Earlier this winter term I assigned a document-based-question cribbed from an old AP U.S. History exam about the nature and manifestations of tension in the United States in the 1920s. I gave the students about 10 more documents, including a rather dense article about the concept of the "gemeinschaft," a rural society at odds with the new, urban "gesellschaft." Faisal did a bang-up job and so I asked him if I could re-print his essay for the blog audience. Take your time on this, and Faisal's work will reward you.
Faisal Akkawi
20th Century History
Tension DBQ
February 1, 2011
The culture wars that had played a large part in garnering support for World War I in Europe had, after the conclusion of the war, migrated to American soil. However, the war over American culture and values was slightly different than the one fought in Europe, which was between the conservative old order and the forward-looking liberals. In America, it was more complex. William Butler Yeats summarized, unintentionally, the struggle in American society during the 1920’s in his poem “The Second Coming” when he wrote “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.” Although initially written to describe WWI, it can certainly be applied to post-war America, where the core of “good ol’ American values” was being torn apart by ideas from the cities and Europe. The tensions in American society during the 1920’s were a result of a fear among many Americans that their traditional way of life would be corrupted by the new customs and ideologies infiltrating the country.
America’s metaphorical ‘center’ comprised of those who adhered to Gemeinschaft society. This sector of society was white, usually Protestant, mostly small town or rural, and claimed to represent traditional America, the good prosperous America that existed before and during the war. They claimed to be the defenders of Americanism and branded anything that challenged the premises on which the built society as un-American. However, the exact definition of Americanism shifted depending on the need and the group defending it, whatever it was. The source of the tension can be traced back to the fear that spread amongst this population after the war. This fear naturally led to intolerance, which resulted in tension between this sector of society and those who espoused different views. These views were often depicted as foreign, un-American, and satanic, stemming from corrupt cities or too-liberal Europe. Communists, socialists, anarchists, unions, feminists, Jews, Catholics, immigrants, and the American intelligentsia were all at various times labeled as such. The fight for American values was often used as a cover under which other objectives could be achieved. “Business was frequently able to transfer its own fears of Bolshevism both to a broader public and to state legislators who served that public.” (Sources and Nature of Intolerance) The business community was able to sell its fear of a change in the economic system in the guise of fear for the values upon which they believed America was built, values they also believed were being challenged by those like the textile workers in the Loray Mill Strike. This fear was also propagated by politicians, such as Palmer and Hoover, who were all too ready to step in as America’s saviors. (SNI)
The center’s dissatisfaction with the way they perceived America was heading manifested itself in various ways. This tension amongst the people found outlets through various organizations. Hundreds of organizations resurged or were created in the 1920’s with the purpose of reclaiming America, such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), the American Legion, the Boosters, and the Elks. These groups combatted through various means the forces pulling apart the fabric of the American center. The KKK adopted coercion and violence to achieve its goals; the WCTU operated through education and raising awareness; and the American legion funded publications and operated through the American political system. The Klan’s motto, “Native, White Protestant Supremacy” clearly states its goals, and the statement of their leader, Hiram Wesley Evans, that “We are a movement of the plain people, very weak in the matter of culture, intellectual support…a blend of various peoples of the so-called Nordic race,” (Document D) clearly states the source from which the Klan drew its support. This outlook, the close-minded approach to anything new and foreign and unfamiliar, was a great contributor to the tensions of the 1920’s. A fitting modern-day example is the Tea Party that is working to ‘take back America.’ Who took it is sometimes unclear. The Klan and the other various organizations formed at the time struggled against the tide of urbanization, religion, and the changing face of the American family.
As America became increasingly urbanized, rural America began to fear the changes that accompanied the shift to the Gesellschaft structure and the increasing mechanization of life. Ford, who was one of the greatest proponents for the rural American lifestyle, found himself soaked in the same biases as the average American. “Ford’s intense commitment to the traditional American faith led him to suspect and ultimately to detest whatever was un-American.” (The Nervous Generation: American Thought, 1917-1930) Here, Ford was caught in the same conundrum: how could progress be made if it was considered un-American because it was not part of America’s past? Ford struggled with this and resigned himself to live a hypocritical life, supporting American Gemeinschaft while supplying the means by which American Gesellschaft could progress. But the Klan had no such qualms and openly attacked “the intellectuals and liberals who held the leadership,[and] betrayed Americanism.” They fought this sector of society because they fostered a liberal environment in which ideas could grow, ideas that challenged the views previously held by the American center. This context makes artist Joseph Stella’s “The Bridge” all the more audacious (Document B). In this painting, Stella juxtaposes the sleek, modern skyscrapers with the Goth arch, a symbol of all things holy as a slight reminder that America has built for itself a new sacred mountain. Jazz was another one of these new inventions of the city. Seen as “the Devil’s Music” (New York Times), it was described as barbaric, immoral, and socially unacceptable. The fact that it was created by blacks, played in night clubs and whorehouses, provided for the intermingling between, and allowed for improvisation breaking the strict canon by which all music was written, attracted to it the spite of traditional Americanism. Jazz was viewed as an attack on American culture, and by extension America itself, just as Stella’s futurist-inspired painting could have been.
In addition to the physical changes of demographics affecting America, the internal structure of the family was also shifting. The increase in the number of women who smoke, an activity previously seen appropriate only for men, prompted the WCTU to launch a campaign amongst teachers and Sunday school workers to curb the spread of tobacco use amongst children and women. The women leading this campaign still call upon “the duty of motherhood” which “is till relegated to the women of the nation.” (Document G) The tension in society is still evident within this organization.
Although these women are actively taking a role in public life, their campaign is aimed only at women and it is based on older notions of the role of women. The increase rate of divorce and the decrease in the rate of marriage in the 1920’s suggests that women are taking a more active role in the decision-making processes of their lives. (Document H) As it becomes more socially acceptable for women to marry late or divorce or not marry at all and as their social status becomes less dependent on how well they perform their ‘duties’ as mothers and wives, the entire fabric of the American family begins to unravel and must be re-sown to accommodate changing attitudes. As the role of women changed, so did the role of religion. One challenge to religion was the increasing size of urban areas, which are often more secular or heterogeneous in religious make up. But one of the greater challenges to religion in America was evolution. Because many churches had sought God “in the corners of darkness that have not yet seen the light of understanding,” (Finding Darwin’s God) evolution posed a threat to the religious beliefs of many. The Scopes Trial also questioned the role of religion in public education, an extension of the government. The tension arouse because members from both the religious and the scientific community believed that they contradicted each other. The defense tries to find a middle-ground by stating to the prosecution that “I am examining you on your fool ideas that no intelligent Christian on earth believes.” But an attack on one’s faith only makes one cling even more firmly, even slightly irrationally to it for fear of losing it. And as is evident, fear was the greatest motivator for tension during this decade. Fear of change, progress, all things new and foreign.
Prohibition was one reaction to reclaim America’s morality. But the superimposition of Gemeinschaft values on the entire country proved impractical, and it served as a sign that America as a whole was not too eager to return to the “good ol’ days.”
However, the depiction of the tensions throughout America in the 1920’s as between two forces pulling at each other is slightly inaccurate. The Gemeinschaft-Gesellschaft structure developed by Ferdinand Tonnies accurately conveys how many believed the battle was being fought, but the “us vs. them” view oversimplifies the complex scenario. The ideologies opposing the American center were not always working toward the same objective. There were rifts within the USA Communist Party; members of the Intelligentsia feared the militant strikers and their communist supporters; and Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Dubois disagreed on how to best achieve racial equality. Langston Hughes, who benefitted from the programs of Dubois, wrote criticizing the values tacitly encouraged by Washington, “She [Philadelphia clubwoman] wants the artist to flatter her, to make the white world believe that all Negroes are as smug and as near white in soul as she wants to be. But, to my mind, it is the duty of the younger Negro artist to change through the force of his at that old whispering ‘I want to be white.’” (Document E)This attempt at fostering a Negro identity might not have garnered the support of the white establishment while Washington might have. Examples of these divides in the left can be seen in the novel Ragtime written by E. L. Doctorow. Booker T. Washington, Emma Goldman, Coalhouse, Evelyn Nesbit, and Freud, although all working in some way to shatter Victorian paradigms, often disagreed on the best way to shatter them and what should replace them. However, these various groups sometimes did work to achieve the same objective with different motivations. The greatest example of this cooperation of the left is the Sacco-Vanzetti Case. In a letter to his sister, Vanzetti wrote “Never in our full life could we hope to do such work for intolerance, for justice, for man’s understanding of man, as we do by accident…this last moment belongs to us—this last agony is our triumph.”(Selections from the Files on the Sacco and Vanzetti Trial)The Sacco-Vanzetti Case was exactly that, an accident. The conviction of these two men should not have happened, constitutionally, and their rise to fame was as unexpected as Vanzetti thought. But the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti occurred at a time ripe for uproar. Liberal America was looking for a cause, a symbol, and these two men provided the perfect combination of all things un-American: Italian anarchist immigrants accused of militant unionist activities in the struggle against capitalist oppression. These groups “saw in Sacco and Vanzetti an opportunity to protest all the injustices they felt were pervading society.” (Reuniting the Lost Generation: Intellectual Response to the Sacco-Vanzetti Case) These ordinary men had been transformed into symbols by those who wished to further their particular cause. This tactic is similar to what we saw with President Barack Obama in the 2008 elections. A black U.S. senator from Illinois serving his first term is turned into a symbol of hope and change because he fit the criteria for what America needed: a mixed-race minority candidate who was raised by a single mother in underprivileged circumstances. He represented what Americans believed America should be. Sacco and Vanzetti were denied all of that, and so the world rallied behind them. This trial was a manifestation of the tension between the progressive community and the system upheld by the business community and the political elite.
Throughout this time of tension and turmoil, Americans looked for bridges to connect the values of their past with the industrialized, mechanized future. Two of these Ubermenschen were Charles Lindbergh and Babe Ruth. Both were so acclaimed because of not what they did, but how they did it. Charles Lindbergh’s feat was not that he flew across the Atlantic “But because he was as clean in character as he was strong and fine in body; because he put ‘ethics’ above any desire for wealth; because he was a modest as he was courageous; and because these are the things which we honor most in life.” (Document F) Charles Lindbergh brought the core values of ‘Americanism’ and merged them with the technology that stemmed from the cities.
Similarly, Babe Ruth brought personality to an increasingly mechanized and depersonalized game. These characters brought consolation to the American populace caught between these contradictory forces. Ruth and Lindbergh showed that individual identity and morality can withstand the force of industrialization and modernization. Sister Aimee McPherson is another example of how religion and the contemporary world can coexist. Sister Aimee brought religion into the context of the modern world without tainting dogma. She “threw out the dirges and threats of Hell, replacing them with jazz hymns and promises of Glory.” (Document I) Sister Aimee ‘modernized’ Christianity while still safeguarding its integrity.
The 1920’s were a time of changing definitions. The Proun Space and installation art work by El Lissitsky challenged the definition of art. A sculpture-cum-painting that took up three walls, it hung like a painting, looked like a sculpture, but surrounded the viewer instead of allowing the viewer to circumambulate around it. What was art, socially acceptable, family, religion and its role in society, urbanization, and government? Before the 1920’s America had a reached a consensus on these issues with little deviation, but the postwar world opened America to a flood of new ideas that challenged the old ones. Naturally, these new ideas were not welcomed with open arms and tension was the ultimate result. Some of the definitions were changed; others remained in dispute, creating a culture in America where each was left unto his own. The ultimate release from tension was indifference, but the apathy-induced coma only last so long.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Did you know?
Did you know that back in high school I subscribed to an import magazine from Great Britain called “Majesty”? You may not have known that…although you think you know me. It was an expensive magazine all about the British royal family. Why did I beg for this magazine subscription? Well, I had just traveled to Europe the summer between my junior and senior year of high school with the All Ohio State Fair Youth Choir (you can guess the origin of the group from the name) and I had adored being in England. It was the summer of 1981, and Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer were about to be married. I remember being in St. Paul’s Cathedral just three weeks before this exciting event and I could hardly be contained! It was so exciting, all the history, all the glamour, all the pomp and ceremony. I wanted to get my hands on everything about the royal family. Of course, I wanted to be invited, but just as my invitation to a royal wedding seems to be lost in the mail again, the pleasure of my company was not requested! Do you remember the back of Joan Rivers’ comedy album from late 1981? It had the famed picture of the royal family at Chuck and Di’s wedding, and Joan Rivers had had herself superimposed into the picture bearing her wedding gift of a blender with a bow bigger than the hat of any of the royals.
So that fall I subscribed to “Majesty” so I could indulge my love of the royal family. Over the years I have continued an enjoyment in learning about this House of Windsor. Anyway, it would seem that I am the most eager cinephile to welcome the acclaimed film, The King’s Speech. After all, it is about one of my most abiding enjoyments (obsessions?)—that family.
However, when the movie came out this fall—I kind of held my breath when I was home in the United States—I wasn’t sure if I wanted to see it. Well, of course I wanted to see it, but I didn’t know if I wanted to see it with anyone. Moreover, I kind of hoped no one asked me if I had seen it, or what I thought of it—I just didn’t have a ready answer. I just wasn’t sure how to handle the discussion.
Why? Well, King George and I share something that neither of us particularly enjoy discussing (I know I speak of him here as if he were still alive—I am well aware he has been dead for nearly 60 years) nor know how to explain to practically anyone else. One of the stories that ran in “Majesty” that I remember, lo these nearly 30 years ago, was a story about HRH Albert, the Duke of York, and a speech he gave in the mid-1920s and about his “debilitating stammer.” I remember the phrase exactly. I remember wondering what this royal personage had thought about his speech, and if he would like the phrase, “debilitating stammer.” George and I share this phenomenon, and neither of us particularly likes talking about it. I think I avoid the subject in large part, because like Bertie, neither of us likes to think about how uncomfortable it makes other people. I know that I always wish I could just give out a card when someone meets me announcing the stutter so that then they know what is coming. So I avoided the movie when I was home, but when it won the Oscar two weeks ago tonight, I knew it was time I should see the film. But I didn’t want to see it with anybody, I just wanted to see it alone here with my bootleg DVD I can so easily get (sorry any of my blogosphere friends who get upset about that intellectual property stuff). I curled up on the couch last weekend and lost myself in the story of the King’s speech. Do you know the story of the film?
The story largely unfolds during the Great Depression, building to the compulsory rousing end in 1939 when Britain declared war on Nazi Germany, world calamities that almost don’t have a match on the urgent matter of the speech impediment of HRH Albert Frederick Arthur George, the new King George VI (played by Oscar winner Colin Firth). As a child, Albert, or Bertie as his family called him, the shy, rather sickly second son of King George V developed a stutter. As his royal duties grew more important he and his wife, Elizabeth, a steely Scottish rose, (and the mother of their daughters, Elizabeth, the future queen, and Margaret) sought ways to conquer the speech problem.
Albert meets his new speech therapist, Lionel Logue, reluctantly, and only after an assortment of public and private humiliations does he decide to continue with the sessions. In one botched effort, a Royal Court-appointed doctor instructs Albert to talk with a mouthful of marbles, a gagging endeavor that might have altered the imminent monarchical succession. As eccentric and expansive as Albert is reserved, Logue enters the movie with a flourish, insisting that they meet in his shabby-chic office and that he be permitted to call his royal client, then the Duke of York, by the informal “Bertie.” The actors who portray Albert and Logue play a symbiotic pair whose relationship gives each something he hadn’t expected, even as they develop a greater understanding of their own fears and weaknesses.
But it remains Bertie’s story, a story about suffering and enduring something that is so hard to know why it is happening. Bertie has spent his life suffering the pressure of his father, King George V to get his stutter under control: “Relax!” the old man shouts and brays at him, while trying to give him a lesson in addressing the radio microphone. His brothers mocked him for his impediment, yet as we see, he is the most conscious of his responsibility as a royal. Yet with his father aging, Bertie is required to make more public appearances and speak to audiences, something that terrifies him because of the anticipation of humiliation.
The movie opens actually with the event that I remember from that long-ago story from “Majesty.” The director and writer do a masterful job at creating suspense, the agony of the anticipation as everyone awaits his speech, in that first scene in 1925 at a stadium to the Empire about a series of sports events. Everyone around Bertie looks stricken as they plead, “Just take your time.” The director makes the radio microphone so scary looking, as scary as it must have been for Bertie, and Colin Firth is perfect here, his eyes almost bleeding with the terror he feels at any moment of potential embarrassment. As he waits on the words to come forth, Firth perfectly captures the feel of a stutterer facing the gallows or otherwise feeling doomed. It’s just talking. But it is not easy. And sometimes nothing comes out. A horse neighs with what can only feel like an expression of growing impatience. Bertie speaks. It is not his finest hour.
As I watched the film, of course I loved the film—it is a beautiful film that is only sort of about fighting a speech disability—it is about a man conquering his fears. We are too embarrassed to divulge our shortcomings to the world and most importantly to ourselves, assuming it will only invite ridicule. So in this vein, the way Firth loses his temper mostly on himself, every time he feels he can never get rid of the stutter is terrific. As I have already said, one feels his pain and anguish. He feels ashamed of himself every time his father looks at him in the eye with regret. His trauma touches your soul. Helena Bonham Carter renders a heartfelt performance as the loving wife Elizabeth who wants her husband to believe in himself and his abilities. She even tells him, “When I married you, I told myself, he stutters beautifully.”
Everyone makes it sound so simple, they all say, “Relax,” or this expert advice: “Inhale deep in your lungs Your Highness, and you will find confidence.” His wife Elizabeth asks about the marbles-in-the-mouth business and the toady doctor says, “It is the classic approach from ancient Greece. It is what Demosthenes did.” And HRH the Duchess of York quipped, “And has it worked since?” As Bertie begins to gag on the marbles, the doctor bellows, “Fight against the marbles, Your Royal Highness,” and then pleads, “A little more concentration!” Angry and helpless, Bertie spits out the marbles and spits out to Elizabeth, “Promise me no more treatments!”
When the Duchess of York first meets Lionel Logue she does not divulge who she is or who her husband is. She says, “My husband is required to speak publicly,” to which Logue says, “Perhaps he should change jobs.” Elizabeth simply says, “He can’t.”
Watching how difficult it is for Bertie to tell stories to his daughters, it reminds me all too easily how the simplest tasks can be overwhelming—going to the bank teller, a drive-through window, speaking to customer service on the phone—the simplest things, but sometimes the words don’t come out. No amount of “Take your time,” or “relax” helps. Logue puts it very well when he says, “Every stammerer feels like every conversation puts them back to square one.” Logue asks Bertie: “When did the defect start?” Bertie replies, “I can’t remember not doing it.” Logue then asks, “Do you hesitate when you think or when you talk to yourself?” Later he asks Bertie if he knows any jokes, and Bertie responds, “Timing isn’t my strong suit.”
The film's title does double duty. When Bertie assumes the throne in 1937 as George VI, Hitler is consolidating his power in Germany. A nation needs to hear from its king. This reluctant-yet-stalwart king must speak to the Empire and calm their fears. Writer and director create an expected stirring conclusion here, and Logue smiles after the speech and says to his monarch: “You still stammered on the ‘w.’” The king grinned and said, “I had to throw in a few so they knew it was me.” Evidently, as a child, writer David Seidler had a stutter. George VI became his hero. The King's Speech makes him ours as well.
Over the years I have had a number of therapists or treatments. None of them have really done any significant improvement, but here I am, in a career choice where I speak publicly every day, loving my work, but certainly knowing the pain and anguish that Bertie endured every time he spoke. I am very well aware of the supportive family that I have had. It has not been a topic of conversation very often, but I have only felt love and support from my family. Perhaps it is, as I have hoped, just not the most interesting thing about me. As I look back over it all, there have been so few, so very few times in childhood and adulthood where people treated me poorly because of it. It could have been the most “go-to” of childhood taunts and ridicules, but it never overwhelmed interpersonal dynamics. The strangest part for me, unlike Bertie, is that I love public speaking. I would love to have pursued acting, but, well, you can’t make an audience wait or wonder if the speech will come out! Bertie never enjoyed that speaking, and I do, and since I do it often, I simply have to think ahead of myself and check on the words in my brain, and see if this is a day where an L word, or an R word, or an M word, or W word, or a Cr, et cetera et cetera can make its way out fluently. Maybe the best thing my family ever did for me was what Lionel Logue did for Bertie. He says, “I am here so that my patient can have faith in their own voice and make them feel like a friend is listening.”
So that fall I subscribed to “Majesty” so I could indulge my love of the royal family. Over the years I have continued an enjoyment in learning about this House of Windsor. Anyway, it would seem that I am the most eager cinephile to welcome the acclaimed film, The King’s Speech. After all, it is about one of my most abiding enjoyments (obsessions?)—that family.
However, when the movie came out this fall—I kind of held my breath when I was home in the United States—I wasn’t sure if I wanted to see it. Well, of course I wanted to see it, but I didn’t know if I wanted to see it with anyone. Moreover, I kind of hoped no one asked me if I had seen it, or what I thought of it—I just didn’t have a ready answer. I just wasn’t sure how to handle the discussion.
Why? Well, King George and I share something that neither of us particularly enjoy discussing (I know I speak of him here as if he were still alive—I am well aware he has been dead for nearly 60 years) nor know how to explain to practically anyone else. One of the stories that ran in “Majesty” that I remember, lo these nearly 30 years ago, was a story about HRH Albert, the Duke of York, and a speech he gave in the mid-1920s and about his “debilitating stammer.” I remember the phrase exactly. I remember wondering what this royal personage had thought about his speech, and if he would like the phrase, “debilitating stammer.” George and I share this phenomenon, and neither of us particularly likes talking about it. I think I avoid the subject in large part, because like Bertie, neither of us likes to think about how uncomfortable it makes other people. I know that I always wish I could just give out a card when someone meets me announcing the stutter so that then they know what is coming. So I avoided the movie when I was home, but when it won the Oscar two weeks ago tonight, I knew it was time I should see the film. But I didn’t want to see it with anybody, I just wanted to see it alone here with my bootleg DVD I can so easily get (sorry any of my blogosphere friends who get upset about that intellectual property stuff). I curled up on the couch last weekend and lost myself in the story of the King’s speech. Do you know the story of the film?
The story largely unfolds during the Great Depression, building to the compulsory rousing end in 1939 when Britain declared war on Nazi Germany, world calamities that almost don’t have a match on the urgent matter of the speech impediment of HRH Albert Frederick Arthur George, the new King George VI (played by Oscar winner Colin Firth). As a child, Albert, or Bertie as his family called him, the shy, rather sickly second son of King George V developed a stutter. As his royal duties grew more important he and his wife, Elizabeth, a steely Scottish rose, (and the mother of their daughters, Elizabeth, the future queen, and Margaret) sought ways to conquer the speech problem.
Albert meets his new speech therapist, Lionel Logue, reluctantly, and only after an assortment of public and private humiliations does he decide to continue with the sessions. In one botched effort, a Royal Court-appointed doctor instructs Albert to talk with a mouthful of marbles, a gagging endeavor that might have altered the imminent monarchical succession. As eccentric and expansive as Albert is reserved, Logue enters the movie with a flourish, insisting that they meet in his shabby-chic office and that he be permitted to call his royal client, then the Duke of York, by the informal “Bertie.” The actors who portray Albert and Logue play a symbiotic pair whose relationship gives each something he hadn’t expected, even as they develop a greater understanding of their own fears and weaknesses.
But it remains Bertie’s story, a story about suffering and enduring something that is so hard to know why it is happening. Bertie has spent his life suffering the pressure of his father, King George V to get his stutter under control: “Relax!” the old man shouts and brays at him, while trying to give him a lesson in addressing the radio microphone. His brothers mocked him for his impediment, yet as we see, he is the most conscious of his responsibility as a royal. Yet with his father aging, Bertie is required to make more public appearances and speak to audiences, something that terrifies him because of the anticipation of humiliation.
The movie opens actually with the event that I remember from that long-ago story from “Majesty.” The director and writer do a masterful job at creating suspense, the agony of the anticipation as everyone awaits his speech, in that first scene in 1925 at a stadium to the Empire about a series of sports events. Everyone around Bertie looks stricken as they plead, “Just take your time.” The director makes the radio microphone so scary looking, as scary as it must have been for Bertie, and Colin Firth is perfect here, his eyes almost bleeding with the terror he feels at any moment of potential embarrassment. As he waits on the words to come forth, Firth perfectly captures the feel of a stutterer facing the gallows or otherwise feeling doomed. It’s just talking. But it is not easy. And sometimes nothing comes out. A horse neighs with what can only feel like an expression of growing impatience. Bertie speaks. It is not his finest hour.
As I watched the film, of course I loved the film—it is a beautiful film that is only sort of about fighting a speech disability—it is about a man conquering his fears. We are too embarrassed to divulge our shortcomings to the world and most importantly to ourselves, assuming it will only invite ridicule. So in this vein, the way Firth loses his temper mostly on himself, every time he feels he can never get rid of the stutter is terrific. As I have already said, one feels his pain and anguish. He feels ashamed of himself every time his father looks at him in the eye with regret. His trauma touches your soul. Helena Bonham Carter renders a heartfelt performance as the loving wife Elizabeth who wants her husband to believe in himself and his abilities. She even tells him, “When I married you, I told myself, he stutters beautifully.”
Everyone makes it sound so simple, they all say, “Relax,” or this expert advice: “Inhale deep in your lungs Your Highness, and you will find confidence.” His wife Elizabeth asks about the marbles-in-the-mouth business and the toady doctor says, “It is the classic approach from ancient Greece. It is what Demosthenes did.” And HRH the Duchess of York quipped, “And has it worked since?” As Bertie begins to gag on the marbles, the doctor bellows, “Fight against the marbles, Your Royal Highness,” and then pleads, “A little more concentration!” Angry and helpless, Bertie spits out the marbles and spits out to Elizabeth, “Promise me no more treatments!”
When the Duchess of York first meets Lionel Logue she does not divulge who she is or who her husband is. She says, “My husband is required to speak publicly,” to which Logue says, “Perhaps he should change jobs.” Elizabeth simply says, “He can’t.”
Watching how difficult it is for Bertie to tell stories to his daughters, it reminds me all too easily how the simplest tasks can be overwhelming—going to the bank teller, a drive-through window, speaking to customer service on the phone—the simplest things, but sometimes the words don’t come out. No amount of “Take your time,” or “relax” helps. Logue puts it very well when he says, “Every stammerer feels like every conversation puts them back to square one.” Logue asks Bertie: “When did the defect start?” Bertie replies, “I can’t remember not doing it.” Logue then asks, “Do you hesitate when you think or when you talk to yourself?” Later he asks Bertie if he knows any jokes, and Bertie responds, “Timing isn’t my strong suit.”
The film's title does double duty. When Bertie assumes the throne in 1937 as George VI, Hitler is consolidating his power in Germany. A nation needs to hear from its king. This reluctant-yet-stalwart king must speak to the Empire and calm their fears. Writer and director create an expected stirring conclusion here, and Logue smiles after the speech and says to his monarch: “You still stammered on the ‘w.’” The king grinned and said, “I had to throw in a few so they knew it was me.” Evidently, as a child, writer David Seidler had a stutter. George VI became his hero. The King's Speech makes him ours as well.
Over the years I have had a number of therapists or treatments. None of them have really done any significant improvement, but here I am, in a career choice where I speak publicly every day, loving my work, but certainly knowing the pain and anguish that Bertie endured every time he spoke. I am very well aware of the supportive family that I have had. It has not been a topic of conversation very often, but I have only felt love and support from my family. Perhaps it is, as I have hoped, just not the most interesting thing about me. As I look back over it all, there have been so few, so very few times in childhood and adulthood where people treated me poorly because of it. It could have been the most “go-to” of childhood taunts and ridicules, but it never overwhelmed interpersonal dynamics. The strangest part for me, unlike Bertie, is that I love public speaking. I would love to have pursued acting, but, well, you can’t make an audience wait or wonder if the speech will come out! Bertie never enjoyed that speaking, and I do, and since I do it often, I simply have to think ahead of myself and check on the words in my brain, and see if this is a day where an L word, or an R word, or an M word, or W word, or a Cr, et cetera et cetera can make its way out fluently. Maybe the best thing my family ever did for me was what Lionel Logue did for Bertie. He says, “I am here so that my patient can have faith in their own voice and make them feel like a friend is listening.”
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Take it away Hamzeh!
In the next few days I want to share a few examples of student work. I don’t write enough in blogisodes about the great work my students do—I am always grading and assessing the work and I should take more time to celebrate their achievements. In this first example, I wanted to share the written speech that Hamzeh offered as his declamation. KA has begun an annual tradition of a declamation contest, as in the old-fashioned sense where one writes a speech and then delivers it. Deerfield Academy still maintains this tradition whereas many old schools have dropped it. Hamzeh decided he would fashion his speech after “Slam Poetry,” a genre that his English class had studied. While you do not have the benefit of watching Hamzeh deliver his declamation, you can read his words. Long-time readers of the blog will know that Hamzeh has been one of the most vibrant facets of my KA experience, I have taught him thrice, lived on the same hallway and advised him. A panel of judges deemed his declamation the best for 2010-2011. After he delivered his speech, in the back row with the teachers, there were more than a few moist eyes as we contemplated his progress and growth in these four years, not just in terms of facility with English, but his poise and decorum as he ascended the stage and mesmerized the audience. Again, more than a few commented simply, “he is such a habibi.”
Blasting Words
The bell rang, the students left like a clang
No one stayed at the class, everyone ran outside
Holding their blackberries, that every time they rang
The teacher got upset, and sometimes got mad
“What a young generation!” Yelled the teacher, “Please no slang!”
Well, that’s probably some story you are accustomed to living
Frolicking on the grass, having fun and already
Getting work done like a diligent student
You open the book, the notebook and try to look so prudent
But underneath that cover, lies the nation’s threat
It’s not about some rubber, once in a fire lit
But about the “Souar” (pictures in Arabic), that the TV perfectly spits
“I am cold, may I have the 7a66a?” asked so politely the American girl
But when approached with a guy and a “Wutz Up!?” The girl prepared for a little flattering curl
Was it a shock that was painted on her face?
Was it a moment of realization that struck her?
Was it, was it, was it…?
I think it was, and even more, for the guy said the impossible, and even more
“Oh, I see, so now you are a terrorist, Haha”
The girl stood there, taken aback
Unable to compare, those words and the smack
How bad are we portrayed? How bad are the Arabs?
Is it really our fault? Or is it that things add up?
I say it’s propaganda, do you know the Chinese panda?
Exactly, I don’t think you know, so let’s get the points jotted down and I
Would like to address, the people and the press
Will you ever oppress, an orphan or a homeless?
The same thing lies here, no difference, no changes, just the atmosphere
Do you always open your ear? And let the slander adhere
To you, are you sincere? I doubt it, you know why?
Because you got used to it, just like new-born babies cry
We live under one sky, we breathe the same air
How dare you call us terrorists, how dare?
How dare you deprive us civilization, how dare?
How dare you run away from us, how dare?
How dare you be afraid from us, how dare?
What do you mean it’s nine eleven?
When Arabs aren’t there, do you call it a heaven?
What do you mean it’s OUR fault?
Did we blow the towers? Did we rob your hours?
Do you know that the world is yours and ours?
What do you know about the Arabs? Or, let me rephrase; what do you hear about the Arabs?
Because nowadays, all you think is what you hear? The Arabs photo is like a sphinx
That is always setting there, we can do nothing, we can’t destroy it, and it just winks
As in every party you have the extremes
That will do whatever to vanish our dreams
“Hmmm, it’s a misunderstanding, it seems…”
It seems??? May be it’s the teens…
And maybe it’s the screens, which show you what it “seems”
Because it’s not only the Arabs, and it’s not only the wooden teeth
It’s not only the Vikings, the horns and the sushis
You are like little children when they swear: “a number with three digits is greater than a number squared”
Because, let’s be honest, get a square, tilt it to the side, is it a square?
Some might say yes, some might say no, some might even say “IT’S NOT EVEN FAIR.”
You know what you know, and little is what you accept
For you are the victim and they are the subject
Because, let’s be honest. A country man at Texas
Busts his time, his muscles and his flexes
Working so hard, dust on his face and his textures
Then comes a running daughter shouting with fright:
“Daddy, they blew the towers, daddy, I’m scared.”
He hugs his daughter, who looks beautiful in white
But he still bites his lips and says “It’s okay sweetie, everything will be all right.”
He knows it’s all lies, nothing is fine, and nothing is all right
What do you expect from him? Hug the person who ruined their lovely evening?
Hug the person who destroyed his nation? Hug the person who caused the people to start fleeing?
Or maybe, invite him to dinner to discuss why he committed such a violation
As soon as that took place, a connection was created
The Arabs became disgrace and the Muslims too, affiliated
It’s funny how we humans, always take the routes that make us animals
It’s not necessarily congruent, but habituation has its effects and originals
Once we hear or see something, like baby ducks, we follow it
It’s like there is nothing in this whole world that’s other than it
What is it? How did we reach the wall that we hit? Is there any way out?
You know, if we could get the TV. To permit
CeciN'est Pas Une Pipe, The Treason of Images
Before you get the creeps, about some Arab cities or villages
You’ve got to go there, for you to know there
Because what sticks to your mind is what you see, not what you hear
But misconceptions will always be there, whether we like it or not
But the change starts here, now let’s go bomb Pizza Hut!
Blasting Words
The bell rang, the students left like a clang
No one stayed at the class, everyone ran outside
Holding their blackberries, that every time they rang
The teacher got upset, and sometimes got mad
“What a young generation!” Yelled the teacher, “Please no slang!”
Well, that’s probably some story you are accustomed to living
Frolicking on the grass, having fun and already
Getting work done like a diligent student
You open the book, the notebook and try to look so prudent
But underneath that cover, lies the nation’s threat
It’s not about some rubber, once in a fire lit
But about the “Souar” (pictures in Arabic), that the TV perfectly spits
“I am cold, may I have the 7a66a?” asked so politely the American girl
But when approached with a guy and a “Wutz Up!?” The girl prepared for a little flattering curl
Was it a shock that was painted on her face?
Was it a moment of realization that struck her?
Was it, was it, was it…?
I think it was, and even more, for the guy said the impossible, and even more
“Oh, I see, so now you are a terrorist, Haha”
The girl stood there, taken aback
Unable to compare, those words and the smack
How bad are we portrayed? How bad are the Arabs?
Is it really our fault? Or is it that things add up?
I say it’s propaganda, do you know the Chinese panda?
Exactly, I don’t think you know, so let’s get the points jotted down and I
Would like to address, the people and the press
Will you ever oppress, an orphan or a homeless?
The same thing lies here, no difference, no changes, just the atmosphere
Do you always open your ear? And let the slander adhere
To you, are you sincere? I doubt it, you know why?
Because you got used to it, just like new-born babies cry
We live under one sky, we breathe the same air
How dare you call us terrorists, how dare?
How dare you deprive us civilization, how dare?
How dare you run away from us, how dare?
How dare you be afraid from us, how dare?
What do you mean it’s nine eleven?
When Arabs aren’t there, do you call it a heaven?
What do you mean it’s OUR fault?
Did we blow the towers? Did we rob your hours?
Do you know that the world is yours and ours?
What do you know about the Arabs? Or, let me rephrase; what do you hear about the Arabs?
Because nowadays, all you think is what you hear? The Arabs photo is like a sphinx
That is always setting there, we can do nothing, we can’t destroy it, and it just winks
As in every party you have the extremes
That will do whatever to vanish our dreams
“Hmmm, it’s a misunderstanding, it seems…”
It seems??? May be it’s the teens…
And maybe it’s the screens, which show you what it “seems”
Because it’s not only the Arabs, and it’s not only the wooden teeth
It’s not only the Vikings, the horns and the sushis
You are like little children when they swear: “a number with three digits is greater than a number squared”
Because, let’s be honest, get a square, tilt it to the side, is it a square?
Some might say yes, some might say no, some might even say “IT’S NOT EVEN FAIR.”
You know what you know, and little is what you accept
For you are the victim and they are the subject
Because, let’s be honest. A country man at Texas
Busts his time, his muscles and his flexes
Working so hard, dust on his face and his textures
Then comes a running daughter shouting with fright:
“Daddy, they blew the towers, daddy, I’m scared.”
He hugs his daughter, who looks beautiful in white
But he still bites his lips and says “It’s okay sweetie, everything will be all right.”
He knows it’s all lies, nothing is fine, and nothing is all right
What do you expect from him? Hug the person who ruined their lovely evening?
Hug the person who destroyed his nation? Hug the person who caused the people to start fleeing?
Or maybe, invite him to dinner to discuss why he committed such a violation
As soon as that took place, a connection was created
The Arabs became disgrace and the Muslims too, affiliated
It’s funny how we humans, always take the routes that make us animals
It’s not necessarily congruent, but habituation has its effects and originals
Once we hear or see something, like baby ducks, we follow it
It’s like there is nothing in this whole world that’s other than it
What is it? How did we reach the wall that we hit? Is there any way out?
You know, if we could get the TV. To permit
CeciN'est Pas Une Pipe, The Treason of Images
Before you get the creeps, about some Arab cities or villages
You’ve got to go there, for you to know there
Because what sticks to your mind is what you see, not what you hear
But misconceptions will always be there, whether we like it or not
But the change starts here, now let’s go bomb Pizza Hut!
Monday, February 28, 2011
When you get caught between the dominos and Anne Hathaway…
Wha????? Okay, that title is a riff on the love theme from the 1981 movie Arthur. (substitute the dominos for the moon and Anne Hathaway for New York City!). Wha????? Okay, I am a little tired, yes, I am sleep-deprived and it is not some pitiful jet lag from the two February trips to Boston. No, no. Last night I went to bed at 11:00 p.m. promptly with my alarm clock set for 2:00 a.m. so that I could get up (in the middle of the night in case you aren’t paying close attention) and watch the red carpet doings and the Academy Awards broadcast live from the USA. Yes, I set my alarm, got up, and watched the Oscars all night. I have no one else to blame but myself for my fatigued state today. Actually, I feel great, just a little loopy. You see, the Oscars closed up shop at 6:30 a.m. and of course that is when one would get up and face the new day in Jordan, all ready to go and do God’s work and teach school!!
It was worth it…I loved the Oscar-cast—well, mostly. James Franco was dull as a host, I thought, but Anne Hathaway—good heavens, how gorgeous and funny and like your most attractive best friend. During one of the breaks of the Oscar-cast I realized I needed to get back on the blogisode stick (again, wha?????) and comment about the last month in Jordan. I have made some comments, but those are now a little past the “sell-by” date (is that a reference back to “Yo, Sushi!” from the last blogisode???).
But before I comment on the doings in the Middle East this winter again, I really should share an article my dear friend Sylvia sent me last week. Sylvia forwarded me a column by David Ignatius, who I believe syndicates out of the Washington Post. This was the first article I have read from the American media (at least that I have found) who seems to understand the nuances and differences in Jordan from Tunisia and Egypt. Let me now share that article with you from Mr. Ignatius:
AMMAN, Jordan -- Jordanians are clamoring for reform these days, like everyone else in the Arab world, but what they mean depends partly on which side of the Jordan River their ancestors hail from. Yet both sides look to the Hashemite monarchy for protection, which is one reason it's still standing amid the hurricane that's blowing through the neighborhood.
When Jordanians of Palestinian descent talk about reform, they usually mean freer expression, less bureaucracy and more representation for their community, which makes up about half of Jordan's population. For many East Bankers, in contrast, reform means rolling back privatization (which they identify with corruption), more power for the army and the government, and limits on more Palestinian citizenship and voting.
There have been street protests here over the past several weeks by young reformers. Meanwhile, retired military officers (drawn from the old guard of the East Bank) have protested what they see as improper deals for the business elite and other problems.
In the middle stands King Abdullah II, leaning this way and that as he tries to ride the wave of change. He depends on the entrepreneurial Palestinian business elite for Jordan's economic growth; but he needs the army, dominated by the Bedouin tribes of the East Bank, for security. This balancing act has allowed the Hashemite monarchy to survive for 90 years, through civil wars, assassination attempts and regional mayhem.
Around the royal palace, people speak of "Meds" and "Beds" -- referring to the worldly Mediterranean outlook of the Palestinians and the traditional values of the Bedouin tribes of the East Bank. One young Amman resident complains that people here always ask where someone is from. He muses that he should start a Facebook protest site called "We want to be Jordanians."
Even King Abdullah seems to think that in this moment of Arab revolution, the middle of the road may be a dangerous place to be. He has talked about moving Jordan over the next three years toward a true constitutional monarchy -- with a few real political parties and a prime minister who's elected by parliament, rather than appointed by the palace.
King Abdullah and Queen Rania are the West's idea of what Arab leaders should look like: They're young, smart, attractive and speak perfect English. They campaign for women's rights and broadband Internet connectivity. They frequent conferences such as Davos on a perpetual road show to drum up Western investment for their poor, resource-limited country.
This very success in Western eyes raises eyebrows at home. Queen Rania has become a lightning rod for East Bank critics who think she's too vocal and independent (and too Palestinian, which is her family's ancestry) to be a proper Arab queen. Abdullah, too, is criticized by some as too Western. The royal couple have the vices of their virtues: The more they plug into the global grid, the more they risk unplugging from the local one.
Abdullah's greatest test may be the rumors about corruption that swirl around Amman. The Jordanian capital is a city of courtiers, passing around gossip about the leading personalities here. The Queen's stylish tastes and cover-girl looks add to the intense focus on her.
Gen. Ali Habashaneh, a retired brigade commander and one of the leaders of the retired officers movement, said in an interview that because of deals made under privatization, Jordan's debt over the past 10 years has grown from $5 billion to nearly $15 billion. He charged that some of these deals, especially big real estate ventures, were improper. As for Queen Rania, he complained that she had been pushing for more women in the bureaucracy, including even the intelligence service. "The constant local media appearances make people think she is a partner," he complained. To the Bedouins, that's unacceptable.
Abdullah tried to address the jumble of complaints in a speech Sunday: "Many issues are being raised. Some are true, some are exaggerated, and others are untrue. There is talk about corruption, there is wasta and favoritism, there is talk about failed institutions, about privatization, whether it been a success or a failure." He said he had instructed a new Anti-Corruption Commission to investigate charges, and he's thinking of adding a new panel to oversee the investigators.
Jordan has its problems, and King Abdullah could use a little more of the common touch of his father, King Hussein. He wants to get out ahead of his problems before they get any worse. But he also needs to stay in the political middle, balancing the old guard and the new reformers, and that's a tricky straddle.
What I like about Ignatius’ article is that he does not just jump on the narrative of the domino theory that I have seen in the other American commentators’ assessments. The domino theory is just too easy and does not account for how Jordan really is. Anyway, the other day the U.S. Embassy did warn Americans that it might be wise not to go downtown on Friday at the conclusion of the Friday noontime prayers. Well, my great friend Joan, an intrepid sexagenarian, decided she wanted to see what the big deal might be last Friday. She took a public bus down to the King Hussein Mosque area and waited for the prayers to end. As she waited, she watched the police form protective lines. She said to me later, “Well dahlin," (as she says in her Rhode Island accent), “the men came out of the mosque and it was hardly impressive! The men dispersed, the police waved at them, I saw no weapons, no demonstrations—wait, I did see some reporters and photographers trying to stage a scene for a photo op! It was really a non-event.”
Obviously none of us knows what lies on the horizon, but we don’t feel unsafe here, we don’t feel quite the inevitability that the American press is reporting. What I do know is that there was a traffic tie-up yesterday in Amman for a car show, essentially a big parade, in support of His Majesty. I know that whenever I have heard His Majesty speak, his voice is reasoned and often humorous, didactic rather than dictatorial; at times he seems to be speaking directly to a young audience, befitting his oft-articulated concern with Arab youth and educational opportunity. King Abdullah reminds us his audience directly that Jordan has often held the line against Muslim extremists who have hijacked Islam, the Palestinian plight, and international discourse.
Okay, that about does it for now. I will enjoy my little reverie as I hum away the tune from Arthur.
It was worth it…I loved the Oscar-cast—well, mostly. James Franco was dull as a host, I thought, but Anne Hathaway—good heavens, how gorgeous and funny and like your most attractive best friend. During one of the breaks of the Oscar-cast I realized I needed to get back on the blogisode stick (again, wha?????) and comment about the last month in Jordan. I have made some comments, but those are now a little past the “sell-by” date (is that a reference back to “Yo, Sushi!” from the last blogisode???).
But before I comment on the doings in the Middle East this winter again, I really should share an article my dear friend Sylvia sent me last week. Sylvia forwarded me a column by David Ignatius, who I believe syndicates out of the Washington Post. This was the first article I have read from the American media (at least that I have found) who seems to understand the nuances and differences in Jordan from Tunisia and Egypt. Let me now share that article with you from Mr. Ignatius:
AMMAN, Jordan -- Jordanians are clamoring for reform these days, like everyone else in the Arab world, but what they mean depends partly on which side of the Jordan River their ancestors hail from. Yet both sides look to the Hashemite monarchy for protection, which is one reason it's still standing amid the hurricane that's blowing through the neighborhood.
When Jordanians of Palestinian descent talk about reform, they usually mean freer expression, less bureaucracy and more representation for their community, which makes up about half of Jordan's population. For many East Bankers, in contrast, reform means rolling back privatization (which they identify with corruption), more power for the army and the government, and limits on more Palestinian citizenship and voting.
There have been street protests here over the past several weeks by young reformers. Meanwhile, retired military officers (drawn from the old guard of the East Bank) have protested what they see as improper deals for the business elite and other problems.
In the middle stands King Abdullah II, leaning this way and that as he tries to ride the wave of change. He depends on the entrepreneurial Palestinian business elite for Jordan's economic growth; but he needs the army, dominated by the Bedouin tribes of the East Bank, for security. This balancing act has allowed the Hashemite monarchy to survive for 90 years, through civil wars, assassination attempts and regional mayhem.
Around the royal palace, people speak of "Meds" and "Beds" -- referring to the worldly Mediterranean outlook of the Palestinians and the traditional values of the Bedouin tribes of the East Bank. One young Amman resident complains that people here always ask where someone is from. He muses that he should start a Facebook protest site called "We want to be Jordanians."
Even King Abdullah seems to think that in this moment of Arab revolution, the middle of the road may be a dangerous place to be. He has talked about moving Jordan over the next three years toward a true constitutional monarchy -- with a few real political parties and a prime minister who's elected by parliament, rather than appointed by the palace.
King Abdullah and Queen Rania are the West's idea of what Arab leaders should look like: They're young, smart, attractive and speak perfect English. They campaign for women's rights and broadband Internet connectivity. They frequent conferences such as Davos on a perpetual road show to drum up Western investment for their poor, resource-limited country.
This very success in Western eyes raises eyebrows at home. Queen Rania has become a lightning rod for East Bank critics who think she's too vocal and independent (and too Palestinian, which is her family's ancestry) to be a proper Arab queen. Abdullah, too, is criticized by some as too Western. The royal couple have the vices of their virtues: The more they plug into the global grid, the more they risk unplugging from the local one.
Abdullah's greatest test may be the rumors about corruption that swirl around Amman. The Jordanian capital is a city of courtiers, passing around gossip about the leading personalities here. The Queen's stylish tastes and cover-girl looks add to the intense focus on her.
Gen. Ali Habashaneh, a retired brigade commander and one of the leaders of the retired officers movement, said in an interview that because of deals made under privatization, Jordan's debt over the past 10 years has grown from $5 billion to nearly $15 billion. He charged that some of these deals, especially big real estate ventures, were improper. As for Queen Rania, he complained that she had been pushing for more women in the bureaucracy, including even the intelligence service. "The constant local media appearances make people think she is a partner," he complained. To the Bedouins, that's unacceptable.
Abdullah tried to address the jumble of complaints in a speech Sunday: "Many issues are being raised. Some are true, some are exaggerated, and others are untrue. There is talk about corruption, there is wasta and favoritism, there is talk about failed institutions, about privatization, whether it been a success or a failure." He said he had instructed a new Anti-Corruption Commission to investigate charges, and he's thinking of adding a new panel to oversee the investigators.
Jordan has its problems, and King Abdullah could use a little more of the common touch of his father, King Hussein. He wants to get out ahead of his problems before they get any worse. But he also needs to stay in the political middle, balancing the old guard and the new reformers, and that's a tricky straddle.
What I like about Ignatius’ article is that he does not just jump on the narrative of the domino theory that I have seen in the other American commentators’ assessments. The domino theory is just too easy and does not account for how Jordan really is. Anyway, the other day the U.S. Embassy did warn Americans that it might be wise not to go downtown on Friday at the conclusion of the Friday noontime prayers. Well, my great friend Joan, an intrepid sexagenarian, decided she wanted to see what the big deal might be last Friday. She took a public bus down to the King Hussein Mosque area and waited for the prayers to end. As she waited, she watched the police form protective lines. She said to me later, “Well dahlin," (as she says in her Rhode Island accent), “the men came out of the mosque and it was hardly impressive! The men dispersed, the police waved at them, I saw no weapons, no demonstrations—wait, I did see some reporters and photographers trying to stage a scene for a photo op! It was really a non-event.”
Obviously none of us knows what lies on the horizon, but we don’t feel unsafe here, we don’t feel quite the inevitability that the American press is reporting. What I do know is that there was a traffic tie-up yesterday in Amman for a car show, essentially a big parade, in support of His Majesty. I know that whenever I have heard His Majesty speak, his voice is reasoned and often humorous, didactic rather than dictatorial; at times he seems to be speaking directly to a young audience, befitting his oft-articulated concern with Arab youth and educational opportunity. King Abdullah reminds us his audience directly that Jordan has often held the line against Muslim extremists who have hijacked Islam, the Palestinian plight, and international discourse.
Okay, that about does it for now. I will enjoy my little reverie as I hum away the tune from Arthur.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Postcards from Boston
Well…I can see that my return is met with stony silence. Well, you see, I have been traveling quite a bit this month, and somehow the blogisodes just didn’t get accomplished. In this shortest month of the year, I have been in Jordan a short time, in the classroom a short time. In fact, I have been absent from the classroom 8 school days this month since I have flown to Boston twice. Wouldn’t it have been nice if someone had just said, “Gee, in honor of all your hard work, just stay over in the USA in between those two job-related trips!” No—no one in the right authority suggested that!
So where have I been? Why have I been so incommunicado? Why when so much is going on in the world and in my school world have I been so silent?
Yes, I have been traveling. Strangely enough, the flight itineraries were both exactly the same! Two flights from Amman on BMI (British Midland International) and two flights from London Heathrow on Virgin Atlantic to Boston and two flights back and two flights back. The best news of the month is that Jet Lag, the phantom terrorist of international travel did not totally vanquish me.
The first trip was as a recruiter at a job fair in Boston. We went to Boston for five days; I came back for six days and then left again to Boston for six days with a delegation of students bound for Harvard Model Congress. Lots of packing and lots of time for grading in the air and lots of time to enjoy the in-flight entertainment on Virgin Atlantic (they have about 50 movies available and about 40 television shows—I might have just kept on flying with all the options up there!). Both trips were exciting and successful and I am happy to have my feet on the ground for a few weeks now.
The first trip came about rather suddenly when a month ago our headmaster asked me to join him and the Dean of Faculty to interview at the job fair in Boston. I have never done that before at a job fair, but I love interviewing people and so enjoyed the invitation. I had no idea how steady the work is, and there is virtually no time away from the job fair. Oh well, all in the name of school improvement!
Sheena and I fly together to London, and there we learn that our next flight is cancelled since the snow dance over Boston had just enjoyed another encore. Luckily, we weren’t stranded, just delayed 7-8 hours. As soon as we figured out our flight status, Sheena grabbed my hand and said, with a devilish look in her eye, “We are going to “Yo Sushi!” I knew that Sheena is a fiend about sushi, but here I saw her in her natural habitat. “Yo Sushi!” is a strange restaurant—part automat, part diner, part sensory experience, part dim sum meal, and partly like a scene in Charlie Chaplin’s film Modern Times. You sit at a diner-like counter in “Yo Sushi” and the little plates move right in front of you on a giant conveyer belt around the whole restaurant. It felt a little like being in Oz too, I think. Anyway, each plate is color-coded to a certain price, and there is soup, and sushi bites and chicken sate, and it all rolls grandly right in front of you—all you have to do is reach out and grab the plate! There is a sticker on the side timed so you know the “sell by/eat by” time for the freshness. This transfixed me and I just loved watching. I also loved watching Sheena stack up her plates. This woman can do a sushi room! I don’t know how long we stayed there but I felt like a child enjoying the “It’s a small world” ride at Walt Disney World. Food going by on a conveyer belt. Just take it. It all seemed magical!!
We arrived much later in Boston than we had planned, and sadly that evening was to be our little window of free time on this trip. However, we got to the hotel at 11:00 p.m. When I arrived I discovered that my bags had not arrived yet. Gulp. One of the things Sheena had emphasized about this job fair is that it is very professional and formal with men in suits all the time. I hadn’t traveled in a suit and I hoped my bag would catch up in time. I didn’t really want to conduct interviews in my oh-so-casual-and-comfortable travel Yo Sushi wear. As we drive to the hotel in Cambridge, the winter scene is unbelievable. The snow is piled up in drifts at least four feet high and the Charles River looks frozen solid. By the way, the bags would take over 48 hours to arrive…so much for trying to look professional and formal!
The way this job fair works is kinda like a 1930s dance contest. The ballroom opens at a specific time, and then the candidates have a specific time to try and secure as many interview times as possible. The recruiters make a banner announcing what openings are at the school, and the candidates whiz by (maybe they should be on roller skates??!) and look for their discipline/craft and sign up for 30 minute interviews—as many as they can (is there a prize?). It was indeed thrilling being in this ballroom. There were about 130 international schools—seriously from A to Z—from Argentina to Zambia, and about 450 candidates hoping for one of the thousand jobs available in these far-flung locales. Somehow, well, in my mind at least, it seemed like what the Miss Universe Pageant might be like, as Miss Brussels mingled with Miss Pakistan and Miss Korea and Miss Ghana. Oh, and Miss Jordan. (In a very pageant-like way, people kept saying, “Thank God I’m not from Egypt,” just like you might look at Miss Egypt and feel sorry for her hump!). Somehow this whole recruiting thing brought out all the old salesman like qualities in me when I went and peddled school candy or seeds or Christmas cards—what else did I sell as little boy?
After the dance contest is over, you start with the receptions so you can schmooze with the candidates and see who is interesting over cocktail hors d’oeuvres and drinks. I stood near the gorditas, a great appetizer which is an almond stuffed fig wrapped in bacon. Just wrap it bacon and honey, it’ll go.
Then the interviews began. Oh my. I have been interviewing people in some capacity for maybe 20 years. But I have never interviewed people for everything from art to theology (sorry, we have no Z courses available at our school!). Previously I had scanned resumes like a demon, well, actually similar to Sheena scanning the sushi at Yo Sushi! I looked at dozens of resumes, and as each person came for an interview I tried to be as well-prepared as possible for the interview.
I learned that at this job fair it was well known that many people left the job fair with a contract in hand, signed, and finito, the job search completed! I am one who often wants to mull a person over, but in this environment—again like the 1930s dance contests, speed is of the essence here!! So Sheena and I double-up with some interviews, and on some I fly solo. John, our headmaster, is across town at another job fair, madly going through stacks of resumes and interviewing as well. Each day he dashes over in a cab through the Boston Winter Wonderland to join in for a second interview on people we had liked. Hey, you know I just thought of a good idea for this job fair—maybe we can combine the job fair and “Yo, Sushi!” I could sit at a diner counter and the candidates could roll through on a conveyer belt. That’s how it felt actually!
So I met several couples that I enjoyed immediately. Amy and Clark. Oh—just so nice and interesting and perfect for us. They had interesting hobbies and know the boarding school life well. I think that was one of the reasons I was brought on the trip—I was to be the honest spokesperson about life at KA—I perfected my little spiel of how it is “hard but wonderful” so that no one came under any false pretenses. Remember we are there with schools from everywhere. Vienna—we ain’t! Then we met Diego and Alexa—she is a writer and they have lived in the Middle East before, and I loved their attitudes about school and professional development. And he could be a great counselor besides a Spanish teacher. Then Sarah and Jevon—here was a great young couple, one a math teacher and one a historian. They would all be perfect for us! That evening at the Schmooze Reception I put on my best schmooze persona. Oh, and apologizing for not being in a suit. But still—schmoozing up a storm! And the theme was burgers from around the world!! Oh, please, how great. It didn’t even seem to dawn on me that I hadn’t left the hotel that day!
We made offers to those three couples. We waited. We bit our nails, figuratively speaking. I learned also that the “thank you note” is not a dead art. After almost every interview the candidate would handwrite a note and stick it in our file. Notes on stationery! Well, my, my. The interviews continued. On Saturday I had 17 interviews in a row. With no food break at all!! Thank goodness the breakfast buffet was among the best in my life!!!!!
I enjoyed my interviews with a number of young men and women, eager to teach, eager to go abroad and see what life has to offer beyond our shores. I met this dynamic guy who reminded me of Chuck and Bowman, two of the most outstanding young teachers I have ever known. I met this young woman teaching in inner-city Washington, D.C. who just mesmerized me with her sharpness. I met a guy who studies Chemistry at Yale and was an eagle scout and does technical theater. I wanted all the good ones!! I met this sincere interesting IT guy from the Maldives, and an older man from Maine who wanted to go somewhere new and re-pot himself. Oh, and there was a young woman named Victoria—we decided she may be the most narcissistic person we had ever met! I met prospects for the art position—call central casting—you can guess that they were quirky and a little flaky, but interesting. We put a note up about an intern teaching economics and all of a sudden the frat boys lined up for interviews. These were long days, exhausting days, often 25 half-hour interviews a day days. That is a lot of active listening!!
I didn’t leave the hotel for 72 hours! But I managed a visit each day with a former student. They just had to trudge through the snow of Cambridge to get to the hotel. I visited with three young men, from three separate schools, ranging from the class of 2010 in Jordan, to 2002 from Hackley, to 1994 from Charlotte Latin. One is a freshman at Harvard, one is in Business School, and one teaches at Tufts. They were wonderful visits all. You would think the last thing I would want to do with my hour of free time is sit and “interview” former students. But it was delightful! Ghassan and Dan and Ethan provided me with real joy as I wound up this intense trip to Boston.
So, as the job fair ended on Sunday, we had some affirmatives and some rejections with our offers. We lost Amy and Clark (they saw me and hugged me saying, “you’re awesome, we just want to go to South America”) and Diego and Alexa and Kat, but we signed Matthew and John and Ali and Sarah and Jevon.
As the 1930s dance contest ended, I got back on the plane, knowing there was grading in my future and the repayment of dorm duties, and then I would unpack and pack again.
Perhaps I should just get on the conveyer belt and keep moving!
So where have I been? Why have I been so incommunicado? Why when so much is going on in the world and in my school world have I been so silent?
Yes, I have been traveling. Strangely enough, the flight itineraries were both exactly the same! Two flights from Amman on BMI (British Midland International) and two flights from London Heathrow on Virgin Atlantic to Boston and two flights back and two flights back. The best news of the month is that Jet Lag, the phantom terrorist of international travel did not totally vanquish me.
The first trip was as a recruiter at a job fair in Boston. We went to Boston for five days; I came back for six days and then left again to Boston for six days with a delegation of students bound for Harvard Model Congress. Lots of packing and lots of time for grading in the air and lots of time to enjoy the in-flight entertainment on Virgin Atlantic (they have about 50 movies available and about 40 television shows—I might have just kept on flying with all the options up there!). Both trips were exciting and successful and I am happy to have my feet on the ground for a few weeks now.
The first trip came about rather suddenly when a month ago our headmaster asked me to join him and the Dean of Faculty to interview at the job fair in Boston. I have never done that before at a job fair, but I love interviewing people and so enjoyed the invitation. I had no idea how steady the work is, and there is virtually no time away from the job fair. Oh well, all in the name of school improvement!
Sheena and I fly together to London, and there we learn that our next flight is cancelled since the snow dance over Boston had just enjoyed another encore. Luckily, we weren’t stranded, just delayed 7-8 hours. As soon as we figured out our flight status, Sheena grabbed my hand and said, with a devilish look in her eye, “We are going to “Yo Sushi!” I knew that Sheena is a fiend about sushi, but here I saw her in her natural habitat. “Yo Sushi!” is a strange restaurant—part automat, part diner, part sensory experience, part dim sum meal, and partly like a scene in Charlie Chaplin’s film Modern Times. You sit at a diner-like counter in “Yo Sushi” and the little plates move right in front of you on a giant conveyer belt around the whole restaurant. It felt a little like being in Oz too, I think. Anyway, each plate is color-coded to a certain price, and there is soup, and sushi bites and chicken sate, and it all rolls grandly right in front of you—all you have to do is reach out and grab the plate! There is a sticker on the side timed so you know the “sell by/eat by” time for the freshness. This transfixed me and I just loved watching. I also loved watching Sheena stack up her plates. This woman can do a sushi room! I don’t know how long we stayed there but I felt like a child enjoying the “It’s a small world” ride at Walt Disney World. Food going by on a conveyer belt. Just take it. It all seemed magical!!
We arrived much later in Boston than we had planned, and sadly that evening was to be our little window of free time on this trip. However, we got to the hotel at 11:00 p.m. When I arrived I discovered that my bags had not arrived yet. Gulp. One of the things Sheena had emphasized about this job fair is that it is very professional and formal with men in suits all the time. I hadn’t traveled in a suit and I hoped my bag would catch up in time. I didn’t really want to conduct interviews in my oh-so-casual-and-comfortable travel Yo Sushi wear. As we drive to the hotel in Cambridge, the winter scene is unbelievable. The snow is piled up in drifts at least four feet high and the Charles River looks frozen solid. By the way, the bags would take over 48 hours to arrive…so much for trying to look professional and formal!
The way this job fair works is kinda like a 1930s dance contest. The ballroom opens at a specific time, and then the candidates have a specific time to try and secure as many interview times as possible. The recruiters make a banner announcing what openings are at the school, and the candidates whiz by (maybe they should be on roller skates??!) and look for their discipline/craft and sign up for 30 minute interviews—as many as they can (is there a prize?). It was indeed thrilling being in this ballroom. There were about 130 international schools—seriously from A to Z—from Argentina to Zambia, and about 450 candidates hoping for one of the thousand jobs available in these far-flung locales. Somehow, well, in my mind at least, it seemed like what the Miss Universe Pageant might be like, as Miss Brussels mingled with Miss Pakistan and Miss Korea and Miss Ghana. Oh, and Miss Jordan. (In a very pageant-like way, people kept saying, “Thank God I’m not from Egypt,” just like you might look at Miss Egypt and feel sorry for her hump!). Somehow this whole recruiting thing brought out all the old salesman like qualities in me when I went and peddled school candy or seeds or Christmas cards—what else did I sell as little boy?
After the dance contest is over, you start with the receptions so you can schmooze with the candidates and see who is interesting over cocktail hors d’oeuvres and drinks. I stood near the gorditas, a great appetizer which is an almond stuffed fig wrapped in bacon. Just wrap it bacon and honey, it’ll go.
Then the interviews began. Oh my. I have been interviewing people in some capacity for maybe 20 years. But I have never interviewed people for everything from art to theology (sorry, we have no Z courses available at our school!). Previously I had scanned resumes like a demon, well, actually similar to Sheena scanning the sushi at Yo Sushi! I looked at dozens of resumes, and as each person came for an interview I tried to be as well-prepared as possible for the interview.
I learned that at this job fair it was well known that many people left the job fair with a contract in hand, signed, and finito, the job search completed! I am one who often wants to mull a person over, but in this environment—again like the 1930s dance contests, speed is of the essence here!! So Sheena and I double-up with some interviews, and on some I fly solo. John, our headmaster, is across town at another job fair, madly going through stacks of resumes and interviewing as well. Each day he dashes over in a cab through the Boston Winter Wonderland to join in for a second interview on people we had liked. Hey, you know I just thought of a good idea for this job fair—maybe we can combine the job fair and “Yo, Sushi!” I could sit at a diner counter and the candidates could roll through on a conveyer belt. That’s how it felt actually!
So I met several couples that I enjoyed immediately. Amy and Clark. Oh—just so nice and interesting and perfect for us. They had interesting hobbies and know the boarding school life well. I think that was one of the reasons I was brought on the trip—I was to be the honest spokesperson about life at KA—I perfected my little spiel of how it is “hard but wonderful” so that no one came under any false pretenses. Remember we are there with schools from everywhere. Vienna—we ain’t! Then we met Diego and Alexa—she is a writer and they have lived in the Middle East before, and I loved their attitudes about school and professional development. And he could be a great counselor besides a Spanish teacher. Then Sarah and Jevon—here was a great young couple, one a math teacher and one a historian. They would all be perfect for us! That evening at the Schmooze Reception I put on my best schmooze persona. Oh, and apologizing for not being in a suit. But still—schmoozing up a storm! And the theme was burgers from around the world!! Oh, please, how great. It didn’t even seem to dawn on me that I hadn’t left the hotel that day!
We made offers to those three couples. We waited. We bit our nails, figuratively speaking. I learned also that the “thank you note” is not a dead art. After almost every interview the candidate would handwrite a note and stick it in our file. Notes on stationery! Well, my, my. The interviews continued. On Saturday I had 17 interviews in a row. With no food break at all!! Thank goodness the breakfast buffet was among the best in my life!!!!!
I enjoyed my interviews with a number of young men and women, eager to teach, eager to go abroad and see what life has to offer beyond our shores. I met this dynamic guy who reminded me of Chuck and Bowman, two of the most outstanding young teachers I have ever known. I met this young woman teaching in inner-city Washington, D.C. who just mesmerized me with her sharpness. I met a guy who studies Chemistry at Yale and was an eagle scout and does technical theater. I wanted all the good ones!! I met this sincere interesting IT guy from the Maldives, and an older man from Maine who wanted to go somewhere new and re-pot himself. Oh, and there was a young woman named Victoria—we decided she may be the most narcissistic person we had ever met! I met prospects for the art position—call central casting—you can guess that they were quirky and a little flaky, but interesting. We put a note up about an intern teaching economics and all of a sudden the frat boys lined up for interviews. These were long days, exhausting days, often 25 half-hour interviews a day days. That is a lot of active listening!!
I didn’t leave the hotel for 72 hours! But I managed a visit each day with a former student. They just had to trudge through the snow of Cambridge to get to the hotel. I visited with three young men, from three separate schools, ranging from the class of 2010 in Jordan, to 2002 from Hackley, to 1994 from Charlotte Latin. One is a freshman at Harvard, one is in Business School, and one teaches at Tufts. They were wonderful visits all. You would think the last thing I would want to do with my hour of free time is sit and “interview” former students. But it was delightful! Ghassan and Dan and Ethan provided me with real joy as I wound up this intense trip to Boston.
So, as the job fair ended on Sunday, we had some affirmatives and some rejections with our offers. We lost Amy and Clark (they saw me and hugged me saying, “you’re awesome, we just want to go to South America”) and Diego and Alexa and Kat, but we signed Matthew and John and Ali and Sarah and Jevon.
As the 1930s dance contest ended, I got back on the plane, knowing there was grading in my future and the repayment of dorm duties, and then I would unpack and pack again.
Perhaps I should just get on the conveyer belt and keep moving!
Sunday, February 6, 2011
De-Nile
For over a week Egypt has occupied the top spot in the headlines of the New York Times. If you breeze by CNN, there are images and reports from Tahrir Square of the uprising and resistance of the Egyptian people against President Hosni Mubarak. It is a deeply troubling (and exciting) moment in history.
The last few days I have been in Boston at an intense job fair interviewing candidates for KA. I will blog about that in a couple of days. I had hoped to go to the Museum of Fine Arts, but alas, this trip offered practically no moments at all away from the work at hand. But if I had gone to the MFA, I would have reveled in the great sculpture of pharaoh Menkaure and his wife, and I would have probably done a little reveling in Egypt’s long history. The better you know Egyptian history, that long history of at least 5,000 years, yes, the better you know Egyptian history, the current situation in Egypt comes as no surprise. The power struggle being played out on the streets of Cairo this week has striking parallels from that time of the pharaohs.
One of the greatest thrills of my trips to Egypt in the last few years has been gazing at the famous gold mask of the boy-king Tut. It is every bit as glorious as you might imagine, both serene and monumental and iconic. That mask resides in a room overlooking Tahrir Square, the scene of so much violence in the last week. But when you see that mask, or think about it, it helps to recover the context, the often violent context of Egypt’s past. In 1322 BCE Tut(ankhamun) died unexpectedly and that void ushered in a time not unlike this week in Egypt. Then as now, transitions from one ruler to the next became fraught with danger, as it presented a rare chance for opposition forces inside or outside the country to destabilize the mighty edifice of state power. Tut’s demise caused more than usual disquiet, since there was no obvious heir to the throne, and the late king’s policies proved deeply controversial…ahhh…as I learned in French class from Mr. Hall 30-some years ago: plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
Then as now, it was the army that stepped in to maintain order. The General of the Army (if you are dying to know the name to add to your rolodex, it is Horemheb—I wonder how Cole Porter might use his name in one of his “list” songs!) assumed the role as Pharaoh without blinking an eye (there is probably a joke in there since the Egyptian eye with that composite view is so striking and familiar). To justify his coup, Pharaoh Horemheb tapped into the Egyptians’ long-standing fear of foreign interference, pointing to those lousy Hittites as potential aggressors if stability and martial law was not maintained. Hmmmm…yes, just like Hosni Mubarak’s supporters justifying their continued hold on power, spreading rumors of those lousy Americans and their potential interference.
In modern Egyptian history every president has risen from the military. Egypt’s two recently appointed vice-presidents are from the armed forces. Thirty-three centuries ago Horemheb nominated another general as his successor. In doing so, he inaugurated a military junta that ruled Egypt with an iron fist for 13 generations.
Not long after this Horemheb character came the legendary Ramses II, the original Ozymandias of Shelley’s poem, who used his friends in the military to impose Egyptian authority across the wider Middle East. In Ramses’ time his influence extended him from the hills of Syria to the plains of Sudan, and Egypt was feared as the superpower in the ancient world. International prestige and military rule are deeply enmeshed in the Egyptian psyche.
Many in the news have called Hosni Mubarak a “modern-day pharaoh” and there are many other examples of how his rule compares to other authoritarian pharaohs. Other kings have posed as national heroes when chroniclers have noted how behind the scenes the leader is hated. Other kings have faced home-grown insurgencies and have responded swiftly and uncompromisingly. There have been few open rebellions over time given the unflinching brutality of the state.
So over the last 5,000 years Egypt’s rulers have grown used to unquestioning obedience from their subjects. In a country with a longer history than most, there is simply no tradition of freedom of speech or public debate. There simply have been only a handful of events like the last week in Egypt. No wonder that Hosni Mubarak and his inner circle seem in denial of the protest and outrage outside their palace gates. As the old joke goes, “Denial is not just a river in Egypt.” Ahhhh….I have never gotten to think of that joke/pun in such a literal way: DE-NILE!!!
No wonder, given the reminders around him, that Hosni Mubark has cultivated the personality cult like ancient pharaohs did, and he has grown rich from the sweat of their countrymen’s labor, like ancient pharaohs did. So too is their response to opposition like the ancient pharaohs. For thousands of years, uprisings were met with crackdowns. One particular gruesome one is from 1950 BCE (let’s just think how ooooooooooooold that is: almost 4,000 years ago!!) when the ringleaders of the uprising were burned alive as human torches to light the perimeter of a temple. I don’t need to go through anymore of the list of abuses and tortures, you get the picture.
So here we are in 2011…thousands of years into this fetid history of crackdowns. Today, tanks stand guard at the pyramids, certainly the greatest symbol of authoritarian rule ever erected. Don’t forget that the pyramids were the tallest structures in the world for almost 3,500 years, until the Eiffel Tower is built in 1889 in France. If you look back to the building of the pyramids, the almost-500 years of obsession with this structure and monument, that age came to an end with a political vacuum following the demise of a long-standing ruler. Factionalism and paralysis marinated in Egypt, the economy collapsed, and Egypt plunged into a civil war.
Ahhhh…the cycles of history. Will Egypt’s history repeat itself? Can we overcome the past? May we dare to hope we can?
Here is the poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley of the ruler Ozymandias:
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
The last few days I have been in Boston at an intense job fair interviewing candidates for KA. I will blog about that in a couple of days. I had hoped to go to the Museum of Fine Arts, but alas, this trip offered practically no moments at all away from the work at hand. But if I had gone to the MFA, I would have reveled in the great sculpture of pharaoh Menkaure and his wife, and I would have probably done a little reveling in Egypt’s long history. The better you know Egyptian history, that long history of at least 5,000 years, yes, the better you know Egyptian history, the current situation in Egypt comes as no surprise. The power struggle being played out on the streets of Cairo this week has striking parallels from that time of the pharaohs.
One of the greatest thrills of my trips to Egypt in the last few years has been gazing at the famous gold mask of the boy-king Tut. It is every bit as glorious as you might imagine, both serene and monumental and iconic. That mask resides in a room overlooking Tahrir Square, the scene of so much violence in the last week. But when you see that mask, or think about it, it helps to recover the context, the often violent context of Egypt’s past. In 1322 BCE Tut(ankhamun) died unexpectedly and that void ushered in a time not unlike this week in Egypt. Then as now, transitions from one ruler to the next became fraught with danger, as it presented a rare chance for opposition forces inside or outside the country to destabilize the mighty edifice of state power. Tut’s demise caused more than usual disquiet, since there was no obvious heir to the throne, and the late king’s policies proved deeply controversial…ahhh…as I learned in French class from Mr. Hall 30-some years ago: plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
Then as now, it was the army that stepped in to maintain order. The General of the Army (if you are dying to know the name to add to your rolodex, it is Horemheb—I wonder how Cole Porter might use his name in one of his “list” songs!) assumed the role as Pharaoh without blinking an eye (there is probably a joke in there since the Egyptian eye with that composite view is so striking and familiar). To justify his coup, Pharaoh Horemheb tapped into the Egyptians’ long-standing fear of foreign interference, pointing to those lousy Hittites as potential aggressors if stability and martial law was not maintained. Hmmmm…yes, just like Hosni Mubarak’s supporters justifying their continued hold on power, spreading rumors of those lousy Americans and their potential interference.
In modern Egyptian history every president has risen from the military. Egypt’s two recently appointed vice-presidents are from the armed forces. Thirty-three centuries ago Horemheb nominated another general as his successor. In doing so, he inaugurated a military junta that ruled Egypt with an iron fist for 13 generations.
Not long after this Horemheb character came the legendary Ramses II, the original Ozymandias of Shelley’s poem, who used his friends in the military to impose Egyptian authority across the wider Middle East. In Ramses’ time his influence extended him from the hills of Syria to the plains of Sudan, and Egypt was feared as the superpower in the ancient world. International prestige and military rule are deeply enmeshed in the Egyptian psyche.
Many in the news have called Hosni Mubarak a “modern-day pharaoh” and there are many other examples of how his rule compares to other authoritarian pharaohs. Other kings have posed as national heroes when chroniclers have noted how behind the scenes the leader is hated. Other kings have faced home-grown insurgencies and have responded swiftly and uncompromisingly. There have been few open rebellions over time given the unflinching brutality of the state.
So over the last 5,000 years Egypt’s rulers have grown used to unquestioning obedience from their subjects. In a country with a longer history than most, there is simply no tradition of freedom of speech or public debate. There simply have been only a handful of events like the last week in Egypt. No wonder that Hosni Mubarak and his inner circle seem in denial of the protest and outrage outside their palace gates. As the old joke goes, “Denial is not just a river in Egypt.” Ahhhh….I have never gotten to think of that joke/pun in such a literal way: DE-NILE!!!
No wonder, given the reminders around him, that Hosni Mubark has cultivated the personality cult like ancient pharaohs did, and he has grown rich from the sweat of their countrymen’s labor, like ancient pharaohs did. So too is their response to opposition like the ancient pharaohs. For thousands of years, uprisings were met with crackdowns. One particular gruesome one is from 1950 BCE (let’s just think how ooooooooooooold that is: almost 4,000 years ago!!) when the ringleaders of the uprising were burned alive as human torches to light the perimeter of a temple. I don’t need to go through anymore of the list of abuses and tortures, you get the picture.
So here we are in 2011…thousands of years into this fetid history of crackdowns. Today, tanks stand guard at the pyramids, certainly the greatest symbol of authoritarian rule ever erected. Don’t forget that the pyramids were the tallest structures in the world for almost 3,500 years, until the Eiffel Tower is built in 1889 in France. If you look back to the building of the pyramids, the almost-500 years of obsession with this structure and monument, that age came to an end with a political vacuum following the demise of a long-standing ruler. Factionalism and paralysis marinated in Egypt, the economy collapsed, and Egypt plunged into a civil war.
Ahhhh…the cycles of history. Will Egypt’s history repeat itself? Can we overcome the past? May we dare to hope we can?
Here is the poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley of the ruler Ozymandias:
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Is CNN reality?
This morning as I taught my 20th Century History class about the Russian Revolution, I thought about the current unrest in the Middle East a couple of times. I had shared with the class the model created by Crane Brinton in his Anatomy of a Revolution (some of these students have heard this in every course with me!) about how a revolution unfolds: while a tyrant holds sway, dialogue is often sought, and when that dialogue never happens, moderates seize control and events then get bigger and bigger. Disgruntled radicals then take control and…that is about 30% of the model. As we reminded ourselves of Brinton’s template, I said, “So far this template works exactly for what is going on in Egypt right now, less than an hour flight away.”
But then there was another moment, when I explained to them about the “pre-Revolution” to the big one in 1917, one that occurred in 1905. In 1905 there was an uprising in St. Petersburg, and after a kerfuffle the army came in and shot some of the protestors. Eventually Tsar Nicholas gave in a little bit, just a little bit, and most people thought the worst had faded away.
Then I was reminded in the fall of 1917, during “the big one” when the Bolsheviks staged their take-over, it always seemed interesting to me that while we think of it as a big deal today, it didn’t disrupt daily activities much. I remember one source saying that it didn’t even disrupt the daily movie schedule in St. Petersburg or Moscow.
Hmmm…
I have received several emails and calls in the last couple of days telling me of the scary headlines about “protests in Jordan,” and since the news has been covering the upheavals in Egypt quite carefully, I have had some worried family and friends about Jordan.
So I did a little investigating.
I visited Starbucks in Amman. No one was talking about any protests in Amman. Then I spent the evening at a family’s home (a lovely dinner indeed—the mother made Arab dishes and the father made Italian dishes—I ate enough for several meals, and both cuisines satisfied me immensely!). When I came into their home, CNN was on TV and they had been glued to the news all day about the news from Egypt. I asked them about the protests in Amman as reported by the New York Times. They swiped their hands, and said, “Oh nothing is going on. Everything is fine.” I pressed them about what the news agencies had reported and the concerns of my family and friends. It was so interesting how it hardly fazed them. Among the half dozen adults there, no one was the least bit worried about the so-called protests. One of the guests said, “You know that happens all the time after Friday Prayers. Several thousand men gather at the King Hussein Mosque and then after the prayers they are ready for a little protest march.” She then added, “Besides, the police offered them water and juice as refreshment, so there was no problem. Isn’t this just like your Tea Party demonstrations in the US? I mean, they just want lower prices.”
They were very interested in Egypt, but hardly at all concerned about what had happened a kilometer or two away…hmmmm…
Today I grabbed the newspaper about 8:00 a.m. and looked through it and there was nothing about protests in Jordan. There was plenty about Egypt, but maybe the news is a little censored here, I don’t know. But none of the teachers coming in from Amman talked about it, neither Jordanians or Americans who live in Amman. Everyone talked about the constant rain today—the beginning of the rainy season, I suppose.
I asked at lunch about it, and again, it seemed to inspire only aloofness and practically disinterest. One colleague reminded me that many Egyptians were swarming into Jordan to escape the troubles in Cairo, and one colleague was glad we weren’t a school in Cairo trying to recruit teachers. One student told me that his family was glued to the TV set all weekend since they do not like Egyptian President Mubarak at all, and he didn’t know anyone who did.
Finally, I looked into my email inbox and saw no warning from the U.S. Embassy in Amman. Usually, they have sent out emails when people should be alerted about…well, all kinds of things. Nothing!
So for all of you watching the news and wondering and worrying about Jordan, I’ll tell you, I couldn’t scare up the least bit of story or interest! The newspaper reported that no Jordanian had been reported injured in the protests and clashes in Egypt, and there was a long editorial about how Egypt, and President Mubarak especially, have missed many chances for economic reform over the years, and how stability and security go hand in hand.
There were stories of the celebrations for the King’s birthday here in Jordan.
But nary a story that matches the hoopla I see on CNN as they leave Egypt for a bit and mention the protests in Jordan.
So, I am fine, and as far as I can tell, CNN is making a mountain out of a molehill. That was actually a quotation from one of the important businessmen at the lovely dinner last night.
But then there was another moment, when I explained to them about the “pre-Revolution” to the big one in 1917, one that occurred in 1905. In 1905 there was an uprising in St. Petersburg, and after a kerfuffle the army came in and shot some of the protestors. Eventually Tsar Nicholas gave in a little bit, just a little bit, and most people thought the worst had faded away.
Then I was reminded in the fall of 1917, during “the big one” when the Bolsheviks staged their take-over, it always seemed interesting to me that while we think of it as a big deal today, it didn’t disrupt daily activities much. I remember one source saying that it didn’t even disrupt the daily movie schedule in St. Petersburg or Moscow.
Hmmm…
I have received several emails and calls in the last couple of days telling me of the scary headlines about “protests in Jordan,” and since the news has been covering the upheavals in Egypt quite carefully, I have had some worried family and friends about Jordan.
So I did a little investigating.
I visited Starbucks in Amman. No one was talking about any protests in Amman. Then I spent the evening at a family’s home (a lovely dinner indeed—the mother made Arab dishes and the father made Italian dishes—I ate enough for several meals, and both cuisines satisfied me immensely!). When I came into their home, CNN was on TV and they had been glued to the news all day about the news from Egypt. I asked them about the protests in Amman as reported by the New York Times. They swiped their hands, and said, “Oh nothing is going on. Everything is fine.” I pressed them about what the news agencies had reported and the concerns of my family and friends. It was so interesting how it hardly fazed them. Among the half dozen adults there, no one was the least bit worried about the so-called protests. One of the guests said, “You know that happens all the time after Friday Prayers. Several thousand men gather at the King Hussein Mosque and then after the prayers they are ready for a little protest march.” She then added, “Besides, the police offered them water and juice as refreshment, so there was no problem. Isn’t this just like your Tea Party demonstrations in the US? I mean, they just want lower prices.”
They were very interested in Egypt, but hardly at all concerned about what had happened a kilometer or two away…hmmmm…
Today I grabbed the newspaper about 8:00 a.m. and looked through it and there was nothing about protests in Jordan. There was plenty about Egypt, but maybe the news is a little censored here, I don’t know. But none of the teachers coming in from Amman talked about it, neither Jordanians or Americans who live in Amman. Everyone talked about the constant rain today—the beginning of the rainy season, I suppose.
I asked at lunch about it, and again, it seemed to inspire only aloofness and practically disinterest. One colleague reminded me that many Egyptians were swarming into Jordan to escape the troubles in Cairo, and one colleague was glad we weren’t a school in Cairo trying to recruit teachers. One student told me that his family was glued to the TV set all weekend since they do not like Egyptian President Mubarak at all, and he didn’t know anyone who did.
Finally, I looked into my email inbox and saw no warning from the U.S. Embassy in Amman. Usually, they have sent out emails when people should be alerted about…well, all kinds of things. Nothing!
So for all of you watching the news and wondering and worrying about Jordan, I’ll tell you, I couldn’t scare up the least bit of story or interest! The newspaper reported that no Jordanian had been reported injured in the protests and clashes in Egypt, and there was a long editorial about how Egypt, and President Mubarak especially, have missed many chances for economic reform over the years, and how stability and security go hand in hand.
There were stories of the celebrations for the King’s birthday here in Jordan.
But nary a story that matches the hoopla I see on CNN as they leave Egypt for a bit and mention the protests in Jordan.
So, I am fine, and as far as I can tell, CNN is making a mountain out of a molehill. That was actually a quotation from one of the important businessmen at the lovely dinner last night.
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