Tag Archives: Ambassador Chris Stevens

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

22 Monday Oct 2012

Posted by in Ethnic Media, History, Influencers, Politics

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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.

Ambassador Christopher Stevens: What Courage Looks Like (Part 1)

18 Thursday Oct 2012

Posted by in Ethnic Media, Influencers, Politics

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Who knew that Benghazi, Libya, in North Africa, would become one of the most reported about places on the planet?  Tragedy and politics make strange bedfellows.

Ambassador Chris Stevens

Last month, when I read a listserv announcement about the late Ambassador Christopher Stevens, I felt I understood a lot more about this widely acclaimed man, someone who became celebrated as a diplomat with a special calling and a singular set of talents.

That his tragic death seems to be caught up in current political posturing is disheartening.  The circumstances made me want to talk about a childhood experience and a much more recent trip to Africa, and the connections to what may have happened a world away.

But first, I have to tell you a family story.  Bear with me.

Aunt Lorraine and Uncle Moses had a son.  I’ll call him Frank. He was one of a big brood, growing up in one of the toughest neighborhoods in Philadelphia.  Our parents had lived in similar environs, but they were able to move our family away.  So, my brothers and I grew up in other parts of this vast city, but we would make visits to see our cousins in North Philly.

Today, my memories of Frank are a mix of tinted impressions, idealized feelings and half-distinct facts.  I was young, on the edge of pre-teen-hood, and as I remember cousin Frank, he was all charisma, kindness, big muscles and an even bigger smile.  He invited me go with him and his girlfriend to an afternoon matinee at the famed Uptown Theater – an entertainment hotspot where live musical acts and boisterous reactions from the audience were its hallmarks.  And it was right on the fringes of one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the city, known for its gang activity.

Street gangs.  Youth gangs.  Juvenile-delinquents-who-work-in-teams.  However you think of them, the images can be frightening.  Sure, the American musical, West Side Story, stylized gang conflict.

Rival gang members posture artistically in the movie, West Side Story (Photo from Collider.com).

And watch a clip of the iconic actor, Marlon Brando, as he makes the job of a gang leader look dangerously sexy.  Fast- forward nearly four decades into the 21st century, and there is Leonardo DiCaprio, looking heroically violent, in the Gangs of New York, and you just want to hug him.

These images were not the reality of Philadelphia’s youth gangs.   Their combined reputation in the 1970s was legendary, and as a child removed from the day-to-day harshness of life on the streets, I could not come close to understanding the anxieties my parents must have felt about raising a family in the city.

Years later, in 1990, Will Smith debuted his hit television show, the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and I was an instant fan.  Visuals of sprawling and colorful graffiti—gang signatures—and the unpredictable threat of youth gangs who patrolled and controlled neighborhood turfs really resonated.  I got it.  I laughed—hard—at each episode and sang along with the opening credits, as millions of us did.

But there was a really gritty reality behind the light comedy.  Recently, I discovered a documentary on a site called Dangerous Minds that apparently was quite controversial in its time.  In 1967, three teenagers living in the vortex of gang life, wrote, produced and acted in a documentary about their lives.  Even the title—The Jungle: Philadelphia’s Mean Streets—is menacing. The images are much more disturbing.  Young narrators speak over grainy black-and-white images, telling stories of violence and retribution that gauge the volatility of the streets where they live,  as calmly as if they were giving the local weather report.

My mother had to be convinced to let me travel to this North Philadelphia of the documentary.  The Uptown Theater may have been an icon, but even in the daylight, that part of the “City of Brotherly Love” had an aura of danger and threat.  But cousin Frank was persuasive.  He was a college-educated man, and although he could have left his poverty-ridden North Philly neighborhood in the dust of a rapid escape, he stayed.  He found work with the city in social services and honed a specialty in youth gang intervention programs.

Mom relented. After the afternoon matinee, my cousin brought me back to my Aunt and Uncle’s cramped family home in North Philly where my parents were waiting for me, I can only imagine now through the lens of a parent that my mother must have exhaled audibly when she saw me.  But true to his word, Frank kept me safe. Oblivious to the potential danger, I had a fantastic time hanging out with grownups who weren’t my parents.

That was the last time I saw Frank alive.  Shortly after that, we learned that he died in a senseless tragedy, caught in the crossfire of a gang conflict that everyone said he was trying to prevent.   Our family went to his funeral, the first family death services I had ever experienced.  We sat in a section reserved for relatives, close to an open casket showing Frank in a state of orchestrated repose.  I remember emotional weeping and the frequent testimonies about my cousin’s sterling character and genuine kindness, all of which made the heaviness of the occasion seem weightier.

Then, the services took a dramatic and unrehearsed turn of events.  In single file and in rhythmic progression, several youth marched down the narrow aisle of the church leading to the casket.  They belonged to two groups, separated by differently colored bandanas around there foreheads.  As they shuffled past the open casket, each one leaned over Frank’s body.  Some kissed him.  And some gave a kind of salute.  Each one pounded a clenched fist over his own beating heart, just as he passed by Frank’s death-frozen heart.  Turns out they were representatives of the very gangs that had been at war that fatal night.

Sometimes, conflict overshadows good intentions.  I remembered this surreal funeral scene as I read some of the sympathetic comments from Libyans who, too, mourned Chris Stevens’ death.  While there is genuine sympathy in their comments, one can also read frustration among people living on the edge of survival.

The late ambassador was a dedicated professional who gave his life in service to his country.  But what I also learned from that listserv, which focuses on American Indian news and issues, was that he was also an Indian.  And I believe that his Native American roots inform his personal and professional story more than any one thing we can know about him.  Ambassador Chris Stevens was a member of the Chinook Nation, indigenous peoples whose ancestral ties connect to the Pacific Northwest, or present-day states of Washington and Oregon.   As I thought about this more, I began to believe that, as is often the case, identity is everything….

I’ll explain more in my next post.