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Category Archives: History

Ambassador Christopher Stevens: What Courage Looks Like (Part 2)

22 Monday Oct 2012

Posted by metagcarstarphen in Ethnic Media, History, Influencers, Politics

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Ambassador Chris Stevens, Benghazi attack, Libya, middle-east, politics, youth in gangs

Right after the death of Ambassador Stevens was confirmed, media tributes lauding his service emerged.  Even before Chris Stevens became an ambassador, he was known for his willingness to engage with Libyans in the most remote areas of this North African country in order to help bring them into the larger conversation he envisioned about citizenship, political structures and social futures of their country.  After he was promoted, he continued with his distinctive brand of outreach.

The Chinook Observer made one of the first reports about Stevens’ death, doing so with sadness and dignity.  Chris Stevens was a member of the Chinook Nation, whose ancestral home is in the Pacific Northwest.  Part of the Chinook history and heritage involves a long tradition of survival against harsh physical conditions, and then later, colonial domination by white settlers.   The famed Lewis & Clark expedition team led the first colonial contact with the Chinook, who were historically a federation of tribal groups.  As a resourceful, accomplished people, the Chinook at first welcomed the Lewis & Clark team.  But historical accounts indicate that eventually the Chinook waged guerrilla attacks against the team when the colonial explorers exhausted their welcome, prompting the team members to leave for fear of their lives.  Imagine, then, from the settlers’ point of view, that while they experienced a sense of normalcy during their daytime encounters with the Chinook, at night, they suffered the unsettling discomfort of hidden, unpredictable attacks.

What does our standard historical record say about how the Chinook felt?  Precious little.  Here, however, is where I truly believe that Ambassador Stevens’ racial identity was essential to his character and his professional expertise.  Stevens probably brought to his job a deep understanding of what it meant to be part of an indigenous people trying to assert an identity, trying to preserve tradition while adjusting to new pressures.  This would not have been an idle proposition to him.  Currently, in his own United States, the Chinook Nation of his heritage continues to struggle for federal recognition as an “official” sovereign nation –a legislative effort that was supported by the Clinton administration but was subsequently blocked under the Bush presidency.  It remains in congressional limbo under the Obama administration.

Stevens no doubt recognized Libya as a nation caught in-between an accomplished past and an uncertain future, despite the tumultuous social unrest since Muammar Gaddafi‘s violent overthrow.

In those long hours and days immediately after the assault in Benghazi, while the rest of us waited for details about the people who were killed, the Chinook Nation learned about the loss of one of their most distinguished and beloved family members.  Stevens was not only an accomplished State Department employee, he was a Chinook role model and favorite son.  Quietly, and with dignity and compassion, President Obama reached out to Ambassador Stevens’ mother, as well as leaders of the Chinook Nation, to express private condolences away from the spotlight of the national media.  This happened under the radar of majority media, but the Chinook Observer reported this, once again not only showing the importance of ethnic media, but of the special role of American Indian media as my latest book documents.

Christopher Stevens’ life as a diplomat, and the work of countless others like him, remains nearly invisible to those of us outside the profession.  In 2010, I got a glimpse of this life when I stayed with a friend whose husband was part of the diplomatic staff in a West African country. Their family lived in an attractive house with many amenities.  Some of the perks, however, were silent reminders of unspoken dangers, like the 24-hour local security guards who routinely changed shifts in the garage of their gated residence.

Diplomatic housing in West Africa, fortified by a wall and guards. Photo by M.G. Carstarphen.

I witnessed a bit of the special dance involved in the life of our foreign diplomats.  They choose to live in a foreign community, to forge relationships broadly and build alliances, while mindful of the steps they need to take to negotiate their own personal safety.

I have also had the opportunity to serve in much shorter assignments as part of small faculty teams to help train women journalists in Bangladesh and Nepal.   During our waking hours, we spent as much time as possible connecting with the people we were sent to serve.  At night, we returned to secure—even fortified—places to sleep, chosen because of their locations and track record with keeping Western visitors safe.

Everything in his background, training and experience made Ambassador Stevens a singular statesman, but his work on the margins of social dysfunction had risks. In 2010, those became painfully on display…although we did not know it then.

It was during this time that the “biggest leak of classified materials” to WikiLeaks, became public, a crime for which Oklahoma native and Army private Bradley Manning currently faces charges.  At the time of the release of these sensitive military and diplomatic documents, our government’s outrage was swift and sharp. One of the accusations made then and now as Manning prepares for trial, is the charge that his actions gave “aid to the enemy”.  It’s a broad and vague offense until you read this specific telegram message, meant to be confidential, from Libya.  It gives detailed descriptions of Libyan communities, people and social conditions which the writer observes as he moves from village to village.  Read the name, and then shiver.  The author was Chris Stevens, then working as a field officer for the State Department.

Investigations point to Stevens’ death as the result of a planned, terrorist attack.  Why were Libyan insiders so quick to identify this as a planned attack from the start?  Maybe it was because everyone knew, probably even Stevens, that this leaked document might have been one of his diplomatic tasks that put a target on his back.   Maybe Stevens hoped that he had accumulated enough good will to overcome the resentments of those he would never win over.  Maybe the State Department hoped to replace him with someone less known but who had the skills, empathy and heart to take over such a difficult assignment.

And if President Obama seemed slow to confirm our worst fears about this tragedy, it might not have been because he was “at odds” with the State Department, but because the story was more complicated and sensitive than we could have imagined.  In a poignant interview about her son, Ambassador Stevens’ mother noted that the political exploitation of his death certainly complicated her grief.

Now, as I remember my cousin Frank, the whole narrative about his death becomes less sure.  Family lore has it that he was a victim of circumstance—in the wrong place at the wrong time.  But what if he was a target?  He could have unknowingly slighted one gang over another, or offended one leader without intention.  And during the chaos of a spontaneous street fight, someone Frank offended could have taken that opportunity to eliminate a perceived enemy.  I will never know.

Stevens’ observations about Libya show that he saw a country and a people with much potential, but with troubling problems.   He described, among other things, a lack of economic stability, a growing social disruption, and restive youth populations.  In 1996, the U.S. established the National Gang Center to study the causes of our youth gang problems and has since then generated many reports and statistics.  Would it be surprising to you to see that some of its concerns mirror what Stevens observed in Libya?  Much like those who try to intervene in the gang wars of my home city, foreign diplomats depend upon their understanding turf rules while trying gingerly not to violate them.

Gangs are designed to terrorize, and whether they are in North Philly or Benghazi, and they cannot be ignored or dismissed.  Civilian soldiers, like Ambassador Stevens, choose to walk purposely onto “turfs” where they do not belong.  They do so consciously, hoping to provide a bridge that could turn a neighborhood, community and even a nation away from the turmoil of despair, and into the fragile peace of stability and hope.

We cannot afford to reduce the remarkable and heroic life Stevens led into provocative headlines and spoken innuendos.  We cannot make the tragic circumstances of his death erase the remarkable accomplishments of his life.

Ambassador Stevens’ story is not about politics.   It is about what courage truly looks like.

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2012 Olympics and Aprés Post-Colonialism

28 Saturday Jul 2012

Posted by metagcarstarphen in History, Literature, Observances

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2012 Summer Olympics, cross-cultural, Diversity at Olympics, England, Franz Fanon, Opening Ceremonies, Post-colonialism

I don’t know about you but I love the Olympics, especially the summer games.  Thanks to technological advances, my family and I have choices about how to keep up with this mega-event, including recording the whole thing so we can pick and choose how to watch what we want from it.  So, when the night was quiet, I gazed at the much-anticipated opening ceremonies for the 2012 competitions—every minute of it.  I even watched most of the commercials, which collectively broke records in the amounts of money being spent.  I noted the ad for The Dark Knight Rises movie, and was relieved at the short, tasteful version I saw in the wake of the recent tragedy in Aurora, CO.

Over the hours of the broadcast as I was captivated by the opening pageantry, I was duly impressed by the colors, lights, activity, music, comedy and drama of it all.  The character of “James Bond,” played by Daniel Craig and a body double for the Queen jumping out of a plane?  The comic antics of “Mr. Bean,” played by Rowan Atkinson, against the musical background of a classic masterpiece?  And, then there was the recurring and moving inclusion of young people of all ages, through choirs, dancing numbers, including a particularly captivating segment paying homage to literature and fantasy.  All of it and more presented a visual feast for viewers, and some of these pictures from the London-based Daily Mail newspaper can attest:

However, after a while, I began to think of the writings of Franz Fanon.  Fanon (1925-1961), a brilliant psychologist and scholar who was born in Algeria and educated in France, wrote incisively about the colonial European and Anglo legacies that brought both prosperity to their nations but turmoil to those they conquered.  England, the core of the once ubiquitous British Empire, showcased part of that history in its multiethnic performances throughout the night.

Even the parade of nations, that traditional processional of participating nations, highlighted this past as former colonies—Canada, Australia, Ghana, India, Nigeria, the United States and countless more English-speaking countries—participated as sovereign nations in their own right.

So, it was interesting to see how the “narrative” of England’s historical past played out in 2012.  The arc of the story moved from showing English roots in an agrarian society, progressing through an Industrial revolution and arriving at a very 21st –century peak of technological achievement.  In this story, Sir Timothy Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, reigned like a rock star (encouragement for nerds everywhere).

But omitted was the legacy of African slavery and the military-driven occupation of nations literally across the globe that fueled the prosperity contributing to the Industrial Revolution, upon which so much of the good fortunes of Western civilizations depend.  Fanon wrote searingly about this legacy and for the first time, gave voice to psychological and social scars left upon the colonized through this experience.  A foundation in his honor has established a Fanon Foundation website, and one page in English gives good insight into the complexity of his life and work, although some parts of this site are under construction still.

Should the Olympics have put a spotlight on these complex issues? Absolutely not!  Should we ourselves know and remember these issues even during a highly entertaining event?  Absolutely!

But in this “after” post-colonial era, we need to know that the multiculturalism we benefit from, and sometimes celebrate, did not happen accidentally, but through the pain and sacrifice of our often contentious ancestors.  We need to resist the temptation to paint our shared history with a happy tableau of diversity without being attuned to how our varied selves have come together. 

And, we need to look at current events, such as the Syrian rebellion and other “Arab Spring” movements partly through the lens of post-colonialism, because we will not understand anything completely without this measuring stick.  To do this, we all have to support education at every level in our schools that venture to bring difficult truths to our students.  We have to allow this without castigating such discussions as unpatriotic, communistic, or erroneous.

In the meantime, I will continue to follow the Olympics through the comprehensive coverage NBC and others will offer.  I will celebrate, as we all should, this exceptional time and space the Olympics provides when we can both root for country, yet celebrate the achievements of our global neighbors.  I think the symbolism of the torch’s lighting before the parade of nations showed it best.  Seven athletes with individual torches ignited seven more, which artfully spread through an array of over 50 more combustible lamps on the floor.  Then, on some invisible cue, they all rose in the air, and together formed one flaming ball.

We all come from different places, but together, we are one world. One planet. One destiny.

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Dr. Meta G. Carstarphen

Professor
Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication
405.310.9081
mcarstarphen@ou.edu
**Check out my personal blog about learning, life, and engagement at http://metaprof7.wordpress.com

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