Karla ‘‘Feather’’ Chicharello: There’s Still Hope
Jessie Andrew Cyrus
Karla Chicharello: There’s Still Hope
My grandma, Feather or English name Karla Chicharello, is a woman who has the wrinkles of abundant laugh lines and tender smiles. Her long flowing hair and hopeful eyes show how strongly she feels for her culture. She is barely tall enough to reach the top of the fridge and she looks as if she is twenty years younger than she actually is. “Is that your mom?” is a frequent question asked when I am with her. “You’re only as old as you feel.” She conveys this by listening to any type of music, playing video games, and living life with no regrets. “I refer to myself as crazy while everyone else is normal,” she says, showing herself as a unique woman. She does have a responsible side, always getting the task done promptly and believing if it is not done right it needs to be done till it is correct. Her organization is flawless so she knows and is prepared for things in advance. She gave me her car which had a “little car bible” with every little thing that had been done to it in chronological order. A mini Carfax is the best way to describe her, except with everything, because she wants to have all the facts down.
She cares immensely for anyone in her life. There was one time when she and I had to travel to Virginia. She made it urgent, telling me “This has to be done no exceptions and you are coming with me.” I couldn’t tell her “no,” so we went. We drove 36 hours to Virginia from Salt Lake City. The “this had to be done” was just checking up on a family member who was having a rough time. She felt that if she came in person bestowing a gift that she made it would be a lot more meaningful than if she sent it. I was frustrated with her at the time, but now I realize she just had a caring heart. The gift she made was a beaded artwork that she learned how to make from her preceding ancestors. She crafts gifts for those that have made an impact in her life. She tells me, “I will not accept payment for what I make; all I want is to show my gratitude for the things they’ve done in my life.” Unfortunately the craft making and cultural aspects didn’t come easy. The Seminole War, a century before, had decimated her culture. Without a full opportunity to live the life of her culture she did her best to preserve it, making it a point to pass her culture down to future generations. In order to do this she had to be very persistent, travelling back to her reservation, which is located in the barren wasteland of Oklahoma, a place that was meant to end the Native American’s existence.
Feather had to learn all of her knowledge about her culture from her grandma. Her grandma, the leader of the Bear Clan which we are part of, had to keep the culture alive. My grandma told me, “the early stages of a child’s life, maybe even before they are born, there is a destiny set out for them.” Choosing their destiny started from my grandma’s grandma and has continued since then. The process begins with a major decision that will affect the rest of their lives. My grandma called it “success in the white man’s way or the red man’s way.”
The “red man’s way” is taking on the cultural life, and living the way our ancestors wanted us to. This means being raised by all the Elders, and spoken to only in Seminole. Trading and making crafts was a big necessity in the Indian way of life. My grandma explained, “Most of the people who had been raised this way had little to no money, and made their way of life by trading.” A skill had to be mastered, so they could make something worth trade value and be able to sustain life. Immersing themselves in the culture would result in a very slim chance of being educated by the white man. To maintain their cultural beliefs they had to give up their cognitive abilities (white man’s intelligence). She explained, “The sacrifice was giving up a white man’s view of a great life, and living one that satisfied the beliefs of the Native people.”
To maintain cognitive intelligence, white man’s intelligence, the red man would have to live the way of the white man. She said, “Indians were instantly taken away from our reservation, and moved to the city where they were taught skills that would apply in life.” They would be forced to give up their cultural values, starting with the language. She unfortunately can’t speak the language explaining that “If not spoken to on a daily basis it is almost impossible to maintain the Seminole language, which is why I can’t speak it.” She continued “Our Native Language was stopped whenever possible, and wasn’t acceptable during the early years of the civil rights movement.” America was just warming up to treating people equally, and there was only one option for language, English. Whether this was at home or in school, it was the only language acceptable in society. Reservations were the designated place for the indigenous people’s culture and language. My grandma, with determination and effort, preserved the tradition and culture that had been passed down from generation to generation.
She chose to do both by going back to Oklahoma every month for a week or two to stay with her grandma. Grandma explained, “My grandma taught me the ways of our people while telling me to maintain knowledge of the white man’s way.” Feather was told that if she did both, “her life would be an example to future generations.” If she gave up, she would succumb to a life where people controlled who she was and told her what to do. My grandma was one of the first people in our tribe to do both. Choices were always made for the children by the elders, which was one path or the other, except for my grandma -- because she chose both.
The government was not helping the effort in preserving her culture; they were hindering it, making it almost impossible to flourish with both. My grandma was forced to learn English, and felt like “I was a piece of crap for being Indian.” She was belittled in every sense of the word. She would go to public schools, and people would bring her down for being Native. She told me “I was alienated from friends and no one liked me.” It was a law that the natives could not do anything with their culture unless they were in their reservations, and even then it was frowned upon. Through all of the struggles, her grandma told her to persevere and it would all be worth it.
Feather continued her path, going to a private school for Indians, where she learned about her culture while getting educated at the same time. She had always gone back to Oklahoma to visit her grandma because she taught her everything that she knew. Every time her grandma reassured her she said “Feather everything will be worth it in the end,” and her grandma took that to her grave. My grandma made it her vow to pass on these traditions to her grandchildren since it was the same way she was taught. Parents were seen as unable to teach the culture because they would be too focused on the child’s success. My clan began to have the grandparents teach the children since it proved so effective for my grandma.
In my family I was the only grandchild, so I had the experience of being taught all the traditions. My grandma made it clear that “your success in school comes first, and if you don’t succeed there I will not teach you our ways.” She passed down the dedication and willingness of preserving our culture to me. She made it a point that I love the culture and it is not forced upon me, like people in our tribe before me. She never made me do anything, but opened the doors to that way of life. Her dedication has lit the fire for our tribe, which has led other members of our tribe to follow in Feather’s and her grandma’s footsteps. Now, Grandkids all over are learning about the culture from their grandparents while getting a good education
My grandma, Feather or English name Karla Chicharello, is a woman who has the wrinkles of abundant laugh lines and tender smiles. Her long flowing hair and hopeful eyes show how strongly she feels for her culture. She is barely tall enough to reach the top of the fridge and she looks as if she is twenty years younger than she actually is. “Is that your mom?” is a frequent question asked when I am with her. “You’re only as old as you feel.” She conveys this by listening to any type of music, playing video games, and living life with no regrets. “I refer to myself as crazy while everyone else is normal,” she says, showing herself as a unique woman. She does have a responsible side, always getting the task done promptly and believing if it is not done right it needs to be done till it is correct. Her organization is flawless so she knows and is prepared for things in advance. She gave me her car which had a “little car bible” with every little thing that had been done to it in chronological order. A mini Carfax is the best way to describe her, except with everything, because she wants to have all the facts down.
She cares immensely for anyone in her life. There was one time when she and I had to travel to Virginia. She made it urgent, telling me “This has to be done no exceptions and you are coming with me.” I couldn’t tell her “no,” so we went. We drove 36 hours to Virginia from Salt Lake City. The “this had to be done” was just checking up on a family member who was having a rough time. She felt that if she came in person bestowing a gift that she made it would be a lot more meaningful than if she sent it. I was frustrated with her at the time, but now I realize she just had a caring heart. The gift she made was a beaded artwork that she learned how to make from her preceding ancestors. She crafts gifts for those that have made an impact in her life. She tells me, “I will not accept payment for what I make; all I want is to show my gratitude for the things they’ve done in my life.” Unfortunately the craft making and cultural aspects didn’t come easy. The Seminole War, a century before, had decimated her culture. Without a full opportunity to live the life of her culture she did her best to preserve it, making it a point to pass her culture down to future generations. In order to do this she had to be very persistent, travelling back to her reservation, which is located in the barren wasteland of Oklahoma, a place that was meant to end the Native American’s existence.
Feather had to learn all of her knowledge about her culture from her grandma. Her grandma, the leader of the Bear Clan which we are part of, had to keep the culture alive. My grandma told me, “the early stages of a child’s life, maybe even before they are born, there is a destiny set out for them.” Choosing their destiny started from my grandma’s grandma and has continued since then. The process begins with a major decision that will affect the rest of their lives. My grandma called it “success in the white man’s way or the red man’s way.”
The “red man’s way” is taking on the cultural life, and living the way our ancestors wanted us to. This means being raised by all the Elders, and spoken to only in Seminole. Trading and making crafts was a big necessity in the Indian way of life. My grandma explained, “Most of the people who had been raised this way had little to no money, and made their way of life by trading.” A skill had to be mastered, so they could make something worth trade value and be able to sustain life. Immersing themselves in the culture would result in a very slim chance of being educated by the white man. To maintain their cultural beliefs they had to give up their cognitive abilities (white man’s intelligence). She explained, “The sacrifice was giving up a white man’s view of a great life, and living one that satisfied the beliefs of the Native people.”
To maintain cognitive intelligence, white man’s intelligence, the red man would have to live the way of the white man. She said, “Indians were instantly taken away from our reservation, and moved to the city where they were taught skills that would apply in life.” They would be forced to give up their cultural values, starting with the language. She unfortunately can’t speak the language explaining that “If not spoken to on a daily basis it is almost impossible to maintain the Seminole language, which is why I can’t speak it.” She continued “Our Native Language was stopped whenever possible, and wasn’t acceptable during the early years of the civil rights movement.” America was just warming up to treating people equally, and there was only one option for language, English. Whether this was at home or in school, it was the only language acceptable in society. Reservations were the designated place for the indigenous people’s culture and language. My grandma, with determination and effort, preserved the tradition and culture that had been passed down from generation to generation.
She chose to do both by going back to Oklahoma every month for a week or two to stay with her grandma. Grandma explained, “My grandma taught me the ways of our people while telling me to maintain knowledge of the white man’s way.” Feather was told that if she did both, “her life would be an example to future generations.” If she gave up, she would succumb to a life where people controlled who she was and told her what to do. My grandma was one of the first people in our tribe to do both. Choices were always made for the children by the elders, which was one path or the other, except for my grandma -- because she chose both.
The government was not helping the effort in preserving her culture; they were hindering it, making it almost impossible to flourish with both. My grandma was forced to learn English, and felt like “I was a piece of crap for being Indian.” She was belittled in every sense of the word. She would go to public schools, and people would bring her down for being Native. She told me “I was alienated from friends and no one liked me.” It was a law that the natives could not do anything with their culture unless they were in their reservations, and even then it was frowned upon. Through all of the struggles, her grandma told her to persevere and it would all be worth it.
Feather continued her path, going to a private school for Indians, where she learned about her culture while getting educated at the same time. She had always gone back to Oklahoma to visit her grandma because she taught her everything that she knew. Every time her grandma reassured her she said “Feather everything will be worth it in the end,” and her grandma took that to her grave. My grandma made it her vow to pass on these traditions to her grandchildren since it was the same way she was taught. Parents were seen as unable to teach the culture because they would be too focused on the child’s success. My clan began to have the grandparents teach the children since it proved so effective for my grandma.
In my family I was the only grandchild, so I had the experience of being taught all the traditions. My grandma made it clear that “your success in school comes first, and if you don’t succeed there I will not teach you our ways.” She passed down the dedication and willingness of preserving our culture to me. She made it a point that I love the culture and it is not forced upon me, like people in our tribe before me. She never made me do anything, but opened the doors to that way of life. Her dedication has lit the fire for our tribe, which has led other members of our tribe to follow in Feather’s and her grandma’s footsteps. Now, Grandkids all over are learning about the culture from their grandparents while getting a good education
Ivan Mazepa
Lyudmyla Polishchuk
Why is Ivan Mazepa a national Ukrainian hero and I, a Ukrainian, never knew about him growing up? Why has Ukraine defined him as a national hero only from 1991? Why in USA, Canada, and Australia are there cities, streets, and schools named with Mazepa`s name? The only monuments in existence were opened after Ukraine got independence from the USSR in 1991. Even now when I read history in Russian versus Ukrainian history it is different. Only right now, after Ukraine declared independence and we can freely talk our own language, have we uncovered a true history about Ivan Mazepa.
Ivan Mazepa was born in the noble Mazepa`s family. His father was awarded a title from Polish king Sigismund. He received an education in Kiev Mogila Academy, and then he continued his education in Holland, Germany, and France with Polish King Jan Kazimir’s sponsorship. He knew seven languages, read a lot and owned a great library that consisted of books in many different languages. Ivan Mazepa was a very good politician, diplomat, and a businessman; he could impress other people with his orator abilities. This impressed Russian politicians Gallitzin and Matveev and he was very welcome at Russian queen Sofia’s palaces. Gallitzin helped Mazepa to be elected as left-bank Hetman, a Ukrainian state leader, in July 1687.
When in 1689, young and ambitious Peter the Great became Russian tsar, Ivan Mazepa used his charming gift to become close to him. Mazepa helped Peter the Great with his battles against Turkey and the Tatars, which led to conquering Azov in 1696. He also helped with territorial negotiations with the Polish Empire. At the same time Mazepa didn’t forget about Ukraine. He helped the culture, science, literature, education progress and development. He invested his own money in universities and built a lot of churches. During Mazepa’s time, Ukraine was not threatened by powerful neighbors. He was making the right diplomacy with them to avoid any military conflicts.
***
I am my husband was walking one day and I saw Ivan Mazepa’s monument, that was the first time I asked my husband about Mazepa. My husband is a Ukrainian patriot and he likes the Ukrainian language. That is why Mazepa is a hero for him because they both are patriots of their country. The Russian political game throughout history always looked very extreme and brutal, as we can see from many examples. If Russians would not execute nonmilitary Ukrainian population and let dead bodies float in the river, people would not be scared. “I am not 100% convinced that Ukraine would gain independence after that, but at least they would have earned more autonomy then they got with Russia. It is very much clear that Russian tsar was slowly removing Ukrainian political and military independence” my husband said. It is for sure that Mazepa made the right move to ally with Sweden in the Northern war because Russia soon dismissed Ukrainian independence as a political subject anyway. Maybe a little slower then it happened after defeat in the Northern war, but it was sure to happen in the future. Mazepa knew that fact and he tried to avoid it, but he failed
***
At the beginning of the XVIII century relations became tense between Mazepa and the Russian tsar. In 1700, The Northern War began, and Russia required the Ukrainian army to battle at the Baltic shores, which is very far from Ukraine. The Northern war was between the Russian tsar, Peter the Great and the Swedish king, Karl Gustav XII, who was great in strategy but not a very good politician. Ukraine had to send an army to this war where it lost 50 percent to 70 percent of its men in all. Together with this, the Russian tsar assigned German or Russian officers who were disrespectful to Ukrainians. Last but not least, Ukrainian standard enemies, Turks and the Tatars, attacked Ukraine and it could not defend itself because the army was away from the Ukrainian borders.
Those problems pushed Mazepa to write a letter to the Russian tsar, who instead of solving the problems decided to replace Mazepa with somebody from Moscow. Poland was an ally with Sweden in this war and Polish King Stanislaw Leshchinskiy showed an interest in the Ukrainian occupation. Mazepa asked Peter the Great to help against the Polish invasion. Peter answered, “I cannot get you even ten soldiers. Defend yourself. It is your problem.”
***
Mazepa knew that union with Russia is no longer beneficial for Ukraine, but due to his previous connections with Peter the Great many Ukrainians thought that Mazepa is acting in a favor of Russia and Russian tzar in particular. Especially the Cossacks from Zaporizzya Sich originally didn’t support him. Nobody knew that all the time in his mind Mazepa actually plan his strategy in favor of his country and his people. What in this moment did Mazepa feel? The Ukrainian Hetman who lost support of the Ukrainian people and wanted with his service to get an independence of Ukraine? Russia betrayed the Perereyalsav Treaty first and lost all support from the Hetman. After that Mazepa decided to change his side and join the Swedish army. In 1708, he signed an agreement that Sweden would leave Ukraine an independent country and help Ukraine remain independent after the war.
Sweden lost this war at the Poltava battle which led to Ukraine losing independence to Russia and the demolition of Zaporizzya Sich, the Ukrainian region of the Cossacks, the Ukrainian independent army.
***
When I grew up I thought of Mazepa as a traitor because I learned history and facts from a Soviet school which had a pro-Russian education. Of course, Mazepa is not a hero for them. After proclamation for the independence of Ukraine I learned that Mazepa is actually a Ukrainian hero, because he was fighting for our independence. I learned that he ruined his career being promoted by the Russian Empire, which he took as he thought for the better side of Ukraine, losing everything. This can be done by a real hero who can risk the favor of his nation. I am quite excited to learn this truth because I knew that Ukraine had some true leaders that were trying to get the best for their country. I personally think that all presidents and country leaders must only pursue the way in which people should gain political and economical benefits from their presidency. Very sadly it is not happening in every presidential case. In some cases country leaders are abusing leadership in a very primitive way, the way of gaining power and money. I think that the country leader when he or she accepted or elected for leadership position is not belonging to himself or herself, but they belong to the country and their citizens and should act and think in a favor of the nation. This example was shown by Ivan Mazepa one of the greatest leaders of Ukraine. He was a true example of the nation leadership who never act in a personal favor but only in a favor of Ukraine as a nation.
History can be updated or rewritten, because there are always new facts about the past that can be discovered. Hiding true history facts and lying about them is unacceptable because knowing history helps us to avoid repeating our mistakes.
Ivan Mazepa was born in the noble Mazepa`s family. His father was awarded a title from Polish king Sigismund. He received an education in Kiev Mogila Academy, and then he continued his education in Holland, Germany, and France with Polish King Jan Kazimir’s sponsorship. He knew seven languages, read a lot and owned a great library that consisted of books in many different languages. Ivan Mazepa was a very good politician, diplomat, and a businessman; he could impress other people with his orator abilities. This impressed Russian politicians Gallitzin and Matveev and he was very welcome at Russian queen Sofia’s palaces. Gallitzin helped Mazepa to be elected as left-bank Hetman, a Ukrainian state leader, in July 1687.
When in 1689, young and ambitious Peter the Great became Russian tsar, Ivan Mazepa used his charming gift to become close to him. Mazepa helped Peter the Great with his battles against Turkey and the Tatars, which led to conquering Azov in 1696. He also helped with territorial negotiations with the Polish Empire. At the same time Mazepa didn’t forget about Ukraine. He helped the culture, science, literature, education progress and development. He invested his own money in universities and built a lot of churches. During Mazepa’s time, Ukraine was not threatened by powerful neighbors. He was making the right diplomacy with them to avoid any military conflicts.
***
I am my husband was walking one day and I saw Ivan Mazepa’s monument, that was the first time I asked my husband about Mazepa. My husband is a Ukrainian patriot and he likes the Ukrainian language. That is why Mazepa is a hero for him because they both are patriots of their country. The Russian political game throughout history always looked very extreme and brutal, as we can see from many examples. If Russians would not execute nonmilitary Ukrainian population and let dead bodies float in the river, people would not be scared. “I am not 100% convinced that Ukraine would gain independence after that, but at least they would have earned more autonomy then they got with Russia. It is very much clear that Russian tsar was slowly removing Ukrainian political and military independence” my husband said. It is for sure that Mazepa made the right move to ally with Sweden in the Northern war because Russia soon dismissed Ukrainian independence as a political subject anyway. Maybe a little slower then it happened after defeat in the Northern war, but it was sure to happen in the future. Mazepa knew that fact and he tried to avoid it, but he failed
***
At the beginning of the XVIII century relations became tense between Mazepa and the Russian tsar. In 1700, The Northern War began, and Russia required the Ukrainian army to battle at the Baltic shores, which is very far from Ukraine. The Northern war was between the Russian tsar, Peter the Great and the Swedish king, Karl Gustav XII, who was great in strategy but not a very good politician. Ukraine had to send an army to this war where it lost 50 percent to 70 percent of its men in all. Together with this, the Russian tsar assigned German or Russian officers who were disrespectful to Ukrainians. Last but not least, Ukrainian standard enemies, Turks and the Tatars, attacked Ukraine and it could not defend itself because the army was away from the Ukrainian borders.
Those problems pushed Mazepa to write a letter to the Russian tsar, who instead of solving the problems decided to replace Mazepa with somebody from Moscow. Poland was an ally with Sweden in this war and Polish King Stanislaw Leshchinskiy showed an interest in the Ukrainian occupation. Mazepa asked Peter the Great to help against the Polish invasion. Peter answered, “I cannot get you even ten soldiers. Defend yourself. It is your problem.”
***
Mazepa knew that union with Russia is no longer beneficial for Ukraine, but due to his previous connections with Peter the Great many Ukrainians thought that Mazepa is acting in a favor of Russia and Russian tzar in particular. Especially the Cossacks from Zaporizzya Sich originally didn’t support him. Nobody knew that all the time in his mind Mazepa actually plan his strategy in favor of his country and his people. What in this moment did Mazepa feel? The Ukrainian Hetman who lost support of the Ukrainian people and wanted with his service to get an independence of Ukraine? Russia betrayed the Perereyalsav Treaty first and lost all support from the Hetman. After that Mazepa decided to change his side and join the Swedish army. In 1708, he signed an agreement that Sweden would leave Ukraine an independent country and help Ukraine remain independent after the war.
Sweden lost this war at the Poltava battle which led to Ukraine losing independence to Russia and the demolition of Zaporizzya Sich, the Ukrainian region of the Cossacks, the Ukrainian independent army.
***
When I grew up I thought of Mazepa as a traitor because I learned history and facts from a Soviet school which had a pro-Russian education. Of course, Mazepa is not a hero for them. After proclamation for the independence of Ukraine I learned that Mazepa is actually a Ukrainian hero, because he was fighting for our independence. I learned that he ruined his career being promoted by the Russian Empire, which he took as he thought for the better side of Ukraine, losing everything. This can be done by a real hero who can risk the favor of his nation. I am quite excited to learn this truth because I knew that Ukraine had some true leaders that were trying to get the best for their country. I personally think that all presidents and country leaders must only pursue the way in which people should gain political and economical benefits from their presidency. Very sadly it is not happening in every presidential case. In some cases country leaders are abusing leadership in a very primitive way, the way of gaining power and money. I think that the country leader when he or she accepted or elected for leadership position is not belonging to himself or herself, but they belong to the country and their citizens and should act and think in a favor of the nation. This example was shown by Ivan Mazepa one of the greatest leaders of Ukraine. He was a true example of the nation leadership who never act in a personal favor but only in a favor of Ukraine as a nation.
History can be updated or rewritten, because there are always new facts about the past that can be discovered. Hiding true history facts and lying about them is unacceptable because knowing history helps us to avoid repeating our mistakes.
Paul Rosesabagina: The Good Samaritan
Simon RIchards
The Good Samaritan is an old story from the bible. The story talks about a Jew who is attacked, beaten, robbed and left for dead on a lonely road. While he lies there dying, several prominent members of society pass him by without lending a hand until an unlikely person stops to help him, a Samaritan. Samaritans were hated by the Jews for being “heathens,” but that didn’t stop this man from helping someone he saw in need and saving his life. Paul Rosesabagina is someone who is seen by many as the Good Samaritan of his time for his actions during the Rwandan genocide of 1994.
Paul Rosesabagina was born July 15, 1954. He was a middle child of eight and his parents were of two different tribes – his father was a Hutu, which made up the majority of the population of Rwanda, and his mother was a Tutsi, which was a smaller percentage of the population but comprised of the majority of the ruling party. Intermarrying was common in the country at this time. Rosesabagina’s original goal in life was to become a pastor and to have his own ministry. While studying at a Seventh Day Adventist church, he fell in love with the pastor’s daughter, Esther, whom he later married. Several years and two children later, Paul and his wife decided to move to Kigali, the capitol of Rwanda, where he was seeking better opportunities for work. Paul’s friend convinced him to take a job working in the Milles Collines, a prominent luxury hotel, where he quickly discovered that he had a knack for running a hotel. He went to school to improve his abilities in the field (myhero.com).
Paul’s work and studies kept him and his wife apart so often that they eventually separated and a few years later he married his current wife, Odette, a Tutsi whom he hid and protected during the 100 day genocide. On April 6, 1994 genocide broke out across Rwanda after the president’s plane was shot down. The Hutu extremist leaders armed militias with machetes and sent them out to kill every Tutsi they could find, in an attempt to wipe out the entire group of people. Hundreds of thousands of Tutsi and Tutsi supporters were slaughtered during this time. Many people fled the country but for many others this was not an option.
After working at the Milles Collines hotel for several years, Paul was given the opportunity to manage the Diplomate Hotel, the sister hotel to the Milles Collines (myhero.com). Here in the Diplomate is where more than 1200 people’s lives were saved. Paul used every trick and resource he had to keep the people hiding in his hotel safe. When militia men or soldiers came to the hotel he would sometimes offer them money and alcohol, which he kept a large supply of. These tactics worked in keeping the people safe. Several prominent members of the extremist Hutu group had Tutsi family that they wanted to keep safe so they sent them to the hotel believing that it was the safest place for them; this gave them good reason to leave the hotel alone, providing Paul with a better ability to protect his guests (Spalding, 34). Of the more than 1200 people who were at the hotel not one was killed during the 100 days.
Paul has been hailed as a hero and received many different awards for his efforts in keeping those people safe and has even written a book called “An Ordinary Man” recounting his life and the things he and others went through during the genocide. This man was a modern day Good Samaritan. He used the abilities and the power that he had to save the lives of many people who without his help could have been killed in the most heinous ways imaginable and for this he has asked for no praise or thanks just that people be aware of what has happened and that we fight to make sure that these crimes against humanity never happen again.
Paul Rosesabagina was born July 15, 1954. He was a middle child of eight and his parents were of two different tribes – his father was a Hutu, which made up the majority of the population of Rwanda, and his mother was a Tutsi, which was a smaller percentage of the population but comprised of the majority of the ruling party. Intermarrying was common in the country at this time. Rosesabagina’s original goal in life was to become a pastor and to have his own ministry. While studying at a Seventh Day Adventist church, he fell in love with the pastor’s daughter, Esther, whom he later married. Several years and two children later, Paul and his wife decided to move to Kigali, the capitol of Rwanda, where he was seeking better opportunities for work. Paul’s friend convinced him to take a job working in the Milles Collines, a prominent luxury hotel, where he quickly discovered that he had a knack for running a hotel. He went to school to improve his abilities in the field (myhero.com).
Paul’s work and studies kept him and his wife apart so often that they eventually separated and a few years later he married his current wife, Odette, a Tutsi whom he hid and protected during the 100 day genocide. On April 6, 1994 genocide broke out across Rwanda after the president’s plane was shot down. The Hutu extremist leaders armed militias with machetes and sent them out to kill every Tutsi they could find, in an attempt to wipe out the entire group of people. Hundreds of thousands of Tutsi and Tutsi supporters were slaughtered during this time. Many people fled the country but for many others this was not an option.
After working at the Milles Collines hotel for several years, Paul was given the opportunity to manage the Diplomate Hotel, the sister hotel to the Milles Collines (myhero.com). Here in the Diplomate is where more than 1200 people’s lives were saved. Paul used every trick and resource he had to keep the people hiding in his hotel safe. When militia men or soldiers came to the hotel he would sometimes offer them money and alcohol, which he kept a large supply of. These tactics worked in keeping the people safe. Several prominent members of the extremist Hutu group had Tutsi family that they wanted to keep safe so they sent them to the hotel believing that it was the safest place for them; this gave them good reason to leave the hotel alone, providing Paul with a better ability to protect his guests (Spalding, 34). Of the more than 1200 people who were at the hotel not one was killed during the 100 days.
Paul has been hailed as a hero and received many different awards for his efforts in keeping those people safe and has even written a book called “An Ordinary Man” recounting his life and the things he and others went through during the genocide. This man was a modern day Good Samaritan. He used the abilities and the power that he had to save the lives of many people who without his help could have been killed in the most heinous ways imaginable and for this he has asked for no praise or thanks just that people be aware of what has happened and that we fight to make sure that these crimes against humanity never happen again.
Riyadh Al Dulaimi
Noor Al Duaimi
The war on Iraq changed my father. My father, like any man, had dreams; even though his family was middle class, that did not stop him from receiving the education that he dreamed of. His father was a lawyer, but back then in Iraq a lawyer did not earn a lot of money. He was born in a place called Karbala and then when he was in first grade they moved to Baghdad. His father could not buy a house, so they first rented and after a while they built a house of their own. When he was young, he fantasized about going to a good university, and graduating with the highest grade in all of his classes. When he graduated from high school, he was like a bird that finally got to spread his wings and fly. He did well at school, but his teachers did not like him. “They did not like me because I was an over achiever. That made me happy, because the more they hated me the more I knew that I was doing a great job.” He laughed.
He was accepted to the University of Baghdad as a civil engineer. As he had always dreamed, he graduated the first in his class. Then he met a beautiful woman at his work place, and got married. My mom said that she saw him on the first day that she was hired, and she liked him because he was very handsome. After his marriage, he decided to work towards getting his doctorate degree in civil engineering. He was great at what he did; full of energy, and loved to read books and learn. Sometimes I would go inside his office, and I would see papers on the floor everywhere. He loved his mess, and I do not know how, but he managed to find what he wanted in the middle of his mess in less than two seconds. He did not like my mom to organize his mess. I remember that they would argue for hours only because my mom cleaned his office. Then with time my mom gave up and stopped cleaning his office; after that he started to clean it to make my mom happy. Papers would be on the floor surrounding his office chair, he would be wearing his reading glasses and focusing on a complicated physics problem. When you looked at the way he focused you would figure that he would not even notice you coming in his office. I used to think that he could not hear anybody when he was concentrating on his work, but then I realized that he would listen only when he wanted to.
Sometimes I would be sitting next to him and he would kick a chair with his legs and then tell me to watch him write the equation of motion for the chair. He loved to teach me things, and I enjoyed it too, except for when I would have homework or a test. If I did listen, then it would mean that I would not study. It was almost impossible to find a space in between what he said to tell him that I had things to do. He loved to teach, and one of his dreams was to teach at the University of Baghdad. He eventually became a professor there, and he also worked in the engineering department as the head of engineers who were in charge of building and designing Saddam Hussein’s palaces.
My father, like any man, had dreams. He wanted to be a professor, and he did become one, but he only tasted the fruit of his success for a year. The year after he was hired at the University of Baghdad the United States invaded Iraq. Baghdad fell, and suddenly every doctor, engineer, and scientist got into their army uniforms and fought for their country. With war came destruction, death, and vengeance. My father lost his dream job, and at the same time he lost his country.
He was worried about how he would sustain the needs of his family since he lost his job, so he started working with U.S. companies to rebuild Iraq. When he started working for the U.S. companies in Iraq, the Iraqi resistance considered him a traitor. To them, he was helping the enemy. He was also a target for those who hated Saddam Hussein because he used to work for the government. After the war, hate appeared in a lot of people’s hearts. He was a target for both sides, and it did not matter on which side he was.
One night at 2:30 A.M., we were all asleep, and suddenly the whole house was shaking, the windows were broken, and the sounds of bomb explosions were very loud as if they had exploded next to my bed. My dad was sleeping but my mom was awake, just getting ready to sleep. The U.S. Special Forces pushed in the door of my parents’ bedroom and they handcuffed my dad. Everything happened within seconds. My mom tried to calm my dad down, because he was sleeping and when he opened his eyes all he could see was dust. Dust was all around the room and red lasers were pointing toward him. Guns were pointing to his head, and he told my mother, “Ghaidaa, what is happening? Is this a dream?” My mom told him “No, it’s not, don’t be afraid. These are the Americans and they just have questions. I’m here with you, and everything will be okay.” She did not know what the Americans wanted, but she had to say something to calm him down.
They took him to the living room. I ran to the living room and saw my dad lying on the floor; an American soldier was standing and had his feet on top of my dad’s back. Four guns were pointed towards him. He was in shock because he did not know what he had done wrong. They searched the apartment, and stole forty thousand dollars. Then they put a black bag on his head, and took him for two hours for questioning. It is sad to see your own father say, “I did not want you to see me get humiliated like that.” After that incident, he was afraid to sleep. When he tried to sleep, the little sounds would wake him up terrified in the middle of the night.
A year after working in an American company in Baghdad, he moved to another company that was located in northern Iraq. It was very safe for him to be there, but for him that was not enough because he got to see his family only two weeks of every month. He hated to miss his kids growing up, and missing the little things like birthdays made him sad. He persevered for the sake of his family. Not long after that, he received a letter in an envelope with a bullet inside. Then he decided that it was too dangerous for his family to stay in Iraq. We started packing our bags and, on the next day, we left for Egypt. My dad had to stay in northern Iraq to work. He stayed there for a year without seeing his family. He was depressed, and hearing from family that some of his cousins were assassinated, kidnapped, and simply vanished was too painful to take, especially without his family being around to support him. He followed his family to Egypt and lived there for four years.
He thought about his children’s future, and he knew that Egypt was not a good place to build a decent future because it has a weak education system. So he decided to go to the United States and live there peacefully. He knew that he would lose his degree and everything that he had built for twenty-five years; however, he did not care. He wanted his kids to have and do the things that he was not able to. After he arrived in the United States he looked for a job in his field, but he could not find any because he did not graduate from a university in the U.S. He tried to go to school and work at the same time, but that did not work because he took the TOEFL test twice and was not able to pass it. Then he started to focus on providing enough money for his family and doing his best to let them get the best education. I could see that my father was depressed because the twenty-five years of hard work was all gone, but he tried his best not to show it. He was unable to work in the field that he desired. He fought the depression with his smart and educated mind, and his love for his family helped him to keep going.
He would sit with me and tell me “You and your siblings are the great things that I got from life. Even though all my hard work is gone, I still have you; my hard work that I spent on raising and educating you is not gone. That is much more important to me than anything else.” My father, like any man, had dreams. He still does. Only now, he dreams for his family, for me, and not for himself. And he is content.
He was accepted to the University of Baghdad as a civil engineer. As he had always dreamed, he graduated the first in his class. Then he met a beautiful woman at his work place, and got married. My mom said that she saw him on the first day that she was hired, and she liked him because he was very handsome. After his marriage, he decided to work towards getting his doctorate degree in civil engineering. He was great at what he did; full of energy, and loved to read books and learn. Sometimes I would go inside his office, and I would see papers on the floor everywhere. He loved his mess, and I do not know how, but he managed to find what he wanted in the middle of his mess in less than two seconds. He did not like my mom to organize his mess. I remember that they would argue for hours only because my mom cleaned his office. Then with time my mom gave up and stopped cleaning his office; after that he started to clean it to make my mom happy. Papers would be on the floor surrounding his office chair, he would be wearing his reading glasses and focusing on a complicated physics problem. When you looked at the way he focused you would figure that he would not even notice you coming in his office. I used to think that he could not hear anybody when he was concentrating on his work, but then I realized that he would listen only when he wanted to.
Sometimes I would be sitting next to him and he would kick a chair with his legs and then tell me to watch him write the equation of motion for the chair. He loved to teach me things, and I enjoyed it too, except for when I would have homework or a test. If I did listen, then it would mean that I would not study. It was almost impossible to find a space in between what he said to tell him that I had things to do. He loved to teach, and one of his dreams was to teach at the University of Baghdad. He eventually became a professor there, and he also worked in the engineering department as the head of engineers who were in charge of building and designing Saddam Hussein’s palaces.
My father, like any man, had dreams. He wanted to be a professor, and he did become one, but he only tasted the fruit of his success for a year. The year after he was hired at the University of Baghdad the United States invaded Iraq. Baghdad fell, and suddenly every doctor, engineer, and scientist got into their army uniforms and fought for their country. With war came destruction, death, and vengeance. My father lost his dream job, and at the same time he lost his country.
He was worried about how he would sustain the needs of his family since he lost his job, so he started working with U.S. companies to rebuild Iraq. When he started working for the U.S. companies in Iraq, the Iraqi resistance considered him a traitor. To them, he was helping the enemy. He was also a target for those who hated Saddam Hussein because he used to work for the government. After the war, hate appeared in a lot of people’s hearts. He was a target for both sides, and it did not matter on which side he was.
One night at 2:30 A.M., we were all asleep, and suddenly the whole house was shaking, the windows were broken, and the sounds of bomb explosions were very loud as if they had exploded next to my bed. My dad was sleeping but my mom was awake, just getting ready to sleep. The U.S. Special Forces pushed in the door of my parents’ bedroom and they handcuffed my dad. Everything happened within seconds. My mom tried to calm my dad down, because he was sleeping and when he opened his eyes all he could see was dust. Dust was all around the room and red lasers were pointing toward him. Guns were pointing to his head, and he told my mother, “Ghaidaa, what is happening? Is this a dream?” My mom told him “No, it’s not, don’t be afraid. These are the Americans and they just have questions. I’m here with you, and everything will be okay.” She did not know what the Americans wanted, but she had to say something to calm him down.
They took him to the living room. I ran to the living room and saw my dad lying on the floor; an American soldier was standing and had his feet on top of my dad’s back. Four guns were pointed towards him. He was in shock because he did not know what he had done wrong. They searched the apartment, and stole forty thousand dollars. Then they put a black bag on his head, and took him for two hours for questioning. It is sad to see your own father say, “I did not want you to see me get humiliated like that.” After that incident, he was afraid to sleep. When he tried to sleep, the little sounds would wake him up terrified in the middle of the night.
A year after working in an American company in Baghdad, he moved to another company that was located in northern Iraq. It was very safe for him to be there, but for him that was not enough because he got to see his family only two weeks of every month. He hated to miss his kids growing up, and missing the little things like birthdays made him sad. He persevered for the sake of his family. Not long after that, he received a letter in an envelope with a bullet inside. Then he decided that it was too dangerous for his family to stay in Iraq. We started packing our bags and, on the next day, we left for Egypt. My dad had to stay in northern Iraq to work. He stayed there for a year without seeing his family. He was depressed, and hearing from family that some of his cousins were assassinated, kidnapped, and simply vanished was too painful to take, especially without his family being around to support him. He followed his family to Egypt and lived there for four years.
He thought about his children’s future, and he knew that Egypt was not a good place to build a decent future because it has a weak education system. So he decided to go to the United States and live there peacefully. He knew that he would lose his degree and everything that he had built for twenty-five years; however, he did not care. He wanted his kids to have and do the things that he was not able to. After he arrived in the United States he looked for a job in his field, but he could not find any because he did not graduate from a university in the U.S. He tried to go to school and work at the same time, but that did not work because he took the TOEFL test twice and was not able to pass it. Then he started to focus on providing enough money for his family and doing his best to let them get the best education. I could see that my father was depressed because the twenty-five years of hard work was all gone, but he tried his best not to show it. He was unable to work in the field that he desired. He fought the depression with his smart and educated mind, and his love for his family helped him to keep going.
He would sit with me and tell me “You and your siblings are the great things that I got from life. Even though all my hard work is gone, I still have you; my hard work that I spent on raising and educating you is not gone. That is much more important to me than anything else.” My father, like any man, had dreams. He still does. Only now, he dreams for his family, for me, and not for himself. And he is content.
Bradley Manning
Ashleigh Ripley
Nobel Peace Prize nominee, PFC Bradley Manning isn’t quite the type of person usually expected to be in the running. PFC Manning is an Army Intelligence Analyst. With his job comes a lot of top secret information. Many people don’t realize the extent of private information that the government withholds. In 2010 PFC Bradley Manning decided to change that. Manning released information and videos withheld by the military on the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.
Even as a kid PFC Manning was into computers. He was always hacking computers instead of playing games on them. Manning has always been opinionated and has never held back information he thought he should share. His former employer, Kord Campbell, recalled him as clean-cut and highly intelligent with an almost innate sense for programming, as well as the personality of a bull in a china shop (Network).
The Obama administration does not think that what Manning did was heroic at all. They think it is betrayal. The Obama Administration has tracked more whistleblowers under the Espionage Act than all previous administrations combined. This administration has also announced that Manning’s plea will have no influence on his remaining charges (Blake). One of his charges that he has obtained absurdly includes aiding the enemy which, I believe, he has not.
Manning, now 25, looks very young. I don’t think anyone at any age could still look as confident as him sitting in a courtroom. Being detained for over 1,000 days now, PFC Manning isn’t the lifeless body people would have imagined him to look like. During his maximum security custody Manning was only let out of his cell for 20 minutes a day. Doing everything he could to keep sane in the lonely cell, he would talk to himself in the mirror and also dance around to get his exercise in. Sometimes, if he angled himself in just the right spot he could catch a sun reflection from a mirror outside his window (Blake).
Looking too young to be in this type of trouble, Manning, in his military blues read aloud a 35-page speech that he prepared for the courtroom detailing his reasons for all the leaks he had made. Watching this video of him recite his speech, it occurred to me that the media has portrayed him entirely differently than what he is: courageous. Not many others would stand up for what is wrong like he has. “I felt this sense of relief by [WikiLeaks] having [the information]. I felt I had accomplished something that allowed me to have a clear conscience based upon what I had seen and what I had read about and knew was happening in both Iraq and Afghanistan every day,” Manning said about his actions (Ratner).
During his speech he expressed his shock and disappointment at the extensive killings of innocent people. “I believed that if the general public, especially the American public, had access to the information contained within the [Iraq and Afghan War Logs] this could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general as well as it related to Iraq and Afghanistan (Ratner).”
Bradley Manning is being punished for not following orders. From a very young age, though, he realized a moral necessity to answer to an even higher authority than the government when he enlisted in the Army: his morals. PFC Manning could either sit behind bars for the rest of his life or he could go down in history as a patriot. Whichever verdict comes, Manning seems like his willing to continue to fight through the process. At every courthouse trial and hearing there are dozens of supporters rooting for him to become a free man again.
Even as a kid PFC Manning was into computers. He was always hacking computers instead of playing games on them. Manning has always been opinionated and has never held back information he thought he should share. His former employer, Kord Campbell, recalled him as clean-cut and highly intelligent with an almost innate sense for programming, as well as the personality of a bull in a china shop (Network).
The Obama administration does not think that what Manning did was heroic at all. They think it is betrayal. The Obama Administration has tracked more whistleblowers under the Espionage Act than all previous administrations combined. This administration has also announced that Manning’s plea will have no influence on his remaining charges (Blake). One of his charges that he has obtained absurdly includes aiding the enemy which, I believe, he has not.
Manning, now 25, looks very young. I don’t think anyone at any age could still look as confident as him sitting in a courtroom. Being detained for over 1,000 days now, PFC Manning isn’t the lifeless body people would have imagined him to look like. During his maximum security custody Manning was only let out of his cell for 20 minutes a day. Doing everything he could to keep sane in the lonely cell, he would talk to himself in the mirror and also dance around to get his exercise in. Sometimes, if he angled himself in just the right spot he could catch a sun reflection from a mirror outside his window (Blake).
Looking too young to be in this type of trouble, Manning, in his military blues read aloud a 35-page speech that he prepared for the courtroom detailing his reasons for all the leaks he had made. Watching this video of him recite his speech, it occurred to me that the media has portrayed him entirely differently than what he is: courageous. Not many others would stand up for what is wrong like he has. “I felt this sense of relief by [WikiLeaks] having [the information]. I felt I had accomplished something that allowed me to have a clear conscience based upon what I had seen and what I had read about and knew was happening in both Iraq and Afghanistan every day,” Manning said about his actions (Ratner).
During his speech he expressed his shock and disappointment at the extensive killings of innocent people. “I believed that if the general public, especially the American public, had access to the information contained within the [Iraq and Afghan War Logs] this could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general as well as it related to Iraq and Afghanistan (Ratner).”
Bradley Manning is being punished for not following orders. From a very young age, though, he realized a moral necessity to answer to an even higher authority than the government when he enlisted in the Army: his morals. PFC Manning could either sit behind bars for the rest of his life or he could go down in history as a patriot. Whichever verdict comes, Manning seems like his willing to continue to fight through the process. At every courthouse trial and hearing there are dozens of supporters rooting for him to become a free man again.