party. Twenty-six members of the faculty were terminated for refusing to take the oath, an additional thirty-seven members resigned in protest; forty-seven outside scholars turned down job offers, causing fifty-five courses to be eliminated. Although the court later reinstated the faculty dismissed, the episode caused a tremendous amount of bitterness. Also put in place was a ban on Communist speakers on Berkeley’s campus. This was removed in 1963 after "a long series of student protests, rallies, polls, ASUC [student government] and club petitions, and other pressures organized against the ban after 1960 in Berkeley" (Draper 8). The ban had proven to be counter-productive, causing sympathy for the communists and increasing their off-campus audiences. The most publicized example occurred in 1963 when Communist party writer Herbert Aptheker was denied permission to speak at Berkeley after being invited by the history department to give a strictly academic talk on African-American history.
One of the first student organizations to refuse to subscribe to anti-communism was SLATE. The pre-cursor to the Berkeley New Left, SLATE was formed in 1958 and originally named Toward an Active Student Community. SLATE was a loosely structured organization of leftists which won the first student election the following year in 1959. SLATE fiercely championed Civil Rights and academic freedom, but what antagonized the administration the most was its refusal to add an anticommunist disclaimer to its charter.
The school year of 1959/1960 proved to be chaotic for Berkeley. It began when a 17 year-old student, the son of an Air Force colonel, was expelled for conducting a seven-day fast in protest of compulsory ROTC (Worst 168). Another event of consequence was the execution of Caryl Chessman on May 2, 1960. Chessman was young, came from an impoverished family, and had been in jail since 1948 for a 20 day crime spree which included 17 felonies (eight counts of robbery, four counts of kidnapping, two counts of sex perversion, one attempted robbery, one attempted rape, and one auto theft) but no murder victim. Chessman had taken advantage of his prison time to study law and generally educate himself, as well as write an autobiography. Students believed the Chessman case represented how little the courts cared for the life of a poor man. On the eve of his execution, students from all over the bay area gathered at San Quentin to hold a silent vigil through the hour of his death. It was a radicalizing experience for many (Bacciocco 25). Controversy also arouse when the Board of Regents apologized to right-wing organizations for allowing a mild criticism of the FBI in a university document. The student newspaper, the Daily Californian, wrote an editorial comparing the FBI to the Gestapo (Worst 168).
Then in May of 1960, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) came to San Francisco to question witnesses about alleged Communist party activities in the Bay Area. The traditional adult opponents of HUAC were there to emphasize the damage HUAC had done in the past, but there was also a group of student protestors. Although many of the older adult radicals were surprised to see such a large student population, they should not have been. Berkeley students were affected by HUAC since twenty-five percent of those subpoenaed by HUAC were Berkeley faculty, and even one Berkeley student was subpoenaed. Leaders of the Bay Area’s civil rights organizations were also summoned. Carl Wertherman, a reporter, classified the students who protested into four major groups: former leaders of the now inactive Student Civil Liberties Union, SLATE, Young Peoples Socialist League, and unorganized graduate students who had previously been apolitical. The changing attitudes in the graduate students showed that politics was becoming increasingly important for Berkeley students.
A picket line formed outside of city hall, but students were not allowed at the hearings. Wheeler, the Committee investigator, said, "there were about 150 passes. I issued them to individuals – to keep the Commies from stacking the meeting. We wanted some decent people in there" (Wheeler in Huberman and Prickett). After student leaders met with Berkeley Sheriff William Carberry, he agreed to let people in on a first-come first serve basis. The next day, however, the pass system was again in effect. Police Inspector Michael McGuire was admitting white-card holders (those with a pass), when he noticed a number of students filing in. He grabbed one roughly, but when the student angrily shouted, "I’ve got a white card!" McGuire let him go. McGuire seized another student, who shoved a camera into his face and hit the flash. While McGuire recovered, several students slipped into the Chambers.
The rest of the students attempted to climb the barricades and gain entrance into the hearings while those already inside disrupted the hearings by singing "The Star Spangled Banner." McGuire opened the fire hose on the demonstrators inside city hall. Witness and reporter Fred Haines described the scene:
The students who had been knocked over by the hoses simply returned to their seats, singing "We Shall Not Be Moved." The police came in swinging their clubs wildly. Having cleared the area of most demonstrators, the police proceeded to throw those remaining down the stairs. "Bodies cascaded over the stone and blood mixed with the water" (Worst 170). Sixty-three students were arrested on May 13, 1960, a day that became known as "Black Friday" in Berkeley legend. The students were beaten, but not defeated. As a result of the publicity Black Friday received, they returned eight thousand strong the following day.
That summer, HUAC released Operation Abolition, a movie that documented the demonstrations. Operation Abolition "scrambled footage and invented facts to present the committee as the victim of a Communist-run campaign" (Gitlin 82). The film was clumsily done (including obviously fake backgrounds), overly melodramatic, and filled with verbal cliches. The film was shown on college campuses throughout the nation, but did not have the intended effect. Young people saw other young people being clubbed by policemen as they non-violently protested. Former Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) President Todd Gitlin called it "a recruiting film for a New Left that barely existed." Young people eager to become more radical came to Berkeley, and the political climate of the city went even further to the left.
The film Operation Abolition was also shown on Berkeley’s campus. After the film, SLATE turned on a record, "Sounds of Protests" as a reply. Because this violated Berkeley’s strict laws on political activity, SLATE eventually lost its status as an on-campus organization (Draper 7).
Student radicals were increasingly attracted to Berkeley and student radicalism had one important issue in the early 60s: civil rights. Civil rights had been the dominant issue on the left in northern California for some time before this, but it spread quickly to Berkeley following 1960. Students actively raised money and recruited workers for the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE). There were not many African-Americans in Berkeley (although Oakland was not far away), however the students had no lack of racist targets.
In 1960, the civil rights movement hit the Bay Area when the National Student Association began picketing Woolworth and Kress, imitating the style of Southern sit-ins. At the time, NAACP and CORE numbered just over 100 people on Berkeley’s campus.
During the academic school year of 1963-64, hundreds of students picketed the racist hiring policies of local businesses. Many of these students had spent the summer in the South working as volunteers for SNCC or CORE and they returned to Berkeley energized. The first target ws the restaurant chain Mel’s Drive –In. Campus CORE refused to participate on the grounds that it was politically motivated since one of Mel’s owners was a candidate for Mayor of San Francisco, and it lacked monitors to prevent violence. Ninety-three demonstrators were arrested, 37 of whom were students at Berkeley. By November Mel’s gave in to the students’ demands and they moved on to other targets (Bacciocco 150).
By this time there were several student groups working for civil rights in Berkeley including SLATE and the recently organized W.E.B. Du Bois club which was affiliated with the Young Communists. All of these groups combined their forces in the Direct Action Committee which coordinated civil rights protests. Of these groups, only campus CORE and Friends of SNCC were technically university clubs, but the members of almost all of them were predominately students. At Lucky food stores they held "shop-ins." Students filled carts with food, unloaded them at the checkout line and left in front of shocked clerks. Lucky food stores were told the "shop-ins" would continue until African-Americans were employed at the store. The company soon gave in. The protests reached a peak in March as students picketed the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. Thousands of students showed up on three successive nights. Before the hotel signed a minority hiring agreement, 767 students were arrested (Worst 283).
Intoxicated by success, the Direct Action Committee allied itself with CORE and the NAACP. Their next attack was on car dealers along San Francisco’s "Automobile Row." Three hundred students were arrested in the protests that followed. The tactics that the Berkeley students had learned in these civil rights campaign would later be used in the Free Speech Movement.
It was during the civil rights campaign that the students made a powerful enemy: William P. Knowland. Knowland was a right-wing former supporter of Joe McCarthy. "Knowland’s redeeming quality was that, like most American right-wingers, he was a blunderer. Even when the wind is blowing their way, right-wing politicians manage to turn around when they have to spit" (Conlin 115). Knowland had a secure seat in the Senate when he bullied incumbent Republican Governor Goodwin Knight, into swapping nominations. Knowland ran for Governor while Knight ran for the Senate. It was too much for California voters and both were defeated, sweeping liberal democrats into power two years before Kennedy became president. Knowland was the editor of the Oakland Tribune and
Students picketed the Tribune’s office regularly.
The situation was not helped over the summer. While the student population moved increasingly Left, the California Republican Party shifted to the Right. Since World War II, California had been in the hands of liberal Republicans. The party had been gradually moving away from liberalism and in 1964 Barry Goldwater won the Republican Presidential Primary over the more liberal Nelson Rockefeller. At the same time, the control of the state party switched to conservative Republicans, followers of Ronald Reagan. "For the first time within man’s memory, the Berkeley campus became a hotbed of political activity not only by radicals but also by conservative students" (Draper 11). Various anti-Goldwater demonstrations took place, as conservative students championed the more moderate republicans: Lodge, Scranton, and Rockefeller.
At the Republican National Convention in San Francisco in July, party moderates desperately turned to Berkeley "to recruit an army of demonstrators" (Worst 284). Despite marches through San Francisco, Goldwater won, and the conservatives took power. The conservatives had always eyed Berkeley with suspicion, now after the anti-Goldwater protests, they were determined to do something about the campus.
The civil rights issue had not been dormant over the summer. The courts were still jammed with cases from the previous school year, and in June campus CORE sponsored a sit-in at the U.S. District Attorney’s office to protest inaction on the Mississippi murders. The demonstrators were removed by force. Bay Area CORE even began organizing against the Bank of America. It was during this time that the Direct Action Committee launched a picket line against Knowland’s Oakland Tribune. The timing could have been better. With the rising tide of conservatism, Knowland was not about to roll over and let the students win.
Knowland found his solution to the students. His reporters discovered that the Bancroft Strip (also known as Sproul Plaza) on which the civil rights groups did most of their recruiting, was technically on university property and therefor violated the campus-wide ban on political activity. "It was universally assumed, even by the U.C. administration, that Sproul Plaza was city property. … In fact this was not so. Sproul Plaza was university property. … But for reasons lost as irretrievably as Leviticus’s pork taboo, the university administration never interfered with political activity there" (Conlin 117).
The Oakland Tribune called for an end to political activity on Bancroft Strip. Under pressure from Knowland and the Oakland Tribune, as well as from the Bank of America, the Berkeley administration announced that the Bancroft Strip could no longer be used for political recruiting. The students had been energized in the civil rights movement and had learned the principles of non-violent confrontation, as well as how to win. And so, on October 1, 1964, when police arrested Jack Weinberg for recruiting for CORE, and two thousand students surrounded the police car, the Berkeley Free Speech Movement began.
Clark Kerr was right when he realized that Berkeley was bound to be trouble at some point given the nature of the campus. The rising radicalism within Berkeley and the growing conservatism in California was an explosive mix, and both factors provoked the Free Speech Movement. The Free Speech Movement was also a result of a radical tradition in Berkeley and the bay area, which both created and attracted student radicals. The Berkeley Free Speech Movement was a result of previously existing conditions in Berkeley and in the bay area.
Bibliography
Anderson, Terry. The Movement and the Sixties: Protest in America from Greensboro to Wounded Knee. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1995.
Bacciocco, Edward. The New Left in America: Reform to Revolution 1956-1970. Stanford: Hoover Institution Press. 1974.
Conlin, Joseph. The Troubles: A Jaundiced Glance Back at the Movement of the Sixties. New York: Franklin Watts. 1982.
Draper, Hal. Berkeley: The New Student Revolt. Berkeley. The Center for Socialist Studies. 1965
Gitlin, Todd. The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage. New York: Bantam Books. 1987.
Steigerwald, David. The Sixties and the End of Modern America. New York: St. Martin's Press. 1995.
Unger, Irwin, Debi Unger. Turning Point: 1968. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1988.
Savio, Mario. Introduction to Berkeley: the New Student Revolt. Berkeley. The Center for Socialist Studies. 1965
Worst, Milton. Fire in the Streets: America in the 1960s. New York: Simon and Schuster. 1979.
Professor's Comments: This is a solid description of events leading up to the Free Speech Movement. Can you put it in a larger context--especially can you indicate what it has to do with the West?
Grade: B+
The Berkeley Free Speech movement was one of the most important events of the 1960s. It represented the birth of the New Left. Student support for the movement was overwhelming, and the movement’s victory was total. Never again would students be as successful as they had been at Berkeley. Columbia was a stunning example of the defeat of the New Left. What was it about Berkeley that inspired the Free Speech Movement and what were the conditions that caused it to be so successful?
The Free Speech Movement occurred when Clark Kerr attempted to ban all political activity on campus. When political activity continued, the police arrested Jack Weinberg. Thousands of students surrounded the police car, and refused to let it drive off. A Free Speech Committee was formed, which included representatives from all of the affected organizations. An agreement was worked out with the administration, but when the administration attempted to go back on its part of the deal, enraged students occupied a University building. When they were forcibly cleared by policeman, students used tactics of non-violent resistance that they had learned during the civil rights movement. Faculty, student, and public sympathy for the Free Speech Movement became overwhelming, and the administration had no choice but to concede to the students demands.
When writing about the Free Speech Movement, Alexander Worst asserts, "If there was going to be a student rebellion, then certainly Berkeley, California was a logical place for it to start" (Worst 276). Clark Kerr, the administrator unfortunate enough to be in charge during this turbulent time, later said
As an avant-garde campus, Berkeley was going to be in trouble at
some point. It didn't have to be at that time over this issue. But given the
nature of San Francisco and the tradition of the Berkeley campus and what was
going on around the world, in Japan in 1960 and the movement of the blacks,
Berkeley was going to be in trouble at some time (Clark in Worst).
What was it about San Francisco and Berkeley that caused this attitude?
Mario Savio, one of the leaders of the Free Speech Movement, wrote:
The Berkeley campus is very close to the urban problems of Oakland
and San Francisco, but not in either city. On campus it is virtually impossible
for the thoughtful to banish social problems from active consideration. Many
students find it impossible not to be in some sense engage. The shame of urban
America (just south of campus or across the bay) forces itself upon the
conscience of the community (Savio 2).
Berkeley was located right on the San Francisco Bay, only a short distance away from San Francisco (Worst 276). San Francisco had long been a haven of radicalism: "From the time of Jack London, the Bay Area has tolerated all shades of political radicalism" (Bacciocco 149). Compared to the rest of the nation, San Francisco had a relatively strong Communist presence (Unger 82). Mario Savio, called the Bay Area "one of the few places left in the United States where a history of personal involvement in radical politics was not a form of leprosy" (Savio 2).
Both Berkeley and San Francisco had been favorite hangouts of the Beat poets. Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and Neal Cassady all lived in Berkeley for a period (Gitlin 46). David Steigerwald described Berkeley as the "mecca of the Beats" (Steigerwald 132). When Allen Ginsberg arrived in Berkeley, he encountered, "a kaleidoscope of poets, dedicated feverishly to their work" (Worst 68). Ginsberg wrote back to New York that in Berkeley "there are a few hidden and excellent poets -- a kind of buddhist influenced post Pound post Williams classicism full of independence and humor AND gift of gab, native word-slinging" (Ginsberg in Worst 68).
Berkeley, along with Greenwich Village, had become the nation’s post-bohemian center. Described as "quick to the point of faddishness in responding to the times" (Worst 276), in the years following the Free Speech Movement, Berkeley would become home to hippies, psychedelics and acid rock. Like its neighboring San Francisco, Berkeley was no stranger to leftist movements. "FSM's [Free Speech Movement’s] appearance at Berkeley, though spontaneous, was not accidental. Leftist students had been organizing there for years" ( Steigerwald 132).
Even though Berkeley had a strong leftist presence, it was no stranger to communist repression. In an effort to squash campus communists, who were organizing at Berkeley in the 1930s, the administration banned all forms of politics (Steigerwald 132). This was the issue over which the Free Speech Movement would be fought. During the height of McCarthyism, Berkeley joined in the fray. It required a loyalty oath of its entire faculty that they were not, nor ever had been, members of the Communist party. Twenty-six members of the faculty were terminated for refusing to take the oath, an additional thirty-seven members resigned in protest; forty-seven outside scholars turned down job offers, causing fifty-five courses to be eliminated. Although the court later reinstated the faculty dismissed, the episode caused a tremendous amount of bitterness. Also put in place was a ban on Communist speakers on Berkeley’s campus. This was removed in 1963 after "a long series of student protests, rallies, polls, ASUC [student government] and club petitions, and other pressures organized against the ban after 1960 in Berkeley" (Draper 8). The ban had proven to be counter-productive, causing sympathy for the communists and increasing their off-campus audiences. The most publicized example occurred in 1963 when Communist party writer Herbert Aptheker was denied permission to speak at Berkeley after being invited by the history department to give a strictly academic talk on African-American history.
One of the first student organizations to refuse to subscribe to anti-communism was SLATE. The pre-cursor to the Berkeley New Left, SLATE was formed in 1958 and originally named Toward an Active Student Community. SLATE was a loosely structured organization of leftists which won the first student election the following year in 1959. SLATE fiercely championed Civil Rights and academic freedom, but what antagonized the administration the most was its refusal to add an anticommunist disclaimer to its charter.
The school year of 1959/1960 proved to be chaotic for Berkeley. It began when a 17 year-old student, the son of an Air Force colonel, was expelled for conducting a seven-day fast in protest of compulsory ROTC (Worst 168). Another event of consequence was the execution of Caryl Chessman on May 2, 1960. Chessman was young, came from an impoverished family, and had been in jail since 1948 for a 20 day crime spree which included 17 felonies (eight counts of robbery, four counts of kidnapping, two counts of sex perversion, one attempted robbery, one attempted rape, and one auto theft) but no murder victim. Chessman had taken advantage of his prison time to study law and generally educate himself, as well as write an autobiography. Students believed the Chessman case represented how little the courts cared for the life of a poor man. On the eve of his execution, students from all over the bay area gathered at San Quentin to hold a silent vigil through the hour of his death. It was a radicalizing experience for many (Bacciocco 25). Controversy also arouse when the Board of Regents apologized to right-wing organizations for allowing a mild criticism of the FBI in a university document. The student newspaper, the Daily Californian, wrote an editorial comparing the FBI to the Gestapo (Worst 168).
Then in May of 1960, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) came to San Francisco to question witnesses about alleged Communist party activities in the Bay Area. The traditional adult opponents of HUAC were there to emphasize the damage HUAC had done in the past, but there was also a group of student protestors. Although many of the older adult radicals were surprised to see such a large student population, they should not have been. Berkeley students were affected by HUAC since twenty-five percent of those subpoenaed by HUAC were Berkeley faculty, and even one Berkeley student was subpoenaed. Leaders of the Bay Area’s civil rights organizations were also summoned. Carl Wertherman, a reporter, classified the students who protested into four major groups: former leaders of the now inactive Student Civil Liberties Union, SLATE, Young Peoples Socialist League, and unorganized graduate students who had previously been apolitical. The changing attitudes in the graduate students showed that politics was becoming increasingly important for Berkeley students.
A picket line formed outside of city hall, but students were not allowed at the hearings. Wheeler, the Committee investigator, said, "there were about 150 passes. I issued them to individuals – to keep the Commies from stacking the meeting. We wanted some decent people in there" (Wheeler in Huberman and Prickett). After student leaders met with Berkeley Sheriff William Carberry, he agreed to let people in on a first-come first serve basis. The next day, however, the pass system was again in effect. Police Inspector Michael McGuire was admitting white-card holders (those with a pass), when he noticed a number of students filing in. He grabbed one roughly, but when the student angrily shouted, "I’ve got a white card!" McGuire let him go. McGuire seized another student, who shoved a camera into his face and hit the flash. While McGuire recovered, several students slipped into the Chambers.
The rest of the students attempted to climb the barricades and gain entrance into the hearings while those already inside disrupted the hearings by singing "The Star Spangled Banner." McGuire opened the fire hose on the demonstrators inside city hall. Witness and reporter Fred Haines described the scene:
The singing broke up into one gigantic horrified scream. People
fled past me as I ran forward, trying to see what was going on; … For the first
time I had a moment to think, to take stock of the situation … during the past
few minutes they’d dumped thousands of gallons of water inside a public
building, causing several thousand dollars worthy of damage (not counting
whatever human injury there had been). And they had accomplished nothing.
Perhaps 50 people of the 200 had fled … now they had 150 people wet, angry, and
injured, most of whom were rooted to the spot and determined to make as much
noise as ever before (Haines in Huberman and Prickett 4-5).
The students who had been knocked over by the hoses simply returned to their seats, singing "We Shall Not Be Moved." The police came in swinging their clubs wildly. Having cleared the area of most demonstrators, the police proceeded to throw those remaining down the stairs. "Bodies cascaded over the stone and blood mixed with the water" (Worst 170). Sixty-three students were arrested on May 13, 1960, a day that became known as "Black Friday" in Berkeley legend. The students were beaten, but not defeated. As a result of the publicity Black Friday received, they returned eight thousand strong the following day.
That summer, HUAC released Operation Abolition, a movie that documented the demonstrations. Operation Abolition "scrambled footage and invented facts to present the committee as the victim of a Communist-run campaign" (Gitlin 82). The film was clumsily done (including obviously fake backgrounds), overly melodramatic, and filled with verbal cliches. The film was shown on college campuses throughout the nation, but did not have the intended effect. Young people saw other young people being clubbed by policemen as they non-violently protested. Former Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) President Todd Gitlin called it "a recruiting film for a New Left that barely existed." Young people eager to become more radical came to Berkeley, and the political climate of the city went even further to the left.
The film Operation Abolition was also shown on Berkeley’s campus. After the film, SLATE turned on a record, "Sounds of Protests" as a reply. Because this violated Berkeley’s strict laws on political activity, SLATE eventually lost its status as an on-campus organization (Draper 7).
Student radicals were increasingly attracted to Berkeley and student radicalism had one important issue in the early 60s: civil rights. Civil rights had been the dominant issue on the left in northern California for some time before this, but it spread quickly to Berkeley following 1960. Students actively raised money and recruited workers for the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE). There were not many African-Americans in Berkeley (although Oakland was not far away), however the students had no lack of racist targets.
In 1960, the civil rights movement hit the Bay Area when the National Student Association began picketing Woolworth and Kress, imitating the style of Southern sit-ins. At the time, NAACP and CORE numbered just over 100 people on Berkeley’s campus.
During the academic school year of 1963-64, hundreds of students picketed the racist hiring policies of local businesses. Many of these students had spent the summer in the South working as volunteers for SNCC or CORE and they returned to Berkeley energized. The first target ws the restaurant chain Mel’s Drive –In. Campus CORE refused to participate on the grounds that it was politically motivated since one of Mel’s owners was a candidate for Mayor of San Francisco, and it lacked monitors to prevent violence. Ninety-three demonstrators were arrested, 37 of whom were students at Berkeley. By November Mel’s gave in to the students’ demands and they moved on to other targets (Bacciocco 150).
By this time there were several student groups working for civil rights in Berkeley including SLATE and the recently organized W.E.B. Du Bois club which was affiliated with the Young Communists. All of these groups combined their forces in the Direct Action Committee which coordinated civil rights protests. Of these groups, only campus CORE and Friends of SNCC were technically university clubs, but the members of almost all of them were predominately students. At Lucky food stores they held "shop-ins." Students filled carts with food, unloaded them at the checkout line and left in front of shocked clerks. Lucky food stores were told the "shop-ins" would continue until African-Americans were employed at the store. The company soon gave in. The protests reached a peak in March as students picketed the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. Thousands of students showed up on three successive nights. Before the hotel signed a minority hiring agreement, 767 students were arrested (Worst 283).
Intoxicated by success, the Direct Action Committee allied itself with CORE and the NAACP. Their next attack was on car dealers along San Francisco’s "Automobile Row." Three hundred students were arrested in the protests that followed. The tactics that the Berkeley students had learned in these civil rights campaign would later be used in the Free Speech Movement.
It was during the civil rights campaign that the students made a powerful enemy: William P. Knowland. Knowland was a right-wing former supporter of Joe McCarthy. "Knowland’s redeeming quality was that, like most American right-wingers, he was a blunderer. Even when the wind is blowing their way, right-wing politicians manage to turn around when they have to spit" (Conlin 115). Knowland had a secure seat in the Senate when he bullied incumbent Republican Governor Goodwin Knight, into swapping nominations. Knowland ran for Governor while Knight ran for the Senate. It was too much for California voters and both were defeated, sweeping liberal democrats into power two years before Kennedy became president. Knowland was the editor of the Oakland Tribune and
took to railing against subversives in every corner. He was a
dependable screamer in the HUAC fracas and took one of the frankest
prosegregationist stands to be found outside the South. He smeared King and
other civil rights leaders as, at best, dupes of the Kremlin" (Conlin
116).
Students picketed the Tribune’s office regularly.
The situation was not helped over the summer. While the student population moved increasingly Left, the California Republican Party shifted to the Right. Since World War II, California had been in the hands of liberal Republicans. The party had been gradually moving away from liberalism and in 1964 Barry Goldwater won the Republican Presidential Primary over the more liberal Nelson Rockefeller. At the same time, the control of the state party switched to conservative Republicans, followers of Ronald Reagan. "For the first time within man’s memory, the Berkeley campus became a hotbed of political activity not only by radicals but also by conservative students" (Draper 11). Various anti-Goldwater demonstrations took place, as conservative students championed the more moderate republicans: Lodge, Scranton, and Rockefeller.
At the Republican National Convention in San Francisco in July, party moderates desperately turned to Berkeley "to recruit an army of demonstrators" (Worst 284). Despite marches through San Francisco, Goldwater won, and the conservatives took power. The conservatives had always eyed Berkeley with suspicion, now after the anti-Goldwater protests, they were determined to do something about the campus.
The civil rights issue had not been dormant over the summer. The courts were still jammed with cases from the previous school year, and in June campus CORE sponsored a sit-in at the U.S. District Attorney’s office to protest inaction on the Mississippi murders. The demonstrators were removed by force. Bay Area CORE even began organizing against the Bank of America. It was during this time that the Direct Action Committee launched a picket line against Knowland’s Oakland Tribune. The timing could have been better. With the rising tide of conservatism, Knowland was not about to roll over and let the students win.
Knowland found his solution to the students. His reporters discovered that the Bancroft Strip (also known as Sproul Plaza) on which the civil rights groups did most of their recruiting, was technically on university property and therefor violated the campus-wide ban on political activity. "It was universally assumed, even by the U.C. administration, that Sproul Plaza was city property. … In fact this was not so. Sproul Plaza was university property. … But for reasons lost as irretrievably as Leviticus’s pork taboo, the university administration never interfered with political activity there" (Conlin 117).
The Oakland Tribune called for an end to political activity on Bancroft Strip. Under pressure from Knowland and the Oakland Tribune, as well as from the Bank of America, the Berkeley administration announced that the Bancroft Strip could no longer be used for political recruiting. The students had been energized in the civil rights movement and had learned the principles of non-violent confrontation, as well as how to win. And so, on October 1, 1964, when police arrested Jack Weinberg for recruiting for CORE, and two thousand students surrounded the police car, the Berkeley Free Speech Movement began.
Clark Kerr was right when he realized that Berkeley was bound to be trouble at some point given the nature of the campus. The rising radicalism within Berkeley and the growing conservatism in California was an explosive mix, and both factors provoked the Free Speech Movement. The Free Speech Movement was also a result of a radical tradition in Berkeley and the bay area, which both created and attracted student radicals. The Berkeley Free Speech Movement was a result of previously existing conditions in Berkeley and in the bay area.
Bibliography
Anderson, Terry. The Movement and the Sixties: Protest in America from Greensboro to Wounded Knee. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1995.
Bacciocco, Edward. The New Left in America: Reform to Revolution 1956-1970. Stanford: Hoover Institution Press. 1974.
Conlin, Joseph. The Troubles: A Jaundiced Glance Back at the Movement of the Sixties. New York: Franklin Watts. 1982.
Draper, Hal. Berkeley: The New Student Revolt. Berkeley. The Center for Socialist Studies. 1965
Gitlin, Todd. The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage. New York: Bantam Books. 1987.
Steigerwald, David. The Sixties and the End of Modern America. New York: St. Martin's Press. 1995.
Unger, Irwin, Debi Unger. Turning Point: 1968. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1988.
Savio, Mario. Introduction to Berkeley: the New Student Revolt. Berkeley. The Center for Socialist Studies. 1965
Worst, Milton. Fire in the Streets: America in the 1960s. New York: Simon and Schuster. 1979.
Professor's Comments: This is a solid description of events leading up to the Free Speech Movement. Can you put it in a larger context--especially can you indicate what it has to do with the West?
Grade: B+
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
The Sandinista Revolution in Christian Periodicals
Introduction
Events in Nicaragua have long been absent from the public eye in America. However, the Sandinista revolution made Nicaragua impossible to ignore. The issue of Nicaragua was one that was polarizing for the Christian Community, and was an issue that Christians were on both sides of. On one hand, most of the support in the United States for the Sandinista government came from Protestant churches. On the other hand, the Christian right vehemently opposed the Sandinista government, and supported Reagan’s efforts to overthrow it. How did Christian publications deal with the events in Nicaragua during the 1980s? To answer this question, let us look at two Christian Protestant periodicals, one conservative (Christianity Today), and one liberal (Christian Century). By examining Christianity Today and Christian Century from 1978 through 1990, we can better answer this question. In this paper, we will first look at a general history of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. Then we will look more in depth at Protestant periodicals, and Christianity Today and Christian Century in general. Next we will look at the feedback each magazine received from its readers. Afterwards, we will examine one article in detail, before examining the two magazines year by year, and finally we will draw some conclusions.1
In looking at the United States attitude towards the Sandinistas, Christian periodicals are of interest because Christians were heavily involved on both sides of the debate.
Many Protestant churches were pro-Sandinista. In fact, Protestant groups such as Witness for Peace traveled in Nicaragua to try find out what was really happening down there and contrast it to the reports the Reagan administration was giving. These people believed that the Sandinistas were a truly great form of government. They thought that the Sandinistas were Christian democratic socialists. Because of their support for the Sandinistas, and because they traveled Nicaragua in Sandals, they were called "Sandalistas" by the Nicaraguans.2 On the other side was the Christian right. They believed the Sandinistas were a totalitarian communist government, which was actively violating human rights and suppressing the church. Pat Robertson, who prayed on television that God would help those in Nicaragua who are fighting against communism, and raised money through his television show for the Contras, was an example of this.
The Nicaraguan Revolution
To fully understand the history of Nicaragua, it is necessary to go back to 1893, when Jose Santos Zelaya of the liberal party was elected President of Nicaragua. Zelaya ensured Nicaraguan sovereignty by taking Nicaraguan’s Bluefields and the Miskito Coast back from the British. Zelaya also attempted to stop the growth of United States (U.S.) influence on Nicaragua. He accepted U.S. aid to get the British off the Caribbean coast, but refused to grant the United States the right to build a canal, and imposed restrictions on American investors. The United States grew upset with Zelaya, and attempted to remove him from power. Diplomatic and eventually military support went to Nicaragua’s Conservative Party, which overthrew Zelaya and established a government more acceptable to U.S. interests. However, the conservative government proved ineffective. Social and political unrest grew, and a young liberal, Benjamin Zeledon, formed a rebellion. Because United States investors would be in serious jeopardy if Zeledon won, the U.S. sent the Marines into Nicaragua to help put down the Rebellion in 1912. The conservative government of Nicaragua accepted the United States Marines, and the economy was placed under the control of the New York banks. The presence of United States troops, however, only served to increase the resentment felt by the Nicaraguan people against the conservative government. When the Marines tried to leave in 1926, the Conservative Government faced armed resistance, and the Marines returned. The United States attempted to work out a compromise between the Conservative Government and the Liberal Resistance. However the Liberals, led by Augusto Sandino refused to lay down their arms. Sandino’s tactics of guerilla warfare prompted the U.S. to create a National Guard out of the indigenous population. Anastasio Somoza Garcia, who had lived in the United States as a car dealer, was made the head of the National Guard.
The United States troops withdrew in 1933, leaving Somoza in charge of the National Guard. Somoza entered into negotiations with Sandino, and when Sandino came to negotiate he was ambushed and killed by Somoza’s National Guard. This was followed by massacres of hundreds of men, woman, and children who lived in former guerrilla territory. Somoza encouraged his men to be corrupt and to engage in various forms of exploitative activity. This isolated them from the people, and made them more dependent on Somoza. In 1936, Somoza overthrew the elected president, and had himself inaugurated president.
Somoza and his National Guard were in control of Nicaragua. Somoza’s National Guard acted as a kind of legalized Mafia, where citizens wishing to engage in any legal or non-legal activity had to make sure to give the National Guard kickbacks. However, Somoza retained United States support by having his regime consistently back United States foreign policy. Somoza was entertained repeatedly at the White House.
In 1956 a young poet named Rigoberto Lopez Perez infiltrated a party given in honor of Somoza, and shot Somoza five times. Although Somoza died a few days later, his sons Luis and Anastasio became leaders. Luis died in 1967, and Anastasio became President until 1979. In 1972, an earthquake destroyed much of Managua, the capital city of Nicaragua. International relief poured in for the rebuilding of this city, but much of that relief money ended up in Somoza’s own pocket. This incident caused many Nicaraguans to be convinced of Somoza’s depravity, and increased the opposition to include a mixture of every class. In 1974, the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) stepped up its attacks. Martial law was imposed, causing businessmen and Church leaders to speak out even more against Somoza. Somoza’s human rights were so bad that the Carter administration cut off aid to Nicaragua. (However, Carter would later praise Somoza for improving his human rights record, angering the Sandinistas). In January 1978, Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, leader of the moderate opposition to Somoza, was assassinated. Although the identity of his assassins was never established, most of Nicaragua blamed Somoza. In September of 1978, the FSLN was able to set off a massive popular uprising against Somoza. In desperation Somoza used planes and tanks against his own people, killing more than 2000. Somoza would often use airplanes to bomb cities the Sandinistas occupied then send in his troops to mop up. His troops would usually kill any young men who had the misfortune of being of fighting age. However, despite Somoza’s efforts on July 19, 1979, FSLN entered Managua triumphant.3
The Sandinista revolution worked out so well because all classes were able to unite against Somoza. Once the common enemy was gone, the problems began to appear. Somoza had looted the national treasury before he left, leaving Nicaragua with a huge debt and little resources to pay it off. The business community withdrew their representatives from the new government. Although many priest had fought beside, or in some cases even lead the Sandinistas, tension developed between the Sandinistas and the Catholic Church. The United States was fearful that the Sandinistas would turn out to be a Marxist government and align themselves with the Soviet bloc. Although the United States, under Jimmy Carter, initially extended them economic aid. Ronald Reagan, who claimed that Nicaragua was shipping weapons to the leftist guerrillas in El Salvador, cut off this aid. Instead, the Reagan administration began direct military assistance to the exiled units of Somoza’s National Guard. It was determined that it was illegal for the United States to help the Contras because that was getting involved in another country’s civil war, which violated the United States constitution. However, the United States gave humanitarian aid to the Contras. It has been frequently argued that the food and medical supplies the United States supplied the Contras with enabled the Contras to spend more money on weapons.
Although the Sandinistas enjoyed aid from Cuba and the Soviet bloc, and they enjoyed popular support, they clashed with the organized business community, the Catholic church, Communist trade unions, Miskito Indians, and La Prensa (the leading newspaper). Furthermore, United States backed counterrevolutionaries (Contras) carried out acts of terrorism, economic sabotage, and raids inside Nicaragua’s boarders.
The two conflicts that received the most attention in the United States were the Catholic Church and the Miskito Indians.
The Catholic Church had supported the Sandinistas during the revolution. In many cases Catholic priest fought side by side with the Sandinistas. In some instances, Catholic priests even led Sandinista units. Tomas Borge, the only surviving founder of the Sandinistas by 1979, was openly Christian. However, tension began to appear. The Sandinistas tried to make the People’s Church, a pro-revolution church created by the Sandinistas, into the official state church. The Catholic Church was skeptical of this, and refused to support the People’s Church. Reports began coming out of Nicaragua of mistreatment of Catholic priests, and some members of the Catholic church became openly vocal in their opposition to the Sandinistas.4
The Miskito Indians, on the other hand, were ethnic Indians who considered themselves Miskito’s first, Nicaraguans second if at all. The Miskito homeland was split right in two by the Nicaraguan/ Honduras border, but the Miskitos often disregarded this border. They were largely unaware of national politics, and when the Sandinistas showed up proudly declaring themselves as their liberators, the Miskitos thought they were just another group of foreign imperialists. The Sandinistas, not understanding the Miskitos, interpreted their resistance to Sandinista rule as counter-revolutionary activity. The Sandinistas also wished to protect the environment that the Miskitos were living in. They tried to stop the Miskitos from cutting down trees. Misunderstandings on both sides led to sometimes violent encounters. The most shocking were cases where Miskito villages were burned and the inhabitants massacred. This was never Sandinista policy, and the Sandinista government officially condemned the acts, but they were done by Sandinista soldiers.5
On November 4, 1984, the Sandinistas held their first election. Although the United States did its best to undermine the elections, more than four fifths of Nicaragua’s electorate voted, and the Sandinista candidate, Daniel Ortega, won two thirds of the vote. Every international observer outside of the United States declared the elections valid. However, the Reagan administration refused to recognize the election, and continued efforts to undermine the Nicaraguan government.
In 1985, the Reagan administration embargoed all United States-Nicaraguan trade, and increased the military pressure. Nicaragua declared a state of emergency. However, the Contras made little headway, and opposition in the United States was increasing to Reagan’s policies. In 1987, the president of Costa Rica, Oscar Arias, proposed a peace plan. According to the peace plan, the Contras would disarm and internal democracy would be restored in Nicaragua. Both Reagan and the Contra leaders rejected the plan. However, when the United States congress cut off Contra aid, the Contras were forced to enter negotiation. Peace was eventually reached.
The height of United States media attention occurred in 1986 when it was revealed that the United States government sold weapons to Iran in hopes that the Iranian government would be able to help free U.S. citizens being held hostage in Lebanon. The money made from this sale went to help the Contras. Since this was an illegal act by the United States government that many believe was overseen by the president himself, it received much media attention.
In 1990, the next elections were held in Nicaragua. Although almost all involved parties expected the Sandinistas to win, many Nicaraguans were afraid of continued pressure from the United States if the Sandinistas remained in power. Instead, Violeta Barrios de Chamorro (widow of Pedro Joaquin Chamorro) of the National Opposition Union won with United States backing. She was sworn in as President in April of 1990.
Protestant Periodicals
Before looking closely at Christian Century and Christianity Today it is worth making some general comments about Protestant periodicals, and Christian periodicals in general.
Religious periodicals have a long history in the United States. In fact they rank among the earliest of the periodicals published in the English Colonies that later became the United States and have been popular ever since.6 Religious periodicals also serve an important function. Charles Austin, a Lutheran pastor, wrote that religious periodicals are vital because secular media often will ignore religious events, or is inept at reporting them. Religious periodicals also serve as an alternative source of media in which current events are looked at from a perspective of faith.7
Richard Ostling, news editor for Christianity Today in the 1960s once said, "All to many church periodicals are slow or sluggish in responding to the issues of the day".8 Ostling brings up an important dilemma faced by the editors of Christian magazines. Editors are often cautious about commenting too strongly on current day issues for fear they will offend their readers. However, if the magazine gets too bland, readers will turn away.9 This dilemma is clearly seen in the Nicaragua crisis.
For the purposes of this paper we will look at two Protestant periodicals, Christianity Today and Christian Century.
Christian Century can trace its history all the way back to 1884, when it was known as Christian Oracle. "The Century, characterized by its outspoken opinions on every aspect of contemporary life, grew to be one of the most influential religious periodicals in the United States".10 The Century has sought to be the voice of Christian liberalism throughout its publication. Over the course of its run, it has moved from dogmatism to developing a greater appreciation for the complexity of the human predicament.11
In 1972 James Wall became editor of the magazine, and has remained so all the way to the present. Although Christian Century is famous for its strong positions on contemporary issues, this became somewhat diminished under Wall (although it did not disappear completely). It was replaced by a "complex, pluralistic voice".12 Also under Wall, the Century turned its interest more to the third world, and gives high priority to matters of social justice.
Christian Century has a high level of readership. Its circulation since the 1920s has remained at between 35,000 and 40,000. Because of the large number of libraries that subscribe to it, readership is probably much higher. By 1963, the Christian Century was the only religious magazine among the 20 most requested periodicals at libraries.13 Although a liberal Protestant magazine, it has among its readers and contributors Catholics, Jews, and Evangelicals. The typical subscriber to Christian Century is generally a religious professional, either in a teacher at a college or seminary or a worker in the parish setting.14
Christianity Today, the other magazine, was founded in 1956 as the conservative response to the Protestant liberalism found in Christian Century. Its first editor, Carl Henry, described its founding as an attempt to give Christian Century "a run for its biases".15 Kenneth Dole wrote in the Washington Post and Times Herald that the magazine was "to conservative, fundamentalist, orthodox Protestants what the Christian Century is to more liberal believers".16 Described as neo-evangelical, the magazine has sought to write about American life from a conservative, evangelical stance. Billy Graham himself co-founded the magazine with his father-in-law L. Nelson Bell.
In 1978, when the Sandinista revolution came into the focus in American media, Kenneth S. Kantzer was editor of the magazine. Kantzer was interested in increasing the sophistication of the theology in the magazine. However, Kantzer was concerned about nurturing the community of evangelicals, and not causing dissension. Kantzer promised not to "condone any departure from biblical authority" but also said, "no personal vendetta will be carried out against those who may not disagree with us".17 V. Gilbert Beers was editor of the magazine from 1982 to 1985. Although Beers was not editor long enough to make an impact on the magazine, he continued the course set by Kantzer, and "steered the magazine into even calmer waters".18 In 1985, Christianity Today went through a structural change as former publisher and President Harold L. Myra became "publisher and executive editor". Myra led a committee of senior editors, which included former editors Beers and Kantzer. Described as "more of a businessman/ journalist than a theologian,"19 Myra successfully moved Christianity Today into an increasingly sophisticated market place.
Although the magazine began with a readership of intellectually sophisticated pastors and professors, it has moved to a mass audience over the years. This is reflected in the increasingly simple language used by the magazine. There has also been a shift in the authors of the magazine. Between 1959 to 1983, academics went from writing 58% of the material for Christianity Today to 36%.20
Feedback
One thing of interest is the letters readers will write back to the magazine. This shows not only what kind of audience the magazine has, but how much the audience supports the direction the magazine is taking. In 1979, when Christianity Today published its first few articles on the Sandinistas, not one reader response was printed. Christian Century did not print any reader response to its articles on Nicaragua either. Let us take three years in the 1980s where both magazines had articles on Nicaragua: 1981, 1985, and 1989. In 1981 Christianity Today published two articles on Nicaragua, and printed zero responses from readers. In 1985 Christianity Today published five articles on Nicaragua, and not one reader response was printed. In 1989 Christianity Today published two articles on Nicaragua, and again it printed zero reader responses. Since both magazines reserve for themselves the right to decide which letters will and will not be published, we should be careful about making the assumption that since no letters were published, that means no readers wrote in. Although both magazines frequently publish letters that are critical of the magazine itself or articles that appear in the magazine, nevertheless a selection process does occur. Since the criteria for selection is not known, no substantial conclusions can be drawn from the above data.
However, we may hypothesize that the lack of printed letters in Christianity Today could indicate the possibility that no readers responded. If this was the case (and as already stated we can not say for certain that it was) then we may conclude that the readers of Christianity Today were either not informed enough on Nicaragua to contest the articles in the magazine, agreed with the articles, or did not care. Since Christianity Today is pitched to a mass audience, perhaps the audience of the magazine was largely uniformed enough to contest the opinions of the magazine.
By contrast Christian Century contained two articles about Nicaragua in 1981, and printed one letter written in response. In 1985, Christian Century published twelve articles about Nicaragua and printed seven letters in response. In 1989, Christian Century published three articles on Nicaragua and printed one letter in response.
Many of the readers who wrote back to Christian Century were informed about the topic themselves. For instance, Paul Jeffery, who wrote a letter in 1981 in response to an article by Joseph Cassidy, would later write several of his own articles about Nicaragua in Christian Century. In 1985, Penn Keble and Michael Novak wrote to Christian Century representing the Institute for Religion and Democracy (IRD). (Novak is also a well known rightist who has published several books and journal articles in addition to serving as a United States ambassador, a delegate for the United States, an advisor to the White House from 1974-1980, and a member of the faculty at Harvard and Notre Dame.)21 Charles W. Bare also wrote in 1985, representing the Ecumenical Services Association. In 1989, Alan Wisdom wrote in representing the IRD.
Since, the subscribers to Christian Century are generally religious professionals, often teachers at Colleges and Seminaries, it should be no surprise that some of them are informed enough to respond on the Nicaraguan issue.
Article in Detail
By examining one article in more detail, it may be helpful to gain a broader understanding of what goes into an article in general. In the October second issue in 1987 of Christianity Today Stephen Wykstra, a philosophy professor at Calvin College had an article published on the situation in Nicaragua. I had the privilege of talking to Dr. Wykstra on November 15, 1999.
Wykstra said the article was written at a time when he was pro-Sandinista. Wykstra was trying to oppose the institute for Religion and Democracy (IRD), which, he believed, was trying to portray an untrue picture of the Sandinistas. Wykstra believed the media did not accurately represent what was going on in Nicaragua. After doing an intensive media analysis, Wykstra concluded that although the Contras were routinely butchering civilians, their atrocities never received much media attention. However, the Sandinista atrocities certainly caught the attention of the media.
The article is written in the style of objective journalism. That means, Wykstra said, that he quoted both sides without saying which side he thought was right. A reader, Wykstra said, reading an objective journalism article would not know what the opinion of the author was. The article quotes the accusations of the IRD are, and then includes a response to them by Ron Sider. Wykstra asserted he had to be careful in this article because of the conservative nature of Christianity Today’s audience.
The article is about Gustavo Parajon, whom Wykstra actually met in 1984. Parajon was head of the Evangelical Committee for Aid and Development (CEPAD). Because CEPAD was sympathetic to the Sandinistas, it had been under attack by the IRD. Wykstra used Ron Sider to reply to IRD’s accusations, because Ron Sider would have been well known to Christianity Today readers. Only a few months before Wykstra’s article, Christianity Today published an article in its July 10 issue entitled, "A talk with Ron Sider."
Wykstra thought his article was balanced. People thought he was a little extreme in those days, so it helped to have his article published in a mainline publication like Christianity Today. He got a good response to it, although he doesn’t remember any specific feedback. In fact, the only letter Christianity Today printed about Wykstra’s article appeared in the December 11 issue, and was by a professor from Fullerton College named Derry Seaton. Seaton was upset about another article Christianity Today had printed, and said it "typifies a too-common trait of assuming a single Christian perspective on current issues." Seaton said that, "The next article by Steve Wykstra on Gustavo Parajon is an example of better journalism".
Wykstra, on a trip to Washington, actually met the staff of Christianity Today, including Beth Spring. Their fairness and objectivity impressed him, as well as their commitment to the truth. Wykstra noted that Christianity Today was often caught in the middle between very pro-Sandinista groups like Sojourners, and anti-Sandinista groups like the IRD.
Year by Year
For the research involved in this paper, I have gone through and examined every article concerning Nicaragua in both Christianity Today and Christian Century from 1978 to 1990, with the intent of discovering what kind of coverage each magazine gave to events in Nicaragua, and how this changed over time. My findings are summarized below.
Before I began my reading the periodicals, I had certain expectations. I expected Christian Century to follow the trend of liberal Protestantism at the time and to be in support of the Sandinistas. Conversely, I expected Christianity Today to attack the Sandinistas.
In my readings I discovered that many of the articles in Christian Century and all of the articles in Christianity Today are written in the objective style of journalism. This means that the author will quote from both sides of the issue, and not let the reader know how he or she feels himself or herself. If objective journalism is done right, the reader will not know what the biases of the author are. However, there are methods that I employed to try and find the bias of a certain author. The events that the author chooses to focus on or not focus on are key. Also of note is how much proportional space each side received. If one side received much more space than the other, that is a sign that the author was biased towards that side. Finally, which side received the last word is also of interest. (Obviously, someone has to have the last word, so one can not read too much into this. However, taken into account with other factors this can sometimes be illuminating.)
One of the interesting things is the complete lack of coverage of Nicaragua in these periodicals before the Sandinistas. Take for example four different religious periodical indexes. There is the Index of Religious periodicals, which covers the period from 1948-1958 and indexes 15 different Christian journals. Also there is the Religion Index, which goes from 1949 to the present, and indexes 100 Christian journals. Next is the Christian Periodical Index, which contains 20 Christian journals, and covers the period from 1956 to the present. Finally, Guide to Religious and Semi-Religious Periodicals, which indexes 75 Christian Journals, and goes from 1965 to the present.
These indexes indicate that there were only 13 articles published about Nicaragua in any religious magazine before 1979. Of these, six were about the Earthquake that occurred in Managua on December 23, 1972. However, the earliest article of these six was not until March of 1973. The rest of the articles deal with the church and mission efforts in Nicaragua.
The Sandinistas were formed on July 23, 1960. They did not obtain much press coverage in the United States at first. Joshua Muravchik asserted that the heavy media coverage of the Nicaraguan civil war and the Sandinista movement became overwhelming in July of 1978.22 In the September 8, 1979 issue of Human Events, Evan Stanton wrote "Scarcely a day goes by, so it seems, without some breathless news dispatch from Nicaragua extolling the virtues of the Sandinista revolution".23 However Christianity Today would not have an article on the Nicaraguan revolution until August 17, 1979. Christian Century’s first reference to the revolution occurred in September of 1978.
Christianity Today published two articles on Nicaragua prior to the outbreak of United States media attention, one was in the December 21, 1973, and reported on the Managua earthquake, the other was on December 19, 1975, and reported on a religious revival in Managua following the earthquake. Nevertheless, Christianity Today was slower in responding to the crisis. Coverage started in July 1978, but their first article did not appear until August 17, 1979. This is consistent with Richard Ostling’s above view that religious periodicals are slow in responding to current issues.
1978
In September of 1978, Christian Century featured an article that referred to the events in Nicaragua, while the focus of the article was actually on the Catholic Church in Central America. The article was not sympathetic to Somoza and mentions that his forces brutally beat a group of Catholic priests and then used them as shields. However, the article identified the teenage guerrillas as communists (the name Sandinista was not even used), and quoted a Catholic nun who said, "Communism is not what I want. I tell the young people that the communists do not respect individual liberty in any country they control".
One month later, in November, an article was published on seventeen hunger strikers in Paraguay. The article asserted that events in Nicaragua had monopolized the headlines, so that "the silent protest of 17 Paraguayan political prisoners hadn’t a chance of being heard". The article only had one sentence in describing Nicaragua, but it was a vivid one. "Teen-agers were standing off soldiers in hand-to-hand combat, refugees were streaming out of cities, a Red Cross ambulance and its occupants were riddled by machine-gun fire." An article in December of 1978 made a passing reference to Ernesto Cardenal, "a poet of stature in his native Nicaragua as well as one of the country’s most vociferous social critics".
An article on December 27, 1978, was the first full article by either magazine on the situation in Nicaragua. The article was very anti-Somoza, and quoted Daniel Aguirre of La Prensa, who said, "You must understand, everyone here is in the opposition". Although this was the first article by Christian Century to mention the Sandinistas by name, it said surprisingly little about them, preferring to focus on the conditions of Nicaragua instead.
1979
Most media coverage of the Sandinistas was favorable at first. Christianity Today was no exception. Despite the conservative leanings of the magazine, the first article published about the Sandinistas, in August of 1979 by Stephen Sywulka, did not come down as hard on the Sandinistas as it could have done. Although the article did mention that many were ambivalent because of "the communist influence in the Sandinista camp" it also mentioned that many evangelicals sympathized with the rebels.
The ambivalence continued two issues later as Sywulka described the new Sandinista government. Sywulka mentioned that "Somoza and his allies looted the treasury before they left", but for the most part he laid the blame for damage caused by the civil war on both sides. "Much of the industry around Managua is in ruins, having been bombed, looted, or burned by forces from both sides." Here Sywulka’s wording was misleading, for it implied the Sandinistas had participated in the bombing. However, the Sandinistas did not have the capability to bomb at that point, although aerial bombardment had clearly been one of Somoza’s favorite techniques.24
Sywulka mentioned that some pastors supported Somoza on the basis of Romans 13, but that many young Christians joined the Sandinistas. Sywulka included a quote by one church leader who said that believers should get ready to testify to a communist government, but also said that the Roman Catholic Church supported the Sandinistas, although "in recent weeks the Catholic church has disengaged itself, at least partially, from Sandinista politics".
It had been almost a year since reference was made to Nicaragua in Christian Century. The next reference was only in passing. In his article on El Salvador, Patrick Lacefield mentioned the Nicaraguan revolution, and how it had inspired hope in the people of El Salvador that El Salvador would be next. This implied that the revolution in Nicaragua was a positive thing. There was an article by Barbara Brown on hunger, which referred to the poverty in Nicaragua on October 10, 1979. In November, Robert Longman used Somoza as one of the few examples of a case where a government was so corrupt that it had been obvious to everyone. In December, the Nicaraguan revolution was mentioned as one of the top stories of 1979. Interestingly, the only facts given about he revolution were that it had overthrown Dictator Anastasio Somoza and several Catholic priests had been given prominent government positions.
1980
It was two days short of a year before Christianity Today published their next article on Nicaragua, on September 19, 1980. The author had changed, Paul Pretiz wrote instead of Sywulka. Paul Pretiz was much more optimistic concerning the Sandinistas, and he included several pro-Christianity quotes by Sandinista co-founder Tomas Borge. "As long as Sandinismo exist in Nicaragua, Christianity will continue to exist" and "You have heard us say, 'Sandinismo today, Sandinismo yesterday, Sandinismo forever' let me add, 'Jesus Christ today, Jesus Christ yesterday, Jesus Christ forever!'" The story is also told how Borge had forgiven the National Guard soldiers of Somoza who had castrated him, had killed his wife, and had forced him to watch while seventeen men gang raped and then killed his daughter. The article mentioned the Sandinistas literacy campaign, and how Christians were taking part of it. It also said "Despite recent fears that the Nicaraguan revolution would be taking a Cuban-style Communistic direction, the governing Junta appears to be demonstrating a desire to gain broad popular support among both Roman Catholics and Protestants". This article could hardly have been more pro-Sandinista.
The only reference to Nicaragua in Christian Century in 1980 was in the "News and Events" section, and was about how the pope had ordered six priests in the Sandinista government to step down so that they could meet the spiritual needs of people. The pope said lay Christians could take over their posts just as effectively.
1981
The March 27 issue of Christianity Today contained an article by Ronald Frase, a former missionary to Latin America who had recently visited Nicaragua. Frase’s article was strongly in favor of the Sandinistas. It contained quotes from two Americans living in Nicaragua who were upset because they thought things under the new Sandinista government were much more positive than the United States media had portrayed them. The article also interviewed Carlos Chamorro Coronel, part of the new government who, while he was not a Sandinista, supported their cause. Chamorro asserted that the revolution had not been a Marxist one, but a Christian one. The article also interviewed CEPAD director Gilberto Aguirre, who supported the Sandinistas as well. The article made no negative comments about the Sandinistas, nor included any quotations by anyone who opposed the Sandinistas. It is interesting, however, that the Editor of Christianity Today (Kenneth Kantzer) found it necessary to insert into Frase’s article that "Nicaragua’s Sandinista leadership has been closely linked to the flow of arms to Salvadoran guerillas". This seems to imply Kantzer was not quite as optimistic about the Sandinistas as Frase was.
The next article was in May, and was also extremely positive. Written by John Maust, this article mentioned that Tomas Borge (co-founder of the Sandinistas) had requested the Bibles. Much was made of the fact that Borge was a Christian, and the article also mentioned that Borge denounced and apologized for the murder of Somocistas by Sandinistas. Borge was quoted as saying revenge and murder were not Sandinista policy. The article said the Sandinistas have given full religious freedom to the church, and they had built a pool in prison for prisoners to be baptized. The article did mention, however, that in addition to many Christian literacy workers, there were many Marxist ones. The church leaders wanted to pump religious literature in to keep pace with the Marxist literature.
Christian Century in March detailed the conflict between the Sandinistas and the ethnic Indians of Nicaragua. An article by Joseph Cassidy on October 21 talked about the relationship between the Catholic Church and the Sandinistas. Cassidy asserted that the Sandinistas wanted to form a close relationship with the Catholic Church, even though the Church was ambivalent about the Sandinista movement. Cassidy mentioned the same fact found in an earlier news and events section of Christian Century where six priests had been ordered to stand down from the government by the Pope. Cassidy said that this had been later revealed by Managuan newspapers to be a rumor, and that the truth had actually been that the Priests were allowed to keep their positions in the government, but could no longer exercise their priestly roles in public. Cassidy’s article was critical of the Sandinistas, however, and suggested that the Sandinistas wanted to twist Christianity to meet their ideal of revolutionary socialism. It was for this view that Paul Jeffrey harshly criticized him in a letter on December 16. Jeffrey said that the Catholic Church had long been out of touch with the Nicaraguan people. Furthermore, Jeffrey accused Cassidy of only using biased sources in his article, like "the reactionary La Prensa".
1982
In 1982 Christianity Today published two articles on Nicaragua. Edward Plowman published the first of these on February 5. It consisted of an interview with Archbishop Obando Y Bravo, who was an outspoken critic of the Sandinista regime. The Institute for Religion and Democracy (IRD) was responsible for publicizing the interview. Obando claimed in the interview that it was at that time a crime to criticize the government. Obando also said that the activities of the church have currently been regulated to the religious realm only. Furthermore the opposition paper, La Prensa had been shut down by the government.
The second article appeared on October 8. It contained a report by the Whitmer missionaries. In this report the Sandinistas had herded the Miskito Indians into a concentration camp. Many of them had been forced to dig their own graves before being riddled by bullets. This article did obviously not reflect well on the Sandinistas. However, the introduction to the article blamed the United States foreign policy on causing the tensions between the Sandinistas and the Miskitos, by supplying military aid to counter revolutionaries who lived near the Miskito land. The article pointed out that the United States neutrality laws were being applied in Haiti, where the people were struggling against a right wing government, but not in Nicaragua.
Christian Century had eleven articles, letters, and news briefs on Nicaragua. On January 6-13, Margaret Wilde had an article on the Sandinistas, in which she claimed there are all sorts of false rumors circulating about the Sandinistas relationship to the church and to the Miskitos. The way Wilde described the Miskito conflict is an interesting understatement. "There have been serious misunderstandings – some of them fatal – between the government and native ethnic groups on the East Coast". However, Wilde alleged, the Sandinistas have been working to improve their relationships with both the church and the Miskitos, and were becoming better all the time.
On February 24, Jan Black wrote a very pro-Sandinista article, which detailed all the good things that the Sandinistas have done since they came into power. Kenneth Garcia had a letter published on March 31, which thanked Black for the article. A news brief on April 7 contained one of the few negative things said about the Sandinistas. It said they had expelled eighteen Jehovah’s witnesses for counter-revolutionary activity. (That left only two Jehovah’s witnesses in Nicaragua).
On April 28, Wilde had another article on the Sandinista conflict with the Miskitos. Wilde blamed the disaster once again on United States policy. Wilde said the Sandinista atrocities were often exaggerated or made up. She acknowledged they did happen, but claimed that for the most part the Sandinistas treated the Miskitos humanely. In contrast to the Whitmer’s article in Christianity Today, Wilde emphasized that the Miskitos had not been kept in a concentration camp.
On December 1, an article on Church and State relations in Nicaragua by James Wall appeared. Wall took a very critical view of both Obando and the IRD. Wall argued that there was indeed religious freedom in Nicaragua. "This country is not yet a Marxist state. Marxist governments generally do not permit Roman Catholic prelates to talk to foreign visitors or to write a weekly column in an opposition newspaper, as Obando does." Wall also expressed a concern that the United States government had plans to overthrow the Sandinistas. On December 8, Wall continued his article. He claimed that Obando’s complaints represented conflict between Church and State, not oppression of the Church by the State. Wall contended that there was no religious oppression in Nicaragua.
A news brief on December 8 contained a call from the National Council of Churches for the "United States government to reverse its policy of seeking military solutions to problems in Nicaragua."
1983
Christianity Today only had one article about Nicaragua in 1983, but it was very positive about the Sandinista government. Written by news editor Tom Minnery, the tittle, "Why the Gospel Grows in Socialist Nicaragua: the Revolution turned against Capitalism but not Christianity", pretty much says it all. It had very little negative to say about the Sandinistas. It mentioned the conflict the Sandinista government had with the ethnic Indians, and with Protestants, but even here showed the Sandinistas in a sympathetic light.
Christian Century had much more to say about Nicaragua. In 39 issues, Christian Century had 22 articles or news briefs on Nicaragua, not counting other articles that made mention of Nicaragua. The editor, James Wall, began the year with a number of predictions, one of which was that Nicaragua would "slip further into Marxist orbit" and join Cuba and the Soviet Union. However, Wall was not attacking the Sandinistas so much as he was attacking Reagan’s policy, which he credited as forcing the Sandinistas into the arms of the Soviet Block. This theme would pop up through out the year in Christian Century articles about Nicaragua.
A reader, T.D. Reeves wrote in to attack Wall’s two articles the previous year. Reeves said Wall had been twisting the facts in order to present the Sandinistas in a favorable light. "More than anything else I have read in recent months, it represents biased, politically motivated, distorted and dishonest reporting" Reeves wrote. However, one month later Margaret Wilde wrote in a letter defending Wall’s articles. Reeves letter, she claimed, had been based on misinformation from the United States’ State Department.
Christian Century included a favorable report about the Sandinistas from a delegation that visited there. There was an article about a Reaganite who had visited Nicaragua, and had left it disillusioned with Reagan. There was an Article by James Wall on April 20, which compared the United States intervention in Nicaragua to the United States exploitation of Cuba before the communist revolution. There was a news brief that educators from seven different Universities had been coming out publicly in favor of the Sandinistas, and condemning the United States foreign policy in Nicaragua. Another news brief claimed eight members of the world Council of Churches were convinced that Nicaragua had complete religious freedom under the Sandinistas. There was an editorial by James Wall, which condemned the Central Intelligence Agency’s destruction of Nicaraguan oil. (A reader wrote in on December 14, and praised Wall for this editorial). In news briefs it was mentioned that churches had opposed aid to Contras. It was also mentioned in passing in another news brief that there has been tension between the Sandinista government and the church. Wall criticized the United States’ government ban of Tomas Borge from the United States.
Both magazines were pro-Sandinista in 1983. Christianity Today is hard to judge, because it only has one article in April, and the attitude of the magazine may have changed by October. However, that article was written by the News Editor, and was very clearly in favor of the Sandinistas. Christian Century had only two negative things to say about the Sandinistas over the course of a whole year, and one of them was a letter by a reader. James Wall, the editor of the magazine, dedicated six of his 39 editorials that year to defend the Sandinistas. The other big writer was Margaret Wilde, who wrote five articles.
1984
In 1984, Christianity Today only had two articles on Nicaragua. One of them was written in January about Witness for Peace, a Christian group involved in Nicaragua that had protested Reagan’s policies, the United States involvement, and the activity of the Contras. However, Witness for Peace was quoted as saying they did not want to look like they supported the Sandinistas either. The second article was written in September by Beth Spring, the Washington correspondent for the newspaper. The article took the Institute for Religion and Democracy (IRD) and Sojourners, and compared their attitudes towards Nicaragua. The IRD was very critical of the Sandinistas, the Sojourners were very supportive, but both sides were quoted equally.
Christian Century had seventeen segments about Nicaragua, counting News briefs, articles, and letters from readers. An article by Pope Liston in January condemned Reagan's involvement in Nicaragua. Liston gave several quotes by Tomas Borge, in which Borge had indicated plans of the CIA to assassinate prominent religious opposition in Nicaragua and blame it on the Sandinistas. Richard Deats gave a Witness for Peace report, in which he mistakenly credited the Sandinistas for having abolished the death penalty. A news brief talked about Ernesto Cardenal, who had been a Marxist priest in the Sandinista government. Ernesto Cardenal explained why he did not see a contradiction between Marxism and Christianity. Another news brief mentioned the World Court ruling in favor of Nicaragua and against the U.S. Further news briefs include reports from Baptist convention of Nicaragua, which criticized U.S. policy. Also a challenge made to Jeane Kirkpatrick argued that there was no religious oppression in Nicaragua, and then on the same page a different brief mentioned that ten foreign priests had been expelled from Nicaragua. The priests had been supporters of Archbishop Obando y Bravo, a critic of the Sandinista government. In September an article by Gregory Bergman included a quote by an Archbishop, who said that Nicaragua was influencing Cuba in terms of having increased religious freedom in Cuba more than Cuba was influencing Nicaragua. An article by Balfour Brickner condemned United States intervention in Nicaragua, which was supported by a letter from a reader on November 21. James Wall attacked the IRD, and essentially said that they were a tool for Reagan’s propaganda. An article came out supporting the validity of Nicaragua’s elections, and another news brief articulated that several church leaders have planned massive civil disobedience if the United States invaded Nicaragua.
In Christianity Today, there was much more of a move to the middle ground. Of the two articles published, one quoted from both sides of the debate. The other, while criticizing United States policy, clearly did not side with the Sandinistas either. Christian Century maintained a positive view of the Sandinistas, however.
1985
In 1985, Christianity Today had six articles on Nicaragua. The first of these appeared on April 5, by Beth Spring. It told of Evangelical leaders who were planning to visit pastors in Nicaragua. The trip was apolitical, and the participants acknowledged their were widely discrepant views of what had been going on down in Nicaragua. On April 19, Beth Spring had another article. The article dealt with Reagan’s policy on Nicaragua. Spring said that his position "has pitted Reagan against Christian groups that are sympathetic to the Sandinistas". IRD and the Evangelicals for Social Action (ESA) planned a joint trip in the article, one group that favored the Sandinistas, and one group that did not. A follow up article to this one appeared on September 6. This article told about how IRD had cancelled the trip, for fear it would have intimidated the Nicaraguan evangelicals, and called increased government attention to their activities. ESA rejected IRD’s reason, and gave a quote implying that IRD had backed out because they were afraid the trip would be more politically advantageous to ESA then it would have been to them.
Also on September 6 was another article by Beth Spring. This is a follow up to her April 5 article. It mentions that the Sandinistas were losing popularity. The article was also very critical of the People’s Church, a church that had been started by the Sandinistas, which Spring described as "a mix of Marxism and Christianity". The article is critical of the Sandinistas, and praised their opponents, with such phrases as: "The traditional Catholic Church, led by Obando Y Bravo, has stood firm against Sandinista attempts to dictate to the Church." Also, the article opened up with a passage that indicated that Spring was very critical of the Sandinistas. "Evangelicals have found themselves caught in the middle. The have tried to reconcile reports of thriving churches, increased literacy and other improvements, with equally compelling accounts of repression, censorship, and manipulation of Christians by the Nicaraguan Government."
On November 8, Assistant News Editor Randall Frame had an article on Pat Robertson raising money for the Contras through his Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN). In having done this, Frame was simply repeating allegations first made by another Christian magazine, Sojourners. A quote was included by Tom Hawk, former World Relief Coordinator in Honduras, that Hawk had been "very disappointed in CBN’s reporting on Central America…. It’s very, very one sided. The situation is so complex that you can go down and prove just about any story you want."
Beth Spring had an article on December 13. This article was reporting on the disruption of Civil Liberties in Nicaragua. The article said that the government had been cracking down of Christian activity from both Protestants and Catholics. The article quoted both IRD and ESA, but much more of the quotes came from IRD. The last words in the article were: "The Reagan administration views the Sandinistas as a Marxist government. Christian leaders are unwilling to endorse a ruler who systematically disrupts civil liberties." However, the article never said why civil liberties had been suspended.
Christian Century had 27 articles, letters, and news briefs on Nicaragua in 1985. In January, James Wall mentioned Daniel Ortega’s election in 1984 as one of the signs of hope for the new year. His reason for this was that Ortega had been willing to meet with the Catholic church.
On January 2-9, IRD responded to criticism that they have received in Christian Century by James Wall. They claimed that CEPAD was a Sandinista propaganda machine, and yet Wall supported CEPAD. They refuted Wall’s claim that IRD is just Reagan propaganda, and said that one did not need to be part of the Reagan administration to have been concerned about what was going on in Nicaragua. Finally they said that the evidence Wall used to link IRD to the Reagan administration was faulty.
On February 20, there was an article by Kinsler and Evans that defended the 1984 elections in Nicaragua. Also on February 20, Wall in an editorial lamented the fact that he had been often categorized as pro-Sandinista simply because he had been anti-Reagan. In the same issue, an excerpt was included from a CIA manufactured Contra pamphlet. In the pamphlet, the CIA told the Contras to call themselves a Christian movement, and to open and close each meeting with prayer, in hopes that they would gain support from the populace.
The rest of the year has reoccurring themes. The Contra atrocities are documented. The magazine in general, but especially Wall’s editorials, condemn Contra funding by the United States. Several articles alluded to the fact that the Sandinista Government was not as bad as it looked. Pat Robertson was also condemned. In fact, in May 8, an editorial by Dean Peerman described Robertson’s charity as, "Tithing for terrorism".
1986
By 1986, it was apparent that both magazines had different views of what was going on. Christianity Today had two articles on Nicaragua, on in February, one in April. Both articles were written by Beth Spring, the Washington Correspondent. The article in February concerned the harsh treatment of evangelicals in Nicaragua. Jimmy Haasan described his experience. The tone had obviously moved to a tone harshly critical of the Sandinistas. "Incidents of harassment against Catholics and groups such as the Miskito Indians have cast serious doubt on the Sandinistas’ tolerance for anyone who answers to a higher authority than the ruling junta".
On his visit to Nicaragua, Dr. Steven Wykstra had an opportunity to visit the evangelicals who were harassed. He found that the United States media had largely exaggerated the whole story. Another interesting thing Dr. Wykstra brought to light was the issue of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) funding. Hassan, in the article, reported that the Sandinistas had asked him how much the CIA paid him. It was presented in Beth Spring’s article as a ridiculous question. However, Wykstra revealed that the CIA did in fact pay money to Humberto Belli for his anti-Sandinista book "Breaking Faith".
In her second article for the year, Beth Spring increased her anti-Sandinista bias. She took for granted that the Sandinistas were totalitarian, and included a quote from the Washington Post to reinforce it. "Virtually all observers say the Sandinistas are running a totalitarian state". Spring mentioned that there was a Christian Left who believed in the goodness of the Sandinistas. Spring described an encounter Republican Paul Henry had with these individuals. Henry concluded that they were either political naive or held strongly to their leftist viewpoints. He said that the Sandinistas had informed them and that the Sandinista government had only told them what it had wanted them to hear. Beth Spring concluded by saying that it was these kinds of people who were responsible for shaping the views of the Christian Left. No letters were published in response.
Christian Century had eighteen articles, letters, and news briefs on Nicaragua. Robert Brown, one of Christian Century’s editors at large, wrote an article reflecting on his trip to Nicaragua. It was strongly pro-Sandinista. The sickening details of the contra atrocities on a local village were given. "11 year-old Helena, whose hands are horribly mutilated because the contras used them for target practice; her older sister, who was gang-raped on the floor of their tiny house; Carmen Alvira, whose three teen-age sons were kidnapped while cultivating their little plot of land, and have not been heard of since". Steven Wykstra said he was amazed by how little coverage the Contra atrocities had received in the United States media, compared with how much coverage Sandinista atrocities had received. Brown maintained that "embassy officials in Managua tell Washington what Washington wants to hear, so that Washington can act on the basis of what it has heard from Managua". In this way, Brown said it was the Christian right, not the Christian left that was misinformed about what was going on. Brown even went on say that Obando y Bravo, a bishop critic of the Sandinistas, has acted as he did because he was on the side of the rich. Christian Century got two letters back because of Brown’s article. One was strongly in favor of it, one was furious, but the author was upset at Brown’s attack on Catholicism, not his support of the Sandinistas. A couple of news briefs alluded to religious oppression in Nicaragua, everything else was in support of the Sandinistas, right up until December when Jerome Nilssen described how he has become increasingly disillusioned with the Sandinistas. Originally in support of them, each time he made a trip to Nicaragua he had become more and more upset with what was going on. He finally admitted in this article that he would have liked to see the Sandinistas just leave Nicaragua.
1987
Christianity Today had three articles on Nicaragua in 1987. The first of these was by Beth Spring, and was about an interview with Sergio Ramirez, Vice President of Nicaragua. Spring included only a couple statements by Ramirez, and then the rest of the article was about his critics. Although written in the objective style, more space by far was given to the critics (this included the coveted end of the article). Jimmy Carter was among the critics. In the article it was stated: "Jimmy Carter said human-rights abuses under the Sandinistas have equaled or exceeded Somoza’s". The other two articles were more favorable to the Sandinistas.
Christian Century had 19 articles, news briefs, and letters concerning Nicaragua. There were two letters in response to Jerome Nilssen’s ambivalent article the year before. One of the letters was a fierce defense of the Sandinistas, saying that Nilssen had an unrealistic ideal, possible only in heaven. Compared to most other countries, the letter asserted, (which included the United States), Nicaragua was not doing badly at all. The other article was from someone else who had also visited Nicaragua, and shared Nilssen’s ambivalence. In April 29, Jospeph Mulligan defended the Sandinistas human rights record. A reader later challenged him, and mentioned Humberto Belli’s book: "Breaking Faith".
In 1987, Christian Century had become more and more aware of the conflict between the Sandinistas and the church, and included more news briefs about this. Most of the editorials were still anti-Contra, but the tone of support for the Sandinistas, while still present, had decreased.
1988
Christianity Today had two articles on the Sandinistas. Both were by Randell Frame, and both were optimistic about chances for peace in Nicaragua. Both articles were written in the objective style, and had plenty of quotes from both sides.
By 1988, the Century’s support for the Sandinistas was waning, but they were vehemently anti-contra. On January 20, Penny Lennoux asserted in her article that the Ethnic Indians in Nicaragua had not joined the Contras willingly, but were forced into their camp. Lennoux said the Indians hated the Contras as much as they hated the Sandinistas. On January 27, editor at large Dean Peerman claimed that the other Latin American countries looked on the Contras as agents of destruction, and did not believe the Contras were helping anything. Robert Brown wrote an article on February 24, and said that the United States had destroyed Nicaragua through its funding of the Contras. Brown argued that: "The concept is simple: since the United States, through its aid to the contras, has spent seven years and millions of dollars contributing to Nicaragua’s destruction, the U.S. is now obligated to allocate equal time and money for its rebuilding".
1989
Christianity Today had two articles published on Nicaragua in 1989. The first of these articles was an interview with Gustavo Parajon, the founder of CEPAD, which appeared in March. Parajon had been a defender of the Sandinistas over the years, and he supported them in this article as well. The questions asked to him were often pointed questions, directed against the Sandinistas. (For example: "Critics charge that freedom has not increased with the lessening of conflict. Do you share these concerns?"). However, Parajon was always able to give an answer that defended his position. When asked about civil liberties, he responded he did not know, however, "What I do know for sure is that the limbs of more than 2,500 Nicaraguans have been blown off by mines… eight of my co-workers have been murdered by the contras".
The second article was by Randall Frame. It essentially interviewed Alberto Mottesi, an Argentinean Evangelist who had recently prayed with Daniel Ortega. Mottesi emphasized in the interview the tensions between Marxism and the gospel, however the article was written in an objective style.
Christian Century had nine articles, news briefs, and letters about Nicaragua in 1989. In March a news brief reported that the Church of the Brethren had called on the United States to end the embargo on Nicaragua, and to end aid to the Contras. In May, a news brief reported that a delegation of pastors asked for an end to Contra aid. An article about Fred Morris made predictions about what George Bush would do in Central America. In the article, Morris implied the Nicaraguans wanted to be left alone by the United States, and were happy under the Sandinistas. Morris included data to back up his argument. In July, Alan Wisdom, from the IRD, wrote a letter challenging Morris’ statistics, and made an argument that Nicaraguans would be much happier without the Sandinistas.
Also in May, a news brief was given about Pat Roberston’s visit to Nicaragua. Robertson, the brief said, had been contributing millions of dollars to the Contras. In July, Michael Rivage-Seul wrote an article in which he alleged that the United States had purposely undermined the Sandinista regime. The Sandinista had to spend 40 % of their Gross National Product on defense against the U.S. armed contras, which left little for the social programs on which the success of the revolution had been based. Rivage-Seul predicted (falsely) that the Sandinistas’ would win the battle, but it would be a hard fought battle. In August, Margaret Wilde did an article on the Miskito Indian refugees. A news brief reported that it had been revealed that the United States Embassy had been giving out free aid to conservative pastors in Nicaragua. Poorer, more liberal pastors received none. There was a news briefs about the sufferings of the Miskito Indians.
Christianity Today, of its two articles, contained one more sympathetic to the Sandinistas, and one more skeptical. Both were written objectively. Christian Century was, once again, very sympathetic to the Sandinistas. It was increasingly aware of the Miskito plight, and had a couple of articles about them, but even in these articles they did not come down hard on the Sandinistas.
1990
Christianity Today did not have any article on Nicaragua in 1990, where as Christian Century had fourteen articles, letters, and news briefs. In general, Christian Century was optimistic about Violeta Chamorro, although many of the articles did lament the passing of the Sandinistas. One such article in support of the Sandinistas appeared on March 14, by William Fore. It was harshly criticized in a later letter by Michael Novak (from the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research). Novak ended his letter by saying, "Yet I am glad that Fore has presented us with such important documentary evidence of the self-delusions of the Sandinistas international supporters, as well as of the Sandinista government itself." Christian Century also documented continued Contra atrocities in the year 1990.
Post 1990
In 1991 neither magazine would feature an article about Nicaragua. In fact, using the indexes listed above no Christian periodicals had any articles on Nicaragua. Once the Sandinistas were out of power, American interest in Nicaragua vanished as well.
Conclusions
It is worth noting the coverage of the media in general about the Sandinista government before drawing conclusions about Christianity Today and Christian Century. During the actual revolution itself, and the first few years afterwards, Media coverage of the Sandinistas was very favorable.25 There were a few voices on the right wing, such as the periodical Human Events that advocated Somoza’s dictatorship was better then a Marxist government (which they condemned the Sandinistas as being).26 Opinion gradually changed as the Sandinistas atrocities with the Miskito Indians came to light, as well as the conflict with the Catholic Church.
As is evidenced by the above pages, it is hard to track down what bias or viewpoint either periodical takes. One reason for this of course is that many of the articles (especially those written for Christianity Today) were in the style of objective journalism, and objective journalism, if done right, makes it impossible for the reader to determine the bias of the author. (Fortunately, the bias does often show through anyway however).
Secondly, and more importantly, each magazine was composed of many different writers that worked for it, and each writer had his or her own viewpoint. For instance, although both Beth Spring and Randell Frame wrote for Christianity Today, they might not have seen eye to eye on things, and an article by Beth Spring might have taken a different view of the Sandinistas then an article by Randell Frame would take.
There are a few ways of getting around this. One is to take notice of what position the writer has on the staff of the Magazine. For instance, Christianity Today frequently had articles on Nicaragua written by people who were not affiliated with the magazine itself. These articles, although not discounted entirely, are of less important then articles written by Beth Spring, the magazine’s Washington Correspondent, or articles written by Randell Frame, the magazine’s Associate News Editor. Christian Century had almost all of its articles on Nicaragua written by staff writers. The Editor himself, James Wall, wrote many of the editorials concerning Nicaragua in the 1980s.
Another point that should be made is that caution should be taken before comparing these magazines to each other. Because of the sheer number of articles on Nicaragua Christian Century had in most years, compared to the relatively few number of articles Christianity Today had, Christian Century touches on all sorts of events Christianity Today never even mentions.
With the above criteria in mind, and speaking in broad, general terms based on the above evidence, it can safely be said that Christianity Today began in 1979 with a cautious ambivalence regarding the Sandinistas (with articles written by staff writer Stephen Sywulka). After the Sandinista revolution succeeded, the articles in 1980 and 1981 were full of optimism. A number of different writers are represented in this period. A gradual shift was made to a more critical view of the Sandinistas. Beth Spring, who wrote eight articles about the Sandinistas between November of 1984, and January of 1987, dominated the magazine's view of the Sandinistas for these two and some years. Although Spring’s articles were always written in the objective style of journalism, she quoted heavily from those critical of the Sandinistas, and sparingly from their supporters. Critics were often given the last word, and a few times Spring interjected her own view of the Sandinistas into the article as a critic of the Sandinistas. Randall Frame, the other big writer on Nicaragua for this magazine during the 1980s, had four articles between 1985 and 1989. Frame’s articles were more critical of United States policy towards Nicaragua, although they never endorsed the Sandinistas.
Christian Century had, as mentioned above, much more articles on Nicaragua. From this we can deduce that the staff of Christian Century was more concerned about events in Nicaragua then the staff of Christianity Today. This is in keeping with the increased attention Century focused on the third world in the 1980s. Like Christianity Today, the Century started out ambivalent about the Sandinistas in the revolutionary war, then moved to an endorsement of them. Aside from a couple writers and news briefs, the Century never really became critical about the Sandinistas. A good way to say it would be they simply became less enthusiastic about the Sandinistas, and there was a quiet moving away from their earlier position of outright support, but very few articles appeared that were critical. Instead, the Century shifted its focus in the mid 1980s from extolling the virtues of the Sandinistas, to being critical of United States policy in the 1980s. Interestingly enough though, in 1990 once it was clear that the Sandinistas had lost, the Century almost seemed to return to their earlier position of endorsement for the Sandinistas, and there were a couple articles that lamented their passing.
James Wall, the editor of the magazine, was very concerned about Nicaragua, and wrote 24 editorials on, or that refer to, Nicaragua between 1978 and 1990. Wall’s editorials followed rather neatly the pattern of the magazine, which was fitting given his position. Margaret Wilde, an editor at large for the magazine, wrote most of the articles featured during the 1980s. Wilde’s articles followed the same line as Wall’s, although Wilde took longer to move away from praising the Sandinistas, and returned to praising them quicker. The most fervent supporter of the Sandinistas in the magazine was Robert Brown, another editor at large, who had six articles on Nicaragua. In Brown’s articles, the Sandinistas could do no wrong, and all problems Nicaragua was facing were laid at the feet of the Contras or of the Nicaraguan Bourgeois. Paul Jeffrey, while not as radical as Brown, also remained in support of the Sandinistas throughout the 1980s.
Since both magazines focused on different things, it is hard to do a direct comparison. However, we can look at various events. The first of these is the Christianity of Tomas Borge. Borge, the only surviving founding member of the Sandinistas, was overtly Christian as both magazines picked up. Both magazines quoted Borge as he talked about his commitment to Christianity, both magazines picked up on Borge's request for more Bibles, and both told the rather amazing story about how Borge saw his former torturer in jail, forgave him, and freed the man.
Another thing that both magazines picked up on in the early days of optimism was how the Sandinistas abolished the death penalty. This was actually a common misconception that deceived secular media as well. In fact, the death penalty had never been legal in Nicaragua.27
Another interesting key point is the World Court decision. In 1984, the CIA mined Nicaragua’s harbors. Nicaragua brought the United States before the World Court, and the World Court in November of 1987 decided that the United States had indeed violated International law. This is an interesting test case in media analysis because this case was not mentioned in any of the dominant newspapers or three television networks. However, the previous day most of these media had alerted the United States public about the World Court’s decision that the Soviet Union should remove itself from Afghanistan.28 Christianity Today followed the line of mainstream media and did not mention that story. Christian Century mentioned it repeatedly. (It is, of course, worth remembering at this point that the Century had many more articles per year on Nicaragua than Today).
Another interesting point in the 1984 election. Christian Century took a rather predictable stance on this. The Century repeatedly condemned the Reagan administration for having not recognized the election, and repeatedly brought up the fact that all other international observers had recognized the validity of the elections. The Century repeatedly mentioned how high the voting turn out was, and how much of the vote Daniel Ortega received, to emphasize that Nicaragua had in fact been a democracy, and some authors went as far as to say that this data meant Nicaragua was more democratic then the United States. The Century did not mention that all criticisms of the election in Nicaragua were censored.0 Christianity Today is interesting because of their absence of comment on the 1984 election. It was not even mentioned in their articles.
Again the same pattern is seen in the 1990 election. The Century was fond of quoting Daniel Ortega that Nicaragua voted with a gun to its head. The Century maintained that even though the Sandinistas had lost the election, it was because of United States pressure, not loss of popularity. Christianity Today was strangely silent, and did not even have any articles on Nicaragua at all in 1990.
Also amazing is the lack of coverage about the Iran-Contra affair, considering the intense media coverage it received at the time. Christian Century made references to it, but did not report on it or dedicate any articles to it. Christianity Today never even referred to it. It is difficult to say with certainty why neither magazine reported on Iran-Contra, but I hypothesize that due to the intense media coverage it received at the time both magazines assumed their readers were well enough informed on the issue.
In closing, it is important to see both of these magazines in the context of the 1980s. The 1980s were a time of polarizing politics, where distinctions between left and right became quite clear. The readers of both magazines were Americans, and were more concerned with American politics than with politics in Nicaragua. Therefore, the debate over United States foreign policy in Nicaragua should be seen in the larger context of the right versus left debate of the 1980s. The respective position that each magazine took could possibly be seen as an example of where the magazine stood in the broader debate.
Footnotes:
1. It should be noted that Christian Century has an "Events and People" section, in which updates about events, like the civil war in Nicaragua, are included. While I do make use of this section, when I use the word "article" in this paper I am not counting these selections.
2. Stephen Wykstra, Personal Interview, 15 November 1999.
3. Thomas Walker, Nicaragua: the Land of Sandino (Boulder: Westview Press, 1982), 14-45.
4. Humberto Belli, Breaking Faith: The Sandinsta Revolution and Its Impact on Freedom and Christian Faith in Nicaragua (Westchester: Crossway books, 1985), 183-210
5. Belli, 106-117.
6. Charles Lippy, ed., Religious Periodicals of the United States (Wesport: Greenwood Press, 1986), xi.
7. Charles Austin, "The History and Role of the Protestant Press," in Reporting Religion: Facts and Faith ed. Benjamin Hubbard (Sonoma, CA: Polebridge Press, 1990), 114-115.
8. Richard Ostling in Austin, 112.
9. Austin, 113
10. Annalee Ward, "Christian Century," in Popular Religious Magazines of the United State ed. Mark Fackler and Charles Lippy, (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1995), 110.
11. James Wall in Annalee Ward, 110.
12. Ibid., 113.
13. Martin Marty, et. Al., The Religious Press in America (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963), 10.
14. Mark Toulouse, "The Christian Century," in Religious Periodicals of the United States: Academic and Scholarly Journals. ed. Charles Lippy, (New York: Greenwood Press, 1986), 112.
15. Mark Toulouse, "The Christian Century," in Religious Periodicals of the United States: Academic and Scholarly Journals. ed. Charles Lippy, (New York: Greenwood Press, 1986), 112.
16. John Merritt, "Christianity Today," in Religious Periodicals of the United States: Academic and Scholarly Journals. ed. Charles Lippy, (New York: Greenwood Press, 1986), 136.
17. Kenneth Kantzer in Sweeny, 147.
18. Sweeney, 148.
19. Ibid., 148.
20. Merrit, 137.
21. "Michael Novak." http://www.aei.org/scholars/novak.htm (17 December 1999).
22. Joshua Muravchik in Allan Brownfeld, "How the Media Misled us on the Sandinistas," Human Events, 11 February 1989, 6-7
23. Stanton Evans, "AP, ‘Post’ cover up for Sandinistas," Human Events, 8 September 1979, 17.
24. Thomas, 37.
25. This is the whole thesis behind Joshua Muravchik, New Coverage of the Sandinista Revolution (Washington: American Institute for Public Policy, 1988).
26. Stanton Evan, 6-7.
27. Belli, 119.
28. Martin Lee and Norman Solomon, Unreliable Sources: A Guide to Detecting Bias in News Media (New York: Carol Publishing Group, 1990), 257.
29. Belli, 261.
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Christian Century: 1978-1990
Christianity Today: 1978-1990
Secondary Sources
Austin, Charles. "The History and Role of the Protestant Press." In Reporting Religion: Facts and Faith. Ed. Benjamin Hubbard. Sonoma, CA: Polebridge Press, 1990.
Belli, Humberto. Breaking Faith: The Sandinista Revolution and Its Impact on Freedom and Christian Faith in Nicaragua. Westchester: Crossway Books, 1985.
Brownfeld, Allan. "How the Media Misled us on the Sandinistas." Human Events, 11 February 1989, 6-7.
Evans, Stanton. "AP, ‘Post" cover up for Sandinistas." Human Events, 8 September 1979, 17
Fackler, P. Mark and Charles H. Lippy. Ed. Popular Religious Magazines of the United
States. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1995.
Flynn, Patricia, Roger Burbach, Mark Moberg. "Nicaragua." Collier’s Encyclopedia. 1997.
Hubbard, Benjamin, ed. Reporting Religion: Facts and Faith. Sonoma: Polebridge Press, 1990.
Lee, Martin, and Norman Solomon. Unreliable Sources: A Guide to Detecting Bias in News Media. New York: Carol Publishing Group, 1990.
Lippy, Charles. H., Ed. Religious Periodicals of the United States. Westport: Greenwood
Press, 1986
Martin, Marty, et al. The Religious Press in America. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963.
"Media to Blame for Rise of Sandinistas." Human Events, 29 March 1986, 3.
Merrit, John. "Christianity Today." In Religious Periodicals of the United States: Academic and Scholarly Journals. Ed. Charles Lippy. New York: Greenwood Press, 1986.
"Michael Novak." http://www.aei.org/scholars/novak.htm (17 December 1999).
Muravchik, Joshua. News Coverage of the Sandinista Revolution. Washington: American Institute for Public Policy, 1988.
Sweeney, Douglas. "Christianity Today." In Popular Religious Magazines of the United States. Ed. Mark Fackler and Charles Lippy. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1995.
Toulouse, Mark. "The Christian Century." In Religious Periodicals of the United States: Academic and Scholarly Journals. Ed. Charles Lippy. New York: Greenwood Press, 1986.
Walker, Thomas. Nicaragua: The Land of Sandino. Boulder: Westview Press, 1982.
Ward, Annalee. "Christian Century." In Popular Religious Magazines of the United State. Ed.
Mark Fackler and Charles Lippy. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1995.
Wykstra, Stephen. Personal Interview. 15 November 1999.
Events in Nicaragua have long been absent from the public eye in America. However, the Sandinista revolution made Nicaragua impossible to ignore. The issue of Nicaragua was one that was polarizing for the Christian Community, and was an issue that Christians were on both sides of. On one hand, most of the support in the United States for the Sandinista government came from Protestant churches. On the other hand, the Christian right vehemently opposed the Sandinista government, and supported Reagan’s efforts to overthrow it. How did Christian publications deal with the events in Nicaragua during the 1980s? To answer this question, let us look at two Christian Protestant periodicals, one conservative (Christianity Today), and one liberal (Christian Century). By examining Christianity Today and Christian Century from 1978 through 1990, we can better answer this question. In this paper, we will first look at a general history of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. Then we will look more in depth at Protestant periodicals, and Christianity Today and Christian Century in general. Next we will look at the feedback each magazine received from its readers. Afterwards, we will examine one article in detail, before examining the two magazines year by year, and finally we will draw some conclusions.1
In looking at the United States attitude towards the Sandinistas, Christian periodicals are of interest because Christians were heavily involved on both sides of the debate.
Many Protestant churches were pro-Sandinista. In fact, Protestant groups such as Witness for Peace traveled in Nicaragua to try find out what was really happening down there and contrast it to the reports the Reagan administration was giving. These people believed that the Sandinistas were a truly great form of government. They thought that the Sandinistas were Christian democratic socialists. Because of their support for the Sandinistas, and because they traveled Nicaragua in Sandals, they were called "Sandalistas" by the Nicaraguans.2 On the other side was the Christian right. They believed the Sandinistas were a totalitarian communist government, which was actively violating human rights and suppressing the church. Pat Robertson, who prayed on television that God would help those in Nicaragua who are fighting against communism, and raised money through his television show for the Contras, was an example of this.
The Nicaraguan Revolution
To fully understand the history of Nicaragua, it is necessary to go back to 1893, when Jose Santos Zelaya of the liberal party was elected President of Nicaragua. Zelaya ensured Nicaraguan sovereignty by taking Nicaraguan’s Bluefields and the Miskito Coast back from the British. Zelaya also attempted to stop the growth of United States (U.S.) influence on Nicaragua. He accepted U.S. aid to get the British off the Caribbean coast, but refused to grant the United States the right to build a canal, and imposed restrictions on American investors. The United States grew upset with Zelaya, and attempted to remove him from power. Diplomatic and eventually military support went to Nicaragua’s Conservative Party, which overthrew Zelaya and established a government more acceptable to U.S. interests. However, the conservative government proved ineffective. Social and political unrest grew, and a young liberal, Benjamin Zeledon, formed a rebellion. Because United States investors would be in serious jeopardy if Zeledon won, the U.S. sent the Marines into Nicaragua to help put down the Rebellion in 1912. The conservative government of Nicaragua accepted the United States Marines, and the economy was placed under the control of the New York banks. The presence of United States troops, however, only served to increase the resentment felt by the Nicaraguan people against the conservative government. When the Marines tried to leave in 1926, the Conservative Government faced armed resistance, and the Marines returned. The United States attempted to work out a compromise between the Conservative Government and the Liberal Resistance. However the Liberals, led by Augusto Sandino refused to lay down their arms. Sandino’s tactics of guerilla warfare prompted the U.S. to create a National Guard out of the indigenous population. Anastasio Somoza Garcia, who had lived in the United States as a car dealer, was made the head of the National Guard.
The United States troops withdrew in 1933, leaving Somoza in charge of the National Guard. Somoza entered into negotiations with Sandino, and when Sandino came to negotiate he was ambushed and killed by Somoza’s National Guard. This was followed by massacres of hundreds of men, woman, and children who lived in former guerrilla territory. Somoza encouraged his men to be corrupt and to engage in various forms of exploitative activity. This isolated them from the people, and made them more dependent on Somoza. In 1936, Somoza overthrew the elected president, and had himself inaugurated president.
Somoza and his National Guard were in control of Nicaragua. Somoza’s National Guard acted as a kind of legalized Mafia, where citizens wishing to engage in any legal or non-legal activity had to make sure to give the National Guard kickbacks. However, Somoza retained United States support by having his regime consistently back United States foreign policy. Somoza was entertained repeatedly at the White House.
In 1956 a young poet named Rigoberto Lopez Perez infiltrated a party given in honor of Somoza, and shot Somoza five times. Although Somoza died a few days later, his sons Luis and Anastasio became leaders. Luis died in 1967, and Anastasio became President until 1979. In 1972, an earthquake destroyed much of Managua, the capital city of Nicaragua. International relief poured in for the rebuilding of this city, but much of that relief money ended up in Somoza’s own pocket. This incident caused many Nicaraguans to be convinced of Somoza’s depravity, and increased the opposition to include a mixture of every class. In 1974, the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) stepped up its attacks. Martial law was imposed, causing businessmen and Church leaders to speak out even more against Somoza. Somoza’s human rights were so bad that the Carter administration cut off aid to Nicaragua. (However, Carter would later praise Somoza for improving his human rights record, angering the Sandinistas). In January 1978, Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, leader of the moderate opposition to Somoza, was assassinated. Although the identity of his assassins was never established, most of Nicaragua blamed Somoza. In September of 1978, the FSLN was able to set off a massive popular uprising against Somoza. In desperation Somoza used planes and tanks against his own people, killing more than 2000. Somoza would often use airplanes to bomb cities the Sandinistas occupied then send in his troops to mop up. His troops would usually kill any young men who had the misfortune of being of fighting age. However, despite Somoza’s efforts on July 19, 1979, FSLN entered Managua triumphant.3
The Sandinista revolution worked out so well because all classes were able to unite against Somoza. Once the common enemy was gone, the problems began to appear. Somoza had looted the national treasury before he left, leaving Nicaragua with a huge debt and little resources to pay it off. The business community withdrew their representatives from the new government. Although many priest had fought beside, or in some cases even lead the Sandinistas, tension developed between the Sandinistas and the Catholic Church. The United States was fearful that the Sandinistas would turn out to be a Marxist government and align themselves with the Soviet bloc. Although the United States, under Jimmy Carter, initially extended them economic aid. Ronald Reagan, who claimed that Nicaragua was shipping weapons to the leftist guerrillas in El Salvador, cut off this aid. Instead, the Reagan administration began direct military assistance to the exiled units of Somoza’s National Guard. It was determined that it was illegal for the United States to help the Contras because that was getting involved in another country’s civil war, which violated the United States constitution. However, the United States gave humanitarian aid to the Contras. It has been frequently argued that the food and medical supplies the United States supplied the Contras with enabled the Contras to spend more money on weapons.
Although the Sandinistas enjoyed aid from Cuba and the Soviet bloc, and they enjoyed popular support, they clashed with the organized business community, the Catholic church, Communist trade unions, Miskito Indians, and La Prensa (the leading newspaper). Furthermore, United States backed counterrevolutionaries (Contras) carried out acts of terrorism, economic sabotage, and raids inside Nicaragua’s boarders.
The two conflicts that received the most attention in the United States were the Catholic Church and the Miskito Indians.
The Catholic Church had supported the Sandinistas during the revolution. In many cases Catholic priest fought side by side with the Sandinistas. In some instances, Catholic priests even led Sandinista units. Tomas Borge, the only surviving founder of the Sandinistas by 1979, was openly Christian. However, tension began to appear. The Sandinistas tried to make the People’s Church, a pro-revolution church created by the Sandinistas, into the official state church. The Catholic Church was skeptical of this, and refused to support the People’s Church. Reports began coming out of Nicaragua of mistreatment of Catholic priests, and some members of the Catholic church became openly vocal in their opposition to the Sandinistas.4
The Miskito Indians, on the other hand, were ethnic Indians who considered themselves Miskito’s first, Nicaraguans second if at all. The Miskito homeland was split right in two by the Nicaraguan/ Honduras border, but the Miskitos often disregarded this border. They were largely unaware of national politics, and when the Sandinistas showed up proudly declaring themselves as their liberators, the Miskitos thought they were just another group of foreign imperialists. The Sandinistas, not understanding the Miskitos, interpreted their resistance to Sandinista rule as counter-revolutionary activity. The Sandinistas also wished to protect the environment that the Miskitos were living in. They tried to stop the Miskitos from cutting down trees. Misunderstandings on both sides led to sometimes violent encounters. The most shocking were cases where Miskito villages were burned and the inhabitants massacred. This was never Sandinista policy, and the Sandinista government officially condemned the acts, but they were done by Sandinista soldiers.5
On November 4, 1984, the Sandinistas held their first election. Although the United States did its best to undermine the elections, more than four fifths of Nicaragua’s electorate voted, and the Sandinista candidate, Daniel Ortega, won two thirds of the vote. Every international observer outside of the United States declared the elections valid. However, the Reagan administration refused to recognize the election, and continued efforts to undermine the Nicaraguan government.
In 1985, the Reagan administration embargoed all United States-Nicaraguan trade, and increased the military pressure. Nicaragua declared a state of emergency. However, the Contras made little headway, and opposition in the United States was increasing to Reagan’s policies. In 1987, the president of Costa Rica, Oscar Arias, proposed a peace plan. According to the peace plan, the Contras would disarm and internal democracy would be restored in Nicaragua. Both Reagan and the Contra leaders rejected the plan. However, when the United States congress cut off Contra aid, the Contras were forced to enter negotiation. Peace was eventually reached.
The height of United States media attention occurred in 1986 when it was revealed that the United States government sold weapons to Iran in hopes that the Iranian government would be able to help free U.S. citizens being held hostage in Lebanon. The money made from this sale went to help the Contras. Since this was an illegal act by the United States government that many believe was overseen by the president himself, it received much media attention.
In 1990, the next elections were held in Nicaragua. Although almost all involved parties expected the Sandinistas to win, many Nicaraguans were afraid of continued pressure from the United States if the Sandinistas remained in power. Instead, Violeta Barrios de Chamorro (widow of Pedro Joaquin Chamorro) of the National Opposition Union won with United States backing. She was sworn in as President in April of 1990.
Protestant Periodicals
Before looking closely at Christian Century and Christianity Today it is worth making some general comments about Protestant periodicals, and Christian periodicals in general.
Religious periodicals have a long history in the United States. In fact they rank among the earliest of the periodicals published in the English Colonies that later became the United States and have been popular ever since.6 Religious periodicals also serve an important function. Charles Austin, a Lutheran pastor, wrote that religious periodicals are vital because secular media often will ignore religious events, or is inept at reporting them. Religious periodicals also serve as an alternative source of media in which current events are looked at from a perspective of faith.7
Richard Ostling, news editor for Christianity Today in the 1960s once said, "All to many church periodicals are slow or sluggish in responding to the issues of the day".8 Ostling brings up an important dilemma faced by the editors of Christian magazines. Editors are often cautious about commenting too strongly on current day issues for fear they will offend their readers. However, if the magazine gets too bland, readers will turn away.9 This dilemma is clearly seen in the Nicaragua crisis.
For the purposes of this paper we will look at two Protestant periodicals, Christianity Today and Christian Century.
Christian Century can trace its history all the way back to 1884, when it was known as Christian Oracle. "The Century, characterized by its outspoken opinions on every aspect of contemporary life, grew to be one of the most influential religious periodicals in the United States".10 The Century has sought to be the voice of Christian liberalism throughout its publication. Over the course of its run, it has moved from dogmatism to developing a greater appreciation for the complexity of the human predicament.11
In 1972 James Wall became editor of the magazine, and has remained so all the way to the present. Although Christian Century is famous for its strong positions on contemporary issues, this became somewhat diminished under Wall (although it did not disappear completely). It was replaced by a "complex, pluralistic voice".12 Also under Wall, the Century turned its interest more to the third world, and gives high priority to matters of social justice.
Christian Century has a high level of readership. Its circulation since the 1920s has remained at between 35,000 and 40,000. Because of the large number of libraries that subscribe to it, readership is probably much higher. By 1963, the Christian Century was the only religious magazine among the 20 most requested periodicals at libraries.13 Although a liberal Protestant magazine, it has among its readers and contributors Catholics, Jews, and Evangelicals. The typical subscriber to Christian Century is generally a religious professional, either in a teacher at a college or seminary or a worker in the parish setting.14
Christianity Today, the other magazine, was founded in 1956 as the conservative response to the Protestant liberalism found in Christian Century. Its first editor, Carl Henry, described its founding as an attempt to give Christian Century "a run for its biases".15 Kenneth Dole wrote in the Washington Post and Times Herald that the magazine was "to conservative, fundamentalist, orthodox Protestants what the Christian Century is to more liberal believers".16 Described as neo-evangelical, the magazine has sought to write about American life from a conservative, evangelical stance. Billy Graham himself co-founded the magazine with his father-in-law L. Nelson Bell.
In 1978, when the Sandinista revolution came into the focus in American media, Kenneth S. Kantzer was editor of the magazine. Kantzer was interested in increasing the sophistication of the theology in the magazine. However, Kantzer was concerned about nurturing the community of evangelicals, and not causing dissension. Kantzer promised not to "condone any departure from biblical authority" but also said, "no personal vendetta will be carried out against those who may not disagree with us".17 V. Gilbert Beers was editor of the magazine from 1982 to 1985. Although Beers was not editor long enough to make an impact on the magazine, he continued the course set by Kantzer, and "steered the magazine into even calmer waters".18 In 1985, Christianity Today went through a structural change as former publisher and President Harold L. Myra became "publisher and executive editor". Myra led a committee of senior editors, which included former editors Beers and Kantzer. Described as "more of a businessman/ journalist than a theologian,"19 Myra successfully moved Christianity Today into an increasingly sophisticated market place.
Although the magazine began with a readership of intellectually sophisticated pastors and professors, it has moved to a mass audience over the years. This is reflected in the increasingly simple language used by the magazine. There has also been a shift in the authors of the magazine. Between 1959 to 1983, academics went from writing 58% of the material for Christianity Today to 36%.20
Feedback
One thing of interest is the letters readers will write back to the magazine. This shows not only what kind of audience the magazine has, but how much the audience supports the direction the magazine is taking. In 1979, when Christianity Today published its first few articles on the Sandinistas, not one reader response was printed. Christian Century did not print any reader response to its articles on Nicaragua either. Let us take three years in the 1980s where both magazines had articles on Nicaragua: 1981, 1985, and 1989. In 1981 Christianity Today published two articles on Nicaragua, and printed zero responses from readers. In 1985 Christianity Today published five articles on Nicaragua, and not one reader response was printed. In 1989 Christianity Today published two articles on Nicaragua, and again it printed zero reader responses. Since both magazines reserve for themselves the right to decide which letters will and will not be published, we should be careful about making the assumption that since no letters were published, that means no readers wrote in. Although both magazines frequently publish letters that are critical of the magazine itself or articles that appear in the magazine, nevertheless a selection process does occur. Since the criteria for selection is not known, no substantial conclusions can be drawn from the above data.
However, we may hypothesize that the lack of printed letters in Christianity Today could indicate the possibility that no readers responded. If this was the case (and as already stated we can not say for certain that it was) then we may conclude that the readers of Christianity Today were either not informed enough on Nicaragua to contest the articles in the magazine, agreed with the articles, or did not care. Since Christianity Today is pitched to a mass audience, perhaps the audience of the magazine was largely uniformed enough to contest the opinions of the magazine.
By contrast Christian Century contained two articles about Nicaragua in 1981, and printed one letter written in response. In 1985, Christian Century published twelve articles about Nicaragua and printed seven letters in response. In 1989, Christian Century published three articles on Nicaragua and printed one letter in response.
Many of the readers who wrote back to Christian Century were informed about the topic themselves. For instance, Paul Jeffery, who wrote a letter in 1981 in response to an article by Joseph Cassidy, would later write several of his own articles about Nicaragua in Christian Century. In 1985, Penn Keble and Michael Novak wrote to Christian Century representing the Institute for Religion and Democracy (IRD). (Novak is also a well known rightist who has published several books and journal articles in addition to serving as a United States ambassador, a delegate for the United States, an advisor to the White House from 1974-1980, and a member of the faculty at Harvard and Notre Dame.)21 Charles W. Bare also wrote in 1985, representing the Ecumenical Services Association. In 1989, Alan Wisdom wrote in representing the IRD.
Since, the subscribers to Christian Century are generally religious professionals, often teachers at Colleges and Seminaries, it should be no surprise that some of them are informed enough to respond on the Nicaraguan issue.
Article in Detail
By examining one article in more detail, it may be helpful to gain a broader understanding of what goes into an article in general. In the October second issue in 1987 of Christianity Today Stephen Wykstra, a philosophy professor at Calvin College had an article published on the situation in Nicaragua. I had the privilege of talking to Dr. Wykstra on November 15, 1999.
Wykstra said the article was written at a time when he was pro-Sandinista. Wykstra was trying to oppose the institute for Religion and Democracy (IRD), which, he believed, was trying to portray an untrue picture of the Sandinistas. Wykstra believed the media did not accurately represent what was going on in Nicaragua. After doing an intensive media analysis, Wykstra concluded that although the Contras were routinely butchering civilians, their atrocities never received much media attention. However, the Sandinista atrocities certainly caught the attention of the media.
The article is written in the style of objective journalism. That means, Wykstra said, that he quoted both sides without saying which side he thought was right. A reader, Wykstra said, reading an objective journalism article would not know what the opinion of the author was. The article quotes the accusations of the IRD are, and then includes a response to them by Ron Sider. Wykstra asserted he had to be careful in this article because of the conservative nature of Christianity Today’s audience.
The article is about Gustavo Parajon, whom Wykstra actually met in 1984. Parajon was head of the Evangelical Committee for Aid and Development (CEPAD). Because CEPAD was sympathetic to the Sandinistas, it had been under attack by the IRD. Wykstra used Ron Sider to reply to IRD’s accusations, because Ron Sider would have been well known to Christianity Today readers. Only a few months before Wykstra’s article, Christianity Today published an article in its July 10 issue entitled, "A talk with Ron Sider."
Wykstra thought his article was balanced. People thought he was a little extreme in those days, so it helped to have his article published in a mainline publication like Christianity Today. He got a good response to it, although he doesn’t remember any specific feedback. In fact, the only letter Christianity Today printed about Wykstra’s article appeared in the December 11 issue, and was by a professor from Fullerton College named Derry Seaton. Seaton was upset about another article Christianity Today had printed, and said it "typifies a too-common trait of assuming a single Christian perspective on current issues." Seaton said that, "The next article by Steve Wykstra on Gustavo Parajon is an example of better journalism".
Wykstra, on a trip to Washington, actually met the staff of Christianity Today, including Beth Spring. Their fairness and objectivity impressed him, as well as their commitment to the truth. Wykstra noted that Christianity Today was often caught in the middle between very pro-Sandinista groups like Sojourners, and anti-Sandinista groups like the IRD.
Year by Year
For the research involved in this paper, I have gone through and examined every article concerning Nicaragua in both Christianity Today and Christian Century from 1978 to 1990, with the intent of discovering what kind of coverage each magazine gave to events in Nicaragua, and how this changed over time. My findings are summarized below.
Before I began my reading the periodicals, I had certain expectations. I expected Christian Century to follow the trend of liberal Protestantism at the time and to be in support of the Sandinistas. Conversely, I expected Christianity Today to attack the Sandinistas.
In my readings I discovered that many of the articles in Christian Century and all of the articles in Christianity Today are written in the objective style of journalism. This means that the author will quote from both sides of the issue, and not let the reader know how he or she feels himself or herself. If objective journalism is done right, the reader will not know what the biases of the author are. However, there are methods that I employed to try and find the bias of a certain author. The events that the author chooses to focus on or not focus on are key. Also of note is how much proportional space each side received. If one side received much more space than the other, that is a sign that the author was biased towards that side. Finally, which side received the last word is also of interest. (Obviously, someone has to have the last word, so one can not read too much into this. However, taken into account with other factors this can sometimes be illuminating.)
One of the interesting things is the complete lack of coverage of Nicaragua in these periodicals before the Sandinistas. Take for example four different religious periodical indexes. There is the Index of Religious periodicals, which covers the period from 1948-1958 and indexes 15 different Christian journals. Also there is the Religion Index, which goes from 1949 to the present, and indexes 100 Christian journals. Next is the Christian Periodical Index, which contains 20 Christian journals, and covers the period from 1956 to the present. Finally, Guide to Religious and Semi-Religious Periodicals, which indexes 75 Christian Journals, and goes from 1965 to the present.
These indexes indicate that there were only 13 articles published about Nicaragua in any religious magazine before 1979. Of these, six were about the Earthquake that occurred in Managua on December 23, 1972. However, the earliest article of these six was not until March of 1973. The rest of the articles deal with the church and mission efforts in Nicaragua.
The Sandinistas were formed on July 23, 1960. They did not obtain much press coverage in the United States at first. Joshua Muravchik asserted that the heavy media coverage of the Nicaraguan civil war and the Sandinista movement became overwhelming in July of 1978.22 In the September 8, 1979 issue of Human Events, Evan Stanton wrote "Scarcely a day goes by, so it seems, without some breathless news dispatch from Nicaragua extolling the virtues of the Sandinista revolution".23 However Christianity Today would not have an article on the Nicaraguan revolution until August 17, 1979. Christian Century’s first reference to the revolution occurred in September of 1978.
Christianity Today published two articles on Nicaragua prior to the outbreak of United States media attention, one was in the December 21, 1973, and reported on the Managua earthquake, the other was on December 19, 1975, and reported on a religious revival in Managua following the earthquake. Nevertheless, Christianity Today was slower in responding to the crisis. Coverage started in July 1978, but their first article did not appear until August 17, 1979. This is consistent with Richard Ostling’s above view that religious periodicals are slow in responding to current issues.
1978
In September of 1978, Christian Century featured an article that referred to the events in Nicaragua, while the focus of the article was actually on the Catholic Church in Central America. The article was not sympathetic to Somoza and mentions that his forces brutally beat a group of Catholic priests and then used them as shields. However, the article identified the teenage guerrillas as communists (the name Sandinista was not even used), and quoted a Catholic nun who said, "Communism is not what I want. I tell the young people that the communists do not respect individual liberty in any country they control".
One month later, in November, an article was published on seventeen hunger strikers in Paraguay. The article asserted that events in Nicaragua had monopolized the headlines, so that "the silent protest of 17 Paraguayan political prisoners hadn’t a chance of being heard". The article only had one sentence in describing Nicaragua, but it was a vivid one. "Teen-agers were standing off soldiers in hand-to-hand combat, refugees were streaming out of cities, a Red Cross ambulance and its occupants were riddled by machine-gun fire." An article in December of 1978 made a passing reference to Ernesto Cardenal, "a poet of stature in his native Nicaragua as well as one of the country’s most vociferous social critics".
An article on December 27, 1978, was the first full article by either magazine on the situation in Nicaragua. The article was very anti-Somoza, and quoted Daniel Aguirre of La Prensa, who said, "You must understand, everyone here is in the opposition". Although this was the first article by Christian Century to mention the Sandinistas by name, it said surprisingly little about them, preferring to focus on the conditions of Nicaragua instead.
1979
Most media coverage of the Sandinistas was favorable at first. Christianity Today was no exception. Despite the conservative leanings of the magazine, the first article published about the Sandinistas, in August of 1979 by Stephen Sywulka, did not come down as hard on the Sandinistas as it could have done. Although the article did mention that many were ambivalent because of "the communist influence in the Sandinista camp" it also mentioned that many evangelicals sympathized with the rebels.
The ambivalence continued two issues later as Sywulka described the new Sandinista government. Sywulka mentioned that "Somoza and his allies looted the treasury before they left", but for the most part he laid the blame for damage caused by the civil war on both sides. "Much of the industry around Managua is in ruins, having been bombed, looted, or burned by forces from both sides." Here Sywulka’s wording was misleading, for it implied the Sandinistas had participated in the bombing. However, the Sandinistas did not have the capability to bomb at that point, although aerial bombardment had clearly been one of Somoza’s favorite techniques.24
Sywulka mentioned that some pastors supported Somoza on the basis of Romans 13, but that many young Christians joined the Sandinistas. Sywulka included a quote by one church leader who said that believers should get ready to testify to a communist government, but also said that the Roman Catholic Church supported the Sandinistas, although "in recent weeks the Catholic church has disengaged itself, at least partially, from Sandinista politics".
It had been almost a year since reference was made to Nicaragua in Christian Century. The next reference was only in passing. In his article on El Salvador, Patrick Lacefield mentioned the Nicaraguan revolution, and how it had inspired hope in the people of El Salvador that El Salvador would be next. This implied that the revolution in Nicaragua was a positive thing. There was an article by Barbara Brown on hunger, which referred to the poverty in Nicaragua on October 10, 1979. In November, Robert Longman used Somoza as one of the few examples of a case where a government was so corrupt that it had been obvious to everyone. In December, the Nicaraguan revolution was mentioned as one of the top stories of 1979. Interestingly, the only facts given about he revolution were that it had overthrown Dictator Anastasio Somoza and several Catholic priests had been given prominent government positions.
1980
It was two days short of a year before Christianity Today published their next article on Nicaragua, on September 19, 1980. The author had changed, Paul Pretiz wrote instead of Sywulka. Paul Pretiz was much more optimistic concerning the Sandinistas, and he included several pro-Christianity quotes by Sandinista co-founder Tomas Borge. "As long as Sandinismo exist in Nicaragua, Christianity will continue to exist" and "You have heard us say, 'Sandinismo today, Sandinismo yesterday, Sandinismo forever' let me add, 'Jesus Christ today, Jesus Christ yesterday, Jesus Christ forever!'" The story is also told how Borge had forgiven the National Guard soldiers of Somoza who had castrated him, had killed his wife, and had forced him to watch while seventeen men gang raped and then killed his daughter. The article mentioned the Sandinistas literacy campaign, and how Christians were taking part of it. It also said "Despite recent fears that the Nicaraguan revolution would be taking a Cuban-style Communistic direction, the governing Junta appears to be demonstrating a desire to gain broad popular support among both Roman Catholics and Protestants". This article could hardly have been more pro-Sandinista.
The only reference to Nicaragua in Christian Century in 1980 was in the "News and Events" section, and was about how the pope had ordered six priests in the Sandinista government to step down so that they could meet the spiritual needs of people. The pope said lay Christians could take over their posts just as effectively.
1981
The March 27 issue of Christianity Today contained an article by Ronald Frase, a former missionary to Latin America who had recently visited Nicaragua. Frase’s article was strongly in favor of the Sandinistas. It contained quotes from two Americans living in Nicaragua who were upset because they thought things under the new Sandinista government were much more positive than the United States media had portrayed them. The article also interviewed Carlos Chamorro Coronel, part of the new government who, while he was not a Sandinista, supported their cause. Chamorro asserted that the revolution had not been a Marxist one, but a Christian one. The article also interviewed CEPAD director Gilberto Aguirre, who supported the Sandinistas as well. The article made no negative comments about the Sandinistas, nor included any quotations by anyone who opposed the Sandinistas. It is interesting, however, that the Editor of Christianity Today (Kenneth Kantzer) found it necessary to insert into Frase’s article that "Nicaragua’s Sandinista leadership has been closely linked to the flow of arms to Salvadoran guerillas". This seems to imply Kantzer was not quite as optimistic about the Sandinistas as Frase was.
The next article was in May, and was also extremely positive. Written by John Maust, this article mentioned that Tomas Borge (co-founder of the Sandinistas) had requested the Bibles. Much was made of the fact that Borge was a Christian, and the article also mentioned that Borge denounced and apologized for the murder of Somocistas by Sandinistas. Borge was quoted as saying revenge and murder were not Sandinista policy. The article said the Sandinistas have given full religious freedom to the church, and they had built a pool in prison for prisoners to be baptized. The article did mention, however, that in addition to many Christian literacy workers, there were many Marxist ones. The church leaders wanted to pump religious literature in to keep pace with the Marxist literature.
Christian Century in March detailed the conflict between the Sandinistas and the ethnic Indians of Nicaragua. An article by Joseph Cassidy on October 21 talked about the relationship between the Catholic Church and the Sandinistas. Cassidy asserted that the Sandinistas wanted to form a close relationship with the Catholic Church, even though the Church was ambivalent about the Sandinista movement. Cassidy mentioned the same fact found in an earlier news and events section of Christian Century where six priests had been ordered to stand down from the government by the Pope. Cassidy said that this had been later revealed by Managuan newspapers to be a rumor, and that the truth had actually been that the Priests were allowed to keep their positions in the government, but could no longer exercise their priestly roles in public. Cassidy’s article was critical of the Sandinistas, however, and suggested that the Sandinistas wanted to twist Christianity to meet their ideal of revolutionary socialism. It was for this view that Paul Jeffrey harshly criticized him in a letter on December 16. Jeffrey said that the Catholic Church had long been out of touch with the Nicaraguan people. Furthermore, Jeffrey accused Cassidy of only using biased sources in his article, like "the reactionary La Prensa".
1982
In 1982 Christianity Today published two articles on Nicaragua. Edward Plowman published the first of these on February 5. It consisted of an interview with Archbishop Obando Y Bravo, who was an outspoken critic of the Sandinista regime. The Institute for Religion and Democracy (IRD) was responsible for publicizing the interview. Obando claimed in the interview that it was at that time a crime to criticize the government. Obando also said that the activities of the church have currently been regulated to the religious realm only. Furthermore the opposition paper, La Prensa had been shut down by the government.
The second article appeared on October 8. It contained a report by the Whitmer missionaries. In this report the Sandinistas had herded the Miskito Indians into a concentration camp. Many of them had been forced to dig their own graves before being riddled by bullets. This article did obviously not reflect well on the Sandinistas. However, the introduction to the article blamed the United States foreign policy on causing the tensions between the Sandinistas and the Miskitos, by supplying military aid to counter revolutionaries who lived near the Miskito land. The article pointed out that the United States neutrality laws were being applied in Haiti, where the people were struggling against a right wing government, but not in Nicaragua.
Christian Century had eleven articles, letters, and news briefs on Nicaragua. On January 6-13, Margaret Wilde had an article on the Sandinistas, in which she claimed there are all sorts of false rumors circulating about the Sandinistas relationship to the church and to the Miskitos. The way Wilde described the Miskito conflict is an interesting understatement. "There have been serious misunderstandings – some of them fatal – between the government and native ethnic groups on the East Coast". However, Wilde alleged, the Sandinistas have been working to improve their relationships with both the church and the Miskitos, and were becoming better all the time.
On February 24, Jan Black wrote a very pro-Sandinista article, which detailed all the good things that the Sandinistas have done since they came into power. Kenneth Garcia had a letter published on March 31, which thanked Black for the article. A news brief on April 7 contained one of the few negative things said about the Sandinistas. It said they had expelled eighteen Jehovah’s witnesses for counter-revolutionary activity. (That left only two Jehovah’s witnesses in Nicaragua).
On April 28, Wilde had another article on the Sandinista conflict with the Miskitos. Wilde blamed the disaster once again on United States policy. Wilde said the Sandinista atrocities were often exaggerated or made up. She acknowledged they did happen, but claimed that for the most part the Sandinistas treated the Miskitos humanely. In contrast to the Whitmer’s article in Christianity Today, Wilde emphasized that the Miskitos had not been kept in a concentration camp.
On December 1, an article on Church and State relations in Nicaragua by James Wall appeared. Wall took a very critical view of both Obando and the IRD. Wall argued that there was indeed religious freedom in Nicaragua. "This country is not yet a Marxist state. Marxist governments generally do not permit Roman Catholic prelates to talk to foreign visitors or to write a weekly column in an opposition newspaper, as Obando does." Wall also expressed a concern that the United States government had plans to overthrow the Sandinistas. On December 8, Wall continued his article. He claimed that Obando’s complaints represented conflict between Church and State, not oppression of the Church by the State. Wall contended that there was no religious oppression in Nicaragua.
A news brief on December 8 contained a call from the National Council of Churches for the "United States government to reverse its policy of seeking military solutions to problems in Nicaragua."
1983
Christianity Today only had one article about Nicaragua in 1983, but it was very positive about the Sandinista government. Written by news editor Tom Minnery, the tittle, "Why the Gospel Grows in Socialist Nicaragua: the Revolution turned against Capitalism but not Christianity", pretty much says it all. It had very little negative to say about the Sandinistas. It mentioned the conflict the Sandinista government had with the ethnic Indians, and with Protestants, but even here showed the Sandinistas in a sympathetic light.
Christian Century had much more to say about Nicaragua. In 39 issues, Christian Century had 22 articles or news briefs on Nicaragua, not counting other articles that made mention of Nicaragua. The editor, James Wall, began the year with a number of predictions, one of which was that Nicaragua would "slip further into Marxist orbit" and join Cuba and the Soviet Union. However, Wall was not attacking the Sandinistas so much as he was attacking Reagan’s policy, which he credited as forcing the Sandinistas into the arms of the Soviet Block. This theme would pop up through out the year in Christian Century articles about Nicaragua.
A reader, T.D. Reeves wrote in to attack Wall’s two articles the previous year. Reeves said Wall had been twisting the facts in order to present the Sandinistas in a favorable light. "More than anything else I have read in recent months, it represents biased, politically motivated, distorted and dishonest reporting" Reeves wrote. However, one month later Margaret Wilde wrote in a letter defending Wall’s articles. Reeves letter, she claimed, had been based on misinformation from the United States’ State Department.
Christian Century included a favorable report about the Sandinistas from a delegation that visited there. There was an article about a Reaganite who had visited Nicaragua, and had left it disillusioned with Reagan. There was an Article by James Wall on April 20, which compared the United States intervention in Nicaragua to the United States exploitation of Cuba before the communist revolution. There was a news brief that educators from seven different Universities had been coming out publicly in favor of the Sandinistas, and condemning the United States foreign policy in Nicaragua. Another news brief claimed eight members of the world Council of Churches were convinced that Nicaragua had complete religious freedom under the Sandinistas. There was an editorial by James Wall, which condemned the Central Intelligence Agency’s destruction of Nicaraguan oil. (A reader wrote in on December 14, and praised Wall for this editorial). In news briefs it was mentioned that churches had opposed aid to Contras. It was also mentioned in passing in another news brief that there has been tension between the Sandinista government and the church. Wall criticized the United States’ government ban of Tomas Borge from the United States.
Both magazines were pro-Sandinista in 1983. Christianity Today is hard to judge, because it only has one article in April, and the attitude of the magazine may have changed by October. However, that article was written by the News Editor, and was very clearly in favor of the Sandinistas. Christian Century had only two negative things to say about the Sandinistas over the course of a whole year, and one of them was a letter by a reader. James Wall, the editor of the magazine, dedicated six of his 39 editorials that year to defend the Sandinistas. The other big writer was Margaret Wilde, who wrote five articles.
1984
In 1984, Christianity Today only had two articles on Nicaragua. One of them was written in January about Witness for Peace, a Christian group involved in Nicaragua that had protested Reagan’s policies, the United States involvement, and the activity of the Contras. However, Witness for Peace was quoted as saying they did not want to look like they supported the Sandinistas either. The second article was written in September by Beth Spring, the Washington correspondent for the newspaper. The article took the Institute for Religion and Democracy (IRD) and Sojourners, and compared their attitudes towards Nicaragua. The IRD was very critical of the Sandinistas, the Sojourners were very supportive, but both sides were quoted equally.
Christian Century had seventeen segments about Nicaragua, counting News briefs, articles, and letters from readers. An article by Pope Liston in January condemned Reagan's involvement in Nicaragua. Liston gave several quotes by Tomas Borge, in which Borge had indicated plans of the CIA to assassinate prominent religious opposition in Nicaragua and blame it on the Sandinistas. Richard Deats gave a Witness for Peace report, in which he mistakenly credited the Sandinistas for having abolished the death penalty. A news brief talked about Ernesto Cardenal, who had been a Marxist priest in the Sandinista government. Ernesto Cardenal explained why he did not see a contradiction between Marxism and Christianity. Another news brief mentioned the World Court ruling in favor of Nicaragua and against the U.S. Further news briefs include reports from Baptist convention of Nicaragua, which criticized U.S. policy. Also a challenge made to Jeane Kirkpatrick argued that there was no religious oppression in Nicaragua, and then on the same page a different brief mentioned that ten foreign priests had been expelled from Nicaragua. The priests had been supporters of Archbishop Obando y Bravo, a critic of the Sandinista government. In September an article by Gregory Bergman included a quote by an Archbishop, who said that Nicaragua was influencing Cuba in terms of having increased religious freedom in Cuba more than Cuba was influencing Nicaragua. An article by Balfour Brickner condemned United States intervention in Nicaragua, which was supported by a letter from a reader on November 21. James Wall attacked the IRD, and essentially said that they were a tool for Reagan’s propaganda. An article came out supporting the validity of Nicaragua’s elections, and another news brief articulated that several church leaders have planned massive civil disobedience if the United States invaded Nicaragua.
In Christianity Today, there was much more of a move to the middle ground. Of the two articles published, one quoted from both sides of the debate. The other, while criticizing United States policy, clearly did not side with the Sandinistas either. Christian Century maintained a positive view of the Sandinistas, however.
1985
In 1985, Christianity Today had six articles on Nicaragua. The first of these appeared on April 5, by Beth Spring. It told of Evangelical leaders who were planning to visit pastors in Nicaragua. The trip was apolitical, and the participants acknowledged their were widely discrepant views of what had been going on down in Nicaragua. On April 19, Beth Spring had another article. The article dealt with Reagan’s policy on Nicaragua. Spring said that his position "has pitted Reagan against Christian groups that are sympathetic to the Sandinistas". IRD and the Evangelicals for Social Action (ESA) planned a joint trip in the article, one group that favored the Sandinistas, and one group that did not. A follow up article to this one appeared on September 6. This article told about how IRD had cancelled the trip, for fear it would have intimidated the Nicaraguan evangelicals, and called increased government attention to their activities. ESA rejected IRD’s reason, and gave a quote implying that IRD had backed out because they were afraid the trip would be more politically advantageous to ESA then it would have been to them.
Also on September 6 was another article by Beth Spring. This is a follow up to her April 5 article. It mentions that the Sandinistas were losing popularity. The article was also very critical of the People’s Church, a church that had been started by the Sandinistas, which Spring described as "a mix of Marxism and Christianity". The article is critical of the Sandinistas, and praised their opponents, with such phrases as: "The traditional Catholic Church, led by Obando Y Bravo, has stood firm against Sandinista attempts to dictate to the Church." Also, the article opened up with a passage that indicated that Spring was very critical of the Sandinistas. "Evangelicals have found themselves caught in the middle. The have tried to reconcile reports of thriving churches, increased literacy and other improvements, with equally compelling accounts of repression, censorship, and manipulation of Christians by the Nicaraguan Government."
On November 8, Assistant News Editor Randall Frame had an article on Pat Robertson raising money for the Contras through his Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN). In having done this, Frame was simply repeating allegations first made by another Christian magazine, Sojourners. A quote was included by Tom Hawk, former World Relief Coordinator in Honduras, that Hawk had been "very disappointed in CBN’s reporting on Central America…. It’s very, very one sided. The situation is so complex that you can go down and prove just about any story you want."
Beth Spring had an article on December 13. This article was reporting on the disruption of Civil Liberties in Nicaragua. The article said that the government had been cracking down of Christian activity from both Protestants and Catholics. The article quoted both IRD and ESA, but much more of the quotes came from IRD. The last words in the article were: "The Reagan administration views the Sandinistas as a Marxist government. Christian leaders are unwilling to endorse a ruler who systematically disrupts civil liberties." However, the article never said why civil liberties had been suspended.
Christian Century had 27 articles, letters, and news briefs on Nicaragua in 1985. In January, James Wall mentioned Daniel Ortega’s election in 1984 as one of the signs of hope for the new year. His reason for this was that Ortega had been willing to meet with the Catholic church.
On January 2-9, IRD responded to criticism that they have received in Christian Century by James Wall. They claimed that CEPAD was a Sandinista propaganda machine, and yet Wall supported CEPAD. They refuted Wall’s claim that IRD is just Reagan propaganda, and said that one did not need to be part of the Reagan administration to have been concerned about what was going on in Nicaragua. Finally they said that the evidence Wall used to link IRD to the Reagan administration was faulty.
On February 20, there was an article by Kinsler and Evans that defended the 1984 elections in Nicaragua. Also on February 20, Wall in an editorial lamented the fact that he had been often categorized as pro-Sandinista simply because he had been anti-Reagan. In the same issue, an excerpt was included from a CIA manufactured Contra pamphlet. In the pamphlet, the CIA told the Contras to call themselves a Christian movement, and to open and close each meeting with prayer, in hopes that they would gain support from the populace.
The rest of the year has reoccurring themes. The Contra atrocities are documented. The magazine in general, but especially Wall’s editorials, condemn Contra funding by the United States. Several articles alluded to the fact that the Sandinista Government was not as bad as it looked. Pat Robertson was also condemned. In fact, in May 8, an editorial by Dean Peerman described Robertson’s charity as, "Tithing for terrorism".
1986
By 1986, it was apparent that both magazines had different views of what was going on. Christianity Today had two articles on Nicaragua, on in February, one in April. Both articles were written by Beth Spring, the Washington Correspondent. The article in February concerned the harsh treatment of evangelicals in Nicaragua. Jimmy Haasan described his experience. The tone had obviously moved to a tone harshly critical of the Sandinistas. "Incidents of harassment against Catholics and groups such as the Miskito Indians have cast serious doubt on the Sandinistas’ tolerance for anyone who answers to a higher authority than the ruling junta".
On his visit to Nicaragua, Dr. Steven Wykstra had an opportunity to visit the evangelicals who were harassed. He found that the United States media had largely exaggerated the whole story. Another interesting thing Dr. Wykstra brought to light was the issue of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) funding. Hassan, in the article, reported that the Sandinistas had asked him how much the CIA paid him. It was presented in Beth Spring’s article as a ridiculous question. However, Wykstra revealed that the CIA did in fact pay money to Humberto Belli for his anti-Sandinista book "Breaking Faith".
In her second article for the year, Beth Spring increased her anti-Sandinista bias. She took for granted that the Sandinistas were totalitarian, and included a quote from the Washington Post to reinforce it. "Virtually all observers say the Sandinistas are running a totalitarian state". Spring mentioned that there was a Christian Left who believed in the goodness of the Sandinistas. Spring described an encounter Republican Paul Henry had with these individuals. Henry concluded that they were either political naive or held strongly to their leftist viewpoints. He said that the Sandinistas had informed them and that the Sandinista government had only told them what it had wanted them to hear. Beth Spring concluded by saying that it was these kinds of people who were responsible for shaping the views of the Christian Left. No letters were published in response.
Christian Century had eighteen articles, letters, and news briefs on Nicaragua. Robert Brown, one of Christian Century’s editors at large, wrote an article reflecting on his trip to Nicaragua. It was strongly pro-Sandinista. The sickening details of the contra atrocities on a local village were given. "11 year-old Helena, whose hands are horribly mutilated because the contras used them for target practice; her older sister, who was gang-raped on the floor of their tiny house; Carmen Alvira, whose three teen-age sons were kidnapped while cultivating their little plot of land, and have not been heard of since". Steven Wykstra said he was amazed by how little coverage the Contra atrocities had received in the United States media, compared with how much coverage Sandinista atrocities had received. Brown maintained that "embassy officials in Managua tell Washington what Washington wants to hear, so that Washington can act on the basis of what it has heard from Managua". In this way, Brown said it was the Christian right, not the Christian left that was misinformed about what was going on. Brown even went on say that Obando y Bravo, a bishop critic of the Sandinistas, has acted as he did because he was on the side of the rich. Christian Century got two letters back because of Brown’s article. One was strongly in favor of it, one was furious, but the author was upset at Brown’s attack on Catholicism, not his support of the Sandinistas. A couple of news briefs alluded to religious oppression in Nicaragua, everything else was in support of the Sandinistas, right up until December when Jerome Nilssen described how he has become increasingly disillusioned with the Sandinistas. Originally in support of them, each time he made a trip to Nicaragua he had become more and more upset with what was going on. He finally admitted in this article that he would have liked to see the Sandinistas just leave Nicaragua.
1987
Christianity Today had three articles on Nicaragua in 1987. The first of these was by Beth Spring, and was about an interview with Sergio Ramirez, Vice President of Nicaragua. Spring included only a couple statements by Ramirez, and then the rest of the article was about his critics. Although written in the objective style, more space by far was given to the critics (this included the coveted end of the article). Jimmy Carter was among the critics. In the article it was stated: "Jimmy Carter said human-rights abuses under the Sandinistas have equaled or exceeded Somoza’s". The other two articles were more favorable to the Sandinistas.
Christian Century had 19 articles, news briefs, and letters concerning Nicaragua. There were two letters in response to Jerome Nilssen’s ambivalent article the year before. One of the letters was a fierce defense of the Sandinistas, saying that Nilssen had an unrealistic ideal, possible only in heaven. Compared to most other countries, the letter asserted, (which included the United States), Nicaragua was not doing badly at all. The other article was from someone else who had also visited Nicaragua, and shared Nilssen’s ambivalence. In April 29, Jospeph Mulligan defended the Sandinistas human rights record. A reader later challenged him, and mentioned Humberto Belli’s book: "Breaking Faith".
In 1987, Christian Century had become more and more aware of the conflict between the Sandinistas and the church, and included more news briefs about this. Most of the editorials were still anti-Contra, but the tone of support for the Sandinistas, while still present, had decreased.
1988
Christianity Today had two articles on the Sandinistas. Both were by Randell Frame, and both were optimistic about chances for peace in Nicaragua. Both articles were written in the objective style, and had plenty of quotes from both sides.
By 1988, the Century’s support for the Sandinistas was waning, but they were vehemently anti-contra. On January 20, Penny Lennoux asserted in her article that the Ethnic Indians in Nicaragua had not joined the Contras willingly, but were forced into their camp. Lennoux said the Indians hated the Contras as much as they hated the Sandinistas. On January 27, editor at large Dean Peerman claimed that the other Latin American countries looked on the Contras as agents of destruction, and did not believe the Contras were helping anything. Robert Brown wrote an article on February 24, and said that the United States had destroyed Nicaragua through its funding of the Contras. Brown argued that: "The concept is simple: since the United States, through its aid to the contras, has spent seven years and millions of dollars contributing to Nicaragua’s destruction, the U.S. is now obligated to allocate equal time and money for its rebuilding".
1989
Christianity Today had two articles published on Nicaragua in 1989. The first of these articles was an interview with Gustavo Parajon, the founder of CEPAD, which appeared in March. Parajon had been a defender of the Sandinistas over the years, and he supported them in this article as well. The questions asked to him were often pointed questions, directed against the Sandinistas. (For example: "Critics charge that freedom has not increased with the lessening of conflict. Do you share these concerns?"). However, Parajon was always able to give an answer that defended his position. When asked about civil liberties, he responded he did not know, however, "What I do know for sure is that the limbs of more than 2,500 Nicaraguans have been blown off by mines… eight of my co-workers have been murdered by the contras".
The second article was by Randall Frame. It essentially interviewed Alberto Mottesi, an Argentinean Evangelist who had recently prayed with Daniel Ortega. Mottesi emphasized in the interview the tensions between Marxism and the gospel, however the article was written in an objective style.
Christian Century had nine articles, news briefs, and letters about Nicaragua in 1989. In March a news brief reported that the Church of the Brethren had called on the United States to end the embargo on Nicaragua, and to end aid to the Contras. In May, a news brief reported that a delegation of pastors asked for an end to Contra aid. An article about Fred Morris made predictions about what George Bush would do in Central America. In the article, Morris implied the Nicaraguans wanted to be left alone by the United States, and were happy under the Sandinistas. Morris included data to back up his argument. In July, Alan Wisdom, from the IRD, wrote a letter challenging Morris’ statistics, and made an argument that Nicaraguans would be much happier without the Sandinistas.
Also in May, a news brief was given about Pat Roberston’s visit to Nicaragua. Robertson, the brief said, had been contributing millions of dollars to the Contras. In July, Michael Rivage-Seul wrote an article in which he alleged that the United States had purposely undermined the Sandinista regime. The Sandinista had to spend 40 % of their Gross National Product on defense against the U.S. armed contras, which left little for the social programs on which the success of the revolution had been based. Rivage-Seul predicted (falsely) that the Sandinistas’ would win the battle, but it would be a hard fought battle. In August, Margaret Wilde did an article on the Miskito Indian refugees. A news brief reported that it had been revealed that the United States Embassy had been giving out free aid to conservative pastors in Nicaragua. Poorer, more liberal pastors received none. There was a news briefs about the sufferings of the Miskito Indians.
Christianity Today, of its two articles, contained one more sympathetic to the Sandinistas, and one more skeptical. Both were written objectively. Christian Century was, once again, very sympathetic to the Sandinistas. It was increasingly aware of the Miskito plight, and had a couple of articles about them, but even in these articles they did not come down hard on the Sandinistas.
1990
Christianity Today did not have any article on Nicaragua in 1990, where as Christian Century had fourteen articles, letters, and news briefs. In general, Christian Century was optimistic about Violeta Chamorro, although many of the articles did lament the passing of the Sandinistas. One such article in support of the Sandinistas appeared on March 14, by William Fore. It was harshly criticized in a later letter by Michael Novak (from the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research). Novak ended his letter by saying, "Yet I am glad that Fore has presented us with such important documentary evidence of the self-delusions of the Sandinistas international supporters, as well as of the Sandinista government itself." Christian Century also documented continued Contra atrocities in the year 1990.
Post 1990
In 1991 neither magazine would feature an article about Nicaragua. In fact, using the indexes listed above no Christian periodicals had any articles on Nicaragua. Once the Sandinistas were out of power, American interest in Nicaragua vanished as well.
Conclusions
It is worth noting the coverage of the media in general about the Sandinista government before drawing conclusions about Christianity Today and Christian Century. During the actual revolution itself, and the first few years afterwards, Media coverage of the Sandinistas was very favorable.25 There were a few voices on the right wing, such as the periodical Human Events that advocated Somoza’s dictatorship was better then a Marxist government (which they condemned the Sandinistas as being).26 Opinion gradually changed as the Sandinistas atrocities with the Miskito Indians came to light, as well as the conflict with the Catholic Church.
As is evidenced by the above pages, it is hard to track down what bias or viewpoint either periodical takes. One reason for this of course is that many of the articles (especially those written for Christianity Today) were in the style of objective journalism, and objective journalism, if done right, makes it impossible for the reader to determine the bias of the author. (Fortunately, the bias does often show through anyway however).
Secondly, and more importantly, each magazine was composed of many different writers that worked for it, and each writer had his or her own viewpoint. For instance, although both Beth Spring and Randell Frame wrote for Christianity Today, they might not have seen eye to eye on things, and an article by Beth Spring might have taken a different view of the Sandinistas then an article by Randell Frame would take.
There are a few ways of getting around this. One is to take notice of what position the writer has on the staff of the Magazine. For instance, Christianity Today frequently had articles on Nicaragua written by people who were not affiliated with the magazine itself. These articles, although not discounted entirely, are of less important then articles written by Beth Spring, the magazine’s Washington Correspondent, or articles written by Randell Frame, the magazine’s Associate News Editor. Christian Century had almost all of its articles on Nicaragua written by staff writers. The Editor himself, James Wall, wrote many of the editorials concerning Nicaragua in the 1980s.
Another point that should be made is that caution should be taken before comparing these magazines to each other. Because of the sheer number of articles on Nicaragua Christian Century had in most years, compared to the relatively few number of articles Christianity Today had, Christian Century touches on all sorts of events Christianity Today never even mentions.
With the above criteria in mind, and speaking in broad, general terms based on the above evidence, it can safely be said that Christianity Today began in 1979 with a cautious ambivalence regarding the Sandinistas (with articles written by staff writer Stephen Sywulka). After the Sandinista revolution succeeded, the articles in 1980 and 1981 were full of optimism. A number of different writers are represented in this period. A gradual shift was made to a more critical view of the Sandinistas. Beth Spring, who wrote eight articles about the Sandinistas between November of 1984, and January of 1987, dominated the magazine's view of the Sandinistas for these two and some years. Although Spring’s articles were always written in the objective style of journalism, she quoted heavily from those critical of the Sandinistas, and sparingly from their supporters. Critics were often given the last word, and a few times Spring interjected her own view of the Sandinistas into the article as a critic of the Sandinistas. Randall Frame, the other big writer on Nicaragua for this magazine during the 1980s, had four articles between 1985 and 1989. Frame’s articles were more critical of United States policy towards Nicaragua, although they never endorsed the Sandinistas.
Christian Century had, as mentioned above, much more articles on Nicaragua. From this we can deduce that the staff of Christian Century was more concerned about events in Nicaragua then the staff of Christianity Today. This is in keeping with the increased attention Century focused on the third world in the 1980s. Like Christianity Today, the Century started out ambivalent about the Sandinistas in the revolutionary war, then moved to an endorsement of them. Aside from a couple writers and news briefs, the Century never really became critical about the Sandinistas. A good way to say it would be they simply became less enthusiastic about the Sandinistas, and there was a quiet moving away from their earlier position of outright support, but very few articles appeared that were critical. Instead, the Century shifted its focus in the mid 1980s from extolling the virtues of the Sandinistas, to being critical of United States policy in the 1980s. Interestingly enough though, in 1990 once it was clear that the Sandinistas had lost, the Century almost seemed to return to their earlier position of endorsement for the Sandinistas, and there were a couple articles that lamented their passing.
James Wall, the editor of the magazine, was very concerned about Nicaragua, and wrote 24 editorials on, or that refer to, Nicaragua between 1978 and 1990. Wall’s editorials followed rather neatly the pattern of the magazine, which was fitting given his position. Margaret Wilde, an editor at large for the magazine, wrote most of the articles featured during the 1980s. Wilde’s articles followed the same line as Wall’s, although Wilde took longer to move away from praising the Sandinistas, and returned to praising them quicker. The most fervent supporter of the Sandinistas in the magazine was Robert Brown, another editor at large, who had six articles on Nicaragua. In Brown’s articles, the Sandinistas could do no wrong, and all problems Nicaragua was facing were laid at the feet of the Contras or of the Nicaraguan Bourgeois. Paul Jeffrey, while not as radical as Brown, also remained in support of the Sandinistas throughout the 1980s.
Since both magazines focused on different things, it is hard to do a direct comparison. However, we can look at various events. The first of these is the Christianity of Tomas Borge. Borge, the only surviving founding member of the Sandinistas, was overtly Christian as both magazines picked up. Both magazines quoted Borge as he talked about his commitment to Christianity, both magazines picked up on Borge's request for more Bibles, and both told the rather amazing story about how Borge saw his former torturer in jail, forgave him, and freed the man.
Another thing that both magazines picked up on in the early days of optimism was how the Sandinistas abolished the death penalty. This was actually a common misconception that deceived secular media as well. In fact, the death penalty had never been legal in Nicaragua.27
Another interesting key point is the World Court decision. In 1984, the CIA mined Nicaragua’s harbors. Nicaragua brought the United States before the World Court, and the World Court in November of 1987 decided that the United States had indeed violated International law. This is an interesting test case in media analysis because this case was not mentioned in any of the dominant newspapers or three television networks. However, the previous day most of these media had alerted the United States public about the World Court’s decision that the Soviet Union should remove itself from Afghanistan.28 Christianity Today followed the line of mainstream media and did not mention that story. Christian Century mentioned it repeatedly. (It is, of course, worth remembering at this point that the Century had many more articles per year on Nicaragua than Today).
Another interesting point in the 1984 election. Christian Century took a rather predictable stance on this. The Century repeatedly condemned the Reagan administration for having not recognized the election, and repeatedly brought up the fact that all other international observers had recognized the validity of the elections. The Century repeatedly mentioned how high the voting turn out was, and how much of the vote Daniel Ortega received, to emphasize that Nicaragua had in fact been a democracy, and some authors went as far as to say that this data meant Nicaragua was more democratic then the United States. The Century did not mention that all criticisms of the election in Nicaragua were censored.0 Christianity Today is interesting because of their absence of comment on the 1984 election. It was not even mentioned in their articles.
Again the same pattern is seen in the 1990 election. The Century was fond of quoting Daniel Ortega that Nicaragua voted with a gun to its head. The Century maintained that even though the Sandinistas had lost the election, it was because of United States pressure, not loss of popularity. Christianity Today was strangely silent, and did not even have any articles on Nicaragua at all in 1990.
Also amazing is the lack of coverage about the Iran-Contra affair, considering the intense media coverage it received at the time. Christian Century made references to it, but did not report on it or dedicate any articles to it. Christianity Today never even referred to it. It is difficult to say with certainty why neither magazine reported on Iran-Contra, but I hypothesize that due to the intense media coverage it received at the time both magazines assumed their readers were well enough informed on the issue.
In closing, it is important to see both of these magazines in the context of the 1980s. The 1980s were a time of polarizing politics, where distinctions between left and right became quite clear. The readers of both magazines were Americans, and were more concerned with American politics than with politics in Nicaragua. Therefore, the debate over United States foreign policy in Nicaragua should be seen in the larger context of the right versus left debate of the 1980s. The respective position that each magazine took could possibly be seen as an example of where the magazine stood in the broader debate.
Footnotes:
1. It should be noted that Christian Century has an "Events and People" section, in which updates about events, like the civil war in Nicaragua, are included. While I do make use of this section, when I use the word "article" in this paper I am not counting these selections.
2. Stephen Wykstra, Personal Interview, 15 November 1999.
3. Thomas Walker, Nicaragua: the Land of Sandino (Boulder: Westview Press, 1982), 14-45.
4. Humberto Belli, Breaking Faith: The Sandinsta Revolution and Its Impact on Freedom and Christian Faith in Nicaragua (Westchester: Crossway books, 1985), 183-210
5. Belli, 106-117.
6. Charles Lippy, ed., Religious Periodicals of the United States (Wesport: Greenwood Press, 1986), xi.
7. Charles Austin, "The History and Role of the Protestant Press," in Reporting Religion: Facts and Faith ed. Benjamin Hubbard (Sonoma, CA: Polebridge Press, 1990), 114-115.
8. Richard Ostling in Austin, 112.
9. Austin, 113
10. Annalee Ward, "Christian Century," in Popular Religious Magazines of the United State ed. Mark Fackler and Charles Lippy, (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1995), 110.
11. James Wall in Annalee Ward, 110.
12. Ibid., 113.
13. Martin Marty, et. Al., The Religious Press in America (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963), 10.
14. Mark Toulouse, "The Christian Century," in Religious Periodicals of the United States: Academic and Scholarly Journals. ed. Charles Lippy, (New York: Greenwood Press, 1986), 112.
15. Mark Toulouse, "The Christian Century," in Religious Periodicals of the United States: Academic and Scholarly Journals. ed. Charles Lippy, (New York: Greenwood Press, 1986), 112.
16. John Merritt, "Christianity Today," in Religious Periodicals of the United States: Academic and Scholarly Journals. ed. Charles Lippy, (New York: Greenwood Press, 1986), 136.
17. Kenneth Kantzer in Sweeny, 147.
18. Sweeney, 148.
19. Ibid., 148.
20. Merrit, 137.
21. "Michael Novak." http://www.aei.org/scholars/novak.htm (17 December 1999).
22. Joshua Muravchik in Allan Brownfeld, "How the Media Misled us on the Sandinistas," Human Events, 11 February 1989, 6-7
23. Stanton Evans, "AP, ‘Post’ cover up for Sandinistas," Human Events, 8 September 1979, 17.
24. Thomas, 37.
25. This is the whole thesis behind Joshua Muravchik, New Coverage of the Sandinista Revolution (Washington: American Institute for Public Policy, 1988).
26. Stanton Evan, 6-7.
27. Belli, 119.
28. Martin Lee and Norman Solomon, Unreliable Sources: A Guide to Detecting Bias in News Media (New York: Carol Publishing Group, 1990), 257.
29. Belli, 261.
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Christian Century: 1978-1990
Christianity Today: 1978-1990
Secondary Sources
Austin, Charles. "The History and Role of the Protestant Press." In Reporting Religion: Facts and Faith. Ed. Benjamin Hubbard. Sonoma, CA: Polebridge Press, 1990.
Belli, Humberto. Breaking Faith: The Sandinista Revolution and Its Impact on Freedom and Christian Faith in Nicaragua. Westchester: Crossway Books, 1985.
Brownfeld, Allan. "How the Media Misled us on the Sandinistas." Human Events, 11 February 1989, 6-7.
Evans, Stanton. "AP, ‘Post" cover up for Sandinistas." Human Events, 8 September 1979, 17
Fackler, P. Mark and Charles H. Lippy. Ed. Popular Religious Magazines of the United
States. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1995.
Flynn, Patricia, Roger Burbach, Mark Moberg. "Nicaragua." Collier’s Encyclopedia. 1997.
Hubbard, Benjamin, ed. Reporting Religion: Facts and Faith. Sonoma: Polebridge Press, 1990.
Lee, Martin, and Norman Solomon. Unreliable Sources: A Guide to Detecting Bias in News Media. New York: Carol Publishing Group, 1990.
Lippy, Charles. H., Ed. Religious Periodicals of the United States. Westport: Greenwood
Press, 1986
Martin, Marty, et al. The Religious Press in America. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963.
"Media to Blame for Rise of Sandinistas." Human Events, 29 March 1986, 3.
Merrit, John. "Christianity Today." In Religious Periodicals of the United States: Academic and Scholarly Journals. Ed. Charles Lippy. New York: Greenwood Press, 1986.
"Michael Novak." http://www.aei.org/scholars/novak.htm (17 December 1999).
Muravchik, Joshua. News Coverage of the Sandinista Revolution. Washington: American Institute for Public Policy, 1988.
Sweeney, Douglas. "Christianity Today." In Popular Religious Magazines of the United States. Ed. Mark Fackler and Charles Lippy. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1995.
Toulouse, Mark. "The Christian Century." In Religious Periodicals of the United States: Academic and Scholarly Journals. Ed. Charles Lippy. New York: Greenwood Press, 1986.
Walker, Thomas. Nicaragua: The Land of Sandino. Boulder: Westview Press, 1982.
Ward, Annalee. "Christian Century." In Popular Religious Magazines of the United State. Ed.
Mark Fackler and Charles Lippy. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1995.
Wykstra, Stephen. Personal Interview. 15 November 1999.
Monday, December 26, 2005
Communist Parties in Great Britain (1999)
May 13, 1999
Since the collapse of Communism in the Soviet Union and the Eastern block, communist Parties in Western Europe have faced an interesting challenge. How do they exist after the fall of official communism? This is a complex question. There are many different communist parties in Western Europe. I have chosen Great Britain as an example, and have randomly picked four different groups out of the kaleidoscope of Communist parties in Great Britain. Examining these four groups will hopefully serve as a microcosm to understanding what is left of the communist movement in Western Europe. In particular, examining their response to Kosovo is of interest. The four parties are the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist), the Socialist Workers Party, and the Alliance for Workers Liberty, and The Communist Party of Great Britain.
"In some ways" writes David Lawday "the collapse of communism is even harder on the party faithful in the West than it is on their comrades in Eastern Europe" (Lawday 21). Those in the West were communist by choice, while many in the East were forced to be communists. The Western communists have had to re-orientate themselves to survive. They have been forced to look for other models of inspiration after the fall of the Soviet Union. It is worth noting that Communism in Western Europe was never the negligible force it has been in the United States. In fact, close to twenty million Western Europeans still vote Communist.
The first of these groups, the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) (RCPB(ML)) appears as a relic of the Cold War. It is firmly grounded in Marxist-Leninist philosophy, and shows very little willingness to adjust. The RCPB(ML) describes everything as "Imperialist". Cuba is defending itself against imperialist aggression. North Korea is defending itself against the imperialist South Korea, and the imperialist United States. Iraq is defending itself against actions of imperialism. The United States Missile Strike on Sudan and Afghanistan on August 20, 1998 was an imperialist act. The list goes on and on.
The RCPB(ML) at many instances shows what seems to be a break with reality. A good example of this is their attitude towards the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). Their history of the DPRK indicates more than a little bit of bias is put into their work.
The RCPB(ML) repeatedly praises the DPRK and Kim Il Sung in it’s publication Workers’ Weekly, ignoring the repressive elements of the DPRK. As the RCPB(ML) admits, DPRK is important to their ideology because it declared itself a stronghold of Socialism after the collapse of the Soviet Union and "acted as a rallying point for many communists and other progressive political parties in the midst of a confusing situation" (Workers’ Weekly V. 28, No. 25). The Workers’ Weekly also claims that the starvation in the DPRK has been largely exaggerated as a result of a South Korean smear campaign. Similarly, Cuba is often described in Workers’ Weekly as a place where everything is fine, never mind what the unreliable Western media is telling you.
Least one get too negative a view of the RCPB(ML), however, it should be noted that they are very concerned with the rights of the working class, with woman’s rights, and with combating racism.
In response to the crisis in Yugoslavia, the RCPB(ML) strongly condemns the air strikes.
A second group, similar in ideology, is the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). They too are firmly grounded in Marxism-Leninism, and like the RCPB(ML) appear quite dogmatic in their beliefs.
They hold to the Marxist doctrine of violent revolution. "Socialism can never come through parliament. … Socialism will only succeed through working class revolution and the replacement of the dictatorship of the capitalists with the dictatorship of the working class." The CPGB also declares that "War and peace, pollution and the environment are class questions", and asserts that "the liberation of women, the ending of racism, bigotry, and all other forms of chauvinism" will all be achieved by Marxism. "Oppression is a direct result of class society, and will only finally be eradicated by the ending of class society" (CPGB Homepage). In doing this, the CPGB shows how strictly they apply a Marxist interpretation to all of society’s problems. However, the CPGB does not praise Cuba and the DPRK like the RCPB(ML) does. Instead the CPGB calls both Castro and Kim Il Sung bureaucratic dictators.
In response to the situation in Yugoslavia, the CPGB supports the Kosavo Liberation Army (KLA), while remaining critical of NATO.
This fits in line perfectly with their commitment to the right of nations to self-determination.
The CPGB frequently attacks the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in its publication Weekly Worker. The CPGB accuses the SWP of splitting the London Socialist Alliance electoral block (which includes the CPGB, SWP, and the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty (AWL)). The CPGB also accuses the SWP of being controlled by demagogues, such as Arthur Scargill.
The SWP is another group that makes up Britain's Socialist Alliance. One should not be fooled by the name, the SWP is no less radical than its Communist counterparts. The SWP praises Cuba as a revolutionary model that all Socialists in bourgeois countries should aspire to. They do not support working with in, the system, but adhere to the Marxist doctrine of revolution.
The SWP is very concerned with international causes, particularly the International Socialists of South Korea (ISSK), who have been harshly repressed by the South Korean government. The SWP has been raising money for the legal defense of the ISSK.
In Yugoslavia SWP calls for an end to the War. Its publication, Socialist Worker, chronicles regularly the devastation NATO’s bombings have caused. The Socialist Worker relates stories about how innocent people were killed or made homeless by NATO. The SWP also criticizes the British government for going to war to save the Kosovan Albanians, but then refusing to help the refugees. "The number of refugees Britain is grudgingly prepared to take is pathetic (Socialist Worker 1644)". The SWP also accuse the media of distorting the truth to support NATO. The SWP calls for an unconditional halt to the war and NATO aggression.
The SWP has also been very active in the ant-war movement. Although leaders of the SWP complain that the media has purposely refused coverage of the anti-war coalition, the SWP has organized marches, rallies, and a number of pamphlets all urging an immediate end to the war.
The SWP has been harshly criticized by both the CPGB and the AWL for its anti-war stance. The CPGB accuses the large number of pacifists with-in the SWP of being guilty of liberalism, since pacifism is a bourgeois ideology. However the attacks go deeper than this. The CPGB accuses the SWP of allying itself along Cold War lines.
The CPGB also accuses the SWP of downplaying the atrocities of Miloslovic, while placing an undue amount of blame on the KLA for the war.
Also condemning the SWP is the AWL. The AWL is a Trotskyist group, and shows many signs of still being stuck in 1938. The AWL has two buzzwords it uses quite frequently: Imperialism, to describe anything they dislike on the right, and Stalinism, to describe anything they dislike on the left. Since the AWL never aligned itself with ‘official communism’, it was not left ideologically floundering after the cold war, as many other communist groups were. The AWL is not disheartened by the fall of communism, but optimistic. "In Russia, 1917, the workers took power, but were overwhelmed in the 1920s by a bureaucratic counter-revolution. Elsewhere the possibilities of working-class freedom were crushed. But those possibilities existed. And they will exist again!" (AWL hompage).
Like the other groups, the AWL is cynical about working through the system, and advocates a revolution from below. The AWL is committed to "a society reconstructed according to the working-class principle of solidarity".
In response to the situation in Yugoslavia, the AWL printed in their publication Workers’ Liberty a quote from Trotsky on the Balkan Atrocities in February, 1913.
The AWL condemns both the Stalinist left and the imperialist NATO in its stance on the Yugoslavian atrocities.
About the left, however, AWL claims:
Opposing both NATO and the anti-war movement, the solution of the AWL is to arm the Kosavars. However Workers’ Liberty also points out that although the AWL has good reason not to trust NATO, they should not call for an end to the bombing.
Like the CPGB the AWL swipes at both the SWP and the RCPB(ML), both of whom it accuses of catering the anti-war movement to Serbian nationalists.
After contemplating the anti-war movement, one member of the AWL contemplates,
These groups are but a fragment of Britain’s Communist contingent. Absent from this discussion is the New Communist Party of Great Britain, the Communist Party of Britain, the Communist Alliance of Great Britain, and several others. However, these four groups can serve as an example to see how Communist groups have realigned themselves after the cold war, and how they are dealing with the crisis in Yugoslavia.
Bibliography
Alliance for Worker’s Liberty homepage. http://wwww.workersliberty.org/awl.html
Communist Party of Great Britain Homepage. http://www.duntone.demon.co.uk/CPGB/main.html
"A Just Cause." Weekly Worker 29 Apr. 1999: 1-4"Korea Friendship Bulletin Celebrates 50th Anniversary of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea." Worker’s Weekly 29 Aug. 1998: 21-22.
"Kosovo at NUT conference." Worker’s Liberty Apr. 1999: 5-8.
Lawday, David. "Better Green than Red?" Atlantic Monthly Aug. 1990: 21-26.
"No to NATO’s criminal Aggression!" Worker’s Weekly 1 May 1999: 21-22.
Socialist Workers Party Homepage. http://www.swp.org.uk/join/JOIN.HTM
"Welcome all the refugees." Socialist Worker 1 May 1999. 1.
"Who will save the Kosovars?" Workers’ Liberty Apr. 1999: 1-4.
Professor's Comments: An interesting topic and you have dug up some fascinating information. the essay needs a clearer and stronger thesis. What point are you trying to make about Western European Communism? Perhaps draw a stronger conclusions drawing a thread between the themes.
Grade: B+
Since the collapse of Communism in the Soviet Union and the Eastern block, communist Parties in Western Europe have faced an interesting challenge. How do they exist after the fall of official communism? This is a complex question. There are many different communist parties in Western Europe. I have chosen Great Britain as an example, and have randomly picked four different groups out of the kaleidoscope of Communist parties in Great Britain. Examining these four groups will hopefully serve as a microcosm to understanding what is left of the communist movement in Western Europe. In particular, examining their response to Kosovo is of interest. The four parties are the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist), the Socialist Workers Party, and the Alliance for Workers Liberty, and The Communist Party of Great Britain.
"In some ways" writes David Lawday "the collapse of communism is even harder on the party faithful in the West than it is on their comrades in Eastern Europe" (Lawday 21). Those in the West were communist by choice, while many in the East were forced to be communists. The Western communists have had to re-orientate themselves to survive. They have been forced to look for other models of inspiration after the fall of the Soviet Union. It is worth noting that Communism in Western Europe was never the negligible force it has been in the United States. In fact, close to twenty million Western Europeans still vote Communist.
The first of these groups, the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) (RCPB(ML)) appears as a relic of the Cold War. It is firmly grounded in Marxist-Leninist philosophy, and shows very little willingness to adjust. The RCPB(ML) describes everything as "Imperialist". Cuba is defending itself against imperialist aggression. North Korea is defending itself against the imperialist South Korea, and the imperialist United States. Iraq is defending itself against actions of imperialism. The United States Missile Strike on Sudan and Afghanistan on August 20, 1998 was an imperialist act. The list goes on and on.
The RCPB(ML) at many instances shows what seems to be a break with reality. A good example of this is their attitude towards the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). Their history of the DPRK indicates more than a little bit of bias is put into their work.
The DPRK arouse out of the revolutionary traditions of the Korean
people’s armed struggle against the brutal Japanese colonial occupation and the
progressive social reforms carried out in the north of Korea in the period after
1945. However, just two years after its founding, the infant republic was
plunged into a cruel war provoked by the United States, which had occupied the
south of Korea and rigged up a puppet regime, mainly based on collaborators with
the Japanese. In the three years of war, the Korean people, assisted by the
Chinese People’s Volunteers, fought the aggressive forces of imperialism – which
included a substantial British contingent – to a standstill (Workers’ Weekly
V.28, No. 25).
The RCPB(ML) repeatedly praises the DPRK and Kim Il Sung in it’s publication Workers’ Weekly, ignoring the repressive elements of the DPRK. As the RCPB(ML) admits, DPRK is important to their ideology because it declared itself a stronghold of Socialism after the collapse of the Soviet Union and "acted as a rallying point for many communists and other progressive political parties in the midst of a confusing situation" (Workers’ Weekly V. 28, No. 25). The Workers’ Weekly also claims that the starvation in the DPRK has been largely exaggerated as a result of a South Korean smear campaign. Similarly, Cuba is often described in Workers’ Weekly as a place where everything is fine, never mind what the unreliable Western media is telling you.
Least one get too negative a view of the RCPB(ML), however, it should be noted that they are very concerned with the rights of the working class, with woman’s rights, and with combating racism.
In response to the crisis in Yugoslavia, the RCPB(ML) strongly condemns the air strikes.
The British government must be condemned for its subservience to US
imperialism, and for the leading role it is playing in NATO’s military
aggression, which is being carried out without any mandate and for which there
can be no justification. Britain must get out of NATO and NATO should be
dismantled. All Britain’s forces must be immediately withdrawn from the Balkans
(Workers’ Weekly V.29 No.9).
A second group, similar in ideology, is the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). They too are firmly grounded in Marxism-Leninism, and like the RCPB(ML) appear quite dogmatic in their beliefs.
The Communist Party serves the interests of the working class. We
fight all forms of opportunism and revisionism in the workers’ movement because
they endanger those interests. We insist on open ideological struggle in order
to fight out the correct way forward for our class (CPGB homepage).
They hold to the Marxist doctrine of violent revolution. "Socialism can never come through parliament. … Socialism will only succeed through working class revolution and the replacement of the dictatorship of the capitalists with the dictatorship of the working class." The CPGB also declares that "War and peace, pollution and the environment are class questions", and asserts that "the liberation of women, the ending of racism, bigotry, and all other forms of chauvinism" will all be achieved by Marxism. "Oppression is a direct result of class society, and will only finally be eradicated by the ending of class society" (CPGB Homepage). In doing this, the CPGB shows how strictly they apply a Marxist interpretation to all of society’s problems. However, the CPGB does not praise Cuba and the DPRK like the RCPB(ML) does. Instead the CPGB calls both Castro and Kim Il Sung bureaucratic dictators.
In response to the situation in Yugoslavia, the CPGB supports the Kosavo Liberation Army (KLA), while remaining critical of NATO.
The cause of the Kosovars and the KLA is just. Communist – not only
in Britain, but crucially Serbia – should support the democratic content of
their program, while criticizing their petty bourgeois and nationalist
prejudices and shortcomings, not least the illusion that NATO is a trustworthy
ally (Weekly Worker 286).
This fits in line perfectly with their commitment to the right of nations to self-determination.
The CPGB frequently attacks the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in its publication Weekly Worker. The CPGB accuses the SWP of splitting the London Socialist Alliance electoral block (which includes the CPGB, SWP, and the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty (AWL)). The CPGB also accuses the SWP of being controlled by demagogues, such as Arthur Scargill.
The SWP is another group that makes up Britain's Socialist Alliance. One should not be fooled by the name, the SWP is no less radical than its Communist counterparts. The SWP praises Cuba as a revolutionary model that all Socialists in bourgeois countries should aspire to. They do not support working with in, the system, but adhere to the Marxist doctrine of revolution.
The Socialist Workers Party believes that the power to win change
comes from below. The Labour party insists it comes through parliament. But
power does not lie with parliament – it remains with the unelected bosses,
bankers, police chiefs, judges and top civil servants. That is why we support
every struggle, every strike by working people, every campaign against racism
and injustice. We argue that you cannot reform this rotten system – it must be
overthrown (SWP homepage).
The SWP is very concerned with international causes, particularly the International Socialists of South Korea (ISSK), who have been harshly repressed by the South Korean government. The SWP has been raising money for the legal defense of the ISSK.
In Yugoslavia SWP calls for an end to the War. Its publication, Socialist Worker, chronicles regularly the devastation NATO’s bombings have caused. The Socialist Worker relates stories about how innocent people were killed or made homeless by NATO. The SWP also criticizes the British government for going to war to save the Kosovan Albanians, but then refusing to help the refugees. "The number of refugees Britain is grudgingly prepared to take is pathetic (Socialist Worker 1644)". The SWP also accuse the media of distorting the truth to support NATO. The SWP calls for an unconditional halt to the war and NATO aggression.
The SWP has also been very active in the ant-war movement. Although leaders of the SWP complain that the media has purposely refused coverage of the anti-war coalition, the SWP has organized marches, rallies, and a number of pamphlets all urging an immediate end to the war.
The SWP has been harshly criticized by both the CPGB and the AWL for its anti-war stance. The CPGB accuses the large number of pacifists with-in the SWP of being guilty of liberalism, since pacifism is a bourgeois ideology. However the attacks go deeper than this. The CPGB accuses the SWP of allying itself along Cold War lines.
"For the arch-proponents of ‘Yugoslav defencism’ … NATO's offensive
against Serbia seems to have induced an acute bout of Cold War nostalgia. It is
as if the collapse of the Soviet Union and with it the demise of ‘official
communism’ had never really happened. Unconditional defense of the USSR has been
replaced by unconditional defense of Yugoslavia" (Weekly Worker 286).
The CPGB also accuses the SWP of downplaying the atrocities of Miloslovic, while placing an undue amount of blame on the KLA for the war.
Also condemning the SWP is the AWL. The AWL is a Trotskyist group, and shows many signs of still being stuck in 1938. The AWL has two buzzwords it uses quite frequently: Imperialism, to describe anything they dislike on the right, and Stalinism, to describe anything they dislike on the left. Since the AWL never aligned itself with ‘official communism’, it was not left ideologically floundering after the cold war, as many other communist groups were. The AWL is not disheartened by the fall of communism, but optimistic. "In Russia, 1917, the workers took power, but were overwhelmed in the 1920s by a bureaucratic counter-revolution. Elsewhere the possibilities of working-class freedom were crushed. But those possibilities existed. And they will exist again!" (AWL hompage).
Like the other groups, the AWL is cynical about working through the system, and advocates a revolution from below. The AWL is committed to "a society reconstructed according to the working-class principle of solidarity".
In response to the situation in Yugoslavia, the AWL printed in their publication Workers’ Liberty a quote from Trotsky on the Balkan Atrocities in February, 1913.
An individual, a group, a party or a class that is capable of
‘objectively’ picking its nose while it watches men drunk with blood, and
incited from above, massacring defenseless people is condemned by history to rot
and become worm-eaten while it is still alive. On the other hand, a party or a
class that rises up against every abominable action wherever it has occurred, as
vigorously and unhesitatingly as a living organism reacts to protect its eyes
when they are threatened with external injury – such a party or class is sound
at heart (Trotsky in Worker’s Liberty 55).
The AWL condemns both the Stalinist left and the imperialist NATO in its stance on the Yugoslavian atrocities.
The West had no real objection to Milosevic’s repression of the
Kosovars – they simply objected to Milosevic acting in so brutal a way as to
provoke a conflict that drew in – ‘destabilized’ – Albania, Macedonia and other
neighboring states. They want stable rule in the area to facilitate capitalist
profit making. The West opposed an independent Kosova as they believed it would
be a source of instability and tension in the region. The West has been clumsy,
reckless and stupid. They may now have to put ground troops in Kosova. No
socialist or democrat should trust NATO or the West to adequately protect the
Kosovars (AWL homepage).
About the left, however, AWL claims:
The ‘left’ is a disgrace! Serbia is not an oppressed country
‘fighting imperialism’, as some on the left seem to believe. Far from it, it is
itself a minor, local imperialist power, of a primitive ethnic tribalist type.
The left should not have allowed itself to associate with Serb
nationalist-Stalinist campaigns which simply demand ‘Stop the bombings’ –
because the organizers are for Serbia, and against the Kosovars. The ‘left’ is
lining itself up with the racist Serb state whose demand is also, simply, ‘Stop
the bombings’ (AWL homepage).
Opposing both NATO and the anti-war movement, the solution of the AWL is to arm the Kosavars. However Workers’ Liberty also points out that although the AWL has good reason not to trust NATO, they should not call for an end to the bombing.
One did not have to positively support the North Vietnamese regime
to be pleased that in 1978 they invaded Cambodia and stamped out the murderous
Khmer Rouge regime. Or need to be a supporter of the Indira Ghandi’s regime in
India to be glad that India invaded the former East Pakistan in 1971 and put an
end to the genocidal drive of the West Pakistanis against the Begalis (Worker’s
Liberty 55).
Like the CPGB the AWL swipes at both the SWP and the RCPB(ML), both of whom it accuses of catering the anti-war movement to Serbian nationalists.
It cannot have escaped their [the SWP] attention that the anti-war
protests, such as they are, consist overwhelmingly of Serb chauvinists and old
Stalinists and fellow travellers who think the break-up of Yugoslavia is (a) a
terrible thing and (b) all the fault of Germany and western imperialism
(Worker’s liberty 55).
After contemplating the anti-war movement, one member of the AWL contemplates,
Is a left which sees this genocide and yet fails to place the
rights of the Kosovars at the center of their concerns a left worth having? … If
this was all there was on the left I would want no part of it. It is not only a
matter of the left we have, but of the left we can and will rebuild! (Worker’s
Liberty 55).
These groups are but a fragment of Britain’s Communist contingent. Absent from this discussion is the New Communist Party of Great Britain, the Communist Party of Britain, the Communist Alliance of Great Britain, and several others. However, these four groups can serve as an example to see how Communist groups have realigned themselves after the cold war, and how they are dealing with the crisis in Yugoslavia.
Bibliography
Alliance for Worker’s Liberty homepage. http://wwww.workersliberty.org/awl.html
Communist Party of Great Britain Homepage. http://www.duntone.demon.co.uk/CPGB/main.html
"A Just Cause." Weekly Worker 29 Apr. 1999: 1-4"Korea Friendship Bulletin Celebrates 50th Anniversary of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea." Worker’s Weekly 29 Aug. 1998: 21-22.
"Kosovo at NUT conference." Worker’s Liberty Apr. 1999: 5-8.
Lawday, David. "Better Green than Red?" Atlantic Monthly Aug. 1990: 21-26.
"No to NATO’s criminal Aggression!" Worker’s Weekly 1 May 1999: 21-22.
Socialist Workers Party Homepage. http://www.swp.org.uk/join/JOIN.HTM
"Welcome all the refugees." Socialist Worker 1 May 1999. 1.
"Who will save the Kosovars?" Workers’ Liberty Apr. 1999: 1-4.
Professor's Comments: An interesting topic and you have dug up some fascinating information. the essay needs a clearer and stronger thesis. What point are you trying to make about Western European Communism? Perhaps draw a stronger conclusions drawing a thread between the themes.
Grade: B+
Sunday, December 25, 2005
Keep the Aspidistra Flying
December 3, 1999
“Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism,” (Orwell in Brander). Although Orwell is best known for his anti-Communist works such as “1984” or “Animal Farm”, it is important to remember that Orwell was a democratic socialist. Orwell, throughout his life, struggled with the question of socialism, and what it means to be a socialist. “Keep the Aspidistra Flying”, published in 1936, continues this struggle.
Orwell was born in 1903 in Motihari Bengal. In 1917, he was given a scholarship to Eton College, which he attended until 1921. Orwell was a poor boy in a setting where poverty was despised, and this helped to make him a youthful radical. He served in Burma with the Indian Imperial Police from 1922 to 1927, and came to detest his role as an agent of imperialism. He ended up identifying with the Burmese more and in 1927 he retired and decided to live among the least privileged members of society. These experiences provided much of the material for his early works, including “Keep the Apsidistra Flying”. In 1936, Orwell was sent by the Socialist Left Book Club to study the living conditions of the unemployed in England. Orwell angered his sponsors by writing “The Road to Wigan Pier” in which he criticized orthodox socialism.
Orwell went to Spain during the Spanish Civil War, and joined the militia unit of the Marxist Workers Party. Orwell was seriously injured in the war. He was also involved in the fighting between the communists and anarchists in Barcelona. The communist secret police sought out Orwell, and he fled from Spain.
One question that Orwell faces is: how does a socialist function in a capitalist society? This is taken in the person of Gordon Comstock. Gordon is not a socialist. However, Orwell uses Gordon to convey the message to socialists.
Gordon is a man who is disgusted by the capitalism he sees around him. As a student, Gordon writes an underground newspaper in which he advocates global socialism (although he will later in his life reject socialism) and the dismemberment of the British Empire. However, once Gordon graduates from school and enters the work force, the question of how he reacts to capitalism must become clearer.
Gordon works in an advertising company, where his literary talents are discovered and he is put in a very profitable position with a very optimistic future. However, Gordon can not escape the feeling that he has sold his soul to the money god. To the consternation of all his relatives, Gordon leaves the company.
Gordon at first has an overly romanticized view of poverty. Coming from a dreary middle class family, Gordon thinks poverty is where one feels one is alive; the excitement of living on the streets. Gordon finds out otherwise, that poverty is having to sneak away from the landlady, and always having a hungry feeling in one’s stomach. Gordon ends up taking a job in a second hand bookshop where he can barely make ends meet and where there is no chance of advancement.
Orwell presents some interesting paradoxes in “Keep the Aspidistra Flying”. Through Gordon’s eyes we are allowed to see the despicable character of capitalism. However, Gordon’s attempt to rebel against capitalism only brings misery to himself and to his girlfriend Rosemary. If Orwell approves neither of capitalism nor of Gordon’s rebellion against it, what is Orwell trying to say in this book?
Critics have differed in their interpretation. Some argue that Orwell agreed with Gordon’s moral conviction, but the purpose of the book was to show how deeply our society revolves around money, and it is impossible not to be obsessed with money in our society. In this light, the book becomes almost more of a critique of society than of Gordon. Gordon has noble ambitions, but he was defeated by an evil society (Guild in Oldsey and Browne 144). While there is some appeal to this point of view, I think it ignores the fact that much of Gordon’s misery is self-inflicted. Another variation on this is that it is foolish for Gordon to even try to rebel against capitalism in the first place, and his whole quest to escape the money god is foolish.
Let us assume for a moment that this is indeed what Orwell is trying to show. If this is the case, I believe Orwell has made a poor argument. Orwell could have designed a book about a man who recognized how hollow the value of wealth and possessions are, and decided to give everything he had away and live in poverty. This man would then come to take pride in his poverty. He would shun the traditions of the middle class. This is not, however, the situation that Orwell sets up.
The character of Gordon is obsessed with the social value of money throughout the whole book. In fact, Gordon does not even want other people to know he is living in poverty. He is forever concerned about whom he borrows money from, and how people treat him because of his poverty.
If in fact the argument of Orwell’s book is that one can not escape the money god in a capitalistic society, then this would fit in with that argument. In trying to escape from money, Gordon ends up becoming obsessed with it. I would argue however that many individuals have successfully escaped the quest for accumulating wealth, and are able to simply not care about money.
There is much in the character of Gordon Comstock that is autobiographical to Orwell. Like Orwell, Gordon is a writer. Like Gordon, Orwell worked in a bookstore in London, and hated it. Orwell himself knows what it is like to be poor. In his travels in Paris, described in his book “Down and Out in Paris and London”, Orwell had to make ends meet on one Shilling a day (five times less than the fictional Gordon). Orwell actually describes many of the same feelings Gordon has. Orwell describes how women are repulsed by him because he has no money (Guild in Oldsey and Brown 147). Orwell also describes what a good feeling it can be to slide all the way into the very bottom of poverty because there is a relief that accompanies the realization that one is still surviving. Gordon also expresses a number of the same views that Orwell is expressing.
To Orwell, Gordon is not simply an abstract character he uses. Gordon is very much a reflection of Orwell. I believe that “Keep the Aspidistra Flying” is a difficult book to interpret because Orwell himself is ambivalent. He understands the problem ll too well, but he is unsure of the solution. Orwell seeks to show through the character of Gordon his own experience in revolting against capitalism.
Of course, Gordon is not the only character Orwell sets up. Orwell realizes there is more than one way of rebelling against capitalism, and so he shows Phillip Ravelston as an alternative war.
Orwell sets up Ravelston as a foil for Gordon. Although both men are anti-capitalists, they take different approaches. Gordon lives in self-imposed poverty and is miserable because of it. Ravelston is a rich man, living in luxury, yet is a socialist. Ravelston’s optimism is a contrast to Gordon’s pessimism; however, the reader often gets the sense that Ravelston does not know what he is talking about. Orwell uses Ravelston to critique the “Cadillac Communist”.
At the beginning of chapter five, Orwell describes Ravelston. Ravelson lives in Regent Park which to him “was practically the same thing as living in the slums” (Orwell 80). “It was part of a life-long attempt to escape from his own class and become, as it were, an honorary member of the proletariat. Like all such attempts, it was foredoomed to failure” (Orwell 80). Orwell also states that Ravelston had the habit of dressing unconventionally. “He made a point of going everywhere, even to fashionable house and expensive restaurants, in these clothes just to show his contempt for upper-class conventions; he did not fully realize that it is only the upper classes who can do these things” (Orwell 80-81). Orwell goes on to say about Ravelston: “in every moment of his life he was apologizing tacitly, for the largeness of his income. You could make him uncomfortable by reminding him that he was rich as you could make Gordon by reminding him that he was poor” (Orwell 81). In these quotes, Orwell is able to describe Ravelston as somebody whose entire life is a contradiction. His attempts to make himself a socialist only make his wealth more glaring.
In chapter five, Gordon and Ravelston go to a pub and have some drinks and talk. Orwell attempts to show the folly of both Ravelston’s approach to capitalism and Gordon’s approach. Gordon’s approach, which is the subject of the rest of the book, is shown to be self-destructive, as it makes Gordon miserable and separates him from the one he loves. Ravelston’s approach is not shown in this way. He is always depicted as happy. His approach, as a young rich man playing socialist, is shown as harmless. However, Ravelston’s approach is hypocritical, where at least Gordon faces the reality of his decision to make war on money.
During the course of the conversation, Ravelston mentions several times that Gordon should read Marx, while Gordon indicates his distaste for Socialism. Orwell presents somewhat of an irony here in that the rich man should be defending Marx against a poor man. However, Orwell is also trying to make a point. Ravelston is incapable of understanding what he is talking about because he has never known what it is like to be poor. It is Orwell’s critique of the intellectual rather than the experimental socialist. At one point Gordon is talking about how miserable life in London is and how it is all a result of poverty. Ravelston responds with “Of course…After all, it’s only a reflection of what Marx said. Every ideology is a reflection of economic circumstances.” Gordon then answers, “Ah, but you only understand it out of Marx! You don’t know what it means to have to crawl along on two quid a week” (Orwell 90).
In the same chapter that Orwell contrasts Ravelston with Gordon, he also contrasts Ravelston with Hermione Slater. Hermoine is Ravelston’s lover, and he adores her. On one hand, the same Ravelston who looks hypocritical when contrasted with Gordon looks much better when contrasted with Hermione. Just as the reader is beginning to get disgusted with Ravelston, Orwell shows how so many rich people, like Hermione, do not even care about the poor at all. “Don’t talk to me about the lower classes” Hermione says to Ravelston. “I hate them. They smell” (Orwell 93).
At the same time, however, Orwell also raises the question of why Ravelston is so in love with Hermione if he takes his beliefs seriously. Ravelston adores her, and yet it does not seem to bother him that Hermione laughs at all his principles. “Why do you have to live in such a dreadful way? Pretending you’re poor when you’re not and living in that poky flat with no servants, and going about with all these beastly people” (Orwell 98). In this way, Orwell uses Hermione both to make Ravelston look more favorable and to further point out his hypocrisy.
Hermione, in one of her speeches, shows she does not understand what a Socialist really is. “Of course you’re a Socialist. So am I. I mean we’re all Socialist nowadays. But I don’t see why you have to give all your money away and make friends with the lower classes. You can be a Socialist and have a good time, that’s what I say” (Orwell 98). Orwell obviously intends to satirize this belief because, of course, giving your money away and making friends with the lower classes is what Socialism is all about. However, Orwell is making another point too. If Ravelston can call himself a Socialist, and still live in such luxury (compared to Gordon), then what is to stop Hermione from calling herself a Socialist.
Orwell shows how Ravelston, for all his good intentions, does not really sympathize with the poor. “In the taxi she lay against him, still half asleep, her head pillowed on his breast. He thought of the unemployed in Middlesbrough, seven in a room on twenty-five bob a week. But the girl’s body was heavy against him, and Middlesbrough was so far away” (Orwell 97). Ravelston is able to think of the poor only in the abstract sense, and so they do not seem real to him. He is able to dismiss them so easily in favor of his life of luxury, which is very real to him.
Orwell uses chapter five to set up Ravelston as an alternative way to make war on money, rather than the self-destructive way Gordon has chosen. However, Orwell also shows the meaningless in Ravelston’s war. For all the misery Gordon’s own war brings him, at least it is honest.
The book ends with Gordon getting his girlfriend Rosemary pregnant. Gordon gives up his war on money and becomes, in the words of one critic, a “disastrously defeated Rebel” (Richard Rees*1 in Oldsey and Browne). Many critics have criticized the ending. Again it brings up questions about what Orwell was trying to say. Does the failure of Gordon’s war means Orwell views a war against capitalism to be fatal? One must either delude one’s self as Ravelston does, or end in defeat as Gordon. Again, I believe the ending is supposed to be ambivalent. Orwell himself is still struggling with these questions, so rather than give the audience an answer, he just throws out the topic for them to think about.
Bibliography
Bander, Laurence. George Orwell. London: Longmans, Green and Co. 1956.
Calder, Jenni. Critical Essays in Modern Literature—Chronicles of Conscience: A Study of George Orwell and Arthur Koestler. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. 1968.
Crick, Bernard. George Orwell: A Life. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. 1980.
Hammond, J.R. A George Orwell Companion: A Guide to the Novels, Documentaries and Essays. London: Macmillan Press. 1982.
Hollis, Christopher. A Study of George Orwell: The Man and his Works. London: Hollis and Carter. 1956,
Oldsey, Bernard, Joseph Browne. Critical Essays on George Orwell. Boston: G.K. Hall & Co. 1986.
Orwell, George. Keep the Aspidistra Flying. London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 1936.
Woodcock, George. The Crystal Spirit: A Study of George Orwell. Boston: Minerva Press. 1966.
Professor’s Comments: Joel, you have several good insights into Orwell’s book in this paper, but you needed to focus and organize these insights into a more compelling argument about the book. In particular, you needed to suggest the importance of his ambiguous response to capitalism. Why should we be concerned about working through this response? You also needed to use your paragraphs to give a better sense of the development of your argument.
Grade: B-
“Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism,” (Orwell in Brander). Although Orwell is best known for his anti-Communist works such as “1984” or “Animal Farm”, it is important to remember that Orwell was a democratic socialist. Orwell, throughout his life, struggled with the question of socialism, and what it means to be a socialist. “Keep the Aspidistra Flying”, published in 1936, continues this struggle.
Orwell was born in 1903 in Motihari Bengal. In 1917, he was given a scholarship to Eton College, which he attended until 1921. Orwell was a poor boy in a setting where poverty was despised, and this helped to make him a youthful radical. He served in Burma with the Indian Imperial Police from 1922 to 1927, and came to detest his role as an agent of imperialism. He ended up identifying with the Burmese more and in 1927 he retired and decided to live among the least privileged members of society. These experiences provided much of the material for his early works, including “Keep the Apsidistra Flying”. In 1936, Orwell was sent by the Socialist Left Book Club to study the living conditions of the unemployed in England. Orwell angered his sponsors by writing “The Road to Wigan Pier” in which he criticized orthodox socialism.
Orwell went to Spain during the Spanish Civil War, and joined the militia unit of the Marxist Workers Party. Orwell was seriously injured in the war. He was also involved in the fighting between the communists and anarchists in Barcelona. The communist secret police sought out Orwell, and he fled from Spain.
One question that Orwell faces is: how does a socialist function in a capitalist society? This is taken in the person of Gordon Comstock. Gordon is not a socialist. However, Orwell uses Gordon to convey the message to socialists.
Gordon is a man who is disgusted by the capitalism he sees around him. As a student, Gordon writes an underground newspaper in which he advocates global socialism (although he will later in his life reject socialism) and the dismemberment of the British Empire. However, once Gordon graduates from school and enters the work force, the question of how he reacts to capitalism must become clearer.
Gordon works in an advertising company, where his literary talents are discovered and he is put in a very profitable position with a very optimistic future. However, Gordon can not escape the feeling that he has sold his soul to the money god. To the consternation of all his relatives, Gordon leaves the company.
Gordon at first has an overly romanticized view of poverty. Coming from a dreary middle class family, Gordon thinks poverty is where one feels one is alive; the excitement of living on the streets. Gordon finds out otherwise, that poverty is having to sneak away from the landlady, and always having a hungry feeling in one’s stomach. Gordon ends up taking a job in a second hand bookshop where he can barely make ends meet and where there is no chance of advancement.
Orwell presents some interesting paradoxes in “Keep the Aspidistra Flying”. Through Gordon’s eyes we are allowed to see the despicable character of capitalism. However, Gordon’s attempt to rebel against capitalism only brings misery to himself and to his girlfriend Rosemary. If Orwell approves neither of capitalism nor of Gordon’s rebellion against it, what is Orwell trying to say in this book?
Critics have differed in their interpretation. Some argue that Orwell agreed with Gordon’s moral conviction, but the purpose of the book was to show how deeply our society revolves around money, and it is impossible not to be obsessed with money in our society. In this light, the book becomes almost more of a critique of society than of Gordon. Gordon has noble ambitions, but he was defeated by an evil society (Guild in Oldsey and Browne 144). While there is some appeal to this point of view, I think it ignores the fact that much of Gordon’s misery is self-inflicted. Another variation on this is that it is foolish for Gordon to even try to rebel against capitalism in the first place, and his whole quest to escape the money god is foolish.
Let us assume for a moment that this is indeed what Orwell is trying to show. If this is the case, I believe Orwell has made a poor argument. Orwell could have designed a book about a man who recognized how hollow the value of wealth and possessions are, and decided to give everything he had away and live in poverty. This man would then come to take pride in his poverty. He would shun the traditions of the middle class. This is not, however, the situation that Orwell sets up.
The character of Gordon is obsessed with the social value of money throughout the whole book. In fact, Gordon does not even want other people to know he is living in poverty. He is forever concerned about whom he borrows money from, and how people treat him because of his poverty.
If in fact the argument of Orwell’s book is that one can not escape the money god in a capitalistic society, then this would fit in with that argument. In trying to escape from money, Gordon ends up becoming obsessed with it. I would argue however that many individuals have successfully escaped the quest for accumulating wealth, and are able to simply not care about money.
There is much in the character of Gordon Comstock that is autobiographical to Orwell. Like Orwell, Gordon is a writer. Like Gordon, Orwell worked in a bookstore in London, and hated it. Orwell himself knows what it is like to be poor. In his travels in Paris, described in his book “Down and Out in Paris and London”, Orwell had to make ends meet on one Shilling a day (five times less than the fictional Gordon). Orwell actually describes many of the same feelings Gordon has. Orwell describes how women are repulsed by him because he has no money (Guild in Oldsey and Brown 147). Orwell also describes what a good feeling it can be to slide all the way into the very bottom of poverty because there is a relief that accompanies the realization that one is still surviving. Gordon also expresses a number of the same views that Orwell is expressing.
To Orwell, Gordon is not simply an abstract character he uses. Gordon is very much a reflection of Orwell. I believe that “Keep the Aspidistra Flying” is a difficult book to interpret because Orwell himself is ambivalent. He understands the problem ll too well, but he is unsure of the solution. Orwell seeks to show through the character of Gordon his own experience in revolting against capitalism.
Of course, Gordon is not the only character Orwell sets up. Orwell realizes there is more than one way of rebelling against capitalism, and so he shows Phillip Ravelston as an alternative war.
Orwell sets up Ravelston as a foil for Gordon. Although both men are anti-capitalists, they take different approaches. Gordon lives in self-imposed poverty and is miserable because of it. Ravelston is a rich man, living in luxury, yet is a socialist. Ravelston’s optimism is a contrast to Gordon’s pessimism; however, the reader often gets the sense that Ravelston does not know what he is talking about. Orwell uses Ravelston to critique the “Cadillac Communist”.
At the beginning of chapter five, Orwell describes Ravelston. Ravelson lives in Regent Park which to him “was practically the same thing as living in the slums” (Orwell 80). “It was part of a life-long attempt to escape from his own class and become, as it were, an honorary member of the proletariat. Like all such attempts, it was foredoomed to failure” (Orwell 80). Orwell also states that Ravelston had the habit of dressing unconventionally. “He made a point of going everywhere, even to fashionable house and expensive restaurants, in these clothes just to show his contempt for upper-class conventions; he did not fully realize that it is only the upper classes who can do these things” (Orwell 80-81). Orwell goes on to say about Ravelston: “in every moment of his life he was apologizing tacitly, for the largeness of his income. You could make him uncomfortable by reminding him that he was rich as you could make Gordon by reminding him that he was poor” (Orwell 81). In these quotes, Orwell is able to describe Ravelston as somebody whose entire life is a contradiction. His attempts to make himself a socialist only make his wealth more glaring.
In chapter five, Gordon and Ravelston go to a pub and have some drinks and talk. Orwell attempts to show the folly of both Ravelston’s approach to capitalism and Gordon’s approach. Gordon’s approach, which is the subject of the rest of the book, is shown to be self-destructive, as it makes Gordon miserable and separates him from the one he loves. Ravelston’s approach is not shown in this way. He is always depicted as happy. His approach, as a young rich man playing socialist, is shown as harmless. However, Ravelston’s approach is hypocritical, where at least Gordon faces the reality of his decision to make war on money.
During the course of the conversation, Ravelston mentions several times that Gordon should read Marx, while Gordon indicates his distaste for Socialism. Orwell presents somewhat of an irony here in that the rich man should be defending Marx against a poor man. However, Orwell is also trying to make a point. Ravelston is incapable of understanding what he is talking about because he has never known what it is like to be poor. It is Orwell’s critique of the intellectual rather than the experimental socialist. At one point Gordon is talking about how miserable life in London is and how it is all a result of poverty. Ravelston responds with “Of course…After all, it’s only a reflection of what Marx said. Every ideology is a reflection of economic circumstances.” Gordon then answers, “Ah, but you only understand it out of Marx! You don’t know what it means to have to crawl along on two quid a week” (Orwell 90).
In the same chapter that Orwell contrasts Ravelston with Gordon, he also contrasts Ravelston with Hermione Slater. Hermoine is Ravelston’s lover, and he adores her. On one hand, the same Ravelston who looks hypocritical when contrasted with Gordon looks much better when contrasted with Hermione. Just as the reader is beginning to get disgusted with Ravelston, Orwell shows how so many rich people, like Hermione, do not even care about the poor at all. “Don’t talk to me about the lower classes” Hermione says to Ravelston. “I hate them. They smell” (Orwell 93).
At the same time, however, Orwell also raises the question of why Ravelston is so in love with Hermione if he takes his beliefs seriously. Ravelston adores her, and yet it does not seem to bother him that Hermione laughs at all his principles. “Why do you have to live in such a dreadful way? Pretending you’re poor when you’re not and living in that poky flat with no servants, and going about with all these beastly people” (Orwell 98). In this way, Orwell uses Hermione both to make Ravelston look more favorable and to further point out his hypocrisy.
Hermione, in one of her speeches, shows she does not understand what a Socialist really is. “Of course you’re a Socialist. So am I. I mean we’re all Socialist nowadays. But I don’t see why you have to give all your money away and make friends with the lower classes. You can be a Socialist and have a good time, that’s what I say” (Orwell 98). Orwell obviously intends to satirize this belief because, of course, giving your money away and making friends with the lower classes is what Socialism is all about. However, Orwell is making another point too. If Ravelston can call himself a Socialist, and still live in such luxury (compared to Gordon), then what is to stop Hermione from calling herself a Socialist.
Orwell shows how Ravelston, for all his good intentions, does not really sympathize with the poor. “In the taxi she lay against him, still half asleep, her head pillowed on his breast. He thought of the unemployed in Middlesbrough, seven in a room on twenty-five bob a week. But the girl’s body was heavy against him, and Middlesbrough was so far away” (Orwell 97). Ravelston is able to think of the poor only in the abstract sense, and so they do not seem real to him. He is able to dismiss them so easily in favor of his life of luxury, which is very real to him.
Orwell uses chapter five to set up Ravelston as an alternative way to make war on money, rather than the self-destructive way Gordon has chosen. However, Orwell also shows the meaningless in Ravelston’s war. For all the misery Gordon’s own war brings him, at least it is honest.
The book ends with Gordon getting his girlfriend Rosemary pregnant. Gordon gives up his war on money and becomes, in the words of one critic, a “disastrously defeated Rebel” (Richard Rees*1 in Oldsey and Browne). Many critics have criticized the ending. Again it brings up questions about what Orwell was trying to say. Does the failure of Gordon’s war means Orwell views a war against capitalism to be fatal? One must either delude one’s self as Ravelston does, or end in defeat as Gordon. Again, I believe the ending is supposed to be ambivalent. Orwell himself is still struggling with these questions, so rather than give the audience an answer, he just throws out the topic for them to think about.
Bibliography
Bander, Laurence. George Orwell. London: Longmans, Green and Co. 1956.
Calder, Jenni. Critical Essays in Modern Literature—Chronicles of Conscience: A Study of George Orwell and Arthur Koestler. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. 1968.
Crick, Bernard. George Orwell: A Life. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. 1980.
Hammond, J.R. A George Orwell Companion: A Guide to the Novels, Documentaries and Essays. London: Macmillan Press. 1982.
Hollis, Christopher. A Study of George Orwell: The Man and his Works. London: Hollis and Carter. 1956,
Oldsey, Bernard, Joseph Browne. Critical Essays on George Orwell. Boston: G.K. Hall & Co. 1986.
Orwell, George. Keep the Aspidistra Flying. London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 1936.
Woodcock, George. The Crystal Spirit: A Study of George Orwell. Boston: Minerva Press. 1966.
Professor’s Comments: Joel, you have several good insights into Orwell’s book in this paper, but you needed to focus and organize these insights into a more compelling argument about the book. In particular, you needed to suggest the importance of his ambiguous response to capitalism. Why should we be concerned about working through this response? You also needed to use your paragraphs to give a better sense of the development of your argument.
Grade: B-
Saturday, December 24, 2005
The Lasting Legacy of the French Revolution
March 20, 1998
“The eighteenth century [was], in spite of all the battles won over Frenchmen by Germans and Englishmen, a preeminently French century, even before that crowning French Revolution, the result of which we outsiders, in England as well as in Germany, are still trying to acclimatize” (Engels 12). Engels certainly recognized the impact of the French Revolution, and the fact that it still affected him even in 1892, over a century after the storming of the Bastille. The events of the French Revolution influenced all the major thinkers of the nineteenth century, who freely admitted to the effect it had on them. The last legacy of the French Revolution can be traced from Edmund Burke’s conservatism to socialism, both the utopian of Flora Tristan and the scientific of Frederick Engels.
“Reflections on the French Revolution” by Edmund Burke is interesting because he wrote it in 1790, three years before the start of the Terror. Burke was less than pleased by what he saw in France, and his writing brings this out in full force. A major counter-revolutionary document, Burke’s “Reflection on the French Revolution” was very influential in Europe (Burke Introduction).
Burke was a conservative; he loved tradition. The French Revolution, which sought to completely break from the past, was repulsive to Burke. Burke’s idea of freedom differed from the revolutionaries in that he defined freedom only in order, in which the rights of the individual are subject to the state. Burke also romanticized the role of the aristocracy, and saw it as essential to the state.
Burke’s idea of community has similarities to socialism, which would later appear as a result of the French Revolution. Burke was no Karl Marx, but he did see the responsibility of the rich to care for the poor. Burke was also a strong believer in corporatism.
Despite Burke’s protest however, the revolution in France continued, and the impact it had on the coming generations was noticeable. Socialism, though its goals were in many ways different from that of the revolution, is a product of the French Revolution. It took the principle of equality, which was one of the major emphases of the French Revolution, and expanded it to refer to more than just equality under the law but economic equality as well.
Flora Tristan is an example of a utopian socialist. She wrote about forty years after the French Revolution but she obviously did not consider it an event in the distant past. Flora Tristan was both a citizen of France and a product of the French Revolution. Her mother had been a refugee from the Revolution who could not return to France until 1802 (Beik X). Tristan was proud of the French Revolution, but considered it unfinished. She wished not only to revive the democratic principles that had existed during the revolution, but also to make them international (Beik XX).
Tristan recognized that class struggle had not gone away with the overthrow of the aristocracy but rather had intensified. However, she did not preach violent revolution, as did the revolutionaries before her and Engels after her. Instead, Tristan wished to build on the achievements of the French Revolution. She encouraged the workers to claim their rights which the document, “Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen” established in 1791 (Tristan 108).
In “Worker’s Union”, Tristan saw the bourgeois class as having used the proletariat during the Revolution. She described the bourgeoisie as the head of the Revolution, the proletariat as its arms. Although the proletariat contributed the muscle, the bourgeoisie grabbed all the rights for themselves. In this way, the granting of rights to the proletariat through utopian socialism would be the continuation of what the French Revolution never finished. Tristan further emphasized the incompleteness of the French Revolution when at the end of “Worker’s Union” she made a plea for the equality and unity of all humanity. She ended by saying, “Sons of ’89, that is the work that your fathers have bequeathed to you!” (Tristan 122).
“The Tour of France” repeated many of the same themes. Tristan took the three themes of the Revolution of 1789, and corresponded each to a social concern in 1844: “(1)-Equality-the first right, to work, (2)-liberty-second right, to bread, (3)-fraternity-third right, to education” (Tristan 169).
Utopian socialists of the early nineteenth century gave way to scientific socialists, such as Engels and Marx. In contrast to the romanticism of utopian socialism, scientific socialists were materialists at heart. They rejected religion. Marx went as far as to call religion the opiate of the masses. This was in contrast to the radical religious ideals of the utopian socialists.
The belief of scientific socialists, that the only way to improve conditions for the proletariat would be a violent revolution, reflected the spirit of the radical stage of the French Revolution. The scientific socialists believed that history was progressive. Thus the French Revolution, in which the bourgeois class overthrew the aristocracy, was a necessary stepping stone to the eventual triumph of the proletariat.
Frederick Engels in his book “Socialism: Utopian and Scientific” took a unique view on the French Revolution. He traced the beginnings of the bourgeoisie take over to the Reformation. According to Engels, the development of the bourgeoisie was incompatible with feudalism. Unfortunately, the center of feudalism was the Roman Catholic Church. Therefore, all of the bourgeois struggles against feudalism prior to the French Revolution had to take on a religious disguise. However, it was science that Engels credits as starting the revolution. Since the bourgeoisie needed science for industrial production, they had no choice but to join in its rebellion again the church. Engels shared the view of Tristan, that the peasants helped the revolution but received nothing in return from the victorious bourgeois. Engels also declared that the Revolution was inevitable in order for the bourgeois to claim the fruits that were ripe for picking (Engels 18).
Engels saw the French Revolution as throwing off the religious cloak that had dominated the struggle until then. The bourgeoisie destroyed their opponents this time. The bourgeoisie took the opportunity to break from the past, including religion. Engels pointed out however that they have not been able to remain in control long, the monarch shortly afterwards returning to France. Engels claimed that America is the only nation where the bourgeoisie have been able to stay in control but only because it had no memory of feudalism to return to. The proletariat was ready to take over in both America and the continent (Engels 24-25). Only too late did the bourgeoisie realize the importance of religion. According to Engels, the bourgeoisie use religion to keep the proletariat in check. When the bourgeois rejected religion, they did not realize the ill they were doing to themselves, paving the way for the eventual proletariat revolution (Engels 28).
The ideals of the French Revolution also influenced Engels. The principles of equality, as well as his skepticism of religion, both have precedent in the revolution. Like Tristan, Engels also attributed materialism as a factor in the French Revolution, and was a materialist by his own admission. However, unlike Tristan, Engels regarded the French Revolution with scorn. While Tristan tended to think of the French Revolution as a good idea that did not go far enough, Engels saw it as a set back in the living conditions of the proletariat. “The society based upon reason had faired no better. The antagonism between rich and poor, instead of dissolving into general prosperity, had become intensified by the removal of the charitable institutions of the church” (Engels 34). In this respect, Engels can be seen as similar to Burke, who also maintained that conditions in France were worse as a result of the Revolution.
Instead of seeing the proletarian dominance as a completion of the Revolution, as Tristan did, Engels saw it as the solution of it. The proletarian revolution is a “solution of the contradictions” brought on by the French Revolution (Engels 74).
Although all three of these writers differed from the goals of the French Revolution, and from each other, it nevertheless had an impact on them. The French Republic might not have outlasted Napoleon, but the ideals produced by the Revolution had a tremendous affect on the intellectuals of the nineteenth century. These same ideas produced three very different responses, and yet all three can be traced back to the same event despite their differences with each other. The French Revolution had an impact that outlasted its immediate results.
Grade: A-/ B+
Professor’s Comments: Joel, this is a very fine paper. It is clear, well-organized, and you chose wonderful quotations to illustrate your point. You also integrate lecture material well. You not only suggest connections, you demonstrate them.
My biggest criticism is about language. You write well, but you can write even better. Some of you constructions are too wordy, or better put, not as direct as they could be. What you should do is to begin to edit out those phrases. I made a number of stylistic suggestions, just to give you an idea of what I mean. My purpose is not to be needlessly picky, but to encourage you to think about ways to improve your writing, because you have the ability to become an excellent writer.
Also, in the second half of the course, please contribute more to class discussions. You have good ideas; share them with the rest of us!
Good work.
“The eighteenth century [was], in spite of all the battles won over Frenchmen by Germans and Englishmen, a preeminently French century, even before that crowning French Revolution, the result of which we outsiders, in England as well as in Germany, are still trying to acclimatize” (Engels 12). Engels certainly recognized the impact of the French Revolution, and the fact that it still affected him even in 1892, over a century after the storming of the Bastille. The events of the French Revolution influenced all the major thinkers of the nineteenth century, who freely admitted to the effect it had on them. The last legacy of the French Revolution can be traced from Edmund Burke’s conservatism to socialism, both the utopian of Flora Tristan and the scientific of Frederick Engels.
“Reflections on the French Revolution” by Edmund Burke is interesting because he wrote it in 1790, three years before the start of the Terror. Burke was less than pleased by what he saw in France, and his writing brings this out in full force. A major counter-revolutionary document, Burke’s “Reflection on the French Revolution” was very influential in Europe (Burke Introduction).
Burke was a conservative; he loved tradition. The French Revolution, which sought to completely break from the past, was repulsive to Burke. Burke’s idea of freedom differed from the revolutionaries in that he defined freedom only in order, in which the rights of the individual are subject to the state. Burke also romanticized the role of the aristocracy, and saw it as essential to the state.
Burke’s idea of community has similarities to socialism, which would later appear as a result of the French Revolution. Burke was no Karl Marx, but he did see the responsibility of the rich to care for the poor. Burke was also a strong believer in corporatism.
Despite Burke’s protest however, the revolution in France continued, and the impact it had on the coming generations was noticeable. Socialism, though its goals were in many ways different from that of the revolution, is a product of the French Revolution. It took the principle of equality, which was one of the major emphases of the French Revolution, and expanded it to refer to more than just equality under the law but economic equality as well.
Flora Tristan is an example of a utopian socialist. She wrote about forty years after the French Revolution but she obviously did not consider it an event in the distant past. Flora Tristan was both a citizen of France and a product of the French Revolution. Her mother had been a refugee from the Revolution who could not return to France until 1802 (Beik X). Tristan was proud of the French Revolution, but considered it unfinished. She wished not only to revive the democratic principles that had existed during the revolution, but also to make them international (Beik XX).
Tristan recognized that class struggle had not gone away with the overthrow of the aristocracy but rather had intensified. However, she did not preach violent revolution, as did the revolutionaries before her and Engels after her. Instead, Tristan wished to build on the achievements of the French Revolution. She encouraged the workers to claim their rights which the document, “Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen” established in 1791 (Tristan 108).
In “Worker’s Union”, Tristan saw the bourgeois class as having used the proletariat during the Revolution. She described the bourgeoisie as the head of the Revolution, the proletariat as its arms. Although the proletariat contributed the muscle, the bourgeoisie grabbed all the rights for themselves. In this way, the granting of rights to the proletariat through utopian socialism would be the continuation of what the French Revolution never finished. Tristan further emphasized the incompleteness of the French Revolution when at the end of “Worker’s Union” she made a plea for the equality and unity of all humanity. She ended by saying, “Sons of ’89, that is the work that your fathers have bequeathed to you!” (Tristan 122).
“The Tour of France” repeated many of the same themes. Tristan took the three themes of the Revolution of 1789, and corresponded each to a social concern in 1844: “(1)-Equality-the first right, to work, (2)-liberty-second right, to bread, (3)-fraternity-third right, to education” (Tristan 169).
Utopian socialists of the early nineteenth century gave way to scientific socialists, such as Engels and Marx. In contrast to the romanticism of utopian socialism, scientific socialists were materialists at heart. They rejected religion. Marx went as far as to call religion the opiate of the masses. This was in contrast to the radical religious ideals of the utopian socialists.
The belief of scientific socialists, that the only way to improve conditions for the proletariat would be a violent revolution, reflected the spirit of the radical stage of the French Revolution. The scientific socialists believed that history was progressive. Thus the French Revolution, in which the bourgeois class overthrew the aristocracy, was a necessary stepping stone to the eventual triumph of the proletariat.
Frederick Engels in his book “Socialism: Utopian and Scientific” took a unique view on the French Revolution. He traced the beginnings of the bourgeoisie take over to the Reformation. According to Engels, the development of the bourgeoisie was incompatible with feudalism. Unfortunately, the center of feudalism was the Roman Catholic Church. Therefore, all of the bourgeois struggles against feudalism prior to the French Revolution had to take on a religious disguise. However, it was science that Engels credits as starting the revolution. Since the bourgeoisie needed science for industrial production, they had no choice but to join in its rebellion again the church. Engels shared the view of Tristan, that the peasants helped the revolution but received nothing in return from the victorious bourgeois. Engels also declared that the Revolution was inevitable in order for the bourgeois to claim the fruits that were ripe for picking (Engels 18).
Engels saw the French Revolution as throwing off the religious cloak that had dominated the struggle until then. The bourgeoisie destroyed their opponents this time. The bourgeoisie took the opportunity to break from the past, including religion. Engels pointed out however that they have not been able to remain in control long, the monarch shortly afterwards returning to France. Engels claimed that America is the only nation where the bourgeoisie have been able to stay in control but only because it had no memory of feudalism to return to. The proletariat was ready to take over in both America and the continent (Engels 24-25). Only too late did the bourgeoisie realize the importance of religion. According to Engels, the bourgeoisie use religion to keep the proletariat in check. When the bourgeois rejected religion, they did not realize the ill they were doing to themselves, paving the way for the eventual proletariat revolution (Engels 28).
The ideals of the French Revolution also influenced Engels. The principles of equality, as well as his skepticism of religion, both have precedent in the revolution. Like Tristan, Engels also attributed materialism as a factor in the French Revolution, and was a materialist by his own admission. However, unlike Tristan, Engels regarded the French Revolution with scorn. While Tristan tended to think of the French Revolution as a good idea that did not go far enough, Engels saw it as a set back in the living conditions of the proletariat. “The society based upon reason had faired no better. The antagonism between rich and poor, instead of dissolving into general prosperity, had become intensified by the removal of the charitable institutions of the church” (Engels 34). In this respect, Engels can be seen as similar to Burke, who also maintained that conditions in France were worse as a result of the Revolution.
Instead of seeing the proletarian dominance as a completion of the Revolution, as Tristan did, Engels saw it as the solution of it. The proletarian revolution is a “solution of the contradictions” brought on by the French Revolution (Engels 74).
Although all three of these writers differed from the goals of the French Revolution, and from each other, it nevertheless had an impact on them. The French Republic might not have outlasted Napoleon, but the ideals produced by the Revolution had a tremendous affect on the intellectuals of the nineteenth century. These same ideas produced three very different responses, and yet all three can be traced back to the same event despite their differences with each other. The French Revolution had an impact that outlasted its immediate results.
Grade: A-/ B+
Professor’s Comments: Joel, this is a very fine paper. It is clear, well-organized, and you chose wonderful quotations to illustrate your point. You also integrate lecture material well. You not only suggest connections, you demonstrate them.
My biggest criticism is about language. You write well, but you can write even better. Some of you constructions are too wordy, or better put, not as direct as they could be. What you should do is to begin to edit out those phrases. I made a number of stylistic suggestions, just to give you an idea of what I mean. My purpose is not to be needlessly picky, but to encourage you to think about ways to improve your writing, because you have the ability to become an excellent writer.
Also, in the second half of the course, please contribute more to class discussions. You have good ideas; share them with the rest of us!
Good work.
Friday, December 23, 2005
Anti-Semitism in the New Testament
January 15, 1999
The history of Christian treatment of Jews has hardly been laudable, and Christians are repeatedly embarrassed by it. While there are several causes for this treatment, much of Christian Anti-Judaism is a result of scripture that appears to condone it. Is the New Testament itself anti-Semitic, or is this merely a result of faulty interpretation?
The accusation of anti-Semitism in the New Testament at first seems absurd. Of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament, only two are written by a Gentile writer, according to Church tradition (Luke and Acts are attributed to Luke, a Gentile companion of Paul). This means that all the other books are written by Jews, including the Letters of Paul and the Gospel of John. Both of these works have been particularly attacked for anti-Semitism, but unless Paul and John both had an abnormal case of self-hatred, a Jewish anti-Semite is probably as rare as a Calvin student who cheers for Hope’s basketball team.
However, if we grant that many of the books of the Bible were not written by their traditional authors, but rather later ascribed to these authors in order to give the books more authority (and there is good evidence for this), then things become a lot more interesting. We may consider, as many scholars do, that 2 Thessalonians, Ephesians, and 1 and 2 Timothy were not written by Paul, but by followers in his name (Rousmaniere 12). Similarly, the Gospel of John was not written by the Jewish apostle, but by later Christians as if John had written it. If we consider this possibility, the charges of anti-Semitism have more validity. As Michael Cook argues, “The further we recede into earliest Christianity-approaching the time frame of the historical Jesus-the more evident it becomes that intense expressions of anti-Judaism in the gospels are a function, not of Jesus’ ministry, but rather of the later church” (Cook 37).
So what does the modern Christian do with passages like John 8:44? “You [the Jews] are of you father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning.” Or Thessalonians 2:14-16? “You suffered from your own countrymen the same things those churches suffered from the Jews, who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out. They displease God and are hostile to all men in their efforts to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. In this way they always heap on their sins to the limit. The wrath of God has come upon them at last.”
John Rousmaniere describes the dilemma eloquently. “If Christians today accept its [scripture’s] apparent reasoning, they, like many before them…can only conclude that Jews are enemies. But if they reject it out of hand, they may be compromising our scriptural heritage” (Rousmaniere 5). Perhaps another solution would be to examine the apparent anti-Semitic Biblical passages and decide if they are genuinely anti-Semitic, or simply just taken out of context. This can be done by looking at the Gospel of John, the death of Jesus, the attacks made on the Pharisses, and the reaffirmation of Jews contained in the New Testament.
More than any other Gospel, John is accused of being anti-Semitic. “The main source of the idea that the Jews killed Jesus is John’s gospel, which is also the most influential passion account. It is the one usually read and sung on Good Friday, the day when Christians are most sensitive to the narrative” (Rousmaniere 21). Whereas the other gospels distinguish between which groups sought the death of Jesus (the Pharisees, the Sanhedrin, et cetera), John makes no distinction, referring to Jesus’ enemies as simply “The Jews”. John’s wording is unfortunate; however a Christian should read John in light of the other Gospels. Doing so, a careful reader will notice that John is not offering a blanket condemnation of all Jews, but rather particular groups, which are mentioned by name in the other Gospels.
Secondly, much of what is found in John (and for that matter the Pauline Epistles) that appears to attack Jews are not directed against the Jews as a people, but rather against unbelievers. The Jews are the example at hand, but the anger of Jesus is not against them because they are Jews, but because of the stubbornness exhibited against him.
The Jews are also blamed for the death of Jesus. In all four Gospel accounts, the Roman governor Pilate is seen as someone who wants to help Jesus, and the Jews as pushing for his death. In Mark, the encounter between Jesus and Pilate is very brief, while in John, Pilate argues against the crowd for Jesus’ life, and engages in philosophical conversations with Jesus: “‘Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.’ ‘What is truth?’ Pilate asked” (Jn 18: 37-38). In Matthew, the famous blood curse is found. “He [Pilate] took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. ‘I am innocent of this man’s blood’ he said. “It is your responsibility!’ All the people answered, ‘Let his blood be on us and on our children!’” (Mt 27: 24-25).
Much of the perceptions of anti-Semitism hinge on the accuracy of this account. If the Gospel writer’s were actively changing the truth to give the Jews a more sinister appearance, then this would be anti-Semitism. However if they were merely faithfully recording events as they actually happened (as Christians believe) then it is more difficult to make the accusation.
It is, however, the responsibility of the reader to realize that in either case the Gospels are only talking about a select group of Jews, not all Jews. As Rousmaniere puts it, “while a few Jews had some responsibility for the death of Jesus, not all Jews had all responsibility. To hold all Jews-then and since-responsible would be the equivalent of holding all men named Peter responsible for the apostle’s denial of Jesus in the courtyard” (Rousmaniere 22). Furthermore, the Gospels also record many Jews sympathetic to Jesus. His disciples are one example, and Luke presents a Pharisee who tries to warn Jesus about the plot against his life.
Pharisees are continually presented as opponents of Jesus throughout the Bible. “The scriptures often portray the Pharisees and scribes as foils for Jesus’ teaching” (Rousmaniere 10). Some of Jesus’ harshest denunciations are directed against the Pharisees. “Woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to Hell?” (Mt 23:29, 33). This has later been interpreted by many Christians as a condemnation of Judaism, but Jesus himself identified the closest with the Pharisees out of all the other sects of Judiasm at the time. Therefore, what was in reality a family argument has been misinterpreted by later Christians.
Finally, there are many statements in the New Testament which affirm the Jews and the Law of Moses. “At no point in the Church, not even in Paul who coined the phrase, ‘Christ is the end of the Law’, is there a radical rejection of the traditional law of Judaism but rather the recognition of its fulfillment in the ‘law of love’ and in the words of Jesus” (Davies as quoted by Rousmaniere 14). Jesus and Paul both stressed that the Law of Moses was not dead but completed.
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have come to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 5: 17-19).
Paul writes that “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). This is far from an invitation to anti-Semitism, but imploring Christians to treat Jews as equals.
Although the New Testament may at first appear to be anti-Semitic, it does not need to be interpreted this way. It is tragic that Christians in the past have used scripture as a justification for hatred rather than “love thy neighbor”, however this does not mean that scripture itself is at fault. The New Testament is far from an example of anti-Semitism.
Bibliography
In-Class Discussion
Religion 103
Bible
Rousmaniere, John. A Bridge to Dialogue. Paulist Press. New York. 1971.
Fisher, Eugene. Interwoven Destinies. Paulist Press. New York. 1993.
Grade: A-
Professor’s Comments: Very good paper with a clear and convincing argument.
Your first paragraph still sounds a bit “wooden”, and not as fluent as the rest. Probably, because of the many prepositional phrases used here. Otherwise, style is fluent and eloquent.
You could also have pointed out that for Paul “Jew” and “Gentile” often means “Judeo-Christian” and “Christian from gentile background”, thus leaving Judaism almost entirely out of the picture…
Very good paper.
The history of Christian treatment of Jews has hardly been laudable, and Christians are repeatedly embarrassed by it. While there are several causes for this treatment, much of Christian Anti-Judaism is a result of scripture that appears to condone it. Is the New Testament itself anti-Semitic, or is this merely a result of faulty interpretation?
The accusation of anti-Semitism in the New Testament at first seems absurd. Of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament, only two are written by a Gentile writer, according to Church tradition (Luke and Acts are attributed to Luke, a Gentile companion of Paul). This means that all the other books are written by Jews, including the Letters of Paul and the Gospel of John. Both of these works have been particularly attacked for anti-Semitism, but unless Paul and John both had an abnormal case of self-hatred, a Jewish anti-Semite is probably as rare as a Calvin student who cheers for Hope’s basketball team.
However, if we grant that many of the books of the Bible were not written by their traditional authors, but rather later ascribed to these authors in order to give the books more authority (and there is good evidence for this), then things become a lot more interesting. We may consider, as many scholars do, that 2 Thessalonians, Ephesians, and 1 and 2 Timothy were not written by Paul, but by followers in his name (Rousmaniere 12). Similarly, the Gospel of John was not written by the Jewish apostle, but by later Christians as if John had written it. If we consider this possibility, the charges of anti-Semitism have more validity. As Michael Cook argues, “The further we recede into earliest Christianity-approaching the time frame of the historical Jesus-the more evident it becomes that intense expressions of anti-Judaism in the gospels are a function, not of Jesus’ ministry, but rather of the later church” (Cook 37).
So what does the modern Christian do with passages like John 8:44? “You [the Jews] are of you father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning.” Or Thessalonians 2:14-16? “You suffered from your own countrymen the same things those churches suffered from the Jews, who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out. They displease God and are hostile to all men in their efforts to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. In this way they always heap on their sins to the limit. The wrath of God has come upon them at last.”
John Rousmaniere describes the dilemma eloquently. “If Christians today accept its [scripture’s] apparent reasoning, they, like many before them…can only conclude that Jews are enemies. But if they reject it out of hand, they may be compromising our scriptural heritage” (Rousmaniere 5). Perhaps another solution would be to examine the apparent anti-Semitic Biblical passages and decide if they are genuinely anti-Semitic, or simply just taken out of context. This can be done by looking at the Gospel of John, the death of Jesus, the attacks made on the Pharisses, and the reaffirmation of Jews contained in the New Testament.
More than any other Gospel, John is accused of being anti-Semitic. “The main source of the idea that the Jews killed Jesus is John’s gospel, which is also the most influential passion account. It is the one usually read and sung on Good Friday, the day when Christians are most sensitive to the narrative” (Rousmaniere 21). Whereas the other gospels distinguish between which groups sought the death of Jesus (the Pharisees, the Sanhedrin, et cetera), John makes no distinction, referring to Jesus’ enemies as simply “The Jews”. John’s wording is unfortunate; however a Christian should read John in light of the other Gospels. Doing so, a careful reader will notice that John is not offering a blanket condemnation of all Jews, but rather particular groups, which are mentioned by name in the other Gospels.
Secondly, much of what is found in John (and for that matter the Pauline Epistles) that appears to attack Jews are not directed against the Jews as a people, but rather against unbelievers. The Jews are the example at hand, but the anger of Jesus is not against them because they are Jews, but because of the stubbornness exhibited against him.
The Jews are also blamed for the death of Jesus. In all four Gospel accounts, the Roman governor Pilate is seen as someone who wants to help Jesus, and the Jews as pushing for his death. In Mark, the encounter between Jesus and Pilate is very brief, while in John, Pilate argues against the crowd for Jesus’ life, and engages in philosophical conversations with Jesus: “‘Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.’ ‘What is truth?’ Pilate asked” (Jn 18: 37-38). In Matthew, the famous blood curse is found. “He [Pilate] took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. ‘I am innocent of this man’s blood’ he said. “It is your responsibility!’ All the people answered, ‘Let his blood be on us and on our children!’” (Mt 27: 24-25).
Much of the perceptions of anti-Semitism hinge on the accuracy of this account. If the Gospel writer’s were actively changing the truth to give the Jews a more sinister appearance, then this would be anti-Semitism. However if they were merely faithfully recording events as they actually happened (as Christians believe) then it is more difficult to make the accusation.
It is, however, the responsibility of the reader to realize that in either case the Gospels are only talking about a select group of Jews, not all Jews. As Rousmaniere puts it, “while a few Jews had some responsibility for the death of Jesus, not all Jews had all responsibility. To hold all Jews-then and since-responsible would be the equivalent of holding all men named Peter responsible for the apostle’s denial of Jesus in the courtyard” (Rousmaniere 22). Furthermore, the Gospels also record many Jews sympathetic to Jesus. His disciples are one example, and Luke presents a Pharisee who tries to warn Jesus about the plot against his life.
Pharisees are continually presented as opponents of Jesus throughout the Bible. “The scriptures often portray the Pharisees and scribes as foils for Jesus’ teaching” (Rousmaniere 10). Some of Jesus’ harshest denunciations are directed against the Pharisees. “Woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to Hell?” (Mt 23:29, 33). This has later been interpreted by many Christians as a condemnation of Judaism, but Jesus himself identified the closest with the Pharisees out of all the other sects of Judiasm at the time. Therefore, what was in reality a family argument has been misinterpreted by later Christians.
Finally, there are many statements in the New Testament which affirm the Jews and the Law of Moses. “At no point in the Church, not even in Paul who coined the phrase, ‘Christ is the end of the Law’, is there a radical rejection of the traditional law of Judaism but rather the recognition of its fulfillment in the ‘law of love’ and in the words of Jesus” (Davies as quoted by Rousmaniere 14). Jesus and Paul both stressed that the Law of Moses was not dead but completed.
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have come to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 5: 17-19).
Paul writes that “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). This is far from an invitation to anti-Semitism, but imploring Christians to treat Jews as equals.
Although the New Testament may at first appear to be anti-Semitic, it does not need to be interpreted this way. It is tragic that Christians in the past have used scripture as a justification for hatred rather than “love thy neighbor”, however this does not mean that scripture itself is at fault. The New Testament is far from an example of anti-Semitism.
Bibliography
In-Class Discussion
Religion 103
Bible
Rousmaniere, John. A Bridge to Dialogue. Paulist Press. New York. 1971.
Fisher, Eugene. Interwoven Destinies. Paulist Press. New York. 1993.
Grade: A-
Professor’s Comments: Very good paper with a clear and convincing argument.
Your first paragraph still sounds a bit “wooden”, and not as fluent as the rest. Probably, because of the many prepositional phrases used here. Otherwise, style is fluent and eloquent.
You could also have pointed out that for Paul “Jew” and “Gentile” often means “Judeo-Christian” and “Christian from gentile background”, thus leaving Judaism almost entirely out of the picture…
Very good paper.
Sunday, December 11, 2005
Religion in the Roman Republic
Introduction
“To adhere to the customs of the ancestors, the state religion was for the Romans a matter of simple patriotism,” (Boren 1965: 34). In this modern age where the separation of church and state is continually emphasized, it is easy to forget that things were not always so. In ancient Rome, religion and the state were not only combined, they defined each other. In ancient Rome, religion was inseparable from the state.
“When you command great numbers of men, you find the emotional forces bottled up in them very strong,” (Field Marshal Lord Montgomery in Grant 1960: 154). The Romans realized that they had to guide the emotions of their subjects into patriotic channels. In ancient Rome, “patriotism and state religion [were] indistinguishable,” (Grant 1960: 154).
Religion decided whether the Romans would declare war or have peace. Religion decided when generals fought, and when they retreated. Religion decided whether the decisions of the Senate would stand, or be declared void. Religion was behind the founding legends or Ancient Rome. Religion was a vital part of Rome’s history, as can be shown by looking at its origin, its prominence in the Roman political scene, and its decline.
Origins
The legends about the founding of Rome were developed to establish the state religion. By the time of Augustus, these legends were firmly established, aided by the works of Livius and Vergilius (Gruen 1992: 6). How much of these traditions were believed, if they were believed at all, during the early republic? This is somewhat a matter of speculation, but we do know a little. Livius himself admits that the origin of Rome is uncertain, but asserts that if any city deserved to have a miraculous origin, Rome did (Stobart 1961: 15).
If the Romans were to believe that the service of the gods was so intricately connected with the welfare of Rome, it was necessary to establish a history of the relationship of the gods with the city of Rome, as well as create an explanation for the dependence of Rome on the gods. The legend of Aeneas, who was directed by the gods to settle in Italy in anticipation of the future founding of Rome, was created to do just that. Likewise the story of the legendary twins Romulus and Remus, who were descended from the god Mars and founded the city of Rome, also explained Rome’s religious situation.
The connection of the founding of Rome with the Trojan War, about which Vergilius wrote his Aenied, had been established by the third Century B.C., and so was not questioned in any history written after this period. Although there were several different versions of this story, such as Odysseus founding the city of Rome instead of Aeneas, or the two enemies reconciling at the founding of the city. These many different versions were due to the mind set of the Roman writer. A Roman writer would not find any virtue in simply rewriting what someone else has already written, but any Roman writing about the foundation of the city would make his additions to the legend (Gruen 1992: 31).
It is likely that the story of Romulus and Remus started out as a separate legend, and was later synchronized with the story of Aeneas (Amory and Hammond 1967: 9). We know that the story existed at least as early as 286 B.C., since a coin that was dated to that year was found with a wolf suckling two infants (Stobart 1961: 15). The famous bronze statue of the Capitoline Wolfe, which is much older, may or may not be evidence of the legend existing in the early Roman Republic. The two children nursing from the wolf were added later (Stobart 1961: 16).
From these legends we know that the Romans considered Rome to be a sacred city, and that it had the blessings of the gods. It also shows that the Romans believed serving the gods and serving Rome to be one and the same.
According to tradition Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome, established the practice of formal religion as it continued throughout the Republic. How much truth there is to this we can’t say with any certainty, but scholars now recognize that it is unlikely the seven kings of Rome are purely fictional (Stobart 1961: 16). The Latin language indicates the Romans were at one time very familiar with kings (Stobart 1961: 17).
The last kings of Rome, the Tarquins, although portrayed as typical Greek tyrants by Roman historians, have a name that is Etruscan. This implies that there was Etruscan domination at the end of the regal period. There is other evidence for this. The buildings built during this period in Rome were on a scale not equaled for centuries afterwards. There are reluctant admissions to Etruscan domination in Roman literature, and some Roman rituals and ornaments indicate that the Etruscans once held supreme authority (Stobart 1961: 17).
Since it is known that the Etruscans were heading South towards Campania at the end of the Seventh century, it is likely that they would have made an effort to secure the passage of the Tiber at Rome, which lay directly in their route. From all this evidence, it can safely be concluded that Rome was ruled by Etruscan princes around the end of the fifth century, but that Etruscans were never present in Rome in large numbers (Stobart 1961: 17).
So if the Etruscans influenced Roman culture and religion, what were the Etruscans like? Their origin is unknown, but they appear to have little culture of their own. At first they imitated the Phoenicians, but then, after the Greeks achieved domination, the Etruscans took on Greek culture. They even went so far as to hire Greek craftsman to ensure that their cities would resemble those of the Greeks (Stobart 1961: 20).
The most important thing the Etruscans did for Rome was to erect a temple to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva on the Capital hill. This gave the fledgling city of Rome a feeling of unity. It also established the three gods in Roman Religion. The Etruscans were also probably responsible for introducing the concept of anthropomorphic deities to the Romans, as well as the practice of augury. Etruscans artists painted Terrocotta ornaments for the new Capitoline Temple, and the Etruscans also made the famous Capitoline statue of Jupiter (Stobart 1961: 20).
Ius Divinum
Since the Romans believed the foundation of their empire was preordained by the gods, it is only natural that religion would play an important part in their government. All parts of the Roman law covering religion were referred to generally as the ius divinum, or sacred law. As mentioned above, tradition credits Numa Pompilius with establishing most of it. Before we delve into the history of the Republic, it is worth commenting on the accuracy of the ancient sources. No contemporary writer of the early or middle Republic has survived. Most of the knowledge we have about this period comes from Livius, and other writers of the first century or later. The lateness is enough in itself to doubt the accuracy of these histories. It has also been suggested that the great Roman families of the late republic exaggerated, or possibly made up, the deeds of their ancestors. Also, many ancient historians looked for precedents to their own times in the past, and if the precedents were not there, they added them (Stobart 1961: 21).
There is a good reason to believe much of these ancient sources, however. Livius and the others based their history on the Annales Maximi (discussed below) which were published in 125 B.C. by the Pontifex Maximus Mucius Scaevola (Stobart 1961: 21).
A good example of religion acting side by side with the state is the twelve tables. The twelve tables were essentially putting into law the existing Roman customs, and was done at the request of the Plebeians to take power away from the Patricians. According to tradition, the tables were formed in 545 B.C.. Although they were destroyed by the Gauls in 390 B.C., much of it has survived in the form of quotations by other ancient writers (Lewis and Reinhold 1951: 102).
Each of the twelve tables deals with a different part of the law. Table X deals with the Sacred law. Most of the laws in Table X deal with funerals, and many of them are designed to prevent excess, such as the law that a many may not have more than one funeral, or the law that there is no costly sprinkling at funerals. There is also a law that no man should be buried within the boundaries of Rome (Lewis and Reinhold 1951: 108-109).
The majority of the ius divinum, however, dealt with the various religious officials under it. Although the ancient Romans had several offices that were purely religious, in theory even the most secular office was supposed to be a religious one. The Lex Sacratae made all officials of the Republic sacred. Because of the obvious abuses such a law lends itself to, it was later modified to mean that officials were sacred in the sense they were under the protection of the gods, and any attempt to do physical harm to them would be met with retribution by the Roman government on behalf of the gods (Peck 1966: 1299).
The Censors are a good example of an office that had both secular and religious duties. They were arguable the most powerful office in the whole Republic because of the religious power behind them (Stobart 1961: 29). The office of Censors was formed in 443 B.C.. Among other things, it was their duty to maintain an official list of the citizens, to maintain public morals, and to supervise the leasing of public areas and buildings. At first, the Censors could only be Patricians. In 351 B.C., the office was open to Plebeians. The Leges Publilae, passed in 339 B.C., dictated that at least one Censor must be a Plebeian. The Censors achieved their greatest power in 312 B.C., when they were given the power to keep Senatorial rolls, and expell any Senators who acted against public morality, a duty formally held by the Consuls (Hammond & Scullard 1970: 178).
The Censors had the power to change the status of any man, no matter what class of citizenship the man belonged to. Men were demoted in status for offenses, such as disregarding religious or traditional values. Aulus Gellius notes some interesting cases of punishment dealt out by the Censors. If land had gone unattended, the owner was to be reduced to the lowest class of citizenship. If a knight did not take good care of his horse, the same would happen. Aulus Gellius even cites a case where the Censors were trying a man for yawning in court, because it indicated his mind had been wandering. The man was only able to escape punishment by swearing that the yawn had come over him despite his resistance (Lewis & Reinhold 1951: 113-114).
The most important duty of the Censors was the religious purification of both the people and the priests, known as the lustum. This occurred at first every four years, but was changed in 209 B.C. to every five years.
The Romans had many varieties of priests, and it was the responsibility of the Censors to put the priests into different colleges. Of these, the Romans had four important colleges, the Decimviris, the College of Augurs, the College of Fetials, and the College of Pontiffs.
The college of Decimviris was one of the most influential colleges. Decimviris is Latin for board of ten, although the name changed when they were increased to fifteen in Sulla’s time. It was this group that was responsible for Sibylline books.
In the fifth century B.C., the practice was developed of consulting the oracle of Sibyl at Cumae, which was a Greek city in Campania. The words of the Sibyl were written down and collected, in Greek, into the Sibylline books, and entrusted to the decimviris. In times of crisis, they would consult the Sibylline books, usually with the result of ordering the introduction of a new Greek god or a Greek religious site. In doing so, they were responsible for the Hellinization of the Roman State Religion. The last innovation they made was in 205 B.C., the introduction of the goddess Magna Mater from Pessinus in Aisa Minor (Lewis & Reinhold 1951: 140).
The temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus was destroyed by fire in 83 B.C., and the Sibylline books were lost with it. A search was conducted over the whole Roman Empire for any prophecies that had survived. These prophecies were copied and sent back to Rome. In this way the Sibylline books were reconstructed, although the Romans themselves wondered if all of the prophecies had been recovered, or if some fake prophecies had made there way into the new books (Dionysius of Halicarnassus in Lewis and Reinhold 1951: 141).
The college of Augurs also had great political power, for they were responsible for the auspices. The auspices were taken before every important act of state, and if they were found to be unfavorable, business for that day was stopped. The Senate would not meet, nor would the army commander lead his troops into battle. It is for this reason that Cicero claimed the College of Augurs were the most powerful group in the Roman Empire.
The augurs, however, did not actually take the auspices. That privilege was reserved for a Roman official possessing imperium. The augurs were responsible for the preperation, and interpretation of the auspices, however, a task much more important (Lewis and Reinhold 1951: 132-134).
At first, Auspices concerned only the flights of birds, but it was expanded to include other methods. Festus writes, "The augurs observe five types of signs: from lightening, from birds, from the feeding of sacred chickens, from four footed animals, and from portents (Festus in Lewis & Reinhold 1951: 132). Augurs used a secret mehtod to interpret the auspices, one that was taught to the other Augurs, but never written down.
In a speech after his exile, Cicero gives numerous examples of the importances of following the auspices. When Flaminus was preparing to fight Hannibal, an augur reminded him to take the auspices. Flaminus fed the sacred chickens, but they would not eat. The augur warned him not to go into battle. Flaminus replied, "Find auspices indeed if we may only fight when the chickens are hungry, but must do nothing if they are full" (Flaminus as quoted by Cicero in Boren 1965: 134). Flaminus suffered a terrible defeat and was killed. In another example, Publius Claudius, commander of a fleet in the first Punic War, ordered the sacred chickens thrown overboard when they refused to eat, saying "let them drink, since they will not eat," (Claudius as quoted in Lucilius as qouted by Cicero in Boren 1965: 135). As a result, his colleague Junius lost his entire fleet in a storm, and Claudius was condemned by the Roman people.
The fetials were the third college, in charge of war and peace. The ancient college of twenty members was responsible for international relations, and "functioned especially in rituals attending the declaration of war, conclusion of treaties, protection of foreign ambassadors at Rome, and extradition (Lewis and Reinhold 1951: 136).
It was the duty of the Fetials to make sure that Rome did not enter into an unjust war against a country in alliance with them. If another country violated the treaty first, then the fetials functioned as ambassadors. One fetial, who was chosen by his colleagues, put on a sacred robe and insignia, and went into the city when had done Rome wrong. Stopping at the boarder, he took an oath to the gods asking that if what the city was accused of was true. If it was not true, the fetial asked the gods to punish Rome for making a false accusation. Entering the city, the fetial would repeat the oath in the presence of the first person he came across. After going through several other rituals, the fetial made his demands to the city. The city was given ten days to consider it, after which the fetial made his demands another time. After thirty days, the fetial returned home and informed the Senators that if they wished to vote for war, the gods had no problem with it. If the Senate decided to declare war, the fetials went through another ceremony, in which the gods were again called to witness Rome's actions. War was officially declared when a fetial throw a spear across the boarder. The fetials were also responsible for the ceremony of a peace treaty, and again the gods were called as witnesses. If peace was made by generals, without consulting the fetials, it was invalid and the fetials would investigate it. Once peace was made it was the duty of the fetials to make sure Rome kept her end of the bargain (Hammond & Scullard 1970: 360).
A group subordinate to the Fetials were the Sodales. These priests were allowed to act only as one unified body, not allowing for individual opinions. They were concerned with annual rites. Particularly active among the Sodales were a group called the Saliens, the priests of Mars. They were active in March and October, the opening and closing of campaining season.
The head of all the other colleges and all other religious functions was the college of Pontiffs. The word Pontifex means bridge builder, and it was presumed by the later Romans that this originated from the duty of the pontiffs to build bridges. The pontiffs were responsible for the presentation and the interpretation of the ius divinum, as well as being Rome's earliest jurist, powerful in civil as well as criminal law. The college started out with three pontiffs, then was consequently increased to six, nine, fifteen, and at last to sixteen by Julius Caesar. The Lex Ogulnia passed in 300 B.C. dictated that at least half the number of pontiffs must be plebeians (Hammond & Scullard 1970: 860).
The Pontiffs were the judges of all religious cases, whether private citizens, magistrates, or priests were involved. They made laws for the observance of any religious rite, they investigated the conduct of any magistrate who performed any religious duty, and they took care that all they employed in religious functions committed no errors. They were not liable to persecution or punishment, nor were they accountable to the Senate or the people in religious matters (Dionysius of Halicarnus in Lewis & Reinhold 1951: 131-132).
The head of the Pontiff college, and the Roman religion, was the Pontifex Maximus. Until 212 B.C., the Pontifex Maximus was chosen by the other pontiffs. After 212 B.C., the people voted for the Pontifex Maximus, although interestingly not by a majority. Of Rome's thirty five tribes, seventeen were chosen by a lot to vote for the Pontifex Maximus (Hammond & Scullard 1970: 860).
In addition to a general supervision of the state religion, the Pontifex Maximus was also responsible for keeping the records of the state, the Annales Maximi. The Pontifex Maximus was also in charge of the calender, and decided on which days state business could be performed (dies factis). The Pontifex Maximus was responsible for making sure the lunar calender corresponded with the solar year. To do this, an intercalary month was added every two years. When Julius Caesar was Pontifex Maximus, he got ride of the intercalary month by increasing the year to three hundred sixty five days, and establishing the leap year (Boren 1965: 20).
Besides these four main colleges, there were several other colleges as well. The Collegia Compitluia was concerned with the worship of the Lares at the Compita. The Collegium Capitolinorum was responsible for the ludi Capitolini (the Capitoline games). The Collegium Mercatorm presided over the temple of Mercury. There were many other minor colleges as well (Hammond & Scullard 1970: 264).
King Numa is credited with establishing all of the colleges. At first, the priests in the college were appointed by a king. Then, once the Republic began, when ever there was a vacancy in one of the colleges, the existing members would decide who would fill it. After the Lex Domitia was passed, the people themselves would vote on who is included in the colleges (Peck 1996: 1299).
The Vestal Virgins, who were under the direct authority of the Pontifex Maximus, were originally four in number, but increased to six because of the great amount of tasks they had to perform. They lived in the temple of the goddess Vesta, which all could enter in the daytime, but no man could enter during the night. It is very important that all the Vestals remained virgins for the thirty years they were in the service of the state, although they could marry after this time. The duties of the Vestal Virgins included offering sacrifices, keeping the wills of Roman citizens, and most importantly, tending the sacred flame of Vesta. During the first ten years, The Vestals learned their function. During the second ten years, they performed them, and during the final ten years, they taught others.
The Romans dreaded the extinction of the sacred fire, for it meant that the destruction of Rome was imminent. If the fire went out, it was immediately re-introduced with many added rituals. The extinction of the fire was also an indication that one of the Vestals was no longer a virgin. The violated Vestal was ceremoniously carried to the Coline Gate, and buried alive. Her male partner was flogged to death (Dionysius of Halicarnus in Lewis & Reinhold 1951: 135).
A girl chosen to be a Vestal Virgin must be between six and ten. Both her father and mother must be living. She must be neither hearing impaired, nor with any mark or defect. Neither of her parents could be slaves, or have demeaning occupations. When the girl was brought to the house of Vesta, she passes from her father's control to the control of the Pontifex Maximus, and acquires the right to make a will (Aulus Gellius in Lewis & Reinhold 1951: 136).
The specialized priests of individual gods were known as flamens, whose main function was to make sacrifices to their individual god. There are fifteen flamens in all, three flamines maiores, and twelve flamines minores. Of the twelves flamines minores, we know the names of six: Volturnalis, Palatualis, Furinalis, Floralis, Falacer, and Pomonalis. Of the three flamines maiores, the flamens of Jupiter, Mars and Quirinus, the flamen of Jupiter, or the Flamen Dialis, was the most important. There were numerous restrictions on the Flamen Dialis, among them he was not allowed to see the Roman citizens assembled in an army. Since he could not have a military career, or battle experience, the Flamen Dialis rarely was able to achieve the rank of Consul. The Flamen Dialis was also forbidden to take an oath, wear a ring, take fire from his home, have a slave cut his hair, go outside without a cap, or touch a she-goat, raw flesh, ivy or beans. The Flamen Dialis must be clothed at all times. If he changes his clothes he must do it under covers, so that he is never naked before Jupiter (Aulus Gellius as quoted in Lewis & Reinhold 1951: 134).
At state dinners, the Flamen Dialis had the second highest place at the table. The only one above him was the Rex Sacrificulus. When Rome was ruled by kings, the kings performed most of the religious taks. After the kings were expelled, the Rex Sacrificulus was created. The Rex Sacrificulus took on the sacral functions of the king. It is speculated by some that the Rex Sacrificulus was once the supreme authority in religious matters, and that the Pontifex Maximus was created to take power away from the Rex Sacrificulus by anti-monarchal Romans (McCullough 1996: 679). Called Rex for short, although he was subordinate to the Pontifex Maximus, he was still above all the Flamens. His wife, called Regina, also had certain ceremonial duties. The Rex must be a Patrician, he was chosen for life, and he could hold no other posts.
Decline
Saying that in the Roman Republic, religion and the state were inseperable is a novel idea to the modern American, but it was not unique to the time. What was unique about the Roman Republic was that the responsibility of the Roman citizen was non-existent. All the religious duties were taken care of by state officials (Boren 1965: 36). This ultimately resulted in many Romans searching elsewhere for spiritual fulfillment. Caesar was elected as Pontifex Maximus over serveral other respectable men in spiute of the fact that his private lifestyle was well-known to be lacking morals. Caesar had little interest in religious activities, but desired both the respect and the position carried with it, and needed the security (his enemies wouldn't dare kill the Pontifex Maximus) (Cowell 1964: 237).
"Religion at Rome was less a set of beliefs than a set of practices," (Boren 1965: 132). Even when many Romans no longer bought into it, or were apathetic about the state religion, it was fiercely protected. "The Romans were never a really religious people, they lacked the imagination to be devout," but they were "ritualists and formalists to the heart's core," (Stobart 1961: 33).
The influence of religion declined towards the end of the Republic. The introduction of cynicism in the second century B.C., as well as Greek learning, produced a great amount of skepticism in Rome towards the old ways. The changing population in the Roman empire introduced many new religions and offered an alternative to disenchanted Romans (Gruen 1992: 132). Yet even with all this enlightened thought, Cicero, who was a "cultivated, philosophic and common sense man of the world," spend days in January of 56 B.C. studying the Sibylline books with other Senators to see if there was a quoatation that would prevent a Roman army from entering Egypt (Cowell 1964: 186).
At the end of the Republic, religion als became a political tool between the two parties: the optimates and the populares. One example among many is in 59 B.C., when Bibulus, an optimate, tried to stop the land reforms of Julius Caesar by finding a prophecy in the Sibylline books which indicated an omen of great importance would appear. Bibulus demanded that all business be stopped so he could watch the sky in search of the sign. Caesar foiled him by calling for a vote in the Senate, and the vote was against Bibulus (Cowel 1964: 348).
Perhaps the feeling of the time is best summed up by Cowell's statement. "Although Cicero and the men of his age had no real faith in the traditional religious beliefs of the Roman people, they had by no means proceeded to complete atheism or a clear affirmation that there were no gods (Cowell 1964: 384).
Conclusion
The Romans believed that the city of Rome was predestined by the gods, and that by serving Rome, they were serving the gods. This belief was advantageous to the government of Rome, and allowed them to keep the citizens submissive and obediant. Religion played a large part in the Roman government, as well as the history of Rome. The large amount of religious officials shows the importance the Romans placed on religion.
Bibiliography
Boren, Henry
1965 The Roman Republic. Princeton; Van Notrand Company
Cowell, F.R.
1964 Cicero and the Roman Republic. Baltimore: Penguin Company
Grant Michael
1960 The World of Rome. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson
Gruen, Erich
1992 Culture and National Identity in Republican Rome. Ithica: Cornell University Press
Hammond, Mason and Anne Amory
1967 Aeneas to Augustus. Cambridge: Harvard University Press
Hammond & Scullard
1970 The Oxford Classical Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon
McCartney, Paul
1969 Teenage Wonder. Liverpool: Beatles Press
McCullough, Colleen
1996 Caesar's Women. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc.
Peck, Thurston
1996 Harpers Dictionary of Classical Literature and Antiquities. New York: American Book Company
Reinhold, Meyer and Naphtali Lewis
1951 Roman Civilizations. New York: Columbia University
Scullard, H.H.
1951 Roman Politics. Oxford: Clarendon Press
Stobart, J.C.
1961 The Grandeur that was Rome. London: Sidgwick and Jackson
Professors's Comments
This paper is certainly a thorough treatment of Roman religion and its inherent role in the politics of the Republic. I will certainly be consulting it when I teach the Roman Republic in Hist. 301 this spring, because good systemetic treatments of Roman religion are rare.
One minor flaw: McCartney was definately wrong when he attributes Caesar's sponsorhsip of the pop concert of 48 B.C. to his office as pontifex. Such entertainments were always the responsibility of Rome's aediles, an office Caesar also held.
“To adhere to the customs of the ancestors, the state religion was for the Romans a matter of simple patriotism,” (Boren 1965: 34). In this modern age where the separation of church and state is continually emphasized, it is easy to forget that things were not always so. In ancient Rome, religion and the state were not only combined, they defined each other. In ancient Rome, religion was inseparable from the state.
“When you command great numbers of men, you find the emotional forces bottled up in them very strong,” (Field Marshal Lord Montgomery in Grant 1960: 154). The Romans realized that they had to guide the emotions of their subjects into patriotic channels. In ancient Rome, “patriotism and state religion [were] indistinguishable,” (Grant 1960: 154).
Religion decided whether the Romans would declare war or have peace. Religion decided when generals fought, and when they retreated. Religion decided whether the decisions of the Senate would stand, or be declared void. Religion was behind the founding legends or Ancient Rome. Religion was a vital part of Rome’s history, as can be shown by looking at its origin, its prominence in the Roman political scene, and its decline.
Origins
The legends about the founding of Rome were developed to establish the state religion. By the time of Augustus, these legends were firmly established, aided by the works of Livius and Vergilius (Gruen 1992: 6). How much of these traditions were believed, if they were believed at all, during the early republic? This is somewhat a matter of speculation, but we do know a little. Livius himself admits that the origin of Rome is uncertain, but asserts that if any city deserved to have a miraculous origin, Rome did (Stobart 1961: 15).
If the Romans were to believe that the service of the gods was so intricately connected with the welfare of Rome, it was necessary to establish a history of the relationship of the gods with the city of Rome, as well as create an explanation for the dependence of Rome on the gods. The legend of Aeneas, who was directed by the gods to settle in Italy in anticipation of the future founding of Rome, was created to do just that. Likewise the story of the legendary twins Romulus and Remus, who were descended from the god Mars and founded the city of Rome, also explained Rome’s religious situation.
The connection of the founding of Rome with the Trojan War, about which Vergilius wrote his Aenied, had been established by the third Century B.C., and so was not questioned in any history written after this period. Although there were several different versions of this story, such as Odysseus founding the city of Rome instead of Aeneas, or the two enemies reconciling at the founding of the city. These many different versions were due to the mind set of the Roman writer. A Roman writer would not find any virtue in simply rewriting what someone else has already written, but any Roman writing about the foundation of the city would make his additions to the legend (Gruen 1992: 31).
It is likely that the story of Romulus and Remus started out as a separate legend, and was later synchronized with the story of Aeneas (Amory and Hammond 1967: 9). We know that the story existed at least as early as 286 B.C., since a coin that was dated to that year was found with a wolf suckling two infants (Stobart 1961: 15). The famous bronze statue of the Capitoline Wolfe, which is much older, may or may not be evidence of the legend existing in the early Roman Republic. The two children nursing from the wolf were added later (Stobart 1961: 16).
From these legends we know that the Romans considered Rome to be a sacred city, and that it had the blessings of the gods. It also shows that the Romans believed serving the gods and serving Rome to be one and the same.
According to tradition Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome, established the practice of formal religion as it continued throughout the Republic. How much truth there is to this we can’t say with any certainty, but scholars now recognize that it is unlikely the seven kings of Rome are purely fictional (Stobart 1961: 16). The Latin language indicates the Romans were at one time very familiar with kings (Stobart 1961: 17).
The last kings of Rome, the Tarquins, although portrayed as typical Greek tyrants by Roman historians, have a name that is Etruscan. This implies that there was Etruscan domination at the end of the regal period. There is other evidence for this. The buildings built during this period in Rome were on a scale not equaled for centuries afterwards. There are reluctant admissions to Etruscan domination in Roman literature, and some Roman rituals and ornaments indicate that the Etruscans once held supreme authority (Stobart 1961: 17).
Since it is known that the Etruscans were heading South towards Campania at the end of the Seventh century, it is likely that they would have made an effort to secure the passage of the Tiber at Rome, which lay directly in their route. From all this evidence, it can safely be concluded that Rome was ruled by Etruscan princes around the end of the fifth century, but that Etruscans were never present in Rome in large numbers (Stobart 1961: 17).
So if the Etruscans influenced Roman culture and religion, what were the Etruscans like? Their origin is unknown, but they appear to have little culture of their own. At first they imitated the Phoenicians, but then, after the Greeks achieved domination, the Etruscans took on Greek culture. They even went so far as to hire Greek craftsman to ensure that their cities would resemble those of the Greeks (Stobart 1961: 20).
The most important thing the Etruscans did for Rome was to erect a temple to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva on the Capital hill. This gave the fledgling city of Rome a feeling of unity. It also established the three gods in Roman Religion. The Etruscans were also probably responsible for introducing the concept of anthropomorphic deities to the Romans, as well as the practice of augury. Etruscans artists painted Terrocotta ornaments for the new Capitoline Temple, and the Etruscans also made the famous Capitoline statue of Jupiter (Stobart 1961: 20).
Ius Divinum
Since the Romans believed the foundation of their empire was preordained by the gods, it is only natural that religion would play an important part in their government. All parts of the Roman law covering religion were referred to generally as the ius divinum, or sacred law. As mentioned above, tradition credits Numa Pompilius with establishing most of it. Before we delve into the history of the Republic, it is worth commenting on the accuracy of the ancient sources. No contemporary writer of the early or middle Republic has survived. Most of the knowledge we have about this period comes from Livius, and other writers of the first century or later. The lateness is enough in itself to doubt the accuracy of these histories. It has also been suggested that the great Roman families of the late republic exaggerated, or possibly made up, the deeds of their ancestors. Also, many ancient historians looked for precedents to their own times in the past, and if the precedents were not there, they added them (Stobart 1961: 21).
There is a good reason to believe much of these ancient sources, however. Livius and the others based their history on the Annales Maximi (discussed below) which were published in 125 B.C. by the Pontifex Maximus Mucius Scaevola (Stobart 1961: 21).
A good example of religion acting side by side with the state is the twelve tables. The twelve tables were essentially putting into law the existing Roman customs, and was done at the request of the Plebeians to take power away from the Patricians. According to tradition, the tables were formed in 545 B.C.. Although they were destroyed by the Gauls in 390 B.C., much of it has survived in the form of quotations by other ancient writers (Lewis and Reinhold 1951: 102).
Each of the twelve tables deals with a different part of the law. Table X deals with the Sacred law. Most of the laws in Table X deal with funerals, and many of them are designed to prevent excess, such as the law that a many may not have more than one funeral, or the law that there is no costly sprinkling at funerals. There is also a law that no man should be buried within the boundaries of Rome (Lewis and Reinhold 1951: 108-109).
The majority of the ius divinum, however, dealt with the various religious officials under it. Although the ancient Romans had several offices that were purely religious, in theory even the most secular office was supposed to be a religious one. The Lex Sacratae made all officials of the Republic sacred. Because of the obvious abuses such a law lends itself to, it was later modified to mean that officials were sacred in the sense they were under the protection of the gods, and any attempt to do physical harm to them would be met with retribution by the Roman government on behalf of the gods (Peck 1966: 1299).
The Censors are a good example of an office that had both secular and religious duties. They were arguable the most powerful office in the whole Republic because of the religious power behind them (Stobart 1961: 29). The office of Censors was formed in 443 B.C.. Among other things, it was their duty to maintain an official list of the citizens, to maintain public morals, and to supervise the leasing of public areas and buildings. At first, the Censors could only be Patricians. In 351 B.C., the office was open to Plebeians. The Leges Publilae, passed in 339 B.C., dictated that at least one Censor must be a Plebeian. The Censors achieved their greatest power in 312 B.C., when they were given the power to keep Senatorial rolls, and expell any Senators who acted against public morality, a duty formally held by the Consuls (Hammond & Scullard 1970: 178).
The Censors had the power to change the status of any man, no matter what class of citizenship the man belonged to. Men were demoted in status for offenses, such as disregarding religious or traditional values. Aulus Gellius notes some interesting cases of punishment dealt out by the Censors. If land had gone unattended, the owner was to be reduced to the lowest class of citizenship. If a knight did not take good care of his horse, the same would happen. Aulus Gellius even cites a case where the Censors were trying a man for yawning in court, because it indicated his mind had been wandering. The man was only able to escape punishment by swearing that the yawn had come over him despite his resistance (Lewis & Reinhold 1951: 113-114).
The most important duty of the Censors was the religious purification of both the people and the priests, known as the lustum. This occurred at first every four years, but was changed in 209 B.C. to every five years.
The Romans had many varieties of priests, and it was the responsibility of the Censors to put the priests into different colleges. Of these, the Romans had four important colleges, the Decimviris, the College of Augurs, the College of Fetials, and the College of Pontiffs.
The college of Decimviris was one of the most influential colleges. Decimviris is Latin for board of ten, although the name changed when they were increased to fifteen in Sulla’s time. It was this group that was responsible for Sibylline books.
In the fifth century B.C., the practice was developed of consulting the oracle of Sibyl at Cumae, which was a Greek city in Campania. The words of the Sibyl were written down and collected, in Greek, into the Sibylline books, and entrusted to the decimviris. In times of crisis, they would consult the Sibylline books, usually with the result of ordering the introduction of a new Greek god or a Greek religious site. In doing so, they were responsible for the Hellinization of the Roman State Religion. The last innovation they made was in 205 B.C., the introduction of the goddess Magna Mater from Pessinus in Aisa Minor (Lewis & Reinhold 1951: 140).
The temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus was destroyed by fire in 83 B.C., and the Sibylline books were lost with it. A search was conducted over the whole Roman Empire for any prophecies that had survived. These prophecies were copied and sent back to Rome. In this way the Sibylline books were reconstructed, although the Romans themselves wondered if all of the prophecies had been recovered, or if some fake prophecies had made there way into the new books (Dionysius of Halicarnassus in Lewis and Reinhold 1951: 141).
The college of Augurs also had great political power, for they were responsible for the auspices. The auspices were taken before every important act of state, and if they were found to be unfavorable, business for that day was stopped. The Senate would not meet, nor would the army commander lead his troops into battle. It is for this reason that Cicero claimed the College of Augurs were the most powerful group in the Roman Empire.
The augurs, however, did not actually take the auspices. That privilege was reserved for a Roman official possessing imperium. The augurs were responsible for the preperation, and interpretation of the auspices, however, a task much more important (Lewis and Reinhold 1951: 132-134).
At first, Auspices concerned only the flights of birds, but it was expanded to include other methods. Festus writes, "The augurs observe five types of signs: from lightening, from birds, from the feeding of sacred chickens, from four footed animals, and from portents (Festus in Lewis & Reinhold 1951: 132). Augurs used a secret mehtod to interpret the auspices, one that was taught to the other Augurs, but never written down.
In a speech after his exile, Cicero gives numerous examples of the importances of following the auspices. When Flaminus was preparing to fight Hannibal, an augur reminded him to take the auspices. Flaminus fed the sacred chickens, but they would not eat. The augur warned him not to go into battle. Flaminus replied, "Find auspices indeed if we may only fight when the chickens are hungry, but must do nothing if they are full" (Flaminus as quoted by Cicero in Boren 1965: 134). Flaminus suffered a terrible defeat and was killed. In another example, Publius Claudius, commander of a fleet in the first Punic War, ordered the sacred chickens thrown overboard when they refused to eat, saying "let them drink, since they will not eat," (Claudius as quoted in Lucilius as qouted by Cicero in Boren 1965: 135). As a result, his colleague Junius lost his entire fleet in a storm, and Claudius was condemned by the Roman people.
The fetials were the third college, in charge of war and peace. The ancient college of twenty members was responsible for international relations, and "functioned especially in rituals attending the declaration of war, conclusion of treaties, protection of foreign ambassadors at Rome, and extradition (Lewis and Reinhold 1951: 136).
It was the duty of the Fetials to make sure that Rome did not enter into an unjust war against a country in alliance with them. If another country violated the treaty first, then the fetials functioned as ambassadors. One fetial, who was chosen by his colleagues, put on a sacred robe and insignia, and went into the city when had done Rome wrong. Stopping at the boarder, he took an oath to the gods asking that if what the city was accused of was true. If it was not true, the fetial asked the gods to punish Rome for making a false accusation. Entering the city, the fetial would repeat the oath in the presence of the first person he came across. After going through several other rituals, the fetial made his demands to the city. The city was given ten days to consider it, after which the fetial made his demands another time. After thirty days, the fetial returned home and informed the Senators that if they wished to vote for war, the gods had no problem with it. If the Senate decided to declare war, the fetials went through another ceremony, in which the gods were again called to witness Rome's actions. War was officially declared when a fetial throw a spear across the boarder. The fetials were also responsible for the ceremony of a peace treaty, and again the gods were called as witnesses. If peace was made by generals, without consulting the fetials, it was invalid and the fetials would investigate it. Once peace was made it was the duty of the fetials to make sure Rome kept her end of the bargain (Hammond & Scullard 1970: 360).
A group subordinate to the Fetials were the Sodales. These priests were allowed to act only as one unified body, not allowing for individual opinions. They were concerned with annual rites. Particularly active among the Sodales were a group called the Saliens, the priests of Mars. They were active in March and October, the opening and closing of campaining season.
The head of all the other colleges and all other religious functions was the college of Pontiffs. The word Pontifex means bridge builder, and it was presumed by the later Romans that this originated from the duty of the pontiffs to build bridges. The pontiffs were responsible for the presentation and the interpretation of the ius divinum, as well as being Rome's earliest jurist, powerful in civil as well as criminal law. The college started out with three pontiffs, then was consequently increased to six, nine, fifteen, and at last to sixteen by Julius Caesar. The Lex Ogulnia passed in 300 B.C. dictated that at least half the number of pontiffs must be plebeians (Hammond & Scullard 1970: 860).
The Pontiffs were the judges of all religious cases, whether private citizens, magistrates, or priests were involved. They made laws for the observance of any religious rite, they investigated the conduct of any magistrate who performed any religious duty, and they took care that all they employed in religious functions committed no errors. They were not liable to persecution or punishment, nor were they accountable to the Senate or the people in religious matters (Dionysius of Halicarnus in Lewis & Reinhold 1951: 131-132).
The head of the Pontiff college, and the Roman religion, was the Pontifex Maximus. Until 212 B.C., the Pontifex Maximus was chosen by the other pontiffs. After 212 B.C., the people voted for the Pontifex Maximus, although interestingly not by a majority. Of Rome's thirty five tribes, seventeen were chosen by a lot to vote for the Pontifex Maximus (Hammond & Scullard 1970: 860).
In addition to a general supervision of the state religion, the Pontifex Maximus was also responsible for keeping the records of the state, the Annales Maximi. The Pontifex Maximus was also in charge of the calender, and decided on which days state business could be performed (dies factis). The Pontifex Maximus was responsible for making sure the lunar calender corresponded with the solar year. To do this, an intercalary month was added every two years. When Julius Caesar was Pontifex Maximus, he got ride of the intercalary month by increasing the year to three hundred sixty five days, and establishing the leap year (Boren 1965: 20).
Besides these four main colleges, there were several other colleges as well. The Collegia Compitluia was concerned with the worship of the Lares at the Compita. The Collegium Capitolinorum was responsible for the ludi Capitolini (the Capitoline games). The Collegium Mercatorm presided over the temple of Mercury. There were many other minor colleges as well (Hammond & Scullard 1970: 264).
King Numa is credited with establishing all of the colleges. At first, the priests in the college were appointed by a king. Then, once the Republic began, when ever there was a vacancy in one of the colleges, the existing members would decide who would fill it. After the Lex Domitia was passed, the people themselves would vote on who is included in the colleges (Peck 1996: 1299).
The Vestal Virgins, who were under the direct authority of the Pontifex Maximus, were originally four in number, but increased to six because of the great amount of tasks they had to perform. They lived in the temple of the goddess Vesta, which all could enter in the daytime, but no man could enter during the night. It is very important that all the Vestals remained virgins for the thirty years they were in the service of the state, although they could marry after this time. The duties of the Vestal Virgins included offering sacrifices, keeping the wills of Roman citizens, and most importantly, tending the sacred flame of Vesta. During the first ten years, The Vestals learned their function. During the second ten years, they performed them, and during the final ten years, they taught others.
The Romans dreaded the extinction of the sacred fire, for it meant that the destruction of Rome was imminent. If the fire went out, it was immediately re-introduced with many added rituals. The extinction of the fire was also an indication that one of the Vestals was no longer a virgin. The violated Vestal was ceremoniously carried to the Coline Gate, and buried alive. Her male partner was flogged to death (Dionysius of Halicarnus in Lewis & Reinhold 1951: 135).
A girl chosen to be a Vestal Virgin must be between six and ten. Both her father and mother must be living. She must be neither hearing impaired, nor with any mark or defect. Neither of her parents could be slaves, or have demeaning occupations. When the girl was brought to the house of Vesta, she passes from her father's control to the control of the Pontifex Maximus, and acquires the right to make a will (Aulus Gellius in Lewis & Reinhold 1951: 136).
The specialized priests of individual gods were known as flamens, whose main function was to make sacrifices to their individual god. There are fifteen flamens in all, three flamines maiores, and twelve flamines minores. Of the twelves flamines minores, we know the names of six: Volturnalis, Palatualis, Furinalis, Floralis, Falacer, and Pomonalis. Of the three flamines maiores, the flamens of Jupiter, Mars and Quirinus, the flamen of Jupiter, or the Flamen Dialis, was the most important. There were numerous restrictions on the Flamen Dialis, among them he was not allowed to see the Roman citizens assembled in an army. Since he could not have a military career, or battle experience, the Flamen Dialis rarely was able to achieve the rank of Consul. The Flamen Dialis was also forbidden to take an oath, wear a ring, take fire from his home, have a slave cut his hair, go outside without a cap, or touch a she-goat, raw flesh, ivy or beans. The Flamen Dialis must be clothed at all times. If he changes his clothes he must do it under covers, so that he is never naked before Jupiter (Aulus Gellius as quoted in Lewis & Reinhold 1951: 134).
At state dinners, the Flamen Dialis had the second highest place at the table. The only one above him was the Rex Sacrificulus. When Rome was ruled by kings, the kings performed most of the religious taks. After the kings were expelled, the Rex Sacrificulus was created. The Rex Sacrificulus took on the sacral functions of the king. It is speculated by some that the Rex Sacrificulus was once the supreme authority in religious matters, and that the Pontifex Maximus was created to take power away from the Rex Sacrificulus by anti-monarchal Romans (McCullough 1996: 679). Called Rex for short, although he was subordinate to the Pontifex Maximus, he was still above all the Flamens. His wife, called Regina, also had certain ceremonial duties. The Rex must be a Patrician, he was chosen for life, and he could hold no other posts.
Decline
Saying that in the Roman Republic, religion and the state were inseperable is a novel idea to the modern American, but it was not unique to the time. What was unique about the Roman Republic was that the responsibility of the Roman citizen was non-existent. All the religious duties were taken care of by state officials (Boren 1965: 36). This ultimately resulted in many Romans searching elsewhere for spiritual fulfillment. Caesar was elected as Pontifex Maximus over serveral other respectable men in spiute of the fact that his private lifestyle was well-known to be lacking morals. Caesar had little interest in religious activities, but desired both the respect and the position carried with it, and needed the security (his enemies wouldn't dare kill the Pontifex Maximus) (Cowell 1964: 237).
"Religion at Rome was less a set of beliefs than a set of practices," (Boren 1965: 132). Even when many Romans no longer bought into it, or were apathetic about the state religion, it was fiercely protected. "The Romans were never a really religious people, they lacked the imagination to be devout," but they were "ritualists and formalists to the heart's core," (Stobart 1961: 33).
The influence of religion declined towards the end of the Republic. The introduction of cynicism in the second century B.C., as well as Greek learning, produced a great amount of skepticism in Rome towards the old ways. The changing population in the Roman empire introduced many new religions and offered an alternative to disenchanted Romans (Gruen 1992: 132). Yet even with all this enlightened thought, Cicero, who was a "cultivated, philosophic and common sense man of the world," spend days in January of 56 B.C. studying the Sibylline books with other Senators to see if there was a quoatation that would prevent a Roman army from entering Egypt (Cowell 1964: 186).
At the end of the Republic, religion als became a political tool between the two parties: the optimates and the populares. One example among many is in 59 B.C., when Bibulus, an optimate, tried to stop the land reforms of Julius Caesar by finding a prophecy in the Sibylline books which indicated an omen of great importance would appear. Bibulus demanded that all business be stopped so he could watch the sky in search of the sign. Caesar foiled him by calling for a vote in the Senate, and the vote was against Bibulus (Cowel 1964: 348).
Perhaps the feeling of the time is best summed up by Cowell's statement. "Although Cicero and the men of his age had no real faith in the traditional religious beliefs of the Roman people, they had by no means proceeded to complete atheism or a clear affirmation that there were no gods (Cowell 1964: 384).
Conclusion
The Romans believed that the city of Rome was predestined by the gods, and that by serving Rome, they were serving the gods. This belief was advantageous to the government of Rome, and allowed them to keep the citizens submissive and obediant. Religion played a large part in the Roman government, as well as the history of Rome. The large amount of religious officials shows the importance the Romans placed on religion.
Bibiliography
Boren, Henry
1965 The Roman Republic. Princeton; Van Notrand Company
Cowell, F.R.
1964 Cicero and the Roman Republic. Baltimore: Penguin Company
Grant Michael
1960 The World of Rome. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson
Gruen, Erich
1992 Culture and National Identity in Republican Rome. Ithica: Cornell University Press
Hammond, Mason and Anne Amory
1967 Aeneas to Augustus. Cambridge: Harvard University Press
Hammond & Scullard
1970 The Oxford Classical Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon
McCartney, Paul
1969 Teenage Wonder. Liverpool: Beatles Press
McCullough, Colleen
1996 Caesar's Women. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc.
Peck, Thurston
1996 Harpers Dictionary of Classical Literature and Antiquities. New York: American Book Company
Reinhold, Meyer and Naphtali Lewis
1951 Roman Civilizations. New York: Columbia University
Scullard, H.H.
1951 Roman Politics. Oxford: Clarendon Press
Stobart, J.C.
1961 The Grandeur that was Rome. London: Sidgwick and Jackson
Professors's Comments
This paper is certainly a thorough treatment of Roman religion and its inherent role in the politics of the Republic. I will certainly be consulting it when I teach the Roman Republic in Hist. 301 this spring, because good systemetic treatments of Roman religion are rare.
One minor flaw: McCartney was definately wrong when he attributes Caesar's sponsorhsip of the pop concert of 48 B.C. to his office as pontifex. Such entertainments were always the responsibility of Rome's aediles, an office Caesar also held.
King Henry IV Part 2
December 4, 1998
It is considered no secret to the avid film viewer that sequels usually disappoint. Whether the sequel follows too closely to the original, or deviates too much from the original format, it is often hard for film makers to give the audience a work they feel is worthy of its predecessor. The writers of sequel have to work with characters and a format already established, and often the restrictions take their toll on the work. All too often a sequel will leave the viewers wishing they had found a better way to spend their time.
Although I was aware of the dangers a sequel faces in the theater today, I was not expecting that Shakespeare would face the sequel problem in the Renaissance Theater. Surely the “immortal bard” would not be subject to the same problems that plague ordinary writers. However the problem of sequels is one that even Shakespeare and his contemporaries had to deal with.
“The Play in two Parts is a fairly frequent phenomenon in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Sometimes, as we have seen, a Second Part was added because the First was popular, sometimes the two Parts were planned together. But in either case it often happens that the dramatist resuming his task with the same characters, taking their story further along the time-dimension, is impelled to look more detachedly at his subject than before” (Leech 28).
After Reading “King Henry IV Part 2" (along with some commentaries to help me understand it) I became aware that Shakespeare did indeed suffer from the sequel syndrome. Although “King Henry IV Part 2" contains much that is admirable, it is inferior to its predecessor because it repeats much of Part 1 and its structure is lacking.
Before beginning to point out the flaws in this work, it is worth mentioning that “King Henry IV Part 2" has much about it that is enjoyable. To hold it up against “King Henry IV Part 1" is to compare it to “one of Shakespeare’s most popular plays” (Abrams 822), and to say it falls short of this piece is to leave plenty of room for excellence. As one critic put it, “It is, however, inferior to its predecessor as a work of dramatic art, though, in my judgement, not at all so as a work of genius” (Rolfe 13). As with “King Henry IV Part 1", Shakespeare’s true genius shows through in the comic scenes, more specifically the scenes centering on Falstaff. There is one scene in which Prince Hal and Poins disguise themselves as servants (drawers) at the Tavern in Eastcheap to see how Falstaff will act unaware of their presence. When they discover him badmouthing them, and reveal themselves, Falstaff must quickly explain what he has said in a manner very similar to when he was caught in his own lies in “King Henry IV Part 1". Another interesting scene finds Falstaff in battle against the rebels. When he challenges one of them, John Coleville to a fight, the latter yields to Falstaff, afraid of him because he believed Falstaff to be behind the death of Hotspur at Shrewsbury.
Shakespeare also introduces several new characters who are of great interest. There is Ancient Pistol, a friend of Falstaff, about whom one of the other characters exclaims, “Hang him, swaggering rascal, let him not come hither: it is the foul-mouth’dst rogue in England” (2.4.69-70). Pistol “speaks almost entirely in borrowed phrases, orts, and shards of theatrical language...Pistol speaks so like a character in a play that none of the play’s other characters are able to communicate with him” (Pearlman 129). Also fascinating are two elderly justices who are “corrected and corrupted by Falstaff” (Pearlman 131).
Despite the genius of this play, Shakespeare falls into one of the same pitfalls many modern film sequels do. The play repeats too much of the first. The scene described above with Falstaff is caught badmouthing the Prince and Poins is hilarious, but in many respects the same gag that Shakespeare used earlier in the first play. Although it certainly succeeds in bringing laughs, it indicates a lack of creativity on Shakespeare’s part.
More grating is the replay of the Prince Hal and King Henry IV theme. At the end of the first play, the audience is under the impression that Prince Hal has proven himself to his father, shown his true character, and laid aside any worries about what kind of a man he will turn out to be. “However ‘unfinished’ the characterization of Hal may be in Part 1, all doubts about his princeliness are erased at Shrewsbury; and even before Shrewsbury there are hints that his relation with Falstaff will not continue” (Ornstein 153). In “King Henry IV Part 2" the relationship of Prince Hal and his father deteriorates to what it was at the start of the first play, and the audience is forced to watch the path to reconciliation all over again. Things begin to go wrong again between the two when the King learns that Hal, instead of hunting at Windsor as he expected, was “With Poins, and his other continual followers” (4.4.53). The King is once again filled with sorrow over his son’s actions. “The audience knows that King Henry has once again thoroughly misjudged his son and can only hope that the misunderstanding will soon be resolved” (Pearlman 134). The circumstances are different this time than in the first play (King Henry IV is on his deathbed at the time of reconciliation) yet it is essentially the same stuff. “Hal’s conversion from wastrel to exemplary prince has been enacted once before; now Shakespeare must try to vary action and meaning even as he stays within the lines of the pattern. Shakespeare is ingenious and imaginative but just as Hal’s relapse is less than convincing so his second conversion presents problems of great moral and dramatic complexity” (Pearlman 133).
“King Henry IV Part 2" is also lacking in structure as compared to part one. In “King Henry IV Part 1", Shakespeare carefully sets everything up to fit in a neat framework. Hotspur and Hal are perfect as foils for each other, even if Shakespeare does have to take some historical liberties to achieve this. The play ends climatically with a battle. Even though there is no sense of finality, the play closes with a climax that the plot has been building up to all along. In fact, one critic argues: “Pleading that Part 1 is incomplete because it does not represent the whole story of Hal’s ‘redemption’ is rather like arguing that “Richard III” is incomplete because it does not document the redemption of England under Henry Tudor” (Ornstein 153).
In “King Henry IV Part 2", the characters are neither paired up as nicely nor presented as smoothly. Granted things are obviously not as easy for Shakespeare here, since many of his characters are held over from the previous play. Pistol is introduced rather suddenly, and there is no account of where he had been during Part 1. This can be taken as an example that Shakespeare was not planning ahead to Part 2 when he wrote the highly structured “King Henry IV Part 1" (Pearlman 88).
Shakespeare opens Part 2 with Rumor, who sets the mood for the play. Rumor claims that he misleads the multitudes and this can be taken as Shakespeare’s claim that he will confuse his audience by filling the play with confusing falsehoods. However once Shakespeare has set the stage like this, he seldom returns to his original purpose (Pearlman 123).
Also, although in some ways Shakespeare intends for his play to take place directly after “King Henry Part 1", (the play opens with Northumberland finding out about the death of his son), Shakespeare leaves some gaps. When the work opens, we find out from a conversation between Falstaff and his page that Hal had recently been imprisoned by Lord Chief Justice for hitting him when the two got into an argument. “Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the Prince for striking him about Bardolph” (1.2.55-56). Shakespeare gives no time frame for when this might have occurred.
In writing “King Henry IV Part 2", Shakespeare faces “the perennial problem of sequels-how to repeat without repeating” (Pearlman 123). Given the difficulty of this task, it is not surprising that Shakespeare’s work experiences the problem of many film sequels of today. Although it is interesting to note these deficiencies, one should not allow them to take away from what otherwise is a most intriguing play. Despite the small flaws mentioned in this paper, Shakespeare still presents a work of genius, and an exciting conclusion to “King Henry IV Part 1".
Bibliography
Abram, M. H., ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 6th ed. Vol. 1. New York: W W Norton & Company, 1993. 2 vols.
Leech, Clifford. William Shakespeare: The Chronicles. London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1962.
Ornstein, Robert. A Kingdom for a Stage. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972.
Pearlman, E. William Shakespeare: The History Plays. Denver: University of Colorado, 1992.
Rolfe, William J. Introduction. King Henry the Fourth Part II. By William Shakespeare. 1600. New York: Harpers & Brothers, 1899.
Shakespeare, William. King Henry IV Part 2. 1600. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966.
Professor’s comments: I thought a few times you flirted with being captured by the critics. But on the whole you found ways to integrate their conceptions into a consistent pattern of interpretation. You do have a substantial task to comment on a whole play–and in relation to another one , no less–in one short paper and, at the same time to bring in supporting details from the text that are specific and concrete while illustrating large matters of design. This is what you do best. I thought a couple of parts as marked, were particularly strong in this regard. In sum, you show considerable grasp of Part 2. But, now, what am I to do with the embarrassing errors (to/too, then/than) and the signs of shoddy, if any, proofreading? They certainly make easy the decision not to grant the highest grade, and they probably should bring the grade down another notch. But senility is setting in....
Grade: A-
It is considered no secret to the avid film viewer that sequels usually disappoint. Whether the sequel follows too closely to the original, or deviates too much from the original format, it is often hard for film makers to give the audience a work they feel is worthy of its predecessor. The writers of sequel have to work with characters and a format already established, and often the restrictions take their toll on the work. All too often a sequel will leave the viewers wishing they had found a better way to spend their time.
Although I was aware of the dangers a sequel faces in the theater today, I was not expecting that Shakespeare would face the sequel problem in the Renaissance Theater. Surely the “immortal bard” would not be subject to the same problems that plague ordinary writers. However the problem of sequels is one that even Shakespeare and his contemporaries had to deal with.
“The Play in two Parts is a fairly frequent phenomenon in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Sometimes, as we have seen, a Second Part was added because the First was popular, sometimes the two Parts were planned together. But in either case it often happens that the dramatist resuming his task with the same characters, taking their story further along the time-dimension, is impelled to look more detachedly at his subject than before” (Leech 28).
After Reading “King Henry IV Part 2" (along with some commentaries to help me understand it) I became aware that Shakespeare did indeed suffer from the sequel syndrome. Although “King Henry IV Part 2" contains much that is admirable, it is inferior to its predecessor because it repeats much of Part 1 and its structure is lacking.
Before beginning to point out the flaws in this work, it is worth mentioning that “King Henry IV Part 2" has much about it that is enjoyable. To hold it up against “King Henry IV Part 1" is to compare it to “one of Shakespeare’s most popular plays” (Abrams 822), and to say it falls short of this piece is to leave plenty of room for excellence. As one critic put it, “It is, however, inferior to its predecessor as a work of dramatic art, though, in my judgement, not at all so as a work of genius” (Rolfe 13). As with “King Henry IV Part 1", Shakespeare’s true genius shows through in the comic scenes, more specifically the scenes centering on Falstaff. There is one scene in which Prince Hal and Poins disguise themselves as servants (drawers) at the Tavern in Eastcheap to see how Falstaff will act unaware of their presence. When they discover him badmouthing them, and reveal themselves, Falstaff must quickly explain what he has said in a manner very similar to when he was caught in his own lies in “King Henry IV Part 1". Another interesting scene finds Falstaff in battle against the rebels. When he challenges one of them, John Coleville to a fight, the latter yields to Falstaff, afraid of him because he believed Falstaff to be behind the death of Hotspur at Shrewsbury.
Shakespeare also introduces several new characters who are of great interest. There is Ancient Pistol, a friend of Falstaff, about whom one of the other characters exclaims, “Hang him, swaggering rascal, let him not come hither: it is the foul-mouth’dst rogue in England” (2.4.69-70). Pistol “speaks almost entirely in borrowed phrases, orts, and shards of theatrical language...Pistol speaks so like a character in a play that none of the play’s other characters are able to communicate with him” (Pearlman 129). Also fascinating are two elderly justices who are “corrected and corrupted by Falstaff” (Pearlman 131).
Despite the genius of this play, Shakespeare falls into one of the same pitfalls many modern film sequels do. The play repeats too much of the first. The scene described above with Falstaff is caught badmouthing the Prince and Poins is hilarious, but in many respects the same gag that Shakespeare used earlier in the first play. Although it certainly succeeds in bringing laughs, it indicates a lack of creativity on Shakespeare’s part.
More grating is the replay of the Prince Hal and King Henry IV theme. At the end of the first play, the audience is under the impression that Prince Hal has proven himself to his father, shown his true character, and laid aside any worries about what kind of a man he will turn out to be. “However ‘unfinished’ the characterization of Hal may be in Part 1, all doubts about his princeliness are erased at Shrewsbury; and even before Shrewsbury there are hints that his relation with Falstaff will not continue” (Ornstein 153). In “King Henry IV Part 2" the relationship of Prince Hal and his father deteriorates to what it was at the start of the first play, and the audience is forced to watch the path to reconciliation all over again. Things begin to go wrong again between the two when the King learns that Hal, instead of hunting at Windsor as he expected, was “With Poins, and his other continual followers” (4.4.53). The King is once again filled with sorrow over his son’s actions. “The audience knows that King Henry has once again thoroughly misjudged his son and can only hope that the misunderstanding will soon be resolved” (Pearlman 134). The circumstances are different this time than in the first play (King Henry IV is on his deathbed at the time of reconciliation) yet it is essentially the same stuff. “Hal’s conversion from wastrel to exemplary prince has been enacted once before; now Shakespeare must try to vary action and meaning even as he stays within the lines of the pattern. Shakespeare is ingenious and imaginative but just as Hal’s relapse is less than convincing so his second conversion presents problems of great moral and dramatic complexity” (Pearlman 133).
“King Henry IV Part 2" is also lacking in structure as compared to part one. In “King Henry IV Part 1", Shakespeare carefully sets everything up to fit in a neat framework. Hotspur and Hal are perfect as foils for each other, even if Shakespeare does have to take some historical liberties to achieve this. The play ends climatically with a battle. Even though there is no sense of finality, the play closes with a climax that the plot has been building up to all along. In fact, one critic argues: “Pleading that Part 1 is incomplete because it does not represent the whole story of Hal’s ‘redemption’ is rather like arguing that “Richard III” is incomplete because it does not document the redemption of England under Henry Tudor” (Ornstein 153).
In “King Henry IV Part 2", the characters are neither paired up as nicely nor presented as smoothly. Granted things are obviously not as easy for Shakespeare here, since many of his characters are held over from the previous play. Pistol is introduced rather suddenly, and there is no account of where he had been during Part 1. This can be taken as an example that Shakespeare was not planning ahead to Part 2 when he wrote the highly structured “King Henry IV Part 1" (Pearlman 88).
Shakespeare opens Part 2 with Rumor, who sets the mood for the play. Rumor claims that he misleads the multitudes and this can be taken as Shakespeare’s claim that he will confuse his audience by filling the play with confusing falsehoods. However once Shakespeare has set the stage like this, he seldom returns to his original purpose (Pearlman 123).
Also, although in some ways Shakespeare intends for his play to take place directly after “King Henry Part 1", (the play opens with Northumberland finding out about the death of his son), Shakespeare leaves some gaps. When the work opens, we find out from a conversation between Falstaff and his page that Hal had recently been imprisoned by Lord Chief Justice for hitting him when the two got into an argument. “Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the Prince for striking him about Bardolph” (1.2.55-56). Shakespeare gives no time frame for when this might have occurred.
In writing “King Henry IV Part 2", Shakespeare faces “the perennial problem of sequels-how to repeat without repeating” (Pearlman 123). Given the difficulty of this task, it is not surprising that Shakespeare’s work experiences the problem of many film sequels of today. Although it is interesting to note these deficiencies, one should not allow them to take away from what otherwise is a most intriguing play. Despite the small flaws mentioned in this paper, Shakespeare still presents a work of genius, and an exciting conclusion to “King Henry IV Part 1".
Bibliography
Abram, M. H., ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 6th ed. Vol. 1. New York: W W Norton & Company, 1993. 2 vols.
Leech, Clifford. William Shakespeare: The Chronicles. London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1962.
Ornstein, Robert. A Kingdom for a Stage. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972.
Pearlman, E. William Shakespeare: The History Plays. Denver: University of Colorado, 1992.
Rolfe, William J. Introduction. King Henry the Fourth Part II. By William Shakespeare. 1600. New York: Harpers & Brothers, 1899.
Shakespeare, William. King Henry IV Part 2. 1600. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966.
Professor’s comments: I thought a few times you flirted with being captured by the critics. But on the whole you found ways to integrate their conceptions into a consistent pattern of interpretation. You do have a substantial task to comment on a whole play–and in relation to another one , no less–in one short paper and, at the same time to bring in supporting details from the text that are specific and concrete while illustrating large matters of design. This is what you do best. I thought a couple of parts as marked, were particularly strong in this regard. In sum, you show considerable grasp of Part 2. But, now, what am I to do with the embarrassing errors (to/too, then/than) and the signs of shoddy, if any, proofreading? They certainly make easy the decision not to grant the highest grade, and they probably should bring the grade down another notch. But senility is setting in....
Grade: A-
Saturday, December 10, 2005
The Real Catiline
Paper I did for 12th Grade Advanced Composition. Please keep in mind this is only a high school paper, and try and forgive the over reliance on a single source, as well as the oversimplification of some aspects of Roman politics.
In its last days, the republic of Rome was beginning to collapse under its own weight. Military conquests had brought in a new kind of luxury. The rich amassed all the wealth, the poor soon found themselves unemployed, since slaves did all the work. It was clear that things could not go on much longer, and many though that change had come in Catiline. Catiline plotted to overthrow the Roman government, and to redistribute the wealth. Catiline’s plot was exposed, and he was killed in battle. Yet even today, we have a view of Catiline that is probably different from what he was really like. Catiline’s historical reputation is inaccurate, as can be seen from examining the style of ancient historians, looking at his probable innocence in the murder of Gratiadianus, and critically evaluating his first conspiracy.
Catiline was born in 108 B.C. He gained power from his support of Sullla, and was elected praetor, as well as the governor of Africa. His radical ideas about redistribution of property and abolition of debts gained him popularity with the lower classes, but fierce enemies among the rich. Failing to achieve his ends by legal means, Catiline plotted to seize control by force. Cicero was informed of the plot by his spies, and exposed Catiline to the Senate. Catiline and his fellow conspirators were killed (Kaplan).. Although it faired, the conspiracy was not without historical significance. Cicero’s place in history was largely secured by this event (Church 92).
The saying that the winners write the history book is glaringly true in the Catiline conspiracy. None of Catiline’s own speeches or writings have survived. The two main sources we have about the conspiracy come from Marcus Tullius Cicero, and Gaius Sallustus Crispus, both of whom had good reasons to place Catiline in an unfavorable light. From their writings Catiline emerges as a figure of satanic proportions. He was accused of almost every crime imaginable including murdering his brother in law, sister, step son, and wife, raping a vestal virgin, and practicing homosexuality. Virgil, in The Aenied, didn’t think twice about placing Catiline in hell. “There (Tartarus) Catiline hung from a threatening rock, and trembled to see the Furies’s faces;...” (221). There is much to suggest that neither the portrait of Catiline painted by Cicero, nor Sallust, can be taken at face value.
Cicero, to start with, was one of the most egotistical figures in classical history. As Michael Grant writes in his introduction to Cicero’s speeches, “Readers will be appalled at the boastfulness of Cicero. He blows his trumpet with an unremitting loudness which can scarcely be paralleled” (11). Ordinarily, if an orator wished to publish his speeches he would do so immediately after they were delivered, yet Cicero waited three years to publish his speeches against Catiline. He had much time to rewrite them during this period, and evidence suggests he probably did. His speeches appear to be too long for the Senate to have sat through, considering the emotion present. More likely, they were what the Romans called “altercation”, or give and take. Catiline’s supporters would shout one thing, and Cicero would respond to it (Grant 11).
In his own eyes, Cicero had saved Rome from the greatest danger possible. He wanted to make sure the rest of Rome knew that, and his reworked speeches do everything to maximize the danger Rome was in, and the depravity of Catiline. Michael Grant writes, “Cicero’s picture of his (Catiline’s) personal character...is too classically frightful and diabolical to be true” (72).
Sallust, on the other hand, had high expectations when he began his political career. In his writings, he claimed that any man who did not make himself great was no better than the animals, who lived only to satisfy their appetites. Sallust entered the political scene as a populare. His support of Gaius Julius Caesar caused him some humiliating setbacks at the beginning, but by 49 B.C. Caesar had acquired a position of power, and Caesar rewarded his friends well. Sallust was on the verge of attaining his consulship, the ultimate goal for all politicians, when Caesar was murdered by the optimates. The political scene changed rapidly, and it soon became clear that Sallust was to have no part in the changing order (Linderski).
Sallust’s hopes were dashed. He had spent all of his adult life (he was 45 at the time) trying to achieve greatness through politics, only to leave the scene a nobody. In writing his histories, Sallust had two purposes: to achieve greatness in his writings that he never achieved in politics, and to get revenge on the political system and people he felt had kept him from greatness.
Sallust admits putting his own words of criticism into Catiline’s mouth. Through Catiline, Sallust harshly criticizes the optimates, who had opposed him at every turn. Nor do the populares escape denunciations, since Sallust felt they had been unappreciative of his actions. In other words, all the anger and cynicism we normally associate with Catiline really belong to Sallust (Hutchinson 24-28).
Secondly, these histories were Sallust’s last chance of greatness, and he was taking no chances. He wanted his readers to be on the edge of their seat as they read about the Catiline conspiracy, wondering how Rome could possibly escape the danger, only to see it narrowly survive, the reader would breath a sigh of relief. Naturally, th reader had to passionately hate Catiline, and Sallust painted Catiline as a villain of the vilest nature (Hutchinson 24-28).
Sallust was not unique to his time in doing this. The ancients drew the line between history and story incredibly thin. Fact was often sacrificed for dramatization. Later historians writing about Catiline painted him much like Cicero and Sallust and, of course, made up events of their own to impress the reader. Most notably is Plutarch, who accused Catiline of killing his own brother, deflowering his own daughter, and eating flesh, while encouraging other young men to do the same (1046). No doubt these juicy crimes widened the eyes of his reader, but there is no apparent evidence behind them. Not only was Catiline never prosecuted for these crimes, but if there was any thread of rumor to these effects, you can bet Cicero and Sallust would have brought it up.
If all the crimes Catiline was charged with were believed to be true, he would not have been elected praetor or been allowed to stand for consul twice, much less have his array of powerful friends. In fact, few believed the crimes because it was common in ancient Rome to accuse an opponent of imaginary crimes. In schools of rhetoric, advocates were taught to make use of colours, a way of presenting insignificant facts, mixed with a few useful lies, to produce what appeared to be evidence of shocking guilt. “It had become a habit,” said Cicero (as quoted in Hutchinson 31) referring to this practice, even though he did it often himself. Also, in the law courts of the time, there were no rules of evidence. It was the duty of the prosecutor to create a maximum of prejudice. It is unfortunate that many of these fake crimes have leaked into history (Hutchinson 29-35).
Of all the crimes Catiline was accused of, the murder of Gratidianus was the most popular. To make sense of this, it should be understood that in the late republic, Rome had two main political parties: the optimates and the populares. To say that the optimates were primarily for looking out for the interests of the aristocrats, and the populares primarily concerned about helping the poor, would be an oversimplification bordering on falsehood, but perhaps a useful working definition for our purposes (Asimov 47).
Tensions between these two groups were always high, but it exploded under the influence of Marius and Sulla. Marius, the populare, was forced to flee when Sulla gained control of Rome. Narrowly escaping Sulla’s many death traps, Marius fled to Africa. Sulla, thinking Marius was dead, decided all was safe at home and left for Asia to conduct war against Pontus. Marius returned with an army to seize control of Rome. For many days the city stunk of rotting flesh as Marius conducted one of the most brutal massacres in Roman history. Everyone associated with the optimate party was murdered (Plutarch 478).
But Marius’s reign was short lived. He died of a stroke while his massacre was still in full swing. Sulla returned to regain control. Foremost on his mind was revenge. He wanted to conduct a slaughter of the populares that would exceed that of the optimates. He succeeded (Plutarch 556).
Among the victims was a man named Gratidianus, a native of Arpinum and related to Marius and Cicero. From what we know of Gratidianus, he was one of the few honest politicians Rome had. He attained popularity as a praetor by withdrawing bad money from circulation. Several statues had been raised in his honor, but he was a populare, and condemned as such (Hutchinson 39).
Catiline, although his political views would later change rapidly, was at this time one of Sulla’s right hand men. According to Plutarch, Catiline dragged Gratidianus to the tomb of Catulus, a former consul who had committed suicide to avoid being killed by Marius. In front of an applauding mob, Catiline broke Gratidianus’s legs, cut off his hands, and plucked out his eyes before finally decapitating him. After placing Gratidianus’s head at Sulla’s feet, Catiline added sacrilege to his crimes by washing his hands off in the sacred fountain of Apollo (Plutarch 946).
Yet there is sufficient evidence to doubt this story. Catiline remained on friendly terms with the populare senators, and was a successful candidate for high office. Of more importance, Sulla had insisted that the names of those who had received money for killing or betraying the proscribed (those killed by Sulla) were entered into the public records. In 67 B.C., when the quastor Cato made them refund this money, Catiline was never called into question (Hutchinson 40). The following year, Julius Caesar brought to court and condemned all those who had taken part in Sulla’s massacre. No mention was made of Catiline (Grant 19).
Catiline was first accused of murdering Gratidianus in De Petitione Consulatus, a book written to Marcus Cicero by his younger brother Quintus, on how to become successful in politics. Catiline was then later strongly attacked for this murder in “In Toga Candida”, a speech made by Cicero. It seems strange that Cicero would so strongly attack Catiline, when earlier the same year he had written the following to his friend Atticus, while Catiline was facing charges of extortion in Africa: “I design at present to defend my competitor Catiline....I hope if he be acquitted that he will be the more ready to join me in our common candidature....Catiline is a good citizen, a lover of honest men, a firm and faithful friend,” (as quoted in Hutchinson 43). It turned out that Cicero was not needed; all the senators of consular rank, and then consuls themselves gave testimony in Catiline’s favor, also indicating that he was innocent of the brutal murder. Based on the accusations made in “In Toga Candida”, Catiline was brought to court for the murder of Gratidianus, and prosecuted by Lucius Lucceius, an optimate and friend of Cicero. He was acquitted. (Hutchinson 39-41).
In 66 B.C., Publius Cornelius Sulla and Publius Autronius were elected consuls for the coming year. Unfortunately for them, they were never to see the day they would take office. They were found guilty of bribery, and disqualified, fined, and sentenced to permanent exclusion form the Senate and magistracies. Aurelius Cotta and Manlius Torquatus were elected in their place. According to traditional history, Sulla and Autronius believed they had spent too much money on the consulship to be defeated now. They soon came together with Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso, a hot-headed social revolutionary. Together the three plotted to overthrow the senate and place themselves in power.
Thinking Catiline would be sympathetic to their ideas, they approached him. Catiline eagerly accepted, and soon was dominating the whole plot. On the appointed day, Catiline was supposed to give the signal, and armed gladiators would storm into the Senate, killing all inside. Catiline, in his thirst for blood, gave the signal too soon before the gladiators had fully assembled, and the plan collapsed (Plutarch 1054).
This was known as Catiline’s first conspiracy, but it appears to be more rumor than anything else. Sallust presents it as fact, but even he has to admit that the whole thing was uncertain (Hutchinson 44). Torquatus, the consul who supposedly was marked for death, said “he had heard something of it, but believed none of it” (as quoted in Hutchinson 45). Neither a prosecution nor an enquiry was conducted, which suggests no one seriously believed the rumors. All of the so called conspirators remained on good terms with the rest of the senate, which is unlikely had the senators truly believed the conspirators planned to kill them (Hutchinson 45). Even if the conspiracy did exist, Catiline’s involvement in it was most likely minimal, if at all. R.E. Smith writes, “The truth was rather that this so called first conspiracy of Catiline was a conspiracy of two disgruntled men” (86).
To add to the confusion, two men told a different story of the conspiracy. Aedile Marcus Bibulus, and a former consul, the elder Curio, told a version picked up by some other historians, most notably Suetonius. In this version, Catiline is in the background; the two masterminds were Crassus and Caesar. On the appointed day, Caesar was to give the signal for the massacre by letting his toga fall. All the senators would be murdered, and Crassus would be set up as dictator, with Caesar as his master of the horse. When the time came, Crassus chickened out, didn’t show, and the plan was aborted (Grant 20-30).
This view also has some inconsistences in it. For one thing, it contradicts the historical view we have of Crassus and Caesar. Crassus was always cautious never to put himself in front of things, preferring to achieve his means as inconspicuously as possible (Smith 86). Caesar, at this point in his career, was known for following the Roman constitution to the letter (Smith 87). Both men were too shrewd as politicians to ever do something as daring as this. Plutarch tells us that Caesar refused the crown from Mark Antony three times, instead of just seizing power when he had the chance (Plutarch 1233). Furthermore, even if the plan had been successful, it would only have succeeded in bringing Pompey and his legions, currently stationed in Spain, back to Rome, where Pompey would have assumed the dictatorship (Smith 90).
Two-thousand years after he died, it’s hard to get an accurate picture of what Catiline really was like. Since the only information we have on him is from his enemies, it is more than likely he is different than we usually think of him. Whatever his character was, his vision was correct. The republic didn’t last much past him. The first Triumvirate was formed three years later.
Bibliography
Asimov, Isaac The Roman Republic Cambridge, Houghton Mifflin Company 1966
Cicero, Marcus Tullius Contra Catiline I-IV Rome, 66 B.C.
Church, Alfred Roman Life in the Days of Cicero New York, Bilso and Tannen, 1959
Grant, Michael Cicero: Selected Political Speeches London, Penguin Books 1969
Grant, Michael The Founders of the Western World: A History of Greece and Rome New York, Macmillan Publishing Company, 1989
Grant, Michael Julius Caesar. New York. M. Evans & Company. 1969
Hutchinson, Lester The Conspiracy of Catiline New York, Barnes and Noble 1967
Kaplan, Arthur “Catiline” (Electronic Encyclopedia) Grolier Electronic Publishing, Inc. Copyright 1995
Linderski, James “Sallust” (Electronic Encyclopedia) Grolier Electronig Publishing, Inc. Copyright 1995.
Maier, Paul Josephus: The Essential Writings Kregal Publications, Grand Rapids, 1988.
Plutarch Vitae Rome 105
Smith, R.E. Cicero the Statesman Cambridge, University Press 1966
Virgilius, Publius Maro The Aeneid Rome, 19 BC
Teacher’s Comments: I appreciate your work on transitions! You have a talent Joel! I can envision you as a history scholar. You should go for it. You’re talented. Be sure to be aware of info your reader needs to know. You improved this! Nice. Watch documentary style.
Grade 98% A
In its last days, the republic of Rome was beginning to collapse under its own weight. Military conquests had brought in a new kind of luxury. The rich amassed all the wealth, the poor soon found themselves unemployed, since slaves did all the work. It was clear that things could not go on much longer, and many though that change had come in Catiline. Catiline plotted to overthrow the Roman government, and to redistribute the wealth. Catiline’s plot was exposed, and he was killed in battle. Yet even today, we have a view of Catiline that is probably different from what he was really like. Catiline’s historical reputation is inaccurate, as can be seen from examining the style of ancient historians, looking at his probable innocence in the murder of Gratiadianus, and critically evaluating his first conspiracy.
Catiline was born in 108 B.C. He gained power from his support of Sullla, and was elected praetor, as well as the governor of Africa. His radical ideas about redistribution of property and abolition of debts gained him popularity with the lower classes, but fierce enemies among the rich. Failing to achieve his ends by legal means, Catiline plotted to seize control by force. Cicero was informed of the plot by his spies, and exposed Catiline to the Senate. Catiline and his fellow conspirators were killed (Kaplan).. Although it faired, the conspiracy was not without historical significance. Cicero’s place in history was largely secured by this event (Church 92).
The saying that the winners write the history book is glaringly true in the Catiline conspiracy. None of Catiline’s own speeches or writings have survived. The two main sources we have about the conspiracy come from Marcus Tullius Cicero, and Gaius Sallustus Crispus, both of whom had good reasons to place Catiline in an unfavorable light. From their writings Catiline emerges as a figure of satanic proportions. He was accused of almost every crime imaginable including murdering his brother in law, sister, step son, and wife, raping a vestal virgin, and practicing homosexuality. Virgil, in The Aenied, didn’t think twice about placing Catiline in hell. “There (Tartarus) Catiline hung from a threatening rock, and trembled to see the Furies’s faces;...” (221). There is much to suggest that neither the portrait of Catiline painted by Cicero, nor Sallust, can be taken at face value.
Cicero, to start with, was one of the most egotistical figures in classical history. As Michael Grant writes in his introduction to Cicero’s speeches, “Readers will be appalled at the boastfulness of Cicero. He blows his trumpet with an unremitting loudness which can scarcely be paralleled” (11). Ordinarily, if an orator wished to publish his speeches he would do so immediately after they were delivered, yet Cicero waited three years to publish his speeches against Catiline. He had much time to rewrite them during this period, and evidence suggests he probably did. His speeches appear to be too long for the Senate to have sat through, considering the emotion present. More likely, they were what the Romans called “altercation”, or give and take. Catiline’s supporters would shout one thing, and Cicero would respond to it (Grant 11).
In his own eyes, Cicero had saved Rome from the greatest danger possible. He wanted to make sure the rest of Rome knew that, and his reworked speeches do everything to maximize the danger Rome was in, and the depravity of Catiline. Michael Grant writes, “Cicero’s picture of his (Catiline’s) personal character...is too classically frightful and diabolical to be true” (72).
Sallust, on the other hand, had high expectations when he began his political career. In his writings, he claimed that any man who did not make himself great was no better than the animals, who lived only to satisfy their appetites. Sallust entered the political scene as a populare. His support of Gaius Julius Caesar caused him some humiliating setbacks at the beginning, but by 49 B.C. Caesar had acquired a position of power, and Caesar rewarded his friends well. Sallust was on the verge of attaining his consulship, the ultimate goal for all politicians, when Caesar was murdered by the optimates. The political scene changed rapidly, and it soon became clear that Sallust was to have no part in the changing order (Linderski).
Sallust’s hopes were dashed. He had spent all of his adult life (he was 45 at the time) trying to achieve greatness through politics, only to leave the scene a nobody. In writing his histories, Sallust had two purposes: to achieve greatness in his writings that he never achieved in politics, and to get revenge on the political system and people he felt had kept him from greatness.
Sallust admits putting his own words of criticism into Catiline’s mouth. Through Catiline, Sallust harshly criticizes the optimates, who had opposed him at every turn. Nor do the populares escape denunciations, since Sallust felt they had been unappreciative of his actions. In other words, all the anger and cynicism we normally associate with Catiline really belong to Sallust (Hutchinson 24-28).
Secondly, these histories were Sallust’s last chance of greatness, and he was taking no chances. He wanted his readers to be on the edge of their seat as they read about the Catiline conspiracy, wondering how Rome could possibly escape the danger, only to see it narrowly survive, the reader would breath a sigh of relief. Naturally, th reader had to passionately hate Catiline, and Sallust painted Catiline as a villain of the vilest nature (Hutchinson 24-28).
Sallust was not unique to his time in doing this. The ancients drew the line between history and story incredibly thin. Fact was often sacrificed for dramatization. Later historians writing about Catiline painted him much like Cicero and Sallust and, of course, made up events of their own to impress the reader. Most notably is Plutarch, who accused Catiline of killing his own brother, deflowering his own daughter, and eating flesh, while encouraging other young men to do the same (1046). No doubt these juicy crimes widened the eyes of his reader, but there is no apparent evidence behind them. Not only was Catiline never prosecuted for these crimes, but if there was any thread of rumor to these effects, you can bet Cicero and Sallust would have brought it up.
If all the crimes Catiline was charged with were believed to be true, he would not have been elected praetor or been allowed to stand for consul twice, much less have his array of powerful friends. In fact, few believed the crimes because it was common in ancient Rome to accuse an opponent of imaginary crimes. In schools of rhetoric, advocates were taught to make use of colours, a way of presenting insignificant facts, mixed with a few useful lies, to produce what appeared to be evidence of shocking guilt. “It had become a habit,” said Cicero (as quoted in Hutchinson 31) referring to this practice, even though he did it often himself. Also, in the law courts of the time, there were no rules of evidence. It was the duty of the prosecutor to create a maximum of prejudice. It is unfortunate that many of these fake crimes have leaked into history (Hutchinson 29-35).
Of all the crimes Catiline was accused of, the murder of Gratidianus was the most popular. To make sense of this, it should be understood that in the late republic, Rome had two main political parties: the optimates and the populares. To say that the optimates were primarily for looking out for the interests of the aristocrats, and the populares primarily concerned about helping the poor, would be an oversimplification bordering on falsehood, but perhaps a useful working definition for our purposes (Asimov 47).
Tensions between these two groups were always high, but it exploded under the influence of Marius and Sulla. Marius, the populare, was forced to flee when Sulla gained control of Rome. Narrowly escaping Sulla’s many death traps, Marius fled to Africa. Sulla, thinking Marius was dead, decided all was safe at home and left for Asia to conduct war against Pontus. Marius returned with an army to seize control of Rome. For many days the city stunk of rotting flesh as Marius conducted one of the most brutal massacres in Roman history. Everyone associated with the optimate party was murdered (Plutarch 478).
But Marius’s reign was short lived. He died of a stroke while his massacre was still in full swing. Sulla returned to regain control. Foremost on his mind was revenge. He wanted to conduct a slaughter of the populares that would exceed that of the optimates. He succeeded (Plutarch 556).
Among the victims was a man named Gratidianus, a native of Arpinum and related to Marius and Cicero. From what we know of Gratidianus, he was one of the few honest politicians Rome had. He attained popularity as a praetor by withdrawing bad money from circulation. Several statues had been raised in his honor, but he was a populare, and condemned as such (Hutchinson 39).
Catiline, although his political views would later change rapidly, was at this time one of Sulla’s right hand men. According to Plutarch, Catiline dragged Gratidianus to the tomb of Catulus, a former consul who had committed suicide to avoid being killed by Marius. In front of an applauding mob, Catiline broke Gratidianus’s legs, cut off his hands, and plucked out his eyes before finally decapitating him. After placing Gratidianus’s head at Sulla’s feet, Catiline added sacrilege to his crimes by washing his hands off in the sacred fountain of Apollo (Plutarch 946).
Yet there is sufficient evidence to doubt this story. Catiline remained on friendly terms with the populare senators, and was a successful candidate for high office. Of more importance, Sulla had insisted that the names of those who had received money for killing or betraying the proscribed (those killed by Sulla) were entered into the public records. In 67 B.C., when the quastor Cato made them refund this money, Catiline was never called into question (Hutchinson 40). The following year, Julius Caesar brought to court and condemned all those who had taken part in Sulla’s massacre. No mention was made of Catiline (Grant 19).
Catiline was first accused of murdering Gratidianus in De Petitione Consulatus, a book written to Marcus Cicero by his younger brother Quintus, on how to become successful in politics. Catiline was then later strongly attacked for this murder in “In Toga Candida”, a speech made by Cicero. It seems strange that Cicero would so strongly attack Catiline, when earlier the same year he had written the following to his friend Atticus, while Catiline was facing charges of extortion in Africa: “I design at present to defend my competitor Catiline....I hope if he be acquitted that he will be the more ready to join me in our common candidature....Catiline is a good citizen, a lover of honest men, a firm and faithful friend,” (as quoted in Hutchinson 43). It turned out that Cicero was not needed; all the senators of consular rank, and then consuls themselves gave testimony in Catiline’s favor, also indicating that he was innocent of the brutal murder. Based on the accusations made in “In Toga Candida”, Catiline was brought to court for the murder of Gratidianus, and prosecuted by Lucius Lucceius, an optimate and friend of Cicero. He was acquitted. (Hutchinson 39-41).
In 66 B.C., Publius Cornelius Sulla and Publius Autronius were elected consuls for the coming year. Unfortunately for them, they were never to see the day they would take office. They were found guilty of bribery, and disqualified, fined, and sentenced to permanent exclusion form the Senate and magistracies. Aurelius Cotta and Manlius Torquatus were elected in their place. According to traditional history, Sulla and Autronius believed they had spent too much money on the consulship to be defeated now. They soon came together with Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso, a hot-headed social revolutionary. Together the three plotted to overthrow the senate and place themselves in power.
Thinking Catiline would be sympathetic to their ideas, they approached him. Catiline eagerly accepted, and soon was dominating the whole plot. On the appointed day, Catiline was supposed to give the signal, and armed gladiators would storm into the Senate, killing all inside. Catiline, in his thirst for blood, gave the signal too soon before the gladiators had fully assembled, and the plan collapsed (Plutarch 1054).
This was known as Catiline’s first conspiracy, but it appears to be more rumor than anything else. Sallust presents it as fact, but even he has to admit that the whole thing was uncertain (Hutchinson 44). Torquatus, the consul who supposedly was marked for death, said “he had heard something of it, but believed none of it” (as quoted in Hutchinson 45). Neither a prosecution nor an enquiry was conducted, which suggests no one seriously believed the rumors. All of the so called conspirators remained on good terms with the rest of the senate, which is unlikely had the senators truly believed the conspirators planned to kill them (Hutchinson 45). Even if the conspiracy did exist, Catiline’s involvement in it was most likely minimal, if at all. R.E. Smith writes, “The truth was rather that this so called first conspiracy of Catiline was a conspiracy of two disgruntled men” (86).
To add to the confusion, two men told a different story of the conspiracy. Aedile Marcus Bibulus, and a former consul, the elder Curio, told a version picked up by some other historians, most notably Suetonius. In this version, Catiline is in the background; the two masterminds were Crassus and Caesar. On the appointed day, Caesar was to give the signal for the massacre by letting his toga fall. All the senators would be murdered, and Crassus would be set up as dictator, with Caesar as his master of the horse. When the time came, Crassus chickened out, didn’t show, and the plan was aborted (Grant 20-30).
This view also has some inconsistences in it. For one thing, it contradicts the historical view we have of Crassus and Caesar. Crassus was always cautious never to put himself in front of things, preferring to achieve his means as inconspicuously as possible (Smith 86). Caesar, at this point in his career, was known for following the Roman constitution to the letter (Smith 87). Both men were too shrewd as politicians to ever do something as daring as this. Plutarch tells us that Caesar refused the crown from Mark Antony three times, instead of just seizing power when he had the chance (Plutarch 1233). Furthermore, even if the plan had been successful, it would only have succeeded in bringing Pompey and his legions, currently stationed in Spain, back to Rome, where Pompey would have assumed the dictatorship (Smith 90).
Two-thousand years after he died, it’s hard to get an accurate picture of what Catiline really was like. Since the only information we have on him is from his enemies, it is more than likely he is different than we usually think of him. Whatever his character was, his vision was correct. The republic didn’t last much past him. The first Triumvirate was formed three years later.
Bibliography
Asimov, Isaac The Roman Republic Cambridge, Houghton Mifflin Company 1966
Cicero, Marcus Tullius Contra Catiline I-IV Rome, 66 B.C.
Church, Alfred Roman Life in the Days of Cicero New York, Bilso and Tannen, 1959
Grant, Michael Cicero: Selected Political Speeches London, Penguin Books 1969
Grant, Michael The Founders of the Western World: A History of Greece and Rome New York, Macmillan Publishing Company, 1989
Grant, Michael Julius Caesar. New York. M. Evans & Company. 1969
Hutchinson, Lester The Conspiracy of Catiline New York, Barnes and Noble 1967
Kaplan, Arthur “Catiline” (Electronic Encyclopedia) Grolier Electronic Publishing, Inc. Copyright 1995
Linderski, James “Sallust” (Electronic Encyclopedia) Grolier Electronig Publishing, Inc. Copyright 1995.
Maier, Paul Josephus: The Essential Writings Kregal Publications, Grand Rapids, 1988.
Plutarch Vitae Rome 105
Smith, R.E. Cicero the Statesman Cambridge, University Press 1966
Virgilius, Publius Maro The Aeneid Rome, 19 BC
Teacher’s Comments: I appreciate your work on transitions! You have a talent Joel! I can envision you as a history scholar. You should go for it. You’re talented. Be sure to be aware of info your reader needs to know. You improved this! Nice. Watch documentary style.
Grade 98% A
Friday, December 09, 2005
The Black Panthers
This was a paper I wrote for high school. The assignment was to do something related to the civil rights movement. I wanted to do a paper on the Black Panthers, and the teacher reluctantly agreed. Although I was interested, I knew nothing about the Black Panthers at the time, and the Christian High library was not a lot of help. (This was in the days before the internet really took off).
There were no books on the Black Panthers in the library, so I looked over every book I could find on the 60s or the Civil rights movement and pulled out everything that was tangentially related to the Panthers, and then threw it all together in this paper. Which is why it reads so jumbled. Like my paper on The Japanese Student Movement, I learned a lot more about this subject in the following years, and would undoubtably write a different paper today if I had the opportunity.
The Black Panther Party for Self Defense was organized in 1966 by Huey P. Newton and Bobby G. Seale in a ghetto in Oakland California, although the “self defense” part was eventually dropped. Its initial goal was to protect blacks from police brutality, but eventually it evolved into a communist group that combined both Marxist and Maoist ideals. The Black Panthers worked closely with white revolutionary and radical groups that shared their goals. In fact the Black Panthers worked more with white groups than any other black civil rights group at the time, which brought them into disagreements with some black groups. In particular, an alliance was formed with Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the spearhead of counter-culture’s political movement. SDS hoped to benefit from the Panther’s publicity. The Panther’s claimed the biggest problem was “the economic exploitation of both blacks and whites by profit seeking capitalists.” The Panthers would also demand complete black control of ghettos, including business and the police, freedom for all blacks in prison, and draft exemption for Blacks from Vietnam, which they considered to be a racist war. The Panthers rejected white culture and instead chose Afro hair styles, dashiki robes, and black power handshakes. They also coined the slogan “Black is Beautiful.” Seale and Newton themselves took inspiration from Malcolm X.
The Panthers’s first challenge occured during the Chicago riots. During the hot days of July, police refused to turn on fire hydrants so black children could cool off in them. The riots ensued, and the national guard was called in. The guardsman were inexperienced and trigger happy. Several innocent blacks were killed just walking down the street. One boy was killed in his own yard bringing the garbage out. The Panthers said, “We want an immediate end to police brutality and the murder of innocent black people.”
In 1966, James H. Meredith, the first black student to attend the University of Mississippi, was killed by a sniper on a civil rights march. [Ed. Note: Actually I got this wrong. He was only wounded.] This incident caused outrage among blacks, and caused many to question if they would ever achieve their goals. John Lewis, the chairman of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) struggled to keep the group peaceful, but was unsuccessful. He was replaced by Stokley Carmichael, who supported Panther ideals. By the end of the decade, the words “Non-violent” would be dropped from SNCC’s name. Carmichael was born in Trinidad, but grew up in Harlem. He was one of SNCC’s founding members in 1960, and led several student protest activities throughout his college years.
Also in 1966, the Panthers were joined by Eldridge Cleaver, who was on parole after being sentenced to twelve to fourteen years in 1958 for assault with intent to kill. Cleaver’s gift for speaking captivated many people, and he proved a valuable asset to the Panthers.
In 1967, Huey Newton was found guilty of murdering an Oakland Police officer, but the decision was reversed on appeal.
Bobby Seale was one of the “Chicago Eight”, a group that was accused of crossing state lines to start an anti-war riot at the Democratic National Convention. Interestingly, he was the only black man among the group. Nixon was out to make an example of this group, and many of them were sentenced to five years in prison. [Ed. Note: overturned on appeal]. Seale was not sentenced to prison.
In Los Angeles, three Black Panthers were killed in a shoot out with police. This incident fueled hatred between the two groups, and further shoot outs between police and panthers throughout the nation caused deaths on both sides. Cleaver himself fled to Algeria after a shooting incident in 1968. He would not return until 1975, when he claimed he had undergone a religious conversion and renounced many of his earlier beliefs. He was arrested for parole violations, and not released until 1979.
The Police claimed the Panthers were arming themselves for an all-out attack. The Panthers claimed the police were trying to exterminate them, so the Panthers sandbagged their headquarters against police attack, and armed Panther followers. While the California Senate was deliberating a gun control law that would have forced the Panthers to disarm, the Senate was rushed by 26 heavily-armed Panthers. The Panthers were disarmed by the security at the door.
That same year, Carmichael left SNCC to become the Prime Minister of the Panthers. The following are two quotes by Carmichael that reveal his views:
“When you talk of black power, you talk of bringing the country to its knees, of building a movement that will smash everything Western Civilization has created.”
And
“We have to wage a psychological battle for the right of black people to define their own terms, define themselves as they see fit and organize themselves as they see fit. We are concerned with getting the things we want, the things that we have to have to be able to function. Will white people overcome their racism and allow for that to happen in this country?”
Carmichael was replaced at SNCC by H. Rap Brown, who, after Martin Luther King’s assassination, would shout, “We must move from resistance to aggression, from revolt to revolution!” Brown would eventually aggravate Congress to pass what would be known as “The Rap Brown Act.” This act allowed peaceful protesters to be legally arrested. While arguing about this act, a Louisiana congressmen told his colleagues to “forget about the first amendment.” The Rap Brown Act was used heavily against the Panther in the following years.
Seale and other Panther leaders were accused of torturing and murdering a former Panther whom they suspected of being a police informer. The jury failed to reach a verdict.
Despite all their problems, the Panthers won support in the ghettos by feeding free breakfast to poor black children. The children were also given a free coloring book from the Panthers, which glorified killing white policemen.
In 1969, 14 police officers made an early morning raid on the apartment of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, whom they suspected of having illegal weapons. Hampton and several other Panthers were sleeping in the apartment, when the police opened fire. Four Panthers were wounded, Hampton was killed in his bed. The police claimed they fired in self-defense, but an analysis of the area showed they had fired some 100 bullets in exchange for one from the Panthers. Panther Brenda Harris, who was in the apartment, testified in court: “They came in shooting. They shot me, they shot Mark Clark, and this other pig, he came in with a machine gun and he started shooting toward the back and they were yelling to each other, ‘There is some over there in the back. Get them’, and he would shoot over toward that direction, and he was just shooting with the machine gun, just going crazy.” Attorney General John Mitchell justified the police action, calling the Panthers a threat to National Security.
In 1969, Newton was charged with murder in a street brawl, and Carmichael resigned from the Panthers. The movement was hurting as its leaders were vanishing, and the remaining leaders quarreled constantly. Added to the decline of black radicalism, it spelled death for the Panthers.
So what happened to the leaders? Two former Panthers were implicated in the Brink Robbery incident in 1981. Newton spent three years in prison for shooting a police man, and afterwards was in and out of jail. He was last released in 1989, after serving time for a parole violation. Seale now studies and teaches at Temple University in Philadelphia. He has also published a book on barbecuing.
Teacher’s Comments: The Police used PIG, Pride Integrity Guts, to their advantage.
There were no books on the Black Panthers in the library, so I looked over every book I could find on the 60s or the Civil rights movement and pulled out everything that was tangentially related to the Panthers, and then threw it all together in this paper. Which is why it reads so jumbled. Like my paper on The Japanese Student Movement, I learned a lot more about this subject in the following years, and would undoubtably write a different paper today if I had the opportunity.
The Black Panther Party for Self Defense was organized in 1966 by Huey P. Newton and Bobby G. Seale in a ghetto in Oakland California, although the “self defense” part was eventually dropped. Its initial goal was to protect blacks from police brutality, but eventually it evolved into a communist group that combined both Marxist and Maoist ideals. The Black Panthers worked closely with white revolutionary and radical groups that shared their goals. In fact the Black Panthers worked more with white groups than any other black civil rights group at the time, which brought them into disagreements with some black groups. In particular, an alliance was formed with Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the spearhead of counter-culture’s political movement. SDS hoped to benefit from the Panther’s publicity. The Panther’s claimed the biggest problem was “the economic exploitation of both blacks and whites by profit seeking capitalists.” The Panthers would also demand complete black control of ghettos, including business and the police, freedom for all blacks in prison, and draft exemption for Blacks from Vietnam, which they considered to be a racist war. The Panthers rejected white culture and instead chose Afro hair styles, dashiki robes, and black power handshakes. They also coined the slogan “Black is Beautiful.” Seale and Newton themselves took inspiration from Malcolm X.
The Panthers’s first challenge occured during the Chicago riots. During the hot days of July, police refused to turn on fire hydrants so black children could cool off in them. The riots ensued, and the national guard was called in. The guardsman were inexperienced and trigger happy. Several innocent blacks were killed just walking down the street. One boy was killed in his own yard bringing the garbage out. The Panthers said, “We want an immediate end to police brutality and the murder of innocent black people.”
In 1966, James H. Meredith, the first black student to attend the University of Mississippi, was killed by a sniper on a civil rights march. [Ed. Note: Actually I got this wrong. He was only wounded.] This incident caused outrage among blacks, and caused many to question if they would ever achieve their goals. John Lewis, the chairman of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) struggled to keep the group peaceful, but was unsuccessful. He was replaced by Stokley Carmichael, who supported Panther ideals. By the end of the decade, the words “Non-violent” would be dropped from SNCC’s name. Carmichael was born in Trinidad, but grew up in Harlem. He was one of SNCC’s founding members in 1960, and led several student protest activities throughout his college years.
Also in 1966, the Panthers were joined by Eldridge Cleaver, who was on parole after being sentenced to twelve to fourteen years in 1958 for assault with intent to kill. Cleaver’s gift for speaking captivated many people, and he proved a valuable asset to the Panthers.
In 1967, Huey Newton was found guilty of murdering an Oakland Police officer, but the decision was reversed on appeal.
Bobby Seale was one of the “Chicago Eight”, a group that was accused of crossing state lines to start an anti-war riot at the Democratic National Convention. Interestingly, he was the only black man among the group. Nixon was out to make an example of this group, and many of them were sentenced to five years in prison. [Ed. Note: overturned on appeal]. Seale was not sentenced to prison.
In Los Angeles, three Black Panthers were killed in a shoot out with police. This incident fueled hatred between the two groups, and further shoot outs between police and panthers throughout the nation caused deaths on both sides. Cleaver himself fled to Algeria after a shooting incident in 1968. He would not return until 1975, when he claimed he had undergone a religious conversion and renounced many of his earlier beliefs. He was arrested for parole violations, and not released until 1979.
The Police claimed the Panthers were arming themselves for an all-out attack. The Panthers claimed the police were trying to exterminate them, so the Panthers sandbagged their headquarters against police attack, and armed Panther followers. While the California Senate was deliberating a gun control law that would have forced the Panthers to disarm, the Senate was rushed by 26 heavily-armed Panthers. The Panthers were disarmed by the security at the door.
That same year, Carmichael left SNCC to become the Prime Minister of the Panthers. The following are two quotes by Carmichael that reveal his views:
“When you talk of black power, you talk of bringing the country to its knees, of building a movement that will smash everything Western Civilization has created.”
And
“We have to wage a psychological battle for the right of black people to define their own terms, define themselves as they see fit and organize themselves as they see fit. We are concerned with getting the things we want, the things that we have to have to be able to function. Will white people overcome their racism and allow for that to happen in this country?”
Carmichael was replaced at SNCC by H. Rap Brown, who, after Martin Luther King’s assassination, would shout, “We must move from resistance to aggression, from revolt to revolution!” Brown would eventually aggravate Congress to pass what would be known as “The Rap Brown Act.” This act allowed peaceful protesters to be legally arrested. While arguing about this act, a Louisiana congressmen told his colleagues to “forget about the first amendment.” The Rap Brown Act was used heavily against the Panther in the following years.
Seale and other Panther leaders were accused of torturing and murdering a former Panther whom they suspected of being a police informer. The jury failed to reach a verdict.
Despite all their problems, the Panthers won support in the ghettos by feeding free breakfast to poor black children. The children were also given a free coloring book from the Panthers, which glorified killing white policemen.
In 1969, 14 police officers made an early morning raid on the apartment of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, whom they suspected of having illegal weapons. Hampton and several other Panthers were sleeping in the apartment, when the police opened fire. Four Panthers were wounded, Hampton was killed in his bed. The police claimed they fired in self-defense, but an analysis of the area showed they had fired some 100 bullets in exchange for one from the Panthers. Panther Brenda Harris, who was in the apartment, testified in court: “They came in shooting. They shot me, they shot Mark Clark, and this other pig, he came in with a machine gun and he started shooting toward the back and they were yelling to each other, ‘There is some over there in the back. Get them’, and he would shoot over toward that direction, and he was just shooting with the machine gun, just going crazy.” Attorney General John Mitchell justified the police action, calling the Panthers a threat to National Security.
In 1969, Newton was charged with murder in a street brawl, and Carmichael resigned from the Panthers. The movement was hurting as its leaders were vanishing, and the remaining leaders quarreled constantly. Added to the decline of black radicalism, it spelled death for the Panthers.
So what happened to the leaders? Two former Panthers were implicated in the Brink Robbery incident in 1981. Newton spent three years in prison for shooting a police man, and afterwards was in and out of jail. He was last released in 1989, after serving time for a parole violation. Seale now studies and teaches at Temple University in Philadelphia. He has also published a book on barbecuing.
Teacher’s Comments: The Police used PIG, Pride Integrity Guts, to their advantage.
Thursday, December 08, 2005
Caligula
10th Grade English Speech—Caligula
March 25th, 1994
I. Introduction
The Roman Empire—A forum through which ran some of the best and worst history has to offer. Commonly ranked as second only to Nero in the worst is Caligula. He came extremely close to destroying the whole Empire, and only a handful of brave men were able to stop him. They were faced with the impossible task of killing an Emperor.
II. Background
A. Childhood
1.Born in Gaul-12 AD-with the army—father Germanicus famous general
2. Named
a. Gaius Julius Caesar in honor of ancestor
b. Dressed up like soldier at three—earned the nickname “little boots”—Caligula in Latin
B. Reign
1. Became the third Emperor after Tiberious—AD 37
2. Ruled wisely for the first few months, but overtook by an unknown mental illness
3. Treasury
a. Used up by faulty spending
b. Executed rich people on false charges for their money
c. Over 38 known victims
4. Germanic tribes
a. giving him trouble—marched troops down to restore order
b. boasted he would conquer Britain also
(1). Disloyal troops made this impossible
(2). As a way out, he told troops they must first conquer the sea, and had them collect sea shells in helmet—great humiliation
III. Trouble in Judea
A. Declared himself God—ordered the whole empire to worship him as such
B. Alexandria
1. When the Jews refused to do so, Greeks burned their houses
2. Tensions rose so high that the case brought before Caligula
a. Greek spokesman—Apion—claimed Jews failed to honor the emperor
b. Jewish spokesman—Philio—cut off by Caligula
C. Statue
1. Sent Petronius to replace Legate of Syria
2. Told Petronius to march to Jerusalem and place the statue in the Holy of Holies
3. At Ptolemais—met by thousands of Jews
a. Pleaded for peace
b. Threatened revolution
c. Threatened destruction of crops—famine
4. At Tiberius
a. Same result
b. Gathered meeting—explained situation
c. Wrote a letter to Caligula saying plan wouldn’t work
5. King Aggrippa
a. Grandson of Herod the Great
b. Pleaded for Jews
c. Caligula reluctantly agreed
d. Letter from Petronius
(1). Only agitated him
(2) Ordered Petronius to commit suicide, but news of assassination reached Petronius first
IV. Asssassination
A. Three Groups
1. Originally worked without knowing about each other
2. Later joined into one group
B. Key conspirators
1. Chaerea
a. High pitched voice—Caligula mocked with hand and password
b. Liberty
c. Republic
2. Sabinus
3. Vinicianus
C. Omens
1. Sacrifices squirted blood
2. Actors at play vomited blood
D. Plan
1. Get him when he left play to bathe and lunch
2. Caligula showed signs of staying through play
3. Vinicianus—urged Chaerea to do act—stopped by Caligula
4. Chaerea almost committed assassination in theater, but Caligula convinced to leave
E. Assassination
1. Took a shorter route—unguarded alley
2. met by conspirators—Chaerea asked for password
3. Usual obscene reply
4. Chaerea struck neck
5. Caligula ran but Sabinus pushed him down
6. Stabbed thirty times—fatal blow from Aquila—41
7. Litter barrens took poles from litter to try and fight off—little good
V. Aftermath
A. German body guards
1. Arrived and cut down anyone in sight
2. Many conspirators escaped thanks to Alcyon, Physician who smuggled many out while pretending to look for supplies
B. Wife Caesonia and daughter Drusilla killed at home by Lupus
1. Wife—ran through with sword
2. Daughter—head smashed against wall
C. Claudius made emperor
1. Stuttered so Caligula had made him clown
2. Found hiding by the soldiers, and then hailed as Emperor—Caligula’s Uncle
D. Executions
1. Claudius glad of Caligula’s death, but wanted to make example
2. Chaerea and others killed
3. Public opinion against—so executions stopped
4. Sabinus felt guilty—committed suicide
VI. Conclusion
Through the valor of brave men, who risked their lives to stop a madman, the empire was saved. The republic never returned. It’s time had passed for a while. But history will always remember those who died to save the world from the corruption of power—from Caligula.
Bibliography
Barrett, Anthony. Caligula: The Corruption of Power. New Haven. Yale University Press. 1989.
Josephus. The Jewish War. Grand Rapids. Kregal Publications. 1988 (Translated by Paul Maier)
Grade: 96% A-
Teacher’s comments:
Nicely informative poster. Excellent information. Excellent conclusion. I really enjoyed everything you said.
Delivery—look at the sides as well. Don’t play with your pen.
The test of a good speech is whether you are able to retain audience attention throughout. You do this well. Keep working on delivery skills. I’d like to see your positioning reflect confidence.
Time: 7:09—long!
A-( I really wanted to give you an “A”, but for a couple of reasons I had to take off points).
March 25th, 1994
I. Introduction
The Roman Empire—A forum through which ran some of the best and worst history has to offer. Commonly ranked as second only to Nero in the worst is Caligula. He came extremely close to destroying the whole Empire, and only a handful of brave men were able to stop him. They were faced with the impossible task of killing an Emperor.
II. Background
A. Childhood
1.Born in Gaul-12 AD-with the army—father Germanicus famous general
2. Named
a. Gaius Julius Caesar in honor of ancestor
b. Dressed up like soldier at three—earned the nickname “little boots”—Caligula in Latin
B. Reign
1. Became the third Emperor after Tiberious—AD 37
2. Ruled wisely for the first few months, but overtook by an unknown mental illness
3. Treasury
a. Used up by faulty spending
b. Executed rich people on false charges for their money
c. Over 38 known victims
4. Germanic tribes
a. giving him trouble—marched troops down to restore order
b. boasted he would conquer Britain also
(1). Disloyal troops made this impossible
(2). As a way out, he told troops they must first conquer the sea, and had them collect sea shells in helmet—great humiliation
III. Trouble in Judea
A. Declared himself God—ordered the whole empire to worship him as such
B. Alexandria
1. When the Jews refused to do so, Greeks burned their houses
2. Tensions rose so high that the case brought before Caligula
a. Greek spokesman—Apion—claimed Jews failed to honor the emperor
b. Jewish spokesman—Philio—cut off by Caligula
C. Statue
1. Sent Petronius to replace Legate of Syria
2. Told Petronius to march to Jerusalem and place the statue in the Holy of Holies
3. At Ptolemais—met by thousands of Jews
a. Pleaded for peace
b. Threatened revolution
c. Threatened destruction of crops—famine
4. At Tiberius
a. Same result
b. Gathered meeting—explained situation
c. Wrote a letter to Caligula saying plan wouldn’t work
5. King Aggrippa
a. Grandson of Herod the Great
b. Pleaded for Jews
c. Caligula reluctantly agreed
d. Letter from Petronius
(1). Only agitated him
(2) Ordered Petronius to commit suicide, but news of assassination reached Petronius first
IV. Asssassination
A. Three Groups
1. Originally worked without knowing about each other
2. Later joined into one group
B. Key conspirators
1. Chaerea
a. High pitched voice—Caligula mocked with hand and password
b. Liberty
c. Republic
2. Sabinus
3. Vinicianus
C. Omens
1. Sacrifices squirted blood
2. Actors at play vomited blood
D. Plan
1. Get him when he left play to bathe and lunch
2. Caligula showed signs of staying through play
3. Vinicianus—urged Chaerea to do act—stopped by Caligula
4. Chaerea almost committed assassination in theater, but Caligula convinced to leave
E. Assassination
1. Took a shorter route—unguarded alley
2. met by conspirators—Chaerea asked for password
3. Usual obscene reply
4. Chaerea struck neck
5. Caligula ran but Sabinus pushed him down
6. Stabbed thirty times—fatal blow from Aquila—41
7. Litter barrens took poles from litter to try and fight off—little good
V. Aftermath
A. German body guards
1. Arrived and cut down anyone in sight
2. Many conspirators escaped thanks to Alcyon, Physician who smuggled many out while pretending to look for supplies
B. Wife Caesonia and daughter Drusilla killed at home by Lupus
1. Wife—ran through with sword
2. Daughter—head smashed against wall
C. Claudius made emperor
1. Stuttered so Caligula had made him clown
2. Found hiding by the soldiers, and then hailed as Emperor—Caligula’s Uncle
D. Executions
1. Claudius glad of Caligula’s death, but wanted to make example
2. Chaerea and others killed
3. Public opinion against—so executions stopped
4. Sabinus felt guilty—committed suicide
VI. Conclusion
Through the valor of brave men, who risked their lives to stop a madman, the empire was saved. The republic never returned. It’s time had passed for a while. But history will always remember those who died to save the world from the corruption of power—from Caligula.
Bibliography
Barrett, Anthony. Caligula: The Corruption of Power. New Haven. Yale University Press. 1989.
Josephus. The Jewish War. Grand Rapids. Kregal Publications. 1988 (Translated by Paul Maier)
Grade: 96% A-
Teacher’s comments:
Nicely informative poster. Excellent information. Excellent conclusion. I really enjoyed everything you said.
Delivery—look at the sides as well. Don’t play with your pen.
The test of a good speech is whether you are able to retain audience attention throughout. You do this well. Keep working on delivery skills. I’d like to see your positioning reflect confidence.
Time: 7:09—long!
A-( I really wanted to give you an “A”, but for a couple of reasons I had to take off points).
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
A Tale of Two Cities
A Tale of Two Cities: High School Book Review
1. Book: A Tale of Two Cities
2. Author: Charles Dickens
3. Genre: Historical Fiction
4. Setting: The Book takes place in France and England during the late seventeen hundreds. Dickens probably described the mood of the book best himself when he wrote, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...” The book shows both hope and joy contrasted with violence and hate.
5. Characters
Lucie Manette: A young English lady, with long golden curls. She has a forehead that moves when she thinks too hard, and most men find this attractive. Perfect in almost anything, she is extremely devoted to her father, and to a lesser extent her husband. She cries easily and doesn't take shocking news well.
Charles Darnay: A perfect gentleman. He is a French nobleman by nature, but lives in England. He is unique among his kind in that he cares for the poor. A very caring person, as evidenced by his attitudes towards Lucie.
Sydney Carton: He looks exactly like Darnay. He feels like his life has been wasted. He has an excellent memory, and is a valuable asset to his friend Stryver. Dickens frequently compares Carton to a Jackal
6. Theme: The theme is that all life is important. In the beginning, the aristocrats treat the peasants’ life as nothing. After the revolution, the peasants see the aristocrats life as nothing, but Sydney Carton, whose own life is wasted, makes the ultimate sacrifice to protect the life of his friend.
7. Rating: On a scale of one to ten, I would give this book an eight. Most of it was very interesting, such as the French Revolution bits and all the spies. I did, however, find some parts to be dry (described more fully in #8).
8.
“A Tale of Two Cities” by Charles Dickens, was overall a good book. As Dickens himself states when the book first opens, these were turbulent and interesting times, and his story of lovers caught in them is fascinating. If this review ends up giving a negative impression of the book, that is only because it is easier to be negative than positive. I did like the book.
The book takes place in both London and Paris (hence the title) in the late seventeen hundreds. The French Revolution is the background against which the story unfolds, so the book is historical fiction. I suspect Dickens has taken a lot of liberties with the history involved. I haven’t done any research, so I can’t say for certain, but I’m pretty sure most of his characters are fictitious, and so the important role they played in the French Revolution in Dicken's book never actually occurred in real life.
Throughout the book, Dickens had an eye for detail that sometimes irritated me. I would be anxious to get on with the story, and Dickens would be describing something in more detail than I cared to know about. His lengthy descriptions about how old fashioned Tellson's Bank is, for instance, something I could have done without. It also seemed terribly inconsistent to me. Here Dickens would describe a few minutes in great detail, here he would cover six years in a few paragraphs (such as when he is telling about how Lucie and Charles had one daughter, and a son who died only a few years after he was born). But, better too much description than too little, I suppose. And compared with some other books I have read, Dickens wasn't really all that bad.
As too the plot, the ending was painfully obvious even from the beginning of the book. The fact that Sydney Carton felt his life was a waste was emphasized so much it became obvious he would perform some great act of self-sacrifice before the end of the book to redeem himself. Also, the fact that he told Lucie he would gladly sacrifice his life for someone he loves adds to the feeling of inevitability. And, of course, the incredibly coincidence that Carton and Darnay look exactly alike (which I felt was a bit of an unbelievable coincidence) was too big of a coincidence not to be used in some way that would affect the plot.
While I may have seen that part coming, Dickens did have plenty of other surprises that I did not expect. For example, I did not expect that Misses Pross's brother Solomon would turn out to be John Barsad. Nor did I expect that Roger Cly was still alive. Or the whole story about why Dr. Manette had been locked up in the Bastille in the first place. And finally, the biggest surprise to me was that Madame Dafarge was the last surviving member of the peasant family victimized by the Evremondes.
Without a doubt, my favorite sections of the book were those dealing with Defarge, Jacques, and the rest of the French Revolution. The secret signals the Jacques had, such as Madame Defarge putting a rose in her hair to indicate when a spy was present, and the way they had hidden contacts all over to obtain information, reminded me of cold-war era spy movies. The noble cause for which they worked made me feel sympathetic to them, and even near the end of the book when they become the antagonists of Charles Darnay I never quite grew to hate them. I think I would have enjoyed the book immeasurably more if it had featured the Jacques as its main subject, instead of Lucie Mannette and Charles Darnay.
As to those to characters, they were, in my opinion, the most boring of the whole book. Jerry Cruncher was humorous, Carton was a likeable scoundrel, even Mr. Lorry was amusing as a man who dedicated his whole life to business. Every character in the whole book has some sort of quirk to make them interesting except for the main characters Charles and Lucie. When they spoke, it was much too formal and polite, and not at all like real people talk. Also, they were much too perfect. They could always be counted on to do the right thing, and didn’t have any signs of human fallibles in their moral character. Take for instance Lucie’s extreme devotion to her father, or Darnay’s sense of responsibility. I guess the only time you could fault either of them was on Darnay’s unwise decision to return to France.
This decision reminded me of many of the horror movies I have seen. In a horror movie, the audience knows that great danger awaits a character if they go to a certain place or do a certain thing. And all logic seems to scream at the character not to go to this place or do this thing. However ultimately the audience knows that the character must make this choice, and suffer the consequences, if for no other reason than to keep the plot moving in its intended decision.
So it was with Darnay’s decision to return to France. From the moment the Defarges were talking about what great danger would await Darnay if he ever returned to France, I knew he would somehow end up back there. Darnay’s decision does not seem particularly logical either. The narrator states Darnay felt shamed by the remarks made by the aristocrats and Stryver, but Darnay never seemed worried about their opinions before. He had rejected his life with the aristocrats and his life with them, and he had turned down Styrver’s children as pupils. Sure, Gabelle was in danger, but as a member of the aristocracy Darnay must have realized there was precious little he could do to save him. Finally, Darnay was taken by surprise by the extreme political situation and the new laws in France. Why didn't he bother to find out more before he left England?
Having expressed the book’s faults, I think it wise to close the same way I started, restating that the book was very good, and I enjoyed reading it. The above negatives are but a slight complaint for an overall good thing.
Grade: A
Teacher’s Comments: Your review was delightful Joel! I appreciate your honesty and forcefulness. Well done!
1. Book: A Tale of Two Cities
2. Author: Charles Dickens
3. Genre: Historical Fiction
4. Setting: The Book takes place in France and England during the late seventeen hundreds. Dickens probably described the mood of the book best himself when he wrote, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...” The book shows both hope and joy contrasted with violence and hate.
5. Characters
Lucie Manette: A young English lady, with long golden curls. She has a forehead that moves when she thinks too hard, and most men find this attractive. Perfect in almost anything, she is extremely devoted to her father, and to a lesser extent her husband. She cries easily and doesn't take shocking news well.
Charles Darnay: A perfect gentleman. He is a French nobleman by nature, but lives in England. He is unique among his kind in that he cares for the poor. A very caring person, as evidenced by his attitudes towards Lucie.
Sydney Carton: He looks exactly like Darnay. He feels like his life has been wasted. He has an excellent memory, and is a valuable asset to his friend Stryver. Dickens frequently compares Carton to a Jackal
6. Theme: The theme is that all life is important. In the beginning, the aristocrats treat the peasants’ life as nothing. After the revolution, the peasants see the aristocrats life as nothing, but Sydney Carton, whose own life is wasted, makes the ultimate sacrifice to protect the life of his friend.
7. Rating: On a scale of one to ten, I would give this book an eight. Most of it was very interesting, such as the French Revolution bits and all the spies. I did, however, find some parts to be dry (described more fully in #8).
8.
“A Tale of Two Cities” by Charles Dickens, was overall a good book. As Dickens himself states when the book first opens, these were turbulent and interesting times, and his story of lovers caught in them is fascinating. If this review ends up giving a negative impression of the book, that is only because it is easier to be negative than positive. I did like the book.
The book takes place in both London and Paris (hence the title) in the late seventeen hundreds. The French Revolution is the background against which the story unfolds, so the book is historical fiction. I suspect Dickens has taken a lot of liberties with the history involved. I haven’t done any research, so I can’t say for certain, but I’m pretty sure most of his characters are fictitious, and so the important role they played in the French Revolution in Dicken's book never actually occurred in real life.
Throughout the book, Dickens had an eye for detail that sometimes irritated me. I would be anxious to get on with the story, and Dickens would be describing something in more detail than I cared to know about. His lengthy descriptions about how old fashioned Tellson's Bank is, for instance, something I could have done without. It also seemed terribly inconsistent to me. Here Dickens would describe a few minutes in great detail, here he would cover six years in a few paragraphs (such as when he is telling about how Lucie and Charles had one daughter, and a son who died only a few years after he was born). But, better too much description than too little, I suppose. And compared with some other books I have read, Dickens wasn't really all that bad.
As too the plot, the ending was painfully obvious even from the beginning of the book. The fact that Sydney Carton felt his life was a waste was emphasized so much it became obvious he would perform some great act of self-sacrifice before the end of the book to redeem himself. Also, the fact that he told Lucie he would gladly sacrifice his life for someone he loves adds to the feeling of inevitability. And, of course, the incredibly coincidence that Carton and Darnay look exactly alike (which I felt was a bit of an unbelievable coincidence) was too big of a coincidence not to be used in some way that would affect the plot.
While I may have seen that part coming, Dickens did have plenty of other surprises that I did not expect. For example, I did not expect that Misses Pross's brother Solomon would turn out to be John Barsad. Nor did I expect that Roger Cly was still alive. Or the whole story about why Dr. Manette had been locked up in the Bastille in the first place. And finally, the biggest surprise to me was that Madame Dafarge was the last surviving member of the peasant family victimized by the Evremondes.
Without a doubt, my favorite sections of the book were those dealing with Defarge, Jacques, and the rest of the French Revolution. The secret signals the Jacques had, such as Madame Defarge putting a rose in her hair to indicate when a spy was present, and the way they had hidden contacts all over to obtain information, reminded me of cold-war era spy movies. The noble cause for which they worked made me feel sympathetic to them, and even near the end of the book when they become the antagonists of Charles Darnay I never quite grew to hate them. I think I would have enjoyed the book immeasurably more if it had featured the Jacques as its main subject, instead of Lucie Mannette and Charles Darnay.
As to those to characters, they were, in my opinion, the most boring of the whole book. Jerry Cruncher was humorous, Carton was a likeable scoundrel, even Mr. Lorry was amusing as a man who dedicated his whole life to business. Every character in the whole book has some sort of quirk to make them interesting except for the main characters Charles and Lucie. When they spoke, it was much too formal and polite, and not at all like real people talk. Also, they were much too perfect. They could always be counted on to do the right thing, and didn’t have any signs of human fallibles in their moral character. Take for instance Lucie’s extreme devotion to her father, or Darnay’s sense of responsibility. I guess the only time you could fault either of them was on Darnay’s unwise decision to return to France.
This decision reminded me of many of the horror movies I have seen. In a horror movie, the audience knows that great danger awaits a character if they go to a certain place or do a certain thing. And all logic seems to scream at the character not to go to this place or do this thing. However ultimately the audience knows that the character must make this choice, and suffer the consequences, if for no other reason than to keep the plot moving in its intended decision.
So it was with Darnay’s decision to return to France. From the moment the Defarges were talking about what great danger would await Darnay if he ever returned to France, I knew he would somehow end up back there. Darnay’s decision does not seem particularly logical either. The narrator states Darnay felt shamed by the remarks made by the aristocrats and Stryver, but Darnay never seemed worried about their opinions before. He had rejected his life with the aristocrats and his life with them, and he had turned down Styrver’s children as pupils. Sure, Gabelle was in danger, but as a member of the aristocracy Darnay must have realized there was precious little he could do to save him. Finally, Darnay was taken by surprise by the extreme political situation and the new laws in France. Why didn't he bother to find out more before he left England?
Having expressed the book’s faults, I think it wise to close the same way I started, restating that the book was very good, and I enjoyed reading it. The above negatives are but a slight complaint for an overall good thing.
Grade: A
Teacher’s Comments: Your review was delightful Joel! I appreciate your honesty and forcefulness. Well done!
Saturday, December 03, 2005
Star Trek
Star Trek is a TV show. Later four movies were made: Star Trek I, entitled “Star Trek: The Motion Picture”, Star Trek II, entitled “The Wrath of Khan”, Star Trek III, entitled “The Search for Spock” and Star Trek IV, entitled “The Voyage Home”.
Star Trek takes place in the 23rd century. The U.S.S. Enterprise is one of twelve starships. It is the ship that the characters in. When Star Trek began, it is considered as one of the most modern vessels, but as Star Trek goes on, time catches up with it. Its five year mission is to find new life forms and new civilizations.
Captain Kirk is the captain of the Enterprise. He introduces himself as Captain James T. Kirk. The Enterprise is often out of communication with star ship bases for long periods of time, so Captain Kirk often makes his own decisions. Kirk breaks rules when necessary. Sometimes he lets worry and frustrations lead him to error. When Star Trek begins, Kirk is in his thirties. Kirk was born in Iowa. His ancestors were pioneers on the American frontier. He is interested in American history and one of heroes is Abraham Lincoln.
The T. in Kirk’s name stands for Tiberius which is a Roman name.
Kirk is attractive and his attractiveness helps him out a lot. Women aliens often spare his life because they fall in love with him. For example in the episode “Gamesters of Triskilion”, Shana falls in love with Kirk and spares his life later.
In Star Trek II, we find out that Kirk has a wife who’s called Dr. Carol Marcus and a son name David.
Kirk’s brother, who is a research biologist, is killed by an attack of insanity spread by flying parasites with his wife Aurelan. Their boy, Peter, who is about nine or ten, is the only survivor of the family.
In the movies, Kirk has been moved to Admiral.
Spock is the chief science officer on the Enterprise. He is properly known as Mr. Spock. Spock’s mother is Amanda Grayson and is human but lives on planet Vulcan with Vulcans and married a Vulcan, Sarek. Spock is their son. Spock is half human and apparently has human blood in him and once in a while he shows emotion. He is otherwise Vulcan. Vulcans have no emotions because they have had a warlike past. When they rejected their past they stopped having emotions because it led them to violence.
Lieutenant Commander Leonard McCoy is the senior ship surgeon and head of the medical department of the Enterprise. He is a man about forty five when Star Trek starts. He is often making unkind comments about other people. Inside he is very emotional and is often told by Spock that he is too emotional. McCoy was born in Georgia, and when he gets excited his accent can be heard.
Kirk calls him “Bones”, short for “Sawbones”, which means doctor. McCoy feels discomfort with modern machines.
McCoy is very emotional and illogical, while Spock on the other hand is very logical, because Vulcans are ruled by an almost machine like logic, and Spock is unemotional like all Vulcans. McCoy knows that people are ruled by their emotions; Spock does not. Even though episodes end a lot of time with them exchanging sharp remarks, it is clear they really respect each other.
McCoy was once married but is divorced. He has a daughter named Joanna. She is training to be a nurse.
Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott is the Chief engineer on the Enterprise.
Scotty pretends he doesn’t trust women but he is very fond of them.
Scotty has a Scottish accent.
Scotty is known for his appreciation of fine drink and he has a collection of alcoholic beverages from all known parts of the galaxy.
Lieutenant Sulu is the chief helmsman aboard the Enterprise. He uses his time wisely and always gets things done. The captain never has to give him an order more than once. He is interested in plants. He collects antique firearms and is an expert fencer.
Lieutenant Uhuru is the communications officer. She also uses her time wisely. Her name means “Freedom” in the Swahili language. She is very musical and is an excellent singer.
Ensign Pavel Andreievich Chekov joined the crew of the Enterprise following the death of lieutenant commander Gary Mitchell. He is Russian and has a Russian accent.
Nurse Christine Chapel first appears in the episode “What are Little Girls Made Of?”. The Enterprise is searching for her fiancé, Dr. Roger Korby. After Korby’s death, she stays on the Enterprise as McCoy’s aid and falls in love with Spock, and Spock tries to avoid her because of this.
Yeoman Janice Rand is in the beginning episodes. She and Kirk like each other, then she finds out Kirk loves his ship more than her, and she goes to another ship.
A few crew members who are on the Enterprise from time to time are Kevin Riley, who is memorable for his off key rendition of the Irish song, “I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen” and Dr. M’Benga, an African doctor who is good with Vulcan medicine because he was trained in a Vulcan hospital.
Vulcans are ruled by a machine like logic. There is also the Vulcan nerve pinch, which Vulcans use. It’s a pinch on the neck or shoulder and makes the victim of this pinch become unconscious. The Vulcans are able to do this because of their strength and knowledge of the body. Once Spock tried to teach it to Kirk, but Kirk couldn’t do it.
The death grip is gripping the face or forehead, but the death grip is pretend. Spock uses it to fool the Romulans. The Romulans will be in this report later. Vulcans have copper based blood and have the heart where the liver should be. Vulcan is a class M planet.
A Vulcan’s blood is green. Spock’s blood is T-negative. The Vulcan salute is a greeting. It is shown on the poster board. The Vulcan ritual embrace is where hands are crossed at the wrist with palms touching palms. It is used for family members. Vulcans have evolved an extra eye-lid to protect their eyes from the Vulcan sun. Vulcans have scientific knowledge. Spock likes Terrain art. He can also sight read music and play the Vulcan lyre, a Vulcan instrument. When Spock chose to join Star Fleet instead of the Vulcan Academy of Science, his father didn’t speak to him for eighteen years. Spock respects his father but is stubborn about making up.
Pon farr is the Vulcan mating urge. It happens to Vulcans every ten years of their life. When it happens to Spock, he becomes almost mad. He went back to Vulcan to claim T’pring whom he had been betrothed to in childhood.
Vulcans can become aware of each other over large distances. In an episode, Spock receives a shock when four hundred Vulcans die. Vulcans can read the minds of anything, even non-living things.
The Vulcan body can survive better than humans. For instance, in the episode, “The Immunity Syndrome”, Spock goes through some things that humans would not survive.
Vulcans can restore and remove memory. In Star Trek II, Spock transfers his personality to Dr. McCoy, and it is returned to him in Star Trek III by Vulcans.
Khan Noonian Singh ruled one quarter of earth from 1992 to 1996. He ruled South Asia to the Middle East. Khan is one of a group of people whose parents were picked out so that he would be strong. When regular people revolted in what was called the Eugenic Wars, Khan was the last to be driven from power. He escaped in a sleeper ship with eighty of his people. A sleeper ship is a ship in which the crew is in suspended animation. The one Khan was in was called Botany Bay. In “Space Seed”, Khan tried to take over the Enterprise, but is sent to exile on Ceti Alpha V.
Klingons are usually the enemies of the Federation. They look like humans in a sense on the TV show, but on the movies they look very ugly. The Klingons speak in a very mean sounding language. They have ugly dogs which they like. Their greeting is “survive and succeed”. The Klingons are a warrior race that comes from a poor planetary system. They must group together and conquer in order to survive. They hate all other races, especially humans. They are often fighting among themselves.
The Organians are beings of pure energy. The Organians planet was threatened by the conflict, so they force the Federation and the Kligons to sign a peace treaty. The result is an uneasy peace.
The Romulans are most often the enemies of the Federation, next to the Klingons. They fought a war with the Federation before the voyage of the Enterprise. A peace treaty was signed and the two have kept an uneasy peace. The Romulans are a race closely related to the Vulcans. They have lost contact with one another before the Vulcans changed from emotions to logic. The Romulans are very violent, and when attacking a ship they take no prisoners. Romulans and Klingons exchange ship designs. Romulans would rather die than be dishonored. Death is the penalty for disobedience and failure in battle, and death by torture is the penalty for spying on the Romulans. Saavik is half Romulan and half Vulcan. She is in the movies II, III, and briefly in IV.
The phaser is the main weapon. At lowest power it can quiet someone. At higher power it can knock someone out. At higher power it can explode something or dematerialize someone. It can also be used as a bomb. It can also be used a cutting torch, or it can be used for heating rocks to produce warmth. The higher the power, the more visible the phaser beam becomes. The phaser comes in two sizes. One size fits into hands, the other size is one that is on the ship. The phasers on the ship are usually fired by Sulu under Kirk’s orders. The little phasers are carried in a belt the Enterprise crew uses.
Photon torpedoes were invented by the Romulans and the Federation copied it. Photon torpedoes are on a ship. They can track down a target at a speed of many wap factors. It has a limited life span, so a ship can outrun one but it’s not easy.
The communicator is of course how the crew can communicate with the Enterprise when they are not on it, which is about half the time because they are exploring other planets. It is also used for people of the Enterprise to communicate with each other. It is kept in the same belt the phaser is in. It can be used when the antenna is flipped open. It has a 16,000 mile range.
The transporter is what the people in Star Trek use to get around. They stand in a certain spot in the ship and lights cover them. They reappear wherever they want to. It is worked by Scotty.
The tricorder can be used for many different things and it is a hand held device. It can study and identify. It can keep records on almost anything the Enterprise comes in contact with. It is about the size of a book. It has a shoulder strap and is carried mostly by either Spock or McCoy. It can tell them when an alien is near. Dr. McCoy has a special tricorder he uses to find out what’s wrong with people or aliens.
Dr. McCoy has two devices called the physiostimulator and the cardiostimulator. They are used for restarting stopped hearts. There is no difference between the two.
Most of the planets the Enterprise visits are not dangerous to humans, but in outer space a type of space suit called an environmental suit is used.
Time travel is possible in Star Trek. There are force fields being used all over the galaxy being used to keep something in or something out.
The Romulans have an invisible screen called a cloaking device. It makes their ship invisible. It has drawbacks. The major drawback is that people can’t see out and so the ship must become visible for battle. The Klingons use it also because the Romulans and Kingons exchange ship design.
The Enterprise has a crew of 430, mostly human. The “Saucer Section” has eleven decks. The cylinder like engineering section is located beneath the “Saucer Section”. Two additional cylinder sections called nacelles are attached to the engineering section. All the parts are connected by a system of turbolifts.
At the middle of the bridge is the captain’s chair, which of course Captain Kirk sits in. In front of the captain sits the navigator, who is Chekov, and the helmsman, who is Sulu, all facing a large view screen. In the outer circle of the bridge sit the communications officer, Uhura, the science officer, Spock, and unnamed people. The computer is deep within the ship, but is still able to communicate with the bridge by voice. It automatically maintains life support systems, including atmosphere and gravity.
********************************
This was a report I wrote in 4th Grade. The assignment was to write a report on any topic of our choosing.
I had, in those days, developed a reputation for my love of Wolves, and all my classmates expected I would write my report on Wolves. I thought I would as well, but then at the last minute I decided I was more interested in this TV show “Star Trek”, which I was just beginning to discover.
All of the information in this report was based off of "Strange and Amazing Facts about Star Trek" by Daniel Cohen. In 4th grade, the standards weren’t very high and no one minded that the entire report was drawn directly from one source.
My mother typed the whole report up for me on her old typewriter (this being before every household had a personal computer) and it was placed inside of a red binder, which is no doubt why this is one of the few things that survived from Elementary school. Although I can’t remember now if it was a requirement that the report be typed, or my mother just volunteered for it. (It must have been a requirement. I can’t imagine my mother just volunteering to type 8 pages on Star Trek for no reason.)
As you can see, I went a bit overboard in writing this thing, and it was several pages long compared to that of my classmates. It was so long that when we read our reports out in front of the whole class, I was the only one who wasn’t allowed to finish. (Although when I asked the teacher later, she reluctantly agreed to give me class time to finish reading my report).
When the school year was over, I couldn’t bear to part with the book, which had been part of my teacher’s personal library. I made an embarrassingly thinly veiled request for it, in which I walked up to her desk and told her how much I had enjoyed reading it this year. She gave it to me.
I’ve included this paper on my blog not because it is a specimen of brilliant scholarship, but because this marked the beginning of my obsession with Star Trek, something that marked my life from 4th grade onward all the way through most of high school.
In retrospect, I can’t help but wonder if a lot of that time couldn’t have been better spent...
On the other hand, wasting time is every child’s prerogative, and much of what defines childhood. And as a 4th grade student, I could have probably done a lot worse than the original Star Trek series. It was, after all, a TV show not without its charms. By the time I was in high school, it was beginning to get a little bit pathetic, but that was me.
Star Trek takes place in the 23rd century. The U.S.S. Enterprise is one of twelve starships. It is the ship that the characters in. When Star Trek began, it is considered as one of the most modern vessels, but as Star Trek goes on, time catches up with it. Its five year mission is to find new life forms and new civilizations.
Captain Kirk is the captain of the Enterprise. He introduces himself as Captain James T. Kirk. The Enterprise is often out of communication with star ship bases for long periods of time, so Captain Kirk often makes his own decisions. Kirk breaks rules when necessary. Sometimes he lets worry and frustrations lead him to error. When Star Trek begins, Kirk is in his thirties. Kirk was born in Iowa. His ancestors were pioneers on the American frontier. He is interested in American history and one of heroes is Abraham Lincoln.
The T. in Kirk’s name stands for Tiberius which is a Roman name.
Kirk is attractive and his attractiveness helps him out a lot. Women aliens often spare his life because they fall in love with him. For example in the episode “Gamesters of Triskilion”, Shana falls in love with Kirk and spares his life later.
In Star Trek II, we find out that Kirk has a wife who’s called Dr. Carol Marcus and a son name David.
Kirk’s brother, who is a research biologist, is killed by an attack of insanity spread by flying parasites with his wife Aurelan. Their boy, Peter, who is about nine or ten, is the only survivor of the family.
In the movies, Kirk has been moved to Admiral.
Spock is the chief science officer on the Enterprise. He is properly known as Mr. Spock. Spock’s mother is Amanda Grayson and is human but lives on planet Vulcan with Vulcans and married a Vulcan, Sarek. Spock is their son. Spock is half human and apparently has human blood in him and once in a while he shows emotion. He is otherwise Vulcan. Vulcans have no emotions because they have had a warlike past. When they rejected their past they stopped having emotions because it led them to violence.
Lieutenant Commander Leonard McCoy is the senior ship surgeon and head of the medical department of the Enterprise. He is a man about forty five when Star Trek starts. He is often making unkind comments about other people. Inside he is very emotional and is often told by Spock that he is too emotional. McCoy was born in Georgia, and when he gets excited his accent can be heard.
Kirk calls him “Bones”, short for “Sawbones”, which means doctor. McCoy feels discomfort with modern machines.
McCoy is very emotional and illogical, while Spock on the other hand is very logical, because Vulcans are ruled by an almost machine like logic, and Spock is unemotional like all Vulcans. McCoy knows that people are ruled by their emotions; Spock does not. Even though episodes end a lot of time with them exchanging sharp remarks, it is clear they really respect each other.
McCoy was once married but is divorced. He has a daughter named Joanna. She is training to be a nurse.
Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott is the Chief engineer on the Enterprise.
Scotty pretends he doesn’t trust women but he is very fond of them.
Scotty has a Scottish accent.
Scotty is known for his appreciation of fine drink and he has a collection of alcoholic beverages from all known parts of the galaxy.
Lieutenant Sulu is the chief helmsman aboard the Enterprise. He uses his time wisely and always gets things done. The captain never has to give him an order more than once. He is interested in plants. He collects antique firearms and is an expert fencer.
Lieutenant Uhuru is the communications officer. She also uses her time wisely. Her name means “Freedom” in the Swahili language. She is very musical and is an excellent singer.
Ensign Pavel Andreievich Chekov joined the crew of the Enterprise following the death of lieutenant commander Gary Mitchell. He is Russian and has a Russian accent.
Nurse Christine Chapel first appears in the episode “What are Little Girls Made Of?”. The Enterprise is searching for her fiancé, Dr. Roger Korby. After Korby’s death, she stays on the Enterprise as McCoy’s aid and falls in love with Spock, and Spock tries to avoid her because of this.
Yeoman Janice Rand is in the beginning episodes. She and Kirk like each other, then she finds out Kirk loves his ship more than her, and she goes to another ship.
A few crew members who are on the Enterprise from time to time are Kevin Riley, who is memorable for his off key rendition of the Irish song, “I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen” and Dr. M’Benga, an African doctor who is good with Vulcan medicine because he was trained in a Vulcan hospital.
Vulcans are ruled by a machine like logic. There is also the Vulcan nerve pinch, which Vulcans use. It’s a pinch on the neck or shoulder and makes the victim of this pinch become unconscious. The Vulcans are able to do this because of their strength and knowledge of the body. Once Spock tried to teach it to Kirk, but Kirk couldn’t do it.
The death grip is gripping the face or forehead, but the death grip is pretend. Spock uses it to fool the Romulans. The Romulans will be in this report later. Vulcans have copper based blood and have the heart where the liver should be. Vulcan is a class M planet.
A Vulcan’s blood is green. Spock’s blood is T-negative. The Vulcan salute is a greeting. It is shown on the poster board. The Vulcan ritual embrace is where hands are crossed at the wrist with palms touching palms. It is used for family members. Vulcans have evolved an extra eye-lid to protect their eyes from the Vulcan sun. Vulcans have scientific knowledge. Spock likes Terrain art. He can also sight read music and play the Vulcan lyre, a Vulcan instrument. When Spock chose to join Star Fleet instead of the Vulcan Academy of Science, his father didn’t speak to him for eighteen years. Spock respects his father but is stubborn about making up.
Pon farr is the Vulcan mating urge. It happens to Vulcans every ten years of their life. When it happens to Spock, he becomes almost mad. He went back to Vulcan to claim T’pring whom he had been betrothed to in childhood.
Vulcans can become aware of each other over large distances. In an episode, Spock receives a shock when four hundred Vulcans die. Vulcans can read the minds of anything, even non-living things.
The Vulcan body can survive better than humans. For instance, in the episode, “The Immunity Syndrome”, Spock goes through some things that humans would not survive.
Vulcans can restore and remove memory. In Star Trek II, Spock transfers his personality to Dr. McCoy, and it is returned to him in Star Trek III by Vulcans.
Khan Noonian Singh ruled one quarter of earth from 1992 to 1996. He ruled South Asia to the Middle East. Khan is one of a group of people whose parents were picked out so that he would be strong. When regular people revolted in what was called the Eugenic Wars, Khan was the last to be driven from power. He escaped in a sleeper ship with eighty of his people. A sleeper ship is a ship in which the crew is in suspended animation. The one Khan was in was called Botany Bay. In “Space Seed”, Khan tried to take over the Enterprise, but is sent to exile on Ceti Alpha V.
Klingons are usually the enemies of the Federation. They look like humans in a sense on the TV show, but on the movies they look very ugly. The Klingons speak in a very mean sounding language. They have ugly dogs which they like. Their greeting is “survive and succeed”. The Klingons are a warrior race that comes from a poor planetary system. They must group together and conquer in order to survive. They hate all other races, especially humans. They are often fighting among themselves.
The Organians are beings of pure energy. The Organians planet was threatened by the conflict, so they force the Federation and the Kligons to sign a peace treaty. The result is an uneasy peace.
The Romulans are most often the enemies of the Federation, next to the Klingons. They fought a war with the Federation before the voyage of the Enterprise. A peace treaty was signed and the two have kept an uneasy peace. The Romulans are a race closely related to the Vulcans. They have lost contact with one another before the Vulcans changed from emotions to logic. The Romulans are very violent, and when attacking a ship they take no prisoners. Romulans and Klingons exchange ship designs. Romulans would rather die than be dishonored. Death is the penalty for disobedience and failure in battle, and death by torture is the penalty for spying on the Romulans. Saavik is half Romulan and half Vulcan. She is in the movies II, III, and briefly in IV.
The phaser is the main weapon. At lowest power it can quiet someone. At higher power it can knock someone out. At higher power it can explode something or dematerialize someone. It can also be used as a bomb. It can also be used a cutting torch, or it can be used for heating rocks to produce warmth. The higher the power, the more visible the phaser beam becomes. The phaser comes in two sizes. One size fits into hands, the other size is one that is on the ship. The phasers on the ship are usually fired by Sulu under Kirk’s orders. The little phasers are carried in a belt the Enterprise crew uses.
Photon torpedoes were invented by the Romulans and the Federation copied it. Photon torpedoes are on a ship. They can track down a target at a speed of many wap factors. It has a limited life span, so a ship can outrun one but it’s not easy.
The communicator is of course how the crew can communicate with the Enterprise when they are not on it, which is about half the time because they are exploring other planets. It is also used for people of the Enterprise to communicate with each other. It is kept in the same belt the phaser is in. It can be used when the antenna is flipped open. It has a 16,000 mile range.
The transporter is what the people in Star Trek use to get around. They stand in a certain spot in the ship and lights cover them. They reappear wherever they want to. It is worked by Scotty.
The tricorder can be used for many different things and it is a hand held device. It can study and identify. It can keep records on almost anything the Enterprise comes in contact with. It is about the size of a book. It has a shoulder strap and is carried mostly by either Spock or McCoy. It can tell them when an alien is near. Dr. McCoy has a special tricorder he uses to find out what’s wrong with people or aliens.
Dr. McCoy has two devices called the physiostimulator and the cardiostimulator. They are used for restarting stopped hearts. There is no difference between the two.
Most of the planets the Enterprise visits are not dangerous to humans, but in outer space a type of space suit called an environmental suit is used.
Time travel is possible in Star Trek. There are force fields being used all over the galaxy being used to keep something in or something out.
The Romulans have an invisible screen called a cloaking device. It makes their ship invisible. It has drawbacks. The major drawback is that people can’t see out and so the ship must become visible for battle. The Klingons use it also because the Romulans and Kingons exchange ship design.
The Enterprise has a crew of 430, mostly human. The “Saucer Section” has eleven decks. The cylinder like engineering section is located beneath the “Saucer Section”. Two additional cylinder sections called nacelles are attached to the engineering section. All the parts are connected by a system of turbolifts.
At the middle of the bridge is the captain’s chair, which of course Captain Kirk sits in. In front of the captain sits the navigator, who is Chekov, and the helmsman, who is Sulu, all facing a large view screen. In the outer circle of the bridge sit the communications officer, Uhura, the science officer, Spock, and unnamed people. The computer is deep within the ship, but is still able to communicate with the bridge by voice. It automatically maintains life support systems, including atmosphere and gravity.
********************************
This was a report I wrote in 4th Grade. The assignment was to write a report on any topic of our choosing.
I had, in those days, developed a reputation for my love of Wolves, and all my classmates expected I would write my report on Wolves. I thought I would as well, but then at the last minute I decided I was more interested in this TV show “Star Trek”, which I was just beginning to discover.
All of the information in this report was based off of "Strange and Amazing Facts about Star Trek" by Daniel Cohen. In 4th grade, the standards weren’t very high and no one minded that the entire report was drawn directly from one source.
My mother typed the whole report up for me on her old typewriter (this being before every household had a personal computer) and it was placed inside of a red binder, which is no doubt why this is one of the few things that survived from Elementary school. Although I can’t remember now if it was a requirement that the report be typed, or my mother just volunteered for it. (It must have been a requirement. I can’t imagine my mother just volunteering to type 8 pages on Star Trek for no reason.)
As you can see, I went a bit overboard in writing this thing, and it was several pages long compared to that of my classmates. It was so long that when we read our reports out in front of the whole class, I was the only one who wasn’t allowed to finish. (Although when I asked the teacher later, she reluctantly agreed to give me class time to finish reading my report).
When the school year was over, I couldn’t bear to part with the book, which had been part of my teacher’s personal library. I made an embarrassingly thinly veiled request for it, in which I walked up to her desk and told her how much I had enjoyed reading it this year. She gave it to me.
I’ve included this paper on my blog not because it is a specimen of brilliant scholarship, but because this marked the beginning of my obsession with Star Trek, something that marked my life from 4th grade onward all the way through most of high school.
In retrospect, I can’t help but wonder if a lot of that time couldn’t have been better spent...
On the other hand, wasting time is every child’s prerogative, and much of what defines childhood. And as a 4th grade student, I could have probably done a lot worse than the original Star Trek series. It was, after all, a TV show not without its charms. By the time I was in high school, it was beginning to get a little bit pathetic, but that was me.
Friday, December 02, 2005
Unpublished Grand Rapids Press editorial
This was written in regards to the Rehnquist controversy. For more information see this post here.
In a guest editorial of the Grand Rapids Press, May 19, 2001, a fellow by the name of David Kamm slammed those of us at Calvin who were protesting the Chief Justice. It was such a bad editorial that for a couple days all I could think of was how many ways this guy didn't know what he was talking about. Mike Buma in particular was mentioned by name, so I told him he should probably make a reply. Mike called up the GR Press and asked for space to reply, and they said he could.
Buma wrote the bulk of this (as anyone who recognizes his distinctive style should be able to quickly tell). I was breathing down his neck the whole time and bugging him to make sure to include this or that point so Mike ended up submitting it with both of our names on it.
For whatever reason, the Press never ran it. It could have been too inflammatory, it could have been too formal, it could have been too insular, or it could just have been a communication error. We never did get a reason.
It was somewhat unfortunate, because I think this could have cleared up a lot of misconceptions readers of the press apparently had. The Letters to the Editor column was filled up for the next couple weeks with opinions similar to Kamm's. Eventually, however, the Press did run an article by Professor Jelks which had most of the same points as our piece. So the message did eventually get out there.
I am writing in regards to “Calvin College Liberals Show Intolerance by Protesting Chief Justice’s Invitation” (05/19/01) by David Kamm. I was greatly troubled by Kamm’s blithe misunderstanding of the Rehnquist issue, and by his subsequent misrepresentation of the so-called “Calvin liberals” he attempts to malign.
Kramm’s tendency towards a partisan understanding is regrettable. He makes the unsubstantiated assumption that were Angela Davis giving the commencement address rather than the chief justice, “these objecting students and faculty would probably fall all over themselves.” First of all, it should be noted that Calvin would never entertain the notion of hosting a speaker with connections to black radicalism. Secondly, Kamm’s reasoning seems to be that ‘liberals’ at Calvin align automatically with any ill-considered ‘liberal’ cause. Aside from slighting the diverse array of opinions represented by the dissenting members of the Calvin community, Kamm has reduced the issue into an uncomplicated polarity. The charges of racial insensitivity made against Rehnquist go beyond the traditional left/right debate (unless of course conservatives want to concede that racial equality is a liberal issue).
Also in regards to his reductionist partisan viewpoint, Kamm attempts to cast the issue as a civics lesson in free speech. No one at Calvin is arguing against the chief justice’s right to express his opinions, or against the university as a proper venue for considering a diverse array of viewpoints. The Calvin faction dissenting from Rehnquist’s presence did so because of the nature of the occasion. Rehnquist would have been an entirely appropriate lecturer at the January Series, or at some other academic venue; however, commencement is the one event in which the speaker’s views have traditionally been reflective of the larger views of Calvin as an institution and Christian community. Rehnquist’s record is undeniably cause for alarm (a point which I will expand later), and his invitation as commencement speaker was problematic for an institution which purports to be anti-racist. Not to mention, Rehnquist’s actual commencement address was almost entirely unreflective of Calvin’s goals and mission statement, making sparing references to the Christian faith, and none whatsoever to the Reformed tradition of Christianity.
In my four years as a Calvin student, there have certainly been no shortage of conservative speakers (such as the entire GOP primary last year). The fact that these speakers could come to campus without so much as a raised eyebrow should have indicated to Kamm that there was something different about the Rehnquist case. However, most troubling is Kamm’s lack of research. Kamm apparently has used past articles from the Grand Rapids Press as his only insight into the controversy. Therefore because the Press had not articulated on a point by point basis the objections some of us have to Rehnquist, Kamm assumed that there were no reasonable objections. Those of us writing for Calvin’s student newspaper actually took the time to research the controversy before staking out our positions. It would be nice if the Grand Rapids Press held its writers to the same standard.
Background research into Rehnquist’s past would have revealed that the chief justice has consistently hidden behind a strict constructionist judicial philosophy in his failure to aid the abolition of racial injustice and oppression. In the past, Rehnquist has used Jim Crow laws to prevent minorities from voting. He has lobbied against an ordinance that would require restaurants and hotels to serve all persons regardless of race. He was a vocal protestor of school integration in Phoenix. He has ruled repeatedly against affirmative action cases and Native American land claim settlements. In addition to this, Rehnquist has demonstrated incessant unwillingness to hire non-white law clerks. Even if one is content to dismiss all of this as permissible in light of his constructionism, it should be noted that the chief justice has departed with his judicial philosophy on several issues he feels strongly about, such as flag burning.
The most interesting part of Kamm’s article was his condescending reference to an old Bob Dylan protest anthem in regards to the Calvin dissenters. Yes, Mr. Kamm, the times they are a-changin’, but not thanks to people like Justice Rehnquist. This was the necessity of dissent: to tangibly illustrate that the views and actions of Justice Rehnquist are not necessarily those of Calvin College. I applaud every individual who raised their voices to make this known.
In a guest editorial of the Grand Rapids Press, May 19, 2001, a fellow by the name of David Kamm slammed those of us at Calvin who were protesting the Chief Justice. It was such a bad editorial that for a couple days all I could think of was how many ways this guy didn't know what he was talking about. Mike Buma in particular was mentioned by name, so I told him he should probably make a reply. Mike called up the GR Press and asked for space to reply, and they said he could.
Buma wrote the bulk of this (as anyone who recognizes his distinctive style should be able to quickly tell). I was breathing down his neck the whole time and bugging him to make sure to include this or that point so Mike ended up submitting it with both of our names on it.
For whatever reason, the Press never ran it. It could have been too inflammatory, it could have been too formal, it could have been too insular, or it could just have been a communication error. We never did get a reason.
It was somewhat unfortunate, because I think this could have cleared up a lot of misconceptions readers of the press apparently had. The Letters to the Editor column was filled up for the next couple weeks with opinions similar to Kamm's. Eventually, however, the Press did run an article by Professor Jelks which had most of the same points as our piece. So the message did eventually get out there.
I am writing in regards to “Calvin College Liberals Show Intolerance by Protesting Chief Justice’s Invitation” (05/19/01) by David Kamm. I was greatly troubled by Kamm’s blithe misunderstanding of the Rehnquist issue, and by his subsequent misrepresentation of the so-called “Calvin liberals” he attempts to malign.
Kramm’s tendency towards a partisan understanding is regrettable. He makes the unsubstantiated assumption that were Angela Davis giving the commencement address rather than the chief justice, “these objecting students and faculty would probably fall all over themselves.” First of all, it should be noted that Calvin would never entertain the notion of hosting a speaker with connections to black radicalism. Secondly, Kamm’s reasoning seems to be that ‘liberals’ at Calvin align automatically with any ill-considered ‘liberal’ cause. Aside from slighting the diverse array of opinions represented by the dissenting members of the Calvin community, Kamm has reduced the issue into an uncomplicated polarity. The charges of racial insensitivity made against Rehnquist go beyond the traditional left/right debate (unless of course conservatives want to concede that racial equality is a liberal issue).
Also in regards to his reductionist partisan viewpoint, Kamm attempts to cast the issue as a civics lesson in free speech. No one at Calvin is arguing against the chief justice’s right to express his opinions, or against the university as a proper venue for considering a diverse array of viewpoints. The Calvin faction dissenting from Rehnquist’s presence did so because of the nature of the occasion. Rehnquist would have been an entirely appropriate lecturer at the January Series, or at some other academic venue; however, commencement is the one event in which the speaker’s views have traditionally been reflective of the larger views of Calvin as an institution and Christian community. Rehnquist’s record is undeniably cause for alarm (a point which I will expand later), and his invitation as commencement speaker was problematic for an institution which purports to be anti-racist. Not to mention, Rehnquist’s actual commencement address was almost entirely unreflective of Calvin’s goals and mission statement, making sparing references to the Christian faith, and none whatsoever to the Reformed tradition of Christianity.
In my four years as a Calvin student, there have certainly been no shortage of conservative speakers (such as the entire GOP primary last year). The fact that these speakers could come to campus without so much as a raised eyebrow should have indicated to Kamm that there was something different about the Rehnquist case. However, most troubling is Kamm’s lack of research. Kamm apparently has used past articles from the Grand Rapids Press as his only insight into the controversy. Therefore because the Press had not articulated on a point by point basis the objections some of us have to Rehnquist, Kamm assumed that there were no reasonable objections. Those of us writing for Calvin’s student newspaper actually took the time to research the controversy before staking out our positions. It would be nice if the Grand Rapids Press held its writers to the same standard.
Background research into Rehnquist’s past would have revealed that the chief justice has consistently hidden behind a strict constructionist judicial philosophy in his failure to aid the abolition of racial injustice and oppression. In the past, Rehnquist has used Jim Crow laws to prevent minorities from voting. He has lobbied against an ordinance that would require restaurants and hotels to serve all persons regardless of race. He was a vocal protestor of school integration in Phoenix. He has ruled repeatedly against affirmative action cases and Native American land claim settlements. In addition to this, Rehnquist has demonstrated incessant unwillingness to hire non-white law clerks. Even if one is content to dismiss all of this as permissible in light of his constructionism, it should be noted that the chief justice has departed with his judicial philosophy on several issues he feels strongly about, such as flag burning.
The most interesting part of Kamm’s article was his condescending reference to an old Bob Dylan protest anthem in regards to the Calvin dissenters. Yes, Mr. Kamm, the times they are a-changin’, but not thanks to people like Justice Rehnquist. This was the necessity of dissent: to tangibly illustrate that the views and actions of Justice Rehnquist are not necessarily those of Calvin College. I applaud every individual who raised their voices to make this known.
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Zine: Report on 2000 RNC Protest
Commentary: A friend at Media Mouse asked me to write about my experience in the 2000 RNC protest for her zine. I don't remember the name of her zine, or what kind of a distribution she had, but this account was published inside it.
She wanted me to keep my thoughts within two pages, and I had difficulty doing that. I tried to write a summary of the events and include some humor as well. Obviously not one of my better pieces, but oh well. (This piece is also available on Media Mouse website)
After marching for two hours in the hot Philadelphia sun, we collapsed in the shade. We had gotten as close to the Republican Convention as the police would let us. On the other side of the fence, the police kept a close eye on us, and behind them was the convention hall itself, the famous First Union Center, commonly abbreviated as…well, you know.
The man beside me offered some of his water, which I greedily accepted. "Where are you from?" he asked.
"Michigan," I answered.
He gave a short laugh. "Really? What militia are you part of?"
I gently reminded him that Michigan was the home to John Sinclair, Michael Moore, the Port Huron Statement, the founding meeting of the Weathermen, and the Michigan State beer riots. (Okay, I left out the part about the beer riots.)
He quickly apologized and introduced himself. He said he was a medic and was here to treat people in case of injury by the police. He indicated the officers with his hand. "They’ve been very good boys so far. We’ll see how they react tomorrow though. They’re trying to be on their best behavior because of all the media attention, but they’ve been trained to act aggressively, and if they get nervous tomorrow, that’s what they’ll do."
It had been an interesting week so far. I had traveled down to Philadelphia with my girlfriend to protest the two party system and corporate control of American politics. We had spent close to twenty-four hours on a Grey Hound Bus, which was an experience in itself. We met some interesting people on that bus, including another couple heading to protest the convention. I asked them why they were coming to the protest, and one of them answered, "well, I was at a Pink Floyd Laser light show, and I was tripping on mushrooms, and when I left the show a tree told me that it was my job to fight for justice everywhere." Not exactly the same reason I was going, but a strong movement draws people with different causes together.
We slept on the gym floor of the YWCA, and used our book bags for pillows. Because we had to carry everything with us at all times, we traveled as light as we could. The only clothes I took were the ones I had on me. (My girlfriend began to question the wisdom of this choice as the week went on.) We saw ourselves as a contrast to the Republican delegates, most of whom flew in to the city of Philadelphia, stayed in nice hotels, and some of whom we saw traveling around in limousines. The GOP chose not to advertise that one fifth of their delegates were millionaires.
For a few days we marched through the streets of Philadelphia and rubbed elbows with the superstars of the left. Monica Moorehead, Ralph Nader, Patricia Ireland, and David McReynolds all were a visible presence. It was the largest crowd ever assembled to protest the Republican Convention and the crowds outside the First Union Center dwarfed the crowd inside.
Tuesday was planned as a day of direct action. The protest was organized in true democratic fashion, which was meant to stand as an alternative to the mockery of democratic process that was taking place inside the convention hall. The broad plans for events were decided in a large meeting hall by spokespeople for different groups. However, since it was generally acknowledged that the larger meetings were almost certainly infiltrated by the police, the smaller groups decided the specifics. This kept the police on their toes a little bit. Since I had arrived without a group, it was slightly more difficult to get involved.
Although there were ample opportunities to join up with groups, I waited till Monday night before trying to get involved. Ideally, I wanted to join a group that would let me be part of the action on the streets, and yet at the end of the day not end up in a jail cell somewhere. I tried to find a group that met these specifications. Somehow, I managed to get myself into a group with three undercover cops in it.
Most of our group was arrested before the direct actions even began. Those of us lucky enough not to be in the building at the time of the raid were cut loose, wandering the streets looking for something to join up with. It was a disheartening experience, and police presence on the street was certainly much greater than the protesters. The police quickly wiped out the barricades we took part in.
So, I was overjoyed when I saw thousands of people marching through the streets in numbers too big for the police to overwhelm. I quickly joined in, but once I was part of the march I had second thoughts. The march was unorganized and out of hand, and some people will tell you that smashing police car windshields isn’t covered under some of the more narrow definitions of non-violence. However, since the police were arresting anyone who strayed from the main part of the march, that was motivation enough for me to make sure I was always in the center of things.
The march eventually ended up at the legal rally, and we all dispersed into the legal crowd. The police decided not to try and pursue everyone who had taken part in the march, however they did block us all in so we couldn’t leave the rally. From our position, all we could do was watch as the police, frustrated from the destructive protestors that ran away, took out their anger on the peaceful protestors who didn’t. As we saw the police club people who were non-violently sitting in the street, we chanted, "the whole world is watching," to try and shame them into stopping.
As it turned out though, the whole world wasn’t watching. The protests, which were front-page news in Philadelphia, were barely covered in the national news, and not at all in some newspapers. It made me wonder how often things like this happen, and I don’t even hear about it.
I guess I’m not sure why I’m writing this story. Part of me wants to rant and rage about a police department that acted brutally towards non-violent protestors, and whose officers were praised rather then punished. But that’s a story that’s as old as protesting itself, from the labor movements to the peace movements to Seattle or DC. Anyone who’s remotely involved in protesting will not be surprised by this. I am also upset by the way the corporate media distorted our message, and implied that we didn’t have a cause. However, again this is no surprise to anyone. Did anyone really expect the corporate media to treat seriously the issue of corporate control of politics? The very fact that we forced them to pay attention to us at all is a victory. And as the movement grows, maybe next time they’ll take us a little more seriously.
She wanted me to keep my thoughts within two pages, and I had difficulty doing that. I tried to write a summary of the events and include some humor as well. Obviously not one of my better pieces, but oh well. (This piece is also available on Media Mouse website)
After marching for two hours in the hot Philadelphia sun, we collapsed in the shade. We had gotten as close to the Republican Convention as the police would let us. On the other side of the fence, the police kept a close eye on us, and behind them was the convention hall itself, the famous First Union Center, commonly abbreviated as…well, you know.
The man beside me offered some of his water, which I greedily accepted. "Where are you from?" he asked.
"Michigan," I answered.
He gave a short laugh. "Really? What militia are you part of?"
I gently reminded him that Michigan was the home to John Sinclair, Michael Moore, the Port Huron Statement, the founding meeting of the Weathermen, and the Michigan State beer riots. (Okay, I left out the part about the beer riots.)
He quickly apologized and introduced himself. He said he was a medic and was here to treat people in case of injury by the police. He indicated the officers with his hand. "They’ve been very good boys so far. We’ll see how they react tomorrow though. They’re trying to be on their best behavior because of all the media attention, but they’ve been trained to act aggressively, and if they get nervous tomorrow, that’s what they’ll do."
It had been an interesting week so far. I had traveled down to Philadelphia with my girlfriend to protest the two party system and corporate control of American politics. We had spent close to twenty-four hours on a Grey Hound Bus, which was an experience in itself. We met some interesting people on that bus, including another couple heading to protest the convention. I asked them why they were coming to the protest, and one of them answered, "well, I was at a Pink Floyd Laser light show, and I was tripping on mushrooms, and when I left the show a tree told me that it was my job to fight for justice everywhere." Not exactly the same reason I was going, but a strong movement draws people with different causes together.
We slept on the gym floor of the YWCA, and used our book bags for pillows. Because we had to carry everything with us at all times, we traveled as light as we could. The only clothes I took were the ones I had on me. (My girlfriend began to question the wisdom of this choice as the week went on.) We saw ourselves as a contrast to the Republican delegates, most of whom flew in to the city of Philadelphia, stayed in nice hotels, and some of whom we saw traveling around in limousines. The GOP chose not to advertise that one fifth of their delegates were millionaires.
For a few days we marched through the streets of Philadelphia and rubbed elbows with the superstars of the left. Monica Moorehead, Ralph Nader, Patricia Ireland, and David McReynolds all were a visible presence. It was the largest crowd ever assembled to protest the Republican Convention and the crowds outside the First Union Center dwarfed the crowd inside.
Tuesday was planned as a day of direct action. The protest was organized in true democratic fashion, which was meant to stand as an alternative to the mockery of democratic process that was taking place inside the convention hall. The broad plans for events were decided in a large meeting hall by spokespeople for different groups. However, since it was generally acknowledged that the larger meetings were almost certainly infiltrated by the police, the smaller groups decided the specifics. This kept the police on their toes a little bit. Since I had arrived without a group, it was slightly more difficult to get involved.
Although there were ample opportunities to join up with groups, I waited till Monday night before trying to get involved. Ideally, I wanted to join a group that would let me be part of the action on the streets, and yet at the end of the day not end up in a jail cell somewhere. I tried to find a group that met these specifications. Somehow, I managed to get myself into a group with three undercover cops in it.
Most of our group was arrested before the direct actions even began. Those of us lucky enough not to be in the building at the time of the raid were cut loose, wandering the streets looking for something to join up with. It was a disheartening experience, and police presence on the street was certainly much greater than the protesters. The police quickly wiped out the barricades we took part in.
So, I was overjoyed when I saw thousands of people marching through the streets in numbers too big for the police to overwhelm. I quickly joined in, but once I was part of the march I had second thoughts. The march was unorganized and out of hand, and some people will tell you that smashing police car windshields isn’t covered under some of the more narrow definitions of non-violence. However, since the police were arresting anyone who strayed from the main part of the march, that was motivation enough for me to make sure I was always in the center of things.
The march eventually ended up at the legal rally, and we all dispersed into the legal crowd. The police decided not to try and pursue everyone who had taken part in the march, however they did block us all in so we couldn’t leave the rally. From our position, all we could do was watch as the police, frustrated from the destructive protestors that ran away, took out their anger on the peaceful protestors who didn’t. As we saw the police club people who were non-violently sitting in the street, we chanted, "the whole world is watching," to try and shame them into stopping.
As it turned out though, the whole world wasn’t watching. The protests, which were front-page news in Philadelphia, were barely covered in the national news, and not at all in some newspapers. It made me wonder how often things like this happen, and I don’t even hear about it.
I guess I’m not sure why I’m writing this story. Part of me wants to rant and rage about a police department that acted brutally towards non-violent protestors, and whose officers were praised rather then punished. But that’s a story that’s as old as protesting itself, from the labor movements to the peace movements to Seattle or DC. Anyone who’s remotely involved in protesting will not be surprised by this. I am also upset by the way the corporate media distorted our message, and implied that we didn’t have a cause. However, again this is no surprise to anyone. Did anyone really expect the corporate media to treat seriously the issue of corporate control of politics? The very fact that we forced them to pay attention to us at all is a victory. And as the movement grows, maybe next time they’ll take us a little more seriously.
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Zine: Adventures at the Boarder
This is another article I wrote for a friend's Zine. Again I don't know what kind of circulation or response it ever got.
As the introduction states, this was written before the 2001 FTAA protest in Quebec, Canada. Many people were talking about potential problems crossing the boarder, and I was frequently telling my story about crossing the boarder the summer before. So, a friend from Media Mouse asked me to write the whole thing up as an article she could put in her Zine for anyone interested.
This April, thousands of protestors are expected to converge on Quebec to fight the FTAA, an expansion of NAFTA. Many of us in the United States are planning on being there, but no one should set off without giving careful thought as to how they will deal with the boarder guards. This summer, I went to Windsor, Canada, to also to protest against the FTAA. Since the protest in Quebec is supposed to be much bigger, one can only imagine how much more of a hassle it will be for American activists.
Adventures at the Boarder
6:00 AM
I arrived at the house of my traveling companion. It was the first time we had met. We shook hands and exchanged names, and then we were on our way.
“Nice car,” he commented, as he got inside.
“Thank you,” I replied. “It’s my parents’. They were worried that my normal car wouldn’t survive the trip, so they offered to trade cars with me.”
“Nice.”
“Yeah, this ought to work out pretty well for us. It’s a big gas guzzling SUV. No self-respecting protestor would be caught dead in this thing. It will be perfect for crossing the boarder.”
“What do you think the boarder will be like?”
“I heard they’re keeping an eye out for hippies and protestors, but I’ve got the perfect disguise. Check out my clothes man, all GAP apparel.” My companion examined his clothes. “Not to worry,” I chimed in. “I’ve got Khakis in the back seat for you. You can change before we get to the boarder.”
I thought I had prepared for every eventuality. Since my companion was only 20, we even had the perfect story. We were just two Americans looking to take advantage of Canada’s low drinking age for a night of bar hopping and non-political mischief. I had emptied the car of any political literature, emptied my wallet of all political memberships, and was ready to assume my new identity. I was a typical apolitical American, who loved the GAP, top forty radio (which I intended to have playing at the boarder), and N’Sync (a picture of whom was taped to the dashboard).
10:00 AM
We arrived at the Detroit convergence center. We went in, looked around, and talked to the protest leaders. “What do you think our chances of getting across the boarder are?” I asked.
One of the women shook her head. “Not good. They’ve got the boarder virtually locked down now. They’re not too eager to let anyone across, especially if they know why you’re going.”
I conversed with my companion. “Well, we came all this way,” I said. “It’s worth a try.”
My companion agreed, however as we walked back to the car, I noticed he had taken a bunch of the protest literature with him. After having cleared the car of all political material, I was not to eager to obtain literature on the protest right before we approached the boarder. “Get rid of that stuff,” I said.
“It will be alright,” my companion assured me. “I’ll hide it at the bottom of our food bag. Even if they do search the car, they’ll never find it there.”
10:30 AM
We crossed under the tunnel with no problem. I was beginning to think all my worrying had been for nothing. However, as we arrived on the Canadian side, we saw a long line of cars waiting the boarder checkpoint. Police walked in and out of the line in full body armor, giving the feeling of a military checkpoint and making me nervous. There were even police with binoculars stationed on the roof.
“You know,” my companion suggested, “perhaps our story isn’t perfect. If we mention we’re planing on staying in the city of Windsor, they’ll immediately become suspicious. We should tell them we’re heading to Stratford to see a play.”
Changes at the eleventh hour always made me uneasy, but given all the police around it did seem like a good idea to pretend we weren’t going to be anywhere near the protest. I agreed. We changed the radio from top 40 to classical, and we took down the picture of N’Sync.
When we arrived at the checkpoint, we told the officer we were heading to Stratford to see “Fiddler on the Roof.” He asked if we were in college, and we told him we were. Then he asked to see our college I.D.s. We showed them, and he asked us to pull over to have the car searched. One of the boarder guards would later admit to us that all our efforts to disguise ourselves were really for naught. We were young, and we were college students, and that was enough to red flag us as activists. It didn’t matter how we looked.
We were instructed to stand against a wall with our hands out of our pockets, while a team of police officers went through the car. When I saw how thoroughly they were examining everything, my heart dropped for I knew it was only a matter of time before they found the literature. That, added to the coldness of the morning, caused me to shake with nervousness against my will. I was certain they could see I was nervous. I tried to hide it, but I wasn’t even allowed to put my hands in my pocket, and so they hung awkwardly by my side.
An officer came up to us and began talking in a very friendly tone. When he realized we were both from Christian colleges, he began to debate theology with us, trying to get us to relax as much as possible. He subtly inserted other questions in the dialogue. “Are either of you guys vegetarians? Have you ever been to any protests before?”
Well all this was happening, the search continued. At one point, the police had trouble lifting the back seat forward. I walked over to help them, but as soon as I left the wall everyone started moving rapidly to intercept me. I walked slowly backwards to my post. They then gave me permission to come forward and tell them how to move the seat, but they made sure I didn’t touch anything.
At other points they would come forward with various objects they had found. “What is this hose doing here?” they asked.
I shrugged. “It’s my dad’s car. I don’t know.” They looked at each other and shook their heads in disbelief that I would tell such a crappy lie.
Another time an officer came forward with a Clearisel container. “Do you mind telling me,” he asked in an accusatory tone, “why you have a face wash container with no soap left in it?”
“There’s still a little bit left,” I replied. “If you squeeze it hard enough, it comes out.”
“Bullshit!” he replied. “We’ve all tried and none of us could get anything out.”
The officer who was debating theology gradually chipped away at our story. “You say you’re going to the play, do you have tickets? Where are you planning to stay in Stratford? We notice you don’t have any maps to Stratford.” Finally, he went for the kill. “We don’t think you’re planning to go to Stratford at all. We think you’re here for our little protest. It’s all right. You can tell us. We’re not going to beat you.”
My companion tried to laugh. “Wow, that’s kind of funny. I don’t know where you would get that idea from.” The Officer listened patiently as my companion went on about how shocked he was that anyone could think that we were protesters. It seemed to me a useless endeavor, since all the protest literature had been uncovered by this time. As soon as he was done, I came forward with the truth.
“We were told we wouldn’t make it across the boarder if we were honest,” I said.
The officer nodded. “Well, here’s what were going to do. Were going to search the rest of the vehicle, and see if there’s anything we need to confiscate. We might impound the vehicle itself, but I hope we won’t need to do that if you cooperate with us. We’ll ask you a few questions, and then I imagine we’ll just turn you back and you’ll be free to return to the United States.”
Almost immediately after he had finished, my companion and I were separated, and we were asked almost every question imaginable. Each of us had a team of police officers questioning us. One would ask the question, the others would stand in the back ground, shaking their heads in disbelief at each answer, in order to intimidate us if we were not being entirely truthful.
The manner of the Police officers was also designed to intimidate. “Alright,” one of them would say, “now, I don’t want any more of your bullshit, just tell me the truth.” Or they would say things like, “look at me sir. No, not at my hands, look here, in my eyes. Don’t look at them, look at me.”
After they had finished interrogating us, they had us empty our pockets and then led us to separate holding cells. I sat in the cell for about ten minutes, and then a couple officers came in and interrogated me again, asking all of the same questions.
They wanted me to describe to them what everything in the car was and what it was for. The hose? I told them I didn’t know, my dad must have left it in the car. They shook their heads in disbelief. The bungy cords? Same thing, it was my dad’s car. They shook their heads in disbelief. My brother’s poetry that they found in the glove compartment? No I didn’t have a clue what it meant.
But there was one piece of paper that in particular attracted their attention. It had just the following words written on it: “Butterball’s cell phone number [followed by the number itself], activities begin at 6 PM tonight.”
I tried to explain to them that Butterball was my roommate’s name, that our phone wasn’t installed yet and so it had become necessary for everyone in the house to learn his cell phone number, and that the activity was a housewarming party we had thrown the night before.”
“Bullshit,” they responded. “Who is Butterball?” The questions flowed, and by the time they were done, they had enough information about Butterball to write a small book. “How long have you known Butterball? When was the last time you saw Butterball? How many siblings does Butterball have? Where is Butterball’s hometown? What is Butterball studying? What organizations is Butterball a part of? Is Butterball a communist? Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Periodically, they would say something like, “Okay, enough of this Bullshit. Butterball’s a code name, isn’t it? Butterball is already across the boarder, isn’t he? What are you planning for six O’clock tonight?” (Incidentally, I have since warned my friend Butterball that he might want to avoid going to Canada for a few years).
They also asked why I was going to the protest. “These are issues I’ve been concerned about for sometime,” I answered. “I was at the IMF protests in DC this April.”
This opened up a new area of interest for them, and they wanted to know everything. Was I a violent protester? Was I around any violent protests? Did I meet any violent protesters? Was I pepper sprayed? Was I tear gassed? What were the names of the people I had gone to DC with?
And they asked me all sorts of questions about my companion. Had he gone to the protests in DC? Was he ever arrested? Again, I tried to tell the police that I had only met my traveling companion that morning. We had hooked up through a mutual friend, but neither of us knew much about the other.
At the same time they were interviewing my companion, to make sure our stories matched up. They asked him repeated questions about Butterball, and he told them he had no idea what they were talking about.
Eventually, we were let out of the detention cells, and waited to be interviewed by customs. A dog sniffed our belongings for drugs. I was also informed of the items that the police had chosen to confiscate. The hose and bungy cords were confiscated, because they were thought to be weapons. My companion’s bandana was confiscated, because the police thought he might use it to protect himself against tear gas or pepper spray. My empty Clearisel container was confiscated, because the police were worried I might fill it up with water, and use it to wash my face off if I got Pepper sprayed.
Then, we were individually called in to talk to a custom’s officer. First my companion went in, then when he came out, I went in. The man said the same thing to both of us. “Look,” he told me, “I’m very sympathetic to your cause. In fact, I plan to be at the protest tomorrow myself. And, believe it or not, I was once young and radical just like you. But, this weekend we are under a tremendous amount of political pressure not to let you guys through. So, I’m going to make a few phone calls, and then we’ll probably just send you back to the United States.”
I answered that I understood. We waited outside for a while longer, and then we were once again called in. “We’ve decided to let you guys through,” the custom’s officer said. “You don’t look violent, neither of you has ever been arrested, so we really can’t think of any reason why you can’t come in. But be warned, if you’re arrested in Canada, you’ll have to undergo a lengthy deportation process. And please, stay away from any violent activity.”
We had to show proof of United States citizenship. The only things they accepted were a birth certificate, a passport, or voter’s registration card. Fortunately we both had our voter’s registration card on us. After the three-hour ordeal, we were finally allowed to pass into Canada.
We were laughing with relief as we drove away. “Boy, all that made me pretty hungry,” my companion said as he reached into the food bag. “Do you want a cracker?”
I nodded, but about this time my companion realized that all our crackers had been crushed to crumbs by the police, who wanted to make sure razor blades had not been hidden among the saltines.
As the introduction states, this was written before the 2001 FTAA protest in Quebec, Canada. Many people were talking about potential problems crossing the boarder, and I was frequently telling my story about crossing the boarder the summer before. So, a friend from Media Mouse asked me to write the whole thing up as an article she could put in her Zine for anyone interested.
This April, thousands of protestors are expected to converge on Quebec to fight the FTAA, an expansion of NAFTA. Many of us in the United States are planning on being there, but no one should set off without giving careful thought as to how they will deal with the boarder guards. This summer, I went to Windsor, Canada, to also to protest against the FTAA. Since the protest in Quebec is supposed to be much bigger, one can only imagine how much more of a hassle it will be for American activists.
Adventures at the Boarder
6:00 AM
I arrived at the house of my traveling companion. It was the first time we had met. We shook hands and exchanged names, and then we were on our way.
“Nice car,” he commented, as he got inside.
“Thank you,” I replied. “It’s my parents’. They were worried that my normal car wouldn’t survive the trip, so they offered to trade cars with me.”
“Nice.”
“Yeah, this ought to work out pretty well for us. It’s a big gas guzzling SUV. No self-respecting protestor would be caught dead in this thing. It will be perfect for crossing the boarder.”
“What do you think the boarder will be like?”
“I heard they’re keeping an eye out for hippies and protestors, but I’ve got the perfect disguise. Check out my clothes man, all GAP apparel.” My companion examined his clothes. “Not to worry,” I chimed in. “I’ve got Khakis in the back seat for you. You can change before we get to the boarder.”
I thought I had prepared for every eventuality. Since my companion was only 20, we even had the perfect story. We were just two Americans looking to take advantage of Canada’s low drinking age for a night of bar hopping and non-political mischief. I had emptied the car of any political literature, emptied my wallet of all political memberships, and was ready to assume my new identity. I was a typical apolitical American, who loved the GAP, top forty radio (which I intended to have playing at the boarder), and N’Sync (a picture of whom was taped to the dashboard).
10:00 AM
We arrived at the Detroit convergence center. We went in, looked around, and talked to the protest leaders. “What do you think our chances of getting across the boarder are?” I asked.
One of the women shook her head. “Not good. They’ve got the boarder virtually locked down now. They’re not too eager to let anyone across, especially if they know why you’re going.”
I conversed with my companion. “Well, we came all this way,” I said. “It’s worth a try.”
My companion agreed, however as we walked back to the car, I noticed he had taken a bunch of the protest literature with him. After having cleared the car of all political material, I was not to eager to obtain literature on the protest right before we approached the boarder. “Get rid of that stuff,” I said.
“It will be alright,” my companion assured me. “I’ll hide it at the bottom of our food bag. Even if they do search the car, they’ll never find it there.”
10:30 AM
We crossed under the tunnel with no problem. I was beginning to think all my worrying had been for nothing. However, as we arrived on the Canadian side, we saw a long line of cars waiting the boarder checkpoint. Police walked in and out of the line in full body armor, giving the feeling of a military checkpoint and making me nervous. There were even police with binoculars stationed on the roof.
“You know,” my companion suggested, “perhaps our story isn’t perfect. If we mention we’re planing on staying in the city of Windsor, they’ll immediately become suspicious. We should tell them we’re heading to Stratford to see a play.”
Changes at the eleventh hour always made me uneasy, but given all the police around it did seem like a good idea to pretend we weren’t going to be anywhere near the protest. I agreed. We changed the radio from top 40 to classical, and we took down the picture of N’Sync.
When we arrived at the checkpoint, we told the officer we were heading to Stratford to see “Fiddler on the Roof.” He asked if we were in college, and we told him we were. Then he asked to see our college I.D.s. We showed them, and he asked us to pull over to have the car searched. One of the boarder guards would later admit to us that all our efforts to disguise ourselves were really for naught. We were young, and we were college students, and that was enough to red flag us as activists. It didn’t matter how we looked.
We were instructed to stand against a wall with our hands out of our pockets, while a team of police officers went through the car. When I saw how thoroughly they were examining everything, my heart dropped for I knew it was only a matter of time before they found the literature. That, added to the coldness of the morning, caused me to shake with nervousness against my will. I was certain they could see I was nervous. I tried to hide it, but I wasn’t even allowed to put my hands in my pocket, and so they hung awkwardly by my side.
An officer came up to us and began talking in a very friendly tone. When he realized we were both from Christian colleges, he began to debate theology with us, trying to get us to relax as much as possible. He subtly inserted other questions in the dialogue. “Are either of you guys vegetarians? Have you ever been to any protests before?”
Well all this was happening, the search continued. At one point, the police had trouble lifting the back seat forward. I walked over to help them, but as soon as I left the wall everyone started moving rapidly to intercept me. I walked slowly backwards to my post. They then gave me permission to come forward and tell them how to move the seat, but they made sure I didn’t touch anything.
At other points they would come forward with various objects they had found. “What is this hose doing here?” they asked.
I shrugged. “It’s my dad’s car. I don’t know.” They looked at each other and shook their heads in disbelief that I would tell such a crappy lie.
Another time an officer came forward with a Clearisel container. “Do you mind telling me,” he asked in an accusatory tone, “why you have a face wash container with no soap left in it?”
“There’s still a little bit left,” I replied. “If you squeeze it hard enough, it comes out.”
“Bullshit!” he replied. “We’ve all tried and none of us could get anything out.”
The officer who was debating theology gradually chipped away at our story. “You say you’re going to the play, do you have tickets? Where are you planning to stay in Stratford? We notice you don’t have any maps to Stratford.” Finally, he went for the kill. “We don’t think you’re planning to go to Stratford at all. We think you’re here for our little protest. It’s all right. You can tell us. We’re not going to beat you.”
My companion tried to laugh. “Wow, that’s kind of funny. I don’t know where you would get that idea from.” The Officer listened patiently as my companion went on about how shocked he was that anyone could think that we were protesters. It seemed to me a useless endeavor, since all the protest literature had been uncovered by this time. As soon as he was done, I came forward with the truth.
“We were told we wouldn’t make it across the boarder if we were honest,” I said.
The officer nodded. “Well, here’s what were going to do. Were going to search the rest of the vehicle, and see if there’s anything we need to confiscate. We might impound the vehicle itself, but I hope we won’t need to do that if you cooperate with us. We’ll ask you a few questions, and then I imagine we’ll just turn you back and you’ll be free to return to the United States.”
Almost immediately after he had finished, my companion and I were separated, and we were asked almost every question imaginable. Each of us had a team of police officers questioning us. One would ask the question, the others would stand in the back ground, shaking their heads in disbelief at each answer, in order to intimidate us if we were not being entirely truthful.
The manner of the Police officers was also designed to intimidate. “Alright,” one of them would say, “now, I don’t want any more of your bullshit, just tell me the truth.” Or they would say things like, “look at me sir. No, not at my hands, look here, in my eyes. Don’t look at them, look at me.”
After they had finished interrogating us, they had us empty our pockets and then led us to separate holding cells. I sat in the cell for about ten minutes, and then a couple officers came in and interrogated me again, asking all of the same questions.
They wanted me to describe to them what everything in the car was and what it was for. The hose? I told them I didn’t know, my dad must have left it in the car. They shook their heads in disbelief. The bungy cords? Same thing, it was my dad’s car. They shook their heads in disbelief. My brother’s poetry that they found in the glove compartment? No I didn’t have a clue what it meant.
But there was one piece of paper that in particular attracted their attention. It had just the following words written on it: “Butterball’s cell phone number [followed by the number itself], activities begin at 6 PM tonight.”
I tried to explain to them that Butterball was my roommate’s name, that our phone wasn’t installed yet and so it had become necessary for everyone in the house to learn his cell phone number, and that the activity was a housewarming party we had thrown the night before.”
“Bullshit,” they responded. “Who is Butterball?” The questions flowed, and by the time they were done, they had enough information about Butterball to write a small book. “How long have you known Butterball? When was the last time you saw Butterball? How many siblings does Butterball have? Where is Butterball’s hometown? What is Butterball studying? What organizations is Butterball a part of? Is Butterball a communist? Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Periodically, they would say something like, “Okay, enough of this Bullshit. Butterball’s a code name, isn’t it? Butterball is already across the boarder, isn’t he? What are you planning for six O’clock tonight?” (Incidentally, I have since warned my friend Butterball that he might want to avoid going to Canada for a few years).
They also asked why I was going to the protest. “These are issues I’ve been concerned about for sometime,” I answered. “I was at the IMF protests in DC this April.”
This opened up a new area of interest for them, and they wanted to know everything. Was I a violent protester? Was I around any violent protests? Did I meet any violent protesters? Was I pepper sprayed? Was I tear gassed? What were the names of the people I had gone to DC with?
And they asked me all sorts of questions about my companion. Had he gone to the protests in DC? Was he ever arrested? Again, I tried to tell the police that I had only met my traveling companion that morning. We had hooked up through a mutual friend, but neither of us knew much about the other.
At the same time they were interviewing my companion, to make sure our stories matched up. They asked him repeated questions about Butterball, and he told them he had no idea what they were talking about.
Eventually, we were let out of the detention cells, and waited to be interviewed by customs. A dog sniffed our belongings for drugs. I was also informed of the items that the police had chosen to confiscate. The hose and bungy cords were confiscated, because they were thought to be weapons. My companion’s bandana was confiscated, because the police thought he might use it to protect himself against tear gas or pepper spray. My empty Clearisel container was confiscated, because the police were worried I might fill it up with water, and use it to wash my face off if I got Pepper sprayed.
Then, we were individually called in to talk to a custom’s officer. First my companion went in, then when he came out, I went in. The man said the same thing to both of us. “Look,” he told me, “I’m very sympathetic to your cause. In fact, I plan to be at the protest tomorrow myself. And, believe it or not, I was once young and radical just like you. But, this weekend we are under a tremendous amount of political pressure not to let you guys through. So, I’m going to make a few phone calls, and then we’ll probably just send you back to the United States.”
I answered that I understood. We waited outside for a while longer, and then we were once again called in. “We’ve decided to let you guys through,” the custom’s officer said. “You don’t look violent, neither of you has ever been arrested, so we really can’t think of any reason why you can’t come in. But be warned, if you’re arrested in Canada, you’ll have to undergo a lengthy deportation process. And please, stay away from any violent activity.”
We had to show proof of United States citizenship. The only things they accepted were a birth certificate, a passport, or voter’s registration card. Fortunately we both had our voter’s registration card on us. After the three-hour ordeal, we were finally allowed to pass into Canada.
We were laughing with relief as we drove away. “Boy, all that made me pretty hungry,” my companion said as he reached into the food bag. “Do you want a cracker?”
I nodded, but about this time my companion realized that all our crackers had been crushed to crumbs by the police, who wanted to make sure razor blades had not been hidden among the saltines.
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Unpublished Chimes Articles: Election
Commentary: I can't say I blame Chimes for taking a pass on this one. It was pretty stale. But prosaic problems aside, I do still agree with my thesis. I think this country is a lot more liberal than people realize.
It is well known that elections in this country are usually decided more by image then by issues. Both the right and the left have a solid block that can be counted on to vote predictably, but the difference is made by those who reside in the middle. A good deal of these centrist voters, either consciously or unconsciously, will tend to vote for whatever candidate has the more appealing personality.
But I trust I’m not saying anything new here. We all know that Kennedy won against Nixon primarily because Kennedy looked better on the television screen. It is common knowledge that Reagan was as popular as he was in part because he played to cameras so well. And Clinton’s win in ’96 was largely due to Dole’s wooden personality.
Of course, this causes one to wonder why Al Gore did so well in the recent election. In terms of personal charisma, Al Gore had a losing hand from the start. He struggled all through the campaign to over come the perceptions people had of him as being flat, cardboard, whiny, and monotone. He was described as having a personality that grated on voters. He was expected to shine during the debates, but instead dropped in the polls after the first debate despite the fact that most people thought he won. Voters thought he was a bully, overly aggressive, and annoying. Al Gore reinvented himself for the second debate, but still couldn’t find a personality that appealed to voters. One political analyst, after looking at Gore’s polls before and after the debates, remarked, "Milosovic didn’t drop this fast."
It is also extremely unusual for a sitting vice-president to be elected President. George Bush did it in 1988, but that was the first time such an event had occurred since 1836. And Al Gore could hardly have picked a worse administration to be part of. The Clinton administration was bursting at the seams with scandals, whether real or imagined. President Clinton was even impeached, the first President given this honor in almost a 150 years, and only the second President impeached in American history. Gore tried to disassociate himself from Clinton, but after standing by Clinton’s side for 8 years, this proved to be an impossible task.
But Gore also had problems of his own. He flip-flopped on the issues just like Clinton did, changing his position on several items between January and November. He had numerous problems with telling the truth, causing people to wonder if he could ever be trusted. He even had a few fund raising scandals of his own before he even got to the oval office. And if you think all of this doesn’t matter to people, just listen to some of the conversations on Calvin’s campus, or turn on some talk radio.
In contrast, Bush had a warm smile, a handsome face, and a laid back personality. It was everything the GOP could have hoped for in a candidate.
When all this is added together, it would have been surprising if Gore had done half as well as Bush had in the election. Instead, Gore not only gave Bush a run for his money, but he actually won the popular vote. Did Gore attract all these swing voters based on his personal appeal or trustworthiness? Impossible. I can only conclude that Gore did as well as he did because voters agreed with him on the issues.
The issues in this election were few, but they were present. And the majority of voters clearly sided with Al Gore. These voters felt strongly enough on these issues to vote for Al Gore despite his questionable past, and the issues had broad enough support to attract the swing voters despite Bush’s warm smile. Voters felt that the environment should be protected even at the expense of industry, that abortion rights should be preserved, and that saving social programs was more important then a large tax cut to the rich. In addition 2.5 million, or roughly three percent of voters, didn’t think Al Gore was liberal enough, and voted for Ralph Nader. I hope George W. Bush and the Republicans will keep these facts in mind before claiming that their views have the support of the people.
Bonus: Two entries here for the price of one. Below is an unpublished and unfinished Chimes article written at the same time. I was going to write this article, but then changed themes to the article above.
Whether you like Bush or Gore, I think we can all agree on one thing: Nader was the coolest candidate. Easily. Did Bush get endorsed by Pearl Jam? Did Radio Head hold up pro-Gore signs? How many presidential Candidates have had the support of Rage Against the Machine? When it comes to being endorsed by the hip rock stars, Nader comes away the winner.
However, with all the fuss over Nader and Buchanan, we’ve forgotten about the other candidates. No, I’m not talking about Bush and Gore. They’ve gotten more attention this year than O.J. did when he was on trial. I’m talking about the other 3rd party candidates. And so, this is my salute to men and women (well, mostly men I guess) who wanted your vote but didn’t make the headlines. These are the candidates you didn’t hear about:
David McReynolds (Socialist Party):
You have to feel a little sorry for the Socialist Party. There was a time when they were THE major third party. Back when Eugene Debs got 920,000 votes for President well he was in prison, it seemed like the world was going their way. Now, they don’t even register on the political radar (pardon the cliché). David McReynolds, like Nadar, has a long history of activism that puts him above reproach. Even if you don’t like Socialism (and I suppose polls show that the majority of Americans don’t), you have to admire a man whose spent his whole life fighting for his ideals of pacifism and democratic Socialism.
Awards: Most under-rated Candidate, Most Respectable Candidate, and the Socialist Party as a whole gets points for still running candidates after so many, many failures.
Monica Moorehead (The Workers World Party)
You’ve probably heard of Monica Moorehead, you just don’t know it yet. Remember when Bush spoke at the NAACP this summer, and six protesters had to be removed before he could begin? That was her work. She’s also been actively involved in the demonstrations against the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund, as well as the protests at the Democratic and Republican conventions this summer.
It is well known that elections in this country are usually decided more by image then by issues. Both the right and the left have a solid block that can be counted on to vote predictably, but the difference is made by those who reside in the middle. A good deal of these centrist voters, either consciously or unconsciously, will tend to vote for whatever candidate has the more appealing personality.
But I trust I’m not saying anything new here. We all know that Kennedy won against Nixon primarily because Kennedy looked better on the television screen. It is common knowledge that Reagan was as popular as he was in part because he played to cameras so well. And Clinton’s win in ’96 was largely due to Dole’s wooden personality.
Of course, this causes one to wonder why Al Gore did so well in the recent election. In terms of personal charisma, Al Gore had a losing hand from the start. He struggled all through the campaign to over come the perceptions people had of him as being flat, cardboard, whiny, and monotone. He was described as having a personality that grated on voters. He was expected to shine during the debates, but instead dropped in the polls after the first debate despite the fact that most people thought he won. Voters thought he was a bully, overly aggressive, and annoying. Al Gore reinvented himself for the second debate, but still couldn’t find a personality that appealed to voters. One political analyst, after looking at Gore’s polls before and after the debates, remarked, "Milosovic didn’t drop this fast."
It is also extremely unusual for a sitting vice-president to be elected President. George Bush did it in 1988, but that was the first time such an event had occurred since 1836. And Al Gore could hardly have picked a worse administration to be part of. The Clinton administration was bursting at the seams with scandals, whether real or imagined. President Clinton was even impeached, the first President given this honor in almost a 150 years, and only the second President impeached in American history. Gore tried to disassociate himself from Clinton, but after standing by Clinton’s side for 8 years, this proved to be an impossible task.
But Gore also had problems of his own. He flip-flopped on the issues just like Clinton did, changing his position on several items between January and November. He had numerous problems with telling the truth, causing people to wonder if he could ever be trusted. He even had a few fund raising scandals of his own before he even got to the oval office. And if you think all of this doesn’t matter to people, just listen to some of the conversations on Calvin’s campus, or turn on some talk radio.
In contrast, Bush had a warm smile, a handsome face, and a laid back personality. It was everything the GOP could have hoped for in a candidate.
When all this is added together, it would have been surprising if Gore had done half as well as Bush had in the election. Instead, Gore not only gave Bush a run for his money, but he actually won the popular vote. Did Gore attract all these swing voters based on his personal appeal or trustworthiness? Impossible. I can only conclude that Gore did as well as he did because voters agreed with him on the issues.
The issues in this election were few, but they were present. And the majority of voters clearly sided with Al Gore. These voters felt strongly enough on these issues to vote for Al Gore despite his questionable past, and the issues had broad enough support to attract the swing voters despite Bush’s warm smile. Voters felt that the environment should be protected even at the expense of industry, that abortion rights should be preserved, and that saving social programs was more important then a large tax cut to the rich. In addition 2.5 million, or roughly three percent of voters, didn’t think Al Gore was liberal enough, and voted for Ralph Nader. I hope George W. Bush and the Republicans will keep these facts in mind before claiming that their views have the support of the people.
Bonus: Two entries here for the price of one. Below is an unpublished and unfinished Chimes article written at the same time. I was going to write this article, but then changed themes to the article above.
Whether you like Bush or Gore, I think we can all agree on one thing: Nader was the coolest candidate. Easily. Did Bush get endorsed by Pearl Jam? Did Radio Head hold up pro-Gore signs? How many presidential Candidates have had the support of Rage Against the Machine? When it comes to being endorsed by the hip rock stars, Nader comes away the winner.
However, with all the fuss over Nader and Buchanan, we’ve forgotten about the other candidates. No, I’m not talking about Bush and Gore. They’ve gotten more attention this year than O.J. did when he was on trial. I’m talking about the other 3rd party candidates. And so, this is my salute to men and women (well, mostly men I guess) who wanted your vote but didn’t make the headlines. These are the candidates you didn’t hear about:
David McReynolds (Socialist Party):
You have to feel a little sorry for the Socialist Party. There was a time when they were THE major third party. Back when Eugene Debs got 920,000 votes for President well he was in prison, it seemed like the world was going their way. Now, they don’t even register on the political radar (pardon the cliché). David McReynolds, like Nadar, has a long history of activism that puts him above reproach. Even if you don’t like Socialism (and I suppose polls show that the majority of Americans don’t), you have to admire a man whose spent his whole life fighting for his ideals of pacifism and democratic Socialism.
Awards: Most under-rated Candidate, Most Respectable Candidate, and the Socialist Party as a whole gets points for still running candidates after so many, many failures.
Monica Moorehead (The Workers World Party)
You’ve probably heard of Monica Moorehead, you just don’t know it yet. Remember when Bush spoke at the NAACP this summer, and six protesters had to be removed before he could begin? That was her work. She’s also been actively involved in the demonstrations against the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund, as well as the protests at the Democratic and Republican conventions this summer.
Monday, November 28, 2005
Unpublished Chimes Articles: Euthanasia (May 2001)
Opponents of legalized euthanasia, when not using the ridiculous “slippery slope” argument, will often try and portray the debate as a moral dilemma. Therefore an important clarification needs to be made. If an individual is deciding whether or not to commit euthanasia, this is a moral issue. If politicians are debating a law prohibiting individuals from committing euthanasia, this is a political issue.
The question at hand is not whether euthanasia is a moral action, but whether the government has the power to force life on those who no longer wish to live. Does the individual have power over his or her own life, or is this something we have given up to the government?
Of course to a large extent this debate is theoretical, since laws prohibiting suicides are among the hardest laws to enforce (if not the hardest). After all, what is to stop individuals from taking their own life in the obscurity of their own homes? And what punishment would be severe enough to act as a deterrent in order to frighten these individuals into reconsidering their actions?
Although there are many ways we as a society can fight suicide, simply making it illegal has never been all that effective. And it would be difficult to argue that the suicide rate would go up if euthanasia was made legal. Individuals who have made the traumatic decision to end their own life will not likely be influenced by such factors such as how legal their actions are or how easy it will be.
The benefit of legalizing euthanasia is that it can be ensured that the individual will depart from life peacefully and painlessly. This is not always the case with the various ways desperate suicide victims have found for killing themselves.
Of course this is not to say we should allow every depressed teenager access to Kevorkian’s machine. Standards would have to be imposed to ensure that the individual is of appropriate age, mental ability, and emotional state to make the decision. And herein lies a second benefit of legalizing euthanasia. When people come forward and ask for this treatment, they can be identified and everything possible can be done to try and change their minds. This would be a welcome difference from the all to common story of the individual who seemed perfectly happy, and then suddenly committed suicide.
Opponents of legalized euthanasia like to talk about the sacredness of life, but all of this rings somewhat hollow when one considers that the United States has one of the highest execution rates in the world. If we are truly concerned about the sacredness of life, or worried about a slippery slope towards a society where the unwanted are simply done away with, then this is the place where we should focus are attention. Under capital punishment, an individual has their life taken away from them against their will. And yet, often the same politicians who oppose legalized euthanasia are strong supporters of capital punishment. The hypocrisy of this dual stance is simply mind boggling.
To truly honor the sacredness of life we must recognize that the government does not have the power either to take life away from an individual, or to force life upon the individual.
As Christians, our fight against suicide and euthanasia must be ongoing. But, to take this fight into the legal arena is both counter-productive and inappropriate.
Comments
I hold onto the social libertarian view that government should not dictate people's private decisions. By extension of this I'm in favor of legalizing euthanasia, but it is not an issue I feel strongly about. I mean, there are a lot more injustices in the world.
Bork and Buma asked me to write this article because they needed a counter piece to Mulder's article against Euthanasia for Cross Roads. I agreed to do it, but the problem was that this ended up being the same Chimes issue as the Rhenquist affair. Because I ended up writing two -articles on Rehnquist, this Euthanasia article would mean 3 articles by me in the same issue.
The boys were reluctant to give that much space to one person. I was also worried about taking on two controversial subjects in the same issue. I didn't want to diminish my arguments against Rehnquist by having a controversial article on Euthanasia in the same issue. So I told Bork and Buma that if space became a consideration, they should chop the Euthanasia article first. They ended up doing this, so Mulder's article ran unopposed.
The question at hand is not whether euthanasia is a moral action, but whether the government has the power to force life on those who no longer wish to live. Does the individual have power over his or her own life, or is this something we have given up to the government?
Of course to a large extent this debate is theoretical, since laws prohibiting suicides are among the hardest laws to enforce (if not the hardest). After all, what is to stop individuals from taking their own life in the obscurity of their own homes? And what punishment would be severe enough to act as a deterrent in order to frighten these individuals into reconsidering their actions?
Although there are many ways we as a society can fight suicide, simply making it illegal has never been all that effective. And it would be difficult to argue that the suicide rate would go up if euthanasia was made legal. Individuals who have made the traumatic decision to end their own life will not likely be influenced by such factors such as how legal their actions are or how easy it will be.
The benefit of legalizing euthanasia is that it can be ensured that the individual will depart from life peacefully and painlessly. This is not always the case with the various ways desperate suicide victims have found for killing themselves.
Of course this is not to say we should allow every depressed teenager access to Kevorkian’s machine. Standards would have to be imposed to ensure that the individual is of appropriate age, mental ability, and emotional state to make the decision. And herein lies a second benefit of legalizing euthanasia. When people come forward and ask for this treatment, they can be identified and everything possible can be done to try and change their minds. This would be a welcome difference from the all to common story of the individual who seemed perfectly happy, and then suddenly committed suicide.
Opponents of legalized euthanasia like to talk about the sacredness of life, but all of this rings somewhat hollow when one considers that the United States has one of the highest execution rates in the world. If we are truly concerned about the sacredness of life, or worried about a slippery slope towards a society where the unwanted are simply done away with, then this is the place where we should focus are attention. Under capital punishment, an individual has their life taken away from them against their will. And yet, often the same politicians who oppose legalized euthanasia are strong supporters of capital punishment. The hypocrisy of this dual stance is simply mind boggling.
To truly honor the sacredness of life we must recognize that the government does not have the power either to take life away from an individual, or to force life upon the individual.
As Christians, our fight against suicide and euthanasia must be ongoing. But, to take this fight into the legal arena is both counter-productive and inappropriate.
Comments
I hold onto the social libertarian view that government should not dictate people's private decisions. By extension of this I'm in favor of legalizing euthanasia, but it is not an issue I feel strongly about. I mean, there are a lot more injustices in the world.
Bork and Buma asked me to write this article because they needed a counter piece to Mulder's article against Euthanasia for Cross Roads. I agreed to do it, but the problem was that this ended up being the same Chimes issue as the Rhenquist affair. Because I ended up writing two -articles on Rehnquist, this Euthanasia article would mean 3 articles by me in the same issue.
The boys were reluctant to give that much space to one person. I was also worried about taking on two controversial subjects in the same issue. I didn't want to diminish my arguments against Rehnquist by having a controversial article on Euthanasia in the same issue. So I told Bork and Buma that if space became a consideration, they should chop the Euthanasia article first. They ended up doing this, so Mulder's article ran unopposed.
Sunday, November 27, 2005
Eagle Eye Articles: Language Department Not Diverse Enough
As I poured over the many posters commemorating Foreign Language week, I noticed nearly all of them had several people of different racial and Ethnic backgrounds. This was also the case for last years them "Beauty in Diversity."
Although both last year's and this year's theme "Many Cultures, One Lord" are unquestionably admirable, I fail to see how they reflect the languages taught at our school. The five language courses available at Grand Rapids Christian: English, Latin, French, Spanish, and German are far from diverse. They are all Western European Languages. No Asian, African, or Native American languages are taught, contrary to what one might conclude when looking at the posters.
There are many equally important languages that the school could offer, such as Japanese or Russian, one of the three most used languages in the world. Unless our school's policy in terms of language education is altered, a suitable theme for 1995's foreign language week would be "The Dominance of Europe."
Commentary: This was the first, and only, article I wrote for the high school Newspaper "The Eagle Eye.
I was 16 in those days, and it was before I had my politcal conversion to liberalism, and still considered myself a conservative. I wasn't upset at the lack of diversity in the schools foreign language department so much as the hypocrisy of the foreign language department preaching diversity to the rest of us during foreign language week. To make my point I postured a bit more to the left/ multi-cultural position than I really felt at the time. But certainly in retrospect I agree with myself a lot more, especially after having spent 5 years in Asia.
I'm kind of proud of this piece in the forgiving way that we all look at stuff we wrote in high school. I especially like that jab at the end. But I should mention that even for an article this short it underwent considerable revision by the "Eagle Eye" staff just to clean it up. I had a whole middle section about the inter-related origins of the five European languages that was so muddled they just cut the whole thing. If my best friend wasn't editor of "The Eagle Eye", it probably would never have been published in the first place.
This issue (Dec, 1994) also featured the first article by my Freshman sister, in her case the first of many.
Although both last year's and this year's theme "Many Cultures, One Lord" are unquestionably admirable, I fail to see how they reflect the languages taught at our school. The five language courses available at Grand Rapids Christian: English, Latin, French, Spanish, and German are far from diverse. They are all Western European Languages. No Asian, African, or Native American languages are taught, contrary to what one might conclude when looking at the posters.
There are many equally important languages that the school could offer, such as Japanese or Russian, one of the three most used languages in the world. Unless our school's policy in terms of language education is altered, a suitable theme for 1995's foreign language week would be "The Dominance of Europe."
Commentary: This was the first, and only, article I wrote for the high school Newspaper "The Eagle Eye.
I was 16 in those days, and it was before I had my politcal conversion to liberalism, and still considered myself a conservative. I wasn't upset at the lack of diversity in the schools foreign language department so much as the hypocrisy of the foreign language department preaching diversity to the rest of us during foreign language week. To make my point I postured a bit more to the left/ multi-cultural position than I really felt at the time. But certainly in retrospect I agree with myself a lot more, especially after having spent 5 years in Asia.
I'm kind of proud of this piece in the forgiving way that we all look at stuff we wrote in high school. I especially like that jab at the end. But I should mention that even for an article this short it underwent considerable revision by the "Eagle Eye" staff just to clean it up. I had a whole middle section about the inter-related origins of the five European languages that was so muddled they just cut the whole thing. If my best friend wasn't editor of "The Eagle Eye", it probably would never have been published in the first place.
This issue (Dec, 1994) also featured the first article by my Freshman sister, in her case the first of many.
Saturday, November 26, 2005
Letters to the Editor
to: Windsor Star
Sent: June 22, 2000
Printed--I'm not sure of the exact date, but this did get printed.
(Despite having been one of the protesters, I obviously tried to distance myself a bit in this letter to make the point).
John Robson's recent editorial was well thought out and artfully crafted, but I don't think he will convince either Jaggi Singh or Maude Barlow. Robson is preaching to those who already agree with him.
If Robson truly wants to convince the other side of this debate, he will have to operate under the same assumptions they do. Robson must assume McDonalds and the Gap and the OAS are all in a conspiracy to create world poverty and ensure the status of the current elites. As ridiculous as these assumptions may seem to Robson, he must either convince the protesters otherwise (good luck) or create an argument that is tailored to the assumptions the protesters have about multi-national corporations. If one believes that the GAP is actively oppressing its workers, then a brick through their window doesn't seem all that bad all of a sudden. The protesters will not believe that they are hurting innocent entrepreneurs. The question Robson should have asked is: Let's assume the OAS, GAP and McDonalds are as bad as the claims? Are the protesters than justified in their actions?
To "The Banner"
Sent: Oct 14, 2000
Printed: Nov 20,2000 Issue (underlined parts are sections Printed)
I thought the article by May Drost was not only badly written but in poor taste.
To begin with, Emma Goldman's quotation was taken completely out of context. It should be noted that this article was written in 1934. During this same year, Goldman had given a series of talks about the conditions in Nazi Germany. She had also been active in raising money to get Anarchists out of Germany. In Quebec, Goldman was told she could not sell or distribute literature at her meetings unless it was first approved by the police. Goldman was also told her chances of obtaining a visa back to the United States were unlikely because of the hostility against radicals in the government. And all this was happening after Goldman had left Communist Russia because she was disgusted at what that oppressive government was doing.
Therefore, to take Goldman's quote about government oppression, in a period when world wide government oppression was a horrific reality, and compare it to a parent child relationship, is some of the worst writing I have ever seen.
Furthermore, Goldman was a social anarchist. Her entire philosophy is based on the premise that human beings desire social relationships with each other, and that capitalism has forced us into competitive relationships. So, to accuse Goldman of excessive individualism is to miss her point. In fact in the very article Drost quoted, Goldman goes on to say that her philosophy "has nothing in common with rugged individualism. Such predatory individualism is really flabby, not rugged."
And finally, there has been a long and well respected tradition of Christian anarchists, including Leo Tolstoy. I wish the Banner would not try and imply that one political system is sanctioned by God, and one is not.
I hope May Drost will in the future refrain from writing article about subjects when obviously knows nothing about.
To: Newsweek
Sent: April 24, 2001
Not printed (At the time I did not know that Fareed Zakaria was the editor, and not simply a writer at Newsweek. Had I known I probably would have phrased this a bit differently. I'm sure that had something to do with it not getting printed.) The original editorial is no longer on-line, but other responses to it can be found here and here.
Fareed Zakaria's article "The New Face of the Left" contained many logical fallacies, the most troubling of which was his apparent confusion between protectionism and fair trade. Although Zakaria is certainly free to disagree with the fair traders, he must at least acknowledge their arguments if he wants to enter the debate. No ideological group, whether from the left or the right, has ever operated from the assumption that their ideology would cause a decrease in the global quality of human life. If Zakaria wants to rant and rave about how selfish the demonstrators are, he is essentially just cheerleading for his own viewpoint. The space could have been better used rationally engaging the fair trade arguments.
A second error was Zakaria's belief that leftist opposition to free trade is a new phenomenon. In fact Marx himself wrote extensively about the dangers of free trade.
After spending the weekend in Quebec and sacrificing my body to tear gas, pepper spray, water cannons and the like, it is frustrating to see a respectable magazine like Newsweek grant space to a columnist who has not taken the effort to seriously engage the issues. I hope more balanced coverage of free trade will be given in the future.
To: Grand Rapids Press
Sent: July 21, 2001
Not printed
On July 21, the Grand Rapids Press incorrectly reported that the murder in Genoa Italy was the first death at an international summit. In fact, last month 4 people were killed in Papua New Guinea protesting the World Bank, and over 30 have died in Brazil during anti-globalization protests.
To: Adbusters
Sent: July 16, 2001
Status: Unknown--I never actually checked up on this to see if Adbusters printed it or not. They had asked for stories involving their Adbusters Corporate Flag Campaign, so I wrote this up and we sent it on behalf of Media Mouse.
On July 4, 2001, Media Mouse joined in Adbusters's campaign to declare independence from corporate rule. We were initially cautious as we talked about how to bring the campaign to the conservative city of Grand Rapids, Michigan. We were worried about a hostile reaction from the patriotic crowd, and even speculated that a few zealots might attempt to destroy our flag.
We located ourselves in a downtown park at 8 PM. We were far enough from the fire works so that we could have our own distinct rally, and yet close enough so that many people would walk past us on their way to the official celebration. In addition to proudly waving our Adbusters's flag, we also set up an information table which contained pamphlets on the WTO, IMF, NAFTA, FTAA and other issues related to corporate domination.
However, the pamphlet we were most aggressive with was one we had put together ourselves. Building on Adbusters's campaign, we gathered information which outlined more specifically how corporations seek to control most aspects of American life. We stood on the sidewalks and offered a copy to every passerby.
We were surprised by how positive the reaction was. We encountered some apathetic attitudes, but many people also expressed interest and congragulated us. Even the cars that drove by honked their horns in support. In fact, the reaction was so positive that we began to worry that some of the passing cars weren't looking closely at the flag, and mistook us for young patriots.
The event also proved to be a great networking opportunity. We talked to other local activists, and exchanged information about the projects we were working on.
After our rally, we took the flag down to the fireworks, where we distributed our remaining fliers and enjoyed the show.
Sent: June 22, 2000
Printed--I'm not sure of the exact date, but this did get printed.
(Despite having been one of the protesters, I obviously tried to distance myself a bit in this letter to make the point).
John Robson's recent editorial was well thought out and artfully crafted, but I don't think he will convince either Jaggi Singh or Maude Barlow. Robson is preaching to those who already agree with him.
If Robson truly wants to convince the other side of this debate, he will have to operate under the same assumptions they do. Robson must assume McDonalds and the Gap and the OAS are all in a conspiracy to create world poverty and ensure the status of the current elites. As ridiculous as these assumptions may seem to Robson, he must either convince the protesters otherwise (good luck) or create an argument that is tailored to the assumptions the protesters have about multi-national corporations. If one believes that the GAP is actively oppressing its workers, then a brick through their window doesn't seem all that bad all of a sudden. The protesters will not believe that they are hurting innocent entrepreneurs. The question Robson should have asked is: Let's assume the OAS, GAP and McDonalds are as bad as the claims? Are the protesters than justified in their actions?
To "The Banner"
Sent: Oct 14, 2000
Printed: Nov 20,2000 Issue (underlined parts are sections Printed)
I thought the article by May Drost was not only badly written but in poor taste.
To begin with, Emma Goldman's quotation was taken completely out of context. It should be noted that this article was written in 1934. During this same year, Goldman had given a series of talks about the conditions in Nazi Germany. She had also been active in raising money to get Anarchists out of Germany. In Quebec, Goldman was told she could not sell or distribute literature at her meetings unless it was first approved by the police. Goldman was also told her chances of obtaining a visa back to the United States were unlikely because of the hostility against radicals in the government. And all this was happening after Goldman had left Communist Russia because she was disgusted at what that oppressive government was doing.
Therefore, to take Goldman's quote about government oppression, in a period when world wide government oppression was a horrific reality, and compare it to a parent child relationship, is some of the worst writing I have ever seen.
Furthermore, Goldman was a social anarchist. Her entire philosophy is based on the premise that human beings desire social relationships with each other, and that capitalism has forced us into competitive relationships. So, to accuse Goldman of excessive individualism is to miss her point. In fact in the very article Drost quoted, Goldman goes on to say that her philosophy "has nothing in common with rugged individualism. Such predatory individualism is really flabby, not rugged."
And finally, there has been a long and well respected tradition of Christian anarchists, including Leo Tolstoy. I wish the Banner would not try and imply that one political system is sanctioned by God, and one is not.
I hope May Drost will in the future refrain from writing article about subjects when obviously knows nothing about.
To: Newsweek
Sent: April 24, 2001
Not printed (At the time I did not know that Fareed Zakaria was the editor, and not simply a writer at Newsweek. Had I known I probably would have phrased this a bit differently. I'm sure that had something to do with it not getting printed.) The original editorial is no longer on-line, but other responses to it can be found here and here.
Fareed Zakaria's article "The New Face of the Left" contained many logical fallacies, the most troubling of which was his apparent confusion between protectionism and fair trade. Although Zakaria is certainly free to disagree with the fair traders, he must at least acknowledge their arguments if he wants to enter the debate. No ideological group, whether from the left or the right, has ever operated from the assumption that their ideology would cause a decrease in the global quality of human life. If Zakaria wants to rant and rave about how selfish the demonstrators are, he is essentially just cheerleading for his own viewpoint. The space could have been better used rationally engaging the fair trade arguments.
A second error was Zakaria's belief that leftist opposition to free trade is a new phenomenon. In fact Marx himself wrote extensively about the dangers of free trade.
After spending the weekend in Quebec and sacrificing my body to tear gas, pepper spray, water cannons and the like, it is frustrating to see a respectable magazine like Newsweek grant space to a columnist who has not taken the effort to seriously engage the issues. I hope more balanced coverage of free trade will be given in the future.
To: Grand Rapids Press
Sent: July 21, 2001
Not printed
On July 21, the Grand Rapids Press incorrectly reported that the murder in Genoa Italy was the first death at an international summit. In fact, last month 4 people were killed in Papua New Guinea protesting the World Bank, and over 30 have died in Brazil during anti-globalization protests.
To: Adbusters
Sent: July 16, 2001
Status: Unknown--I never actually checked up on this to see if Adbusters printed it or not. They had asked for stories involving their Adbusters Corporate Flag Campaign, so I wrote this up and we sent it on behalf of Media Mouse.
On July 4, 2001, Media Mouse joined in Adbusters's campaign to declare independence from corporate rule. We were initially cautious as we talked about how to bring the campaign to the conservative city of Grand Rapids, Michigan. We were worried about a hostile reaction from the patriotic crowd, and even speculated that a few zealots might attempt to destroy our flag.
We located ourselves in a downtown park at 8 PM. We were far enough from the fire works so that we could have our own distinct rally, and yet close enough so that many people would walk past us on their way to the official celebration. In addition to proudly waving our Adbusters's flag, we also set up an information table which contained pamphlets on the WTO, IMF, NAFTA, FTAA and other issues related to corporate domination.
However, the pamphlet we were most aggressive with was one we had put together ourselves. Building on Adbusters's campaign, we gathered information which outlined more specifically how corporations seek to control most aspects of American life. We stood on the sidewalks and offered a copy to every passerby.
We were surprised by how positive the reaction was. We encountered some apathetic attitudes, but many people also expressed interest and congragulated us. Even the cars that drove by honked their horns in support. In fact, the reaction was so positive that we began to worry that some of the passing cars weren't looking closely at the flag, and mistook us for young patriots.
The event also proved to be a great networking opportunity. We talked to other local activists, and exchanged information about the projects we were working on.
After our rally, we took the flag down to the fireworks, where we distributed our remaining fliers and enjoyed the show.
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