Consolation

Consoling the sorrowful and broken-hearted looms as a daunting task for a true friend. The philosopher Iris Murdoch once wrote: “Bereavement is a darkness impenetrable to the imagination of the unbereaved.” It is an aptitude, an art, and a challenge, then, to accompany and console the bereft. It is not for the unmoved, the self-absorbed, or the apathetic; it is heroic work to search and help rescue a grief-stricken friend in the churning seas that have sundered their little boat.

Johannes Brahms was such an exceptional friend. Born in Hamburg, he is known to the world as an accomplished 19th-century pianist and master composer of symphony orchestras, piano and organ music, and chamber ensembles. His works, like those of Beethoven, Bach, and Haydn, influenced the 20th-century composers Schoenberg, Elgar, and Stravinsky. Unknown to most was his other role, as a life raft of sorts for the extraordinarily talented pianist Clara Schumann, wife of Robert Schumann.

Robert Schumann suffered from bouts of depression and delusions of persecution most of his adult life, culminating in a complete mental breakdown. After attempting suicide, he was committed to an insane asylum near Bonn in 1854, where he would die two years later from pneumonia, never having regained his mental abilities. Within this circle of despair, Brahms, a friend of both Robert and Clara, offered his steadfast support. He visited Robert in the asylum and helped Clara to recover and support her seven children.

On her own, Clara was an accomplished composer and piano virtuoso and continued to tour throughout Europe after Robert’s death. One can gain a glimpse of the profound importance of the relationship between Clara and Johannes through a letter she wrote to her children as adults: “You hardly knew your dear Father, you were still too young to feel deep grief, and thus in those terrible years you could give me no comfort. Hope, indeed, you could bring me, but it was not enough to support me through such agony. Then came Johannes Brahms. Your Father loved and admired him, as he did no man except Joachim,” the father of Mary, Jesus’s mother. “He came, like a true friend, to share all my sorrow; he strengthened the heart that threatened to break, he uplifted my mind, he cheered my spirit when- and where-ever he could; in short he was my friend in the fullest sense of the word.”

She later wrote of Brahms: “I can truly say, my children, that I never loved any friend as I did him – it is an exquisite harmony of soul. I love his freshness of mind, his wonderfully gifted nature, his noble heart, which I have learned to know in the course of years, as others cannot.” Clara and Johannes remained close friends for the rest of their lives. They never married, nor did they marry other people. They died nine months apart, Clara in 1896 and Johannes in 1897.

In their relationship, one sees the illustration of an essential theme: that friendships are critical to human happiness, to creative and psychological flourishing, and in some cases to human survival.  No human life is without loss or suffering. We do not get to pick what poisons our daily existence, but we do get to choose the medicine. Friendship is a divinely inspired inoculation against loneliness and sadness.  It can bring candor, wonder, patience, clarity, love, communion, affirmation, virtue, enchantment, mercy, and forgiveness to the fore. Greek philosophers were sophisticated in their understanding of love and taught about the rarity of the deepest kind of friendship, which they called philia. It was not defined by sexual or romantic passion, but by a quite different distinguishing characteristic. Philia would be analogous to two people walking side-by-side on life’s journey, not possessive of the other, but in communion, souls made out of the same cloth.  

Countless brilliant writers, playwrights, and poets have commented on the nature and necessity of deep friendships, of philia, such as that of Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms. The Bard, Shakespeare himself in Hamlet, commanded: “Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel.” Though he may have intended to indicate a cliché, he nonetheless describes with brilliance the strong friendship so many hold dear. The philosopher, scientist, and statesman Francis Bacon wrote that friendship “makes daylight in the understanding, out of darkness, and confusion of thoughts.” The 19th-century poet Emily Dickinson lamented: “Till the first friend dies, we think our ecstasy impersonal, but then discover he was the cup from which we drank it ...”

Friendships like that of Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms are unusual in their intensity; they were given a special gift. The world can seem insubstantial, pitiless, or hollow when we suffer grief or loss, and deep friendships are a welcome lifeline helping one to gain calm, bearings, and perspective. They help to reinforce or awaken the best version of ourselves, even when all seems confused and chaotic. These relationships are intellectually transformative and spiritually illuminating, and, in the end, make our hearts sing – which is a rare thing indeed.

New Terror Tactic: Vehicular Attacks

On Wednesday, March 22, Khalid Masood drove a rented Hyundai Tucson onto the sidewalk of the Westminster Bridge in London. He plowed into the unsuspecting pedestrians before coming to a stop, exiting the vehicle and wielding a knife. In just 82 seconds, Masood killed five people—four civilians and one police officer—and injured 50. He was eventually shot and killed by a nearby officer.

ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack, stating that Masood was a soldier acting in their name. London deputy assistant police commissioner Neil Basu, however, said he might have been a lone wolf attacker. Regardless, police suggest he was inspired and radicalized by ISIS propaganda found online.

In the wake of the attack, the police arrested a dozen individuals they believed were linked to Masood. As of Saturday, though, nine had been released due to a lack of substantial evidence. Masood left no note, no statement of motive or reason; the only potentially related communication police have found is a WhatsApp message he sent shortly beforehand.

This was not the first time Masood displayed violent behavior. Beginning in 2003, he served three years in prison for an assault on a local pub owner with a knife. While in prison, he converted to Islam and changed his name. His radicalization occurred swiftly thereafter. His second wife, Farzana Malik – or Isaq, as her surname has also been reported – fled from their home, insisting upon divorce when he tracked her down. She described Masood as a “psychopath,” and her family members described him as very violent and controlling.

In the last year or so, attacks using tactics similar to Masood’s have increased significantly. In December, Anis Armi killed a Polish truck driver and stole his truck, driving it into the Christmas Market in Berlin. He killed twelve people and injured 65. Last July, Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel drove a rented cargo truck into a crowd celebrating Bastille Day in Nice, France. Eighty-six people were killed and 434 were injured. Similar attacks involving vehicles have taken place in Quebec (October 2014); Valence, France (January 2016); and Jerusalem (this January).

Even the U.S. is not safe from these types of attacks. In November, an Ohio State student, Abdul Razak Ali Artan, rammed his car into pedestrians on campus and attacked other students with a machete. He injured eleven before he was shot and killed by a campus police officer.

ISIS has taken to promoting these sorts of attacks by its followers in its propaganda. The attacks are inexpensive, and very efficient in the sense that they often result in high casualties while gaining prominent media attention. In addition, they achieve the primary goal, terror, exceedingly well. ISIS encourages its followers to conduct them in busy areas, particularly tourist attractions, where they will likely attract a large international audience due to wider coverage. Attacks of this sort are also a means by which followers, or those inspired by ISIS or other terrorist organizations, can easily act in the name of their groups.

The biggest challenge for police in the wake of these incidents is preventing similar attacks in the future. Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) programs are still developing in many cities and countries. While London, for example, has a very successful program and is a hub for CVE research, it’s clear that some attackers still easily avoid detection until it is too late.

Professor Anthony Glees of the University of Buckingham suggests that rental car companies should inquire as to their customers’ motives and report any suspicious people to the police. Doing so will not prevent carjackings or attackers using their own cars. Nevertheless, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice have encouraged similar reporting in the U.S., asking companies to tell the police about customers who are reluctant to provide personal information, pay in cash for large transactions, or appear overly concerned with the size and specifications of their vehicles.

While we may not have a tried-and-true method for preventing these types of attacks at the moment, progress is being made. As academics and think tanks conduct research to help in further development of both government-run and independent CVE programs, police and counterterrorism forces are working to prevent as many attacks as possible and stop the radicalization of people like Masood.

The Trump Administration’s Response to a Nuclear North Korea

Despite the implementation of various sanctions and several UN Security Council resolutions, North Korea under the leadership of Kim Jong-un has continued to develop nuclear weapons. In 2016 alone, it conducted two nuclear explosions and more than 20 missile tests. More recently, North Korea test-fired a volley of missiles off the coast of Japan. It also tested an intermediate-range missile that used solid fuel – a feat which disarmament experts have called a significant advance.

Even more startling, perhaps, are North Korea’s claims that the missiles are intended for the United States. In March of 2016, the state-controlled media released a propaganda video depicting a nuclear strike on Washington, along with a warning to “American imperialists” not to provoke the country. The four-minute video clip, titled “Last Chance,” uses computer animation to show an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) slamming into what appears to be the Lincoln Memorial.

“If the American imperialists provoke us a bit, we will not hesitate to slap them with a pre-emptive nuclear strike,” read the Korean subtitles in the video, adding: “the United States must choose! It’s up to you whether the nation called the United States exists on this planet or not.” Shortly after, Kim Jong-un announced that North Korea was in the “final stage” of preparation for the first launch of an ICBM that could reach the U.S.

North Korea released a similar propaganda film, coupled with a high-thrust rocket engine test, following Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s first official visit to South Korea. According to the New York Times, the video depicted an American aircraft carrier and a warplane being destroyed in computer-generated balls of fire. North Korea’s missiles will be “stabbed into the throat of the carrier” and the jet will “fall from the sky,” it warns.

A day later, North Korea issued a statement saying the country would not be deterred from developing nuclear weapons. “The nuclear force is the treasured sword of justice and the most reliable war deterrence to defend the socialist motherland and the life of its people,” said a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry. Classified assessments of the country conducted under the Obama administration indicate that Kim believes his nuclear weapons program is the only way to guarantee the survival of his regime and will never trade it away for economic or other benefits.

Unlike the Obama administration, however, President Trump and his top deputies are determined not to let such behavior continue without repercussions. “Let me be very clear: The policy of strategic patience has ended,” Secretary Tillerson said to the press while touring the demilitarized zone between the two Koreas. “We are exploring a new range of diplomatic, security and economic measures. All options are on the table.” Tillerson hinted that the options might include more vigorous enforcement of sanctions, ramping up anti-missile defenses, cutting off North Korea’s oil, and even taking pre-emptive military action if the North Koreans elevate “the threat of their weapons program” to a level deemed unacceptable.

Tillerson has also publicly ruled out any negotiation with North Korea to freeze its nuclear and missile programs, although this was a central component of past administrations’ policies. He argues that negotiations “can only be achieved by denuclearizing, giving up their weapons of mass destruction.” Even with a nuclear freeze, North Korea’s capabilities are advanced enough to threaten U.S. allies and military bases in Northeast Asia. The rejection of negotiations for a freeze is consistent with the approach taken by President Obama, who declined Chinese offers to restart the so-called six-party talks unless the North first agreed that the goal of the negotiations would be the “complete, verifiable, irreversible” dismantling of its program.

It also appears as though the Trump administration blames China, North Korea’s strongest ally, for the continued dalliance with nuclear weapons. “North Korea is behaving very badly,” Trump tweeted recently. “They have been ‘playing’ the United States for years. China has done little to help!” The Trump administration has raised the prospect of disciplinary measures against American companies in China, in response to growing evidence of their involvement in building components that are used in North Korea’s weapons programs.

Additionally, Trump administration officials have discussed putting pressure on Chinese banks through secondary sanctions– a technique that worked against Iran – which would make it hard for any bank that did business with North Korea to also deal in American dollars. Former defense secretary William Perry has said that he doubts their value. “We have sanctioned them a hundred times, and it didn’t stop developing nuclear weapons,” he noted. “They seem to be prepared to suffer economic deprivation for the people so they can achieve the preservation of the regime, which they think that nuclear weapons is going to do for them.”

With regard to sanctions, Tillerson says there is more that the international community could do to pressure North Korea: “I don’t believe we have ever fully achieved the maximum level of action that can be taken under the United Nations Security Council resolutions … we know other nations could take actions to alter their relationship with North Korea.”

With these discussions occurring fewer than 100 days into the new administration, it is clear that Trump and his advisors have no intention of placing North Korea on the back burner. Though previous administrations recognized the threat that the North’s nuclear weapons program poses to the United States, Trump seems to be the first president who is willing to tackle the problem head-on, even if it means working outside the realm of the UN. However, only time will tell if he can successfully facilitate the denuclearization of North Korea.  If he succeeds, he will have begun to fulfill his promise to “make America safe again.”

Melania as FLOTUS

The tradition of the First Lady taking up a social cause during her time in office developed from Dolley Madison’s role as a hostess at the White House while her husband James was president more than 200 years ago. After the recent presidential election, we have a new First Lady, Melania Trump, along with the new president. We have also lost a vital role model in Michelle Obama – a dignified and caring woman who, while not all agreed with her, always carried herself with respect.

On the campaign trail, Melania shied away from cameras and speeches. She hosted a few fundraisers, but that is quite different from making appeals to the general public, and she rarely gave public testimonials. We all remember her catastrophe of a speech at the Republican national convention, when she appropriated large chunks of text from Michelle Obama’s 2008 speech at the Democratic convention. As CNN reported: “Melania Trump’s speech was warmly received by the rowdy Republican crowd but did not include behind-the-scenes glimpses of life in Trump Tower or other details that might offer some insight into the man behind the image.”

The lack of such details in the speech was an early indicator of Melania’s current image as a reluctant presidential spouse. In Donald Trump’s first month and a half in office, she is much more seen than heard. She makes rare appearances at his major speeches but is never leading events of her own. She has, however, apparently decided what her cause will be as First Lady: She will work vigilantly to end cyber-bullying.

While this choice is amusing considering her husband’s behavior on social media, Melania has committed herself to fight, for children across the country, against a problem that is currently beyond effective control by parents and school administrators. More generally, she says she will focus on women’s and children’s issues. Although Melania has yet to begin doing much on these issues, Ivanka Trump has stepped up to fulfill many duties of the First Lady – attending state events, hosting dignitaries at the White House, and serving as a role model figure for young girls who one day hope to experience corporate success of their own.    

Melania also proclaimed that she wants to revive the legacies of Jackie Kennedy and Betty Ford, both of whom were very “traditional” first ladies. Now, Melania may be too young to remember Kennedy and Ford, but they were far from traditional – these women laid the foundation for the active first ladies of the past two decades. The most recent first ladies adopted active roles in their position to take on national healthcare, education, and childhood obesity. Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush, and Michele Obama heralded a new type of First Lady who uses her position of power in the press and the eyes of the citizens to do good.

Melania will probably not make any impact against cyber-bullying if she continues to lack a substantive presence in the public eye. If she continues to shy away from speeches, hides away in Trump Tower, and refuses to manage her own image and only promotes President Trump’s, Melania will fade into obscurity as she sits next to the most powerful man in the country.

The Importance of Peaceful Protests

On February 27, Hamilton was fortunate to host Diane Nash, one of the most influential civil rights activists of her time, for an address in the chapel. As a student in Nashville, she helped organize lunch counter sit-ins and worked with both the Freedom Riders and the Selma Movement.

Of the many lessons and experiences Nash shared with the Hamilton community, one stood out in particular: the importance of peaceful protest. She emphasized that had protests turned violent, the civil rights movement would not have been nearly as successful. In the context of the current political climate, it is important to listen to Nash’s words and reflect on them.  

At college campuses across the United States, too many protests are not peaceful, and one wonders if that trend will worsen. In early February, individuals at the University of California-Berkeley caused more than $100,000 in arson damages while protesting the controversial journalist Milo Yiannopoulos, who was forced to cancel his speaking engagement due to concern for his safety. Damaging campus buildings and threatening the life of the speaker are not constructive ways to demonstrate opposition to an event. Engaging in such savagery not only endangers people, but is bad for the university’s – and its students’ – reputation. The same university that is famous for its 1960s protests over free speech seems now to be an enemy of free speech.

More recently, violent protesters at Middlebury College – a fellow NESCAC school – injured a professor as she tried to protect guest speaker Charles Murray from harm. After giving his speech, Murray found a mob of angry protesters waiting for him outside the McCullough Student Center. It is sickening to think that these students attacked a professor of their own college simply because they did not agree with the politics of the speaker she brought to campus.

Toward the end of her talk at Hamilton, a student asked Nash how she felt about the situation at Standing Rock in the Dakotas, and how people can protest peacefully when there are weapons and other threats present. In response, Nash said she understood that kind of situation very well: She had lived it while protesting in the South. She noted that when a group stoops to the level of violence, their protests have less of an impact. In contrast, Nash argued, the courage and valor it takes to remain strong yet peaceful while being threatened and insulted make a much more powerful statement.

Imagine that this had been the situation at either of these two campuses. Instead of waking up to news about a professor being hospitalized or a building going up in flames, we would wake up to news about students who proudly exercised their First Amendment rights by standing up against what they believed was wrong. Freedom of speech and the ability to peacefully protest are part of what makes being an American so special. So instead of taking up violence, let us become a country of speech, as Nash and her fellow peaceful activists would want.  

Anti-Semitism in Trump’s America

On Tuesday, February 21, 2017, more than 150 Jewish graves were knocked over and desecrated at the Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery in University City, Missouri, just west of St. Louis. This act of anti-Semitic crime happened amidst a growing number of bomb threats directed at Jewish centers across the country. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has declared these threats a “national crisis” due to their frequency. When asked to address anti-Semitism in America, President Trump and the White House issued a lackluster and reluctant response.

This increasing anti-Semitic sentiment begs the question: What place does anti-Semitism and hate now have in our society, and are Americans feeling more emboldened to express such sentiments? And what will the president do in response?

President Trump’s election campaign is partially to blame for the growing audacity of anti-Semitic vandals, like those who scrawled anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi graffiti on New York City subways on February 6. Trump’s virulently nationalistic, us-versus-them rhetoric could only have encouraged such people to publicly express their hate. Trump has relied on Steve Bannon as a leading campaign advisor and now White House chief strategist. In 2007 Bannon’s ex-wife said in a court declaration that he did not want his daughters attending a specific Los Angeles girls’ school, because it had too many Jews in it. Bannon’s former home, Breitbart News Network, has also featured such headlines as “Hoist it High and Proud: The Confederate Flag Proclaims a Glorious Heritage.” Hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan support Trump, although he later disavowed them, and seem to use his presidency as a license for expressing prejudices.

And what has Trump said of these crimes or of anti-Semitism in general? The simple answer is: not enough.

On International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27, the White House issued an official statement from the president that did not once mention Jews. At a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, an Israeli journalist asked President Trump about the rise in anti-Semitic incidents in the United States and what he would say to the American Jewish community. Trump used that question as an excellent opportunity to brag about his electoral victory, state that he has Jewish grandchildren, and reassure the Jewish community that “[t]here’s a lot of bad things that have been happening over a long period of time … [but] you’re going to see a lot of love.”

Trump’s avoidance of addressing the question of anti-Semitism continued the next day at another press conference. A Jewish reporter asked Trump about how the government planned to address anti-Semitism and the rising number of bomb threats against Jews. President Trump interrupted the man, demanded he sit down, and simply stated that: “I am the least anti-Semitic person that you’ve ever seen in your life.” This was an especially weak response because the reporter explicitly said that he was not accusing Trump of anti-Semitism.

After the February 21 vandalism at the Jewish cemetery in Missouri, the White House issued its official statement: “Hatred and hate-motivated violence of any kind have no place in a country founded on the promise of individual freedom. The President has made it abundantly clear that these actions are unacceptable.”

The president has not, however, made it abundantly clear that these actions are unacceptable. It is striking that in this official statement, once again, the White House never states the words “Jewish,” “anti-Semitism,” or even “Jewish cemetery.”

This message that “hate is bad” is elementary at best. What prevents President Trump from simply stating that anti-Semitism is incongruent with American values, that perpetrators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law? Why is he incapable of outright condemning anti-Semitic acts and violence?

Jewish leaders themselves, like the Jewish president of the Interfaith Alliance, are worried about President Trump’s disappointing response to anti-Semitism. Steven Goldstein of the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect called Trump’s statement “a pathetic asterisk of condescension after weeks [of] grotesque acts and omissions reflecting anti-Semitism.” These “grotesque acts” presumably include, but are not limited to: the desecration of the Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery on February 21, the anti-Semitic graffiti on New York subways on February 6, the desecration of 100 or more Jewish gravestones in a Philadelphia Jewish cemetery February 25 or 26, and the fifth wave of bomb threats directed at Jewish community centers this past Monday, which brought the total to more than 100 incidents at a comparable number of locations in 30 or more states since Donald Trump was sworn into office.   

When Trump mentioned these occurrences in his address to Congress on February 28, he once again refused to use the term “anti-Semitism.” Though he stated that the country “stands united in condemning hate and evil” he not taken any action to encourage such behavior. In fact, in a conversation with state attorney generals, Trump vaguely implied that the threats and vandalism might not be anti-Semitic acts at all, but rather attempts to “make others look bad”, that sometimes “it’s the reverse.”

President Trump’s refusal to address the problem of anti-Semitism in America will only continue to encourage anti-Semitic acts of vandalism and violence. His general statements about hate and prejudice will do nothing to prevent further minority groups from enduring similar hate crimes. Violent bigots may use his policies, like the travel ban and his revocation of the White House’s support of transgender rights in public schools, as an excuse or as encouragement to expand their list of targets for hate. It seems the president will not defend vulnerable populations like refugees or transgender teenagers from discrimination or attack, but only time will tell.

At the moment, however, anti-Semitic acts are becoming more frequent. In light of the bomb threats to Jewish community centers and vandalism of Jewish cemeteries across the country, the president, in his role as leader of the American people, must serve as an example and straightforwardly and substantively condemn and address anti-Semitism in America.