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Is it time to re-examine Section 43 of the Canadian Criminal Code?

This blog is about a politically and socially charged issue; but it is a topic that needs to be discussed and is one where we need to educate ourselves. I struggle with the many dichotomies in our societies today and am greatly challenged on how we have allowed ourselves to become “us-or-them” communities. Part of me wonders if somewhere or somehow there are deliberate forces pushing us to proudly chant “either you are with us or you are [against us]”. Yet nothing is so simple. I recognize that my desire for a solution, is to some degree based upon an absolute belief, but I choose to raise this issue because I believe we need to find a better way. I am an educator who lives through his beliefs and values and I fundementally believe that we need respectful discourse; we need rich, safe, and open conversations in order to help find better ways to solve the challenges we all face today.

There are so many significant issues in our society today that need attention in some way that it is little wonder we have trouble dealing with any of them in any meaningful or significant way. How deep do we choose to dig into any issue? How far below the surface do we really scrape and/or what type of an ADHD-type behaviour do we exhibit as we examine key issues affecting Canadian society; other than just grabbing at the flashy, socially-trending aspects of some of these issues? Is it possible that if we could move past our social need to politicize and/or emotionalize many of these issues we might just address a broader swath of social concerns? Just maybe, there are connections between and among various social issues and societal behaviours. If we only took the time to examine them in a broad and connected way we might have real social progress in our country.

To this end, Section 43 of the Criminal Code of Canada has been pushed and pulled in many directions for a number of years:. It simply states:

Correction of child by force

43– Every schoolteacher, parent or person standing in the place of a parent is justified in using force by way of correction toward a pupil or child, as the case may be, who is under his care, if the force does not exceed what is reasonable under the circumstances. (https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/section-43.html)

In other words, according to the Department of Justice:

The use of force to correct a child is only allowed to help the child learn and can never be used in anger.

The child must be between two years old and twelve years old.

The force used must be reasonable and its impact only “transitory and trifling”.

The person must not use an object, such as a ruler or belt, when applying the force.

The person must not hit or slap the child’s head.

The seriousness of what happened or what the child did is not relevant.

Using reasonable force to restrain a child may be acceptable in some circumstances.(https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/cj-jp/fv-vf/mcb-cce/index.html)

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Yes, there is great ambiguity in all of the above but I can’t bite my tongue any longer; “justified use of force” is a violent act against a child. What lesson does physical violence teach a child? Use of force by way of correction is violence. Raising a hand against another, is a violent act. Why have we, as a society, accepted the fact that violence against children (as defined above) is a perfectly acceptable means of education (to help the child learn). Yes, children learn – they learn that physical violence is an acceptable means of coercion: it is an acceptable means of forcing someone to do something against their will. Children learn that hitting is an acceptable means of exerting power over someone else, regardless of the supposed intent. The periphery language in the above is solely there to protect the perpetrator of this violence.

Why is it, that in our society: Hitting adults is called assault; Hitting animals is called cruelty; But Hitting children is defined as being “for their own good”? Oh dear, what a twisted world we have created. What are we teaching our children?

We spend so much time dealing with the effects of violence in our society yet we fail to ask where, psychologically, the roots of violent thinking comes from. Unfortunately, there are a number of different segments of our society who argue that Section 43 is necessary in support of their religious or parental rights; their right to discipline their children for whatever reason. This is a violent act regardless of how you choose to convince yourself otherwise. This cycle of violence must come to an end. How dare anyone use the excuse of love or any other supposed “valid” reason to hit and harm a child.

How can we ever hope to become a truly just society; an enlightened community of caring and loving peoples? Come on Canada, we have apologized for many apparent wrongs in our past and we are struggling very hard to understand our relationships with our indigenous peoples, the violence that has seeped into our communities, and the way we treat each other. Just maybe, many of our social ills and societal challenges have been, to some degree, fostered by our acceptance of a violent society at the beginning of life through the use of “justified force… to correct a child [in helping that] child learn”. We introduce our children to violence and then wonder why our society behaves the way it does.

There is only one solution – REPEAL Section 43

Canada is in some ways a hypocritical signatory of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in that Section 43 of the Criminal Code clearly contradicts articles 2, 37, and 39 with respect to punishment; although the Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children does cite some progress with respect to Canada. https://endcorporalpunishment.org/reports-on-every-state-and-territory/canada/

It is widely acknowledged that corporal punishment is a fundamental breach of children’s rights and respect for their human dignity as well as their physical and mental integrity — This breach of our children’s rights won’t go away if we ignore it nd it only serves to exacerbate a growing divide in our society.

There are many examples of enlightened societies and interested parties in the world today – Read and see how things can be better:

Our babies are our future – they must be loved and cherished, not taught violence in their formative years.

How do we grow and nurture loving and caring adults? The early years only happen once.

>> Other sources and resources (even some that have a very different perspective from mine).

There must NEVER be a reason, legal or otherwise, to harm a child

 

D-Day, technology and things we might today take for granted

This week much global attention is being paid to the 75th anniversary of D-Day and the invasion of Europe in 1944.

There is a fascinating 1945 movie titled “The True Glory” (https://youtu.be/9ifDqlRZh70). This is an official Anglo/American government documentary summarizing the events of World War 2 in the European portion of the war just as the war has ended. It is introduced by General Dwight Eisenhower, who, at this time was the Supreme Commander of the allied forces in Europe. He ends his introduction in a very veiled political way, speaking about the spirit of comradeship that worked to achieve the victory “among the free peoples of the united nations”. By today’s standards there are corny aspects of this film but it needs to be viewed, as best as possible through the lens of its intended audiences.

The video is a little over 1 hour and 20 minutes long and I found it quite fascinating and reasonably reflective of the events seen through the eyes of the 1945 winning side. Taking everything as much as possible into context and recognizing that this was produced in 1945 plus knowing that the impact of this 6-year war was still very raw and current for the audience at the time, I find much that might still resonate today. The music is overdone and the narration is very typical of the propagandist statements of the time, yet throughout the movie there are comments and reflections from service personnel, nurses, and other participants that help personalize this story and keep it relevant.

One part in particular really spoke to me regarding today’s world of technology and our understanding of technologies in both our daily and our academic lives. The narrator at this point in the film appears to be a US Army Officer and he says, ‘I will be happy to get back to the Library of Congress where maps have some permanent value’. An amazing statement given what we know of maps and mapping today but even more so, is that this officer goes on to talk about the allied advance being so fast that the troops are moving beyond the capabilities of the current maps they possess. The officer indicates that they would arrive at a place that was off the map and by the time new maps arrived, their new destinations were also off the maps. Apparently, they had to parachute tons of new maps to the different groups throughout Europe just to keep up.

What a way to run a war and yet when we examine our use and understanding of technology, particularly in education today – have we not moved so far and so fast that we too, at times, may be off the map? It is fascinating to see that 75 years ago we were struggling with the impact of the speed of change and the attempts to manage global chaos. The movie is an interesting snap-shot of an exhausted world attempting to view a global catastrophe through a lens that most could barely understand and/or appreciate. Technologies, in their use at that moment do not always meet the challenges of that particular moment. Although we wish for things as they were, then as today, solutions appear through the chaos and even when we get to return to the Library of Congress we quickly find the impermanence of things we hold dear.

Social Networking and Community Building – Redux

I have been cleaning up another blogging site I have had for a number of years and plan on shutting it down. I have captured and saved all of my content and the following is a blog post that I believe is as relevant today as it was when I first posted it…

I know I talk a lot about the process of knowledge creation and my belief that this is a social process; the coming together of individuals to build and share ideas, insights and understandings but earlier today it struck me that much of our world is really not a very social place. I think that culture and societal norms play an enormous part in this yet in the first world where we pride ourselves in our level of education and knowledge we have a long way to go to bridge the social gap.

It is a beautiful sunny spring day on the west-coast and I was running a few errands downtown and as I came out of an office building into the lovely sunshine I came across an older couple walking towards me holding hands. In a cheerful voice I wished them a good morning and was met with the coldest set of stares I have encountered in a long time. Not too far past them there was a middle aged gentleman coming towards me so I tried again and this time I got a grumpy “what’s your problem?” look. So I tried a third time as I came to the door of the parkade and thanked the person who held the door open for me but it was as though I should have just walked in and said nothing as it seemed that I was disrupting this person’s day by asking him to acknowledge me through my thank you. Now I am sure I may be challenged on these perceptions but I have always seen urban west-coast Canadians to be insular, aloof, and stand-offish. My granddaughter always asks me why I try to talk to everybody and I continually explain that it is a really important way to reach out and build a community. She tries, and she gets ignored or outright shunned and this makes me sad and upset.

I remember the first time my wife and I drove to Southern California over 30 years ago. It was a hot and sunny summer afternoon and we had been driving for about 6 or more hours and decided to stop in a tiny town off Interstate 5 in northern California. The AAA guidebook indicated that there was a suitable motel with a pool and as the temperature was in excess of 100 degrees Fahrenheit this seemed ideal. We stopped at a little strip mall and as we got out of our car a gentleman walked up to us, greeted us and welcomed us to his town (based upon the nature of the community and his clothing he may have been a farm worker). We were greeted this way by everyone we met. Later that afternoon we stopped a police officer to ask if he had any suggestions about a place to have dinner in town and he drove us to his recommended dining spot, got out, shook our hands and thanked us for stopping in his community. San Diego was our destination that summer and everywhere we went (small towns or large) we were greeted in a similar rich and embracing manner. We soon began to realize that it was rude not to say hello to people you passed on the street and almost everyone was willing to engage in a cheerful conversation. This was so novel but so very cool and when we got home we decided that we needed to try this public “hello” and “stranger talking” in our community. Well I remember that it was met with strange looks and curt rebuffs such that we just decided to stop putting ourselves out and being seen as social misfits.

I don’t get it. I didn’t get then and I still don’t get it. How can we build rich and informed communities if we won’t talk to each other? There are a million excuses and none of them hold any water. I try to get my students to engage each other and work collaboratively to learn and to work to sufficiently understand the processes involved in their learning such that the process of socialization becomes the norm and not some freak-show that happens once or twice in a class and then gets forgotten. I love spending time in Mexico because no matter where you walk everyone is so engaged and eager to talk and to be a part of an enriching experience. Yes it is part of their culture but why can’t we learn the value of this form of engagement? If my students came to me less insular and less “me – product” focussed then maybe their appreciation of the social experiment in my classes might be better understood and they might be more receptive to the process. Let’s get out and push the bounds of our public conversations a little more. Social networking is not a new phenomenon. Come for a walk with me someday and let’s meet people who could use a little socialization. Maybe, just maybe, we could warm the community up a little.

The writing, critiquing, and editing process

Providing critique or critically commenting on student work is part of my job. I know that some of my students understand the critical comments made on their work, address issues and move on, while others are either hurt or greatly challenged by comments and suggestions and shut down or just do not know how to learn and grow from the comments.

I do not teach in a publish or perish world but I am still encouraged to write and publish.

I still remember the very first article I submitted for publication years ago and when the peer reviews came back I was devastated. I was critiqued for all kinds of things, that at the time, I could not appreciate. I did not know what to do with the reviews or even how to understand them in connection with what I believed I was trying to convey in my article. My unfortunate fall-back position at the time was to do nothing and the article was never published even though the reviews all indicated that with a little bit of editing, my ideas had merit and were publishable. The real set-back for me with respect to this critical review process occurred a number of years after I submitted the article. I was working on my doctorate and it just so happened that the editor of the journal in question was one of my professors. He said something to the effect that he remembered my article and never understood why I had not edited it and resubmitted for publication because he remembered it as being a valuable contribution to the journal.

Being critiqued is still a personal challenge, but in my ever so plodding way I have written and published a number of articles and I have just recently been notified that an article I submitted some time ago will be published shortly. And yes, I had to push my ego aside and deal with peer review comments and edit the article to get it to this final stage.

This article is not published in an open access journal, as this was paper I presented at a conference some time ago and is published in the conference’s journal. I add this statement as my good friends in the open access world have always pushed for open access publication. I trust you are able to access this through one of your many library sources.

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Evolving Use of Technologically Supported Learning Environments: Re imagining Knowledge Creation in the Classroom.

Abstract

This article outlines how technologically mediated learning environments can offer an opportunity to reshape pedagogical models. Traditional learning processes place learners along a common and controlled starting point. We guide our students through avenues of selected materials and we assist and support them as they work towards predefined end points. Nowhere along this learning route are students offered opportunities to speak to or learn from students who took the course previously. We do not capture the conversations or challenges of students as they work through any given course and as a result, current and future students are not offered an opportunity to hear from and potentially engage with those who went before. This article challenges current models and suggests that one of the more powerful aspects of online learning communities is that we have the ability to capture and use the work of others to build different approaches to learning and knowledge creation.

Berry, S. C. (2019). Evolving use of technologically supported learning environments: Reimagining knowledge creation in the classroom. The International Journal of Technology, Knowledge, and Society, 15(1). doi:10.18848/1832-3669/CGP/v15i01/19-25.

It’s hard to rhyme when you have the time if you have hurt in your heart

Rhyme is joy, rhyme is fun, rhyme is lightness; sit quiet and feel the sun

It’s hard to rhyme when you have the time if you have hurt in your heart

It’s hard to rhyme when you have the time if distorted ink and desperate acts pull you apart

It’s hard to think about and a challenge to imagine the painful acts and the ugly ink that appear not from the heart

And it’s hard to think about and a challenge to imagine a forceful influence behind a curtain that places us all on a board to serve the pleasure of a few

The arrhythmic events, the footprints of ugly ink, and the distorted acts of pain and puppetry, veil our sight, become the troubled air we breathe, and unrecognizably shape the rhythm of our lives

So, what can we do?

Do we just turn away to fancifully imagine and find that rhyme, that joy, the light, the sun, believing our heart rhythm will return on its own?

Or must we face that ugly ink, in order to understand the distorted acts of terror, in order to alter the script, in order to rebuild the rhyme and reshape our true rhythm?

Really? Can we alter the script, can we bring back our rhythm?

Can we find the strength, the heart, and the light that is bright and strong enough to accomplish this task?

There is no other choice

Distorted ink has always been part of the landscape, painful acts of twisted terror have always existed in our gardens of life and the twisters and distorters have always roamed among us – yet as with all we see and breathe, we have to decide when we wish to stop allowing the distortion and stop allowing ourselves to be twisted to serve the purpose of others. We must decide to stand up and actively alter the script, change the landscape, and return meaning to our rhyme and our rhythm

This arrhythmic world has been decades in the making and it will be uncomfortable to unmake

The ugly ink and the twisted acts of terror will not disappear overnight but we need to change the agenda, alter the script, bring light to the garden

We need to rework the balance of the soil in our life-garden to support that which we know to be good and plant our spirited ideas using fresh and beautiful new ink. We need to come to understand how we have unwittingly been played and manipulated and retake control of the life-script in our planet garden

In the words of Stéphane Hessel, stand up and find your outrage, become indignant, get involved, and then share the dignity with all. Read the work of many, speak up, but discern carefully, believe, and know that we are all equal and we can share this small rock together if we choose. Ignorance and arrogance are the enemy.

Find your rhythm and with it, build a symphony

Ethics, Integrity, or does any of this matter…

I have always believed that my values define me. I believe that my moral compass is quite publicly visible. I believe that there is an ethical line that surrounds each of us and although we find that line very blurry at times, the line does exist. And yes, this all sounds so simple until it’s not.

Until today I have never yelled at a student or asked a student to leave my office – yes, until today.

I posted my grades and I know that students traditionally come knocking after the fact to see if their numeric grade could be bumped to the next alpha grade. From my perspective it is not a case of bumping grades rather it is a case of the grades speaking for the student and for the progress of that student throughout the semester.

A student asked me to alter their grade by in excess of 5%. Actually this conversation started last week and today was the culmination of at least 5 different petitions and along with these petitions came stronger and stronger pleadings for this grade change. I think the straw that broke my patience was the arrival of a friend who had a far more persuasive approach. And then it hit me what I needed to say and what I must do to put an end to this conversation; in the process, I got angry and I raised my voice.

I informed my company that they were asking me to violate my values, my principles, and my beliefs. What they were asking me to do was to throw away everything I believed in that provided a clear foundation for what made education in my college and my country valuable. I indicated that if I were to grant such a request as they were asking I might as well fold my teaching tent and walk away because from that point on, my integrity would be forever shattered. I indicated that they were asking me to disrespect a value-set that holds our system together and to throw away everything I believe in regarding the worth and value of our education system in order that they could be given something that was neither earned nor deserved. They were asking me to cease to offer value by bastardizing my principles.

I think that somewhere in my few words there might have been a pretty good rant of some nature. I was angry that I had to continue to indicate that the mark was not changing no matter what pleading or petitioning was happening and I was frustrated that it appeared that it had nothing to do with the student’s knowledge of the subject matter but it had everything to do with something beyond the bounds of an education. When I stopped to take a breath I was quickly assured that I must have misunderstood what was being asked of me. I took advantage of this diversion and asked my company to stand up and leave my office immediately – this they did.

I have spent much of my life trying to learn and to understand what life is about. Times like this cause me to question my values and my worth, but today I came to know a little more about the ethical line that defines my world.

Knowledge creation as a social process

It was a treat today to get an email from a friend congratulating me on my newly published article. The neat part was that although I knew it had been accepted for publication I did not know it had been published.

http://www.cjlt.ca/index.php/cjlt/article/view/1039

I think we all get lost in our work at times and things that were front and centre at some point may have moved to a different space in our life. This paper was submitted over a year and a half ago and although I spent time editing it after the first review I had not read it with intent since it was first written.

As I reread my paper today I found myself getting excited again with an old friend and it made me think of a small part of Gleick’s 2011 book titled The information: A history, a theory, a flood. In it he speaks of the impact of Babbage’s 19th century Difference Engine. He states that the engine “had to be forgotten before it was remembered”. Additionally he quotes historian Jenny Uglow where she writes that such failed inventions, contain “ideas that lie like yellowing blueprints in dark cupboards, to be stumbled on afresh by later generations.” (p. 123) This is a great description of much in our world and it really does speak to my belief that although our ideas may lie fallow we are forever connected to them and when the time is right and we have built appropriate supporting connections then something wonderful may surface. It may be time to pick up where my idea scaffolds left off. – anyone care to join me?

Gleick, J. (2011). The information: A history, a theory, a flood. Toronto ON: Pantheon Books.

The worth and value…

I teach, I hope that I educate, and in the process I continue to make grand assumptions about what students should and/or should not know beyond the confines of their subject area or chosen field. I believe that I support my students and offer them multiple opportunities to learn and participate and exercise their sense of understanding within the physical, virtual, and intellectual spaces provided. I do however get cranky towards the end of a semester when I am asked questions from students, the answers to which I believe they should know or at least know how to go about finding. Yet somehow I need to continue to find that small and compassionate part that stops me from really understanding that some students, no matter where they are in their life journey, really do not have any grasp of the basics. When I am asked the impact of a 10% assignment on a final grade when a student gets 5 out of 15 marks on an assignment – I should walk them through the process regardless of how many times I have explained this to the class as a whole. I should not judge the student for their lack of attention or attendance even though I do. I need to recognize that we will all develop a level of success in our life based, to some degree, upon the nature and/or nurture elements in our upbringing and although my few moments of frustration or compassion may or may not change a life, it just might show someone the worth and value of a teacher.

Humanity, Migration, and Shakespeare

I recognize that the larger conversation about what is best for any community currently takes place on a variety of the world’s stages however we need to somehow place these issues into the forefront of our greater consciousness given the state of global conflict, the resulting migration of people, and its impact on our communities. I am loathe to refer to our communities as fragile or otherwise as I believe any such fragility comes from the heart and soul of those currently part of the community. I do wonder however, whether community behaviour stems in part from an inability or possibly an unwillingness to find anything other than a cheap and simple solution that requires no real thought or engagement other than lazily agreeing with the loudest, most arrogant, and/or pushiest of voices.

From a global perspective we quite regularly find ourselves becoming involved in the conflicts and challenges of our neighbours. Wars and all conflicts rooted in some form of geopolitical, racial, religious, or hegemonic behaviours create many opportunities for the shifting of power, wealth, and the greater movement of people from one part of the globe to another. Those not being displaced or not directly involved in any of these disputes find themselves impacted in many unintended or unimagined ways. Although directly referring to the movement of people, the impact of this movement goes far beyond someone walking through a back pasture or setting up camp in a local park. The social and economic disruptions are so significant that this global movement and migration is permanently changing the landscape of communities across the globe.

Despite an apparent keen desire to perpetuate an era of willful blindness, our global inter-connectedness no longer permits such perversion despite its siren call and ignorant appeal. So what do we do? How do we react or respond to the result of such a massive disruption of societies and the subsequent movement of people?

The mass movement of people from one region to another is far from new and recently I became aware of a fascinating, unpublished, edited work of Shakespeare where he addresses this issue for his time and if we not only read and appreciate his words and then exam the long term effects of this mass migration then just possibly we could begin to see how we also might behave today.

Shakespeare had been commissioned to add to an existing play. Quoting from the following website http://www.bl.uk/collection-items/shakespeares-handwriting-in-the-book-of-sir-thomas-more

The play was authored collaboratively and is about the life of Henry VIII’s chancellor, Sir Thomas More. It was initially written by Anthony Munday between 1596 and 1601. Shakespeare was commissioned to add a 164 line scene to the middle of the play in which More courageously quells an anti-French race riot on the streets of London. The Lord Chancellor delivers a gripping speech to the aggressive mob, who are baying for so-called ‘strangers’ to be banished:

It is understood that Shakespeare added the following:

Grant them removed, and grant that this your noise
Hath chid down all the majesty of England;
Imagine that you see the wretched strangers,
Their babies at their backs and their poor luggage,
Plodding to the ports and coasts for transportation,
And that you sit as kings in your desires,
Authority quite silent by your brawl,
And you in ruff of your opinions clothed;
What had you got? I’ll tell you: you had taught
How insolence and strong hand should prevail,
How order should be quelled; and by this pattern
Not one of you should live an aged man,
For other ruffians, as their fancies wrought,
With self same hand, self reasons, and self right,
Would shark on you, and men like ravenous fishes
Would feed on one another….
Say now the king
Should so much come too short of your great trespass
As but to banish you, whether would you go?
What country, by the nature of your error,
Should give you harbour? go you to
France or Flanders,
To any German province, to Spain or Portugal,
Nay, any where that not adheres to England,
Why, you must needs be strangers: would you be pleased
To find a nation of such barbarous temper,
That, breaking out in hideous violence,
Would not afford you an abode on earth,
Whet their detested knives against your throats,
Spurn you like dogs, and like as if that God
Owed not nor made not you, nor that the claimants
Were not all appropriate to your comforts,
But chartered unto them, what would you think
To be thus used? This is the strangers case;
And this your mountainish inhumanity. 

As I read the above I realized that Shakespeare was speaking of my family, as they were French Huguenots fleeing persecution in their native France. My family settled in the Fen country of England and became successful farmers. Eventually parts of the family migrated to Canada, the US, and Australia.

What if England had refused them entry and sent them back to their persecutors? This is a similar story that plays out in the lives of millions upon millions of people all over the globe and apart from indigenous peoples, how did any of the rest of us ever make a success of our lives? Were we not welcomed? Were we not received in some form and supported as we made new and rich lives for ourselves and our families?

The Bard is still the finest – And this your mountainish inhumanity?

(The long quote above comes from http://theshakespeareblog.com/2015/09/shakespeare-sir-thomas-more-and-the-immigrants/)

Martha Gellhorn, an observation

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I love the breadcrumb trail the world of reading offers when we are open to it. I recently found myself wrapped up in a wonderful book titled The Hotel on Place Vendome by Tilar Mazzeo. The author writes about the world of the famous Ritz Hotel in Paris. She primarily focuses on the time period of the Second World War although she sets the stage by introducing us to Paris and the exciting world of the rich and famous starting at the turn of the last century when the Ritz was first opened.

Among the many characters we are introduced to in this book, I was taken by Mazzeo’s descriptions of the world of Martha Gellhorn and her challenges as woman correspondent and journalist during the second world war. This description can be found in chapter 16. Balancing the demands of those paying for her to write against an unknown world of horrors and excitement, not the least being that she was at the time the spurned wife of the great Ernest Hemingway. Yes, Hemingway appears to get first billing but Gellhorn is an amazing writer in her own right. The snippets presented in Mazzeo’s book caused me to dug deeper into the life and world of this author, global traveler and gutsy, articulate woman and I discovered a 60-plus year career of writing and traveling where she encountered war and the travails of ordinary people all over the globe. She found (or placed) herself in almost every conflict starting with the Spanish Civil War in the 1930’s right through to the early 1990’s when she wanted to go to the Balkan’s but realized her health and age prevented such an opportunity. I can imagine that at a certain point the lifestyle became the only thing worth living for.

Her writing is beautiful. She was known as a chronicler with a very in-your-face style of prose that must have been honed by years of seeing a reality that greatly challenged her belief and understanding of humanity. I have read some of her work and I have just begun a book titled The Face of War. She originally wrote the book in 1959 and edited and rewrote parts of it in 1986. A fascinating part of this book is the evolution of her thinking and her passion and compassion for the human race. She writes, in part, in her 1986 edition:

After a lifetime of war-watching, I see war as an endemic human disease, and the governments are the carriers. Only governments prepare, declare, and prosecute wars. There is no record of hordes of citizens, on their own, mobbing the seat of government to clamor for war. They must be infected with hate and fear before they catch war fever. They have to be taught that they are endangered by an enemy, and that the vital interests of their state are threatened. The vital interests of the state, which are always about power, have nothing to do with the vitals interests of the citizens, which are private and simple and are always about a better life for themselves and their children. You do not kill for such interests, you work for them.

Our amazing species is programmed from childhood in my-country-right-or-wrong patriotism. It is a nonsense phrase, despite its compelling power. Invoked for the purpose of rallying citizens to war, the correct phrase should be my-government-right-or-wrong. I always liked Tolstoi’s crusty remark that “governments are a collection of men who do violence to the rest of us”.

At this point in history (1986/87) the USSR had yet to fall apart and the ensuing changes to the world order had not been imagined but if we augment Gellhorn’s nuclear fears with other forms of terror and global disruption her message could be much the same today, just add more zeros to all of the figures quoted.

It is now almost thirty years beyond the final date in this book of wars and what have we learned? My age and my generation want to believe it is never too late to hear, to learn, and subsequently do something to move away from a perennial world of wars big or small. I wonder, however whether our world of one-percenters’ has developed a too powerful sway in the overall global decision processes. I continually attempt to encourage my students to see and know the power each of them possesses especially if and when they work together. Sadly many are overly focused on the here and now of bill paying and future life planning to be able to appreciate the connection.

The Martha Gellhorns of the world are few and far between. I wonder if despite the continual adventure and driving force her life must have been whether she was also very lonely. Maybe what we all see and benefit through her writing was her life’s mission. I am beginning to see a richness of layers in her writing and believe that there may be much value in her prescient observations today and tomorrow. To be continued…