Professor Nguyen Thi Ngoc Phuong, at Tu Du Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital is pictured with a group of handicapped children, most of them victims of Agent Orange. Author: Alexis Duclos. In the public domain.
5 – Vietnam was America’s ally in World War Two. After Japan’s defeat, Vietnam persistently sought American friendship. Vietnam was, briefly, an independent and united country with a newly written constitution and plans for democratic elections. If post-war America was paranoid about Chinese communist expansion into Southeast Asia, no better ally could be had than the Vietnamese, who had fought the Chinese for two thousand years. Yet, shortly after Japan’s surrender, President Truman helped the French do to the Vietnamese what the Nazis had just done to them.
6 – Note the moral contradiction in saying that German, Italian, and Japanese imperialism is not OK, but that British, French, and American imperialism is just fine. Most American citizens remain oblivious to the ethical absurdity of presidents saying for decades that we have to support dictatorships to make the world safe for democracy.
7 – The Eisenhower Administration, in direct violation of the Constitution, promoted the insertion of “In God We Trust” on America’s coins. The Eisenhower Administration walked out of the Geneva Peace Conference of 1954 after the Vietnamese won their eight-year war against the French; then the U.S. undermined the 1956 Vietnamese democratic election guaranteed by the Conference, installing in a mostly Buddhist “South Vietnam,” an American financed Catholic puppet dictator who immediately began killing and imprisoning those Vietnamese who fought the eight-year war of independence – 1946 to 1954 – against the French.
8 – The Eisenhower Administration overthrew social democracy in Iran in 1953, supporting a subsequent, 26-year dictatorship that profoundly contributed to Middle Eastern hatred of America. Eisenhower’s CIA did same in Guatemala in 1954.
9 – Nelson Mandela spent 26 years in a South African prison thanks to the Central Intelligence Agency’s informing the South African apartheid government of Mandela’s whereabouts, leading to his arrest and imprisonment.
10 – After the assassination of President Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson had a full two months to respond favorably to a South Vietnamese call for peace and the withdrawal of America’s military. Instead of making peace possible, Lyndon Johnson did what President Kennedy never did: he launched a full scale war, during which, in violation of international law, and constituting an indisputable war crime, America sprayed 20 million tons of Agent Orange across the Vietnamese landscape, and dropped more bombs on Vietnam than all the bombs dropped everywhere in World War Two.
Co-founder of The National Registry for Conscientious Objection, a Woodrow Wilson Fellow, a recipient of The Boston Baha’i Peace Award, and a Trustee of The Life Experience School and Peace Abbey Foundation, Dr. Schindler received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Boston College, worked one summer in a nature preserve, lived in a Zen temple for a year, did the pilot’s voice in a claymation video of St. Exupery’s The Little Prince, acted in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” and performed as a musical poet in Philadelphia, Boston, and New York City. He also wrote The Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Awards for Howard Zinn and John Lennon. He is now semi-retired and living in Salem, Massachusetts.
The word “disasters” has become much more than a word as humanity becomes aware of the numerous natural, human-made, and human-facilitated disasters in our times. In distant times and in recent past centuries, relative isolation of people and events kept tolls of disasters exacted to more confined people and spaces. These tolls, obviously, were no less destructive in their tragic consequence for people and milieu. Indeed, some distant disasters continue to impact the evolution and survival of life today.
Examples of distant-past natural events include: (1) meteor strikes on extinction of dinosaurs and life forms; (2) Mediterranean earthquakes and Gibraltar-collapse flood; (3) Krakatoa volcanic eruption in Indonesia; (4) Ice Age on human migration and survival; (5) possible shifts in magnetic polarity of Earth’s poles and magnetic field shields.
Examples of human-made events shaping in near century-times include: (1) ancient Egyptian military conquests, (2) Alexander’s conquests, (3) Roman Empire conquests with subjugation of people and exploitation of land; (4) Mongolian conquests of Asia and Europe, and British imperialistic conquests of Asia, Pacific, and Africa.
Human-made disasters have been rooted in wars of imperialistic and empire intent among groups and nations seeking “global” hegemony. The impact of British Empire invasions and conquests remain with us today in the struggles of developing nations seeking to establish an identity and purpose under the burden of colonial occupation.
One of the most egregious legacies of the past continuing today is human slavery and labor exploitation. We may never escape the consequences of WWI and WWII upon our lives and psyches. The past is always with us! Victimhood is a legacy many seek to correct and prevent; many others seek to forget.
Knowledge of the enormous destructive impacts of natural and human-shaped disasters upon animate and inanimate milieus has prompted nations and global consortia to develop organized risk and hazard efforts and tools. These include early warning, appraisal, communication systems, intervention, and prevention efforts. Recognized organizations include the USA’s Department of Homeland Security Disaster Program (Washington, DC) , the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, and the World Health Organization (WHO), in Geneva, Switzerland. There are scores of cooperative agencies engaged in monitoring natural disaster and human-made risks.
Efforts to end human-made wars and violence among and within nations continue. Even optimists, however, cannot deny the continuing horrors of current genocides and destruction and oppression of people the world. Human beings struggling to survive pray for relief and an end to wars and violence; but efforts have proven inadequate to the Brobdingnagian nature of the task. Tragic!
I have taken upon myself the task and responsibility to identify and communicate in graphic and tabular forms examples of natural and human-made disasters. I do so because I believe it is essential we do not deny or ignore the multitude of risks we face. The graphic and tabular formats may be useful in immediate apprehension for teaching or discussion. Knowledge, by itself, is not necessarily prevention or salvation, but it does provide a foundation for grasping the spectrum and sources of the challenges we face.
2. Disasters
A dictionary definition of disasters is in many ways unneeded. We know that a disaster is an event of much destruction and suffering. Nevertheless, a dictionary definition is a shared arbiter of the denotative and connotative meanings of the term. There are many definitions. I like the following from the Webster App:
A sudden calamitous event bringing great damage, loss, or destruction; Broadly: A sudden or great misfortune or failure.
According to the Webster APP, the term was first used 1568, and is derived from the French “desastre,” and Italian “disastro.” I once asked my Sicilian mother about the status of a store bought boxed cake: She said in English: “It is a disaster! Never again!” There are big and small disasters, there are personal and global disasters. In all instances, they are not good!
Consider the lexicon of related disaster terms, many of which have biblical referents: Apocalypse, calamitous, cataclysmic, catastrophe, damaging, debacle, destruction, devastating, dreadful, earth-shattering, lethal, momentous, powerful, ruinous, strong, toxic, and virulent! Simply reading the lexical list is depressing!
As a cultural psychologist, I wondered what terms constitute the lexicon in other languages and cultures. What, for example, would we find in Chinese languages, given the ancient age of this mighty land that has been compelled to withstand natural and man-made disasters for millennia!
Chart 1 is a graphic display of natural disasters. The Chart offers a quick encompassing view of the spectrum of natural disasters. Chart 1 is followed by Table 1 which provides a written listing. Once again, my intent was to help discussion and education activities by having a quick reference to the topic.
Chart 2 is a graphic display of human-made and human-facilitated disasters. The Chart’s contents reveal a tragic compilation of the consequences of human actions upon the species and upon of the natural world. Some have taken to calling humans the super predator. If only animals and nature could speak? Table 2 provides a written summary. Words versus images offer no consolation. The following sections elaborate upon disasters, offering brief commentaries.
CHART 1: EXAMPLES OF NATURAL DISASTERS
TABLE 1: EXAMPLES OF NATURAL DISASTERS (Alphabetical Order)
Wind Storms (Hurricanes, Tornadoes, Typhoons) (Regional and Global)
The human, economic, political, and moral costs of natural disasters is beyond estimation. When a mega-natural disaster occurs, all aspects of human and natural life are implicated, often for decades of recovery. Natural disasters are common-place across the world, even as some are confined to certain areas. Whether an onslaught of natural disasters may deplete and erode government capacities for intervention, and provoke regional and national instability is now a major concern.
There can be no doubt of the massive tolls exacted in death, destruction, and injury. The tragedy of natural disasters is further compounded by the fact natural disasters are frequent in number, severe in consequence, and often repetitive. Human roles in creating natural disasters are now widely known, especially in climate change challenges. Certain regions are subject to continual disasters and erosion of recovery resources. The Philippines is an example of this situation.
Human-Made and Human-Facilitated Disasters
The growing number of human-made and human-aided disasters is humbling and frightening. Human stewardship of life in all its forms is proving to be a disaster in itself. I am reminded here of the popular Pogo cartoon: “We have met the enemy, and it is us.” True words!
Even as we question why humans continue to engage in self-destructive acts, we are perplexed by the paradoxes. We look to leaders, but amid their corruption, cronyism, and selfish concerns, solutions appear impossible. A massive financial effort is needed; more importantly, however, there is a need for a new consciousness; humanity is part of nature, not its ruler!
The time-honored motivation of pursuing wealth, power, and position for a few to the exclusion of the welfare of the masses has become the norm. Tragic! “When will we ever learn?” These are folk song lyrics filled with the grief and sorrow of failures to learn form our actions.
CHART 2: EXAMPLES OF HUMAN-MADE DISASTERS
Even as I write these words, I find myself concerned about humanity’s future. It is not only humanity’s survival, adaptation, and adjustment as we think of it in conventional terms it is about the extensive reliance on artificial intelligence (AI), and especially the unbridled use of AI in developing robotics. The combination of AI and robotics is challenging our basic assumptions of human nature (i.e. ontology). At some point, AI creations will surpass human capabilities and talents (i.e., singularity). What then? Will this be another human-made disaster? I called this “Relinguishing Human Identity,” in a chapter on unfolding evolution via bio-metric communication technologies (see Marsella, A.J. (2016). Gatherings:” A collection of writing genre. Alpharetta, GA: Mountain Arbor Press). Think drones! Think cloning! Think dehumanization! Think dystopia!
TABLE 2 EXAMPLES OF HUMAN-MADE AND HUMAN-AIDED DISASTERS (Alphabetical Order)
Desertification of Arable Land (Sahara)
Fracking (Destruction of Potable Water, Earthquakes)
Structure Collapse: Buildings, Bridges (Bangladesh, India, USA)
Terrorist Attacks
Toxic Chemicals (Agent Orange, Vietnam)
Wars (Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan)
And So . . . ?
What can do we do? The challenges we face are enormous in proportion and consequence. The human, natural world, physical world costs exceed imagination. And yet we continue! Is iit possible to use education to address these challenges? Not traditional education mired in skill sets and memorization, but rather the introduction of visionary thoughts and knowledge. Imagine all college students having to begin their education by exposure in the first years to “Big History,” overviews of major history events and forces, including the ideologies and malicious forces that guide and nurture them.
Imagine elementary school children in the third grade exposed to the critical social, economic, and political events and forces shaping their lives so they do not become numb to the events and forces. The intent is a new consciousness. This is what the famous Brazilian educator, Paulo Freire, proposed in his critical pedagogy: Critical consciousness! In English “Conscientization; in Portuguese, “conscientizacao.” Education is not neutral. (See Wikepedia and Paulo Friere (1997), Pedagogy of the Oppressed (NY: Continuum Publishing). If education serves those in power, it is indoctrination! Is critical pedagogy any less important than fractions or grammar?
If we are to survive the onslaught of disasters, we will need to think in a more activist way, and to grasp the consequences of our choices. We must not socialize conformity to our existing world, but rather arouse awareness and encourage protests toward our failures.
Albert Einstein, advised: “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used to create them” Albert Einstein is no longer with us, but his words remain, and demand attention. Anything less … a disaster!
Author: Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus, University of Hawaii, Manoa Campus, Honolulu, Hawaii, 96822. He is the author and editor of twenty books, and more than 300 publications noted for challenging the ethnocentricity and biases of Western psychology and psychiatry, and for advocating peace and social justice.
Fourth of July fireworks seen across the Potomac River at Washington, D.C., USA, July 4, 2011. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Author: Joe Ravi. license CC-BY-SA 3.0 .
by Kathie Malley-Morrison
For our July 4, 2016, post, we asked whether Americans have honored and promulgated the principles stated in our Declaration of Independence. Our answer: Not unless it suited the interests of the ruling powers within the nation to do so. Which is, relatively speaking, almost never.
The grievous failure of successive US governments to promote life and liberty (let alone the pursuit of happiness) is appalling not only in relation to their tolerance of slavery (officially “legal” in this country until the Emancipation Proclamation, illegal but continuing in various forms ever since) but also in their violent opposition to such pursuits in peoples trying to overthrow vicious and unjust governments elsewhere.
The failures to support liberation movements are numerous but here are two ignominious examples that at least some Americans know about:
The Philippines Over 100 years ago, the United States replaced Spain as the foreign power occupying the Philippines. American forces went to the Philippines in 1898 purportedly to help Filipino rebels achieve independence from the yoke of imperial Spain; instead, the US government, pursuing its own imperialistic goals, initiated a vicious war against the rebels, took over control of the Philippines, and occupied the islands for decades, not until July 4, 1946, did it finally recognize Philippines independence.
Vietnam: Over 50 years ago, the United States replaced France as the imperialistic power occupying Vietnam, purportedly to save “South Vietnam” from the “ruthless Communists” of “North Vietnam” (the Vietminh). A lot of good books and articles have been written concerning this particular crushing of an indigenous people’s efforts to gain liberty and justice from foreign occupiers, but Noam Chomsky summarizes it well in this interview with Paul Shannon.
To understand what all those fireworks on the Fourth of July really signify, just check out this Global Policy Forum summary of US military activity since, in the course of events, the early colonialists declared their independence from Great Britain. Perhaps it is time for the US to pursue a new path, truly honoring life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness with a new holiday and a new symbol (Flag of Peace (Proposal). Author: Julius C. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_Peace_(Proposal).PNG).)
Collage of four photos for the Afghanistan War. By Youngottoman (Own work) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia CommonsThe common assumption that there is a military-civilian gap in our country is not totally unrelated to another conventional wisdom—that Vietnam veterans were spat on, maltreated, and repudiated by their fellow citizens upon their return from war. Nancy Sherman, in her book Afterwar: Healing the Moral Wounds of Our Soldiers (2015,) devotes 32 pages to analyzing the common refrain “Thank you for your service,” which she argues is a “national reaction to a past negative reaction” when “[r]esistance to [the Vietnam] war turned into antipathy toward its warriors” (30-31). Again, Sherman does not engage with the works that question this assumption. For example, Jerry Lembcke fails to find evidence that a significant number of Vietnam veterans were maltreated by protestors in his The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam(2000). Instead, he reminds us that veterans were a large, and very welcomed, constituent of the anti-war movement.
These two assumptions taken together ground a common perception of veterans as a special interest group deserving of special care and special benefits. Perhaps it is this cultural assumption about veterans that motivates Sherman’s assertion that civilians’ post war responsibilities are limited to veterans; though, again, she gives no argument for why this is the case. If civilians are morally responsible for the harm that results from war due to their causal contributions to starting and facilitating wars, why aren’t civilians morally responsible to all parties that are harmed by war, including the civilians of other nations involved in the conflict? Particularly in the case of the recent US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq, which caused hundreds of thousands of excess Iraqi deaths, displaced millions, internally and externally, and caused an environmental and public health catastrophe with some of the highest rates of birth defects and cancers the world has ever seen; why are we not morally responsible for what has been done to Iraqis?
Sherman analyzes “Thank you for your service” as a performative expression of gratitude, which she argues is a “token acceptance of . . . shared responsibility and accountability for sending fellow citizens to war, independent of specific causal contributions to war activity or to its support” (39). Correspondingly, she points out the resentment that so many veterans feel towards the ease with which civilians relieve themselves of responsibility by uttering such platitudes. Resentment, after all, is a reactive attitude that “[holds] someone to account” (46). However, there is no acknowledgement of the widespread resentment that Iraqis feel towards Americans and other citizens of Coalition nations. Furthermore, by leaving the vocabulary of our traditional war culture unchallenged, the infelicitous use of the word “service”—and its corresponding semantic frame of a beneficiary, a benevolent act, and a recipient—goes unexamined. By preserving the notion that the war was a service to Americans, a service consciously and willingly performed by our veterans, it obscures any understanding that the war was a wrong done to others and that we might be responsible for the harm that our war caused them. *This review by Engaging Peace Board member Ross Caputi is reprinted from the American Book Review, Volume 36, Number 5, July/August 2015.
Ross is currently on the Board of Directors of ISLAH. He is also a graduate student and a writer. In 2004, he was a US Marine in the US-led occupation of Iraq. His experience there, in particular his experience during the 2nd siege of Fallujah, compelled him to leave the US military and join the anti-war movement. His activism has focused on our society’s moral obligation to our victims in Iraq, and to the responsibility of veterans to renounce their hero status in America.
