A Book for Global Peacemakers

Richard Brookhiser looked at competing factions and went back to the development and struggles associated with writing 13 key documents to find a structure for satisfying the human desire for liberty. Rather that produce a ponderous tome for scholars, in 262 readable pages, his Give Me Liberty identifies a peaceful foundation for countries.

     Liberty is closely related to other ideas: consent of the governed, freedom, democracy, and the God-given human rights of equal individuals.

     Beginning with the first English settlement in 17th century Jamestown, Virginia, on the North American continent, colonists objected to sole rule by the London-based Virginia Company's royal governor. They elected members to a general assembly empowered to decide local matters by a majority vote. Although the governor could veto these decisions, it took four months of ocean voyages before the assembly learned his wishes. By 1699, the assembly decided to move to Williamsburg, Virginia, and its elected members became an independent body. The governor retained a veto, but a principle, consent of the governed rather than fiat, was established. There would be "no taxation without representation."

     Back in Jamestown, the first general assembly acknowledged "men's affaires doe little prosper where God's service is neglected." In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson would write: "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among them are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." In short, human rights are Creator-given to all mankind as part of their human nature. When human rights, which are derived from God, are trampled, as the colonists claimed they were by George III, the Declaration of Independence noted rebellion is justified.

     Around the world, liberty continues to roll out much too slowly for slaves, women, and immigrants. James Madison justified excluding the word, slave, from the U.S. Constitution, because it would be wrong to admit men could be property.  In his 1863 Gettysburg Address, President Lincoln finally affirmed the United States." was conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." Two years later the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, but 100 years after the Gettysburg Address, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. told a March on Washington the Declaration of Independence and Constitution were promissory notes still unpaid.

     At the first women's convention in 1848 at Seneca Falls, New York, the former slave, Frederick Douglass, and the only black person who attended, concluded, "(I)f that government is only just which governs by the free consent of the governed, there can be no reason in the world for denying to women the exercise of the elective franchise." Not until 1920 did the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution eventually grant suffragists the right to vote. Unlike other countries in the world, as yet no woman has headed the U.S. government.

     In opposition to Jewish, Irish, German, Italian, and Scandinavian immigrants, a U.S. voting bloc formed the Know-Nothing Party. In contrast, Emma Lazarus, who was proud of a country willing to take in the poor and oppressed, wrote a poem honoring the waves of immigrants "yearning to be free." With the help of the French engineer, Gustave Eiffel, and funding from Joseph Pulitzer, a Statue of Liberty rose in New York harbor in 1886. Ms. Lazarus preferred calling the statue, "Liberty Enlightening the World." and her poem became the message on the statue's base.

     The Monroe Doctrine began an effort to guarantee liberty throughout the world. On December 2, 1823, U.S. President Monroe sent an open letter to Congress announcing the Americas were closed to conquest. Outside interference, he claimed, would be viewed as "an unfriendly disposition toward the United States." Some 107 years later, in a "Fireside Chat," President Franklin D. Roosevelt prepared the United States to enter World War II by noting the Western Hemisphere was no longer protected by the Atlantic Ocean. A year later Japanese airplanes bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and proved the Pacific Ocean no longer shielded the country either. Liberty needed a defense everywhere in the world.

     By 1980, when Ronald Reagan became President of the United States, the Berlin Wall symbolized 40 years of unchecked Communist expansion. At the Brandenburg Gate in the wall separating West and East Berlin, President Reagan, in 1987, chastised the godless, totalitarian Soviet regime for restricting "freedom for all mankind." He told General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, "(T)ear down this wall," and on November 9, 1989, free men tore down the Berlin Wall.

     It seems, as long as people lack liberty, peace is not possible.
     

   
   


       

Children of the Year

Not only Greta Thunberg but you also are TIME magazine's 2019 "Person of the Year."  Children have the means of communication to meet the challenges of reducing and eliminating global threats of climate change, migration, and gun and nuclear weapon destruction by terrorists and nation states at home and abroad.

     Inaction no longer satisfies indigenous peoples confronting destruction of the Amazon forest in Brazil, democracy activists in Hong Kong, or religious orders of nuns offering proposals at the Vatican and stockholder meetings in New York.

     Just as Greta Thunberg did, children can paint a slogan for change on a sign and hold it up in front of the adults in the media, legislatures, banks, and corporations that have the power to act now. And young people have the numbers and time to keep the pressure on from now into the future.

     For other thoughts on the impact children have, see the earlier post, "Youth and Social Media Fuel Democracy."

No Time To Be Stupid

China's leader, Mr. Xi Jinping, asserts every country's government is legitimate, even one like his that censors everything a person sees and says and uses facial recognition technology to monitor the activities of every citizen. There are numerous ramifications of acknowledging despotic governments that ignore human rights and theocratic governments that require all people to follow the same religious beliefs and practices deserve the same respect and fealty as governments founded on democratic principles.

     Take the example of neurotechnologies capable of inserting electrodes into a brain to temporarily reduce the time it takes to memorize multiplication tables, a football playbook, or the codes and plans of a military enemy. Invasion into a brain also has other effects. Blood leakage into a brain's compartments from such an insert eventually reduces normal cell activities, such as memory and thinking. The impact on one brain function also can "cross talk" to impact other brain functions, such as the moral ability to discern right from wrong.

     Some scientists devote themselves to technologies that enhance the individual, commercial, and military applications of human individuals, robots, and drones. Other humans use technology to binge-watch shows, socialize on smartphones, or order lipstick and mascara. Around the world, everyone has a stake in supporting governments devoted to: 1) promoting technologies that are good for society and 2) impeding the development and controlling the use of technologies that injure humans.

An Enemy Is Nothing to Fear

An enemy is someone to study. During 27 years of captivity in South Africa, Nelson Mandela studied the Afrikaners, descendants of South Africa's Dutch settlers, who created the apartheid system that made blacks second class citizens in their own country. He learned their language, studied their leaders and made friends with their prison guards. South Africa no longer has an apartheid system.

     My old home town of Chicago has a lot of local problems, a high murder rate is one. But Chicago also is enrolling more high school students in International Baccalaureate (IB) programs. (There also are IB programs for younger students.) These programs enable students to look out at the world with confidence, not fear.

     Students who can trace the Yangtze River from the busy port at Shanghai to the lake district at Wuhan and westward to China's largest city, which IB students are apt to know is Chongqing, rather than Beijing, are not afraid to learn about China's economic and military expansion. They also know the Chinese Communist Party is struggling to block the exercise of constitutional guarantees, attendance at religious services, democracy protests in Hong Kong, tax evasion by its movie stars, Gobi Desert sand storms from adding to air pollution and climate change's rising seas from swamping its artificial islands.

     International Baccalaureate programs, begun in 1968, originally were developed for the children of diplomats, military officers, and business executives frequently transferred to different countries. By satisfying rigorous IB standards, students are prepared to satisfy entrance requirements at colleges and universities wherever they might live. To learn more about IB programs and to find schools that offer them, go to ibo.org.

(Also see the earlier post "Introduce Disadvantaged Kids to the World.") 

   

Challenging Chinese New Year

A Chinese delegation, now in the United States, is not there to celebrate the beginning of China's Year of the Pig on February 5, 2019. Instead, the visit signals a transition between what has been an extended period of U.S.-Chinese economic cooperation to what students and global businesses need to regard with caution as an impending era of competition.

     Setting speculation aside, Beijing, which already uses facial recognition technology to track 2.5 million troublesome Buddhists and Muslims, also expects to be on high alert on other days in the Year of the Pig:
March 10: 60th anniversary of Tibetans uprising against Chinese rule. Dalai Lama subsequently escapes to India and the government he led in Tibet is dissolved.
May 4: The 100th anniversary of a student movement that welcomed science and democracy.
June 4: The 30th anniversary of the crack down on the democracy demonstration in Tiananmen Square.
October 1: A military parade marking the 70th anniversary of the founding of Communist China.

     Like global businesses, young people around the world, who will be in China competing in the 2022 Winter Olympics, need to learn more about this important country.  When children learn a Chinese tradition includes giving kids money in red envelopes at the beginning of a new year, they will want to adopt the tradition where they live. Adults everywhere already enjoy multi-course meals at Chinese restaurants.
   

     

"Don't Give Up On Us...."

Skeptics scoff at the activists in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Turkey who still cling to the belief that democracy and dignity will overcome the authoritarian rule that triumphed following the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011-2013. How can today's Rohingya Muslims fleeing their burning villages in Myanmar envision democratic rule when they lack support from Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize winner whose civilian party won a parliamentary majority in 2015, after the country's military regime released her from house arrest in 2010?

Perhaps the key to never giving up on democracy is believing it is not a sure thing, but, as the demonstrations in Iran suggested on New Year's Eve, 2017, neither is democracy's defeat a done deal.

Since 1961, Amnesty International has been keeping track of those subjected to human rights violations. If you have as few as five minutes to help alleviate suffering, go to amnestyusa.org and find out what you can do.

U.S. citizen Joshua Holt, a former Mormon missionary charged with spying, and his wife were arrested in Venezuela in June, 2016 when guns were planted in their apartment. U.S. citizen Alan Gross could tell them political conditions can change for the better. He was released in Cuba in 2014, when relations between the two countries improved. Mr. Holt and his wife were released in 2018.

St. Andrew Dung-Lac and his companions were martyred trying to convince North Koreans of their worth before God, but the current regime could not kill Oh Chung-Sung, the North Korean soldier who was seriously wounded when he ran to freedom across the border in November, 2017. The long tapeworms, tuberculosis, and hepatitus B his South Korean doctor found in the 24-year-old soldier tell how wounded North Korea's army already is.

China feels the need to prevent engineers building railroads in Africa from having any local contacts and to control internet access by its citizens at home. Nobel Peace Prize poet, Liu Xiaobo, and his wife had to be confined to their home to keep his pro-democracy works from inciting the public. But a year after Mr. Liu died, his widow, Liu Xia, was released and allowed to go into exile in Germany.

Hong Kong's young pro-democracy activists, who carried on knowing they faced repeated arrests after leading a 2014 protest, triumphed when an appeals court overturned their sentences in February, 2018. Despite the threat of receiving a prison term of up to three years, Hong Kong soccer fans bravely turned their backs on the playing of China's nation anthem, "March of the Volunteers," in October, 2017. Hong Kong protests that began in early June, 2019, aimed to eliminate the threat of transferring domestic criminals to the China mainland for trial. As demonstrations continued into August, both demands for democratic reforms and police intervention increased. China's slowing economy already raises Beijing's fear of an inability to control mainland dissatisfaction with a declining standard of living and seems to restrain the Xi government from further aggravating conditions by using military force against its citizens in Hong Kong. Unknown is how much broadcast and social media coverage of the Hong Kong protests reaches the restive Tibetan and Muslim populations in western China and what impact the news might be having.

In Russia, Putin's prosecutors have to rely on bogus accusations to keep the Navalny brothers, Oleg and Alexei, from running for President and using social media to mount anti-corruption proptest marches, not only in Moscow, but throughout Russia. Communist politicians lost elections in 2018, when Russia's senior citizens began protesting Putin's plan to raise the age when they could retire and claim pensions.  In TIME magazine (the May 1/May 8, 2017 issue), former Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, said, "I am convinced Russia can succeed only through democracy."

Classic World War II Christmas carols retain their meaning during this holiday season. We think about the spread of democracy and sing, "Have yourself a merry little Christmas...Next year all our troubles will be miles away...Some day soon we all will be together, if the fates allow."

Democracy for All

The musical, Hamilton, used rap songs to illustrate how history retells relevant ideas, such as the importance of being in the room where political decisions are made and the enduring influence wielded by the one who tells the story of what happened in the past.

     Those who live in countries, where they enjoy basic human rights, often need a reminder that conflicts between values: freedom and equality, unity and diversity, private wealth and common wealth, and law and ethics, frequently require reevaluation. In authoritarian countries, citizens need to discover the paths taken to achieve human rights for all.

     Without a Bill of Rights, citizens are condemned to perpetual 1984-type fear. TIME magazine (Nov. 13, 2017) reports how China currently uses a "social credit system" to keep track of every citizen's "financial data, social connections, consumption habits and respect for the law." Deviate from what is acceptable to the regime, and lose a promotion, your right to travel, and your children's futures, and you could end up in prison. You also have to worry about how a personal enemy might use a cyberattack to compromise your activities and alter your social credit score. 

     What is democracy's alternative? From Colonial Williamsburg, the Virginia village John D. Rockefeller, Jr. restored to show the origin of the United States, comes a concise, 168-page book, The Idea of America, that relies on primary documents, such as the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, to recount relevant ideas. The book illustrates how early U.S. values have expanded to be more inclusive and how citizens can find guidance to resolve current issues by studying historic documents and values.

     Jeffrey Edleson, dean of the School of Social Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley, said The Idea of America was "a must-read for anyone who cares about the future of American society." That's too limiting. The Idea of America is food for thought for everyone looking for a worldview that could make life better for all human beings. The book is available at shop.colonialwilliamsburg.com.

   

Youth and Social Media Fuel Democracy

Young leaders in both China and Russia show they are not buying into the Communist indoctrination their elders accepted with little or no question. Fear of arrest, prison terms, the gulag, and being sent to a penal colony now have to compete with exposure to the alternative future social media describes for young digital pros.

     Sparks of democratic fervor have erupted before social media existed. The Hungarian Revolution in 1956, Czechoslovakia's 1968 reforms, and the pro-democracy movement that brought students to China's Tiananmen Square in 1989 were unsuccessful. But activists persisted and broke up the U.S.S.R. in 1991. Now they have the social media that helped fuel the 2009 Green Movement named for the campaign color of the losing presidential candidate, Mir-Hossein Mousavi,  in Iran; the Arab Spring; the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong; and anti-corruption rallies in Russia.

     When the three under-30-year-olds who led Hong Kong's Umbrella Movement were sentenced to prison terms in August, 2017, they said they considered their arrests a threat, rather than an end to confrontation. China shows it recognizes the threat of social media by trying to monitor who is saying what on the internet and by demanding ID verification for posts. Beijing's leaders refused to allow Liu Xiaobo, a Nobel Peace Prize winning leader in Tiananmen Square, to leave China for treatment of liver cancer. In the West, unlike in China, they knew he would be able to share his poems about democracy in person and on social media.

     It should be mentioned that not only social media, but also travel and education connect the world's democracy advocates. In  Hong Kong, for example, the Penn Club is a network of the University of Pennsylvania's alumni, families, and friends. Students from Penn and the families that sent them there recognize the university's home in Philadelphia also is the location where the US Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were written to inspire the American Revolution. Recently, faculty visitors from the University of Pennsylvania conducted a Global Forum in Hong Kong that brought business and government leaders together with alumni to consider the key issues facing global business. Who knows what else these leaders could have discussed when they got together. Hong Kong protests that began in early June, 2019, aimed to eliminate the threat of transferring domestic criminals to the China mainland for trial. As demonstrations continued into August, both demands for democratic reforms and police intervention increased with no end in sight.

     In Russia, corruption by the select group that has benefited from the country's newly found oil and gas wealth motivates anti-government marches and rallies. Led by the blogger, Alexei Navalny, young protesters risked arrest to take to the streets throughout Russia in March and June, 2017. When Navalny was sentenced on a false charge in 2013, 10,000 protesters marched in Moscow to secure his early release. Russia's leaders can only imagine how many more protesters social media will bring out to welcome Alexei's younger brother, Oleg, when he finally is released from a false charge that sentenced him to a penal colony for three and a half years.

     For protection, in April, 2016, Vladimir Putin created a Russian National Guard loyal to him alone. By creating his private cadre of as many as 300,000 troops, however, Putin also created a prime target for infiltration by anyone out to do him harm. It is no wonder that, as head of the Guard, Viktor Zolotov, Putin's long-time personal bodyguard, is in a position to monitor those authorized to get close to Putin, and Putin is in a position to monitor Zolotov's activities. In September, 2018, whether from irritation or real fear, Zolotov challenged Alexei Navalny to a duel.

     But what will China's and Russia's students find when they go West for advanced educations in the United States and England? They'll meet President Obama's daughter at Harvard and Nobel-prize-winning Malala at Oxford. Students from Hong Kong, who attended the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, found they could sit on a bench next to a statue of Ben Franklin, and they probably ventured downtown to tour Independence Hall and to visit the Liberty Bell. Democracy stands ready to outlive the current leaders in China and Russia.

(Also, check out earlier posts: China's Manifest Destiny East, West, and South; Hong Kong Update, Remember Liu Xiaobo, Russia's Alternative to Putin, and 29 Countries Influence 7 Billion People.)

       

Remember Liu Xiaobo

Whenever we see China's Tiananmen Square in the news, we should remember Liu Xiaobo. China would like the world to see its economic progress, growing military strength in the Pacific, even its efforts to combat climate change. But those of us who hoped China's Communist Party would grant the reforms peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators requested in April, 1989, will never forget how, on June 3-4, 1989, tanks and soldiers poured into Tiananmen Square to crush their own people.

     Along with the 31 pro-democracy leaders who were tried and executed, Liu Xiaobo was under arrest for 28 years until he died of liver cancer in July, 2017. China prevented him from receiving his 2010 Nobel Peace Prize in person or leaving China for treatment of liver cancer in the West, but it will never be able to remove his name from the list of those who have received Nobel Peace Prizes for trying to make the world better for all of us.

China's Manifest Destiny East, West, North, and South

Mainland China is not about to let Hong Kong stand in the way of its "Manifest Destiny" to the East. Despite the terms of the 1984 Sino-British treaty that ended colonial rule and prepared Hong Kong to become a semi-autonomous region of China on July 1, 1997, the island is unlikely to remain unchanged for 50 years. In fact, free elections ended three years ago. On June 30, 2017, a spokesman for China's foreign ministry said the mainland is no longer bound by the 1984 treaty.

     On July 1, 2017, just before Hong Kong's annual march to commemorate the 1984 treaty, China's President Xi Jinping, on his first visit to the island, warned "Any attempt to endanger China's sovereignty and security, challenge the power of the central government...or use Hong Kong to carry out infiltration and sabotage activities against the mainland" is an "impermissible" way to cross a red line.

     Martin Lee,  who is known as Hong Kong's "father of democracy," observed money is all the Communist Party has. (Under Deng Xiaoping, China embraced striving for economic progress by the country and individuals.) It has no core values or principles of freedom, civil rights, or a rule of law.
He told the 60,000 or more pro-democracy protesters on July 1, "Even if our country will be the last in the entire world to reach that goal, we will still get there."

     Meanwhile, China will continue to pursue its eastward quest to dominate the South China Sea and maintain control over its so-called semi-autonomous regions: Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan.

     Activities involving India and Myanmar (Burma) also reveal China's interest in securing a strategic position in the West. Its Maritime Silk Road (road, bridge, and tunnel) project, estimated by the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) to cost at least $1.7 trillion per year through 2030, is designed to reconstruct the ancient Silk Road linking China to India. The hydroelectric dam China built on the Brahmaputra River gives Beijing control over the needed monsoon water that flows from Tibet through India and Bangladesh. And China's interest in securing access to the Bay of Bengal through Myanmar prevents Beijing from pressuring that country to severe its military ties to North Korea.

     As for China's quests in the North and South, see the posts, "China Stakes a New Arctic Claim," China's plans for its Polar Silk Road in "Santa Opens Arctic for Business,"  and "China Is Everywhere in Africa."