The Tightrope Walk of Internet Censorship

by Isaac Smith

It is vital that we avoid the temptation to combine law enforcement and media censorship under the banner "internet freedom," 

Just yesterday marked the one-year anniversary of the "full liberation" of Iraqi territory from the Islamic State. For more than three years, the terrorist regime oppressed large parts of Syria and Iraq, carrying out public executions and often publishing videos of them on social media.
The Islamic State's use of the internet to spread extremist propaganda in various ways has raised important questions about how information on the internet is or ought to be regulated. 

All That Glitters...

The Gilded Age is often seen as an age of prosperity--a time where technology advanced and the quality of life rose. Due to the Industrial Revolution, America was experiencing an overall boost in industry and production, but at a cost. With the increase of factories, there was a move to the cities. The populations boomed, but the cities found that there was not sufficient space or supplies for those that came to work in the factories. The standard of living for the factories workers was abysmal.
There was rarely the amenities that we enjoy today such as heat, lighting, or general sanitation. Millions died from these poor conditions. But due to desperation, the workers continued in these conditions in order to make a living, even if that living was barely getting them by. All this time the monopolies capitalized on the cheap labor and built their corporate empires. The poor got poorer and the rich got richer.

Meanwhile in Europe, these same principles were driving nationalistic mentalities that lead to countries like Germany to embark on a mission to monopolize power to promote their agenda at the expense of the countries around them. Nationalism seems to be on the same wave length as monopolies but on a national rather than corporate or individual scale. These ruthlessly ambitious agendas paved the way into World War I and eventually to the fascist systems that perpetuated World War II.

While The Gilded Age seemed to be a golden age, it fueled the sentiments and passions that led the world into two consecutive world wars that rocked the societies and governments of multiple nations. Progress comes at a cost. All the advances allowed people to gain power and wealth, but it also gave us crucial technology and medicine that has allowed us to continue our societal growth clear into the twenty-first century. Without it we could have avoided millions of deaths, but we wouldn’t be where we are today. How do we choose between progress and peace?

image credit: public domain images via Wikimedia Commons

The Seductive Nature of Nationalism

Today, I attended a Dead Soldier's Debate, in which four people represented soldiers who served on different sides of World War I. Although I've always struggled to wrap my mind around WWI, around the horrors and the pointless sacrifice of an entire generation, this particular event struck me from a new direction: the dangers of Nationalism. 

One of the soldiers, a decorated African-American, talked about his passion for freedom. Predictably, talking about freedom soon led to comments about the glory of the American cause in WWI--spreading democracy and freedom to other countries in the world. Listening to him ignited this sense of patriotic pride in me; I felt proud of my country's values, and for a brief brief moment I felt a burning in my soul for the cause of spreading freedom and democracy. 

The burning soon subsided when I became aware of the emotions I was feeling. The feelings of national pride were so seductive. With just a few words of rhetoric, they slipped past my carefully constructed filters of pacifism and reconciliation and ignited a desire to spread the American way of life. 

Is this not the same emotion that the French felt, having been outsmarted by Bismarck in the 1870's and consequently filled with a righteous passion to regain their lost territories of Alsace and Lorraine from Germany? Is this not similar to the passion for independence felt by the Serbs who assassinated Archduke Ferdinand to fight back against the occupation of their country by an empire?  Is this not just a smaller version of the same feeling of national pride felt by virtually every volunteer soldier in every country in the early days of the war? 

Soon after the American soldier's representative finished speaking, another American spoke about the horrors he had experienced in the war. He shared a story about a friend of his who was killed during the last day of the war simply because the American generals ordered attacks even when they knew an armistice was already assured.

This is the danger of Nationalism. When you want your own country to come out ahead at all costs, you forget that this can only happen at the expense of other countries and other people. And what ended up happening in World War I? Millions of equally passionate and patriotic men entered a conflict which few of them left alive, let alone filled with purpose and pride. 

Image Credits: in the public domain and licensed through CC

Romantic Nationalism

I went to a Dead Soldiers Debate today, which was a presentation where actors portrayed four deceased military personnel from World War I to honor those who fought in that Great War on this 100th anniversary of Armistice Day.

One of the more interesting aspects for me was the opinions of Lt. Young, an African American fighting for the US, and Col. Junger from Germany, both of whom had very Romantic views of the war. This was exaggerated greatly by the contrast with the US private who hated the war and lived a miserable, traumatized life after it ended.
Both Lt. Young and Col. Junger were driven by a deep drive for Nationalism. Junger was convinced that the war was necessary to protect the Germans form their rivals. Young wanted desperately to be given the opportunity to prove his allegiance to his country.

Lieutenant Colonel Charles Young

Junger spoke very lovingly of his country, citing all the genius and invention that Germany had given birth to. He wanted to protect that, and saw the war as the best way to do that. Additionally, he saw combat as an ideal avenue to prove his skills and test his abilities. This was much more Romantic and in stark contrast to Allred, who viewed the war as unconstitutional servitude.

Lt. Young also idealized the war as a way to prove himself. What he wanted to prove was his loyalty to the United States. However, he also mentioned that he wasn't quite sure what democracy the US was fighting for if African Americans were banned from public office and women still weren't allowed to vote.

It is so interesting, that despite all of this, he yearned to show his loyalty to a country who had not been loyal to him in any way. That, to me, is a very Romantic sense of nationalism. It was less about what the country was or had been, but what it could be, what you believe it stands for, even if its actions don't fall in line.

All in all, it was a fascinating program that taught me a lot and showed an intriguing cross-section of opinions.

Image Credit: US Army

Timing is Everything

Owen Wilfred was one of the Great War poets. Inspired and tutored by the likes of Seigfried Sassoon, He managed to capture the pointless horrors of world war one perfectly in prose. He wrote,

Owen Wilfred as a soldier

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?Only the monstrous anger of the guns.Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattleCan patter out their hasty orisons.

The lament for those lost was familiar to those who were on the front lines, but not to the leaders of the world.

 There were those in the period before the first world conflict who romanticized war. The previous wars had lasted only short periods, with a decisive victory for one side, and glory for the conquers. With wars like the 30 days war, the Spanish American war, Serbo Bulgarian war, and the Franco-German war, Europe had seen only relatively short and less heavy casualty fighting. They began to maneuver for more power and set up a system of alliances based on national pride, and designed to help keep there empire secure.

In the dead soldiers debate, Wilfred turned to his poetry to communicate his feelings about the war. I have often wished that I could express my feelings in ways that others could connect to and understand. Like Wilfred, I live in a time of growing nationalism, and leaders that are more concerned with patriotism to a cause than individual utilitarian rights of freedom and the pursuit of happiness.  Shakespeare, an English idol often had his stories revolve around time. The mistiming of Romeo and Juliet is what makes the story so tragic. Wilfred was killed a week before the war ended, the telegram only arriving at his mothers house as the victory bells clanged. I think that he would have liked the poetic irony in his death, and his mother would experience "The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori".

Picture: Wilfred Owen: by unknown, in the public domain

Dead Soldiers' Debate: Where is Nationalism Now?

German damage to the Statue of Liberty

“I didn’t want to serve in the war,” Private Leonard Allred expressed with heaviness in his voice at the Dead Soldiers’ Debate on BYU campus.  Sorrow and brokenness weighed down his tone as he expressed the pains he experienced in war: body lice constantly biting him, rats and bugs, the stench of death, trekking over hills, the moaning of wounded men.  He hadn’t wanted to be a part of any of it, but he’d been drafted, “involuntary servitude” he labeled it.  This was infringing on their rights protected in the 13^th amendment.  Was this the nationalism he wanted to be a part of? 

And the affects didn’t end when he left the battlefield.  Private Allred’s wife welcomed home a veteran who was abusive and beat her, driving her to attempt suicide.  He lived as an outcast for years before spending the last part of his life in a veteran’s hospital with others who had the same psychiatric case.  Where was the help he needed?  Where was his nation now after he’d served them in war?

On the other hand, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Young was an African American born shortly after the end of the Civil War.  He’d led several cavalries and had experience in combat.  He wanted to serve the United States of America and express his loyalty to the country in which he hoped to experience liberty.  However, the African American soldiers were initially denied military service.  Eventually they were allowed to fight but still experienced measures of segregation: they weren’t allowed to fight overseas, and their units were segregated by color.  Colonel Young wanted so bad to demonstrate the loyalty he felt to his country yet was constantly being rejected that opportunity.

Both accounts illustrate nationalistic feelings.  Private Allred wanted the America he already supported—the one that protected his rights.  Colonel Young wanted to be part of America not only because of where he physically lived, but he wanted his people and his sacrifices to be seen and accepted as his loyalty to the country.  Did their participation in the war do more to preserve or hurt nationalism?

Image credit: German damage to the Statue of Liberty (via Spartacus Educational)

Rise of Nationalism, The Fall of the Ottoman

The conflict in the Middle East has been one of continual carnage and dynamic control. Israel has been a territory of much dispute for millennia, however, the conflict as of late can be attributed to the remnants of the Ottoman empire. In a documentary called The End of the Ottoman Empire by Mathilde Damoisel of Icarus Films, the viewer is able to trace the current conflicts of today back to the reign of the Ottoman Empire.

CC

At the height of the Ottoman Empire, the imperial power of the Ottoman's expand across seven continents. The Empire consisted of Christians, Jews, and Muslims each with different sects of their own. However, the basis of their control was in a  "Turkish core" and a "Muslim shell." The beginning of the documentary opens with the Ottoman loss of the Balkans at the end of the Balkin war. This was the beginning of the end of the Empire.

With the developments of the nineteenth century in Western Europe, the Ottoman Empire was not able to keep up with the constant pressure to change from the outside, and the resisting forces from within the empire. Despite the empires desire to unify the people of the Middle East, their power was overturned by the newly created nation-states. These nation-states consisted of peoples of similar religions and ethnicities who, with the help of Western Europe became sovereign nations.

However, the struggle for sovereignty came at a great cost and for many nations in the area, the struggle is still taking place today. The second part of the documentary focuses on the broken Middle East that resulted from the fall of the Empire. The broken aspect that the Middle East has inherited can, to some extent, be attributed to the nationalism of the nation-states. The priority each nation placed on the success of their race/culture is one of the reasons for the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and the rise of Middle Eastern conflict of today. Whole populations uprooted, nationalistic tendencies became genocidal, and millions have been killed for the sake of ethnic cleansing. 

We Are All Miners

Going into Comradeship (Kameradschaft in the original German), I didn't know exactly what to expect or how it would connect with World War I. After watching the movie, thankfully with English subtitles, I still wasn't entirely sure what it had to do with WWI. Thank you Wikipedia! After getting a better understanding of the circumstances surrounding the events of the film, I finally understand it's significance to the First World War and to romanticism.

To give you a quick recap of the movie, Comradeship portrays the real-life event of a French mine, with the structural integrity of a Jenga tower, near the border between France and Germany catching fire and a German rescue team comes to save the surviving miners. This all happened not long after WWI, so France and Germany weren't exactly on the best terms with each other. As an example, there is one point where one of the rescue crew members goes to save a miner and the miner, seeing the German facemask, suddenly flashes back to fighting German soldiers in WWI and proceeds to attack the man. Granted, this is due to PTSD, but it's not the only instance of the tension between these two peoples. There is also a group of three German miners that the film focuses on who are shown as not really liking the people of France, so you get to see the discrimination from both sides.

The movie ends with both peoples realizing that they don't need to dislike each other anymore, because they're all miners! In all seriousness, the overarching message of the film is truly that different countries can, and should, live in harmony with each other, deconstructing the idea of nationalism to some extent because they were only able to fix the situation after looking beyond their national identity and pride, their romanticized, individualistic view of themselves, to see that, whether French or German, they're all human and other labels don't matter. This is definitely a message that is still pertinent to our time and should be something we all strive to live by.

Image Credit: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0022017/ Eureka Entertainment

Nationalism, Compassion and a Star-Spangled Tattoo: Wings

Isn't he just the funniest "German" you've ever seen?

Wings is a story, a film, about World War One, in a time before it was known that there would be a "World War Two". During that perilous time of conflict nationalistic ideologies were on the rise as anti-"blank" sentiments heated up, mostly due to the "monstrosities" each side was perpetuating in their propaganda. The American characters, both main and side, use deragatory terms to refer to the German forces, and steal trophies from their destroyed vehicles. It is in the midst of this hatred that the film's comic relief figure, Herman the German (played by El Brendel), is introduced. While not the focus of the film, it is Herman's personality and actions which help to truly show the positive aspects of what it means to be an American. Being of German descent and having a German name, Herman is looked down upon at best and physically assaulted at worst multiple times for being a percieved "spy" when trying to enter the armed forces. It's only when he can reveal his right bicep, which has a tattoo of the stars and stripes on it, that the others are convinced of his patriotism. Throughout the film he is the target of slapstick humor, constantly being punched and shoved, and in one of the film's more serious moments, gets kicked out of the Air Force. Despite all of this, he always gets back up, ready to take more if needed, and after losing his chance to become a pilot becomes a mechanic instead so that he would still be involved in the aviation program. His determination and "never-give-up" attitude help show the reader the core behind the American spirit, along with his willingless to always help others. In the last scene he is featured in, one of the most dark in the film, he discovers the lost good luck charm, a small teddy bear, that one of the protagonists drops before he goes off to fly. Running as if for his life, he only just barely misses the pilot as he flies off, but makes it in time to hand the teddy bear off to the second protagonist of the film, an item that becomes extremely important later on. His compassion and patience with others is easily seen in his interactions with the rest of the cast, and with his inclusion the film moves from a dreary drama of the horrors of war to having a sun beam of hope as the audience feels the beauty behind the American Dream.

Wings is a film that starts bright and cheerful and ends in sorrow, albeit with a spot of hope, and in this review I wanted to do the opposite. To be truthful, there is no character in this film that I would ever more want to be than Herman the German. Where others might look towards the resourceful and playful Jack, or the rich but humble friend David, or for the ladies the deterministic and stereotype subverting Mary, I see Herman as the best source for inspiration in this film. I wish I could have even a smidge of his patience and good nature as I go about my time here on Earth, and I hope that one day I can help another like he helps everyone he meets.

Image Credit: "El Brendel" obtained via Wikimedia Commons