Peace & Justice

...now browsing by category

 

#157 – Dick Bernard: Haiti et al, a little arithmetic lesson in caring and sharing

Saturday, February 6th, 2010

Thursday of this week we showed a few photos from what, in retrospect, were better times for Haiti kids at SOPUDEP School in Petion-ville in December, 2003. Our audience was about 100 2nd graders at an elementary school in a nearby twin cities suburb. Kids relate to kids everywhere, and this audience of young persons paid close attention to the photos of their peers far away, and they enjoyed participating in a small lesson in Kreyol words I was able to teach them.

SOPUDEP school is no longer useable; many of its students were casualties of the earthquake. It has temporarily died, but will rise again with the help of places like that elementary school in the twin cities which is considering helping SOPUDEP recover with part of their relief efforts. It helps to be able to make a personal connection with a person or a place.

The day we were at the school this past week, they were collecting quarters from whoever wished to participate. It was a small amount, but a very intriguing idea.

The school was devoting a week, I gathered, to participate in some way in relief efforts, and was involved in various efforts to better understand Haiti.

Someone(s) had come up with a neat idea: on Monday, the collection began by collecting pennies; on Tuesday, nickels; Wednesday, dimes; Thursday, our day, quarters; and Friday, dollars. If you do the math, that’s $1.41 – a small sum, granted, but coins put together accumulate to real money quickly.

The teacher noted that the trip to the bank with the coins involved a bit of heavy lifting, so to speak.

The fundraising strategy has stuck with me, and this morning at coffee I did a little paper and pencil arithmetic.

IF a person did the same routine as the kids were doing at the school, and repeated the routine every five days over the course of a year, that $1.41 would grow to over $100 by years end.

Of course, one need not stop at a dollar. How about going to six days, and adding a $5 bill; or seven days, adding a 10; or eight, $20? And doing it repetitively, week after week? A seven day cycle would come out to about $850 a year; an eight day cycle, almost $1500…all this for
one cent +
five cents +
ten cents +
twenty-five cents +
$1 +
$5 +
$10 +
$20.

Let’s say that a single percent of Americans – only 3,000,000 people, 1% of a total of 300,000,000 – adopted the elementary schools five day plan, and followed through every day for an entire year. That would come out to over $300,000,000 dollars – all for $1.41 every five days. That’s serious money that could do a whole lot of good in a place like Haiti where a dollar a day is hard to come by, even for adults.

Give it some thought. And action.

Children at SOPUDEP School, Haiti, December 9, 2003

Posted in Community, Haiti, International Relations, Peace & Justice | Comments Off

#155 – Dick Bernard: Haiti, a plea….

Saturday, January 30th, 2010

December 8, 2003 – it was my second full day of my first trip to Haiti – we had spent a powerful and draining morning being briefed by ordinary Haitians, women and men, about the atrocities of the 1991-94 coup in Haiti. There were six of us. I had nothing to say. I was there to listen and to learn.

Our group leader had arranged for lunch for the entire group, and before we left we went around the circle of perhaps 20-25, simply to shake hands and thank the group for their hospitality. About two-thirds of the way around I extended my hand to a man, and he refused the handshake.

Experiences like that tend to stick with me. I have no idea why he singled me out (I was the only one of the group of four men and two women so treated). Perhaps I reminded him of someone, some white American, some terrible experience. I’ll never know.

Similarly, I remember a poolside luncheon later the next day at one of those fancy hotels in Petion-ville. We were being briefed by a supporter of then-President Aristide, who later took us around to a school and to a television station to meet other people. At the hotel, I noticed a solitary white man sitting quietly in a deck chair reading a book. I wondered who he was and why he was there. I didn’t ask and I’ll never know. I gather, though, that a white face in Haiti is a suspect face, with good reason.

So it is.

Years have now passed, and I’m far better informed than I was then, and I happen to be at the intersection of lots of electronic communication about what is happening in post-January 12 Haiti. I’m also ice-bound in the middle of the U.S., trying to help as best I can from here.

I know lots of people with lots of points of view, from total ignorance of Haiti (as was true with me seven years ago) to Haitians who are trying to find ways to work together within whatever system exists in the U.S., to others who, like that guy who refused to shake my hand that December day, just want US the hell out*.

I wish there were simple “one-size fits all” solutions. There aren’t.

A short while ago I started one of these blog posts with a sentence that we had raped, looted and pillaged Haiti for its whole 206 year history. Pretty harsh indictment, but not at all unreasonable. Someone I know responded and seemed miffed with my indictment of US (as in U.S, and we Americans): he really didn’t know any of the back story, apparently. I tried to inform him.

On the other side of the equation, I expressed “disappointment” about something sent by a prominent Haitian leader with a large list, and was told that I “insulted” the person (who I respect.) The rage is palpable and we probably deserve the rage. (My work career found me frequently in the position of being yelled at by one side or another, so I’m used to harsh comments. But, do bitter and angry comments help anything, any more than willful ignorance and misplaced trust? I don’t think so.)

The voiceless ones, represented by that guy who wouldn’t shake my hand, have desperate needs, and the needs will be very long-term.

Somehow we need to accept the fact that the U.S. is key to solutions to this catastrophe, and that there will be all manner of well-meaning and malicious attempts to help (or “help”, as in profiteering from the crisis.)

I think “boots on the ground” folks like Dr. Paul Farmer are in an excellent position to do some good, and know the political system very well. To me, Dr. Farmer has earned his credibility.

The guy in the circle that day in 2003 has also earned his credibility with me.

We need to listen to both sides, and to do what we can to make for a better Haiti, one that is founded on Justice, not dependent on Charity (there is a big difference.) My definition, from December 2003 is found at page 17 of my reflections when I returned.

* – there is more than a little logic behind the resentment of Haitians towards the U.S. See my short commentary at page 7&8 on White Rice, Pigs and Chickens, from my 2006 reflections after coming back from Haiti.

Posted in Haiti, International Relations, Peace & Justice | Comments Off

#154 – Dick Bernard: Haiti…and Power

Tuesday, January 26th, 2010

Two weeks ago today, 4:53 p.m. Haiti time, Port-au-Prince (Potoprens in Kreyol) and area were devastated by a massive earthquake. Today, two weeks later, coverage of the disaster is decreasing; finding fault or blame is increasing; and the attention of the world and U.S. body politic is shifting back to more mundane things, like the Super Bowl.

It will take years for Haitians to recover and the international community will be central to their recovery, but how long will people care? It’s an important question.

Long before the latest catastrophe struck Haiti, I’ve been thinking about what I believe is a pertinent and basic “conversation” in, particularly, westernized society…and that is the conversation about Power.

Boiled to its essence, I believe there are two classes of people: those with Power, and those without. Those in Power presume they have the right to control agendas and conversations. They do this in sundry ways: controlling information, money, and on and on and on. You can be born into Power, work to get into Power, or be identified as useful to Power. But it’s a club entered by invitation only.

The official Haiti conversation is almost totally dominated by traditional Power.

Power isn’t a partisan deal, and it isn’t Republican or Democrat either. It can be cliques who through one means or another control access or agendas. It can be seemingly out of Power people who have a following. Power is ubiquitous. One way to stay out of the Power circles is to diss Power…. Power people prefer followers.

In Haiti, most of the people are about as Power-less as any people are anywhere in the world. Most are illiterate (I’d maintain this is far more by design of the Powerful rather than lack of motivation of the Powerless). Educated people can be troublesome. The language of the ordinary Haitian is Kreyol; the official and international language of Haiti is French…. Even language disenfranchises the ordinary Haitian.

Of course, there are decent Power people, and indecent ones. It is a complicated process to identify the difference, so usually everyone in a particular class is typecast in various ways, as “good” or “bad”. Such simplicity is not helpful.

The out of Power people far, far outnumber the people in Power, and the Powerful know this: thus the strategies to disempower those not in the inner circles, by disinformation, or discipline or otherwise. If one’s neighbor ends up in jail for no good reason, one notices.

There’s a way out of Powerlessness and that is by no longer being willing to play by the rules established by Power. If the folks in the neighborhood were challenged to play a National Football League team, using NFL rules and criteria, one knows the result…but if the NFL rules and criteria were thrown out and replaced with the neighborhood rules, the results could be very different. But one first of all has to believe that there are other rules of engagement than those mandated by the Powerful.

I’ve long been enchanted by the mantra I hear at demonstrations: “Ain’t no Power like the Power of the People, like the Power of the People, say WHAT? There ain’t no Power….” The chant is delivered with gusto, but I have come to believe that the chanters really don’t believe their own message. And they leave their power on the street, unrealized.

The ordinary Haitians, the ones who will disappear soon from the media screen, but are there in the neighborhoods, will be the salvation of their country. All one can hope is that the commitment of the Powerful will be a bit more towards Justice than the traditional Charity*.

Stay engaged. If you feel you have no power, try to look at your Power a bit differently.

It’s 4:53 p.m. Haiti time. Time to click on Publish.

* My own very brief interpretation on Charity vs Justice was written on return from Haiti in December, 2003. It is accessible at this link page 17.

Posted in Community, Haiti, Peace & Justice, Politics | Comments Off

#152 – Dick Bernard: Who deserves medical care? A personal experience.

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010

Recently I attended a greatly informative information meeting on the realities about, and need for, Universal Health Care. The meeting was facilitated by the Minnesota Universal Health Care Coalition.

The experience led me to recall my own personal history, which was published as a column in today’s edition of the Woodbury (MN) Bulletin. The column follows:

Forty-five years ago this month my wife, not yet 22, was actively engaged in the very difficult work of dying. Our first child was not yet one year old. We lived in a tiny apartment in the small town in western North Dakota where I was teaching school.

Barbara, who had kidney disease, was too weak to take care of her son; she was in the hospital about as much as she was at home. I took our son to the babysitter each morning.

At the end of May, 1965, I came home to pick up some materials I had forgotten, and found Barbara unconscious on the floor. I carried her down the stairs to the car, drove her to the local hospital, where she was transferred immediately to the hospital in Bismarck.

She had no alternative, they said, but to have a kidney transplant.

We had no insurance.

Finally University Hospital admitted her; she was there for almost two months, and she died July 24, 1965, leaving me with a year old son and medical debts equal to almost four times my to-be teacher salary.

I was on the verge of filing for bankruptcy, but was saved by North Dakota Public Welfare which agreed to pay the University Hospital portion of the bill; and by one hospital which forgave my bill with them. When it was all over, I owed about a year’s salary worth of bills, which then became manageable.

Six days after she died, two days after she was buried, Medicare was signed into Law, July 30, 1965.

To me, that government action was totally irrelevant, then.

Years and years have passed, and now I’m well into my Medicare years, and, if anything, over-insured with things like Long Term Care insurance, hoping that I have the right coverage. Unlike most, I can afford this luxury.

Back then in 1963, two weeks out of the Army and in a new job and in a new marriage, I passed on signing up for Blue Cross coverage so, somebody can say, it was my fault we were uninsured. Truth be told, even then, knowing what I know now, my wife would have been excluded due to an unknown (to us) pre-existing condition. The kidney disease did not manifest until shortly after I declined to sign up for the insurance.

I look at the current health care debate, the information and the abundant misinformation, through the lens of my own past. It is, I guess, a luxury that I have.

Now there’s group insurance – for the fortunate; and because of government foresight in the same year my wife died, Medicare for we fortunate elders.

There is absolutely no excuse for us to quibble and squabble over who deserves to be insured in this still wealthy country of ours. It is – or it should be – a basic and equal human right for every one of us, no questions asked.

At minimum, our kids and grandkids, faced with greater future uncertainties than we had to face, deserve our foresight more than our selfishness.

I urge you to learn more, and truly dialogue more, about this most critical issue. An excellent source of information is www.muhcc.org, a group dedicated to moving us from a patchwork and unfair system of health care, to more universal care. Doubtless there are other sources of information, but this is a place to start.

Posted in Family History, Health, Peace & Justice, Politics | Comments Off

#150 – Dick Bernard: “We’re off to see the Wizard….”

Sunday, January 17th, 2010

Last night, we listened to the magnificent Minnesota Orchestra as the front band for the 1939 classic film “Wizard of Oz”. It was a wonderful evening. I felt a bit guilty being there, given what has happened in Haiti in the last few days; on the other hand, we had these tickets for almost a year.

I did watch the film with new eyes last night. It remains a wonderful film with lots of positive messages for one who chooses to look for them. (In the lobby, at intermission, I noticed a poster borrowing from Robert Fulghum’s “everything I need to know I learned in kindergarten“: “everything I need to know I learned in the Wizard of Oz“. A lot of simple truth there, I thought.)

I don’t remember when I first saw Wizard of Oz, but it was long after it was made. Even though I was born a year later than the film, in 1940, movies were a rare treat in my growing up life in the country.

Last night coincided closely with Martin Luther King’s birthday, and last night I looked at the casting for Wizard of Oz. I looked pretty intently. I do not recall a single face that looked unlike mine. The cast was, best as I could see, totally white.

That is how it was, then. If African-Americans had any roles at all, as in the famous Civil War epic Gone With the Wind produced about the same time, Negroes were kept in their proper subservient place, invisible or inferior; and if their role was important, whites in black face filled in just fine, if I remember rightly.

I describe a deeply ingrained American attitude. And, yes, it has played out in Haiti for its entire 206 year history as an independent Republic, right up until today.

Coincidentally, this past week I listened to a talking book, The Hornets Nest, Jimmy Carter’s first novel, an account of the Revolutionary War in the South, in the years 1770-1790. (The audio book was excellent, worth my time.)

Carter’s book outlines the tension and violence in the south often relating to whether or not there should be slaves, and how to deal with the native population. (One doesn’t need to read a book about what happened, but Carter effectively develops how the grass roots embrace of slavery and eradication of the native Indians evolved and became institutionalized.)

This afternoon I finished the fifth and last CD of the book, and in Carter’s epilogue, the final sentences recounted Thomas Jefferson’s reluctant but firm embrace of slavery as the only way to assure white dominance and continuation of the “American Way of Life.”

Carter in his last words also notes the official continuation of American slavery till the Civil War, and the separate-and-unequal prevalence to the present in our country.

It was Jefferson who was U.S. President in 1804 when Haiti’s slaves defeated the French and declared their independence from France, only the second free Republic in the western hemisphere. A free Haiti was an intolerable threat to our own United States, ourselves a slave state; meanwhile, the vanquished France successfully starved the infant Haiti Republic almost to death, with the U.S. standing by, and so it has gone for Haiti until the present day.

No wonder, some Haiti advocates wish us to be gone.

Our racial climate is different now, than it was in the time of “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”, but not so much.

The conversation about Haiti, spoken and unspoken, is dominated by racial attitudes that we have been brought up with.

There is an opportunity, in this time of horrible crisis in Haiti, to slowly begin to change the conversation.

I wonder who, or how many, will actually try to do so….

A bit more on Thomas Jefferson and his own personal attitudes here.

At my own website is a timeline of Haiti-American relations. (There is on error there; the U.S. occupied Haiti in 1915-34, rather than 1919). My general Haiti web address is here.

Posted in Haiti, History, International Relations, Peace & Justice | Comments Off

#149 – Dick Bernard: Fr. Tom Hagan; A Horrible Tragedy in Port-au-Prince, and a message to us all.

Wednesday, January 13th, 2010

UPDATE: Sunday, January 17: It was reported today that Fr. Hagan, who was back in Port-au-Prince at the time of the earthquake, was injured. His office and guesthouse destroyed, and school damaged. Just one of endless fragments of information coming out of Port-au-Prince.

Saturday afternoon we went to early Mass at Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis. This is not our usual time. I had agreed to set up a table for my favorite Haiti cause, the micro-finance group Fonkoze, to go along with the guest speaker for the weekend, a Priest from Port-au-Prince, Fr. Tom Hagan, long-time of the group Hands Together.

Fr. Tom had apparently just arrived on the plane, not long before Mass. There seemed to have been no time to get acquainted with the visiting Priest, and some awkwardness at how or whether to introduce this guy from out of town. There had apparently been too little time to coordinate such – from the plane to the pulpit. Sitting in the pew, I wondered what was to come.

But all that that was a very small hurdle, and Fr. Tom gave his homily, one of the most unusual and most powerful I have ever heard from a mission representative. People don’t applaud sermons at our parish, even though we almost always have gifted homilists. This day, somebody in the back started to applaud, and everyone joined in.

The response was the same at all the remaining Masses, five more on Sunday.

Fr. Tom Hagan preaching at Basilica of St. Mary, Minneapolis, Sunday, January 10, 2010

Fr. Tom Hagan preaching at Basilica Jan. 10, 2010

Monday, Fr. Tom flew back to Port au Prince, and was on the ground Monday afternoon and back in his long-time Cite Soleil mission. I heard that the second collection for Fr. Toms’ work set a record for the Basilica. He raised a lot of money in that day in Minneapolis. Since I had a table next to his, we had an opportunity to chat between Masses. He inspired, in an understated yet profound way, just by being who he was.

Then came Tuesday, about 24 hours later, the deadly quake in Port-au-Prince. It’s now Wednesday and we just got word that Fr. Tom is okay; his house has been destroyed. As for the rest of the population of Port-au-Prince, including his community of Cite Soleil, I know no more than anyone else. It is horrific. All that remains, over the coming months, will be the details of the carnage.

Fr. Tom gave a powerful message, which led to applause and to $$’s this past weekend. This gentle man from Philadelphia, my age, now 14 years in Haiti, got into our hearts.

His message? I keep struggling with how to summarize it. After his first sermon, somebody suggested it be taped, and it was, and I’m hoping they will choose to post it on the Basilica’s website at some point. If that happens, I’ll announce it. (Their website.…) I hope it gets “on air”. It deserves the wider exposure.

Basically, I guess, he “gave we Americans hell” for our self-absorption, and he did it in a way that stuck to the wall without offending too many. He acknowledged tough economic times; he didn’t ask us to contribute a thing; all he wanted us to do was to consider what it was we all take for granted, even in these times of recession, and the daily reality of the people that he served, who have nothing. He burrowed into our souls. He gave his homily with good humor and with understated passion.

So…without intending last weekend, I had something of a front row seat to the soon-to-unfold tragedy in Port-au-Prince. Fr. Tom came to Minneapolis to share Haiti with me.

Now I have to decide how best to respond. Lots of us are in the same position, I would guess.

Fr. Tom Hagan with Janice Andersen (left), Mary Rose Goetz another lady at Basilica January 10.

Posted in Haiti, Peace & Justice | Comments Off

#148 – Dick Bernard: Harry Reid and me.

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

So, Nevada Sen. Harry Reid is being drawn and quartered for remarks made about candidate Barack Obama in the run-up to the 2008 Presidential election. “There but for the grace of God go I”, and probably most everyone else, of any ethnicity, anywhere.

As a good friend of mine is wont to say “give me a break!”

Let’s take two days ago, just for instance.

It was Sunday, and I was at Church, this particular day taking care of a social justice table about my particular passion, Haiti.

A few of us were visiting at the neighboring table, including a man of, shall we say, very dark complexion, and an interesting accent to his English. “Where’re you from?”, I asked, since I was curious.

“Minnesotan”, he said…and it took awhile for his puckish grin to appear. He’d heard this one before.

It was awkward for a bit. He was Ethiopian, he finally said, had been here for quite a long while. There are plenty of Christians in Ethiopia, and also, as I began to insert foot in mouth once again, Jews as well – I’d seen a group of these black Ethiopian Jews in Israel in 1996….

Upstairs in church my long-time and great friend John was ushering. We said ‘hello’ as usual, and I got to thinking back two or three years ago when he and another friend of mine in another state were helping me set up an earlier rendition of this blog. I sent a brief e-mail to the other guy about my African-American friend, John, but by mistake I copied John on the e-mail.

I immediately apologized to John for the stupidity – his ethnicity had absolutely nothing to do with anything I was talking about with the other guy – and the matter was over in an instant. My guess is that John is used to gaffes like mine on the race issue. But it has stuck in my mind. And perhaps in his, too.

The one who says that they’ve never thought, or talked, negatively or apprehensively about someone who looks different than they do is not being truthful. I’ve been to homogeneous countries where most everybody looked alike (except for we tourists) and we were all white.

We grow up with said and unsaid messages that are imprinted.

I do family history, and I was taken aback when Aunt Mary on my German side, born in 1913 and lifelong North Dakotan, wrote in the early 1990s about the horses she remembered on the North Dakota farm. King, Queen, Kernal, Sally, Nelly, Sylvia, then “I think Old George and Nigger were part bronco”, Prince, Lady…. Horses were truly a part of the family in those old days, and, I suppose, “Nigger” was a black horse, but….

(I picked these words out of the family history I wrote. Initially I was going to edit out that word, but I’m glad I didn’t…some years later we found a batch of letters from 1905-06 from the farm kin in Wisconsin where on occasion “nigger” and “Jew” popped in as well.)

It’s a problem, and Harry Reid will survive it – since, after all, it’s rank hypocrisy for anyone to cast judgement on the man for such a statement in our still race-sensitive society. Similarly, it is unfair to “judge the book by its cover”…being white, or black (or blue or green or whatever) is no criteria for goodness, or badness.

This goes all ways, and it’s no fun to experience it first hand.

I remember my first trip to Haiti in 2003. I’d been there all of two days, and we were being briefed by victims of heinous crimes in the slums of Port au Prince during the 1991-94 coup time. It was very, very powerful. At the end, we went around to shake hands with the participants, men and women. One of the men refused my hand. I hadn’t said a word in the presentation, and I knew nothing about Haiti. I reminded him of someone, I’d guess. I wonder who.

Best we all learn by bits and pieces. It’s all we can do.

Posted in Community, Family History, History, Peace & Justice | Comments Off

#147 – Dick Bernard: Avatar

Saturday, January 9th, 2010

UPDATE January 12, 2010: I have been most intrigued by the assorted interpretations, on all “sides”, about the real meaning of most everything about Avatar. About all I can say is that it serves a useful function in causing thought and (hopefully) conversation. Now, if the assorted “sides” could dialogue with each other about the diverse meanings of the film, now, that would be something. It is now a blockbuster status film. I think it deserves its status. And it is an opening for serious conversation about, particularly, American society and its relationship to the rest of the planet.

A few day ago I made reference to the new film Avatar in this blog.

At the time, I had not seen the film. I went yesterday. I would highly recommend the film as food for thought and for lots of reflective discussion for anyone with even the slightest interest in or concern about the past, present and future of humanity and the planet in general.

Avatar is a high-tech 3D film set far in the future on a planet populated by humanoids similar, I would say, to the indigenous peoples who populated this country and hemisphere 500 years ago, pre-Columbus.

The planet has been targeted for exploitation of an essential new element by a force from the late, great planet earth (to borrow somebodies phrase from long ago.

The earthlings do not, shall we say, represent us as we would like to be seen…on the other hand, they represent us pretty accurately…at least the exploiters who have moved from one objective to the next over the centuries who, in turn, have enlisted our support for things that lay waste to a decent, balanced relationship between the earth and all of its creatures, only one species of which happens to be human.

As we watch the “transformer generation” in Avatar, we are watching ourselves, today, and in especially the last 150 years or so in the U.S., far longer in exploited places like Haiti, where European exploitation began with Columbus over 500 years ago. It is not a pretty sight.

On the other hand, those who we dismiss as Third World, presumably worth less than ourselves, are portrayed well, particularly as their relationship to the earth and each other is concerned. One is reminded of the intimate relationship between the Native Americans and their environment in the time before the introduction of the things that have brought us domination and prosperity.

One can wonder who will get the last laugh as humanity lurches down the road to some final probably destructive destination, perhaps sooner than we like to imagine. Perhaps Jesus’ Beatitudes, the first of which is “Blessed are the Meek” (defined in my grandmothers Bible as the “poor”) are the ultimate inheritors of heaven, to contrast with the present hell on earth visited on so many of them.

For the rich among us, which is most Americans, even those of us who are fairly poor, perhaps we’ve got it as good as it’s going to get…in the end we may trade places with those we now dominate. Nobody knows, just a thought….

Avatar is a long film, nearly three hours, but it is gripping. I found myself wanting popcorn, but not wanting to leave the theatre should I miss something. Those with me in the theatre were equally glued to their seats. Avatar is certainly not an escapist film.

People watching this film can come to their own conclusions. It will be difficult, however, to come to the conclusion that the reality of our lives will serve future generations well.

I recommend this film.

Posted in "Crash Course", Community, History, Native American, Nature, Peace & Justice, Technology, War | Comments Off

#144 – Dick Bernard: Looking to the future, by looking at the past.

Monday, January 4th, 2010

We haven’t seen the just-released blockbuster “Avatar” as yet. This review has increased my interest in actually seeing the movie.

Of course, Avatar is not “real”, as in reality, but sometimes films like these are helpful to think more seriously about the longer term. It apparently is a fantasy encouraging people to really look at a new reality.

Coincidently, during the month of December I have been reading an on-line book written by my friend Loren Halvorson. A while back, I posted his book “Hidden Roots: the Basis of Social Regeneration” on this blog. The book is accessible in its entirety here.

On page 51, in the third chapter, Loren succinctly described where we’ve been as people (First and Second Settlements), and where we might be heading (Third Settlement), since we have no option within the First and Second Settlement rules. These are his words:

“The “First Settlement” is the pattern still found among the so-called “Primitive” societies which live close to nature. For them nature and grace are not in opposition. The rhythm of their life style is set in accordance with their natural environment. For such communities the earth and all its forms of life was part of a family. Mother Earth nourished all the creatures who were related. Therefore,one lives gently on and with the earth and with all its forms of life. Humans are neither superior to nor “over against” other life forms but members of the family. I have in mind not only the Indians, the “Native” Americans, but also Spanish speaking peoples and Africans who preceded most of the white settlers but who viewed land differently than the land owners.

The “Second Settlement” came with the modern age that viewed nature as an object to be exploited. Nature and grace were in opposition, even violent opposition at times. Waves of immigrants set out to conquer nature, including nature’s people, the “Primitive peoples” (Now called the “Third” or “Fourth” World). In North America this happened rapidly with the Western movement of pioneers who brought their old community and culture with them to a new land. They brought with them their “little publics” with which to undergird the establishing of a larger republic. When other settlers appeared and crowded their space they moved farther West. As long as an open frontier was available, this settlement pattern persisted. Some see this period ending with the Civil War when the Western frontier was closed and Paradise was lost. But I believe the mentality lingered on. Even after the open spaces were all settled the next frontier to be conquered became the rich resources of the land. Somewhere around the end of world War II the last wave of settlers found themselves crowding into southern California with nowhere else to go. It is no surprise that Watts in Los Angeles was the first urban area to go up in smoke. That was the end of the American dream of private space away from strangers. The “Second Settlement” came to an end.

The “Third Settlement” began with the burning of Watts. people began to recognize that there was nowhere else to flee from one another except the outback in Australia or Antarctica. The “third Settlement” does not mean geographic exodus to another place as much as it challenges us to remain in place in an increasingly urban society and build new community out of the differences of race, religion, sex, economic class, age, culture, marital status:all the difference that had previously separated us. Certainly it cannot mean another Oklahoma “land rush” for this time we must proceed at a pace commensurate with the patterns of the environment. Land is not to be conquered but rather to be lived with as a vital member of the wider community. The settlers of the “Second Settlement” rushed too quickly into new territories ignoring the lessons to be learned from the earlier inhabitants and creating tools before they knew how to use them or understand the consequences of their use (e.g. nuclear power). it means to live with the land and deal with its resources not as owners but as partners. it means to view the land to its various life forms as part of the community with “liberty and justice” for all that make up the shared environment….”

Halverson’s book was written in 1991, and his key concepts were discussed by him as early as the 1960s. It is far more current now, than it was then. He wrote with a keen mind about the future in which we are now living.

There is rich food for thought and conversation within his perception of stages.

Our collective problem, in our still affluent society dominated by things like advertising and mass media and wants vs needs, seems to be that we prefer to live in what has for some time been a fantasy “Second Settlement” mind-set…and, practically, “Second Settlement” no longer exists. We’ve killed it.

Movies like last years “Wall-e”, and, apparently now, “Avatar”, are trying to put a new and more constructive spin on fantasy.

Halverson’s book is well worth a read, and it’s accessible right here.

Posted in Community, Environment, Loren Halverson, Native American, Nature, Peace & Justice | Comments Off

#143 – Dick Bernard: YouTube, Elders and Youngers

Sunday, January 3rd, 2010

UPDATE January 7, 2010: Representative comments follow, plus a followup observation from the writer of the original post. (I have disabled comments due to an avalanche of ’spam’. My e-mail address is on the “About” page.)

Yesterday afternoon an e-mail announced that I was on YouTube. Since I’ve not been on YouTube before (at least to my knowledge), I rushed to the link. Indeed I was there, the last minute and a half or so.

When I opened the movie, there had been no views at all, not surprising since only my friend, Lynn Elling, and I, had received the e-mail announcing it. Besides, when the young man, who was one of the founders of YouTube in 2005 (and a few years earlier a student at St. Paul MN Central HS), put up the first link of himself at the San Diego Zoo, I suppose he was the first and among the very few viewers of that famous YouTube video, too. ( I looked just now, and there have been five viewers of my ’show’; I doubt my performance will go viral, like Minnesota Wedding, with over 37,000,000 views since last summer, but one takes what fame one can get!)

The three of us who speak on the Dec. 21 video were at a local school, rededicating it as a peace site. Lynn Elling who founded World Citizen has campaigned against the horrors of war since he witnessed the aftermath during three years as a Naval Officer in the Pacific in WWII. He’s a hero of mine. Martha Roberts is current President of World Citizen.

I wasn’t listed among the speakers, but was called on near the end, and expounded for a bit on a disconnect I was feeling in the class room of 15 year olds.

The feeling came when Mr. Elling talked about a workshop that changed his life in the late 1940s. Leader Maxwell Maltz (Psychocybernetics) convinced Lynn, then a floundering insurance salesman about to quit the trade, that if he could visualize any goal “in three dimensions, technicolor and stereophonic sound”, that goal could come to life – and it did for Lynn, who became very successful in his financial products business.

But as I was listening to Lynn, along with the 30 15 year olds, it occurred to me most of those kids had no idea what, at minimum, “technicolor” or “stereophonic sound” were; and were it not for rare movies like the current Avatar, “3 dimension” (called 3D, of course) would be equally foreign to them. So, when I was unexpectedly given an opportunity to speak, that disconnect is what I expounded about. (Most of that portion is edited out, but the reference to computers also applies.)

Lynn was in college when I was born; 40 when I graduated from college. To those 15 year olds, mostly born in perhaps 1994, I realized I was well beyond ancient as well.

Their view and their vocabulary and their skill-sets are entirely different than those of myself, or Lynn, or Martha. More so than any time in history, Elders and Youngers have relatively few life experiences or expertise in common. We live in different worlds.

It is obvious, but too seldom considered, that there exists a big generation gap between today’s Elders, who care a lot about the future for the Youngers, and the Youngers themselves.

I tried to point out to the kids I was talking to that we want to help them achieve their future, but in reality, their future is in their hands, not ours. I was speaking from the emotion of the moment, without holding back.

We have to learn how to better communicate between generations.

We’ve got a long ways to go.

Take a look at me in the movies. Enjoy the show. It’s less than 5 minutes in all, 1 1/2 minutes of me, so no time for popcorn.

(Truth be told, I looked again at the Minnesota Wedding. Now that’s interesting!)

Comment from Carol Ashley Jan. 4, 2010: You said “their future is in their hands, not ours.”

I have often heard this at graduations and it bugs me. We’ve created their future by our own actions and we still (or did before the corporate takeover) have a lot of effect on the world. I think it wouldn’t hurt if we took our cues from younger folk as we age.

If we tell young people only that the future is in their hands, do they believe it? I doubt it. Or at least not totally. They’ve not had much power up to that point. If we say it’s in their hands and we want to help them make the kind of world they want to have, then we not only let them know they have to create their future but indicate we will help. This, I would think, would be more apt to motivate them. It also focuses on a communal effort.

Better communication between young and old and in between certainly needs improvement. I so often see parents and other adults minimizing teen experience…first love, first breakup…all that stuff. If we took them seriously at all ages and really listened to them, I think they might listen to us, too. It’s easy to minimize the experiences of youth, but if we examined ourselves, we could see that those experiences are part of what makes us who we are. They are formative (to use a psychological term) and therefore very important. So I think we need to start by respectful listening. I think that applies to the split in our country, too. It’s not an easy task to listen to some one of a different political persuasion, especially if what we hear seems so untrue, but it is the first step.

This is all on the micro level. You, Dick, often have talked about those incremental steps. I’m sure those steps are important. It just doesn’t seem like they can work fast enough for the crises we see in the world today which is why I’m not very hopeful. Still, I think those steps are important wherever and whenever we have the opportunity or can make the opportunity.

Comment from Judy Berglund January 5, 2010: I took a few minutes to review the video, and I think you guys are on to something. I wish your remarks hadn’t been edited. You recognize something that few in our generation recognize: that we aren’t talking to our kids enough and we aren’t doing enough to understand how they communicate. Our kids are idealistic, and we can tap into that idealism through efforts such as your presentation. They feel powerless, and we can empower them through such presentations. Let’s do more to understand them and to help them understand us. Here’s to YouTube!!!

Comment from Lynn Elling (the other man in the video) to the person who made the video January 4, 2010: WOW!!!

Dick: It has been most interesting to review these and other comments, including the most recent one from a good friend who’s a retired teacher: “I was trying to guess their interest. Sometimes older people don’t connect with younger students so I was curious about the interest level.”

I was more “primed” for this than usual, since only a few weeks earlier I’d been to an excellent all day workshop entitled “Coming Forth as Elders: Heartening Community with the Vision of Elderhood“, facilitated by Kaia Svien and Eric Utne. Thirty or more of us had a day to sit with this topic, most of us in my age range – some a little older, most a little younger….

My audience on Dec. 22 was 10th graders. Their next stop after my little talk was lunch. I taught 8th and 9th graders for nine years, years ago so I know the species. A rock star would have his or her work cut out…! But I didn’t see anybody “cutting and running”…they were polite and well behaved. Perhaps I was sufficiently passionate so that they wondered, “where is HE coming from?” As Judy mentioned, I, too, wish that the rest of what was said was on the DVD (about 5 minutes in all, I’d guess.) But probably it is best as it is, the rest of the remarks left to each imagination (including my own).

The DVD has helped, already, to lead to conversation.

There is a communication gap between youngers and elders these days that is far greater than in the good old days, when the youngers worked the farm with their parents and were blessed (or stuck) with an environment where everybody lived life in common. With variations, other environments were similar.

Today there is a canyon between elders and youngers. Acknowledging it, and talking about it is the step to resolution. It will be slow and difficult, but it needs to happen.

Our generation has left a mess for the youngers; and while I didn’t feel at all empowered when I was 15 (in 1955); at the same time a future was being held for me when I matured. Today we are truly “spending our kids inheritance”, shamelessly. They don’t have the luxury I did.

In the e-mail exchange with the classroom teacher, I learned about an important event happening in San Jose in late March. The details are here. Check it out. Don’t be terribly surprised if you hear from me about the conference, if I can figure a way to attend…. (Find the upcoming events box and take a look, and let others know about this opportunity.)

Posted in Community, Education, History, Peace & Justice, Technology | Comments Off

« Older Entries