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Last month, the U.S. announced Operation Prosperity Guardian, a naval coalition aimed at deterring Houthi attacks in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. Bahrain was the only Arab nation to join. The reasons why — and why other U.S. allies and partners in the region did not — should be of interest to us.Many countries have valid concerns about the Gaza war's further regionalization. The Houthis say they are targeting commercial vessels that are Israeli owned or heading for Israeli ports with missile and drone strikes, and have already hijacked a ship. They vow to continue these attacks until Israel agrees to a ceasefire.The U.S. has been thwarting most of these attacks with their naval-based missile defenses.Much is at stake economically with the Red Sea's security crisis. Separating the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa is the Bab el-Mandeb strait, which links the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden to the Red Sea. Roughly 30 percent of all global containers transit the Bab el-Mandeb and the Suez Canal, as does about 12 percent of all world trade. But since the Houthi attacks in the southern Red Sea and Gulf of Aden began in October, major shipping carriers have stopped transiting the Suez Canal and have re-routed their vessels around Africa, threatening consumer prices hikes. This disruption to Red Sea trade can seriously harm economies across Europe, which were already contracting before this crisis.Operation Prosperity GuardianThat Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which were the two main states in the Arab military coalition that began fighting the Houthis in 2015, did not join Operation Prosperity Guardian is quite significant. Also notable is the fact that Egypt, a major Arab country with a 930-mile Red Sea coast, refused to join, too. Most Arab states avoided formally joining Operation Prosperity Guardian for several reasons. First, Arab societies are so enraged about Israel's indiscriminate bombing, forced starvation, and displacement of millions of Palestinians in Gaza, that the governments in the region do not want to be seen as complicit by openly siding with Washington, which is clearly funding and arming Israel's operations.Second, Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member-states — particularly Saudi Arabia and the UAE — want to avoid actions that could trigger a resumption of Houthi attacks on their energy and civilian infrastructure or further destabilize the Red Sea, where many of Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 projects exist. Third, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi fear that joining this security initiative could upset their détentes with Tehran, which sponsors the Houthi movement.Bahrain's Unique PositionBahrain, which the George W. Bush Administration recognized as a Major non-NATO Ally in 2002, made a different calculation. An important factor to keep in mind is that Bahrain hosts the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet. Also, Bahrain and the U.S. signed the Comprehensive Security Integration and Prosperity Agreement, a strategic security and economic pact, in September."Bahrain has long perceived an existential threat from Iran that shapes its security stance, so by providing a home for U.S. assets, Bahrain gains protection and relevance which is another layer beyond the security protection it receives from Saudi Arabia and the UAE," said Steven Wright, an associate professor of international relations at Hamad Bin Khalifa University, in an interview with Responsible Statecraft."Other GCC members seem to have more complex calculations: for Saudi Arabia and UAE, existing efforts to climb down tensions with Iran explains their position," he added.Joseph A. Kéchichian, a senior fellow at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies in Riyadh, noted that Bahrain, which has a single guided missile frigate and two smaller guided missile ships called corvettes, has not sent these assets to join the task force, at least not yet."Manama's contribution may be similar to Amsterdam's and Canberra's, as The Netherlands and Australia announced that they would send military personnel, but no vessels," he said. "Yet, because Bahrain is the headquarters of the US Navy's Fifth Fleet, as well as the home of the Combined Maritime Forces that coordinate coalition operations in the area, it makes sense for the kingdom to join if only to provide and receive information of actual maneuvers."He suggested that other Gulf Cooperation Coalition (GCC) members would be sharing information vis-a-vis the new task force, although it is unclear how that would occur. "As far as it is known, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which could have deployed naval vessels, opted to stay out of Operation Prosperity Guardian because they disagreed with its narrow objectives," added Kéchichian.Post-Oct. 7 Blowback in BahrainHaving normalized with Israel in 2020, Bahrain has been in an awkward position since October 7. When it comes to relations with Israel, there is a major divide between the Bahraini leadership and its citizenry. This divide has deepened amid the Gaza war.As Gaza's Palestinian death toll steadily rises, Bahraini authorities must contend with increased risks of blowback at home given how unpopular the Abraham Accords are with Bahraini citizens across the country's political spectrum and among diverse civil society groups. As Human Rights Watch recently documented, Bahraini authorities have used oppressive tactics to repress Palestine solidarity protestors across the country."The Al Khalifa monarchy has proven adept historically at subduing dissent through a variety of tools. It seems clear that Bahrain has calculated that involvement in the Abraham Accords serves its overall economic, foreign policy and security interests despite criticism," offered Wright."The bottom line is that the economic perks and U.S. backing is outweighing public opinion objections from its domestic political groups," said Wright.Courtney Freer, a fellow at Emory University, noted to RS that Bahrain's elected lower house of parliament issued a statement in November claiming that the country's ambassador had left Israel and that economic ties between the two states had been severed."It is worth noting that this language is coming from a primarily loyalist parliament, which suggests that such feelings of animosity towards Israel are not just associated with opposition parties, which, in turn, may make it more difficult to ignore," said Freer. "Notably, citizens have become involved in pro-Palestinian protests, and so there is anger, but it is uncertain whether this anger will be translated into political risk for the regime."Bahrain's diplomatic relations with Israel and military alliance with the U.S. may subject the archipelago kingdom to blowback from Iran-aligned actors in the region. But Bahrain abrogating the Abraham Accords or fundamentally changing its relationship with Washington is highly unlikely. Ultimately, Bahrain's leadership seems to assess that such risks of blowback are worth the benefits of normalized relations with Israel and American support."The Al Khalifa monarchy has proven adept at managing domestic dissent through various means, so the risks from Iran within this context will be viewed as manageable. Any public concerns over cooperation with Israel/U.S. is unlikely to seriously challenge its stability and at most is likely to be limited in scale," Wright said."Basically, Bahrain is seeking to be relevant to the U.S. by backing its counter-Houthi maritime initiative," he added. "This allows it to further cement its relationship with both the U.S. and also Israel, given that this is part of an approach to counter Houthi and Iranian geopolitical reach."
In: Miller , D , Massoumi , N , Blakeley , R & Kapoor , N 2019 , Leaving the War on Terror : A Progressive Alternative to Counter-Terrorism Policy . Amsterdam .
Britain's counter-terrorism policies do not work. They do not work for the British people, who wish to live free of terrorism. They do not work for the various communities in the UK whose experience of counter-terrorism has been one of stigmatisation and criminalisation. And they do not work for the people of the Middle East, South Asia and Africa, whose human rights have been systematically violated in the War on Terror. Just over two decades ago, the Irish and UK governments signed the Good Friday Agreement, the culmination of a negotiated peace process involving Republican and Loyalist armed groups in Northern Ireland. Principles of human rights, community consent and peace were key to achieving a dramatic reduction in lives lost to political violence. Indeed, by that measure, the Good Friday Agreement was the most successful instrument of counter-terrorism policy-making in recent history. But the lessons of this success were not registered. The year after the Agreement was signed, Tony Blair's government introduced the first of the fifteen new Terrorism Acts that have been passed since then in what has become a near-annual parliamentary ritual. Each Act ratcheted up the powers available to the police and intelligence agencies, creating a shadow criminal justice system in which legal principles applicable in other spheres were dispensed with. Alongside this legislative agenda, norms shifted in other ways: the use of surveillance and propaganda was expanded and deepened; military force and extra-judicial killing as counter-terrorist methods became routine; and complicity with torturers was normalised. Intelligence agencies, police forces and the military doubled or tripled their counter-terrorism budgets and held onto this funding even as other sectors were ravaged by austerity measures. The logic of counter-terrorism was spread into every sphere of public life in Britain as workers across government services were expected to become the eyes and ears of national security surveillance. The definition of the threat was itself transformed: no longer simply a matter of individual acts of violence but a much broader danger, understood in terms of clashes of culture, ideology and values, and informed by the Islamophobic principle that Muslim political organisation and dissent should be cast as forms of extremism. Concerns for human rights, for avoiding the stigmatising and criminalising of communities, or for basing policy on clear statements of goals and evidence of effectiveness were ignored. The number of civilian lives lost in ostenisbly fighting "jihadist" terrorism were many times greater than those that have ever been lost or could have been lost due to "jihadist" terrorism itself. Even on the narrowest measure of success – the reduction of terrorism – the record of UK counter- terrorism over the last twenty years is a poor one. The relentless expansion and proliferation of this War on Terror apparatus was underpinned by a consensus across the political class from the late 1990s. Central to that consensus were the claims that the UK faced an exceptional threat from "jihadist" terrorism, that this threat was the expression of an ideological rejection of British values among a generation of young Muslims and that, in response, the normal principles of domestic and international law should be suspended. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn's Chatham House speech on the War on Terror in the 2017 general election campaign was the first sign of a crack in that consensus. In the days after the killing of twenty-two concert-goers at the Manchester Arena, Corbyn argued that "the war on terror is simply not working" and opinion polls suggested a majority agreed.1 This report offers an account of the failures of current counter-terrorism policies, an analysis of the reasons why they do not work and an outline of a progressive alternative that we hope will be the basis for a future Labour government's approach. We recognise the difficulty and complexity of the issue of terrorism and the various barriers that stand in the way of a different approach. But we believe the time is right to critically assess the legacy of the last twenty years and change course. At the heart of our argument is a question of democracy. Counter-terrorism policy-making has failed because its development is unmoored from any substantial process of democratic accountability. Instead, the aims and means of current counter-terrorism policy have been set by a security establishment according to its own interests and values. This security establishment has not sought to provide a consistent and precise definition of terrorism or to seek to counter terrorism in an evidence-based way, based on academic studies of how terrorism comes into existence. It has not sought to ground security policy in the actual problems of political violence that communities in the UK face. And it has repeatedly placed loyalty to elite interests above the need to uphold human rights, especially with respect to Muslim populations, both within the UK and abroad. The Labour Party has a particular responsibility to address the harms resulting from counter- terrorism as it was the Labour government led by Tony Blair that incorporated the War on Terror into British policy-making and his successor Gordon Brown who continued and extended the paradigm. Labour's 2017 manifesto already contained policies that align with our argument and can be built upon, such as the call to review Prevent, to address civil liberties concerns with the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and to hold public inquiries on past injustices. However, counter-terrorism policy has been one of the least discussed topics within the Labour Party, despite its deep impact on the lives of the over two million Muslims in the UK. We hope this report will help to initiate a more vigorous discussion. Clearly, any left-wing Labour government will be attacked by its opponents as weak on national security. The temptation will be to not rock the boat and allow counter-terrorism policy to remain unchanged, the better to secure political victories in the core economic policy areas Labour Party supporters are more focused on. We believe this would be a mistake. It would mean a Labour government failing to uphold principles of human rights and racial and religious equality. But as a political strategy, it would also likely be counter-productive. Conceding ground on security policy will not minimise the attacks from right-wing media organisations or Conservative politicians; and a Labour government would be left defending itself reactively and inconsistently within a policy framework not of its own choosing. In this way, a failure to develop a progressive approach to security could end up undermining the credibility of a Labour government's broader policy agenda. A better strategy, we believe, is to adopt from the outset a coherent, explicitly stated, progressive policy that can be defended consistently and confidently.
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The coming month will be crucial for determining what the Venezuelan opposition's participation will look like in the July 28 presidential election.The five-day window for candidate registry opened Thursday. But the Venezuelan opposition faces a barrage of efforts by the Nicolás Maduro government aimed at harassing and disqualifying his challengers.The National Electoral Council (CNE), controlled by President Nicolás Maduro, reaffirmed the disqualification of top opposition candidate María Corina Machado in January based on a collage of specious charges. Rumblings from Caracas had already suggested serious talks about naming a replacement candidate for Machado. However, a warrant was issued for the arrest of the most likely substitute, her campaign manager Magalli Meda, on Wednesday. Several of Machado' team were also arrested and taken away. The charges? All have been accused of taking part a violent anti-government conspiracy. Meanwhile, the CNE has also annulled the registry of a number of opposition parties, at this point leaving only two from the dominant coalition. The Venezuelan opposition faces several complex challenges in trying to channel the energy and enthusiasm expressed for Maria Corina Machado in the opposition's primary election last October into the general election in July. U.S. policy makers need to encourage opposition participation and prioritize the Venezuelan people's right to self-determination.Machado is a long-time hardline activist and politician who for years has been at odds with the dominant opposition coalition in demanding foreign intervention, suggesting that no election was possible with President Nicolas Maduro remaining in power, and insisting that dialogue with the regime was a farce. But her popularity soared over the past year as she plunged headlong into the primary process and even embraced the Norwegian-mediated negotiation process between the Maduro government and opposition coalition that has been taking place on and off again since 2019. Citizen participation in the opposition's primary surpassed all expectations and gave her over 90% support among a population desperate for change. This has essentially made her the opposition's candidate and given her a predominant voice in the coalition.However, recent polling shows that a majority of Venezuelans would support any unified opposition candidate. This contradicts the message that she and her advisors have been propagating — that she is the only viable candidate — and explains why, in recent weeks, she has taken to attacking pollsters and analysts.In a recent article, a colleague and I suggested that, despite a decade of efforts to counter Nicolás Maduro's authoritarian slide, the U.S. government's ability to impact the Maduro government is quite limited. Under three U.S. presidents, efforts have ranged from diplomacy to outright attempts at regime-change. Yet during that time, the Maduro government has become a comprehensive authoritarian state that the United Nations High Commission on Human Rights has accused of not just censorship of media and harassment of opposition politicians, but enforced disappearances and torture.Washington, however, does have significant influence with the Venezuelan opposition. At this point, the U.S. needs to be absolutely consistent that an electoral boycott is not its preferred path forward. The Venezuelan people are clear about this, as is most of the opposition, and Biden officials also seem to have heard that message. Multiple times in the past, however, the opposition has snatched dysfunction out of the jaws of consensus, with factional leaders each pulling in different directions or preferring abstention rather than letting a rival leader end up on top. This possibility should not be underestimated this year as well. While boycotting an election that does not meet international standards may seem morally and emotionally satisfying, the research is quite clear that participation in an unfair election is more effective than abstaining. Tacit U.S. approval of past boycotts should not be repeated this time around.Machado has insisted on running despite her disqualification and has taken a hard line against candidate substitution in order to maximize pressure on the regime. Her logic is that the regime will buckle to pressure and lift her ban and allow her on the ballot. This position has been embraced in Washington, especially on Capitol Hill by Republican lawmakers and even some Democrats for whom Machado's hard line may resonate with their constituents. But there is a distinct danger that Machado will pivot and get behind a substitute candidate, and lawmakers in Washington will fail to support such a move, thus complicating the opposition's participation in the elections. In the past, U.S. government inertia has dragged down an opposition that was willing to take new paths. This kind of muscle memory absolutely needs to be avoided this time around.If Machado does pivot, there are a number of reasons the gambit could still fail — from opposition dysfunction to the Maduro regime simply disqualifying or jailing the substitute candidate, or complicating the registration process. If this happens and a new opposition candidate emerges who has the potential to unify Venezuela's discontented electorate even without Machado's blessing, that process must be allowed to proceed without interference from Washington. This election is about the long-suffering Venezuelan people. It is important to realize that popular support for Machado is based largely on her being perceived as someone who can deliver change in terms of getting them to a post-Maduro future. Many of those who support her do not support her policies on major issues such as sanctions, foreign intervention, and privatization of the state oil company. Thus, a quick swing of public support to another candidate with quite different policy positions is entirely possible. It is fine for U.S. policymakers to have favorite foreign politicians and allies, but these relationships should not be allowed to interfere with Venezuelans' attempts to take new directions to unify against Maduro.Meanwhile, U.S. officials need to prepare for the likelihood that the election will not be competitive. Any truly free and fair electoral event would lead to the defeat of Maduro and his loyalists. They have a great deal to lose and they will do what they can to avoid such an outcome. Nonetheless, it is always worth making an authoritarian government play the election game because it can make mistakes, and a "stunning election" result can generate a cascade of events that leads to a transition in spite of the incumbent government's efforts. At the same time, everyone should be clear that the Maduro regime controls all of the institutions of government as well as the armed forces and the oil industry. The most likely outcome is that they maintain power with the only real doubt being how inelegantly they do so.What happens in this scenario needs to be carefully planned out ahead of time. As a result of last October's Barbados Accords that laid out the path for a democratic election, the Biden Administration issued licenses that effectively suspended the most important U.S. sanctions on the Venezuelan economy — namely, on oil and gas — for six months. Those licenses are up for review in mid-April, and snapping sanctions back in place would be a mistake. Economic sanctions on Venezuela have exacted heavy humanitarian costs, impoverishing the population and significantly impacting emigration. And since they affect the population more than the government, they have actually strengthened the regime's power over the population. Targeted sanctions on specific individuals should be maintained. While they have not proved terribly effective either, they do provide a level of international stigmatization for individuals who have violated the rights of others. If properly implemented and monitored, they can provide useful impetus for reform and democratization.The most important thing the U.S. government can do in the longer run is to robustly support a deepening and extension of dialogue and negotiation within Venezuela. Only when the shape of the conflict and nature of the game change will Chavismo be willing to let go of power. Processes of reconciliation and reconstruction of the social fabric are the only way intractable conflicts can become something else. The effort that has been led by Norwegian diplomats is well-conceived and carried out with genuine expertise. But it needs more international, and especially U.S., support if it is to succeed.
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Following Houthi missile attacks aimed at Israel and third-country-flagged vessels in the Red Sea, the Biden administration is reportedly considering targeting northern Yemen while creating a new international maritime alliance to try to ensure secure transit. As a result of the Houthi attacks, international merchant shipping is being rerouted with inflationary consequences for vital global supplies. Washington is weighing whether military strikes would either deter or incite further Houthi action and risk undermining desirable attempts by Saudi Arabia at ending its conflict with the Houthis following Yemen's stalled but unresolved civil war. The Houthis' Red Sea military intervention is attempting to combine ideologically-driven anger at Israel's military campaign in Gaza with leverage for funding the long-unpaid salaries of northern Yemenis under Houthi control. However, oil revenue, in part limited due to Houthi missile attacks on southern Yemeni oil and related facilities, is managed by the internationally recognized Yemen government based in Aden in southern Yemen. For the so-called "Legitimacy Government," or LG, to give the Houthi money to pay northern "civil servants" — who include armed fighters — U.S. pressure and Saudi and Emirati backing are needed. But this is highly unlikely. In southern Yemen, the Southern Transitional Council (STC), founded in 2017 with the backing of the UAE, is preparing to lead the formation of a new state by secession from what it considers a failed, and northern-dominated, Republic of Yemen, or RoY. The STC hopes to exploit what they see as the Houthis shooting themselves in the foot by destabilizing the Red Sea area. After all, the Houthis have, despite a 20-month formal ceasefire, been waging an economically motivated war against the south designed to deprive the LG of revenues and boost the appeal of the Red Sea port of Hodeidah. For the STC to reemphasize southern ports and oil facilities as an alternative to Houthi-controlled Hodeidah, it needs to somehow secure the whole southern Yemeni coast and to incentivize more inbound shipping. The Houthis' relationship to Iran makes it easy for the STC to label it a Tehran proxy. Despite membership in Iran's "Axis of Resistance," and Iran's aid in extending their missile technology's literal reach, the Houthis have their own motivations. The STC is seizing on the Houthi threat to Red Sea security to underline the prospective role of its own "shadow state" in boosting international maritime stability. In this context, this southern state-in-waiting is willing to uphold western security interests and is thus presenting itself as a proactive partner in securing the Red Sea's Bab Al-Mandab strait and the Gulf of Aden against Houthi attacks. The STC argues that the proven Houthi threat to Red Sea security is a cynical exploitation of popular Yemeni anger over Israel's actions against Gaza. A recent STC press conference, headed by the self-styled president of the south, Maj-Gen Aidaroos Zubaidi, called on those seeking to secure the area to beef up the STC's "naval forces."The STC, however, does not actually have its own navy or any regular armed forces. In fact, it is debatable if it has any armed units that can be properly described as under Zubaidi's command. Southern Yemen exists in an almost parallel universe. Zubaidi enjoys recognition, as does the STC he leads, by virtue of his position as vice-president of the Saudi-backed eight-man Presidential Leadership Council, or PLC, heading the version of the RoY that sits in Aden. The PLC includes Zubaidi's STC deputy, the former governor of the huge southern governorate of Hadramawt, Maj-Gen. Faraj Bahsani. Yet another military figure in a leading STC political role, Bahsani previously headed the RoY's 2nd Military Division.But neither Zubaidi nor Bahsani can offer an armed underpinning to the STC's claims to be an all-inclusive movement for southern independence. These men, like other LG members, enjoy their international recognition via the LG, a Yemeni government that is neither a state nor one in waiting. While the LG enjoys the loose loyalty of some RoY military remnants in the south and in some parts of the north, its armed capacity is uncoordinated and riven by unreliable tribal components. And the LG itself lacks popular political support. By contrast, the STC, based on much anecdotal evidence, enjoys some popular support in Aden and in the other southwestern governorates: Abyan, Lahej and Dhale, and in coastal Hadramawt. In the Wadi area of Hadramawt, however, local saadah (descendants of the Prophet Mohammed) and tribal leaders are more circumspect. What the STC lacks, even in its Aden base where leading STC figure Ahmed Lamlas is governor, is direct control of armed forces. The Emirati-trained and -backed "police," the Hizam Al Amni ("Security Belt") operating in Aden, are formally speaking STC-aligned but are not in practice directly controlled by Gen. Aidaroos, the nominal supreme commander of "the Southern Armed Forces." The Amaliqa ("Giants Brigade"), another Emirati-formed force which in 2022 played a decisive role in pushing Houthi fighters out of the energy-rich southern governorate of Shabwa, are only loosely connected to the STC. A rival, Emirati-founded army, the Nokba ("Elite Forces"), was in operation in Shabwa but was displaced by "Shabwa Defense," which is associated more closely with Saudi Arabia. In Aden, the STC is busy creating parallel bodies to those of the governorate. It does not see this as unnecessary duplication but rather as trying to fill the vacuum in services provision in a formal governorate structure that it ostensibly runs. The STC is intent on a similar "shadow state" project in Mahra (the governorate that borders Saudi Arabia to its north and Oman to its east). However, the STC is doing this in far less auspicious circumstances than in Aden. In Mahra, "northern" political and security influence, including that of Al-Islah (Yemen's Muslim Brotherhood) is profound, due in part to demographic realities created by the large numbers of people who have fled Houthi advances and security services that are seen by critics as RoY loyalists. The Mahran version of Amn Al-Watan ("National Security") struggles to communicate with its notional "National Security" partner in neighboring Hadramawt. Oil and other essentials carried by road from southwest to southeast Yemen are not protected for their safe arrival in Mahra by any coordination with supposed parallel security bodies in other southern governorates. To be a plausible partner state of the U.S. and the other western powers who are now moving to protect Israel and Red Sea shipping from the Houthis, the south needs a single unified form of control of the different military and security services that, at best, operate on a governorate basis only. But the south's main external sources of support, the Emiratis and the Saudis (the latter having formed separate "National Shield" forces in Aden and Hadramawt), are not interested in promoting an integrated southern security body. One reason is that these two Gulf states have competing interests in different parts of southern Yemen, and a common unwillingness to push for a sovereign southern stateSouthern Yemen under the STC's would-be leadership is seeking to burnish its western-friendly security and political credentials. However, southern Yemen remains a would-be nation made up of different countries only partly united in opposition to perceptibly northern rulers. For the time being, it looks as if the role of any southern Yemeni state in Arabian Peninsula security will remain rhetorical.
This guide accompanies the following article: Patrick Archer and Ryan Orr, 'Class Identification in Review: Past Perspectives and Future Directions', Sociology Compass 5/1 (2011): 104–115, 10.1111/j.1751‐9020.2010.00352.xAuthor's introductionHistorically, sociology has had a contentious relationship with the concept of class. At times, debates over the meaning and importance of class have defined the field. More recently, however, the notable absence or weakness of class identities in class‐oriented research has led many sociologists to abandon class as an organizing concept in society. The response of class loyalists to this class‐less re‐theorization of stratification and inequality has developed along two paths. The first path emphasizes the continued importance of class as an influential force in people's lives, but jettisons any assumptions of subjective class identification. The second path has repackaged class as being hierarchical and relational while downplaying the existence of collective class identification. One consequence of these new developments in class theory has been a movement away from classical class theory and the assumed centrality of collective class identification in this work. The purpose of this article is to reexamine the contributions of classical class theory – particularly that of Marx, Weber, Durkheim, and Veblen – to the debate on collective class identification. Two questions guided this analysis. First, to what extent did Marx, Weber, Durkheim, and Veblen associate class with collective identification? Second, in what ways are the contributions of these theorists relevant to the current debates on class and identification?Author recommendsBottero, Wendy. 2004. 'Class Identities and the Identity of Class.'Sociology 38(5): 985–1003.Wendy Bottero's article Class Identities and the Identity of Class is an excellent review of the current state of class theory, particularly as it concerns class identification. While our article focuses primarily on the contribution of classical theorists to the debate on class and identification, Bottero addresses key contemporary developments to class theory and what they represent for the future meaning of class.Bourdieu, P. 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Pierre Bourdieu's Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste offers readers a complex look into class identification. Bourdieu examines class identification as cultural practices and preferences that emerge through taste. On the one hand, taste operates as a method of class identification by actively distinguishing the class position to which one belongs. On the other hand, taste operates as a method of class identification by actively distinguishing class positions to which one does not belong. Bourdieu also argues that the process of (dis)identification transpires primarily on unconscious levels.Durkheim, Émile. 1984 [1893]. The Division of Labor in Society. New York, NY: The Free Press.In The Division of Labor in Society, his first major work, Émile Durkheim examines how social order is possible as small, traditional societies become more advanced and industrialized. It is here that Durkheim develops the concepts of mechanical and organic solidarity and their relation to the division of labor in society. Of particular interest to this article is the Preface to the Second Edition in which Durkheim argued that professional groupings (i.e., occupations), as opposed to class locations, were emerging as important and essential organizers of social identification.Giddens, Anthony. 1971. Capitalism and Modern Social Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.This book is an excellent resource for students at the undergraduate and graduate level who are engaging with the original writings of Marx, Weber, and Durkheim for the first time. For the first two‐thirds of the book, Giddens analyzes separately each of the theoretical contributions of Marx, Weber, and Durkheim. The concluding chapters consider lines of comparison between the three authors, with particular emphasis on how Durkheim and Weber diverge from Marx. Of particular interest to this article is Giddens' examination of Weber's concepts of class and status (pp. 163–8).Grusky, David B. and Jesper B. Sørensen. 1998. 'Can Class Analysis Be Salvaged?'American Journal of Sociology 103(5): 1187–234.Using what they called a "quasi‐Durkheimian third road," Grusky and Sørensen advocate a disaggregate analysis of social stratification in the form of occupational groupings. Based on a number of premises, the authors argue that occupational groupings, contrary to aggregate class groupings, represent real cleavages among people in society. The result is an important addition to the debate over realist and nominalist approaches to class and identification.Marx, K. and F. Engels. 1964 [1848]. The Communist Manifesto. New York: Washington Square Press.Along with being one of Marx and Engels' most accessible writings for undergraduate students, The Communist Manifesto is the pair's most well‐known collaboration. In the writing, Marx and Engels conceptualize class membership evolving into two general groups. Marx and Engels organize class membership with respect to an individual's relationship to the modes of production. The bourgeoisie own the modes of production whereas the proletarians sell their labor to the owners. Marx and Engels also provide insight into cognitive and emotional aspects of class identification in their discussions of class awareness and conflict between classes.Marx, K. 1993 [1894]. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol. 3. New York: Penguin Classics.Marx offers readers a discussion of class in Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol. 3. The discussion is incomplete due to his death, but Marx conceptualizes class membership differently compared to the bourgeoisie/proletariat organization in The Communist Manifesto. Marx discusses 'three great classes' of wage‐laborers, capitalists, and landlords before introducing the idea of fragmentation of the classes into smaller groups. The unfinished conceptualization of smaller groups is where the manuscript stops. Subjective dimensions of class in Vol. 3 are not developed, but inferences of identification with class position may be traced to Marx's thoughts about class awareness and class identification.Swartz, D. 1997. Culture and Power: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.As the book's title indicates, David Swartz concentrates on Pierre Bourdieu's examination of the link between culture and power. Focusing on this central theme of Bourdieu's sociology, Swartz gives readers a comprehensive overview of Bourdieu's theoretical framework, including his key concepts of habitus, fields, and capitals (economic, cultural, symbolic, and social). Although discussions of class identification are present throughout the text, chapter seven ('Social Classes and the Struggle for Power') most highlights the topic by focusing on class practices and class position indicators. Swartz's informative discussions represent an excellent starting‐point for learning about Bourdieu's conceptualizations of class and class identity.Veblen, T. 1994 [1899]. The Theory of the Leisure Class. New York: Dover Publications, Inc.Thorstein Veblen' s The Theory of the Leisure Class represents one of the first in‐depth analyses of class identification. Veblen provides a critique of both class identification and general cultural ways of the wealthy in late 19th century America. Although often overlooked, Veblen's focus on the acquisition of status signs as attempts to achieve social superiority captures a Darwinian train of thought. He argues that instinctual desires to dominate other individuals were shaped by industrial American life into largely symbolic battles of consumption. Veblen's attention to the use of consumption practices as status markers, minus the emphasis on instinctual desires, continues to influence contemporary consumer studies.Weber, Max. 1978 [1921/22]. Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology (2 vols.). Berkeley: University of California Press.Max Weber's Economy and Society is exceptionally significant, both in terms of volume and contribution to the field of sociology. Unfortunately, this work was incomplete at the time of Weber's death in 1920. Weber touches on many subjects in Economy and Society, including his view on sociology and the concept of social action, which anchors much of his work. For a firsthand account of Weber's contentious definitions of class and status see the sections "Status Groups and Classes" (1978 [1921/22], pp. 302–7) and "The Distribution of Power within the Political Community: Class, Status, and Party" (1978 [1921/22], pp. 926–39).Sample syllabusSection one: Exploring class identification: understandings, significance, and debatesBeck, U. and J. Willms. 2004. Conversations with Ulrich Beck. Cambridge: Polity Press.Pakulski, J. and M. Waters. 1996. The Death of Class. London: Sage.Reay, D. 1998. 'Rethinking Social Class: Qualitative Perspectives on Class and Gender.'Sociology 32(2): 259–75.Reay, D. 2005. 'Beyond Consciousness? The Psychic Landscape of Class.'Sociology 39(5): 911–28.Section two: Class identification and classical theoryGiddens, Anthony. 1971. Capitalism and Modern Social Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Marx, K. 1978 [1932]. 'The German Ideology: Part I.' Pp. 146–200 in The Marx‐Engels Reader, 2nd edn, edited by R. C. Tucker. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.Marx, K. 1993 [1894]. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol. 3. New York: Penguin Classics. (Chapter 52)Marx, K. and F. Engels 1964 [1848]. The Communist Manifesto. New York: Washington Square Press.Weber, M. 1978 [1921/1922]. Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology (2 vols.). Berkeley: University of California Press.Durkheim, E. 1984 [1893]. The Division of Labor in Society. New York: The Free Press.Veblen, T. 1994 [1899]. The Theory of the Leisure Class. New York: Dover Publications, Inc.Section three: Class identification and contemporary theoryLukács, G. 1971 [1922]. History of Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxist Dialectics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Wright, E. O. 1997. Class Counts: Comparative Studies in Class Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Bourdieu, P. 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (Introduction, Chapters 1, 2, 5, and 6.)Swartz, D. 1997. Culture and Power: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. (Chapter 7)Baudrillard, J. 1981. For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign. St. Louis MO: Telos. (Chapters 1, 2, 6, 7, and 11)Grusky, David B. and Jesper B. Sørensen. 1998. 'Can Class Analysis Be Salvaged?'American Journal of Sociology 103(5): 1187–234.Section four: Class identification and future directionsBottero, Wendy. 2004. 'Class Identities and the Identity of Class.'Sociology 38(5): 985–1003.Skeggs, B. 1997. Formations of Class and Gender. London: Sage.Lockwood, D. 1996. 'Civic Integration and Class Formation.'British Journal of Sociology 47(3): 531–50.Savage, M., G. Bagnall and B. Longhurst. 2001. 'Ordinary, Ambivalent and Defensive: Class Identities in the Northwest of England.'Sociology 35(4): 875–92.Assignment ideas1. Class Identification: Themes and Debates Using Section One's readings, highlight three different debates with respect to contemporary views on the significance of class identification. For instance, do scholars believe social class has a strong influence on individual identity? In highlighting the debates, explain all positions and the points of disagreement. 2. Comparing and Contrasting Classical Theoretical Views Provide summaries of each classical theorist's conceptualization of class identification. Summaries must include discussions of the theorists' understandings of class identification (What is the theorist's understanding of class identification) and discussions of the theorists' explanations of their understandings (How does the theorist explain his understanding of class identification?) Provide four similarities among the theorists' conceptualizations. Provide four differences among the theorists' conceptualizations. 3. Continuations and New Developments of class identity Select three contemporary theorists. For the theorists, provide summaries of their conceptualizations of class identification. Discuss how each theorist continues tradition(s) of classical theoretical conceptualizations of class identification. Discuss how each theorist provides new understandings of class identifications. 4. Envisioning Future Directions and Revisiting Current Debates Using both your personal thoughts and previously examined ideas, revisit two debates on the contemporary significance of class identification. In addition, discuss three potential directions of class identification scholarship, and explain how the potential future directions relate to past viewpoints on class identification.
Radovan Karadzic en La Haya.Responsable por uno de los genocidios mas sangrientos de la historia reciente, Radovan Karadzic, el ex jefe político de los serbobosnios comparecerá ante el Tribunal Penal Internacional para ex Yugoslavia. Karadzic fue trasladado en la noche del pasado martes a La Haya. Horas antes del traslado, tenía lugar una manifestación organizada por la oposición nacionalista serbia en el centro de Belgrado, que degeneró al final en altercados entre unos centenares de jóvenes y la policía. Varios medios informan al respecto: "El Mercurio" de Chile: "Masiva protesta antes de su traslado en las calles de Belgrado: Karadzic fue extraditado a La Haya":http://diario.elmercurio.com/2008/07/30/internacional/internacional/noticias/B46C4AF2-02E3-4C90-823E-ECC1FC5E98D2.htm?id={B46C4AF2-02E3-4C90-823E-ECC1FC5E98D2}"El País" de Madrid: "Karadzic llega al Tribunal de La Haya: Serbia envía de noche al presunto criminal de guerra a las dependencias penitenciarias internacionales.- Será juzgado por genocidio y otros crímines por el Tribunal Penal Internacional para la ex Yugoslavia": http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/Karadzic/llega/Tribunal/Haya/elpepuint/20080730elpepuint_4/Tes"New York Times": "Karadzic Arrives in Hague After Protest by Loyalists":http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/31/world/europe/31hague.html"CCN": "Karadzic set to make first court appearance":http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/07/30/karadzic.deportation/index.html"Karadzic appeal not received by court"http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/07/28/karadzic.deportation/index.html"Karadzic to defend himself in war crimes court":http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/07/23/serb.arrest/index.html"Thousands protest Karadzic arrest":http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/07/29/karadzic.deportation/index.html"Time":"Karadzic Wants No Lawyer":http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1827424,00.html"Le Monde": "Radovan Karadzic comparaîtra jeudi devant le TPI"http://www.lemonde.fr/europe/article/2008/07/30/radovan-karadzic-est-arrive-a-la-haye_1078522_3214.html#ens_id=1075781"Los Ángeles Times": "War crimes suspect Karadzic extradited to The Hague":http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-serbs30-2008jul30,0,2903253.story"MSNBC": "Karadzic in U.N. custody in Netherlands: Ex-fugitive flown to the Netherlands following violent protest in Belgrade":http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25887949/"Thousands protest in Belgrade for Karadzic: U.S. Embassy warns Americans to avoid protest amid fears of violence":http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25890371/"Paper: Karadzic lawyer tries to stop extradition: Appeal meant to prevent war-crime suspect from being sent to U.N. court":http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25859649/"Times":"Radovan Karadzic extradited to The Hague":http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4427730"La Nación": "Está acusado de genocidio: Radovan Karadzic, a disposición de La Haya. El ex líder serbio llegó a Holanda para ser juzgado en el Tribunal Penal Internacional":http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1034845"Avanza su extradición: Karadzic será llevado a La Haya en secreto": http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1034388"El Tiempo" de Colombia: "Radovan Karadzic fue llevado a La Haya, Holanda, para ser juzgado por crímenes de guerra":http://www.eltiempo.com/mundo/europa/home/radovan-karadzic-fue-llevado-a-la-haya-holanda-para-ser-juzgado-por-crimenes-de-guerra_4416080-1"The Economist":"Arrest of a bearded man": http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11792314"El Universal" de Méjico: "Karadzic queda en poder de la ONU en Holanda":http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/526234.htmlAMERICA LATINA"El Mercurio" publica: "Reclaman la restitución del Ejército: Ex militares haitianos ocupan un antiguo cuartel":http://diario.elmercurio.com/2008/07/30/internacional/internacional/noticias/B0B07BB4-211D-4F05-9FEB-6704AF47278D.htm?id={B0B07BB4-211D-4F05-9FEB-6704AF47278D}"La Nación" publica: "Uribe pide "discreción"":http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1034424"MSNBC" informa: "Woman suspected of being FARC's Europe link: Maria Remedios Garcia Albert, 57, was the alleged rebel liaison":http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25873981"The Economist" analiza: "Energy reform in México: Crude and oily. A controversial referendum and the future of the state oil company":http://www.economist.com/world/americas/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11791596"MSNBC" anuncia: "Mexican military losing drug war support: Border residents report abuse, violence by soldiers sent to curb narcotics": http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25851906/"El País" de Madrid publica: "El presidente electo de Paraguay ya no es sacerdote: El Papa ha suspendido definitivamente a Fernando Lugo porque las profesiones de obispo y gobernante de un país no son compatibles http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/presidente/electo/Paraguay/sacerdote/elpepuint/20080730elpepuint_8/Tes"El País" de Madrid informa: "Chávez: "Bush quiere revivir la guerra fría". El presidente venezolano dice, en una carta enviada a Fidel Castro, que EE UU planea agredir a Cuba http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/Chavez/Bush/quiere/revivir/guerra/fria/elpepuint/20080728elpepuint_14/Tes"The Economist" anuncia: "Argentina: Et tu, Julio? :The president suffers a heavy defeat at the hands of her number two":http://www.economist.com/world/americas/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11791614"La Nación" informa: "Bolivia: ratifican el referéndum. Pese a los pedidos de suspensión, la Corte Electoral dijo que se celebrará el 10 de agosto":http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1034389ESTADOS UNIDOS / CANADA"New York Times" informa: " U.S. Military Says Soldiers Fired on Civilians":http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/28/world/middleeast/28iraq.html?ref=world"El País" de Madrid anuncia: "La Casa Blanca pronostica un déficit presupuestario récord para 2009: Sería de 482.000 millones de dólares, aproximadamente el 3,5% de la economía": http://www.elpais.com/articulo/economia/Casa/Blanca/pronostica/deficit/presupuestario/record/2009/elpepueco/20080728elpepueco_8/Tes"La Nación" publica: "La economía enfrenta a Obama y McCain: El candidato demócrata advirtió que Estados Unidos está en "emergencia económica"; fuertes críticas de su rival republicano":http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1034414"The Economist" analiza: "It's the economy again, stupid.John McCain and Barack Obama are offering profoundly different prescriptions, though economic and political realities will limit their ambitions": http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11792500"El País" de Madrid informa: "Republicanos y demócratas se enfocan en la economía: Barack Obama convoca a un panel de lujo para revisar sus propuestas.- John McCain mantiene contactos con las autoridades monetarias": http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/Republicanos/democratas/enfocan/economia/elpepuint/20080728elpepuint_13/Tes"El Mercurio" de Chile anuncia: "Le queda menos de un mes antes de ser proclamado oficialmente en la Convención Demócrata: Obama entra en la recta final para decidir quién será su candidato a Vicepresidente":http://diario.elmercurio.com/2008/07/30/internacional/_portada/noticias/CAE4A8B7-3485-4112-8844-D31E89023938.htm?id={CAE4A8B7-3485-4112-8844-D31E89023938}"Time" informa: "Obama's Vice-Presidential Dilemma":http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1827714,00.html"Time" publica su sitio con links sobre las elecciones en los Estados Unidos: http://thepage.time.com/EUROPA"El País" de Madrid informa: "Erdogan llama a la unidad tras los atentados de ayer en Turquía: La explosión consecutiva de dos bombas sacude un barrio obrero de Estambul.- La cifra de muertes sube a 17 y hay unos 150 heridos, una decena de ellos de gravedad.- La policía sospecha de los independentistas kurdos": http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/Erdogan/llama/unidad/atentados/ayer/Turquia/elpepuint/20080728elpepuint_4/Tes"New Yorrk Times2 anuncia: "Police Investigate Istanbul Bombings":http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/29/world/europe/29turkey.html?ref=world"Time" publica: "Fatal Bombings in an Edgy Turkey":http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1827056,00.html"El País" de Madrid informa: "Comienza el proceso para ilegalizar el partido de Erdogan": http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/Comienza/proceso/ilegalizar/partido/Erdogan/elpepuint/20080728elpepiint_6/Tes"El País" de Madrid anuncia: "El Tribunal Constitucional de Turquía rechaza ilegalizar al partido de Gobierno":http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/Tribunal/Constitucional/Turquia/rechaza/ilegalizar/partido/Gobierno/elpepuint/20080730elpepuint_9/Tes"Le Monde" publica: "Turquie : la justice n'interdit pas le parti au pouvoir":http://www.lemonde.fr/europe/article/2008/07/30/turquie-la-justice-n-interdit-pas-le-parti-au-pouvoir_1078861_3214.html"Time" analiza: "Who Was Behind the Turkish Blasts?":http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1827398,00.htmlEl País" de Madrid informa: "Las peores inundaciones en Ucrania en 100 años se cobran la vida de 13 personas. Las fuertes lluvias han destruido más de 21.000 casas y 20.000 hectáreas de cultivos, y han dejado inutilizadas 2.020 kilómetros de carreteras y más de un centenar de puentes": http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/peores/inundaciones/Ucrania/anos/cobran/vida/personas/elpepuint/20080728elpepuint_5/Tes"MSNBC" publica: "Ukraine floods kill 22, force 20,000 to flee: Damages estimated at $800 million, but few funds available to clean up":http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25887744/"Time" informa: "Thousands of British Passports Stolen": http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1827501,00.html"La Nación" publica: "Los que huyen de la miseria. Actos desesperados de los ilegales en España para no ser deportados: Viajes riesgosos y casamientos arreglados":http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1034426"MSNBC" informa: "7 jailed for genocide over Srebrenica massacre. War crimes court orders Bosnian Serbs to serve sentences of up 42 years":http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25908708/"The Economist" analiza: "France: The reformist president. Quietly but determinedly, Nicolas Sarkozy is pressing ahead with reforms in France-all without provoking huge strikes and street protests":http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11792306ASIA – PACÍFICO /MEDIO ORIENTE"New York Times" informa: "Bomb Attacks in Baghdad and Kirkuk Kill Dozens": HTTP://WWW.NYTIMES.COM/2008/07/29/WORLD/MIDDLEEAST/29IRAQ.HTML?REF=WORLD"El País" anuncia: "Tres mujeres suicidas causan al menos 28 muertos en Bagdad. Miles de peregrinos llenan Bagdad con motivo de una importante festividad chií.- En Kirkuk, otro atentado suicida deja 22 muertos": HTTP://WWW.ELPAIS.COM/ARTICULO/INTERNACIONAL/MUJERES/SUICIDAS/CAUSAN/28/MUERTOS/BAGDAD/ELPEPUINT/20080728ELPEPUINT_9/TES"La Nación" publica: "Cuatro mujeres suicidas atacaron en Irak:: Hicieron detonar los explosivos que llevaban y mataron a 57 personas; hay por lo menos 300 heridos":http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1034419"MSNBC" informa: "Female suicide bombers kill 57, wound dozens. Attackers target Shiite pilgrimage in Baghdad, Kurdish rally in Kirkuk": http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25880699/"New York Times" anuncia: "Olmert to Resign After September Vote": HTTP://WWW.NYTIMES.COM/2008/07/31/WORLD/MIDDLEEAST/31MIDEAST.HTML?_R=1&HP&OREF=SLOGIN"CNN" publica: "Ahmadinejad: The big powers are going down":HTTP://EDITION.CNN.COM/2008/WORLD/MEAST/07/29/IRAN.AIDS.AP/INDEX.HTML"Time" informa: "Ahmadinejad: 'Powers' Going Down": HTTP://WWW.TIME.COM/TIME/WORLD/ARTICLE/0,8599,1827377,00.HTML"The Economist analiza: "Iran: Who runs it?": http://www.economist.com/world/mideast-africa/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11792348"La Nación" anuncia: "Irán criticó a la ONU ante los Países No Alineados. Ahmadinejad aseguró en la cumbre de cancilleres que el organismo actúa "a favor de las grandes potencias"; pidió crear un fondo para financiar proyectos del bloque":http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1034530"CNN" informa: "Pakistani militants abduct 30 police": http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/07/29/pakistan.abductions/index.html"Time" anuncia: "Cambodia Reelects Longtime Leader": http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1827054,00.html"MSNBC" publica: "Typhoon slams Taiwan, triggering floods, slides: At least one killed, air traffic disrupted; Typhoon Fung Wong heads to China": http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25881000/"The Economist" analiza: "The Beijing Olympics:Five-ring circus": http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11792915"El Mercurio" publica: "Denuncias a días de la inauguración de los Juegos Olímpicos: China no cumple promesas y mantiene censura a la prensa y faltas a DD.HH.": HTTP://DIARIO.ELMERCURIO.COM/2008/07/30/INTERNACIONAL/_PORTADA/NOTICIAS/CB8049AE-EDCE-4C33-AF25-F7337A8C08B6.HTM?ID={CB8049AE-EDCE-4C33-AF25-F7337A8C08B6}"El País" informa: "Ni los Juegos Olímpicos pueden con la censura en China: El COI no logra convencer al país asiático para que los periodistas tengan acceso libre a Internet": HTTP://WWW.ELPAIS.COM/ARTICULO/INTERNET/JUEGOS/OLIMPICOS/PUEDEN/CENSURA/CHINA/ELPPGL/20080730ELPEPUNET_3/TES"New York Times" anuncia: "China to Limit Web Access During Games":HTTP://WWW.NYTIMES.COM/2008/07/31/SPORTS/OLYMPICS/31CHINA.HTML?HP"China Daily" publica: "WTO talks collapse amid farm row": HTTP://WWW.CHINADAILY.COM.CN/CHINA/2008-07/30/CONTENT_6887475.HTM"CNN" informa: "China rebuffs human rights report":http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/07/29/china.humanrights/index.html"CNN" publica: "India: Police defuse 18 bombs at market":http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/07/29/india.bombs.ap/index.html+"Time" anuncia: "India: The Terrorists Within": http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1826950,00.htmlAFRICA"New York Time" informa: "Sudan Rallies Behind Leader Reviled Abroad":http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/28/world/africa/28sudan.html?ref=world"CNN" publica: "U.S. expands Zimbabwe sanctions":http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/07/25/zimbabwe.sanctions/index.html"MSNBC" publica: "Officials say Zimbabwe talks break off: Mugabe insists he remain president":http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25887595/"MSNBC" informa: "Cash crisis, inflation worsen in Zimbabwe: Bank chief plans new currency reforms to tackle inflation and shortages":http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25869792/"CNN" anuncia: "Nigerian militants: We'll destroy oil pipelines":http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/07/23/nigeria.oil/index.htmlECONOMIA"The Economist" analiza: "World trade: Dried up. Talks over the Doha round of global trade talks have collapsed":http://www.economist.com/finance/displayStory.cfm?story_id=11831960&source=features_box_main"The Economist" publica su informe semanal: "Business this week":http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11793527&CFID=15321684&CFTOKEN=24001901"New York Times" informa: "Stock Indexes Continue to Slip":http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/29/business/29stox.html?_r=1&ref=business&oref=slogin"El País" de Madrid informa: "El FMI alerta del empeoramiento de la crisis crediticia: La institución internacional achaca este empeoramiento a la ralentización de la economía mundial.- Subraya la caída de los precios de la vivienda en España": http://www.elpais.com/articulo/economia/FMI/alerta/empeoramiento/crisis/crediticia/elpepueco/20080728elpepueco_7/Tes"CNN" publica: "Global trade deal falls apart":http://edition.cnn.com/2008/BUSINESS/07/29/wto.collapse.ap/index.html"CNN" informa: "High oil price boosts BP profit":http://edition.cnn.com/2008/BUSINESS/07/29/bp.profit.ap/index.html"La Nación" publica: "La liberalización del comercio mundial. Anunciaron el fracaso de la Ronda de Doha. El director general de la Organización Mundial del Comercio, Pascal Lamy, confirmó que las negociaciones quedaron truncas; declaró estar "profundamente consternado"":http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1034531La caída del crudo impulsa a Wall Street: "La Bolsa de Nueva York muestra fuertes avances; el petróleo bajó más de tres dólares y se negocia en US$ 121 el barril en el mercado estadounidense": http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1034574OTRAS NOTICIAS"Time" publica: "Beijing Cites Many Olympic Threats": http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1827353,00.html"MSNBC" publica: "Olympic threats fuel unease about security: China says heavy defense will secure Games, but clampdown is smothering":http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25890371/"Time" informa: "A Video Threat to the Olympics?":http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1826953,00.html"The Economist" analiza: "Global Islam: Unusual guests, a most unusual host. A new breeze may be blowing very softly from the Saudi sands":http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11792340
This report aims to assess the steps taken during Rwanda's transition following the genocide against the objective of the long-term durability of domestic peace. Its principal conclusion is that peace is most likely to endure if Rwanda's political space is gradually opened up to allow: (i) Rwanda's formal state institutions to establish greater autonomy from the current regime; and (ii) Rwandan political and civil society, its political opposition and media in particular, to evolve as mature and independent counterweights to the ruling party. Incremental political liberalization will encourage an important shift in Rwanda's political culture to one which encouraged accountability for the subordination of institutional rules to personal, party, or ethnic interests. It falls on the regime to show the way forward to Rwanda's civil and political society by demonstrating its tolerance for genuine political pluralism, dissent, and inclusion. It is in the regime's long-term strategic self-interest to encourage such a change in political culture and increase its legitimacy in order to discourage attempts to bring about regime change extra-constitutionally.
Esta Semana: Comunicado de Departamento del Tesoro de los EE.UU. El 13 de julio el titular del Departamento del Tesoro de Estados Unidos, Henry M. Paulson, Jr, emitió un comunicado sobre la caída y rescate de los gigantes inmobiliarios Fannie Mae y Freddy Mac. Les acercamos el comunicado extraído del Departamento de Prensa del Tesoro americano. El pasado 25 de julio se produjo la Cumbre Unión Europea - Sudáfrica. En la oportunidad y como resultado de la misma los participantes emitieron una declaración conjunta. Véala aquí Les acercamos este informe del Alto Comisionado de Derechos Humanos de la ONU sobre Derechos Humanos y Terrorismo que nos pareció de gran interés. Véalo aquíRadovan Karadzic en La Haya.Responsable por uno de los genocidios mas sangrientos de la historia reciente, Radovan Karadzic, el ex jefe político de los serbobosnios comparecerá ante el Tribunal Penal Internacional para ex Yugoslavia. Karadzic fue trasladado en la noche del pasado martes a La Haya. Horas antes del traslado, tenía lugar una manifestación organizada por la oposición nacionalista serbia en el centro de Belgrado, que degeneró al final en altercados entre unos centenares de jóvenes y la policía. Varios medios informan al respecto: "El Mercurio" de Chile: "Masiva protesta antes de su traslado en las calles de Belgrado: Karadzic fue extraditado a La Haya":http://diario.elmercurio.com/2008/07/30/internacional/internacional/noticias/B46C4AF2-02E3-4C90-823E-ECC1FC5E98D2.htm?id={B46C4AF2-02E3-4C90-823E-ECC1FC5E98D2}"El País" de Madrid: "Karadzic llega al Tribunal de La Haya: Serbia envía de noche al presunto criminal de guerra a las dependencias penitenciarias internacionales.- Será juzgado por genocidio y otros crímines por el Tribunal Penal Internacional para la ex Yugoslavia": http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/Karadzic/llega/Tribunal/Haya/elpepuint/20080730elpepuint_4/Tes"New York Times": "Karadzic Arrives in Hague After Protest by Loyalists":http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/31/world/europe/31hague.html"CCN": "Karadzic set to make first court appearance":http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/07/30/karadzic.deportation/index.html"Karadzic appeal not received by court"http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/07/28/karadzic.deportation/index.html"Karadzic to defend himself in war crimes court":http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/07/23/serb.arrest/index.html"Thousands protest Karadzic arrest":http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/07/29/karadzic.deportation/index.html"Time":"Karadzic Wants No Lawyer":http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1827424,00.html"Le Monde": "Radovan Karadzic comparaîtra jeudi devant le TPI"http://www.lemonde.fr/europe/article/2008/07/30/radovan-karadzic-est-arrive-a-la-haye_1078522_3214.html#ens_id=1075781"Los Ángeles Times": "War crimes suspect Karadzic extradited to The Hague":http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-serbs30-2008jul30,0,2903253.story"MSNBC": "Karadzic in U.N. custody in Netherlands: Ex-fugitive flown to the Netherlands following violent protest in Belgrade":http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25887949/"Thousands protest in Belgrade for Karadzic: U.S. Embassy warns Americans to avoid protest amid fears of violence":http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25890371/"Paper: Karadzic lawyer tries to stop extradition: Appeal meant to prevent war-crime suspect from being sent to U.N. court":http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25859649/"Times":"Radovan Karadzic extradited to The Hague":http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4427730"La Nación": "Está acusado de genocidio: Radovan Karadzic, a disposición de La Haya. El ex líder serbio llegó a Holanda para ser juzgado en el Tribunal Penal Internacional":http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1034845"Avanza su extradición: Karadzic será llevado a La Haya en secreto": http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1034388"El Tiempo" de Colombia: "Radovan Karadzic fue llevado a La Haya, Holanda, para ser juzgado por crímenes de guerra":http://www.eltiempo.com/mundo/europa/home/radovan-karadzic-fue-llevado-a-la-haya-holanda-para-ser-juzgado-por-crimenes-de-guerra_4416080-1"The Economist":"Arrest of a bearded man": http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11792314"El Universal" de Méjico: "Karadzic queda en poder de la ONU en Holanda":http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/526234.htmlAMERICA LATINA"El Mercurio" publica: "Reclaman la restitución del Ejército: Ex militares haitianos ocupan un antiguo cuartel":http://diario.elmercurio.com/2008/07/30/internacional/internacional/noticias/B0B07BB4-211D-4F05-9FEB-6704AF47278D.htm?id={B0B07BB4-211D-4F05-9FEB-6704AF47278D}"La Nación" publica: "Uribe pide "discreción"":http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1034424"MSNBC" informa: "Woman suspected of being FARC's Europe link: Maria Remedios Garcia Albert, 57, was the alleged rebel liaison":http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25873981"The Economist" analiza: "Energy reform in México: Crude and oily. A controversial referendum and the future of the state oil company":http://www.economist.com/world/americas/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11791596"MSNBC" anuncia: "Mexican military losing drug war support: Border residents report abuse, violence by soldiers sent to curb narcotics": http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25851906/"El País" de Madrid publica: "El presidente electo de Paraguay ya no es sacerdote: El Papa ha suspendido definitivamente a Fernando Lugo porque las profesiones de obispo y gobernante de un país no son compatibles http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/presidente/electo/Paraguay/sacerdote/elpepuint/20080730elpepuint_8/Tes"El País" de Madrid informa: "Chávez: "Bush quiere revivir la guerra fría". El presidente venezolano dice, en una carta enviada a Fidel Castro, que EE UU planea agredir a Cuba http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/Chavez/Bush/quiere/revivir/guerra/fria/elpepuint/20080728elpepuint_14/Tes"The Economist" anuncia: "Argentina: Et tu, Julio? :The president suffers a heavy defeat at the hands of her number two":http://www.economist.com/world/americas/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11791614"La Nación" informa: "Bolivia: ratifican el referéndum. Pese a los pedidos de suspensión, la Corte Electoral dijo que se celebrará el 10 de agosto":http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1034389ESTADOS UNIDOS / CANADA"New York Times" informa: " U.S. Military Says Soldiers Fired on Civilians":http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/28/world/middleeast/28iraq.html?ref=world"El País" de Madrid anuncia: "La Casa Blanca pronostica un déficit presupuestario récord para 2009: Sería de 482.000 millones de dólares, aproximadamente el 3,5% de la economía": http://www.elpais.com/articulo/economia/Casa/Blanca/pronostica/deficit/presupuestario/record/2009/elpepueco/20080728elpepueco_8/Tes"La Nación" publica: "La economía enfrenta a Obama y McCain: El candidato demócrata advirtió que Estados Unidos está en "emergencia económica"; fuertes críticas de su rival republicano":http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1034414"The Economist" analiza: "It's the economy again, stupid.John McCain and Barack Obama are offering profoundly different prescriptions, though economic and political realities will limit their ambitions": http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11792500"El País" de Madrid informa: "Republicanos y demócratas se enfocan en la economía: Barack Obama convoca a un panel de lujo para revisar sus propuestas.- John McCain mantiene contactos con las autoridades monetarias": http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/Republicanos/democratas/enfocan/economia/elpepuint/20080728elpepuint_13/Tes"El Mercurio" de Chile anuncia: "Le queda menos de un mes antes de ser proclamado oficialmente en la Convención Demócrata: Obama entra en la recta final para decidir quién será su candidato a Vicepresidente":http://diario.elmercurio.com/2008/07/30/internacional/_portada/noticias/CAE4A8B7-3485-4112-8844-D31E89023938.htm?id={CAE4A8B7-3485-4112-8844-D31E89023938}"Time" informa: "Obama's Vice-Presidential Dilemma":http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1827714,00.html"Time" publica su sitio con links sobre las elecciones en los Estados Unidos: http://thepage.time.com/EUROPA"El País" de Madrid informa: "Erdogan llama a la unidad tras los atentados de ayer en Turquía: La explosión consecutiva de dos bombas sacude un barrio obrero de Estambul.- La cifra de muertes sube a 17 y hay unos 150 heridos, una decena de ellos de gravedad.- La policía sospecha de los independentistas kurdos": http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/Erdogan/llama/unidad/atentados/ayer/Turquia/elpepuint/20080728elpepuint_4/Tes"New Yorrk Times2 anuncia: "Police Investigate Istanbul Bombings":http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/29/world/europe/29turkey.html?ref=world"Time" publica: "Fatal Bombings in an Edgy Turkey":http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1827056,00.html"El País" de Madrid informa: "Comienza el proceso para ilegalizar el partido de Erdogan": http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/Comienza/proceso/ilegalizar/partido/Erdogan/elpepuint/20080728elpepiint_6/Tes"El País" de Madrid anuncia: "El Tribunal Constitucional de Turquía rechaza ilegalizar al partido de Gobierno":http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/Tribunal/Constitucional/Turquia/rechaza/ilegalizar/partido/Gobierno/elpepuint/20080730elpepuint_9/Tes"Le Monde" publica: "Turquie : la justice n'interdit pas le parti au pouvoir":http://www.lemonde.fr/europe/article/2008/07/30/turquie-la-justice-n-interdit-pas-le-parti-au-pouvoir_1078861_3214.html"Time" analiza: "Who Was Behind the Turkish Blasts?":http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1827398,00.htmlEl País" de Madrid informa: "Las peores inundaciones en Ucrania en 100 años se cobran la vida de 13 personas. Las fuertes lluvias han destruido más de 21.000 casas y 20.000 hectáreas de cultivos, y han dejado inutilizadas 2.020 kilómetros de carreteras y más de un centenar de puentes": http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/peores/inundaciones/Ucrania/anos/cobran/vida/personas/elpepuint/20080728elpepuint_5/Tes"MSNBC" publica: "Ukraine floods kill 22, force 20,000 to flee: Damages estimated at $800 million, but few funds available to clean up":http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25887744/"Time" informa: "Thousands of British Passports Stolen": http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1827501,00.html"La Nación" publica: "Los que huyen de la miseria. Actos desesperados de los ilegales en España para no ser deportados: Viajes riesgosos y casamientos arreglados":http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1034426"MSNBC" informa: "7 jailed for genocide over Srebrenica massacre. War crimes court orders Bosnian Serbs to serve sentences of up 42 years":http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25908708/"The Economist" analiza: "France: The reformist president. Quietly but determinedly, Nicolas Sarkozy is pressing ahead with reforms in France-all without provoking huge strikes and street protests":http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11792306ASIA – PACÍFICO /MEDIO ORIENTE"New York Times" informa: "Bomb Attacks in Baghdad and Kirkuk Kill Dozens": HTTP://WWW.NYTIMES.COM/2008/07/29/WORLD/MIDDLEEAST/29IRAQ.HTML?REF=WORLD"El País" anuncia: "Tres mujeres suicidas causan al menos 28 muertos en Bagdad. Miles de peregrinos llenan Bagdad con motivo de una importante festividad chií.- En Kirkuk, otro atentado suicida deja 22 muertos": HTTP://WWW.ELPAIS.COM/ARTICULO/INTERNACIONAL/MUJERES/SUICIDAS/CAUSAN/28/MUERTOS/BAGDAD/ELPEPUINT/20080728ELPEPUINT_9/TES"La Nación" publica: "Cuatro mujeres suicidas atacaron en Irak:: Hicieron detonar los explosivos que llevaban y mataron a 57 personas; hay por lo menos 300 heridos":http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1034419"MSNBC" informa: "Female suicide bombers kill 57, wound dozens. Attackers target Shiite pilgrimage in Baghdad, Kurdish rally in Kirkuk": http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25880699/"New York Times" anuncia: "Olmert to Resign After September Vote": HTTP://WWW.NYTIMES.COM/2008/07/31/WORLD/MIDDLEEAST/31MIDEAST.HTML?_R=1&HP&OREF=SLOGIN"CNN" publica: "Ahmadinejad: The big powers are going down":HTTP://EDITION.CNN.COM/2008/WORLD/MEAST/07/29/IRAN.AIDS.AP/INDEX.HTML"Time" informa: "Ahmadinejad: 'Powers' Going Down": HTTP://WWW.TIME.COM/TIME/WORLD/ARTICLE/0,8599,1827377,00.HTML"The Economist analiza: "Iran: Who runs it?": http://www.economist.com/world/mideast-africa/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11792348"La Nación" anuncia: "Irán criticó a la ONU ante los Países No Alineados. Ahmadinejad aseguró en la cumbre de cancilleres que el organismo actúa "a favor de las grandes potencias"; pidió crear un fondo para financiar proyectos del bloque":http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1034530"CNN" informa: "Pakistani militants abduct 30 police": http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/07/29/pakistan.abductions/index.html"Time" anuncia: "Cambodia Reelects Longtime Leader": http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1827054,00.html"MSNBC" publica: "Typhoon slams Taiwan, triggering floods, slides: At least one killed, air traffic disrupted; Typhoon Fung Wong heads to China": http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25881000/"The Economist" analiza: "The Beijing Olympics:Five-ring circus": http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11792915"El Mercurio" publica: "Denuncias a días de la inauguración de los Juegos Olímpicos: China no cumple promesas y mantiene censura a la prensa y faltas a DD.HH.": HTTP://DIARIO.ELMERCURIO.COM/2008/07/30/INTERNACIONAL/_PORTADA/NOTICIAS/CB8049AE-EDCE-4C33-AF25-F7337A8C08B6.HTM?ID={CB8049AE-EDCE-4C33-AF25-F7337A8C08B6}"El País" informa: "Ni los Juegos Olímpicos pueden con la censura en China: El COI no logra convencer al país asiático para que los periodistas tengan acceso libre a Internet": HTTP://WWW.ELPAIS.COM/ARTICULO/INTERNET/JUEGOS/OLIMPICOS/PUEDEN/CENSURA/CHINA/ELPPGL/20080730ELPEPUNET_3/TES"New York Times" anuncia: "China to Limit Web Access During Games":HTTP://WWW.NYTIMES.COM/2008/07/31/SPORTS/OLYMPICS/31CHINA.HTML?HP"China Daily" publica: "WTO talks collapse amid farm row": HTTP://WWW.CHINADAILY.COM.CN/CHINA/2008-07/30/CONTENT_6887475.HTM"CNN" informa: "China rebuffs human rights report":http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/07/29/china.humanrights/index.html"CNN" publica: "India: Police defuse 18 bombs at market":http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/07/29/india.bombs.ap/index.html+"Time" anuncia: "India: The Terrorists Within": http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1826950,00.htmlAFRICA"New York Time" informa: "Sudan Rallies Behind Leader Reviled Abroad":http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/28/world/africa/28sudan.html?ref=world"CNN" publica: "U.S. expands Zimbabwe sanctions":http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/07/25/zimbabwe.sanctions/index.html"MSNBC" publica: "Officials say Zimbabwe talks break off: Mugabe insists he remain president":http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25887595/"MSNBC" informa: "Cash crisis, inflation worsen in Zimbabwe: Bank chief plans new currency reforms to tackle inflation and shortages":http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25869792/"CNN" anuncia: "Nigerian militants: We'll destroy oil pipelines":http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/07/23/nigeria.oil/index.htmlECONOMIA"The Economist" analiza: "World trade: Dried up. Talks over the Doha round of global trade talks have collapsed":http://www.economist.com/finance/displayStory.cfm?story_id=11831960&source=features_box_main"The Economist" publica su informe semanal: "Business this week":http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11793527&CFID=15321684&CFTOKEN=24001901"New York Times" informa: "Stock Indexes Continue to Slip":http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/29/business/29stox.html?_r=1&ref=business&oref=slogin"El País" de Madrid informa: "El FMI alerta del empeoramiento de la crisis crediticia: La institución internacional achaca este empeoramiento a la ralentización de la economía mundial.- Subraya la caída de los precios de la vivienda en España": http://www.elpais.com/articulo/economia/FMI/alerta/empeoramiento/crisis/crediticia/elpepueco/20080728elpepueco_7/Tes"CNN" publica: "Global trade deal falls apart":http://edition.cnn.com/2008/BUSINESS/07/29/wto.collapse.ap/index.html"CNN" informa: "High oil price boosts BP profit":http://edition.cnn.com/2008/BUSINESS/07/29/bp.profit.ap/index.html"La Nación" publica: "La liberalización del comercio mundial. Anunciaron el fracaso de la Ronda de Doha. El director general de la Organización Mundial del Comercio, Pascal Lamy, confirmó que las negociaciones quedaron truncas; declaró estar "profundamente consternado"":http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1034531La caída del crudo impulsa a Wall Street: "La Bolsa de Nueva York muestra fuertes avances; el petróleo bajó más de tres dólares y se negocia en US$ 121 el barril en el mercado estadounidense": http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1034574OTRAS NOTICIAS"Time" publica: "Beijing Cites Many Olympic Threats": http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1827353,00.html"MSNBC" publica: "Olympic threats fuel unease about security: China says heavy defense will secure Games, but clampdown is smothering":http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25890371/"Time" informa: "A Video Threat to the Olympics?":http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1826953,00.html"The Economist" analiza: "Global Islam: Unusual guests, a most unusual host. A new breeze may be blowing very softly from the Saudi sands":http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11792340
Transcript of an oral history interview with Arsalan "Arsi" Namdar, conducted by Sarah Yahm on 2 April 2015, as part of the Norwich Voices oral history project of the Sullivan Museum and History Center. Arsalan Namdar was one of a number of midshipmen from the Iranian Imperial Navy to enroll at Norwich University for education and training between 1976 and 1980. His interview reflects on his experiences as an international student from Iran as well as the impact of the Iranian Revolution on his life. ; 1 Arsalan M. Namdar, Oral History Interview April 2, 2015 Interviewed by Sarah Yahm Sarah Yahm: OK. So, I'm going to turn this recorder on. Let me just check one thing. Ah, that's number one. So, you're number one. OK. So, this will probably take about an hour. Do you have about an hour? ARSI NAMDAR: Mm-hmm. OK. SY: OK. Excellent. And I'm really just looking for your stories. Your stories, and your life history, and things you remember. And so I thought I'd start from the beginning. So, if you could just introduce yourself, and say your full name and where you were born. AN: Arsi Namdar. And actually my full name is Arsalan Namdar, and I was born in the city of Abadan, which is a— southwest of Iran. At the age of seven I was— my family moved to Tehran, and left Iran until I was about 18 or 19. SY: What's your earliest memory? Do you have an earliest memory? AN: From Iran? I was— I remember in Tehran, it was a beautiful city then. It was pretty populated. I think we had about four million in population. Right now, I think it's about 16— 14 or 16 million. And Tehran was always a very big populous, modern city, and always a lot of activity, and nightlife, and day life. It was really amazing. And the closest that I can think of it now is it's something like New York City, and now— so, I was— I lived with my family in an apartment. We had— actually, eight of us living in a three bedroom apartment, and we were raised really— we were a poor family, and my father was the only bread winner, and my mom was a house— a homemaker, but it was— we were a really close family, and we enjoyed being together, and I always— when I was growing up I was very patriotic in Persian ways, and I loved my mother country, and I wanted to become a writer, so I wrote some novels, and I was pretty good in Persian literature. And then I met— I was— I knew this girl who was my neighbor, and we had a four year age difference, and we ended up befriending each other, and so, it ended up being a love relationship. And then for some reason when I was 17 or 18 I— we had a falling out, and so, I don't— I didn't tell her that I was going to join the navy. So, I joined the navy, and Imperial Navy, and so, then they shipped us out after a year, and sent us to the US. So, that was the end of my stay in Iran, and my memory from those days. SY: Did you get to say goodbye to her, or— AN: Never did. (laughter) SY: You never did? AN: Yeah. So— SY: You ever had contact with her since? AN: Yes. I did. This is probably— I know that she's still— she's doing very well, and so I know that she's been married twice. And she's got two daughters— well, two daughters and one son. So, I think she's doing well. (laughter) SY: So, what made you decide to join the navy? AN: I was— actually, I wanted to dis-- my basic reason was that I just wanted to get away from that environment, and I wanted to— 2 SY: Because you were heartbroken, or because you wanted to get out of poverty? AN: I really— I think I was heartbroken, and I just— I'm the kind of person that I need to— I feel like there are times where you need to make a physical change, environmental change, in order to really put yourself in a new situation, new atmosphere and environment. And that really does a lot of good for you. So, I went and applied for— back then the Shah of Iran was very close to the US. He was one of the greatest US allies, and they had just begun sending— recruiting a lot of young folks— young men— to become pilots, and to go to pilot schools, and to join the navy. And because the navy was— the Shah's one of— he wanted to be a super power in the region, so he wanted to strengthen the navy, and air force in particular, and so I went and applied for a pilot job, and went through all the tests and everything, and I was rejected because I didn't have the good depth perception. So, I was really disappointed, and so, then I said, "What's the next thing I can do?" So, I went and applied for helicopter pilot position, and I was accepted. And so I passed the test, and went home, and told my mother, and she just went crazy. She said, "You know how many people are getting killed as pilots?" And this was for the navy pilots, and as a navy helicopter pilot. And so she cried day and night, and she was just really upset, and so I decided— I said, "Well, what's the next safest thing I can do? So, I said, "Well, I'll go join the navy as a midshipman, and become a navy officer." So, I went in and applied for that program, and I was accepted. And after some physical tests and background checks and everything, then we officially entered the rank of midshipman in Iran, and my particular crew was there for about a year before we were given the opportunity to come to the US. So— SY: And you were— because you said you wrote a lot— so, I imagine that you had wanted to go to college and get more of an education. AN: Yes, I did. And going to college in Iran is pretty— you have to really earn— really have to be good at what you do. And in terms of academics. And I was— I wasn't really the best student, and I wasn't the worst student. I was somewhere in the middle, and I don't think I had the aspiration to become a college student or to graduate from college. I really felt that because of what I wrote, I felt like I had— I wrote very well, and I was a well-read person as well. And so I did— back then I read a lot of Persian novels, and a lot of American, European, Russian novels, so that's what really— I spent a lot of time on doing that kind of educating myself. So, I really never planned on being— going to college, because I thought that I probably wouldn't be able to enter college. So, I never applied for national tests, and they call it the Concour, which is— it's just a national test that everybody goes and takes it, and depending on the level of— the score you get, then you can become eligible for certain universities. So, when this opportunity came in the navy, and I thought, "I can go do the two year of service in the armed forces." Everybody who graduated from high school, they had to serve two years in the military. That was a mandatory thing. And so, either do that, or just join the navy, because I thought the navy is pretty sophisticated, I saw the outfits they wore, all the uniforms were all really chic, and they got to go Europe and the US, and I thought, "Oh, that's really not a bad thing. It's great." So, that was one of the main attractions to the navy, and so I was glad to be able to join, but at first like 3 any military training it's pretty hard. You don't get all the glory and everything. Glory comes later on when you become somebody or you accomplish something much more— later in your life. SY: What was the military training like in Iran? AN: It was pretty tough. It was pretty brutal, and they— we had— basically as a military student you really had no rights. They just told you what you had to do, and then you did it. And the punishments were pretty severe sometimes. I remember once or twice I didn't march the right way, and they made us put little pebbles— stones in your boots, and then you had to march like that. So, it was kind of like a torture. And so, when we came here to the US, and we started at Norwich, Rook Week here was pretty— it was piece of cake, because it was always push-ups, and sit-ups, and running, and they really were nothing to us because— SY: (sneezes) AN: Bless you. SY: Sorry. It was— you said it was nothing to you? AN: Nothing really. It wasn't that big a deal, so as a result we— at first— the first few weeks we kind of goofed off, so that really made our classmates pretty upset because we weren't taking this seriously, but we had already been through all of that. SY: And I think both Bizhan and Sussan mentioned hating having these, because you guys have been in— you were really in the navy for two years, and then there were these kids shouting in your faces. AN: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And in hindsight, I really think— when you think about it, I think it was pretty silly. And you're pretty— at least on average, we were two to three years older— or maybe even older— than some of these newcomers, so we felt like we had experienced more of life than these kids who had just graduated high school. And in a way we had done it, because we were away from our parents— when I was 17, 18, I joined the navy, and they shipped us off to some center to be trained in it, so it was— for us, we were used to that kind of environment. To being alone, being independent. And then they sent us here to the US, and they sent us to the Citadel, a group of us— the second group with Bizhan— I think Bizhan was on it, too. They sent us to the Citadel, and that's the military college in Charleston. And so, we had first a three month training there, and then of course they would let us do some weekends, and we just partied, because young guys, and being in the navy, and Charleston being a navy town, it was just always fun. And so, that was— so, we were used to a lot harder times than— when we came here, that military life in the beginning was not as hard. But over time, it got really hard, because of we didn't get recognized Rook Week, our group, the Rooks, didn't get recognized, I think, until February, and that was pretty, pretty long, and it was torturous in a way, and being cold, and all that stuff. It just wasn't really pleasant. SY: Did you— and I think Bizhan also said that in Irani military training you don't get shouted at in the same way, is that true? AN: Well, he— actually, Bizhan actually went to a longer training than I did. He served his— part of his two year mandatory training, and then he came back, 4 joined the navy. I didn't go to that first mandatory training. But in Iran, I mean, punishments are not— they really mean it when they punish you, and you can't say one country's better than the other— I've seen the marines, and how they train them, the special forces, and the— here, and I just feel like that— those are pretty vigorous, too. And we were just— we were not special forces. We were just navy. Just simple navy midshipmen. And— but what he was referring to was that the part of the navy that sent us— that one year, we— I guess the focus was for us just to learn English. Nothing else. We did some marching, and some military stuff. But, it wasn't like 24 hour doing all hardcore military stuff. That didn't happen until later on in the process. SY: Interesting. So, what was your first impression of Norwich? AN: Norwich? (laughter) So, as I said to you, the first group of us— they sent us to the Citadel, and it was pretty— it was a pretty hard school, and it was in the South, and beautiful weather, and it was summertime, and it just really felt for me close to Iran than any other place. So, when we— at some point, I guess, they lined us up, and— a group of us— our commanders came and said, "You go to Norwich, you go to Citadel, you go to Jacksonville, you go to this, you go to Maritime Academy." And I ended up being assigned to Norwich. And I thought, "My God, what is Norwich? It's so old. Norwich is near the capitol of Vermont." Oh, okay. Capital of Vermont. This is really great. I looked on a map, and I couldn't find Vermont. And they said, "Oh, it's near New York City." And so— and you have to just put this into perspective. We didn't have Google, we didn't have iPhones, anything easy to use. So, maps, and just simply asking people about things. So, we came— they said, "Oh, you're going to Norwich." Okay, Norwich. It's near the capitol. It's great, it's good. It's going to be like the Citadel, and like Tehran, it's going to be good. It's great. So, the last night we all went to disco, and we all had fun, and it was a great time, and the next morning we all had to get up, and they shipped us to Norwich. And we got off the plane in Burlington International Airport. Look at it, and said, "Burlington International Airport?" We saw maybe one or two planes. And again, you have to understand, we came from a very populated area, and we went to Europe, we— bigger cities, and we came here to the US, and saw Vermont. Saw only one, maybe another plane. Two planes. So, and they have one of those ladders that in the middle of the runway you all have to get off. Here we are, we all have— it was in August, we all had jackets, suit jackets and ties, and are coming down the plane, and I look, and I look, "Oh my God." In the distance I see two or three yellow buses, and just all of a sudden all of us have a heart attack. My God, what are these? I've never seen these. What kind of buses are these? So, anyway, they put us on these buses, and just, clunk, clunk, clunk, the buses are driving, and they're— we go passed all these farms. For the first time I see cows. And I'm looking, "Oh my God, so many cows. More than humans here." And so, anyway, that was the end of our journey. They brought us here to Norwich, and although it was a gorgeous, gorgeous campus, for us,— that's something I didn't expect. I expected more of a city, a lot of action, a lot of fun and stuff. Came to Norwich, and they assigned a room to me and one of my friends. I think it was in Dodge Hall, and so, we looked at each other, he was my maybe classmates, and looked at each other, and I said, "Oh my God. 5 What did we get ourselves into?" And so, that next morning the two of us took a bus to Boston, and we stayed there for two weeks, because our vacation— we had two weeks of vacation— two or three weeks of vacation before we had to go back. So, that was my first experience in Norwich, and I tell you, that was— from my perspective, that was the most depressing day of my life. And of course that changed later. And when we got to love the institution, and all the memories that it brought for us, and all the good times and bad times that we had here. Friends we had, Americans and Iranians, and the friends that really to this day I'm still good— many of them are friends with. Even the Americans as well as Iranians. SY: Can we pause for one second because I can hear the vacuum, and it's showing up on the tape. AN: Oh, it does? SY: Yeah. The microphone's really sensitive, so it picks up things— because I can barely hear the vacuum, but it audible. Okay. So, yeah. So, what were your encounters like with other students? AN: So, when we came to Norwich, and really the administration was very supportive, and they were really great to us. In particular, I had a professor by the name of Professor [Larsen?]. Fred Larsen. He was a professor of Geology, and I think he retired a few years ago. A couple few years ago. And he and his family really took myself and another friend of mine— the guy I went to Boston with— under their wings, and they invited us to the house, and really tried to make us feel good about our stay here. And of course this is August, and August going to September, and the leaves start to fall and changes, fall, it's not— it's pretty, but then it's cold. And so, when fall started, and with Rook Week and everything, that was, I think, the toughest for us, because they queued us up with an American classmates, and so, we were all together for years and years, and all of a sudden they said you room with these guys. And I had a wonderful roommates who was a very nice guy, and so I got to know him and like him and everything else. But it was pretty hard because we couldn't really— of course, we didn't have radio— again, this is back 30 something years ago. No radio, no iPhones, no TVs— no cable TVs, no internet, no nothing. So, we really had to interact with each other in certain ways that, for me, it was tough at that point, because I just— I had to really rely on my English a lot. It just— it wasn't the same as spending time with friends. And— well, initially, there was some fights between the Americans and the Iranians over different things. The most obvious one was that the navy used to give us a full salary, and that full salary— we went— all bought Trans AMs, Firebirds, Mustangs, Corvettes, and so we see all these first years students driving these expensive cars, and that really is not— thinking back on it, it just doesn't really sit well. Like, people who just came here and have really nothing, even though they came— most of them came from most prominent families, and are richer. But you just didn't have anything at that point, and so we were just driving around recklessly and having fun. Again, because we were in some ways, we were a lot older than them, and for us, we felt like we had experienced a lot of different ups and downs back home and different states. So, just for us, that was a normal thing. So, initially we had some issues, some fights, the Iranians and the Americans, and the way we dressed, that was— and of course, we were all young guys, more 6 mature, there were no girls left here in the Northfield area, or the Burlington area that we could date, or we could go out with, so I think that was a natural tendency for them to dislike us. SY: So, there are these pimply faced American kids, and you guys have sophisticated clothing. You're urban and cosmopolitan. AN: I mean, seriously, we had— we all had really tailored outfits, and nice cars. We drove everywhere. We didn't really— we didn't have cabs, we didn't have bikes, or we didn't walk. Everybody drove everywhere. And so, that naturally caused some frictions, and some frictions between us and them. But, in later years I think when they became friends, my friends, Americans and Iranians really became friends based on the values, not based on cars and things like that. They learned to like us for some of the things we offered, and we liked them for some of the things they offered. Mostly friendship and being really decent to us. And of course, you can always find some prejudiced rednecks out there who— they don't like you for whatever reasons. Just because you don't look like them. And that's not a low rank. That's a high rank. It just happens from— at every level. But we had some people that were really nice to us, and they really had— they respected us, and as a result to this day we still respect them. I mean, one example is [Keith Barrette?]. He was our classmate, and he's still around. Actually, he's still around. He's very involved in Norwich. He was one of the nicest guys. To this day, we all really like him. We all love him, and respect him, and we are happy that he was part of our history, and part of our life back then, and then we still have the ability to be friends and meet with him from time to time. But I think for me, the most painful thing was they gave us— my room was in the back of India Company, alumni, and it was— I think it was on the second floor, or third floor, and it faced— there was pine trees. And seriously, every time I looked at them I felt like I was in a prison camp. And that was really the most depressing thing for me. And that didn't feel good. And coming back to the same hall after the same building after like 20-some years a few years ago, I just saw the difference. I mean, I was just flabbergasted. How— so much difference and so much improvement. Kids nowadays have so many things that students— cadets— they just don't value. I mean, we used to march to the campus to the dining hall, and we had only one choice of meal. They would bring it to us, and most of us didn't eat pork, and so American friends, they were all waiting for us. As soon as we sat down, and we knew that, too, we never paid attention to it. So, as soon as they saw us sit down, they would say— they would come to us and ask for our portions, and we would give it to them because we just— it just— we didn't eat pork. And of course I eat everything now, you just had to get used to it. SY: Well, I mean, culturally— so, Commander [Arumi?], I was reading in the archives, he actually tried to intervene and explain to the administration about pork. Do you remember that? AN: Yes I do. And actually, he was a very sweet guy. He and his wife were very helpful to the Iranian guys, and she would cook for us every Friday. Persian meals, and they were delicious. I mean, I don't know if you've ever had (inaudible) [00:24:28]— SY: So good. 7 AN: -- they just— and so, she was cooking for us, we know where they would go. And people— Friday night a whole bunch of guys, they're not going to go to somebody older than them, to their house, and sit down and talk about this. They want to go party. So, our story with Diamond Hall was— I just wanted to pick up with that— that was our story. They would come and the days that they had pork or ham or anything like that, you just would— most of us would give up our dish, and our meal, and just— everybody would walk to the— there was a cafeteria down here that Officer Burger used to— that was our favorite. Officer Burger and then go play foosball. And that's what we did most of the time. SY: What did you say? What type of burger? AN: Officer Burger. SY: Officer Burger. What was that? AN: It was just a hamburger with a whole bunch of condiments on it. SY: So, there was something to eat if you couldn't eat in the dining hall. AN: We could not the first few months. The first year we weren't allowed. I think you either had to be recognized or upperclassmen. SY: So, did you go hungry a lot? AN: Sometimes we did, yeah. Sometimes we did. Yeah. And, you know, vending machines weren't available a lot then. And so— and of course lot of us were used to that kind, we just— it didn't matter if you had to have lunch or breakfast or whatever, because we were used to the kind of life that we could go like two meals without eating anything, and then go out at night just have a hamburger or hot dog or some-- not hot dog, just hamburger or something like that in Burlington. That's why a lot of us were very, very skinny. I'm 175 pounds now, but back then I was— when I was at Norwich I was 124 pounds. And most of my friends, if you looked at them, they were very, very skinny. Not because they were malnutrition, just because we just— that wasn't a priority to us. Priority was everything else. And everybody smoked too, so that suppresses your appetite as well. SY: Were you frustrated or angry that Norwich didn't seem to understand that culturally pork was not cool? AN: No. That didn't really bother me, and I really think that Norwich did a lot to help us. I really— I always appreciated their administration, and this has been really a great school in terms of being open and supportive, and I really think after all these years— still 35 years or so, they have not changed, and they have even gotten better. And I personally never felt that way, and what I felt was that there were cultural differences, and that's because it just— it was what it was, and it didn't really bother me. It wasn't like I would go out and say, "Oh my God these Americans are going to beat me up and kill me," or anything like that. You would make fun of them, and they would make fun of us. They would make fun of us for whatever. The way we dressed, the cars we drove. Sometimes you show up at regi balls, with girls that were not from around here who all were decked out. And we would make fun of them for doing some stupid things. We had a guy— a football player— who would get angry from time to time, pick up the soda machine, and just shake it up. To us, it was a funny thing. And so, the years I was here I really felt like it was one of the best experiences of my life. I mean, I 8 think Norwich taught me a lot in terms of quality and integrity, and really experiencing life, and trying hard, and just trying to work with others and be friendly. I learned a lot of that here. So, just because it was really encouraged by administration. SY: Did your kind of political understanding of the world change? You grew up under the Shah, not the most open of regimes. Not— I mean, and then you came to Norwich. Did you ever get to go to a town meeting? Did you sort of understand the different political system? How did you sort of understand the political differences? AN: We didn't actually— I didn't go to any town meetings, but I basically— we read a lot of newspapers, and sometimes from the TV, and watching TV, and we were really political in terms of American policies, we actually couldn't be. We were under the Shah, and we couldn't have any political affiliation. Only to the Shah. It wasn't until the year I got married to my American wife in secret— that was my last year here— that I felt like I was open to that, the idea of, "Oh, this is politics, and this is how this country is run." And by the way, I loved it. This is the greatest country. And I still do. This is the greatest country. No matter what your opinions are. And to a large degree you have freedom, and your freedom to do things and say things, and so I really— I was really fascinated by it. And I am now. It just is great. And I don't really think many countries are like this, and that's what makes the United States a unique country in itself. And— SY: What was it like growing up under the Shah? In terms of— did you experience repression or not? Were your family loyalists? How did that work? AN: So, under the Shah, we had to— if we agreed with the Shah and did not say anything against his regime, you could actually do okay. And I'm not saying well okay meaning you could become a millionaire. You could just have a normal life, and— SY: Under the radar. AN: Under the radar. But he just— exactly. He didn't want people to say things about him and about the regime. And that was really rightly controlled. And so they had this secret police called the SAVAK [Sāzemān-e Ettelā'āt va Amniyat-e Keshvar, Organization of Intelligence and National Security]. That— they were times where people would be really— and they would use that as a scare tactic. Really, if you say something that they didn't like, they could technically go after you and your family members, and really create some problems for you. There is no difference between then and now with what happens in Iran. You can't do the same thing in Iran either. This time the difference is they can't say that against the regime of Ayatollah, Khomeini, or his successors. So, to me, it's a lot more oppressed now than it was then. It just— the Shah— the thing I like about the Shah was he was very modernized. He was a great ally of the US, and unfortunately he wasn't supported when he was facing the Mullahs. When the Mullahs were taking over Iran, and that was his demise. And to this day I think everyone is realizing that they lost— I mean, look at the Middle East. There's really no one that is our ally here. There's really no one. And the Shah was undoubtedly the biggest supporter of the US and US ally. So— SY: Was there talk of the 1935 coup— right? 9 AN: Right. Yeah. The coup d'état, right. SY: -- the overthrow. Was that something that was talked about when you were in Iran? AN: I think it was in 1953, or— SY: Oh, sorry, it was '53. I was totally wrong. It was later. AN: I think it was 1953. But, no. My father, when I was in Iran, would mention it, and he would say to me, "These people, these religious factors, who come here and say death to the Shah and whatever." He said— he used to tell me they don't understand what the regime was like under— before the Shah took over because it was a kind of religious dynasty. And so he would always— was in disagreement with people who were against the Shah. And back then when I came here to the US, obviously I had to pass all sorts of background checks. They wouldn't let us into the navy unless we were completely clean. Not only us, but our families, and a good extension of our families. So, when I came to the US and things started to get bad last year of college year, then I could see that— what was happening in Iran. I just— people who were all against the Shah, all of those people who were against the Shah, they were moving towards all the religious factors, and for a time— a very brief time— things happened to be— they appeared to be OK. And as we all know, they went the other way, and went to the other end of the spectrum, and it's really— I don't think it's any good at all in terms of the economics, social, and any other way you look at Iran. SY: So, do you remember hearing about the revolution while you were here? AN: Iranian Revolution? You're talking about the— SY: I'm sorry. I'm talking about the overthrow of the Shah. AN: Overthrow of the Shah. SY: Do you remember hearing about that? AN: Oh yeah. I did. Because my family were also affected by it. My brothers— two of them— were arrested by Khomeini's regime, and because they— I think the crime was that they were trying to spread propaganda against the regime. One of my brothers was jailed for seven years, and the other one was jailed for a couple years, he had been tortured. And then my other sister, who was also arrested, and so, eventually escaped Iran all three of them. And they are living in Europe, and one in the US. So, the regime went after a lot of people for no reason at all. It just, as I said, it wasn't any better than the Shah. And the Shah was actually giving freedom to people. Women had freedom. Women had freedom to vote. They had a say in their daily life, and work, and society, and anything else. They don't have that now. They just— man in the king of the castle, and it's more of the— the regime is a more of an oppressive regime in more ways than people thought or imagined. So— SY: So, yes. Let's talk about that. So, here you are. Senior year, and you're starting to hear rumblings of what's happening in Iran. So, what filtered down to you from here. What were your— AN: Only people who would go to Iran for visits. Some of the cadets would go there, and then would come back and say this is really bad. And of course we would read the American media at that point, and we would watch things, and we would know what's going on. And I remember one year we were all— all of the navy 10 guys— were gathered here by our commanders, and rented a whole bunch of buses, and they put us all on the bus, and they said, "We're going to Washington to see because the Shah's coming, and we're going to be supportive of the Shah." So they had all of us military students on one side, then they had all the civilians on the other. Some Iranians were against the Shah, so at some point a fight broke out, and it was really nasty. It just— they ran after us. We didn't have anything to defend ourselves with. These anti-Shahs had everything in their position, so— SY: You guys had no idea that— AN: No, no idea— SY: -- you were going into that? AN: -- they didn't tell us. No. They just said to support the Shah. SY: And so how do you think— do you think that— how do you think you ended up there? What was the conversation between the Norwich administration and the Iranian ambassador? Like, how did that happen? AN: No, they just— they could just say— because technically we were their— Iranian government's possessions. Norwich really had no say in it because we weren't American. We were all Iranian and had Iranian passports. So, technically I could just be picked up during the day, in the middle of the night, put on a plane, and be taken back home. And it happened to some of our friends, and it just— they either had not done well in school, or they said something that was not favorable, so they were shipped back. So, Norwich really didn't have a say in it. They were— didn't know, because I think the commanders just told them, "They're going on a vacation. We're going to take you on vacation." SY: So, they didn't even know what you were getting into? AN: We didn't know that, no. We had no idea until we got to the hotel in D.C., and they said, "Oh, you're going out there, and this is the placards you can have," and said, "Long live the Shah." And it wasn't until later that we saw the other students running after us with sticks and— sticks with nails on them, and stone, and everything after us, and it just— it was really nasty. SY: So, how did it end? Were you terrified? AN: Oh, we ended up— someone was— some got involved in fights, some people got injured, but because we didn't have any— really any way to defend ourselves, we had casualties in terms of severe beatings, and I don't think anybody got killed, but injuries. SY: Wow. So, Norwich students got injured. AN: Oh, yes. They did. SY: Wow. Do you remember when you came back, did people ask what had happened? AN: I don't remember to be honest with you, no. SY: No? And you didn't get injured? AN: I didn't. Actually, I got beat up, but didn't get injured. It wasn't visible. But every single one of us got a piece of it. So, that was [New York?]— there in D.C. for two or three days, and that's— I think it was a good two days, and then— SY: Did you have to keep going back out? AN: Oh, yeah. The second— we went there in like the morning, and the next morning, and the next afternoon. So, it wasn't a onetime event. 11 SY: And did you— when you went back out— did you have weapons of any sort, or know what you were getting into? AN: The second time we just— we had— we brought some bottles and things like that just in case, because you don't want those guys to go after you, you need to defend yourself, so— SY: And the US police didn't touch it at all? AN: I think it was such a big crowd. It was thousands. Just imagine. And these police officers on horses— say, even 20 of them, 30 of them, 100 of them. We're talking about thousands of— it was just a mob scene, and so really, I think it was out of control. And it was out of control. SY: And were the Irani students of the Citadel and VMI, did they come up, too? AN: Oh, everybody. Everybody in the navy, air force, anybody that the navy ordered, and the military ordered— the Iranian military. We all had to go. We had no choice. We were the agents of the Iranian government. SY: Yeah. So, you weirdly went into battle in D.C. without any— without the US knowing or noticing. AN: I don't know— I'm sure people knew. I mean, you see group here and a group there. You see the potential for some interaction. It could— it's possible. But the job wasn't to protect us. The job was to protect people around the White House, and the dignitaries and everything. I mean, there's a mob scene. They're not going to go and worry about individuals like me, they're going to worry about individuals like Heads of State. So— SY: That makes sense. So, were you starting to get worried in your senior year about stuff that was going on back home? AN: Actually, I was not senior— I was junior year here. And it was— I was really worried at that point. And to be honest with you, I changed my mind about being— serving under the Shah at that point temporarily. But then I thought about it. If we go to sign allegiance to Ayatollah, then that's something that really wasn't in my dream. So, that's when I got married, said I'm not going back to Iran to serve the Ayatollah. I just really— this is not what I want to do. My allegiance is not to him. So, that's why I stayed here. SY: And so you had a secret marriage. AN: I had a secret marriage— SY: That worked. AN: Yeah. I had a secret marriage. And then came back, and told my commander that I was going to go on vacation, and I never came back. And that was Runi, and never said, so— SY: Where did you guys go? Where'd you have your secret marriage? AN: We went to my wife's— she has an aunt— back then she lived in New York in Glenn's Falls, and my father-in-law— so we got married on a Saturday, this particular Saturday, December 30th. Then we went to— he arranged with his sister to have us work— well, live with them for a few months. Ended up living with them for nine months. In the basement she had a room, I would say 5 by 10, dark, used to be a bar that had some use. So, they gave it to us. It had no toilet, it had— it was awful. Nine months my wife and I lived there. We had a couch that my father-in-law bought from Sears for 300 dollars, and that was a sofa bed, too. 12 So, that would be the couch, and then open up to sleep in. So, that's where we lived. And that was rough. And I was in the navy. I had never worked in my life. I was being paid a handsome salary a month as a midshipman, and then I had to go find a job, and so my first job was— I started as a busboy in a hotel nearby. Queensberry Hotel. And I loved it. It was really— all the waitresses were really good to me. I would help them out— I was a young guy. I was in my twenties, and they were older than me, and I would be stronger, carrying trays and things like that. And the hotel general manager really took a liking to me, and so he would order— he and his family lived in one of the rooms— so he would order food every day and want me to bring him the food. Prepare them and bring them to him. And I had no idea what these American foods were like. What does this mean? What does that mean? So, I had a tough time with that. But every time I went up he gave me a tip, and he wanted me take care of me. Really nice man. And so, then I— my wife started waitressing at a restaurant nearby, and then so we needed another job, so I went and got another job as a temporary street worker. Basically you help all the digging holes and jackhammer and things like that. And sometimes if I didn't have that I would go into the police department— it was a city job— I would go to the police department and help paint the walls, wash the cars, and things like that. So, that was my salary of two dollars and 10 cents an hour. And I was really proud of this, by the way. That was great money. So, that's how we started. I learned a lot from it, and I learned that no matter what you do, it's not what you do, it's how you do it. And I still to this day believe it. And I have a really good job now, but if I have to go lose my job for whatever reason I have to do something else, I can go to sweeping the floors and waxing the floors, but I can guarantee you it's going to be the best looking, cleanest floor you've ever seen in your life. And that's how I did it when I started as my houseman job in a hotel in Burlington. So, I started as a houseman, and within six months I became everybody's supervisor. SY: Why do you think— AN: It wasn't because I was a good looking guy and they liked me to be in the front— it was because I did such a great job. I had— they had us scheduled to do different tasks, and I did them all, and I did them all perfectly. I waxed the floors. Anybody who— any issues they had they didn't want to do, I would do it. Any time somebody called in sick, I would go in. The bathrooms— they have public bathrooms, and on the first floor of the hotel— and public bathrooms are always very dirty— I would go in and 10 minutes, I'd clean it up. I mean, that bathroom was spotless. So, people notice that. They see this guy is doing a good job. So, that's how I started— I got promotion like that. SY: So, what about— at this point you had two years of school? AN: Three years. SY: Three years of school. And so, what was your major? AN: Business. SY: Business. OK. And did you want to— I imagine you wanted to finish. AN: Yes. SY: So, how'd you go back and finish school? 13 AN: So, I went— when I got married, I wanted to come back to Norwich. Obviously, I couldn't, because the navy still had a hold of my academics, and they didn't release that until later apparently. SY: How did they set a hold on your— AN: Well, they wouldn't— I— for whatever reason, I couldn't get my credits here at Norwich. It didn't get released until later. Some years later. So, at that time I had gone to Trinity College in Burlington, and I got my Associates. SY: So, you had to redo all that. AN: Part of it, yes. And then I went to— I went another three of four years, and I went back to Trinity and got my Bachelor's. Well I got it all. My Bachelor's, I had like 12 or— no, 17 credits I had to take. No, I'm sorry. Seventeen courses I had to take, and I did them all in a year. So, I did day, night, and I had a full time job, and by the way I was cum laude. So, I just— it just proves that I really wanted to do it then, and I did it. Then, it wasn't until 2005 that Norwich granted 10 of us honorary degrees. And that was, to me, that was my most prized possession aside from my Norwich ring that— it just really— I had my other diplomas, but Norwich is bigger, and it's right in the middle of it, and it's a joy and pride for me. SY: Now did you stay in touch with any of your fellow students? So, did they know that you were going to leave and get married? AN: No, they didn't' know that until I left. Because you couldn't really trust anybody. I didn't know who was SAVAK, you couldn't— I didn't— also I didn't want to create any friction so that my family would get in trouble back home because my father cosigned me, so that if anything would be resolved, so if anything happened to me, and I left the navy, then he would pay all the expenses the navy had already put in my education. And they did. About 20 years later they went after my parents, and they wanted to take possession of the house and their belongings. So, my father called me, and said, "This is what's happening." I asked how much is it, and he said, "This much." And I just wrote a check, and they paid the government, and they were clear. So— but it was good timing then because inflation was so high that the amount I gave was almost 10 times more than it would have been up— 10 times less than I would have paid, so it just— it all worked out. SY: Yeah. And— OK. And then did you start— did you stay in touch with your family at all during that time? AN: I did, and it was pretty— we would write letters. Of course, they didn't have (inaudible) [00:48:24] or Tango and things like that— iPhone, you could talk to each other. So, from time to time we would write letters, and it would be pretty generic. No names, and no insulting the government, things like that. And sometimes I would call, and there are times that somebody— if you say something— the monitor on the other end would scold you for saying it, so— so they would do that, yeah. Because again, maybe my family— because we had three bro-- three siblings in prison by the Mullahs, and a number of family mem-- relatives who got executed by the government because they were against the government, so. SY: So, when did you get to see your family again? 14 AN: I got to see my mom about 15— 20 years ago. Eighteen years ago, I'm sorry. She came here to visit us, and then I went— my family and I went to Europe to Holland, a couple— three years after, and met with my mother and father. And they're still both of them living. My mom is in her 70s, my dad is in his 80s, so— SY: And are they in Iran, or— AN: In Iran. Tehran. SY: In Tehran. And your siblings? When did you get to see them? AN: My siblings— last time I saw my brother was about a few years ago. My sister is— oh my brother, five years ago. I went to see him, and I saw him there. SY: And it sounds like there's a period of, I don't know, 20 some odd years where you didn't see your family at all. AN: Yeah, it was. And it was one of the hardest things. And the reason is, I know my wife's family, they're really great. They love me. And really it was good to be accepted and to be part of them. But, you always feel like you don't— you— sight of it— there's something missing, and that is some of the things that have been missing for me and for my kids, because I always wanted to— I wanted to experience the love from my side of the family, because in Iran it's a lot more personable. I'm not saying— just, family is— it's— family relations are very deep. SY: And more affectionate, right? AN: More affectionate, just like— and they just— you feel like— we were talking to one of my friends, talking with how many people go see therapists here in the US, and it just really— it's hard for people to be talking to each other about— because no one's got time. In Iran, people don't go to therapists, they have family members. It's really— it's not unusual to have family members who live with you, so any problems you have you can always— you always have that support that— that support network that can always help you out. So, that's one other thing that I wish I had that for my kids, and I wish I had that for myself. I think that would have made me a lot better person in some ways for them, they would have a richer youth, and teenage years. It would be a lot better for them. SY: Do you speak Farsi with them at all? (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) [00:51:47] AN: No, I did not. I did initially, but that's one of the regrets. I should have spoken with them. I should have taught them, but I didn't. And actually, when I became a US citizen back three years after I got married. So, that was like '81, '80, '81 or so. Eighty-two. So, I was just— I was so mad at the Iranian government and all the things they do, I just didn't want to deal with it. Now, the last five, 10 years or so, I've started to pick up on strengthening my Farsi, because I was forgetting it, and I just realized— I just kind of made myself— I thought— I was thinking about, really, because I'm mad at them doesn't mean I don't— I love that language, and I just— it's really hard on me. So, I started to really read a lot of Farsi and listen to things, because you forget things, and I try always to see when I say something, how would it translate into Farsi, or the other way around. SY: Do you still dream in Farsi? AN: I dream about— yeah. I do. I mean, especially food involved. (laughter) 15 SY: That's what I was going to say. You must be homesick for food. What food do you crave that you can't get here? AN: They have these kebabs, filets, and they also have, we call them barg, which means leaf. But it's just kind of like leaf of meat. Filet. And they skewer it, and it's just unbelievably tasty. And that's served with rice and saffron. And they have this other kebab called koobideh, and that's basically kind of like hamburger, but it's on skewers this long, but it's absolutely the most delicious thing on earth. I mean, all Iranians, you don't find anybody who doesn't love chelo kebab. They call it chelo kebab. So, that's one of the things that— I mean, the smell of it, the taste of it, it's just out of this world. Seriously. SY: I believe you. (laughter) AN: Yeah. It just— it's just unbelievable. And that's one of the things I miss. And I miss the traditions. I miss the New Year. Persian New Year. It's a big deal in Iran. It was— SY: It was just last week, or two weeks ago, yeah. AN: Two weeks ago. Yeah. Twenty-first. And I know it's not a big deal here, but my wife does some prep for it, but it's just— it's not the same. So, those are the things that you feel like you wish you had. I wish for our governments— Iranian government and US government to get along, so people— SY: It looks like they're having— AN: I hope so— SY: Fear about what's going on this week, and last week. AN: Yeah, I'll see it when it's actually executed. I don't know. I don't trust these guys over there. SY: You'll believe it when you see it. AN: Yeah. I— you know what? It would be great if these two countries could get along and people could travel without the fear of getting hurt and kidnapped or whatever. SY: Bizhan's been back, have you ever gone back? AN: No, I've not gone back. He actually— when he resigned, he resigned from the navy. I did not. I just went AWOL, and because of my last name, because my brothers being anti-government, I really don't think I have a chance of going there freely. I would really— I wish I could, but I don't think so. Unless this government changes. SY: So, you're going to have to wait for news (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) [00:55:17]— AN: Yeah, to be honest with you, I don't think in my lifetime that's going to happen. I really don't think it. This is— traditionally, Iran— a regime lasts 70 to 100 years. Happened to Shah, it was 75. To these guys, it's only been 35, 40 years. I don't think I'm going to live another 30 years to see that, we'll see. SY: I don't know, you keep eating those egg white omelets, you might live another 35, 40 years. (laughter) AN: Yeah, maybe. SY: Sussan talked about how when she came back, because of the hostage crisis, there's a lot of hostility towards Iranians. Did you experience that? 16 AN: Yes, I did. Very much so. When— back in '78, or '79, I was working at this hotel called— maybe it was '80. The Radisson in Burlington. It's called Hilton now. So, I had an employee he worked for me. His name— whatever. And he was very anti-Iranian. And it was Iran this, Iran that, swear words, and— so, he didn't know I was Iranian, and finally when he found out I was Iranian, he just said, "I'm so sorry. I just didn't know you're Iranian, and I've been saying all these things." And I said, "It happens a lot. People don't know." When you talk about Americans are bad, or Iranians are bad, you just think of them in general. But you meet people, and you realize that really is not the case. And the prejudice I faced was not because of me. Once people started talking to me, they said, "Wow, you're not like that." Well, of course. I live in this country. I became a US citizen. I love this country. I'm not— it's not— I'm not the enemy. I'm like anybody else. But, my origin is Iranian. Just like you being Italian or being Irish. So, that's the way it is. But yeah. People— I mean, even after 9/11, just anybody who was dark, it was just— they were targeted. And then we learned to live with that. We learned to really put that aside. It's gotten a lot better in terms of labeling people and profiling them, I think so. So, I think, once people— and that's one of the things I love about Americans. Once they get to know you, and— first of all, I don't think many Americans are, in my experience, many Americans are not really vicious in terms of trying to put somebody down. People are very— they joke a lot in many ways. People like to be humorous about some things. That's just the way it is. And my experience has been I really haven't had people say, "You. Because of you." And once they get to know me, and say, "Hey, that's the situation. It is what it is." SY: Yeah. So, after all this, you're— you feel you— you arrive in Northfield, you arrive in the boonies, you say, "Oh my God, what is happening to me?" You end up staying in Vermont. Why'd you end up staying in Vermont? AN: Well, I stayed up in Vermont, the reason is because my wife is a Vermonter, and she wanted to be— she wanted to live here. I don't really like Vermont weather. I love the people. They're just the sweetest, most friendly, kind people. I just don't like the weather. And really, it's getting to me year after year. Just, I don't like the cold. Today's March— April. April second. I had to wear a long coat to come out. It's just— there's got to be an end to this at some point. So, my daughter lives in Florida. Southwest Florida. So, my dream is to move there someday and— but my wife is not convinced yet. That's the problem. That's the problem. SY: I don't know. You compromised. You've been here for a long time. Maybe it's your turn, huh? AN: Yeah. I don't know. We'll see. We'll see. Maybe another five or six years. We'll see. SY: Yeah. Exactly. I don't know if I have any more questions. I'm just looking through my list. Oh, yeah. So, then years later some of your classmates managed to trickle back in. So, what were those conversations like when you re-met them? AN: Oh, so coming back from Iran, or just— SY: Yeah. So, Bizhan makes his way back, Sussan makes her way back. It takes a while though. 17 AN: It does, yeah. It took a lot. For Bizhan, he almost didn't make it back here. He was stuck in [Bromford?] quite a long time. What really confirmed things for me was that I was right from the beginning that I shouldn't have gone to Iran, because a lot of my friends went, and said— and they went, and resigned, they almost didn't make it back, and they hated every minute of being in Iran. Even though it's our mother country, just because the regime made it so hard. And it was interesting to hear that people were in the same timeframe as I was in terms of thinking, and so for me it just was kind of a sweet— it's a pleasurous— pleasuring— pleasing thing to hear that I was— what I felt about Iran, not going to Iran was the right thing, and— SY: And everybody came back, and you could probably talk freely in a way that you hadn't been able to. AN: Oh yeah. Yeah. We did. And Bizhan's been to Iran several times. And even the last time that he went he said it was just really tough for him after a week. Said it was really tough. Just because we used to it— it's a part of our— we've been here more than half of our lives here in the US than we have been in Iran. So, for us in particular it's really hard. I don't think if I went to Iran, honestly I couldn't last more than a week or two. I seriously couldn't. Because A) the way of life B) all the different— the environment, the society and— SY: And the anxiety of whether or not you'd be able to leave. AN: Right. And that's a thing. And they have a different concept about things. Time is not important at all. So, you could go— when you invite Iranians over in Iran, you tell them dinner at 8:00. Dinner doesn't mean at 8:00, it means at 8:00 they start preparing the dinner. So, you end up eating dinner at 11:00 sometimes. SY: I think that's true for every people besides white Anglo-Saxons, you know what I mean? Any other country you go to it's the same. AN: And it's good to have that time concept. It's good to say, "Look, dinner's at 8:00. Be here at 7:45." Or whatever. I like the way things are more clear here what it is in the US. And people are pretty straightforward about it. In Iran, no. In Iran, say, "Hey, come here for dinner." Yeah, OK. And you can't tell people just come by yourself. You would say you come to my house, meaning you, that means the entire family. The entire family comes. So, it just— it's nice, in a way, and because everybody is together, and they love guests. That's another thing about our culture. We just love people coming and enjoying our food and being part of our lives. SY: Yeah. So, what's your job now? AN: I am the VP or Information Technology and CIO at Visiting Nurse Association in Colchester. SY: That sounds like a very good job. AN: It is actually. I started at— I went up the ranks. And I've been there 21 years. So, I really worked hard at getting here, and they just didn't give it to me because they liked— they thought they should have somebody like me. I worked hard for it. And I guess you have to prove yourself. Because again, you have in this country, again, you are given an opportunity, I feel like you people should be— they should use it to the absolute max, and if they don't use it— and that's why if they don't use it they're putting themselves at a disadvantage, and that's why it's true 18 that it's the land of opportunity. And it's true that if you want to do it you can do it. But you really have to work at it hard, and sometimes you have to work harder just because of who you are. Sometimes— different times I have to work a lot harder to prove myself because people just look at you and for whatever reason they just think you might not be able to write well, you might not be able to speak well, so those are things that kind of— they put you— you're set back, and they don't give you the opportunity. SY: Did you ever get disheartened during your sort of rise up the ranks? AN: I did. Like, you get— against what? My work, or people I work with? SY: No, just frustrated. I mean, like, yes. This is the American Dream. You can work hard and you can rise up, but there is discrimination, there are barriers, there are different things. It's frustrating. AN: No, I never did. I seriously I— again, I always thought this is such a great country. And if I can imagine myself when we had the hostage crisis here in this country, Iranians took those Americans hostage, 52 of them, for 444 days or something like that, and people still here we could live and we could get promotion. We could work hard. I mean, it doesn't happen everywhere, but I feel like I never had any backlash against me because of that. But I can't imagine being in Iran and being an American, and you take Iranians— Americans take Iranians hostage, and Americans in Iran be treated this well. And again, this is one of the greatest things about the United States, because that is— that's what makes us such a great nation. And that's what makes us so special. I mean, every day when I talk to these young people, I say to them, "You have this opportunity in this country, you have such a great country here, you have to realize it. Don't say US this, and US that, address it in a negative way. You haven't been to the other side to see what it is to live in this great country." And just have to— you just have to cherish that, and appreciate it, and you have this opportunity, you're part of this nation. SY: Yeah. One last question. How did you meet your wife? AN: Well, actually, I was— we were going to a disco called Friends in Burlington, and I had a girlfriend here one— actually, I had a live in girlfriend here, and I had a fight with her one night, and just went to disco with my friends. My male friends. So, my wife saw me at the— standing there by the cigarette machine, because they had cigarette machines inside, and she asked me to dance, and we danced for three hours. And so, that's— I think I told her I fell in love with her that night, and she said, "Oh, [I can't hear?]?" I said, "I loved you from the minute I saw you." So that's— SY: And now that's 30-- AN: Thirty six years we've been married. Yeah. Yeah. So, like any marriage, there's just like anything. You'll have ups and downs, but more ups. I really think that. More positive stuff than. SY: Absolutely. So, any last thoughts? AN: Last thought is I hope someday my kids will be able to listen to all these stories from Iranian guys, and Norwich cadets, and I hope they should— that they have an opportunity to come back and listen to some of these. 19 SY: Well, actually you're going to get a copy of this, and pretty soon the interviews I did with Bizhan and Sussan will be available online. So, that wish will be able to be granted very quickly and concretely. AN: Yeah? Great. SY: So, I'll send you— I'll send you— [01:07:09] END OF AUDIO FILE
Education has the power to provide opportunities for meaningful, personal growth. In this research I usc my own, personal narrative as a means to explore various feelings of accomplishment and disappointment throughout my educational experience. Written reflections from graduate-level courses and a self-written story of my educational experiences, including my role as a teacher, were used for data analysis. These artifacts were coded using NVivo software. Coding revealed four themes: Self-worth and Selfesteem; Freedom through Authenticity; Regret; and Change and Redemption. Discourse, which is a guiding, invisible force, shapes the narrative, or lived experiences, of individuals. Its influence on my narrative was examined. The discursive claim of education is that the main goal of education is about and in the best interests of students. As my experiences in education were not positive and I felt that I did not receive what I needed, I assumed that my narrative countered the discourse. The findings showed that it was not I who countered the discourse, but rather my mental illness. This finding revealed the oppressive force of discourse upon the teachers in that there was not room for mental illness in education. This brings into question the discourse about viewing teachers solely as professionals as opposed to teachers as people. ; SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION 2 Acknowledgements I most appreciate Dr. Louise Moulding. Qualitative research is not her thing. I know she did this for me. Dr. DeeDee Mower was the framework and the scaffolding who kept this project steady throughout its construction; however, long before we were aware of DeeDee's expertise, Louise took on this project with me. She remained my chair though she felt, and verbalized, that she was not the best candidate for that role. I cannot think of a better person to have guided me through this project. I do believe that there is no one else with whom I would have rather gone on this journey. She made me feel safe and she made me feel loved. This was a very special project, so I needed a very special person to chair it. Thank you, Dr. Moulding. You helped me change my life. Love is not enough they say. That is why we needed Dr. Mower. She was the shepherd of us sheep lost in the pasture of qualitative research. We often strayed, but she kindly brought us back. She brought her expertise, but she also brought excitement. I was discouraged a few times-more than a few times. DeeDee was always so excited about this project. She saw something I could not see. She saw power in this research beyond what I had ever considered. Her wisdom was indispensable. I have never experienced as much altruism in life as I did in her office as she taught me the language of narrative research. It has always seemed that she was invested as much as I was to this project. I did not spend a lot of time in Dr. Stewaii's office, but it is in her class where my journey began. She allowed me to explore my story within the contexts of her course. My reflections were priceless to me. They were precious. I will continue to appreciate the respect and care Dr. Stewart showed toward my feelings. Her comments were insightful and helped me continue my growth. I felt validated as a person and encouraged to stay on SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION my journey of self-discover because of the comments she wrote in the margins of one of my assignments. She made me feel special. 3 In addition, I wi~h to thank Hayley Blevins and Erin Furlong for their support. We went through this program together. They became my very best friends: we had a lot of fun. They loved me, they laughed with me, and they even cried with me. This experience was overwhelming with the many emotions that came with the project. Our friendship became my strength many times. I am fortunate to have met them. I think they are great, and I love them. Thank you also to Weber State University and the M.Ed. program for providing the platform for this research. SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION 4 Table of Contents NATURE OF THE PROBLEM . 7 Literature Review . 8 Purpose of Education . 9 Personal Experiences in Education . 12 The Role of Expectations . 1 7 Self-efficacy for Educators . 21 Why Narratives Are Valid in Educational Research . 23 PURPOSE . 29 METHOD . 30 Instruments . 3 0 Procedures . 31 FINDINGS . 35 The Four Major Themes . 35 Self-worth and Self-esteem: Authenticity and Freedom . 36 Regret . 39 Change and Redemption . 40 Conclusions . 43 REFERENCES . 47 APPENDICES . 51 Appendix A: Institutional Review Board Approval Letter . 51 SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION 5 List of Figures Figure 1. Coding data for final analysis. This figure shows the interactions of the three research questions in data analysis . 34 Figure 2. Four themes emerged from the overlapping area of the three research questions. The arrows show the interconnectedness of all four . 36 SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION 6 Abstract Education has the power to provide opportunities for meaningful, personal growth. In this research I usc my own, personal narrative as a means to explore various feelings of accomplishment and disappointment throughout my educational experience. Written reflections from graduate-level courses and a self-written story of my educational experiences, including my role as a teacher, were used for data analysis. These artifacts were coded using NVivo software. Coding revealed four themes: Self-worth and Selfesteem; Freedom through Authenticity; Regret; and Change and Redemption. Discourse, which is a guiding, invisible force, shapes the narrative, or lived experiences, of individuals. Its influence on my narrative was examined. The discursive claim of education is that the main goal of education is about and in the best interests of students. As my experiences in education were not positive and I felt that I did not receive what I needed, I assumed that my narrative countered the discourse. The findings showed that it was not I who countered the discourse, but rather my mental illness. This finding revealed the oppressive force of discourse upon the teachers in that there was not room for mental illness in education. This brings into question the discourse about viewing teachers solely as professionals as opposed to teachers as people. SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION 7 NATURE OF THE PROBLEM The purpose of education today seems to be influenced by economy rather than by humanity. Its extrinsic rewards are favored over its intrinsic power for personal transformation and growth. The earliest colleges were institutions used to prepare its students to become clergy. In the 1700s universities began to offer a breadth of courses that enabled individuals to reflect and reason. Experiences during university studies crossed many subjects. Students were mentored so that they would be able to apply the knowledge from these subjects to their own growth and identity. The goal was to allow individuals a range of opportunities that would engage all parts of their lives, both present and future. The early 1800s marked an initial shift in the view of education that abandoned the emphasis on the learner, his experience, growth, and identity replacing them with what the learner should learn. College attendance became more common and those pressures led to a decrease in the quality of instruction. The educational philosophy concerning the purpose of education is again focused on practical measures and extrinsic gains. This comes at the cost and marginalization of the intrinsic benefits of education. Despite this current situation, education still has power to provide intrinsic benefits. These benefits are still of value independent of the extrinsic benefits and need to be acknowledged and encouraged. The expectation an individual holds as he experiences education enhances or diminishes the potential for education to aid in personal growth and transformation. Thus, students who enter their scholastic endeavors with hopes of becoming a better person or a belief that they will gain a new view of the world are likely to find such things, while SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION 8 those who seek only a degree and better employment are likely to overlook and graduate never experiencing the available benefits. Society continually undervalues intrinsic aspects of education, which encourage students to do the same. Education is a lived experience that shapes identity and should be a foundation for a stable view of one's self. However, as students increasingly enter college without the realization of the role education can play in self-views and self-efficacy, they graduate with only a degree, mostly unchanged. Eliminating academic studies that may not be practical or directly applied to the workplace neither produces college graduates who have attributes employers state they look for in candidates nor does it project happiness or satisfaction in their future professional lives. The professional benefits may feel hollow or inadequate because individuals also need a sense of fulfillment. By sharing and discussing the intrinsic benefits of education, expectations of students may shift and graduates may feel a sense of fulfillment and self-pride. Literature Review The contemporary debate about the main role of education in society is not a new idea with such dialogue recorded as far back as the early eighteenth century, before American independence (Spring, 2014). Early colleges resisted focusing on specialized and practical curricula, opting instead to uphold the principle that the student graduate having developed "a balanced character that could fit into any intellectual conversation or gathering" (Spring, 2014, p. 70). However, over time higher education shifted toward specialized curricula that would land graduates in occupations, and ultimately came to care less about the intrinsic benefits of education, such as a sense of fulfillment or SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION 9 identity, than the knowledge or skill sets they attain (Hanson, 2014). As this shift continues, the expectations for growth in universities decrease as knowledge and occupational tasks increasingly become, not means to an education, but the "benchmarks and we abandoned the big questions about who our students become" (Hanson, 2014, para. 3). Purpose of Education The marginalization of intrinsic benefits of education existed even in the eighteenth century (Hofstadter, 1955/1995). Higher education, and education in general, has historical foundations in religion. The instruction focused on doctrines and teachings from whatever religion managed the institution. Courses, such as Greek and Latin, were not offered as means for personal growth, but to enable the students who were expected to become clergy or civic leaders to fulfill their responsibilities. In the eighteenth century colleges began to depart from this practice (Spring, 2014). Despite this departure from narrow religious curricula, there were individuals who proposed universities what would exclude "all but the useful and vocational subjects" (McCaughey-Ross & McCaughey, 1980, p. 251) this meant the elimination of classical languages completely, and restricting instruction of science and mathematics to direct applications similar to today. However, these proposals were originally rejected in favor of a far greater breadth of instruction (Spring, 2014). Samuel Johnson was instrumental in these changes when he became the first president of what is now Columbia University in 1754 (Mccaughey-Ross & McCaughey, 1980). In the announcement of the university's opening, Johnson explains the proposed instruction to be: SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION 10 . In the learned languages, and in the arts ofreasoning exactly, of writing correctly, and speaking eloquently; and in the arts of numbering and measuring, of surveying and navigation, of geography and history, of husbandry, commerce, and government, and in the knowledge of all nature in the heavens above us, and in the air, water, and earth around us, and the various kinds of meteors, stones, mines, and minerals, plants and animals, and everything useful for the comfort, the convenience and elegance of life, in the chief manufactures relating to any of these things; and finally to from the study of nature to the study of themselves . and everything that contributes to their true happiness, both here and hereafter. (as quoted in Mccaughey-Ross & Mccaughey, 1980, pp. 251-252, emphasis added) Changes at other universities followed: arithmetic became a requirement for college admission; mathematics became required in three of the four years of college instead of one; science equipment such as barometers and microscopes was imported; and readings by Locke, Newton, Copernicus and others were assigned readings (Spring, 2014). A graduate of baccalaureate programs in the 1 gth century was expected and assumed to be one who was balanced and engaged in all the facets of his intellect (Spring, 2014). However, this changed decades later as the demand for education rapidly increased (Spring, 2014). In the haste to respond to the demand for more and more universities, the quality of instruction was ignored (Spring, 2014 ). The proposals to exclude the classics, depth in mathematics and science, and reasoning, which had been rejected in the past, gained favor. The majority of causes were economic since limited content would result in the hiring of fewer faculty, who could then be assigned a maximum amount of courses. But appearances also played a role, as the time-to- SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION 11 graduation rate could be more efficient. Not only were instructional concerns ignored, the construction of universities was also poorly planned and poorly organized. The goal of education became simply to provide "every locality with a cheap . institution that would make it possible for the local boys who desired degrees to get them easily" (Hofstadter, 1955/1995, p. 214). In fact one historical researcher pointed out that Often when a college had a building, it had no students. If it had students, frequently it had no building. If it had either, then perhaps it had no money, perhaps no professors; if professors, then no president, if a president, then no professors. (Rudolph, 1962/1990, p. 4 7) Philosophies of education today are similar and with a similar cause. The narrowing of curricula in the early nineteenth century resulted from an increased demand of college attendance. Today there is again an expectation that all children should have the opportunity to attend institutions of higher education. There is also an idea of the "cheap institutions" quoted by Hofstadter (1955/1995) earlier; demands for grants, debt forgiveness (whether federal or through future employer), or other financial aid such as scholarships has been increasing rapidly (Cronin, 1986). Educational achievement is now narrowed to data that can be published and explicitly verbalized. There is little acceptance of alternative forms to demonstrate educational success (Burwood, 2006). It is ironic to learn that the very employers students hope to impress by their resumes, grades, and efficiency of scholastic achievement tend to say they value qualities of diverse and intellectually curious people (Hanson, 2014). The emphasis on test scores, economics, and career and technical readiness is at odds with the attributes employers seek when interviewing candidates for positions. Recognition of the intrinsic benefits of SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION 12 education seems to be superficial when accrediting agencies are not known to hold educational institutions accountable for the personal growth of their graduates even when it is explicitly written in the institution's mission statement or objectives (Hanson, 2014). When individuals and universities do cite these benefits they are mentioned only as support to the extrinsic benefits to society such as communicating in occupations, saving the government welfare money, and so forth (Times Education Supplement (TES), 2005). It is now the credential that matters most, not the education or the process (TES, 2005). In both secondary schools and within higher education, grades are inflated and content has been diluted to increase graduation rates with an inattention to student achievement or competence (Carter, 2007; Goos, Gannaway, & Hughes, 2011; Hanson, 2014). Promoting programs that provide only the content of subjects without the reasoning, application, and history of the material has caused some to ask, "What kind of 'graduate' [are] these courses producing?" (Smith, 2003, para. 11). The associated expectations and assumptions surrounding diplomas, certificates, and degrees is that they are symbols of sacrifice, dedication, enlightemnent, and application of traits such as perseverance, but "all too often the piece of paper is confused with the territory that it purports to describe" (Starr-Glass, 2002, p. 224). Therefore, such expectations and assumptions that have accompanied academic progress for hundreds of years are no longer a guaranteed result of educational achievement such as graduation. Personal Experiences in Education The statement, "Education holds a miraculous and transformative power," is an example of intrinsic benefits. It is also the title of a recent report on education (Adkins, 2012). What is interesting about this title is that the great majority of the report is spent SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION 13 overviewing the state of American education and its impact on economy, such as salaries and costs per pupil, and touting the monetary advantages of graduating from both college . and high school; the monetary disadvantages of not completing school, and other economic boons from education. Yet, the author, the executive director for the Council of State Governments, titles his work Education Holds a Miraculous and Transformative Power and concludes the piece with an unexpected redirection of thought: While the statistics are telling, for me, education has always been a very personal pursuit. I can still name each of my elementary school teachers . These educators . had a profound impact on my aspirations, my career and my enjoyment of life . I was blessed with dedicated teachers whose passion for learning helped kindle my own pursuit of knowledge . What a miraculous and trans.formative power education holds! (Adkins, 2012, p. 3, emphasis added) There is a natural question as to why an author would spend so much time discussing the extrinsic aspects of education and its role to produce economically viable citizens only to conclude with emotional recollections. It is because education can, and does for many people, provide means for personal growth to transform them into the very best versions of themselves independent of societal and personal affluence (Smith, 2003; TES, 2005). However, it is important to note that in spite of the heartfelt description of his own childhood experience in education, he states that he knows that his daughter is successful because of her test scores with no mention of any personal transformation (Adkins, 2012). Possibly nowhere else in education has this point of personal fulfillment and intrinsic benefits of education been advocated more than in the arts. It is well known that SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION 14 funding for such programs in public education has faced cutbacks providing another example of favoring extrinsic aspects of education. Of course, there have been many who fight for the arts to stay, but often these arguments approach the battle from the wrong angle (Koopman, 2005). The justification for the persistence of art curricula has been housed within the tenets that they enhance the traditionally respected subjects such as reading, math, and science, because that is the currency used for influencing law and policymakers. Even when these claims can be supported with research, they tend to be correlational; however, Koopman (2005) contends that justification in relation to math and sciences should not be required. When individuals are self-aware and have created stable identities, they are more likely to stay in college, improve weaknesses (Carter, 2007), and find satisfaction and happiness in the workplace over their lifetimes (Hanson, 2014). When education is free from the oppressive pressure of efficiency and task achievement, it can shape the understanding students have of themselves when they ask "Who am I?" (TES, 2005). Koopman (2005) asserts that the benefit of forming self-identity ought to be adequate to argue the benefits of arts in education and ought to be valued independently of practical and extrinsic educational goals. In a hierarchy of learning, changing as a person is placed at the top (Wood, 2015), yet this type oflearning remains undervalued. This has diminished opportunities for personal growth, which have become a secondary goal of education, if a goal at all. Sandra Smith's (2003) personal story may be helpful to explain the dual and contradictory claims that education is providing both practical and personal gains. Sandra was well aware that college education would prepare her for and provide better SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION 15 employment and economic stability. Sandra explained that though she did go to college (being a single-parent and working as a low-wage input clerk) with the hopes of improving her social and economic status, she also wanted to study something she loved, being English literature, "and maybe even to achieve personal transformation along the way" (Smith, para. 5). These expectations shaped her experience. Her university requirements included a breadth of courses before any specialized courses could be taken. Because of these courses, Sandra "discovered a new way for seeing [her]self' and has "never seen [the] world in quite the same way again" (Smith, para. 6). In her writing, Sandra reminisced about courses in sociology, geography, and cultural history. She shared specific content and its transfer to her life, thoughts, feelings, and philosophies. She learned how to develop and communicate ideas, to question the status quo, to gain an active frame of mind in addition to practical skills such as pdoritizing work and developing strategies for success in new situations. At her "traditional university a degree meant much more than the subject in which you majored" (Smith, para. 6). Of course she also learned linguistics, grammar, the history of the English language, and "how to write a whole lot better" (Smith, para. 7). In fact, she got everything she had sought. She did graduate in English, and loved her major, but of the internal changes mentioned in her writing, none of them were in direct relation to that major. Those changes resulted in experiences and learning that were outside of her initial focus; they came because the university requirements held to the historical roots that education has outcomes of educated, well-versed beings not simply graduates with degrees. Upon graduation, however, Sandra concluded that her degree in English would likely not lead to a position that would yield economic independence (Smith, 2003). With SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION 16 this concession, she returned to school with the aim of getting vocational training. She quickly found that the attributes which are claimed to be encouraged in schoolingdiscussion, questions, and creative thought-were not so welcome, instead favoring preconstructed work skills. In spite of this she found the experience to be positive due to its learning opportunity. Her goal was different from the first; she was not in school to study something she loved or maybe to experience personal transformation. However, her perspective favoring learning as the goal increased her satisfaction and still allowed for personal growth. She did learn skills for the work place, except they were not fully adequate. In a sad irony, Sandra took her up-to-date skill set directly into the workplace only to find that they were not up to date (Smith, 2003). Instead she found that in today's workplaces "there is no time to find your feet or acquire specialist knowledge. You have to hit the ground running" (Smith, para. 10). Design of courses was formed wholly for the needs of business and industry. This relationship between higher education and industry no longer supports educated beings. Rather, it supports the production of what Hanson (2014) terms human capital, viewing students as the currency of American economics. Sandra's story, though, actually provides an example that even this goal of skills-based education is not being met. Sadly, this extrinsic model of education caused Sandra to doubt the value of personal growth and transformation in education. She wondered for a time if her first four years of college had been a waste, eventually concluding: . That it cannot be just about training for the workplace. There's probably something very wrong with a society that is driven by market forces to turn its back on millennia of knowledge and learning in favor of narrow vocational skills. SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION . I think that a workplace that has little room for arts/humanities graduates is missing something vital. (Smith, 2003, para. 12) 17 She was correct. Education does not need to be justified in terms of objective and practical measures. Even though not all parts of education are "necessary for subsistence, [they can] crucially . contribute to the fulfillment of one's life" (Koopman, 2005, p. 93). "The question, 'What is [education] good for?' should be answered by the response: '[It is] good for life.' Or, better still, '[It is] good for nothing. [It is] good life itself'" (Koopman, 2005, p. 96). The Role of Expectations The effects of expectations and perspectives on the perceived benefits of obtaining an education were briefly noted in Sandra's story, yet it is an important supporting idea when considering intrinsic benefits. Bruner (1966) has stated that people. are naturally curious with a desire to learn. This desire seems to be innate beginning with infants (Martinez, 2010). As individuals grow, this curiosity becomes more complex as various factors shape the motivations behind the will to learn. Bruner (1966) divides individuals' motivations as either competence-based or achievement-based. Tippen, Lafreniere, and Page (2012) divided motivation into similar divisions of grade-oriented and learning-oriented. Competence-based motivation serves to fulfill the basic need that humans have to use learning to exert control over a situation. This could be analogous to grade-oriented motivation, which leads to efficiency, and, in a way, control of one's educational experience. In contrast, achievement-based motivation does not allow satisfaction to occur due solely to evidence of skill or ability, which evidence could be analogous to a grade, but rather the actual application of that skill or ability. For example, SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION it would not be enough to get a grade; one must show how his or her ability to get the grade affected his growth. 18 Achievement-based motivation requires greater self-awareness or metacognition (Tippen et al., 2012) Learning-oriented students were more likely to have a high level of conscientiousness in addition to the characteristics discussed as desirable by employers: self-discipline, independence, intellectual curiosity, creativity, and an openness to experience new opportunities (Tippen et al., 2012). Students who were motivated by learning were also seen to self-impose high academic expectations. The opposite was found for grade-oriented students who displayed conforming and uncreative approaches to learning. Interestingly, neuroticism was highly correlated with grade-oriented students. This may relate to the controlling component of Bruner's competence-based motivation since pressure to control the outcome of grades creates stress when the success, in this case the grade, will be determined by the teacher or professor. Even though this knowledge about motivation has been communicated, a focus on objective and businessready education persists. As such, there is pressure upon educators to decrease the standard required in order appease those students who refuse to use learning as motivation. Otherwise, such students would perceive their professors as unfair, provide them with poor evaluations, which may directly affect their positions (Goos et al., 2011). As the environment where "students are consumers and grades the currency exchanged for measures of success" (Goos et al, 2011, p. 95) continues to grow, competency-based motivation is encouraged over achievement-based motivation and grade-oriented motivation is encouraged over learning-oriented motivation. For example, in assessing a skill, a teacher may simply accept an explanation or description of what SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION 19 must be done, grade-oriented and competency-based, rather than requiring the student to show understanding through action or the creation of a product, learning-oriented or achievement-based. There may be some who contend that the students may already have a grade-orientation when they enroll in college. However, it has been shown that as students spent more time on campus and in classroom settings during their first year of college, they became more work-avoidant (low effort) and grade-oriented (Kowalski, 2007). This can cause educators and students to lose faith in the caliber of the education provided (Carter, 2007; Hanson, 2014; Smith, 2003). Bandura proposed a different idea termed self-efficacy. This is a person's belief that he or she is capable of doing something regardless of his or her actual ability. Bandura (1977) describes four different ways that an individual's self-efficacy can be positively affected: mastery, through repeated success in an experience that required effort or perseverance; vicarious experience, observing others' success and believing "I can do the same"; social persuasion, when others praise and encourage actions voicing their belief of the individual's ability to succeed; and lastly, emotional and physiological states, the effects of a person's physical and mental health, may also alter ones perceptions of ability. I will use Krista's story to illustrate some of these ideas. Krista did not complete high school in spite of loving school and her teachers (Lebrun, 2013). However, for reasons unstated she did not complete high school; she did not finish ninth grade. She did her best to find work in the mall or at restaurants. At one point she shook blueberry bushes as a harvester, which apparently paid a decent wage. Despite the bush-shaking income, life was hard and she was tired. She was tired physically and she was tired of looks and judgments. "Determined to prove to people that SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION 20 [she] was more than a blueberry-shaker or a hamburger flipper" (Lebrun, 2013, para. 4) she decided to get her GED. Krista had an expectation that school could change her and improve her life. Just as self-efficacy can be positively influenced, it can also be negatively influenced. Being viewed "with pity or disgust, as if you are worse than the gum stuck to the bottom of [a] shoe" (Lebrun, para. 4) is an example of how self-efficacy can be diminished. This being her experience, Krista began her journey with feelings of uncertainty. This changed through a mentor at the community college she attended. Through her encouragement, Krista earned her GED. In contrast to the negative influences of society, this mentor had "looked at [her] as though [she were] somebody . [and] made her feel like [she] could do anything" (Lebrun, para. 5). This is an example of how social persuasion can increase self-efficacy. Upon completion of her GED, Krista displayed the influence of Bandura' s mastery experience describing her sense of identity and rise in society. Upon reception of her GED, "just like that, [she] was somebody . [she] could do anything" (Lebrun, para. 6-7). Education has that power. It has the power to shape a person's identity and a person's self-image. Krista's example does not end with a GED, however. With new confidence in academic success, stemming from mastery of previous educational success, she returned to community college. Her expectations were unclear, but not undefined: "I had no clue what I wanted to be or what I wanted to do, but I knew I wanted a college diploma to hang next to my GED" (Lebrun, 2013, para. 7). Krista was not operating under an expectation that college would provide her a skill set and a myriad of knowledge to recall. She was not returning to school with the needs of industry in mind. She returned to get what a college diploma is purported to represent-a changed person. Similar to SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION 21 Sandra's experience, Krista took courses in multiple areas leading to an associate's degree. Upon graduation she realized that she loved learning. It could be said that Krista was a learning-oriented student. She graduated with a bachelor degree in education, then a master's. With a little social persuasion from the dean of her university she finally earned a Ph.D. She started at a community college in Florida; now she teaches at a community college in Florida, yes, the same one. "I not only got my start at a community college. I got my future" (Lebrun, para. 13). Self-efficacy for Educators Krista's story is insightful and exemplary of the way education can shape a person's personal growth and sense of fulfillment. The GED to PhD experience is not common, but the impact of education is. Self-efficacy for teachers has traditionally been related to teachers' belief that they will be able to elicit desired outcomes from their students (Williams, 2009). That is the traditional meaning of education-the classroom, the students. Interviews with practicing teachers revealed a common theme. Teachers' self-efficacy is most positively affected not through student achievement from their instruction, but rather through personal interactions with their students and the faculty (Hargreaves & Preece, 2014). The literature rarely represents teachers as individuals separate from their professional roles. In review of the research regarding teachers' emotions, Gargante, Monereo, & Meneses (2013) found that " . Teachers' emotions are generated and applied only to specific objectives, such as in their preparation and professional development, in process of educational changes, in teaching situations, or in teachers' professional lives . Although teachers' emotions are clearly identified and labelled . there are few SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION 22 classifications to sort [them] into relevant and useful categories in education . Emotions are [mostly in] only two categories, positive and negative emotions. (p. 3) As established earlier in this paper, attending school is a personal and can also be an emotional experience. For teachers in New Zealand who returned to school to update their credentials both were true (Williams, 2009). Over two hundred teachers entering a university program to upgrade teaching credentials participated in a survey examining both personal and professional self-efficacy. Over half of the participants had more than twenty years of teaching experience. Unlike the United States and most of Europe, New Zealand has traditionally only required a certificate program for education, not a baccalaureate degree. Only recently, at the very end of the twentieth century was a degree required. Though it was not a requirement for practicing teachers, many went back to college to attain the degree, which explains the large sample size. Partial credit toward the upgrade, which amounted to approximately two thirds, was awarded to those teachers for the education attained in their initial certification along with work experience. Most of the teachers stated they experienced doubts of success, discomfort or intimidation at the beginning of the program, not only because of the program but also because of the newly-graduated teachers who already had a degree (Williams, 2009). As the program progressed the experienced teachers realized they could be successful. These mastery-experiences positively influenced their self-efficacy. At the end of the program self-efficacy had improved dramatically in both confidence personally and confidence professionally. Closing interviews did not reveal many comments about confidence in their ability to teach. However, "several interviewees spoke of becoming 'a different SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION person', having 'an extra spring in my step' . or 'walking through the world with a head held high'" (Williams, 2009, p. 607). One specific teacher was quoted as saying: 23 I always thought I was . quite good in the classroom but academically average . . . I was stunned every time I opened a paper and there was an A . Coming here and doing those papers made me realize . I actually can. I actually have a good academic brain and what a shame it's taken me until my 40s to find out. (p. 607) Through the process of upgrading their credentials, the teachers in New Zealand showed that it is not just the teacher who gained greater self-efficacy, but also the person. Far too often the personal is taken out of educational research forgetting that these experiences have power. Education is not an isolated, sterile environment in which humans exist for the first twenty-five or so years of life. That is why education has such broad implications for personal growth. Education is a process of becoming a new person. Starr-Glass (2002) explained that the woman in his research "is a real person, not just a straw-woman set up for the sake of argument or rhetoric" (p. 221 ). We are all real people. We are not numbers or imaginary visages. We are real and have real emotions. Education has the potential to provide a place to experience them as a means for the growth of self and identity. "A good degree opens the world" (Elmes, 2015, para. 11). Why Narratives Are Valid in Educational Research Education is a part of life. In the United States, this statement more than likely elicits a visualization of a schoolhouse with classrooms filled with desks and tables. This common view of education is provided, shaped, and determined by discourse (Foucault, 1972). Discourse, in qualitative terms, is overarching ideas and frameworks within which SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION 24 individual experiences occur. Narratives are the experiences themselves. It is within this relationship that narratives are subjected to the power of the discourse to frame and shape realized experiences. Whether speaking of formal or informal education, learning is a natural part of one's life experience. Learning is believed to occur through a sequence and collection of experiences. "To live is to live in time, from moment to moment, from episode to episode" (Koopman, 2005, p. 93). Learning is a process over time, which varies among individuals. Because education and learning are of an experiential nature, it makes sense to study education in terms of discourse and narratives (Clandinin & Co1melly, 2000). There is no way for an individual to share a story without using narrative. Focuses in U.S. education have shifted more and more toward measuring academic achievement based on statistics and what students know rather than what they become (Hanson, 2014). Narratives have been useful in analyzing language and linguistics (Althusser, 1970/1971; Sartre, 1988) and ethical, moral decisions (McCarthy, 2003). These historical and traditional uses of narrative research will not be examined here. Instead, the more recent application of narrative research in regards to identity and self-fulfillment will be examined. A study of nurses specializing in the emergency department (ED) of hospitals examined certain personality characteristics in relationship to the nurses' practices when treating geriatric patients presenting with cognitive impairment and pain; this sample population is notable as it presents complex needs (Fry, MacGregor, Hyland, Payne, & Chenoweth, 2015). The results support the claim that learning and self-analysis are positively assessed and improved through use of narratives. In the case of these nurses, SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION who are in a non-traditional, but still educational environment, it was concluded "confidence and self-efficacy was [sic] developed through the experience of nursing praxis . communication, and interrelationship with patients and caregivers and the wider social and physical environment within the ED" (p. 1627). The results also included nurses' comments during focus groups, which provided insight to the changes that occur over time, context, and experience. It is possible that a person's narrative, or story, can be shared and interpreted differently at one time or in one context in one narrative, but then change in another narrative (Georgakopoulou, 2013). 25 The discourse of nursing praxis did not change resulting in new nursing practices, but rather time and context changed nurses' narratives of self and of nursing praxis, which may no longer fit within discursive nursing practices. It is through the sharing of narratives that the power to employ a dynamic relationship between a person's past self and a person's current self through reflexivity is allowed. Narratives can continue to be defined and interpreted in different ways through time and context. It is because of this that students use narratives to create, develop, and alter their identities as they "think, talk, and tell stories about who [they] are, where [they] have been, and what [they] have done" (Hanson, 2014, para. 7). Engaging in meta-narrative may reveal conflicts between accepted discursive understandings and an individual's narrative. This can be specifically useful to resolve ideas about the ability to be different from and yet the same as others; to maintain a self-view of constancy over time (even a lifetime); and one's place in the world-"Am I acting on the world, or is the world acting on me?" (Bamberg, 2010). In the context of this paper, "Am I constructing my experience(s) in education and therefore SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION myself, or is my place in education determined outside of myself?" Bamberg terms this as the "two directions of fit." 26 Because narratives shape a person's identity and discourse shapes narratives, it makes sense that a study and analysis of an individual's narratives ought to be used to understand what education is actually accomplishing in regards to both narratives and educational discourse. This is to say that narratives have inherent power to provide meaningful information about identity and personal growth, particularly meta-narratives. However, this power is constantly ignored in favor of the informative powers of discourse. Koopman (2005) states that "the concept of fulfillment indicates that our experience . need not be that of an external power [such as discourse] to which we are exposed. It suggests how we might optimally realize our temporal existence" (p. 93) through sharing and experiencing narratives to inform discursive traditions and see beyond them. A student's self-view is not objective and is not stagnant. It is inextricably coru1ected to all things he experiences, thinks, and feels. Thus, it follows that education and learning become part of a student's identity, who he is, while also becoming part of his past (Hanson, 2014). It follows, then, that there is information regarding education and learning that can only be recovered and presented through narratives. This information can only be useful when gleaned from authentic, personal narratives. This research, for instance, is based on my personal narrative. As such, I have chosen to write using first-person voice. The discourse of academic writing is well illustrated by Nash (2004) as he explains his cause to liberate academic writing: The denial of the value of the selfs stories in an academic setting is born in the command all of us have heard in school at some time: never use the 'I' in formal SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION writing. The 'I', we have been told, is incapable of discovering and dispensing wisdom without the support of the 'them', the certified experts. (p. 54) 27 Using made-up, rhetorical examples does not allow for a discursive analysis, as those will naturally conform to the discourse (Georakopoulou, 2013). However, Bamberg (2010) has indicated that an individual considering hypothetical situations for himself, such as "what ifl had made [this choice]?", may be a safer and more reliable way to explore one's self-identity with greater clarity. This is true because meta-narratives have the ability to consider deviations from or discrepancies in the discourse. There are really two parts to this idea: the ability to view one's possible selves based on hypothetical decisions in the past; and the ability to view one's possible selves in the future based on decisions currently being made. This latter part is quite relevant to this paper as a student's perception of academic achievement is shaped by discourse. Relating back to Bamberg's "two directions of fit" would raise the question as to how a student views himself in regards to education. Is it education to student or student to education? It is known that narratives are not fixed (Bamberg, 2010). One reason is that they are shared for a variety of reasons, which alters what is determined as relevant to be shared. Some examples include trying to get out of an undesirable consequence, consoling another, and teaching or sharing one's understanding with others. Again the dynamic nature of narratives is seen as a person interprets and re-interprets his life at different times. Comparing such narratives can show themes (sameness over time) in a person's life, while also showing changes. Narrative research is of particular importance when viewed in light of the latter as changes in self-identity or life-interpretation can often be unexpected and may not otherwise be noticed as discourse limits what can be SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION 28 shared and what will be seen (Dyson & Genishi, 1994). Narrowing the experience of education to charts and graphs of some such variable like graduation rates or time spent in a library does not represent what is actually occurring in a student's life. "Students use narratives to build and maintain a sense of who they are" (Hanson, 2014, para. 23). Considering the narrative nature of a student's education, it only makes sense to incorporate narratives and discourse into the field of educational research. SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION 29 PURPOSE The historical timeline of American education has seen changes from narrow religious curriculum, to broad learner-focused curriculum, to today's narrow business-driven curriculum. The current curriculum marginalizes intrinsic benefits of education limiting opportunities for personal development, the formation of self-identity, and new perspectives on life and the world. To promote the self-fulfillment and satisfaction individuals will have in both their personal and professional lives, intrinsic benefits of education must again be valued in their own right not secondarily to extrinsic benefits. The current practice, which devalues the personal components of education, limits and ignores the potential power that individual narratives have to inform discursive practices and beliefs. When the sharing of narratives is consistently censored, prevented, or otherwise limited, unknown and unexpected truths will remain undiscovered. The purpose of this project was to offer a place for me to examine my life: beliefs, philosophies, feelings, self-esteem/self-efficacy, and identity. I am the purpose of this project. I can truly say, "It is all about me." My journey through life is not only different, as all journeys are, but very unique and not very happy. I entered the M.Ed. program at Weber State University with a desire to change. I wanted to find love and meaning in my personal life; I wanted to be happy. The purpose of this project was to reach a place where I could overcome feelings of shame, guilt, and regret as I looked back on the choices I had made, specifically in regards to my education. It is about me, and in a way it is me. I do hope that it will resonate with and aid others. I hope it will build camaraderie and unity among other teachers, but ultimately, the purpose of this project was just as the title says: self-fulfillment through education. SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION 30 METHOD Educational discourse stresses the quantifiable and utilitarian aspects of education. This has led to an ignorance regarding the potential for education to provide a platform for individual growth and the lived experience of students. This driving force of education has had direct, negative effects on my life leading to confusion, unhappiness, and eventually resentment toward educational praxis. Because the motive of this project was to sort through my own personal concerns, narrative research was utilized. There have been some persisting concerns about the use of narratives as a methodology in educational research. These are addressed in the previous section titled "Why narratives are valid in educational research" and partly in the literature review. Unaddressed in those sections are concerns regarding personal narrative. Since it has already been established that each individual is shaped by discourse, the validity of findings can be questioned. Operating under the basis that subjectivity has power and provides benefits to educational research, this method is appropriate for use. Instruments Narrative research, by its definition, is based in storytelling. The story then becomes the primary artifact for analysis. It was imperative, therefore, that my story was told. This was accomplished through a written reflection of my educational experiences using a technique known as stream of consciousness (James, 1890). The idea is that thoughts cannot be viewed as isolated or chopped apart; they are always flowing-like a stream. The use of stream of consciousness shows this interior monologue through writing. Structure and grammar are abandoned to allow for an exploration of associated thoughts. In a colloquial sense, it allows, and possibly encourages, the storyteller to go SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION 31 off on tangents. Once finished this narrative was not reviewed by me until months later when I coded the data, which allowed for greater objectivity on my analysis. My written narrative provided the bulk of data. In addition, ten other reflective artifacts were used for analysis. These were written as requirements for courses taken in the M.Ed. program. It is important to note that they were not written with the intent to be used or analyzed in any project, which provides greater objectivity of the data. Of the ten, eight artifacts came from an educational psychology course. The professor required her students to design and propose assignments that would be used to assess his or her competence of the material presented in each chapter of the text. In a research methods course in the prior semester, I was first exposed to narrative research during a routine search of literature for an assignment. I initially questioned the validity of the article for publication, but after reading it felt a powerful connection and considered employing it in my own project. Entering the educational psychology course with that consideration, I felt it may be useful to practice writing narrative pieces. For each chapter in our textbook I wrote a reflection of when I felt or identified with the psychological theories presented whether professionally as a teacher, personally as a student, or as an individual. The other two artifacts came from an independent studies course in which I read literary classics, and the other from a curriculum and assessment course. Procedures· NVivo software was used to code the data. This software allows for electronic coding and sorting of written data into categories, including cross-referencing. The narrative and reflective pieces used were uploaded into the software. As I read over the SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION 32 sources I created categories and assigned sections of texts to a category. All categories were developed after the coding process began; there were no pre-defined categories. Any length of text could be selected and assigned to one or more categories. Through the use ofNVivo, all original sources remained intact while new pages were created-one for each category-which contained the references from all sources for that category in one place. It was also possible to delete references from within a category, move a reference into a different category, or to keep a reference in that category and add it to a different one at the same time. In other words, coding could be done from within the original source itself or from within a category page. Narrative research allows themes to appear without predefined categories. This avoids the forcing of references into specific categories, which provides greater validity to and confidence in the conclusions. Although the initial coding did not have predefined categories, research questions had been generated months prior. These questions were not used to create categories or guide the coding process. I developed three research questions regarding how the timing of my master's degree, my mental illness, and motivation affected my educational narrative respectively. These questions in themselves would threaten the claim of objectivity of the coding; however, I actually misplaced and forgot these research questions. I was troubled about losing my research questions; but it turned out to be an unintended positive means to improve the strength of my claims. It was under this condition that I coded the original sources without influence from the three research questions: Why were my goals for my education different during my master's degree than those in my public school and undergraduate degree? What SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION 33 influence has my mental illness had on my educational experience? How does motivation affect educational experience? When I was writing the narrative piece, which provided the core of data for this project, I felt anxious and an unwillingness to explicitly state anything about mental illness. In fact, at times, I would reword, rephrase, or entirely remove sections of the narrative as I wrote it. I knew it was an integral part of my experience, but also felt as though it should not be present in the writing. As a result, very few references to my illness survived the written telling of my story. Once I began developing research questions, I felt guilty that I was not as forthcoming about that part of the story. Dr. Mower told me that it would be fine and still useful because it might be able to strengthen my case that the discourse prevents the honest expression of my narrative. I felt that I, again, had prevented my project from showing what I believed to be a very impactful part of my narrative. First, I diminished and limited the inclusion of mental illness in my written narrative, and then I forgot to include it in my coding. It was discouraging. Dr. Mower again thought it was just fine and said the bit about the discourse battle. The pep talk was not effective and I remained saddened. This experience will be of importance in the findings section. I was disappointed and honestly felt that my project had been compromised in some way; yet, I continued. As aforementioned, normally in narrative research one would decide which categories to use for continued analysis and allow overarching themes to appear. However, since I had specific research questions, this traditional methodology was adjusted. After identifying which of the many categories ought to be used for further analysis, I created three new categories, one for each of my research questions: Master's, SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION 34 Motivation, and Mental Illness (see Figure 1). I reviewed the coded data within each of the original categories and then performed a secondary coding of the data into one (or more) of the three research questions. Any references that did not fit within those three categories were abandoned. I printed the coded data within the three research questions and then performed a tertiary coding. Just as the first coding process, I allowed categories to appear without predetermined ending points. This coding was done by hand. Figure 1. Coding data for final analysis. This figure shows the interactions of the three research questions in data analysis. Only categories that fell within the overlapping area of the three research questions were considered for final analysis. Four categories remained for final analysis: Self-worth and Self-Esteem; Authenticity and Freedom; Regret; and Change and Redemption. It is worth noting that the references within these four categories remained in the data pool after three separate coding procedures. Unlike during the original and secondary coding, the emotional influence and the overall feeling of the references were added to the criteria. Therefore, themes rather than categories will be used to refer to these four groupings. References that were accepted for final analysis were also reviewed as to whether they showed examples of the discourse or a counter-narrative, meaning that my experience opposed the discursive claim. SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION 35 FINDINGS Discourse is an idea that has developed an identity. It has power and influence over an individual, a group, or even an entire society or culture. Discourse shapes the experiences of individuals. It is an invisible hand that directs actions, thoughts, words, and beliefs. The personal stories and lived experiences are narratives. The discursive view is that narratives are fiction in themselves, that there is no individuality. Discourse makes the rules and people unknowingly obey. It is this reason that my final analysis includes this section in addition to the research questions. This research brings into the light the reality that what the discourse claims to be may not be at all. In fact the actual realities which are lived and felt every day might be completely the opposite. Though I set out to reveal the discourse and its oppression on narratives, I found that narratives may also perpetuate the discourse not only through conformity but also by agreement. My story illustrates all three of these situations: countering against, conforming to, and agreeing with the discourse. The Four Major Themes Four major themes emerged while looking within the overlapping area of the three research questions. These were: Self-worth and Self-Esteem; Authenticity and Freedom; Regret; and Change and Redemption (see Figure 2). SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION 36 Figure 2. Four themes emerged from the overlapping area of the three research questions. The arrows show the interconnectedness of all four. One theme included references about self-worth and self-esteem. Positive references such as "I feel more empowered," were coded together alongside any negative references such as "I did not deserve to have fun." The second theme presented many different feelings that have in common living with authenticity. Although the term authenticity was never mentioned in the data, I often refer to the "real-me." Other references in this theme share my desire "to be free from it all," and resolving feelings of instability. The third of the four themes was regret. Regret was also one of the original categories during the first-order coding of the data. The final theme focused on change and redemption. References included thoughts about change when I wrote," . education has the power to change people . it could change me," as well as references to applicable changes as in my world views or my motivation behind my actions. All four themes were closely intertwined. This finding was not surprising considering this was a single, personal narrative. More than being intertwined the first SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION 37 two themes were more akin to a pair. The best term for the relationship is mutually inclusive. The categories are distinctly different but necessarily interactive. I explain this term as analogous to the relationship between twins. Each has his own name, personality, habits, friends, and so on, yet always the relationship with his twin is apparent and powerful. Certainly what one twin does affects and causes changes to the other, but often both operate separately while never operating independently. In the good, in the bad, in the confusing, in the times which would otherwise fracture a relationship forever, twins are together. So also were my feelings of self-worth and my feelings about emotional stability, authenticity, and self-entrapment. The remaining two themes were also closely related and in a similar way. Contrastingly, the relationship between change and redemption and regret was more similar to cause-effect and correlation. More often than with the other pairs, references from these two themes were often found without the other nearby. However, this quote may illustrate how regret can act as an impetus for change: "I want to show the world that I can take all of those regrets and the guilt and the shame and remedy them by living by a different pattern," whereas these quotes show how change can expunge regret: "My master's degree is all about redemption." "It will give me my life and my joy back." Self-worth and Self-esteem: Authenticity and Freedom Living with authenticity, I found, brought relief. My writings mention more than once that I believe that education had the power to change individuals, and I knew that I would need to put myself in a position to take advantage of that. The data showed that I lived with a lot of shame because I was not willing to take that risk. "I could not force myself to be the best version of myself. I held myself back . and I was unhappy and SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION 38 unfulfilled." Of the many, many other entries that portray this, the feeling is most appropriately captured in a quote from Great Expectations (Dickens, 1860/1979): "In a word, I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong." This trend began in my k-12 experiences. As it continued, "I became more aware of the conflict between my values of growing and . [my] actions." In fact, I received "my bachelor's degree with a lot of regret and disappointment." My master's experience was different because I was willing to be authentic. I decided that I could not sacrifice.myself any longer. This relief is shown as "I am so very proud of myself. I am proud that I am doing it [meaning making education about my personal needs for once,] and I am proud that I am doing it now-earlier than later." As part of my master's program I enrolled in an individual study course. I elected to read classic literature. In part, the motivation of this was to overcome the fear that someone would one day discover, that as smart and educated as I was, I was not well read. I had not had the opportunity in school to read these books, and I had not yet taken it upon myself to procure them from the library or bookstore. These readings yielded far more than overcoming the embarrassment from the deception about not reading a few famous books. In these books I found myself and my identity. "I understand myself more because of this course," I wrote in my final reflection. One book was particularly affecting. A young, innocent man posing for his portrait was introduced in the opening chapter of The Picture of Dorian Gray (Wilde, 2011 ). As Mr. Gray experienced the world, he behaved in dishonest, lustful, and other undesirable manners. Through some magic, never fully explained in the book, the manifestations of these choices never SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION 39 showed on his face but rather on his portrait. Likewise he did not age rather his agedness appeared on his portrait. Thus he was able to maintain the appearances of a good, scrupulous man while living quite oppositely. I considered the similarities to my own life: "I feel that I misrepresented myself;"" . No one knew me. Not even my family. I could not share myself with them (referring to anyone, not just my family.)" Reading the book felt like a confession-as ifthe author of the book knew my story. It brought relief, though nothing had changed. I viewed Dorian Gray as myself in fictional form and the portrait as a representation of my soul. Others saw my accomplishments. I saw "a fraud and a man who cut the corners of his education." This book strengthened my resolve for authenticity in my education. "I do not want to look at my portrait and find it ugly and dirty and unbearable to look upon, while I appear so youthful and enviable." Instead of hiding my portrait away in the attic and behind locked doors, as Mr.· Gray did, I found that I was "as open as possible" which led to "a greater connection to humanity." Regret Many references of regret were accompanied by guilt. This was not surprising and those references, though applicable here, were better placed in the first theme of selfworth and self-esteem. What was surprising were the feelings of loss which also accompanied regret. Loss of enjoyment was one common regret, which appeared in the very opening line of my written story: "My biggest regret of my college career was that I never enjoyed it." In another reminiscing thought: "I wish I would have done more in my college career that involved . enjoyment." Yet another: "I wish I would have slowed down and enjoyed youth . "In addition to loss of enjoyment was the loss of self-improvement. This regret often came because "I held myself back." Others were formed SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION 40 while "I was frozen in fear," or because "I could do only those things in which success seemed inevitable . " I missed an opportunity to study red pandas in China. "I really wanted to go and it felt right. I had the money," but I did not go. Many of these regrets were due to social pressures. The judgement and approval of others was a deciding factor as to what I would do. "One reason . I never felt fulfilled is because I was accomplishing things to impress and fill up others buckets, not to fill up my own." One of the most interesting issues of my regrets was that I felt I had no power to change them. The feelings of loss expressed with regret came with a sense of permanence. There was a forever loss. In many ways and in various amounts of words, I expressed there are things "I will never get back." I also found that regrets were persistent. With each new regret, the "burden of [my] mistakes" would grow larger. In fact, "mistakes and regrets pile[ed] on [my] body simultaneously." Regrets, it seemed, could be created, but never destroyed. Change and Redemption I was constantly "wait[ing] in fear and hope both to be found out as a fraud . "I convinced myself that if someone were to call me out I would be forced to change. My high school counselor did just that. "I realized that she knew how I was not living up to my greatness and . gave partial effort for appearance only. It was a powerful moment in my life, but one that still did not allow me to change." I think the most interesting finding about change was that there was so little of it for so long. The second theme about authenticity and freedom presented many desires for change. Thus, motivation for change was always present, yet change did not occur. I later wrote about a requested substitution of course requirements in my bachelor's program. Again, the data showed that I was not SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION 41 completely open to embracing change. "Part of me hoped that [my advisor] would deny the request, but part of me was ready to fight her if she did." One of the premises within the literature review focused on the shift education has taken in focusing on data and grades, not the student. In my mind, this was the new discourse on education. I would call this the discourse of educational prestige. It was my belief that the discourse of educational prestige is what prevented change and growth. I believed this was the oppressive force, which had prevented my self-fulfillment. There was a great power and a sense of defiance when I wrote that I applied to the master's program "to find myself personally, not professionally." I felt I was proving something to the world when I wrote in bitterness, "This time it is about me." I found out that the discourse of education still maintained a focus on the students' best interests. Through analysis of the data, I learned that the discourse of educational prestige was not a discourse, and it already had a name. Its name was mental illness. For me it came in the fonn of bi-polar and social anxiety disorders. One common finding about change was that I refused "to deviate from the path that I had planned earlier." Once I made a plan, I felt obliged to see that plan true to the end, even after it was clear that it was a bad plan. Mental illness was the invisible force, which silently shaped my narrative to oppose and resist change. Thus, when opportunities came to improve or change, I would not take them. "I felt that I did not deserve [to change] because I had made a mistake in not planning for those opportunities." This was a dominating thought. This was what held me back. It was this logic which made regret permanent. My narrative became a collection of unhappy experiences though the influence of mental illness, not the discourse. Despite that reality, I did change. I did make "it about me." I did "make a difference. A difference SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION 42 for me." All of those changes happened, but they did not happen because I overcame the discourse. The reason that my master's experience yielded more rewarding outcomes is not because I was more aware and more empowered to fight the discourse, but rather that I was more aware and more empowered to fight my mental illness. Before my master's degree I viewed education as a means to gain social approval and self-worth, which caused me to take classes and participate in extra-curricular activities "that would be impressive and [make] people love me." This is apparent in the two examples with the high school counselor and college advisor. Contrastingly, I entered the master's program believing that it "could help me deal with my emotional insecurities and other personal chaos." Directly stating my need for emotional support is what made this time around different. "I am here to be healed," I wrote. This does agree with the discourse. Education is power. This theme is also about redemption. I found in the end that redemption is not what was there. Even though, "My master's degree is all about redemption." When I imagined this moment in my story, I wrote, "I will see my own portrait of a man redeemed of errors and a man regained of his confidence and self-worth." I do not think that redemption has taken place. The words speak of redemption, but instead I found healing and forgiveness. "I just want to be at peace," I said. "I want to feel stable." The data showed those wishes were granted. The discourse would claim that these changes in my self-worth, self-esteem, and self-acceptance were socially constructed, that there was no individual force from my narrative, but I know it is different. I felt the battle against the discourse as I pushed SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION 43 myself to find a place in the world and in the teaching profession with mental illness. I felt the pressure of the discourse every time I added a bit more of myself to the project. The discourse does influence my life, but it is not the only power that exists in my life. I have my own power to fight the discourse in the times when my experiences no longer agree with the discourse. Conformity is not guaranteed. I do have a voice, and that's what this is. This is my narrative. It is I. Conclusions I found that discourse is not inherently evil. In fact, narratives may very well agree with discourse more often than they do not. Contradicting my expectations, the data did not support that discourse was the oppressive enemy I had villainized it to be at the commencement of this project, or at least not to the severity I assumed. I found, rather, that it was the mental illness that shaped and oppressed my narrative. However, though the discourse did not oppress my narrative directly, it hid from view my mental illness, which prevented me from growth. I was unable to face my mental illness because I was not fully aware of where or what it was. It is in this way that, for me, the discourse was oppressive and was an enemy. One clear example of the role mental illness played in my narrative comes from the paired themes of self-worth and authenticity. In that section I quoted the disappointment and shame that came with the reception of my bachelor's degree. The discursive practices regarding graduation are celebrating, rejoicing, and congratulating. Clearly my experience countered that discourse. I assumed that my nanative was countering that discourse. Reviewing the data I found a quote about how I would feel upon reception of my master's degree: "The acceptance of my degree will in a way be an acceptance of myself." Here, my narrative agreed with the discourse. In light SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION 44 of these contradictory experiences, I conclude that it was my mental illness that countered the discourse. Another example was shared under regret. It was the missed opportunity to study abroad in China. I regret not going because it would have been an awesome and rewarding experience, "but in my mind I did not have the time." "I tried to convince myself that I should go and get the experience but every time I thought about taking the trip I felt overwhelmed with all the pressure to get my degree as soon as possible." The discourse on education supports unique, personal, and expansive experiences. In other words, the discourse supported the trip. It was my mental illness that pressured me into living a narrative without a trip to China. Mental illness expects conformity. It shapes narratives and counters discourse. The reason I did not see mental illness in each of these examples is because mental illness has no place within the discourse. In some professions, mental illness is acceptable and even expected. These are often the arts. This is not the case in teaching; even art teachers are held to a different standard when it comes to mental illness than their non-teaching counterparts. I have written that it is the mental illness which counters the discourse. That mental illness is part of me. Mental illness and my narrative are linked. In that way, my narrative does counter the discourse. Because the discourse said mental illness in educators cannot exist, it was difficult to distinguish between the influences of the discourse and the influences of my mental illness. It was difficult for me to find my place in this profession. I knew that I had a mental illness and I knew that I wanted to be the stable, helpful, competent teacher that the discourse advertised teachers to be. I wanted the discourse. I agreed with the discourse. However, I also had a mental SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION 45 illness, which meant I could not fully embrace the discourse. This conflict was confusing for me as a student and later as a teacher. It caused me to feel "uneasy and [lack] confidence in myself . for being unable to decide within which arena I belonged." The discourse celebrates differences and individuality. I felt that mental illness was too diverse for celebration: " . Being different and unique is not easy," I explained, "This is especially true when it comes to intellect. It is extremely isolating." There was no room for mental illness, so there was no room for me-or for teachers like me, I suppose. With all of the findings about the oppression of mental illness, I return to the final theme of redemption. Redemption is about being saved. I found there was nothing from which I needed to be saved. The discourse informs us that mental illness is to be hidden and controlled. I believe this discursive influence caused me to feel that I needed redemption from my mental illness. The discourse was wrong. I still feel that there is a necessary battle with my mental illness, yet I also found that the acceptance of my mental illness opened the doors that led to self-fulfillment. Mental illness is not a sin, which requires redemption. Had I continued to hide my mental illness, I would not have gained access to the good in education-the good of the discourse. I now have far fewer regrets, and none that haunt me, because I ensured that I received both satisfaction and growth in my master's program. I found that enjoying life is not regrettable. I found that selfimprovement is not regrettable. In the final analysis, as I looked upon my po1irait, I did not find a man redeemed of his errors, but I did find a man regained of his confidence and self-worth. Whether fighting or embracing my mental illness, the data showed that it is only when I accept its existence that I feel at peace. Itis an authentic way to live. I found that being the best is not as good as being the best me. SELF-FULFILLMENT THROUGH EDUCATION 46 Finding that mental illness is what caused much of my frustration and dissatisfaction in education advocates for more narrative research on mental illness in teachers including the narratives of teachers without mental illness. This recommendation echoes the observation in my literature review that there is little research in education from the perspective of the teacher, particularly in separation from instructional strategies and professional duties. Teachers are a major part of the educational system both in effort and in number. 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