Late Imperial Russia and the Economic Origins of Revolution

In 1917, Russia had fallen into chaos. The imperial government of Czar Nicholas II was catapulted from power by a groundswell of popular anger. While World War I undoubtedly played a huge role in causing bitter feelings toward the imperial government, there is one other factor that is sometimes overlooked by historians. Economic development, especially industrialization and agricultural growth, had already begun under the reign of Czar Nicholas II and his imperial predecessors, and was not merely the product of Bolshevik economic reforms (as Lenin would probably have wanted everyone to believe). But what Nicholas apparently did not realize at the time was that Russia’s industrialization and agricultural growth would actually contribute to the discontent that ultimately cost him his throne, and his life.
Obviously Lenin and the Bolsheviks in general would never have wanted to give any kind of credit to their former czar, but like it or not, they probably would not have been able to get a lot of their economic reforms underway to begin with if economic development had not already begun in the late 1800s. Around that time, Russia was attempting to industrialize. It was still very agrarian, with uneducated peasants who had only recently been freed from serfdom in 1861. Even the noble class had it tough. Luckily, things began to improve somewhat under the czar in the early 1900s. By 1914, coal output was 10 times greater than it was 30 years prior. Manufacturing and mining output jumped 6% between 1907 and 1914. Russia was the 4th largest producer of textiles, with Moscow being a critical center for textile factories, and they were making enough cotton to cut back on importing American cotton. Oil, paper, copper and mineral production was increasing, thanks in part to one of the czar’s advisors, Sergei Witte, who built up the Donets Basin into a mining center. Witte had the support of Nicholas II with industrial projects (Service, p. 4). He encouraged foreign investment in the Russian economy, and stabilized the ruble by making it into a convertible currency based on the gold standard in 1897. For a time, foreign investment in Russia was greater than domestic investment (Rogger, p. 103)! Perhaps the most important economic achievement of the czars was the Trans Siberian Railroad, approved by Czar Alexander II and overseen by Sergei Witte. It had cost 1.5 billion rubles, an expense second only to Russia’s involvement in World War I. This was a huge breakthrough in Russian history, because it enabled more rapid transfer of goods, not to mention people, from one part of the empire to another. Railway growth was especially rapid during the 1890s, thanks in part to government encouragement of private railway enterprise, and railway mileage doubled between 1889 and 1902 (Seton-Watson, p. 116). It also helped develop Siberia to a certain extent. Despite all of this progress, there was a problem. Industrial development was, in general, centralized in certain areas to the extent that it became lopsided. This was actually an unintended side effect of the emancipation of the serfs. While it is tempting to think of the serfs as being mostly agrarian farmers, plenty of serfs also worked in mines. The conditions in these mines were usually so poor that once the serfs had the option to finally go elsewhere, they did just that. The metal industry in the Urals suffered greatly in the 1860s, with one district in the area losing almost 30% of its workers as they left for other places (Seton-Watson, p. 115). Of course, this emigration helped build up other industrial centers, where the peasants now flocked to, but this was probably not a good thing from a social perspective. With the new industrial workers gathered in certain areas, it became easier for them to communicate their growing grievances with one another, rather than if they had been spread far apart and isolated.
While Nicholas II focused a lot on industrialization, agricultural progress was somewhat slow and uneven. Despite periodic famines (which would continue to plague Russia even after the revolution), Russians began to diversify their crops and expand the amount of cultivated land. By 1913, Russia’s grain production per capita jumped a stunning 35% compared to 1890 (Service, p. 5). Agricultural concerns would become a focus later on, but until the early 1900s, most emphasis was placed on industry.
Unfortunately, working conditions in imperial Russia were abysmal, and heavy state spending on industrial projects (and war) did not translate into an allocation of a lot of money to actually improve labor conditions. The workers labored for 15 hours a day, 6 days a week, lived in unsanitary barracks and usually had to sleep in the same beds. Not surprisingly, diseases such as syphilis were widespread. Workers could not form trade unions, collectively bargain or legally strike. Managers could be extremely harsh, and severe injuries due to factory equipment (and the managers themselves!) were not unheard of. Corporal punishment could be used against peasants until 1904. Wages were still poor, especially in the wake of increased government spending under Witte’s reforms. In 1882 the imperial government had originally tried to help out a little bit by prohibiting children under the age of 12 from working, as well as women during the night. The imperial government set up inspectors to try to enforce these directives with a factory inspectorate, but this agency was woefully ineffective. The men in this agency were known to be quite dedicated to exposing foul conditions, but the imperial government refused to let them publish the results of their findings (Rogger, p. 110). Eventually, the imperial government decided that these inspectors were too sympathetic to the industrial workers and replaced them with hard-line inspectors in 1897. These new ones warned factory workers to inform them if and when a strike was planned, and that any kind of strike would not be tolerated. Local authorities were told by the Ministry of the Interior to use whatever means necessary, including extrajudicial methods, to stop strikes. A special police apparatus was set up near many industrial centers to go after strikers at the first sign of trouble (Rogger, p. 111). This step backward infuriated many of the industrial workers. As far as the imperial government was concerned, the fact that there were even inspectors to begin with showed how much the imperial regime cared about its people, so there was even less reason to tolerate strikes. Large-scale industries had almost 2.4 million workers (Davies, p. 40 ), and smaller-scale industries had almost 11 million workers, so the workers were by no means an insignificant minority even though 90% of the country was still agrarian. The industrial classes were growing in numbers.
While it is important to understand that Russians had plenty of non-labor related grievances against the czar (i.e. lack of democracy, lack of press freedom, etc.), the plight of the industrial working classes fueled a crucial strain of the opposition that eventually emerged, namely the Marxist-oriented Social Democratic Party, which Vladimir Lenin joined. Originally, this party did poorly in Russia. It had its origins in independent workers groups, including the Moscow-based Union of Workers in 1894 and the Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class in St. Petersburg in 1895. It was officially formed in 1898 by nine delegates from these and other workers organizations (Rogger, p. 114), although none of the organizers of these delegates were actually workers, including Lenin! Although he and other members of the party could not ignore the fact that most of Russia was still agrarian, they still maintained that the industrial classes would promote a revolution against the imperial government. Personally, Lenin doubted that any such revolt would happen during his lifetime, an understandable sentiment given the fact that the industrial classes were still a minority in the early 1900s and the fact that the party itself had been infiltrated and driven further underground or into exile by the imperial government within less than a year of its founding. Still, if Russia had never tried to industrialize to begin with, then the party would not have had that leg to stand on in the first place! The party itself was internally divided, and split into Mensheviks and Bolsheviks, the former being more moderate and the latter being more radical. Despite being dealt serious blows by the imperial government, the Social Democratic Party was not dead, and Lenin would not be silent. While a divided and weakened opposition party might have appeared to be the czar’s dream come true, as long as the working classes were left without any kind of voice, they would be much more inclined to see Lenin’s voice as their own.
One of the czarist government’s top okhrana (the czar’s intelligence organization) officials, Sergei V. Zubatov, had an interesting idea. He shrewdly decided to allow the creation of okhrana-controlled labor unions for workers starting in 1901, which allowed them to decry their working conditions while not letting the desire for labor changes morph into a desire for political change. Some revolutionaries and dissidents referred to this practice as police socialism (Clowes, p. 144), or perhaps more derisively as zubatovshchina after Zubatov himself. This strategy failed to split up or to contain workers’ anger, and industrial entrepreneurs in particular felt that their own needs were not being addressed. The unions began to be seen as shams. Zubatov saw the handwriting on the wall and tried to persuade the imperial government to actually make some labor reforms, but to no avail. Strikes erupted in 1903, and Zubatov was demoted. His unions were disbanded, but the government made a critical mistake at this time. It failed to ensure that the okhrana’s former collaborators within these unions would actually remain loyal afterward. This problem would emerge later on. In the meantime, there were industrial groups prior to Zubatov’s experimental unions, so his idea was not totally unprecedented. Groups of mine owners began convening in annual meetings as early as 1874, and a Permanent Consultative Office of Iron Industrialists was formed in 1887 to represent factories all over Russia. An equivalent group for oil producers emerged around the same time (Clowes, p. 118). There were a few reasons why these groups did not work. First and most important was the fact that the representatives at these groups were all industrial owners, not workers, and were thus not very well inclined to take workers’ concerns into great consideration. Also, there were not a large number of these groups, especially when compared to the soviets that would later form. Another problem was that these groups tended to be dominated by large companies and firms, which could direct proceedings as they saw fit. Finally, the imperial Ministry of Finance was given the authority to send its own representatives to attend the meetings. There was no incentive for dissent from the perspective of the industrial owners, who were doing pretty well for themselves, nor did anyone dare criticize the czar in front of his representatives at these congresses!
The effects of a lack of any substantive channel of dissent would dramatically appear in 1905. Foreign policy blunders and a bad harvest led to a strike in January of 1905 in St. Petersburg. This touched off more unrest, and in September one of the okhrana’s collaborators in the unions, Fr. Georgiy Gapon, organized a peaceful march in St. Petersburg in September, but it was not an anti-czar march. The okhrana apparently did not have as much loyalty among its informants as it had thought! Many Russians still tended to still see the czar as benevolent and thought that he would help them if only he knew how tough things were. Unfortunately, police opened fire on the crowd, enraging the country and turning them against Nicholas II. “Bloody Sunday” became infamous, along with the now “Bloody Nicholas.” Nicholas himself was not happy with what his security forces did, but it was too late. Chaos broke out. By October there was a general strike (even ballerinas joined in!) throughout the empire. Soviets, or councils to oversee the strikes, began to form. Without a voice anywhere else, the people took to the streets. This forced the czar to cave in at last and issue the October Manifesto, allowing the creation of the State Duma of the Russian Empire. This succeeded in calming things down temporarily and splitting the opposition. It also had the added benefit of bringing opposition parties out into the open, where they could be watched more easily. If Nicholas had done this before the October revolt, he might have been able to coax more of the opposition to the surface where he could either strangle it or water it down before it snowballed into the revolt.
Nicholas appointed Pyotor Stolypin as his prime minister to calm Russia down in the wake of the 1905 unrest, and Stolypin decided to concentrate reforms on agriculture rather than industry. He believed that if he focused on making the farmers happy, that he could eliminate most of the dissent. Remember that the strong focus on industrialization of the late 1800s did not leave as much room for focusing on improving the agricultural sector. The former serfs on the farms were often laboring under difficult conditions. The emancipation edict in 1861 did not discharge the serfs from their debts, and many serfs felt that they should not have to pay for land that belonged to them to begin with (Lincoln, p. 88). The government required the peasant communities to hand over “redemption payments” over the next 49 years. Stolypin’s reforms included reorganizing the farming system to allow farmers more mobility, as well as the development of farmers’ cooperatives and private ownership for individual peasants of their land. He worked to get rid of the mir system of collective ownership of land by village elders, and transferred ownership to single families in the countryside. He also worked to communicate new methods of land augmentation to the peasants, and wanted to provide more agricultural education to the farmers. He provided credit lines to the peasants to give them more purchasing power. Stolypin’s reforms from 1906 to 1914 succeeded in pacifying the countryside.
While the countryside was doing marginally well as a result of the reforms (although many farmers were still suffering), the cities, where most of the industrial workers were centered, remained restless. Little had been done to help the industrial classes, and in 1912 police shot at a group of striking gold miners in Siberia. Sympathetic demonstrations burst forth, and another wave of anger from the industrial sector crested in St. Petersburg in 1914. Yet, in a strange twist of fate, the opposition was suddenly albeit briefly neutralized when World War I broke out. Pro-czar fervor swept throughout the country. Unfortunately for Nicholas, this sudden spike in support was followed by a much sharper drop. The war went badly, the loyalty of his German czarina was in question (although in reality she didn’t care much for her German cousin Wilhelm) and the economy began to spiral out of control. Russia was already in serious debt in the early 1900s thanks to all of the state’s spending on industrial projects. The country had a huge national debt, and once World War I erupted, the country was forced to print more money, causing inflation. Transportation failures led to food shortages in the cities. A 1905-style revolt erupted in 1917, but because most of the czar’s troops (plus the czar himself) were fighting the Germans, there was not a lot that could be done to stop it. By the time Nicholas tried to head back to St Petersburg, it was too late. The rest is, as they say, history.
At one point after the 1905 revolution, Stolypin made a shrewd and surprisingly progressive insight. He warned that if Russia did not get serious about rectifying its economic and political problems that the imperial government could crumble due to an “endless cycle of contradictions that characterize our times.” (Wcislo, p. 242) Despite being a defender of the monarchy, he was right. One of imperial Russia’s greatest internal contradictions was the way in which its economy developed. In the late 1800s industrial growth skyrocketed but without as much emphasis on agriculture. This compelled Stolypin to focus on farmers once he was appointed as prime minister, and although he succeeded in ameliorating the agrarian peasants, the imperial government did not do enough to provide the industrial workers with an effective voice at the same time. They either had the police control the unions or the unions consisted of no more than corporate bosses and imperial representatives. Marxist parties like the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks provided a voice that no one else would, and unfortunately for the czar, it was a radical voice. The other emerging parties from the 1905 revolt, such as the Kadets, tended to focus more on political reforms and the needs of landowners, and not the economic concerns of the workers (Clowes, p. 34). Stolypin warned that he needed peace in order to make more reforms. If his reforms were to have concentrated more on giving the industrial sector a greater say, then he might have succeeded in saving the monarchy, or at least delaying its collapse.
A fundamental problem was thus that imperial Russia put too much emphasis on one part of its economy (industry) without giving it an effective voice and then had to hurry to help the other part (agriculture) catch up without solving all of the industrial workers’ problems! And in the meantime, the workers turned to the radical ideas of people like Lenin who gave them the only strong voice available. Perhaps Russia wanted too much too quickly. Maybe the czar should have tried to focus equal amounts of money and attention on both the industrial and agricultural sectors of the economy, and allow a slow but steady development. Getting involved in World War I was the straw the broke the camel’s back, but Russia’s uneven economic development without any real political voice for the people that needed one ultimately contributed a great deal to the fall of the Romanov dynasty.

Bibliography

Clowes, Edith W., et. al. Between Tsar and People: Educated Society and the Quest for Public Identity in Late Imperial Russia. Princeton University Press, 1991.

Davies, R. W., ed. From Tsarism to the New Economic Policy: Continuity and Change in the Economy of the USSR. Cornell University Press, 1991.

Lincoln, W. Bruce. The Great Reforms: Autocracy, Bureaucracy and the Politics of Change in Imperial Russia. Northern Illinois University Press, 1990.

Rogger, Hans. Russia in the Age of Modernisation and Revolution 1881-1917. New York: Longman Group Limited, 1983.

Service, Robert. A History of Modern Russia: From Nicholas II to Vladimir Putin. Harvard University Press, 2005.

Seton-Watson, Hugh. The Decline of Imperial Russia 1855-1914. Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1952.

Wcislo, Francis William. Reforming Rural Russia: State, Local Society, and National Politics, 1855-1914. Princeton University Press, 1990.

Copyright © 2009 neverwalkaway.wordpress.com. All Rights Reserved.

Hesiod

Hesiod’s Works and Days and The Theogony are two very interesting examples of ancient sources dealing with women in antiquity. Both of them provide a glimpse into ancient mythology dealing with the creation of women, an important indicator of how women were viewed in ancient Greece. Hesiod’s makes his views of women known in various parts of his works.
It is abundantly clear from the start that Hesiod did not view women very positively, to say the least. He has Zeus refer to women in a very negative tone (Works and Days, “an evil thing, which all shall cherish in their hearts, embracing their own scourge.”). Interestingly, Hesiod may have injected some chthonic beliefs into the creation of women, as he has Hephaestus create women from the earth. This could be intertwined with the role of ancient chthonic goddesses as “earth mothers,” although such a connection is speculative at best. In addition, he has the gods and goddesses assign women their customary roles, stamping a divine mandate on the restrictions regarding women’s activities (Works and Days, “Athena was to teach the crafts and weaving…Aphrodite was to bathe her head with grace and difficult desire…to add a dog-like, shameless mind and thieving ways he charged to Hermes…”) and personal attributes (The Theogony, “sheer guile, not to be withstood by men.” Not only did Hesiod have the deities give the first woman, whom we find is named Pandora, her traditional roles, but he also had the male god Hermes assign her a “dog-like” mind. In today’s world, this would be a very derogatory comment, at least in America and other western countries. A woman’s mind is compared to that of an animal. In a way, one gets the impression that he views women as being almost less than human by making such a callous statement. Hesiod takes the additional step of assigning blame to women over everything that is wrong with the world, when he has Hermes deliver Pandora to men. Now we see an interesting parallel between this myth and the Judeo-Christian creation myth. Hesiod related how there were once only men on earth and that they had a blissful existence, free of any pain or hardship. Once Pandora entered the picture, she supposedly became responsible for all of humanity’s suffering by opening a jar containing all of the evils that plague mankind (just as in Christianity Eve, the first woman, came after Adam, the first man, and ate the fruit that condemned all of mankind to sin). Women are, because of a choice made by the first woman, universally tainted and responsible for every wrong in human existence. Hesiod also shows his own strong bias against women because he will not dare blame Zeus for all of mankind’s troubles, which would really make more sense in the grand scheme of the myth because Zeus was the one who ordered the creation of Pandora and sent the jar of misery to mankind for her to open. If anyone is to blame, it is Zeus, who felt the need to punish humanity for the mistakes of Prometheus. Hesiod portrays women as being unhelpful during difficult economic times when their help is needed (The Theogony, “[women are] no helpmeets in hateful poverty, but only in wealth.”) and as taking advantage of the labors of men for their own comfort (The Theogony, “the drones stay at home in the covered skeps and reap the toil of others into their own bellies.”). This is noteworthy because at first Hesiod, in Works and Days, has the gods assign women their roles, such as at the loom, and therefore in the home, and yet he gets angry when they remain in the home instead of helping. Women simply cannot win with Hesiod! They are irredeemable (The Theogony, “this evil cannot be healed.”), even though they were created to be very beautiful and appealing to men and gods alike (The Theogony, “and great beauty shone out from it…he brought her out, delighting in the finery which [Athena] had given her.”). Worse yet, women cannot be escaped without the penalty of being alone in old age and having one’s relatives divide up one’s land upon death (virtually all men in ancient Greece married). What is most notable is Hesiod’s total failure to consider any of the suffering that women often endured in ancient Greece (and still endure) for the sake of their husbands and families. Hesiod does not even mention the pain and difficulties that women went through during pregnancy and childbirth in the ancient world, which could easily prove to be fatal. In fact, he refers to women’s roles with producing children when he refers to the added evil of potentially “mischievous children,” implying that women are at the root of such a curse, while simultaneously neglecting to mention any possibility that the father could have a bad influence on his children.
Hesiod’s overall tone is one of deep resentment and anger toward women, and one has to wonder if he molded the myths about the creation of women to fit his own preconceived notions, rather than the other way around. Either way, he truly fits the definition of a misogynist, which literally means “hater of women.” What is so striking is that he sees nothing good about women at all. Hesiod’s motives are difficult to discern given the fact that he is not here for us to interview him, assuming that he would even tell the truth. From the tone of his writings, one has to wonder if Hesiod had bad experiences with women in his own life. Perhaps he had a failed marriage or had problems with his mother or another female relative. When he speaks of women as being of no help in poverty, maybe it is his own perception of women’s alleged laziness in the context of the agrarian society that he was writing in. Women probably could not do a lot of the labor intensive tasks (i.e. digging, lifting heavy items, plowing, etc.), especially while watching the children, which may have compelled him to see women as weaker and thus lazier. There may also possibly be an element of fear, since his myths refer to women as being very cunning and conniving. He may fear the influence that women have over men due to their physical beauty and their necessity for procreation, and he might also dislike that dependence that men have on women to provide children. Also, he may have loathed the possibility of becoming dependent on a woman for care during old age or illness. Even today, some find it humiliating to be dependent on anyone for personal care, and in Hesiod’s time, being forced to rely on a woman for care during such timesmight have been his worst nightmare.
Hesiod obviously had a deep loathing of women, based on his descriptions of the creation of women in Works and Days and The Theogony. There are numerous examples throughout his works of this, but the rationale behind this misogyny will unfortunately never be as clear as the misogyny itself.

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The International Response to the Rwandan Genocide

In 1994, the world witnessed the fastest genocide (about a million Rwandans died in a 3-month period, whereas Hitler only managed to kill an average of 250,000 people in the same amount of time. All of the newspaper sources that I’ve read as well as the books I’ve used have stated, without exception, that it was the fastest genocide in history) on record in the tiny African republic of Rwanda. Witnessing the genocide was really all the world did though, as the international community did essentially little to nothing to stop the genocide or help its victims. In order to fully understand the genocide and why no one bothered to help, it is necessary to understand why the genocide took place and what happened during and after it.
In Rwanda and a few of the surrounding countries, there are two main groups of people, the Hutu and Tutsi. Exactly what they are is highly debatable. Some classify them as different ethnic groups, while some classify them as originally being different social classes. It could very well be a mixture of both. Whatever the case, most Rwandans are classified as one or the other. Some Tutsis tend to be taller and thinner, and they can easily reach 7 ft in height! This suggests that there may be slight ethnic differences. What is known is that the Tutsi migrated into what is now Rwanda from northern Africa where the Hutu dwelled. Relations between the two were generally cordial throughout the centuries, but the Tutsi eventually established their own monarchy and subjugated the Hutu. Even then, relations were still calm for the most part, that is, until the Belgians came. The Belgians eventually colonized Rwanda and maintained the system of Tutsi dominance over the Hutus. It is important to note that the Hutu comprise about 85% of Rwanda and the Tutsi only 14-15%, and although this difference wasn’t always numerically the same, the Hutu were still the majority throughout Belgian rule. Despite this, the Belgians kept the Tutsi in power (with Belgian supervision) partly to avoid disturbing the population by changing the status quo, but also due to racial reasons. The Belgians claimed that the Tutsi were lighter-skinned, taller, with pointed noses, and had more elegant features and therefore more “Causasian-like.” They claimed the Hutus were of average height with squat features. Even though there may have been some truth to this, the Belgians decided to codify these differences even further. They then decided that the empowered Tutsi (who were naturally wealthier since they had the power) would be characterized as being richer cattle herders, whereas Hutus would be not-so-rich farmers. A Hutu could become a Tutsi simply by buying lots of cattle! Although all of these differences existed in one degree or another throughout Rwandan history, for the first time the Belgian colonizers codified this to their own advantage. What better way is there to keep a population docile then to keep them divided? The Belgians issued identity cards labeling all Rwandans Hutu or Tutsi and strengthened Tutsi dominance. Naturally, the majority Hutus began to feel that this arrangement was unfair. The Belgians, seeing the handwriting on the wall, decided to allow the Hutus to gain more power and eventually replaced the Tutsi with the Hutus.
After World War II, most African colonies began to become gradually independent. Belgium eventually let Rwanda become independent in 1962, but right before that there was a revolution in Rwanda that toppled the Tutsis and put a Hutu-led regime in. The Belgians decided to let this happen since the original plan was to get the majority Hutus into power anyway, as noted before. Once left to their own devices, the newly empowered Hutus wanted revenge on their puppet oppressors the Tutsis. Throughout the next 30 years, periodic massacres resulted in the exile of thousands of Tutsis and sympathetic Hutus, who eventually formed the Rwandan Patriotic Front with the goal of creating a more tolerant Rwanda. They would become important later on. Without the Belgians to keep the lid on the pot, it was only a matter of time before the simmering resentment of the Hutus against the Tutsis would explode into a major conflict. All it would take was a trigger, and that trigger did indeed come in 1994. It is important to note though that the foundations for the genocide were being laid even before 1994, so when it started, many Rwandans weren’t that shocked.
For at least a few years prior to 1994, groups of Hutu extremists known as the Interahamwe (literally means “those who stand together for a goal” in the Rwandan language) and radical Rwandan generals began to plot a way to get rid of the “Tutsi cockroaches” once and for all. The exact scope and time span of the planning for the genocide is still unknown, possibly spanning from a few months to a few years, but it was known that coordination of the killings would take place via radio broadcasts (many Rwandans didn’t own televisions), and that the killings would begin in the highest levels of the Hutu-led government. And so they waited, and finally it happened.
Rwanda’s Hutu president Juvenal Habyarimana was assassinated in April of 1994 when his airplane was shot down. Although exactly who was responsible is still unknown, the assassination was the final trigger for radical Hutus to deal with the Tutsis once and for all. The exterminators moved immediately. Within a few hours of the assassination, the Interahamwe and elements of the Hutu military began killing any and all Tutsis they could find, beginning with government officials in Kigali as planned. Via radio broadcasts, the Interahamwe coordinated what would become the quickest genocide in human history. They broadcasted the locations and names of prominent Tutsis, as well as moderate or liberal Hutus who helped hide them. They also broadcasted the names of places with high concentrations of Tutsis. The radio broadcasters also incited uncertain Hutus to take up arms, deceiving them into thinking that the Tutsis would try to kill them if they did not. When guns and bombs were in short supply, the killers simply picked up knives, machetes and clubs and started hacking and beating away. The bodies were left on the front lawns of Rwandan homes, dumped into lakes or fed to animals. Many Rwandans tried to deny the obvious carnage around them, like the world community, pretending not to see the true scope of the horrific reality that they were living in.
It is important to understand however that not all Hutus participated in this genocide. The Interahamwe and certain elements of the Rwandan military were only a minority compared to the Hutu population in general. In fact, many Hutus banded together to try to help their Tutsi family members, friends and neighbors. One such Hutu, Paul Rusesabagina, saved over 1,260 Tutsi and moderate Hutus by sheltering them in his hotel, the Milles Collines, in Kigali. His story was made into the popular film Hotel Rwanda in 2004 (which we all watched at the beginning of my freshman year). He managed to use a combination of delaying tactics, threats, bribery, etc. to keep the Interahamwe from entering the hotel and killing his refugees. He now travels throughout the world to speak about his experiences, and his recently published autobiography is one of my sources.
During this time, many countries evacuated their citizens from Rwanda, seeing the carnage. American President Bill Clinton took no action, citing that what was going on was not genocide but “acts of genocide.” Avoiding using the term genocide also meant avoiding involvement, which was a priority for the Clinton administration after his prior failure in Somalia. The UN also withdrew most of its troops from Rwanda after 10 of its troops were tortured to death by the Interahamwe, and refused to pass a resolution condemning the situation. Michael Barnett explains in his book “Eyewitness to a Genocide” that the UN felt that it was best “not to get involved” and that “nonintervention was best.” The brutal deaths of the ten UN troops didn’t help. The Interahamwe brutally murdered these troops for exactly that reason, to deter further UN interference in their genocide. The tragedy is that it worked, and the UN eventually pulled most of its troops out. The US under Clinton also refused to send any troops to Rwanda, and Clinton maintains that he didn’t know the full extent of what was going on or else he would’ve intervened. Note that President Clinton was updated by the US Embassy daily and warned by his advisors about the massacres and by the press, which showed gruesome footage.
Other countries had similar attitudes, with the French actually supplying the Hutu army and therefore contributing directly to the genocide. France also used its considerably influence in the UN to block a resolution, not wanting other countries, especially the US, to gain influence in what was traditionally a French-oriented part of Africa (France had a close relationship with the Hutu government and generals as well). China also blocked intervention, fearing that allowing foreign powers to intervene in Rwanda would set a precedent that would allow foreign powers to interfere in China whenever it massacred its own people (a not-so-infrequent occurrence). Belgium asked for a strong UN force to go into Rwanda, but was drowned out by the larger powers in the Security Council. Throughout all of this, racism was apparently not a factor. All of the aforementioned countries seemed to have their own strategic reasons, but racism was not one of them. Of course, many diplomats and officials tried to justify their non-action. “It’s not our job to interfere in a country’s internal problems.” “We have to let people fight their own battles.” “We can’t police the world.” “They’re always killing each other, so why bother to intervene now?” “If it doesn’t pose a threat to my country, why should I care?” There was a torrent of such platitudes throughout the world, all of which sought to justify letting the genocide run its course.
One important thing to remember is that Rwanda had no strategic and economic value to anyone really. There was no oil, no substantial diamond or gold reserves, nothing of any economic value (its main sources of revenue are coffee and tea, and tourism is also increasing). Why bother to intervene in a country with no value for the interveners? There was no conceivable security threat either, since Rwanda had no weapons of mass destruction or anything that could be used by terrorists to attack major powers. What was Rwanda to the world? As the slaughter continued, some countries started to find their voices, however weak. Around July of 1994, when the genocide was winding down anyway, several countries pushed through an arms embargo on Rwanda in the UN, but it was too late. The genocide ended that month. Several countries demanded that the Rwandan army halt the genocide, but demands were all that they made, and even then it was too late. Besides, an arms embargo wouldn’t have done any good since the killers would simply pick up anything they could find to kill the Tutsis. These terrorists were dead set on killing off the entire Tutsi population, and nothing short of brute force would stop them.
Given how quickly the violence was taking place, one has to wonder if it was even feasible to intervene. From New York City, one can fly to Rwanda within a few days , so it wouldn’t have taken an intervention force long to get there. It didn’t take long for the media to pick up what was going on and broadcasts of the carnage could be seen on the evening news, so no one can use the excuse “I didn’t know.” The Interahamwe was very poorly armed and disorganized (although very motivated and efficient) so it would’ve been extremely easy for our forces to stop them, and it might also have given demoralized Tutsis the will to fight back. Rwanda is a very small country (about the size of Maryland), so it wouldn’t have taken too many of our troops to stabilize the country. If there was time to debate the issue endlessly for weeks on end, then there was certainly time to send a peacekeeping force.
Since Rwanda was about 60% Catholic, Pope John Paul II called for a halt to violence especially in the face of credible reports that elements of the Catholic Church had aided the Interahamwe in the genocide. Overall, the world community showed depraved indifference toward Rwanda. The “never again” that was chanted after Hitler’s Holocaust turned out to be an empty lie.
We will never know the exact numbers of the people killed since many were never found. The Rwandan government officially cites that at the very least 937,000 were killed, whereas the UN and other sources cite 800,000, but if we factor in those who were never found and those who died later from injuries the number may easily reach a million.
The genocide ended in July 1994 when the Rwandan Patriotic Front mentioned earlier saw what was happening and finally overran the country and expelled the Interahamwe and the radical elements of the Rwandan army. Rwanda, which was in the process of development and a popular destination for foreigners, was in shambles. HIV began to rear its ugly head en masse since the Interahamwe often raped women that they chose not to kill for whatever reason. The scariest thing to think about is that the killers actually came pretty close to successfully exterminating all of the Tutsis in Rwanda. Had the Rwandan Patriotic Front not intervened in July, by the end of August all of Rwanda’s Tutsis would have been killed (Rwanda had a pre-genocide population of about 8 million, with 15 % being Tutsi. Since 900,000-1,000,000 were killed in a span of 100 days, all of the Tutsis would’ve been exterminated by the end of August if the genocide hadn’t been halted by the Rwandan Patriotic Front). The killers were only 30-40 days away from completing the genocide. The country still suffers from the hellish effects of the genocide even twelve years after the fact. I have seen pictures and read travelogues of people who have traveled to Rwanda, and they have reported some of the highest numbers of orphaned children and widowed women ever seen in modern countries.
What happened in Rwanda was a human tragedy, but what makes it worse is that it could have been stopped if the UN or other major powers had the decency to put their own interests aside and to have the courage to do the right thing.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adelman, Howard and Astri Suhrke, ed. The Path of a Genocide. Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1999.

Barnett, Michael. Eyewitness to a Genocide. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, 2002.

Des Forges, Alison. Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda. New York: Human Rights Watch, 1999.

Destexhe, Alain. Rwanda and Genocide in the Twentieth Century. New York: New York University Press, 1995.

Gourevitch, Philip. We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With our Families. New York: Picador, 1999.

Jones, Bruce. Peacemaking in Rwanda: The Dynamics of Failure. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc., 2001

Keane, Fergal. Season of Blood: A Rwandan Journey. New York: Penguin Books, 1995

McCullum, Hugh. The Angels Have Left Us: The Rwanda Tragedy and the Churches. Geneva, Switzerland: WCC Publications, 1995.

Melvern, Linda. Conspiracy to Murder: The Rwandan Genocide. New York: Verso, 2004

Rittner, Carol, John Roth and Wendy Whitworth, ed. Genocide in Rwanda: Complicity of the Churches? St. Paul, MN: Paragon House, 2004.

Rusesabagina, Paul. An Ordinary Man: An Autobiography. Viking Adult, 2006

Copyright © 2009 neverwalkaway.wordpress.com. All Rights Reserved.

Trujillo and “In the Time of the Butterflies”

In. Julia Alvarez’s novel “In the Time of the Butterflies” the major antagonist is seen in the person of the former president of the Dominican Republic Rafael Trujillo. Trujillo as depicted in the book is an accurate reflection of the real-life Trujillo and his regime, on the social, political and religious levels.
The real Trujillo was born Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina on October 24th, 1891 in San Cristobal, Dominican Republic. In the midst of the American occupation of the Dominican Republic during and briefly after World War I, he joined the Dominican army and received training from American troops. He would eventually attain the rank of general, and overthrow the Dominican Republic’s popular president Horacio Vasquez in 1930 to seize power. This seizure of power is the earliest part of Trujillo’s life that is mentioned in the book (Alvarez 18), but accurately reflects the illegitimate reality of Trujillo’s government. Trujillo did not wait long to consolidate his power. He renamed Santo Domingo (the capital) Ciudad Trujillo (Derby 1112). Statues and pictures of himself appeared everywhere throughout the country. As a fictional character in the book sadly points out, “people who opened their big mouths didn’t live very long” (Alvarez 18). Trujillo created a secret police force known as the Servicio de Inteligencia Militar (SIM) , to ruthlessly suppress any opposition to his rule (Alvarez 156). The SIM kept a close watch on the population, making use of paid spies and electronic bugging (Alvarez 214). He did not care what methods needed to be used to silence critics. He personally and generally authorized the use of any form of intimidation, torture and/or execution of opponents and their families. Electrocution was one particularly heinous form of torture used by Trujillo in real life and in the book (Alvarez 255-256). Trujillo concentrated power into his own hands but also allocated some power to a select group of his trusted military friends and other comrades, although not nearly as much as he had himself. This would become important later on.
Trujillo was smart enough to realize that he could not rely on repression alone to keep the population docile. He created an extensive personality cult around himself, and made use of the country’s means of communication, especially via newspapers, to enforce it (Alvarez 226, 263). Specifically, he referred to himself as the Dominican Republic’s “Benefactor.” To periodically ease discontent, Trujillo would release people in mass amnesties or individual pardons, such as when he pardoned minors in the book (Alvarez 216). Trujillo knew that he needed to create an effective combination of carrots and sticks to remain in power, and his effectiveness at doing so is part of what enabled him to stay in power for a long time.
One of the most controversial policies of Trujillo was “blanquisimo,” or his attempt to whiten the Dominican Republic’s population. This manifested itself in a number of ways. Immediately after the Holocaust, Trujillo offered to take in thousands of displaced Jews from Europe, and he did. There are those who attribute this to purely humanitarian motives on the part of Trujillo, while some regard it as just another part of Trujillo’s blanquisimo policy, or perhaps a little of both. Still some regard the gesture as one designed to impress the US. One of the Mirabal sisters’ neighbors was a Jewish refugee. Perhaps it was a combination of all, some or none of the above reasons. We will never know the real motive, but the next aspect of blanquisimo casts serious doubt on whether Trujillo ever had any humanitarian motives. Trujillo orchestrated the infamous Haitian massacre in 1937 to exterminate thousands of unarmed Haitians living in the western part of the Dominican Republic and clear the land out for Dominicans. The survivors were driven back over the border into Haiti. Trujillo claimed it was to firmly establish the Haitian-Dominican border, although if this was the case he could have simply forced the Haitians to leave instead of killing them without even giving them to chance to go. Apparently Trujillo’s “humanitarianism” did not extend to Haitians (remember most Haitians are black). Trujillo was not only a dictator, but a racist as well.
Trujillo was not much better when it came to his treatment of women. He gave women the right to vote in the Dominican Republic (Alvarez 98). However, soon after he gained power there was little doubt among Dominicans that their leader was a rampant womanizer. In her article “The Dictator’s Seduction: Gender and State Spectacle during the Trujillo Regime” Lauren Derby describes Trujillo’s actions with the women he encountered. Typically Trujillo would select upper class Dominican women that he met at parties, etc. and coerce, intimidate, threaten or seduce them into having sex with him (Derby 1113). Alvarez mentions such actions on Trujillo’s part in a scene in the book where Trujillo tries to seduce Minerva Mirabal, but she resists (Alvarez 100-101). From the Dominican male’s viewpoint though, none of this would have been too shocking or unexpected. Oddly enough, as Derby points out, a lot of Dominican men actually respected Trujillo more for his sexual conquests. This was undoubtedly due to the “macho man” attitude that is prevalent in Latin America, an attitude that emphasizes male dominance and conquest. Thus while Americans would consider forcing a woman into sex to be an extremely cruel act, Trujillo’s behavior was not only tolerated but even tacitly approved of by many Dominican men. Even some Dominican women were not always repulsed by Trujillo’s advances, because on the off chance that he picked a lower-class woman, the gifts that he might give out could be worth the trouble (however unfortunate that may be). Trujillo was also known to have somewhat effeminate characteristics, wearing makeup, going on shopping sprees, etc. This was highly unusual for a Dominican male. It is not possible to know exactly what was going on inside Trujillo’s mind, but based on my general knowledge of psychology, it sounds like he had a very narcissistic personality especially when it came to women and femininity in general. Trujillo was, without a doubt, a very interesting person to say the least!
Trujillo’s government always had internal and external problems, as most dictatorships have inherent flaws that do not allow them to last forever. Trujillo concentrated massive amounts of wealth unto himself and his family, often seizing land from dissidents or perceived opponents (Alvarez 165). This created instant resentment among those who lost their homes, so Trujillo was not making too many friends with his people by doing that, much less among those who he had terrorized. Trujillo also made the mistake of concentrating far too much power in his own hands, not distributing enough power throughout the hands of his cronies. Those who did have some power in the Trujillo regime had so little compared to the wealth and power that Trujillo had that they could usually be easily bought, although repeat offenders and dissidents could not usually buy their way out that easily, as seen when Minerva and Maria Teresa Mirabal were arrested (Alvarez 195). Most of the time, when Trujillo’s cronies could be bought, it created a group of government sycophants that were essentially corrupt and less likely to follow Trujillo as long as they got paid. This corruption weakened his regime. Internal repression often breeds resistance, which was part of the reason Patria Mirabal joined when she saw the carnage caused by Trujillo (Alvarez 162, 176). When Dominicans like her witnessed such atrocities, it was hard to find a reason not to want Trujillo gone. The internal structure and repression of the Trujillo regime was not the only problem.
The Catholic Church, a powerful force in the country, was silent in the face of Trujillo’s repression for many years (Alvarez 153). Like the United States, the church saw Trujillo as protecting the Dominican Republic from godless communism. As time went on though, Catholic priests and the religious started to wake up little by little and see the cruel reality. As members of their parishes started to disappear into Trujillo’s torture chambers or the execution rooms faster and in larger numbers, especially after he began to crack down more in 1959-1960, local Catholic authorities did as much as they could to withdraw their support from Trujillo. When they issued statements against him, Trujillo responded by violently reacting against the churches (Alvarez 217-218). He imprisoned priests, or tried and in some cases succeeded in having them killed. The SIM would harass faithful churchgoers and desecrate the churches (Alvarez 206-207). This only strengthened Catholic opposition to Trujillo.
Changes were taking place outside the Dominican Republic that also weakened Trujillo, and especially in nearby Cuba. In 1959, Fidel Castro and Ernesto “Che” Guevara toppled the Batista dictatorship and created a communist dictatorship in its place. Although not much better than Trujillo in terms of human rights, Fidel and Che provided a model for other Latin American countries, motivating them to topple their corrupt right-wing dictators and establish new governments. Despite Trujillo’s efforts to keep news of the Cuban Revolution from entering the Dominican Republic, news did indeed leak in via various ways like radio broadcasts (Alvarez 150, 157, 181). The Mirabal sisters in the book were partially inspired by the success of Cuba’s revolution to continue their work. Fidel and Che gave life and strength to their 14th of July movement (Alvarez 167) and others. Many claim that Trujillo was a US-backed puppet, but his relationship with the United States was much more complex. Although trained and supported by the US for most of his reign since he was a fervent anti-communist in the midst of the Cold War and an ally in World War II, Eric Roorda points out in “The Dictator Next Door” that many diplomats in the US State Department fervently opposed him (Roorda 235), sickened by his grotesque human rights record. Still, the fear of a communist gaining power in the Dominican Republic was enough for the US to “befriend the devil” so to speak. Toward the end of his reign the US actually turned against him since he was beginning to buy out all of America’s sugar investments in the country. The US also feared that his continued repression would foster another Cuba-style revolution and bring communism to another Latin American country.
The Organization of American States (OAS) was also instrumental in destabilizing Trujillo especially after it became known that he was involved in a plot to murder Venezuela’s president Romulo Betancourt (Alvarez 246-247 and Roorda 232) in June 1960. This was a huge strategic blunder on Trujillo’s part. Luckily, President Betancourt just barely survived but the attempt permanently damaged Trujillo reputation. By denouncing Trujillo and removing their diplomatic offices, and later imposing economic sanctions, the OAS was instrumental in putting Trujillo in a bind (Alvarez 199, 225, 266). Since Trujillo could not lash out against the world since he would have been further alienated, he turned on his own people and began to crack down even more on dissent and the Catholic Church (Alvarez 267 and Roorda 233). He became increasingly short-tempered, stepping up torture and extrajudicial killings. Unfortunately, the Mirabal sisters would be among Trujillo’s next victims.
On November 25th, 1960, three of the four Mirabal sisters were murdered by Trujillo’s agents as they were returning from visits to their incarcerated husbands (Alvarez 301-309). The fourth sister Dede was not there at the time and was not active in the movement against Trujillo. These sisters had long been a thorn in Trujillo’s side, and were very popular with the Dominican people. They were certainly not your typical revolutionaries. They were not out in the jungle carrying assault rifles. They were mothers going about their lives but taking a principled stand against what they felt was wrong. Even while pregnant they would be involved in anti-Trujillo activities! They were a rallying point for anti-Trujillo forces, and therefore Trujillo probably felt, metaphorically speaking, that if he chopped off the head the body would die. In other words, if he got rid of the Mirabals he might be able to quash the forces that were against him. This was one of Trujillo’s final errors. The worst thing to do is to make martyrs out of your enemies, especially if those enemies are unarmed mothers. Although he tried to make it look like a car accident, the Dominican people saw through the ruse (there was an eyewitness anyway) and anti-Trujillo resentment soared. People remembered the Mirabals and speak more openly against Trujillo. From there, everything went downhill for Trujillo. As larger segments of the population turned against him, he found it harder to assert his control over them. People finally realized that if Trujillo was going to kill them that they could not go down without a fight. About six months after Trujillo had the Mirabals killed, a group of his officers shot him dead in 1961. It took a few more revolutions to finally bring true democracy to the Dominican Republic. The hellish reign of Trujillo had finally ended after 31 years, but his brutal legacy would continue to live on in the hearts and minds of Dominicans. As Julia Alvarez says, “The dictator manages to plant a little piece of himself in every one of us” (Alvarez 311).
The long reign of Rafael Trujillo was probably the darkest chapter in the Dominican Republic’s history. “In the Time of the Butterflies” is not 100% accurate in everything it portrayed about life under Trujillo, but overall it is a very accurate portrayal of Trujillo and his regime.

Works Cited

Alvarez, Julia. In the Time of the Butterflies. New York: Penguin Books, 1995.

Derby, Lauren. “The Dictator’s Seduction: Gender and State Spectacle during the Trujillo Regime.” Callaloo Vol. 23, No. 3 (Summer 2000): pp. 1112-1146.

Roorda, Eric. The Dictator Next Door. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998.

Works Consulted

Betances, Emelio, and Hobard Spalding, Jr. “The Dominican Republic: Social Change and Political Stagnation.” Latin American Perspective Vol. 22, No. 3 (Summer 1995), pp. 3-19.

Crassweller, Robert. Trujillo: The Life and Times of a Caribbean Dictator. New York: Macmillian Company, 1966.

Derby, Lauren. “In the Shadow of the State: The Politics of Denunciation and Panegyric during the Trujillo Regime in the Dominican Republic.” The Hispanic American Historical Review Vol. 83, No. 2 (May 2003): pp. 295-344.

Dix, Robert. “The Breakdown of Authoritarian Regimes.” The Western Political Quarterly Vol. 35, No.4 (Dec. 1982): pp. 554-573

Vega y Pagan, Ernesto. Military Biography of Generalissimo Rafael L. Trujillo Molina. Ciudad Trujillo, Dominican Republic: Editorial Atenas, 1956.

Wiarda, Howard, and Michael Kryzanek. The Dominican Republic: A Carribean Crucible. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1982.

Copyright © 2009 neverwalkaway.wordpress.com. All Rights Reserved.

The Dalai Lama and Mohandas Gandhi: A Critical Comparison

The Dalai Lama and Mohandas K. Gandhi are two very different people. The Dalai Lama is the spiritual head of Tibetan Buddhism, while Gandhi was a spiritual leader of the Hindu practice of ahimsa, or nonviolence. Both lived in different places at different times. Both men worked for different goals. Both men had many differences, but they also both placed emphasis on some common human values, beliefs and goals.
A fundamental value that both hold, in some way or another, is the concept of non-violence. Mohandas Gandhi refers to it as “ahimsa.” The Dalai Lama doesn’t seem to put a special word to it, but instead lends his support to nonviolent tactics. In fact, both men used nonviolent means to try to change the places that they lived in. The Dalai Lama has attempted nonviolent tactics in freeing Tibet from Chinese control. He has offered and tried to speak numerous times to the Chinese dictators in Beijing, but without success. Admittedly, this has been a dismal failure, but Gandhi had more luck in his native India. India, long a colony of Britain, was finally given independence in the 1940s due to Gandhi’s relentless efforts to nonviolently challenge British control. While both principally advocated the use of non-violence, both the Dalai Lama and Gandhi agreed that under limited circumstances controlled violence could be used if there was absolutely no alternative. According to our assigned text, “Gandhi’s Readings,” Gandhi used the analogy of a man-eating tiger terrorizing a village. Killing the tiger becomes, as Gandhi put it, “inevitable” although not the ideal. Ideally, one could find alternative methods to remove the danger, like capturing the tiger and releasing it in an isolated area where it won’t hurt anyone. Thus Gandhi did admit that in difficult circumstances “imperfect conduct may, perhaps, be permitted.” The Dalai Lama’s stance is essentially the same as Gandhi’s. Thus the two men have the same overall ideology regarding nonviolence as a means of change and as a mode of conduct.
Gandhi appeared to stick to the traditional Hindu beliefs about the concept of different castes only in the sense that he never advocated throwing it away. He still acknowledged it as a part of Indian society. Gandhi does depart from the traditional Hindu beliefs about the caste system being the sole determining factor for one’s life, as it traditionally determined one’s job and social status. The caste one is reborn into depends on one’s karma, and the caste system is not necessarily inherently bad since it can provide economic structure. But Gandhi recognized that it caused a lot of social problems especially with the Untouchables, who cleaned human waste. Someone of a higher caste literally could not touch such a servant. In our assigned text, Gandhi stated that he “recognized untouchability as a sin.” Gandhi showed compassion toward Untouchables by making his followers do the same tasks as they had to do (Gandhi describes his followers having to clean the “night soil” just like the Untouchables) and even just by embracing them. He also had no objection to intermarriage between castes. Unfortunately, some institutions die hard. Gandhi’s own wife only submitted to rejecting untouchability out of loyalty to Gandhi, and caste discrimination continues in India today despite legislation to the contrary. Gandhi’s rejection of this institutionalized discrimination formed the basis for India’s official prohibition on caste discrimination. Despite Gandhi’s benevolent attitude about it, he did not want to completely abolish the caste system since he recognized some possible benefits. One economic benefit of the caste system is that it provides for specialization of production. This means that if each person focuses on one distinct economic activity for which he is most suited, then economic efficiency grows. Each caste is of vital importance because without one type of service, such as the waste disposal that the untouchables provide, others are hampered or cannot exist. What would happen if our garbage collectors stopped coming? In terms of equality, Gandhi says in the text that even though we are “equal like brothers and sisters with different dispositions and abilities” some talents (and thus caste groups) are more important than others. We have different and sometimes unequal abilities, and caste can reflect this, but we are still are human and are to be treated with equal dignity. Overall, Gandhi feels that India has not understood the caste system correctly and wished to see changes.
The historical Buddha, who was himself a former Hindu, completely broke away from the caste system. In that sense he was more radical than Gandhi. The Dalai Lama has, to my knowledge, never addressed the issue of caste directly since he is Tibetan and thus that would not have been an issue for him personally or for Tibetans. However, I assume he follows the Buddha’s rejection of the caste system as being of any importance. For Buddha, one’s economic circumstances were not relevant to attaining enlightenment. Being in a higher caste did not guarantee success in attaining enlightenment. Only by adhering to the dharma, or teachings of the Buddha, could one have a decent chance of liberation.
Gandhi and the Dalai Lama seem to differ somewhat on their views on the concept of a personal and/or creator deity. The Dalai Lama follows a fairly consistent Buddhist line regarding personal and/or creator deities. Based on the doctrine of dependent origination, which states that everything is the effect of a previous cause, there is no creator god in the sense that Christians tend to think of it. If there was, then that god would’ve had to have come from somewhere else, and so on and so on into infinity. We got to where we are through natural laws, not by being independently created. There really is no “creator god.” The Dalai Lama’s aim is not to point to a particular deity, but rather to help humanity with their practical issues and ultimately, lead all sentient beings to nirvana.
Gandhi on the other hand did believe in a supreme being, although he sometimes had different ideas about just how personal such a god was or the nature of his god. Gandhi sometimes would equate abstract concepts such as “truth” or “constant action” to his god. Because of this, Gandhi has been variously described as pantheistic, deistic, theistic, etc. Ultimately, the concept of a god was more important to Gandhi than it is to the Dalai Lama or to most Buddhists in general.
When it comes to the concept of human existence and its components, the two men in fact held very different beliefs. The Dalai Lama comments about the nature of existence in one of our readings, “Emptiness and Existence.” According to the Dalai Lama, all humans have the feeling that they are an “I” but in fact that is an illusion. We lack “inherent existence.” This essentially means that nothing has any vital “essence.” According to the Dalai Lama, humans are like everything else in a constant state of flux, and thus not inherently existing. We are made up of components, which are also made up of even simpler components, and on and on. There is thus no permanent, unchanging soul or life force to humans. There is no “basis” or “groud” for existence. In that sense existence is thus “empty.” That doesn’t mean that nothing exists or can function. In fact the Dalai Lama explicitly rejects such nihilistic beliefs as unhealthy. It just means that nothing exists without being the result of something else. So does this mean we can’t say “I?” No. The Dalai Lama simply encourages us to remember that the “I” is not a permanent, substantial self.
Gandhi on the other hand had a very different point of view. Not only do we exist and have personal souls, but we are actually are really “one.” Remember that in Hinduism liberation is realizing that we are all one with reality. In our text, Gandhi refers to souls that transmigrate from one caste or level of being to another. This soul was a spiritual essence that was the “heart” or “core” of every human being. Gandhi in general tried to see unity in everything. He tried to unite humanity under the concept of ahimsa and to unite the world’s religions. He saw all of humanity and existence as being united as one common essence, a belief that stands in sharp contrast to the Dalai Lama’s Buddhist notions of a lack of inherent existence.
In terms of personal practices, Gandhi and the Dalai Lama both practiced the virtue of chastity. Before going any further, it must be emphasized that chastity means more than not engaging in sexual activity. Gandhi was married to a woman for many years, and had children with her, but yet he said that married couples should practice chastity, which he referred to in the assigned text as “Brahmacharya.” In the same text, he stated that both men and women should place special emphasis on Brahmacharya when they are doing their studies. What I think he also meant by the term chastity was that we should not place emphasis on sexual activity or immoderately indulge in it. It is only one aspect of our human natures. He did acknowledge that sexual activity is necessary to complement the male and female roles in producing life, and thus fulfilling their natural purposes. Sexual activity should not be an obstacle or a prerequisite to our experiences of relationships with other people. In the assigned text, Gandhi includes the concept of chastity under the general topic of restraint, saying that “restraint is the law of life.” Chastity is certainly one form of restraint!
The Dalai Lama is not married to anyone, devoting his time as a living bodhisattva to helping his fellow Buddhists obtain enlightenment, and to promote Buddhist principles. He would also promote the practice of chastity among his followers, since it enables one to put more concentration on attaining enlightenment as a final goal. In the meantime, it also enables one to “cultivate” better, clearer states of mind that will in turn better dispose one toward nirvana. One of the other reasons that the Dalai Lama would probably not place much intrinsic value on sex is because it is, like everything, a source of suffering. It is like everything else just a link in an unending chain of processes. Even though it may provide great bodily pleasure for several minutes, when it ends, there is suffering whether we acknowledge it or not, the suffering of no longer having that pleasure. Because of this, the Dalai Lama would find chastity to be a great virtue since it aids one in avoiding suffering.
As we can see, the Dalai Lama and Mohandas “Mahatma” Gandhi had their share of similarities and differences. One could compare and contrast their thoughts about nonviolence, the nature of the self (or lack thereof), concepts of a creator god (or lack thereof) and the spiritual practices and benefits of chastity. Despite their differences, the two men have had a profound impact on a world which was in desperate need of such role models.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

All information in this paper came from our assigned class readings and our discussions in class. The assigned readings include:

Gandhi’s Readings by R. Mukherjee, ed. (a.k.a. the “assigned text”)

“Emptiness and Existence” by His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Copyright © 2009 neverwalkaway.wordpress.com. All Rights Reserved.

The Rise of 13th Century Europe

This was a report that I wrote in November 2008 for an undergraduate class about the rise of Europe in the 1200s and 1300s AD. It is particularly relevant for me because I’ve considered focusing my Ph.D. work on this general area and timeframe. Enjoy!

One of the most interesting things that I have had the pleasure to learn about in studying European history is how Europe itself managed to emerge from the chaotic aftermath of the Roman empire’s dissolution and develop into a major power. Indeed, Janet Lippman Abu-Lughod’s article “The World System in the Thirteenth Century: Dead-End or Precursor?” is partly a work about how Europe managed to rise in prominence and power. Her thesis is unique, and that is that she does not see Europe as rising ex nihilo but largely as a result of its interaction with and the decline of other regions of the world that were doing relatively better in terms of economic development.
One of the first things that Abu-Lughod does is to emphasize that Europe’s rise in power did not need to happen at all, and that there was in fact a period of time between ca. 1250 and 1350 AD where the balance of political and economic power could have shifted to Eastern powers like China, etc. That time period is the context for the article, which closely parallels our study in class of the Middle East, which was itself engulfed in turmoil with the Mongol invasions during this time. Before discussing the impact that the Eastern powers had on European development, she first discusses the role of the existing trade routes in this development. She goes into the details about how trade was conducted, such as how long it took to travel from one end of the trade “circuit”. (p. 77) to the other, as well as which goods could be involved in long-distance trade, etc. She does make an important note, which is that the global economy itself is broken up into numerous segments (i.e. the Pacific, North America, Europe, China, etc.), and world trade is not necessarily uniform between all of these regions. This is actually an important distinction to make, especially for the time period that the author is operating in, when various regions were either linked by only infrequent commercial contacts or not at all. During this time period, she notes three major circuits, namely the European, Middle Eastern and Far Eastern ones, with the latter two being the strongest. The European circuit had relatively weaker ties to these two during the covered time period. The author then delves into a detailed discussion of each of the three circuits and their particular characteristics. She then asks two critical questions as to why these trade circuits did not simply continue going on and on, but rather declined, as well as why the West (Europe) rose when it did, given the fact that it had the weakest trade circuit. She notes that during the 1400s there was a “recession” of sorts that weakened these circuits. There were a few major events that, in the author’s eyes, contributed to this general weakening and enabled Europe to rise. The first was the Black Death, which unsurprisingly affected the most heavily used trade routes the worst. The Black Death was at least partly responsible for the societal changes in western Europe at the time, such as the fall of feudalism and the empowerment of workers. Interestingly, in Egypt the only thing that changed was the group of people in charge of the government, namely the Mamluks, who did not do much to help the local population. The effects were much greater in China. She suspects that the Ming Rebellion that toppled the “foreign” Yuan Dynasty in the 1300s was spurred in part by Black Death casualties, although she offers no proof for this suspicion other than convenient timing. At any rate, the arrival of the new Ming Dynasty disrupted the Far Eastern trade circuit and caused China’s naval power to wither. This enabled the Portuguese to enter the Far Eastern seas unchallenged and establish their own dominance, with England and other European powers following their routes into the Far East and begin obtaining Eastern luxuries like spices, etc. This newfound economic opportunity enabled Europe to grow in power and strength. The author asks one other question, which is whether Europe’s successes were caused by capitalism in and of itself or whether Europe’s capitalist system simply took advantage of the East’s decline and new resources in recently exploited areas. She acknowledges that different historians will present different perspectives and that there is no way to really ever end the controversy, but she also presents her own perspective. Instead of taking one side against another, she argues that capitalism in and of itself did not necessarily propel Europe forward, but rather the successes of trade circuits in the 1500s helped give the West the boost that it needed. She then spends the remainder of the article discussing various other perspectives on world history and the rise and fall of civilizations.
The author’s thesis is probably one of the most innovative and intriguing theses that I have ever read concerning European history. I never actually considered in depth what made the West develop such a powerful entity in the world. I always assumed it as a given. The author does an outstanding job at putting her argument together and building it up in a step-by-step, methodical manner. She illustrates causality between the various events that she discusses as best she can, and does a good job at asserting her thesis. She is also a published author in this field of study, which I find encouraging. With all of this being said, I have some questions and points that should be made regarding the article and the sources used in it.
Upon inspection of the author’s sources, as provided in the footnotes, I can only conclude that her sources appear to be reputable scholarly publications, based upon my own knowledge of reputable scholarship sources. I recognize some of the names of the scholarly journals that some of the sources appeared in, such as the Journal of Economic History and the Journal of Asian Studies, since I have used these journals myself. I also recognize some of the publishing companies of the various books that she cites. I do, however, take issue with some of the footnotes. Some of them do not contain documentation of a particular source, but rather a statement from the author asserting a particular fact. For example, consider this footnote. “Europe traditionally ran a trade deficit with …the Middle East and India…” (p. 98). The author then goes into a brief discussion about Europe’s trade deficit, but she never actually gives a source for any of this information! How do we know that Europe traditionally ran such a trade deficit? What source says this? This problem is repeated in a few other footnotes.
I also question the author’s analysis of one particular fact. In one footnote, she talks of the “passes” that ships in the East had to pay money to the Portuguese to obtain in order to protect them from being harmed by the Portuguese. She notes that this “sounds like extortion to me (p. 100).” While I admit that it does sound like a form of blackmail on the surface, is it possible that this could have been a form of taxation imposed on travelling ships and their passengers, with the penalty for not paying this tax being confiscation of a ship’s goods or its destruction? While the line between taxation and blackmail is probably very fine in this case, I would have liked to have had a source to refer to about this, or at least some more clarification.
There is also the problem of the author’s reliance on one particular source to assert an idea. For example, when discussing the Black Death, she relies only on William McNeill’s Plagues and Peoples to establish a reliable chronology of the Black Death. McNeill’s book was published in the late 1970s, and I would think that scholars and medical doctors have learned more about the Black Death since then. Why not consult other works instead of relying only on McNeill? She acknowledges that there is some ambiguity about the exact origins and routes of the Black Death itself (p. 86) but seems to take McNeill’s word for it when discussing what routes it supposedly took from China to Europe. It is inherently problematic to discuss disease patterns from such a long time ago since medical knowledge was so limited, and not to mention the fact that, as the author herself notes, we do not have primary source material on every area that the Black Death may have affected, like India (p. 100). At least she admits that tracing the sources and routes of transmission can be complicated. One scholar, Ole Benedictow, wrote a monumental work, “The Black Death 1346-1353: The Complete History” and in it he presents a large amount of information that, while not without its own limitations, should be considered when discussing the Black Death.
While the final section of her article about the opinions of other scholars with regard to European growth was intriguing, I found it to be an unnecessary addition to the article itself. It is, of course, a good idea to discern the range of scholarly opinions on a particular topic before forming a conclusion, but if I wished to do just that, I would have simply conducted a search on JSTOR or another scholarly database. I had the distinct impression that this portion of the article was serving as a sort of “filler” to lengthen the article.
It is of particular interest to compare the article to other sources regarding the growth of Europe while the East declined. In our Bloom and Blair textbook, Europe is obviously not discussed as much as the Middle East since the latter is what the book is about, but I do find one curious difference. Bloom and Blair take time to discuss the impact of the Mongol invasions in Chapter 9, which disrupted life in the Middle East during roughly the same time period that Abu-Lughod’s article focuses on. I have to wonder why Abu-Lughod did not devote much, if any, time in her article to discussing this as being a potential reason for the decline of the East (or more specifically the Middle East), thus enabling Europe’s rise. She actually focused relatively little on the Middle East itself, considering it to be more of a stepping stone between Europe and Asia for trade circuits and, more negatively, Black Death transmission. Blair and Bloom, on the other hand, note that during the Mongol invasions that “western Europe had awakened from the long slumber of the Middle Ages…” (Blair and Bloom, p. 161). At least they make some reference to Europe’s rise in the midst of Middle Eastern disruptions. Like Abu-Lughod, they also referred to the shift in trade patterns in the 15th-16th centuries from a Europe-Asia based system to one that dealt with oceanic trade routes, which made Europe quite wealthy. While Blair and Bloom do not go into great detail over the nature of the trade routes themselves, they do tie in other events (i.e. the Mongol invasions) besides the Black Death and the fall of the Yuan Dynasty into the general decline of the East and the rise of the West.
Abu-Lughod’s thesis regarding the fall of the East and the rise of the European West constitutes unique scholarship in and of itself. While her thesis is sound and she uses good reputable sources, there are some gaps in her citations as well as some other questions that should be raised by those reading the thesis with a critical eye. It would be a good idea to consult other sources, such as Blair and Bloom, to get an additional perspective on the rise of Europe as a result of other factors than the ones that Abu-Lughod describes. Despite these issues, the article was well-written and will undoubtedly give historians something to ponder when considering European history.

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Democracy and Revolution: The Choice of the People

This was a short paper I wrote for a proseminar that I took as an undergraduate. I just felt like posting it. It shows the history-oriented side of me. I think I got an A on it. I do write about things other than current events, religion and LGBT issues. Just see my book reviews and analyses.

Revolutions have occurred in every place in the world and they have occurred time and time again throughout history, for a variety of reasons and using a variety of methods. In Crane Brinton’s “Anatomy of Revolution” he defends his description of the American, French, English and Russian Communist revolutions as being “democratic” even though the French and Russian ended up in something less than democracy.
If we define democratic as being the will of the majority of the people, then it is actually pretty easy to see why Brinton can legitimately defend the French and Russian revolutions as being democratic. We begin first with examining the French Revolution. The people of France in the late 1700’s were all lumped into “estates” or classes as we might call them. The highest, or First Estate, was the richest ruling class and the Third Estate was the majority of the French population, the poor, city-dwellers, etc. The Second Estate might be described as the “middle class,” like philosophers, well-off merchants, etc. Brinton notes that the immediate pulse of the revolution was theorized to have come from either the popular street riots or the tactics of narrower groups like “philosophes,” professional agitators, etc. Brinton’s own position seems to be that it was a combination of both. He acknowledged the role of the masses in the symbolic beginning of the French Revolution as we know it, the Storming of the Bastille. Of course, it was an empty action because there were only a handful of mentally challenged prisoners in there anyway, but the point was that it provided something for the average French to focus their discontent on. Going outside of Brinton, the masses of France (Third Estate) were also being severely affected by food shortages. The discontent, as Brinton keenly notes, went well beyond the majority workers and pervaded the aristocracy and Church, both of which had to be taxed in order to finance the American Revolution among other things. So the average people of France were angered by their economic inequality and the richer and better off French were angered by the increase in their taxes. Louis XVI had basically alienated all of the classes, even if each one was alienated for a different reason, and this ultimately provided a powerful incentive for the aristocracy to join the lower class peasants in toppling the Bourbon monarchy. It was only later that a radical minority under Robespierre hijacked the country and exterminated thousands of French citizens, something the majority certainly did not want!
The Russian Revolution had similar tones but the radical phase never actually ended like it did with the French. At any rate, the first pangs of revolution began in 1905 and forced the Russian czar to make a Duma, or Parliament. When Russia got itself entangled in World War I, it caused great economic hardship for the majority peasants and factory workers. There was, like in France, food shortages, and this lead to the popular riots in Petrograd and in other places in Russia against the czar. Even though the workers and peasants of Russia already were a majority in their own right, the czar made his situation worse by ordering his troops to fire on the peasant protestors, many of whom were women. The soldiers refused to shoot and many simply joined the protestors since they were also being increasingly angered over Russia’s protracted involvement in World War I. So now the czar had alienated both his majority working class and his soldiers. He decided to step down in early 1917, knowing the end was approaching, and he asked his brother to take the throne but he refused. The Russian Duma then ran the government from Petrograd to the best of its ability. Up until this point Brinton rightly points out that because the peasants and soldiers together constituted the majority of Russia, and they were the agents of change that forced the czar out, the Russian Revolution that toppled the czar was indeed democratic in nature. It was only after Vladimir Lenin and his small band of Bolshevik followers staged a coup in Petrograd in November that the country took a virulently anti-democratic direction (coups can’t really be democratic in this context because we defined democratic revolution as one in which the majority of the people participated or supported it in some way or another. Coups are always carried out by a very small segment of the population, so they are obviously not democratic here) Unlike in France, Russia never recovered from this radical phase of revolution, and was forced to endure a radical communist regime for decades. Some would argue that, while still freer, the present-day Russian government is still essentially authoritarian.
Brinton used historical examples to demonstrate that due to the participation or at least support of the majority of the people in France and Russia, both countries underwent revolutions that were democratic in and of themselves. It was only after the revolution had occurred that radical elements of both countries took control and sent their countries down undemocratic paths.

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A Difficult Goodbye

On Tuesday, I attended the wake and funeral of the friend of mine who committed suicide. I got up around 8 AM and left for the funeral home, which was just outside of Albany. I drove there not knowing what to expect, not even knowing what to think. I think I was so overloaded with multiple emotions that I just sort of “shut down” and stopped feeling anything. I just stayed focused on the task that lay before me. I’ve never been particularly good at wakes or funerals, but they have gotten easier as I’ve gotten older (and been to more of them). I entered the parking lot and was pleasantly surprised to see that a fair amount of my graduating class from high school was there. I wasn’t sure how many would show, but I’m glad that there was a good turnout. I chatted with some of my fellow alumni and caught up on what everyone was doing, who was going where, etc. We didn’t talk about the man that we had come to pay our respects to. I had the odd feeling that no one wanted to. It seemed like a strange example of cognitive dissonance. On one hand, we were here to acknowledge the loss of an alumnus, but we didn’t seem to want to talk about it, at least not the guys I was talking to. But I think deaths, especially unexpected ones, tend to cause us to act in ways we might not normally act. A few guys from the class that graduated after we did even showed up, which I thought was very nice as well. My friend would’ve been proud of the class that so many people showed.

I entered the parlor a short while after to find a fairly large number of people, at least 50 or more. My deceased friend’s mother was standing near his closed casket with her sister, and she looked surprisingly well. She seemed to be holding up. She was actually consoling everyone else. I thanked God that she seemed OK, and extended my condolences to her. She stated that she remembered me and my mother, even though it had been at least 4 years. I was relieved that she at least had her sister, since my friend was her only child and she was a single mother (I have no clue what happened to his father; all I know is that the father wasn’t in the picture). I was surprised to find a photo of him and I among the numerous ones that were placed all over the room. Perhaps he didn’t forget all about me, as I thought at one point (remember I hadn’t heard from him in over two years). I continued to chat with some of the other alumni that had arrived late. I never wanted to have to go to an alumnus’ funeral so soon. I didn’t expect having to until we were all adults, old and gray. But these kinds of things have a way of hitting us when we least expect it. Some of the other alumni didn’t seem to know what to say to me, or to anyone else. I felt the same way at times. What could I say? Why bother even talking? Nothing would bring him back. I’ll never know why he ended his own life, but I do know that it was a shame that he left us so soon.

Most of the alumni left after the wake, but a handful, myself included, went to the funeral mass (my friend was a practicing Catholic) down the road. I could just see my friend cracking jokes about how long and boring the priest’s homily was, and smiled at that thought. The mass itself was beautiful. The church itself was unremarkable. His casket was wheeled into the church in front of the altar. After the homily, the priest stated that his mother wished to send a message to everyone present: if you need help, get it. Don’t wait or pretend that you don’t need it. Unfortunately, I could see my friend putting off getting help. He had a strong independent streak, but then again, he was a strong person, always able to fight his way out of the difficulties that life threw at him. He served in Iraq and survived that, but I don’t think joining the army was enough to help him through whatever personal issues he had. Maybe it even hurt him in the long run. I don’t know and it’s not for me to guess. After the mass, we proceeded to a nearby cemetery for the burial. As an active member of the US Army, he was given a gun salute. It was particularly difficult for many people there when the soldiers started playing taps. His mother graciously received the flag, and departed for a reception. I didn’t catch where the reception was supposed to be, so I decided to leave at that point. I said goodbye to everyone and departed. I just wanted to escape the whole atmosphere of sorrow that surrounded the wake and funeral. I think my friend would have understood.

There will always be many unanswered questions about this whole experience. Why did my friend take his own life? Were there signs? If so, did anyone pick up on them? Did the army have psychologists on the bases? Was he mentally ill, or was it trauma from what he had seen in Iraq, or both? Was there something else that I didn’t know about? Ultimately, these questions will probably remain unanswered, and maybe it’s better that way. I think he’d want us to remember him for the man he was, not for how he died. After all, it’s not how someone left this world, but what they did while they were here that really counts.

Rest in peace my friend.

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Bad News Comes in Threes

It is often said that bad news comes in threes, and in my case, that’s sadly correct. First, my uncle (he was actually my grandmother’s cousin, but we always referred to him as an “uncle”; it’s sort of a family thing) died from a stroke, but in that case there was no shock involved. He was in his 80s, we had all known that he was dying and his wife, my poor aunt, actually felt that it was a blessing for him. I hadn’t seen him in the past few years after he was moved to a nursing home since he had trouble getting around. I guess I lost track of them after I began college. But I agreed with my aunt that this was a blessing for my uncle, who deserved better than to linger paralyzed and unconscious. He died within a few days. And despite all of this, my aunt, God bless her, still sent me a graduation card and money! I was stunned, and humbled. I wish her well, and I hope with God’s grace she can endure this difficult time.

While my uncle’s death was unfortunate, the next two deaths that followed were even more so. I learned that one of the guys that I graduated from military high school with committed suicide about a week ago. Out of respect for his family, I will not post his name. We both went our separate ways and I hadn’t talked to him in over two years, so I can’t say that I know why he did it, but I do know that he was an army sergeant recently back from Iraq. I know that the army has had problems with suicide among the troops. Who knows what he saw while he was over there? I can only conclude that his experiences there, combined with other home problems (there was alcoholism in his family), may have led to this. I don’t think that he had any kind of mental problem. He never struck me that way, and I knew him relatively well. We went out partying a few times and had the same circle of high school friends. People have come into my life, and walked out of it, but I’ve never lost someone to suicide. I can’t imagine the pain his family is going through. He’s an only child, and his mother was a single parent. But in the aftermath of such a terrible strategy, I take solace in remembering one of the Catholic Church’s better teachings: “We should not despair of the eternal salvation of persons who have taken their own lives. By ways known to him alone, God can provide the opportunity for salutary repentance. The Church prays for persons who have taken their own lives (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2283).” Knowing this man as I did, I believe that God will welcome Him into His holy arms. May he find peace in heaven, a peace that he couldn’t find in this life.

I once worked at a local Stewart’s Shops for over two years, mostly during the summers when I wasn’t in high school. During that time, I was blessed to work with a young woman named Pam. She was always cheery and was one of those co-workers that one can’t help but like. She always came up and hugged me whenever I came into work. I always enjoyed being around her. Sometimes work at Stewart’s wasn’t easy for her. Pam had Down’s Syndrome, and needed extra supervision, but she never caused a problem. She was strong in life, always hanging in there despite the difficulties she encountered. I remember how she would always go to our local baseball games at the Joe Bruno stadium, and we’d chat in between innings. I’ll miss her smile, her hugs, her kind disposition and everything else about her. She died on May 22nd at the age of 37. May God receive her into His arms. She was always among the most special of His children, and now she always will be.

As you can imagine, all of this has caused me sorrow and distress. As much as I pray for these three individuals and their families and friends, I also pray that God’s grace will sustain me as I prepare for two funerals this week (my uncle’s was last week). May He provide me with the strength to see myself through this.

Copyright © 2009 neverwalkaway.wordpress.com. All Rights Reserved.

Reflections on Undergraduate College, Part II

It finally happened. I graduated from college on Sunday, May 17th. When I woke up early that morning, I didn’t feel that different at all. I actually didn’t feel any sense of shock or awe at putting on my graduation robes and the tassles. I stood in line at the sports center that we had our graduation ceremony at (with about 9,000 people in attendance; our graduating class had over 800 students and they were each allowed to bring 10 people), and I joked with people around me, extended my congratulations to friends and acquaintances, and waited to be seated. I think part of the reason that I didn’t feel a sense of transition or great change was because I’m going right back to school in the fall. Also, maybe it’s because I’ve mentally prepared myself over the past few months. I don’t know for sure, but I know this. When I was called up to the stage to get my diploma cover (we don’t get the actual diploma for a few weeks), I felt a sense of excited anxiety, a positive sense of stress. I calmed myself down and took my diploma cover, shook hands with the college president, a few faculty members and Bishop Howard Hubbard. I saw my parents, sister and aunts and uncles cheering for me as I walked into the assembly, and waved back at them happily. It was all a truly humbling experience for me. I am not only very proud of what I’ve accomplished, but with what my fellow classmates have also accomplished. When it was time to leave, I felt a sense of sadness, like I was leaving my friends behind, but then I remembered that they would always be a part of me.
Afterward, we had a small graduation party at my house (actually about 40 people came, but only one college friend came since most of my fellow graduates had also gone out with their families). That was also a very nice event. We had a pig roast and tons of food and drinks. Mom got a little tipsy from the wine coolers, but that was nothing unexpected! My immediate and extended family were also very generous with gifts (I don’t want to post exactly what I was given out of respect). I am deeply honored with all of the praise and respect that I received upon my graduation from college. As I make the transition to another phase of my life, I pray that I will do so with humility, courage and wisdom. God bless you all.