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The aim of my study was to look at governance and the extent of its functions at the local level in a post-conflict state such as Tajikistan, where the state does not have full control over the governance process, particularly regarding the provision of public goods and services. What is the impact on the development process at the local level? My dependent variable was the slowed down and regionally very much varying development process at the local level. My independent variable were the modes of local governance that emerged as an answer to the deficiencies of the state in terms of providing public goods and services at the local level which led to a reduced role of the state (my intervening variable). Central theoretic concepts in my study were governance – the processes, mechanisms and actors involved in decision-making –, local government – the representation of the state at the local level –, local governance – the processes, mechanisms and actors involved in decision-making at the local level and institutions – the formal and informal rules of the game. In the course of my field research which I conducted in Tajikistan in the years 2003/2004 and in 2005 I found that the state does not provide public goods and services to the local population in a sufficient way. The research question which then emerged out of this insight concerned the players and mechanisms that filled the gaps left open by the state: who are the drivers and spoilers of the local development process and why do modes of governance at the local level more or less function, regardless of the fact that the state is only involved to a small extent? Coming back to my dependent variable I wanted to find out why modes of local governance varied so much from region to region. I found that a diverse set of factors lead to this outcome: 1) the geographic, economic and social set-up varies significantly from region to region (e.g. land distribution); 2) the respective Soviet and post-conflict legacies (whether a region was shaped by the influence of the government of rather by the influence of the opposition); 3) the extent to which external players (such as international organisations and NGOs) are involved in modes of local governance; and 4) the role of other players such as local big men, e.g. former warlords, who are still respected and shape decision-making processes at the local level. This leads to a constellation where in resource-rich regions the state expects the provincial elite to redistribute the wealth. This does not take place and the state also does not invest in these regions. Eventually, the situation of the population in the resource-rich regions (such as in the South-West) is the worst because on the provincial level rentier-state structures emerge and the local population is exploited. In resource-poor regions the modes of local governance are shaped by an alliance of local and international NGOs, international organisations and locally respected figures. In the short run, the local population in these areas is better off, but whether these structures will turn out to be sustainable remains to be seen. Coming back to the question of why governance functions nonetheless: even during Soviet times, governance was significantly shaped by informal rules of the game (institutions). With the breakdown of this political system, Soviet socialism and the civil war, the local rules of the game did not change significantly and informal institutions provided some kind of continuity and still very much shape decision-making processes on the local level. However, generally the local population is not satisfied with the quality and quantity of public goods that are provided. Resentment is growing and if the large extent of the male working population cannot continue to migrate to Russia for labour, the fronts might harden again and Tajikistan risks to fall back into the turmoil it experienced during the 1990s. ; Das Ziel meiner Arbeit, war es mir die Regierungsführung in Tadschikistan anzusehen und zu gucken, inwieweit sie in Tadschikistan auf der lokalen Ebene funktioniert und welchen Einfluss dies auf den lokalen Entwicklungsprozess hat.

Samlingens styrke er blandt andet af den inddrager både historiske og mere nutidige eksempler på ikke-statslige kilder til sikkerhed i forskellige geografiske kontekster. Bogen bidrager derved til at skabe en bredere forståelse af ikke-statslige sikkerhedsaktørers rolle i staten, og de mange forskellige udtryk og former disse aktører kan have. Bidragene i bogen kommer fra en række internationale og nationale bidragsydere, der i 2008 deltog i en konference på Forsvarsakademiet og efterfølgende indvilgede i at lade deres bidrag indgå i bogen. ; According to much of the academic literature, the nature of war changed dramatically in the last part of the twentieth century, especially aft er the end of the Cold War (Creveld, 1991) (Kaldor, 2007) (Münkler, 2005) (Jung, 2003) (Chesterman & Lehnardt, 2007) (Fleming, 2009). According to this logic there is a dichotomy between war as a social phenomenon and warfare as the domain of the state, as envisaged by the late Prussian military theorist, Carl von Clausewitz, in the shape of the "Trinitarian War" (Creveld, 1991). Th e lack of capacity on the part of predominately Th ird World states to control confl icts has led to low-intensity confl icts (LIC), which can be witnessed, for instance, in Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Colombia and Sri Lanka (O'Brien, 1998, p. 80). Since the end of the Cold War it has been common for weak state rulers with formal state legitimacy but not empirical legitimacy to have continued to enjoy international recognition because of international fears that they are the only barrier against a total collapse. Amongst other things this paved the way for an expansion of the market for private military and security companies (PMSC) such as the South African-based Executive Outcomes (EO) in the 1990s. However, the lack of state capacity led to a sub-contracting, willingly or unwillingly, of the state's monopoly on the use of force to non-state actors, PMSCs and semi-state actors,2 like local militias, warlords, criminal gangs and vigilant groups, in an attempt to secure weak state leaders' positions. In the competition for state control internationally recognised leaders have an advantage over their non-state rivals because they can seek military help outside their countries with the agreement of the international community and in accordance with international law. Th e aim of this study is to fi ll a signifi cant gap in the existing literature on the role of non-state actors, ranging from rebels and criminal gangs at one extreme to the corporate security industry at the other. As part of the general privatisation of the security sector in the western world, combined with the US-led war on terror, non-state actors have increasingly been tied to the foreign policy priorities of the dominant western military powers. Iraq and Afghanistan are the examples oft en used, and are well-described in other chapters in this book. In sub-Saharan Africa, as in many fragile states around the world, this picture is blurred, and it is oft en diffi cult to make clear distinctions between public and private, or between illegal and legal etc., (non)-state actors. The End of the Cold War and the Role of Non-state actors Th e activities of mercenary and private security contractors have led, both historically and at the present day, to fi erce academic and public debate. As Sarah Percy argues, the anti-mercenary discourse has two basic elements. One focuses on the fact that mercenaries use force outside what is considered to be legitimate, authoritative control, that is, popes, princes, the rulers of sovereign states, states in the contemporary international system and international organisations like the UN. Th e second element focuses on the argument that mercenaries are morally objectionable because they do not fi ght for a cause, such as religious beliefs, ideology, ethnicity and what is generally considered the common good; they fi ght for themselves and for money (Percy, 2007, p. 1). Th is ethical objection has largely remained unchanged from the Middle Ages to the present day, and still forms a large part of the debate. Th e norm regards the legitimate use of violence as being the domain of the modern state, which as a natural consequence, delegitimises non-state providers of security. Legitimacy is, therefore, tied to the formal state. Th e international debate concerning the role of PMSCs has been split primarily into two segments. One argues that multinational PMSCs are part of a neo-colonial wave that is taking control over weak and collapsed states. Others argue that PMCs provide a relatively cheap tool for weak states to regain control over their territories and populations, which in the long run will lead to increased independence. The advantage is that when the PMC's services are no longer needed, the state can terminate the

The purpose of our article is to investigate the military periodicals of Odesa in the early twentieth century, in particular, to establish the features of illumination on its pages of military-historical issues. The main sources for us were issues of military periodicals published in Odesa at the beginning of the 20th century. and some press material.A number of circumstances were the prerequisites and driving factors for the publication of military periodicals in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. in the largest center of southern Ukraine: 1. The status of Odesa as the center of a large Odesa military district; 2. Permanent deployment in Odesa of a number of regiments, several military educational establishments; 3. Successful functioning of the printing house of the staff of the Odesa military district for a long time, among the publications, which included works on historical subjects; 4. Increasing attention to the army and navy during and after the war between the Russian and Japanese empires; 5. Increasing attention in the Ministry of Defense to the problem of patriotic education of officers and staff; 6. the general rise of military periodicals in the Russian Empire in the early twentieth century; 7. the formation of an officer subculture, which was reflected primarily in the formation of libraries, the construction of a military center on Spiridonovskaya Street with an army cinema, a library, a dining room, etc.; 8. Widespread celebration in the Russian Empire of several historical events, first of all, the anniversaries of the Battle of Poltava, the Patriotic War of 1812. 9. Accumulation of experience (traditions) of the study of the history of the army and navy in Odesa, which were laid down in the first half of the nineteenth century. 10. Establishment in Odesa in 1908 of the department of the Imperial Petersburg Russian Military Historical Society. 11. The role of the individual in history, as several charismatic, motor, individuals have pushed forward the founding of military magazines.Historical topics were present on the pages of these publications on a regular basis, especially in the Russian Warrior and Motherland. The proportion of historical topics was present exactly in the same order from increase to decrease, in which these three magazines appeared chronologically. Relevant articles should be classified into several groups. The first group consists of general essays on the history of the army and navy, which were published in the Russian Warrior. The second group consists of articles about individual wars, battles, alliances, or generally militaryphenomena by the time of the distant past. Genetically related to this, the second group, there are articles, but we consider it appropriate to distinguish into the third group: articles whose genre can be called using the phrase "modern history", because their authors reflected on the features of hostilities, the causes of defeat of the Russian Empire from Japan. This group refers to the recollections of the participants in this war, which were published on the pages of these editions. The fourth, most numerous, group consists of biographical articles, which revealed the life path of outstanding warlords. At the same time, in a number of other articles that were not purely historical, there was quite often a historical component that was used as edification, teaching historical examples.So, the periodicals of Odesa in the early twentieth century. are a distinct phenomenon in the history of the city's culture, reflecting the subculture of the military, especially the officers. Despite the fact that the level of most articles did not differfundamentally, naturally taking into account their tasks, they performed an important function of promoting history and enlightenment. However, it cannot be said that the authors resorted to falsifications, manipulations with history, and distortions. Their works were well in line with the level of military-historical research of the time. Obviously, from the modern point of view, Russian-imperial patriotism, which has been imbued with all the articles, is unacceptable. However, the experience of publishing such literature should be taken into account, which is an urgent task in today'sUkraine. ; Целью нашей статьи является исследование военной периодики Одессы начала ХХ в., в частности, установление особенностей освещения на ее страницах военно-исторических вопросов. Основными источниками для нас были выпуски военной периодики, издававшейся в Одессе в начале ХХ в. и некоторые материалы прессы.Историческая тематика присутствовала на страницах указанных изданий на постоянной основе, особенно в «Русском воине» и «Родине». Доля исторической тематики присутствовала ровно в таком же порядке от увеличения к уменьшению, в котором хронологически возникали эти три журналы. Соответствующие статьи следует классифицировать на несколько групп. Первуюгруппу составляют общие очерки по истории армии и флота, которые были опубликованы в «Русском воине». Вторую группу составляют статьи об отдельных войнах, битвах, соединениях или вообще военные явления к тому времени уже далекого прошлого. Генетически связанной с этой, второй группой, есть статьи, все же считаем целесообразным выделить в третью группу: статьи, жанр которых можно назвать с помощью словосочетание «современная история», ведь их авторы рефлексировали над особенностями боевых действий, причинами поражения Российской империи от Японии. К этой группе касающиеся воспоминания участников этой войны, публиковавшиеся на страницах этих изданий. Четвертую, самую многочисленную, группу составляют биографические статьи, в которых раскрывался жизненный путь выдающихся военачальников. При этом в ряде других статей, которые не были чисто историческими, достаточно часто присутствовал исторический компонент, который использовался как назидание, обучающие исторические примеры.Итак, военные периодические издания Одессы начала ХХ в. являются отдельным ярким явлением истории культуры города, отражением субкультуры военных, прежде всего офицеров. Несмотря на то, что уровень большинства статей не отличался фундаментальностью, что вполне естественно, учитывая их задачи, они выполняли важнуюфункциюпопуляризации истории, просвещения. При этом их труды вполне соответствовали уровню тогдашних военно-исторических исследований. Очевидно, с современной точки зрения, российскоимперский патриотизм, которым были пропитаны все статьи, является неприемлемым. Однако, должен быть учтен сам опыт издания подобной литературы, что является актуальной задачей в сегодняшней Украине. ; У статті досліджено історію військової періодики Одеси на початку ХХ ст., зокрема висвітлення воєнної історії на їх сторінках. Виявлено та вивчено три періодичні збірники, що видавалися військовими, були присвячені військовим питанням та орієнтовані на військову читацьку аудиторію: «Русский воин», «Родина», «Юнкерские досуги». Зроблено висновок, що у цих виданнях висвітлення історії, передусім військової, займало чільне місце. Головним чином, увага приділялася ювілейним датам та біографіям видатних воєначальників.

The purpose of our article is to investigate the military periodicals of Odesa in the early twentieth century, in particular, to establish the features of illumination on its pages of military-historical issues. The main sources for us were issues of military periodicals published in Odesa at the beginning of the 20th century. and some press material.A number of circumstances were the prerequisites and driving factors for the publication of military periodicals in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. in the largest center of southern Ukraine: 1. The status of Odesa as the center of a large Odesa military district; 2. Permanent deployment in Odesa of a number of regiments, several military educational establishments; 3. Successful functioning of the printing house of the staff of the Odesa military district for a long time, among the publications, which included works on historical subjects; 4. Increasing attention to the army and navy during and after the war between the Russian and Japanese empires; 5. Increasing attention in the Ministry of Defense to the problem of patriotic education of officers and staff; 6. the general rise of military periodicals in the Russian Empire in the early twentieth century; 7. the formation of an officer subculture, which was reflected primarily in the formation of libraries, the construction of a military center on Spiridonovskaya Street with an army cinema, a library, a dining room, etc.; 8. Widespread celebration in the Russian Empire of several historical events, first of all, the anniversaries of the Battle of Poltava, the Patriotic War of 1812. 9. Accumulation of experience (traditions) of the study of the history of the army and navy in Odesa, which were laid down in the first half of the nineteenth century. 10. Establishment in Odesa in 1908 of the department of the Imperial Petersburg Russian Military Historical Society. 11. The role of the individual in history, as several charismatic, motor, individuals have pushed forward the founding of military magazines.Historical topics were present on the pages of these publications on a regular basis, especially in the Russian Warrior and Motherland. The proportion of historical topics was present exactly in the same order from increase to decrease, in which these three magazines appeared chronologically. Relevant articles should be classified into several groups. The first group consists of general essays on the history of the army and navy, which were published in the Russian Warrior. The second group consists of articles about individual wars, battles, alliances, or generally militaryphenomena by the time of the distant past. Genetically related to this, the second group, there are articles, but we consider it appropriate to distinguish into the third group: articles whose genre can be called using the phrase "modern history", because their authors reflected on the features of hostilities, the causes of defeat of the Russian Empire from Japan. This group refers to the recollections of the participants in this war, which were published on the pages of these editions. The fourth, most numerous, group consists of biographical articles, which revealed the life path of outstanding warlords. At the same time, in a number of other articles that were not purely historical, there was quite often a historical component that was used as edification, teaching historical examples.So, the periodicals of Odesa in the early twentieth century. are a distinct phenomenon in the history of the city's culture, reflecting the subculture of the military, especially the officers. Despite the fact that the level of most articles did not differfundamentally, naturally taking into account their tasks, they performed an important function of promoting history and enlightenment. However, it cannot be said that the authors resorted to falsifications, manipulations with history, and distortions. Their works were well in line with the level of military-historical research of the time. Obviously, from the modern point of view, Russian-imperial patriotism, which has been imbued with all the articles, is unacceptable. However, the experience of publishing such literature should be taken into account, which is an urgent task in today'sUkraine. ; Целью нашей статьи является исследование военной периодики Одессы начала ХХ в., в частности, установление особенностей освещения на ее страницах военно-исторических вопросов. Основными источниками для нас были выпуски военной периодики, издававшейся в Одессе в начале ХХ в. и некоторые материалы прессы.Историческая тематика присутствовала на страницах указанных изданий на постоянной основе, особенно в «Русском воине» и «Родине». Доля исторической тематики присутствовала ровно в таком же порядке от увеличения к уменьшению, в котором хронологически возникали эти три журналы. Соответствующие статьи следует классифицировать на несколько групп. Первуюгруппу составляют общие очерки по истории армии и флота, которые были опубликованы в «Русском воине». Вторую группу составляют статьи об отдельных войнах, битвах, соединениях или вообще военные явления к тому времени уже далекого прошлого. Генетически связанной с этой, второй группой, есть статьи, все же считаем целесообразным выделить в третью группу: статьи, жанр которых можно назвать с помощью словосочетание «современная история», ведь их авторы рефлексировали над особенностями боевых действий, причинами поражения Российской империи от Японии. К этой группе касающиеся воспоминания участников этой войны, публиковавшиеся на страницах этих изданий. Четвертую, самую многочисленную, группу составляют биографические статьи, в которых раскрывался жизненный путь выдающихся военачальников. При этом в ряде других статей, которые не были чисто историческими, достаточно часто присутствовал исторический компонент, который использовался как назидание, обучающие исторические примеры.Итак, военные периодические издания Одессы начала ХХ в. являются отдельным ярким явлением истории культуры города, отражением субкультуры военных, прежде всего офицеров. Несмотря на то, что уровень большинства статей не отличался фундаментальностью, что вполне естественно, учитывая их задачи, они выполняли важнуюфункциюпопуляризации истории, просвещения. При этом их труды вполне соответствовали уровню тогдашних военно-исторических исследований. Очевидно, с современной точки зрения, российскоимперский патриотизм, которым были пропитаны все статьи, является неприемлемым. Однако, должен быть учтен сам опыт издания подобной литературы, что является актуальной задачей в сегодняшней Украине. ; У статті досліджено історію військової періодики Одеси на початку ХХ ст., зокрема висвітлення воєнної історії на їх сторінках. Виявлено та вивчено три періодичні збірники, що видавалися військовими, були присвячені військовим питанням та орієнтовані на військову читацьку аудиторію: «Русский воин», «Родина», «Юнкерские досуги». Зроблено висновок, що у цих виданнях висвітлення історії, передусім військової, займало чільне місце. Головним чином, увага приділялася ювілейним датам та біографіям видатних воєначальників.

As part of our everyday life we consume breaking news and interpret it based on our own viewpoints and beliefs. We have easy access to online social networking platforms and news media websites, where we inform ourselves about current affairs and often post about our own views, such as in news comments or social media posts. The media ecosystem enables opinions and facts to travel from news sources to news readers, from news article commenters to other readers, from social network users to their followers, etc. The views of the world many of us have depend on the information we receive via online news and social media. Hence, it is essential to maintain accurate, reliable and objective online content to ensure democracy and verity on the Web. To this end, we contribute to a trustworthy media ecosystem by analyzing news and social media in the context of politics to ensure that media serves the public interest. In this thesis, we use text mining, natural language processing and machine learning techniques to reveal underlying patterns in political news articles and political discourse in social networks. Mainstream news sources typically cover a great amount of the same news stories every day, but they often place them in a different context or report them from different perspectives. In this thesis, we are interested in how distinct and predictable newspaper journalists are, in the way they report the news, as a means to understand and identify their different political beliefs. To this end, we propose two models that classify text from news articles to their respective original news source, i.e., reported speech and also news comments. Our goal is to capture systematic quoting and commenting patterns by journalists and news commenters respectively, which can lead us to the newspaper where the quotes and comments are originally published. Predicting news sources can help us understand the potential subjective nature behind news storytelling and the magnitude of this phenomenon. Revealing this hidden knowledge can restore our trust in media by advancing transparency and diversity in the news. Media bias can be expressed in various subtle ways in the text and it is often challenging to identify these bias manifestations correctly, even for humans. However, media experts, e.g., journalists, are a powerful resource that can help us overcome the vague definition of political media bias and they can also assist automatic learners to find the hidden bias in the text. Due to the enormous technological advances in artificial intelligence, we hypothesize that identifying political bias in the news could be achieved through the combination of sophisticated deep learning modelsxi and domain expertise. Therefore, our second contribution is a high-quality and reliable news dataset annotated by journalists for political bias and a state-of-the-art solution for this task based on curriculum learning. Our aim is to discover whether domain expertise is necessary for this task and to provide an automatic solution for this traditionally manually-solved problem. User generated content is fundamentally different from news articles, e.g., messages are shorter, they are often personal and opinionated, they refer to specific topics and persons, etc. Regarding political and socio-economic news, individuals in online communities make use of social networks to keep their peers up-to-date and to share their own views on ongoing affairs. We believe that social media is also an as powerful instrument for information flow as the news sources are, and we use its unique characteristic of rapid news coverage for two applications. We analyze Twitter messages and debate transcripts during live political presidential debates to automatically predict the topics that Twitter users discuss. Our goal is to discover the favoured topics in online communities on the dates of political events as a way to understand the political subjects of public interest. With the up-to-dateness of microblogs, an additional opportunity emerges, namely to use social media posts and leverage the real-time verity about discussed individuals to find their locations. That is, given a person of interest that is mentioned in online discussions, we use the wisdom of the crowd to automatically track her physical locations over time. We evaluate our approach in the context of politics, i.e., we predict the locations of US politicians as a proof of concept for important use cases, such as to track people that are national risks, e.g., warlords and wanted criminals. ; Als festen Bestandteil unseres täglichen Lebens konsumieren wir aktuelle Nachrichten und interpretieren sie basierend auf unseren eigenen Ansichten und Überzeugungen. Wir haben einfachen Zugang zu sozialen Netzwerken und Online-Nachrichtenportalen, auf denen wir uns über aktuelle Angelegenheiten informieren und eigene Ansichten teilen, wie zum Beispiel mit Nachrichtenkommentaren oder Social-Media-Posts. Das Medien-Ökosystem ermöglicht es zum Beispiel, dass Meinungen und Fakten von Nachrichtenquellen zu Lesern, von Kommentatoren zu anderen Lesern oder von Nutzern sozialer Netzwerke zu ihren Anhängern gelangen. Die Weltsicht hängt für viele von uns von Informationen ab, die wir über Online-Nachrichten und soziale Medien erhalten. Hierfür ist es wichtig genaue, zuverlässige und objektive Inhalte zuzusichern, um die Demokratie und Wahrheit im Web gewährleisten zu können. Um zu einem vertrauenswürdigen Medien-Ökosystem beizutragen, analysieren wir Nachrichten und soziale Medien im politischen Kontext und stellen sicher, dass die Medien dem öffentlichen Interesse dienen. In dieser Arbeit verwenden wir Techniken der Computerlinguistik, des maschinellen Lernens und des Text Minings, um zugrunde liegende Muster in politischen Nachrichtenartikel und im politischen Diskurs in sozialen Netzwerken aufzudecken. Mainstream-Nachrichtenquellen decken täglich üb­li­cher­wei­se eine große Anzahl derselben Nachrichten ab, aber sie stellen diese oft in einem anderen Kontext dar oder berichten aus unterschiedlichen Sichtweisen. In dieser Arbeit wird untersucht, wie individuell und vorhersehbar Zeitungsjournalisten in der Art der Berichterstattung sind, um die unterschiedlichen politischen Überzeugungen zu identifizieren und zu verstehen. Zu diesem Zweck schlagen wir zwei Modelle vor, die Text aus Nachrichtenartikeln klassifizieren und ihrer jeweiligen ursprünglichen Nachrichtenquelle zuordnen, insbesondere basierend auf Zitaten und Nachrichtenkommentaren. Unser Ziel ist es, systematische Zitierungs- und Kommentierungsmuster von Journalisten bzw. Nachrichtenkommentatoren zu erfassen, was uns zu der Zeitung führen kann, in der die Zitate und Kommentare ursprünglich veröffentlicht wurden. Die Vorhersage von Nachrichtenquellen kann uns helfen, die potenziell subjektive Natur hinter dem "Storytelling" und dem Ausmaß dieses Phänomens zu verstehen. Das enthüllen jenes verborgenen Wissens kann unser Vertrauen in die Medien wiederherstellen, indem es Transparenz und Vielfalt in den Nachrichten fördert. Politische Tendenzen in der Medienberichterstattung können textuell auf verschiedene subtile Arten ausgedrückt werden und es ist selbst für Menschen oft schwierig deren Manifestierung korrekt zu identifizieren. Medienexperten wie Journalisten, sind jedoch eine gute Ressource, die uns helfen kann, die vage Definition der politischen Medien Bias zu überwinden und sie können ebenfalls dabei helfen automatischen Modellen beizubringen, versteckten Bias im Text aufzudecken. Aufgrund der enormen technologischen Fortschritte im Bereich der künstlichen Intelligenz nehmen wir an, dass die Identifizierung politischer Vorurteile in den Nachrichten durch die Kombination aus ausgefeilten Deep-Learning-Modellen und Fachkenntnissen erreicht werden kann. Daher ist unser zweiter Beitrag ein qualitativ hochwertiger und zuverlässiger Nachrichtendatensatz, der von Journalisten in Bezug auf politischen Bias annotiert wurde und ein hochmoderner Algorithmus zur Lösung dieser Aufgabe, der auf dem Prinzip des "curriculum learning" basiert. Unser Ziel ist es herauszufinden, ob Domänenwissen für diese Aufgabe erforderlich ist und eine automatische Lösung für dieses traditionell manuell bearbeitete Problem bereitzustellen. Nutzergenerierte Inhalte unterscheiden sich grundlegend von Nachrichtenartikeln. Zum Beispiel sind Botschaften oft kürzer, persönlich und dogmatisch und sie beziehen sich oft auf spezifische Themen und Personen. In Bezug auf politische und sozioökonomische Nachrichten verwenden Individuen oft soziale Netzwerke, um andere Nutzer in ihrer In­te­r­es­sens­grup­pe auf dem Laufenden zu halten und ihre persönlichen Ansichten über aktuelle Angelegenheiten zu teilen. Wir glauben, dass soziale Medien auch ein gleichermaßen leistungsfähiges Instrument für den Informationsfluss sind wie Online-Zeitungen. Daher verwenden wir ihre einzigartige Eigenschaft der schnellen Berichterstattung für zwei Anwendungen. Wir analysieren Twitter-Nachrichten und Transkripte von politischen Live-Debatten zur Präsidentschaftswahl um Themen zu klassifizieren, die von der Nutzergemeinde diskutiert werden. Unser Ziel ist es die bevorzugten Themen zu identifizieren, die in Online-Gemeinschaften zu den Terminen politischer Ereignisse diskutiert werden um die Themen von öffentlichem Interesse zu verstehen. Durch die Aktualität von Microblogs ergibt sich die zusätzliche Möglichkeit Beiträge aus sozialen Medien zu nutzen um Echtzeit-Informationen über besprochene Personen zu finden und ihre physischen Positionen zu bestimmen. Das heißt, bei einer Person von öffentlichem Interesse, die in Online-Diskussionen erwähnt wird, verwenden wir die Schwarmintelligenz der Nutzerbasis, um ihren Standort im Verlauf der Zeit automatisch zu verfolgen. Wir untersuchen unseren Ansatz im politischen Kontext, indem wir die Standorte von US-Politikern während des Präsidentschaftswahlkampfes voraussagen. Mit diesem Ansatz bieten wir eine Machbarkeitsstudie für andere wichtige Anwendungsfälle, beispielsweise um Menschen zu verfolgen, die ein nationales Risiko darstellen, wie Kriegsherren und gesuchte Kriminelle.

Here are considered the historical roots of formation and genesis of bunchuks as a part of the whole kleinod complex of Kosh Otamans and Hetmans of the Ukrainian Cossacks. Turkic lexeme «bunchuk» over time has transformed into modern term that is common in Ukrainian culture. Traditionally, the first recorded case of bunchuks' use by military is associated with the name of the Arab Caliph Abu Bakr and his military battles on the territory of Syria in the 7th century. During the active cross-cultural contacts in the early 13th century, firstly bunchuks became known among the Mongols and later among the Turks. Early Ottomans used them not only as a military sign, but also as a ranking marker of the court official, status present, which raised the social status of a person. From Turks bunchuks were taken by the representatives of the Commonwealth of Poland and at the beginning gave them a meaning of the important symbol of Quarter Army Hetman military power and later, from the middle of the XVII century, of the Polish king. Historical tradition linked the use of bunchuks by Ukrainian Cossacks with the military reforms of Polish monarch Stefan Batory. But modern scientists, studying military history of the Cossacks in the first quarter of the XVII century and using the materials of Polish archives denied this statement and stressed the attention of the Turkish-Tatar vector. For Zaporozhian Cossacks bunchuks were among the attributes of legitimacy or legality of certain actions. In the external design dominated red and black color schemes. National Symbols of early modern Ukrainian state in the middle of the 17th – 18th c., which basis was formed of the attributes of power Zaporozhian Cossacks, recorded bunchuks as personal banners of Hetmans. In order to make the distinction from Zaporozhian Cossacks, Hetmans started using white bunchuks. Historical records kept information about these signs is in the arsenal of Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky, Petro Doroshenko, Ivan Mazepa and Kyrylo Rozumovsky. To the bunchuk of Acting Hetman there were added two silver racemes. It was this sign, under which the Cossack state leaders received military parades, met foreign ambassadors, maintained foreign negotiations. During the election of a new Hetman, on the same level with the mace, bunchuks were attribute of legitimacy of the election of a person to the position of a leader of the Ukrainian state. In case of Hetman's death, in accordance with Moscow Articles of the year 1665, bunchuks packed in special boxes were sent to the Russian warlord in Kyiv, who passed them to the Armory in the Moscow Kremlin. ; Розглянуто проблему становлення та розвитку бунчуків, як складової частини клейнодів кошових отаманів та гетьманів українського козацтва. Тюркомовна за походженням лексема «бунчук» з плином часу трансформувалася у сучасне значення, що є загальноприйнятим в українській культурі. Традиційно вважається, що перший зафіксований випадок використання військовими бунчуків пов'язаний із ім'ям арабського халіфа Абу-Бакра та його військовими баталіями на території сучасної Сирії в 7 ст. В ході активних міжкультурних контактів, на початку 13 ст. бунчуки стали відомими спочатку у монголів, а пізніше і у турків. Ранні Османи використовували їх не лише як військовий знак, але й як маркер рангу придворного чиновника, статусний подарунок, що підвищував соціальне положення певної людини. Від турків бунчуки перейняли представники Речі Посполитої та надали їм значення спочатку сим- волу військової влади гетьманів кварцяного війська, а пізніше, з середини XVII ст. і польського короля. Історична традиція пов'язала використання бунчуків українським козацтвом з військовими реформами польського монарха Стефана Баторія. Але сучасні вчені, вивчаючи військову історію козацтва першої чверті XVII ст. й користуючись матеріалами польських архівів заперечили цю тезу, та акцентували увагу на турецького-татарському векторі. Для запорожців бунчуки були одними з атрибутів легітимності влади або законності певного дійства. В зовнішньому оформленні переважали червоно-чорні кольорові гами. Державна символіка ранньомодерної Української держави середини 17 – 18 ст., в основу якої лягли атрибути влади запорожців, зафіксувала бунчуки особистими штандартами гетьманів. Для розрізнення із запорожцями, гетьмани почали використовувати білі бунчуки. Історичні джерела зберегли відомості саме про такі знаки в арсеналі гетьмана Богдана Хмельницького, Петра Дорошенка, Івана Мазепи та Кирила Розумовського. До бунчуків наказних гетьманів додавалися дві срібні китиці. Саме під цим знаком керівники козацької держави приймали військові паради, зустрічали іноземних послів, вели зовнішньо-політичні переговори. Під час виборів нового гетьмана, бунчуки на рівні з булавою виступали атрибутом правомірності обрання тієї чи іншої особи на роль голови Української держави. В разі смерті гетьмана, згідно з Московськими статтями 1665 р., бунчуки, запаковані у спеціальні ящики, відправлялися російському воєводі у Київ, який передавав їх до Збройної Палати Московського Кремля. ; Розглянуто проблему становлення та розвитку бунчуків, як складової частини клейнодів кошових отаманів та гетьманів українського козацтва. Тюркомовна за походженням лексема «бунчук» з плином часу трансформувалася у сучасне значення, що є загальноприйнятим в українській культурі. Традиційно вважається, що перший зафіксований випадок використання військовими бунчуків пов'язаний із ім'ям арабського халіфа Абу-Бакра та його військовими баталіями на території сучасної Сирії в 7 ст. В ході активних міжкультурних контактів, на початку 13 ст. бунчуки стали відомими спочатку у монголів, а пізніше і у турків. Ранні Османи використовували їх не лише як військовий знак, але й як маркер рангу придворного чиновника, статусний подарунок, що підвищував соціальне положення певної людини. Від турків бунчуки перейняли представники Речі Посполитої та надали їм значення спочатку сим- волу військової влади гетьманів кварцяного війська, а пізніше, з середини XVII ст. і польського короля. Історична традиція пов'язала використання бунчуків українським козацтвом з військовими реформами польського монарха Стефана Баторія. Але сучасні вчені, вивчаючи військову історію козацтва першої чверті XVII ст. й користуючись матеріалами польських архівів заперечили цю тезу, та акцентували увагу на турецького-татарському векторі. Для запорожців бунчуки були одними з атрибутів легітимності влади або законності певного дійства. В зовнішньому оформленні переважали червоно-чорні кольорові гами. Державна символіка ранньомодерної Української держави середини 17 – 18 ст., в основу якої лягли атрибути влади запорожців, зафіксувала бунчуки особистими штандартами гетьманів. Для розрізнення із запорожцями, гетьмани почали використовувати білі бунчуки. Історичні джерела зберегли відомості саме про такі знаки в арсеналі гетьмана Богдана Хмельницького, Петра Дорошенка, Івана Мазепи та Кирила Розумовського. До бунчуків наказних гетьманів додавалися дві срібні китиці. Саме під цим знаком керівники козацької держави приймали військові паради, зустрічали іноземних послів, вели зовнішньо-політичні переговори. Під час виборів нового гетьмана, бунчуки на рівні з булавою виступали атрибутом правомірності обрання тієї чи іншої особи на роль голови Української держави. В разі смерті гетьмана, згідно з Московськими статтями 1665 р., бунчуки, запаковані у спеціальні ящики, відправлялися російському воєводі у Київ, який передавав їх до Збройної Палати Московського Кремля.

In this analysis of the retold experiences of 27 survivors of the war in northwestern Bosnia, the aim is to describe the informants' portrayal of "war violence", "sexual war violence", "victimhood", and "reconciliation" as a social phenomenon as well as analyzing the discursive patterns that contribute to constructing the category "victim" and "perpetrator". The violence practice during the war is portrayed as organized and ritualized and this creates a picture that the violence practice became a norm in the society, rather than the exception. When, after the war, different categories claim a "victim" status, it sparks a competition for victimhood. All informants are eager to present themselves as victims while at the same time the other categories' victim status are downplayed. The stories of reconciliation are connected to the past; the interactive consequences of war-time violence are intimately linked to the narrator's war experiences. The interviewees distance themselves from some individuals or described situations. It is common that the portrayal of possible reconciliation is transformed into a depicted implacable attitude, thus the interviewees negotiate their stances: they articulate between reconciliation and implacability statements. This study shows that after the war in Bosnia, the interpretations of biographical consequences of violence are intimately connected to previous war experiences. Narratives on the phenomenon "war violence" and "sexual war violence" depict a decay of pre-war social order. The use of violence during the war is described as organized and ritualized, which implies that the use of violence became a norm in society, rather than the exception. The narratives on the phenomenon "war violence" produce and reproduce the image of human suffering and slaughter. Those subjected to violence are portrayed in a de-humanized fashion and branded as suitable to be exposed to it. In these stories, morally correct actions are constructed as a contrast to the narratives on war violence. In these descriptions, the perpetrator is depicted as a dangerous, evil, and ideal enemy. He is portrayed as a real and powerful yet alien criminal who is said to pose a clear threat to the social order existing before the war. The narratives on wartime violence, war perpetrators, and those subjected to violence during war are enhanced with symbolicism of ritualized ethnic violence ("cockade," "chetnik," "Serb," "Muslim," "warlord"). On one hand, the narrators make an ethnic generalization based on the differences between the ethnic categorizations; on the other hand, they present their own physical existence and ethnic identity and that of those subjected to violence as being threatened by the violent situation. The disintegration of the existing, pre-war social order produces and reproduces a norm resolution that enables the ritualized war-time use of violence. This development allows the normalization of war violence in this time period even though the result, as this study shows, means human suffering and the slaughter of humans. This study presents this development in society ambivalently, as both allowed and normatively correct (during the war) and as prohibited and condemned (primarily in retrospect, in post-war narratives). It seems as if the category "war violence" and "sexual war violence" means different things depending on whether it happened during war or not, whether it is retold or observed, and who is telling the story. For some persons, violence targeting civilians during the war is an act of heroism. The Holocaust during World War Two was in many cases highly efficient and industrialized; the typical goal was to kill from a distance, impersonally. Researchers have noted that those who climbed the ranks to leadership positions or were in charge at concentration camps seemed to have engaged in very personal, sadistic acts in Germany during WWII. Is there an interaction of rank/power in wartime and level of motivation/energy input required for violence (ie, those in charge require less energy input because of the factors that put them in charge in the first place)? The stories and phrasing in this paper emphasize a distant, evil, and/or powerful leader who motivates the crowd (perhaps in part by symbolically reducing an ethnic target to something like a dog or rat) or gives orders, with the distinction from Holocaust violence that the leaders in these stories were neighbors, etc., of those they were harming and killing. In general contrast, the war violence in Bosnia was more broadly characterized by the individualized use of violence, in which the perpetrators often knew those subjected to violence. The stories reveal that firearms were seldom used; instead, the weapons were baseball bats or knives. These features can be compared to examples of violence in Rwanda, where the violence was more similar (and even more "savage") to that in my material than the typical examples of industrialized extermination violence of World War Two. The perpetrators in this study are often portrayed as people who enjoyed humiliating, battering, murdering, and inflicting pain in different ways. This characterization is a contrast to Collins (2008), who suggests that soldiers are not good in acting out close violence and that individuals are mostly inclined to consensus and solidarity. An explanation, in my study, of the soldiers' actions can be that soldiers in a war are pressured into being brave in close combat, the aim being to reign over the Others, the enemy. During war, enemies are targets of violence, to be subjected to it and neutralized. Soldiers and police in northwestern Bosnia were not close to any battlefield, and civilians thus were framed in the enemy role. By exposing civilians to violence, soldiers proved their supremacy over the enemy even when the enemy was an abstract type, unarmed and harmless. Another explanation might be found in the degree of mobilization and emotional charge that occurred before the war, through the demonization of the enemy. People were probably brutalized through this process. Those interpersonal interactions that caused the violence continue even after the violent situation is over. Recollections from perpetrators and those subjected to violence of the war do not exist only as verbal constructions in Bosnia of today. Stories about violent situations live their own lives after the war and continue being important to individuals and social life. Individuals who were expelled from northwestern Bosnia during the war in the 1990s are, in a legal sense, in a recognized violence-afflicted victim category. They suffered crimes against humanity, including most types of violent crimes. Several perpetrators were sentenced by the Hague Tribunal and the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina on War Crime. The crimes committed in northwestern Bosnia are qualified as genocide according to indictments against former Serbian leaders Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić. All of the interviewees in this study experienced and survived the war in northwestern Bosnia. These individuals have a present, ongoing relation with these communities: Some live there permanently, and some spend their summers in northwestern Bosnia. An analysis of the processing of experienced or described violent situations in a society that exists as a product of a series of violent acts during the war must be conducted in parallel both at the institutional and individual levels. Institutions in the administrative entity Republika Srpska deny genocide, and this approach to war-time events becomes a central theme in future, post-war analysis of the phenomena "war violence," "sexual war violence", "victimhood," and "reconciliation". The existence of Republika Srpska is based on genocide committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Therefore, it is very important to analyze the political elite's denial of the systematic acts of violence during the war that have been conveyed by the Hague Tribunal, the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina on War Crime, and Bosnian media. The narratives in my empirical material seem to be influenced by (or coherent with) the rhetoric mediated in these fora. When informants emphasize extermination and the systematization of violence during the war, they produce and reproduce the image of a mutual struggle on a collective level. The aim of this struggle seems to be that the described acts of violence be recognized as genocide. Another interesting aspect of the phenomenon "war violence," "victimhood," and "reconciliation" to be examined in a future analysis, regards the stories of perpetrators describing violent situations. Conversations with these actors and an analysis of their stories might add a nuanced perspective of the phenomenon "war violence," "victimhood," and "reconciliation". Another question that emerged during my work on this article is, What importance is given to stories told by the perpetrator of violence and those subjected to violence in the development of a post-war society? I believe it is of great importance to study stories in both categories. By recounting their stories, those subjected to violence could obtain recognition and some degree of self-esteem and the perpetrators be given a chance to explain to themselves and others, display shame over their actions, and possibly restore their social status. Without this type of process, those who are subjected to violence risk a life without recognition, and the perpetrators risk being permanently bound by their war-time actions, a clearly unstable foundation for the future development of a post-war society.

In this analysis of the retold experiences of 27 survivors of the war in northwestern Bosnia, the aim is to describe the informants' portrayal of "war violence", "sexual war violence", "victimhood", and "reconciliation" as a social phenomenon as well as analyzing the discursive patterns that contribute to constructing the category "victim" and "perpetrator". The violence practice during the war is portrayed as organized and ritualized and this creates a picture that the violence practice became a norm in the society, rather than the exception. When, after the war, different categories claim a "victim" status, it sparks a competition for victimhood. All informants are eager to present themselves as victims while at the same time the other categories' victim status are downplayed. The stories of reconciliation are connected to the past; the interactive consequences of war-time violence are intimately linked to the narrator's war experiences. The interviewees distance themselves from some individuals or described situations. It is common that the portrayal of possible reconciliation is transformed into a depicted implacable attitude, thus the interviewees negotiate their stances: they articulate between reconciliation and implacability statements. This study shows that after the war in Bosnia, the interpretations of biographical consequences of violence are intimately connected to previous war experiences. Narratives on the phenomenon "war violence" and "sexual war violence" depict a decay of pre-war social order. The use of violence during the war is described as organized and ritualized, which implies that the use of violence became a norm in society, rather than the exception. The narratives on the phenomenon "war violence" produce and reproduce the image of human suffering and slaughter. Those subjected to violence are portrayed in a de-humanized fashion and branded as suitable to be exposed to it. In these stories, morally correct actions are constructed as a contrast to the narratives on war violence. In these descriptions, the perpetrator is depicted as a dangerous, evil, and ideal enemy. He is portrayed as a real and powerful yet alien criminal who is said to pose a clear threat to the social order existing before the war. The narratives on wartime violence, war perpetrators, and those subjected to violence during war are enhanced with symbolicism of ritualized ethnic violence ("cockade," "chetnik," "Serb," "Muslim," "warlord"). On one hand, the narrators make an ethnic generalization based on the differences between the ethnic categorizations; on the other hand, they present their own physical existence and ethnic identity and that of those subjected to violence as being threatened by the violent situation. The disintegration of the existing, pre-war social order produces and reproduces a norm resolution that enables the ritualized war-time use of violence. This development allows the normalization of war violence in this time period even though the result, as this study shows, means human suffering and the slaughter of humans. This study presents this development in society ambivalently, as both allowed and normatively correct (during the war) and as prohibited and condemned (primarily in retrospect, in post-war narratives). It seems as if the category "war violence" and "sexual war violence" means different things depending on whether it happened during war or not, whether it is retold or observed, and who is telling the story. For some persons, violence targeting civilians during the war is an act of heroism. The Holocaust during World War Two was in many cases highly efficient and industrialized; the typical goal was to kill from a distance, impersonally. Researchers have noted that those who climbed the ranks to leadership positions or were in charge at concentration camps seemed to have engaged in very personal, sadistic acts in Germany during WWII. Is there an interaction of rank/power in wartime and level of motivation/energy input required for violence (ie, those in charge require less energy input because of the factors that put them in charge in the first place)? The stories and phrasing in this paper emphasize a distant, evil, and/or powerful leader who motivates the crowd (perhaps in part by symbolically reducing an ethnic target to something like a dog or rat) or gives orders, with the distinction from Holocaust violence that the leaders in these stories were neighbors, etc., of those they were harming and killing. In general contrast, the war violence in Bosnia was more broadly characterized by the individualized use of violence, in which the perpetrators often knew those subjected to violence. The stories reveal that firearms were seldom used; instead, the weapons were baseball bats or knives. These features can be compared to examples of violence in Rwanda, where the violence was more similar (and even more "savage") to that in my material than the typical examples of industrialized extermination violence of World War Two. The perpetrators in this study are often portrayed as people who enjoyed humiliating, battering, murdering, and inflicting pain in different ways. This characterization is a contrast to Collins (2008), who suggests that soldiers are not good in acting out close violence and that individuals are mostly inclined to consensus and solidarity. An explanation, in my study, of the soldiers' actions can be that soldiers in a war are pressured into being brave in close combat, the aim being to reign over the Others, the enemy. During war, enemies are targets of violence, to be subjected to it and neutralized. Soldiers and police in northwestern Bosnia were not close to any battlefield, and civilians thus were framed in the enemy role. By exposing civilians to violence, soldiers proved their supremacy over the enemy even when the enemy was an abstract type, unarmed and harmless. Another explanation might be found in the degree of mobilization and emotional charge that occurred before the war, through the demonization of the enemy. People were probably brutalized through this process. Those interpersonal interactions that caused the violence continue even after the violent situation is over. Recollections from perpetrators and those subjected to violence of the war do not exist only as verbal constructions in Bosnia of today. Stories about violent situations live their own lives after the war and continue being important to individuals and social life. Individuals who were expelled from northwestern Bosnia during the war in the 1990s are, in a legal sense, in a recognized violence-afflicted victim category. They suffered crimes against humanity, including most types of violent crimes. Several perpetrators were sentenced by the Hague Tribunal and the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina on War Crime. The crimes committed in northwestern Bosnia are qualified as genocide according to indictments against former Serbian leaders Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić. All of the interviewees in this study experienced and survived the war in northwestern Bosnia. These individuals have a present, ongoing relation with these communities: Some live there permanently, and some spend their summers in northwestern Bosnia. An analysis of the processing of experienced or described violent situations in a society that exists as a product of a series of violent acts during the war must be conducted in parallel both at the institutional and individual levels. Institutions in the administrative entity Republika Srpska deny genocide, and this approach to war-time events becomes a central theme in future, post-war analysis of the phenomena "war violence," "sexual war violence", "victimhood," and "reconciliation". The existence of Republika Srpska is based on genocide committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Therefore, it is very important to analyze the political elite's denial of the systematic acts of violence during the war that have been conveyed by the Hague Tribunal, the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina on War Crime, and Bosnian media. The narratives in my empirical material seem to be influenced by (or coherent with) the rhetoric mediated in these fora. When informants emphasize extermination and the systematization of violence during the war, they produce and reproduce the image of a mutual struggle on a collective level. The aim of this struggle seems to be that the described acts of violence be recognized as genocide. Another interesting aspect of the phenomenon "war violence," "victimhood," and "reconciliation" to be examined in a future analysis, regards the stories of perpetrators describing violent situations. Conversations with these actors and an analysis of their stories might add a nuanced perspective of the phenomenon "war violence," "victimhood," and "reconciliation". Another question that emerged during my work on this article is, What importance is given to stories told by the perpetrator of violence and those subjected to violence in the development of a post-war society? I believe it is of great importance to study stories in both categories. By recounting their stories, those subjected to violence could obtain recognition and some degree of self-esteem and the perpetrators be given a chance to explain to themselves and others, display shame over their actions, and possibly restore their social status. Without this type of process, those who are subjected to violence risk a life without recognition, and the perpetrators risk being permanently bound by their war-time actions, a clearly unstable foundation for the future development of a post-war society. ; Panel with Presenters

This article examines how Army Special Operations might prepare to expand in the event of a major war by resolving impediments to growth, improving recall procedures, and developing plans to expand training capacities.

The twentieth century (characterized by the gruesome and haze of horror of two World Wars, the Cold Wars-CW, dictatorships, civil wars, genocides, etc.) has seen a great transformation in warfare but to the expense of the innocent civilians and yet in the full view of regulatory internationally recognized war-laws. So, if at one point in history, civilian populations hardly suffered war directly, the order of the state of affairs has now changed. Many civilians perish simply because warlords so desire; extremes of violence, killings and destruction of property is predominantly preferred. As if that is not enough, the indifference of the majority of the public in tranquil zones of the world towards the fate of the civilians in zones under by fire kind of provide implicit licenses to violence planners to do whatever it takes to "win". Consequently, great numbers of survivors are seen trying to escape from situations of assured death to that of probable death. It is against this background that we feel moved to take on this dissertation. Bearing in mind the generally complex and challenging contemporary conflicts that acutely breeds volatile security environments (for civilians), our thesis is that there needed to be an increased, noteworthy and continued applicable innovation of approaches to civilian protection. To be precise, as a strategy to sustainable peace, we have aspired after a world where the United Nations Peacekeeping Department (UNPKD) is not singly considered the sole custodian of the concept of civilian protection but (based on contexts and cases) as one but a leader among other stakeholders (local and foreign) able and ready to contribute to the common-pool of operational arenas. Thinking about these other stake holders, we have in this work stood by those that: firstly, move towards more civilian-centered operations that are; secondly, carried out by (a mixture of grassroots and international) unarmed civilians by means of; thirdly, engages nonviolent approaches and practices that in themselves anticipate the basic constituents of successive bottom-up Peacemaking (PK) and Peacebuilding (PB) in the hic et nunc of their Peacekeeping (PK) initiatives and applications. All these basics, in our view, do not just add up to drawing a continuous line that intersects the just mentioned Three Approaches to Peace (PK, PM, PB) coined by Johan Galtung way back in 1975; they also open avenues to sustainability. The thesis is taken on through three different parts; each subdivided into two chapters. With due attention to intrastate contemporary violent conflicts, the first part tries to demonstrate the reason why in PK there has been indeed need for rethinking the protection of civilians (PoC) and/or for enriching the methods until now employed in bringing it about. In the first chapter of the part, we kind of gave a sketchy attention to the historical journey that the patterns of violent conflicts in relation to the fate of non-combatants have made. It emerges that, unlike in the past, the pattern of contemporary violent conflict, especially with reference to the CW (especially in third-world countries) and post-CW periods, have become severely complex to handle. Wars have continued and proved to be very hot especially on the populations on the periphery; on those who are minimally directly concerned with and honestly ignorant of its objectives. In the period in question, these innocent men, women and children are more than ever struck hard not just by its direct consequences but also the indirect ones and their hopes are constantly put at the brink of mere survival and of the grave. Mores so the lucky ones who manage to escape these snares, continue to unwaveringly hope for bread, freedom, justice and peace, instead of iron that kills and destroys. In chapter II of the same part, looking at the commitments borne by the UN right from its early years in keeping, initially, the interstate and successively also the intrastate peace (of those tormented by reign of violence and terror), we acknowledge the strides gradually taken along the years. These strides has better late than never embraced a multidimensional point in time where civilian protection counts as a primacy. Accordingly, we recognize that the UN military PK is certainly capable of reducing the level of tension in conflicts but we also negated that, by so doing, it is able to guarantee a durable peace not only because of the application of the non-peaceful means which is limited to separating the conflicting parties but also because it lacks the strategic concern of fostering an active citizenship which is a basic ingredient to democratic populace. In Part Two, we have concentrated on the vision and the peculiar picture of the practitioners of the alternative way, particularly; the Nonviolent Peaceforce (NP) which operates on a benchmark of bottom-up strategic empowerment of local civilian unarmed and nonviolent efforts by international unarmed and nonviolent civilians to protect civilians, prevent, reduce and stop violent conflicts. The first chapter of this second part begins by singling out some of the nuts and bolts (Like: The centrality of sustainability; strategic, local and multilevel capacity and relational empowerment and mediation for peace; conflict transformation as the adequate language; nonviolence and nonpartisanship as a philosophy) that make Unarmed Civilian Protection (UCP) stands out faithfully to the above stated aspirations. Without giving importance to the chronological specifics and with a particular reference to the assessment of the practicality of the project that, on a later date, would organizationally become the NP, an extensive attention is paid to the vicissitudes that surrounded the founding of this UCP protection agency and especially to the foundations of the formative elements entailed. Chapter II does not only build on the findings and stimuli of Chapter I, it supersedes it and makes real a new and distinct reality. Herein, a unique place is devoted to the formative components reserved to the practitioners as a strategy for guaranteeing the competencies and high professionalism needed for the successful execution of field strategies attached to the NP UCP objectives, principles, key methods and practices. Through the analysis of the UCP Training Course entitled "Strengthening Civilian Capacities to Protect Civilians; A joint UNITAR- Nonviolent Peaceforce online Course" the chapter tries to show how the activities of the organization intrinsically flow from its very being; from elements which define it. And this is illustrated in how the very life of the NP UCP is blended with its formative spirit and content; a sort of transformative training that seeks to promote transformative operational frameworks that applicable to situations and contexts. The third part of the work is an applied one. It is dedicated to our chosen case study, namely, NP's intervention in the longtime violence-stricken Republic of South Sudan; in a country which (Thomas Hobbes would say) has once again reverted to its natural state; a harsh reality of hand to mouth living and a never ending search for sustenance in an ambiance virtually challenging to change. In chapter I, the pragmatic implementation of NP UCP in strengthening the local civilians' capacity, security and sense of safety in situation of violent conflict is marked out. Here, some concrete instances of this intervention are presented to exemplify the claim that a multiple base of actors (UCPs, the inviting civil society and/or local NGOs of an UCP presence and local partners) can sustainably and strategically provide the PoC work that for a long time was and is still largely entrusted to the military. And at the end of the day PK, PM, PB resources are considered to consist in not only financial and material supports, but also, and (in the same way) importantly, the socio-cultural resources of the affected people. And in this way people in conflict settings are seen as resources rather than recipients. Even though we evidently confirmed that the alternative way counts exceptionally big in strategically promoting, developing, and implementing sustainable unarmed civilian PK as a tool for preventing, reducing and stopping violence and protecting civilians in situations of violent conflict, we also acknowledge that it is not without challenges. These are actually what chapter two of the part extensively dwells on. The second chapter is instead dedicated (at length) to looking at the challenges that NP faces not only with regard to its missions lands but also in general. We have gone about this in the form of a comprehensive assessment and in some humble recommendations are advanced. Among these challenges we have particularly paid attention to issues like: The meager UCP funding and the dominant top-down mentality; the violent bully character of some major world power wielders; the need for more practitioners to carry out UCP; the dynamicity and complexity of conflict nature as a challenge; conflict prevention challenges like delays in capturing the signs of time so as to effectively intervene; the presence of spoilers as a challenge; the challenge of effective sustainable credibility. Recommendations proposed include among others: Investing in systematic reflections on the extent of the progress and failures so far registered in efforts to involve the UN, regional bodies and other donor agencies or individuals in the cause of NP (UCP) and reflecting on the philosophy that underpins the reasons why financial assistance to UCP and NP in particular is founded; more emphasis on the already existing engagement with political leaders and other influential people and embarking on popular campaigns to propagate a concretely evidenced knowledge of the feasibility of the alternative way, instituting and investing in "School Project" (dedicated to preferably to high schools) within the NP Advocacy and Outreach office and insisting on the positives of volunteers' contribution; enriching a little more the content of the just elaborated online UCP training course; etc. Hereafter, the general conclusion of our dissertation will be drawn. A profound acknowledgement of the UNPK pivotal role with its actual multidimensional fronts in PK basically intended as PoC specifically in the contemporary intrastate violent conflicts. It is also observed that, thanks to the appropriate blending of local and international capacities giving priority to the former, UCP's strategic approach to PK (which is not limited to the PoCs but is also anchored to preventing, reducing and ending not just those that are already on but also lays for standing up to the future possible ones) could be counted on. Thus far, it is on one hand, admissible that, despite all the challenges that there may be, NP (UCP) mechanisms is already proffering a great deal to this end, and on the other, it is evident that it can and should still do more. The ability of its interventions to stand the test of time and to stand up to the future conflicts (i.e. its sustainability) resides in a time which is not yet at hand and in the continuous involvement and inventiveness of many. As per now, if the Italian proverb "Il buongiorno si vede dal mattino" (Meaning: You can tell how something will go by how it begins) holds, then it is, up till now, realistic to count on NP as one of the most outstanding Bottom-up UCP organizations in the PoC in (selected) contemporary violent conflict situations. All that is needed is the building and the consolidation of international interest and support for UCP that presents the hope and reality of alternatives to over dependence on armed intervention; alternatives that chances the revitalization of local communities and the restoration of the social fabrics and capital of the affected people.

AMÉRICA LATINA Unos 80 muertos y 150.000 afectados por fuertes lluvias en Centroamérica.Para más información: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/17/world/americas/central-america-floods/index.html?hpt=wo_bn8 http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2011/10/17/actualidad/1318837321_448930.html http://www.eltiempo.com/mundo/latinoamerica/unos-80-muertos-y-150000-afectados-por-lluvias-en-amrica_10578146-4 http://www.economist.com/node/21532292El Tribunal Supremo venezolano bloquea la candidatura de un rival de Chávez.Para más información:http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2011/10/18/actualidad/1318904762_393671.htmlhttp://www.eltiempo.com/mundo/latinoamerica/en-venezuela-positor-lpez-dice-que-ser-candidato-pese-a-inhabilidad_10589966-4 http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/internacional/74788.htmlUna millonaria multa asedia al principal canal opositor de Venezuela.Para más información: http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1415945-una-millonaria-multa-asedia-al-principal-canal-opositor-de-venezuela#comentar http://diario.elmercurio.com/2011/10/19/internacional/_portada/noticias/A46B940C-C6B6-4CE1-BB45-6BAE144B1D21.htm?id={A46B940C-C6B6-4CE1-BB45-6BAE144B1D21} http://www.eltiempo.com/mundo/latinoamerica/multa-a-canal-opositor-del-televisin-venezolano_10586304-4 http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2011/10/18/actualidad/1318965461_251822.html http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-15358834Liberada la niña colombiana secuestrada durante 19 días.Para más información: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/18/world/americas/colombia-missing-girl/index.html?hpt=wo_c2 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-15361105http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1415801-liberan-a-una-nina-secuestrada-en-colombia#comentar http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2011/10/18/actualidad/1318909157_377754.htmlGraves incidentes caracterizan al paro nacional en Chile.Para más información: http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1415802-graves-incidentes-en-chile#comentar http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/internacional/74789.html http://www.eltiempo.com/mundo/latinoamerica/estudiantes-inician-dos-marchas-en-segundo-da-de-protesta_10591924-4 http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/802075.html http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-15358921La Fiscalía de Perú investiga a uno de los vicepresidentes por corrupción.Para más información: http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2011/10/18/actualidad/1318920890_039227.htmlChávez regresa a Cuba para realizarse nuevos examines médicos.Para más información: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/15/world/americas/venezuela-chavez-cuba/index.html?hpt=wo_bn8Morales acepta diálogo con indígenas. Para más información: http://diario.elmercurio.com/2011/10/19/internacional/internacional/noticias/17A854B3-B420-45C8-875E-EA0D3E3CE994.htm?id={17A854B3-B420-45C8-875E-EA0D3E3CE994} http://www.eltiempo.com/mundo/latinoamerica/la-marcha-de-los-indgenas-crece-con-apoyo-a-su-ingreso-a-la-paz_10591905-4 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-15366035Ecuador: Rafael Correa y el neocaudillismo.Para más información: http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/internacional/74772.htmlEl PRI presenta queja contra el presidente de México, Felipe Calderón.Para más información: http://www.eltiempo.com/mundo/latinoamerica/el-pri-presenta-queja-contra-el-presidente-caldern-ante-rgano-electoral_10590044-4 http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/17/world/americas/mexico-politics-crime/index.html?hpt=wo_bn8Argentina: de cara a las presidenciales del domingo 23 de octubre.Para más información: http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2011/10/19/actualidad/1319007522_163618.html http://diario.elmercurio.com/2011/10/19/internacional/internacional/noticias/5B640A57-EEEA-4766-BACC-47EC5B017B43.htm?id={5B640A57-EEEA-4766-BACC-47EC5B017B43} http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2011/10/18/actualidad/1318960474_989283.html http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/internacional/74786.htmlOposición pidió anular elección de magistrados del domingo en Bolivia.Para más información: http://www.eltiempo.com/mundo/latinoamerica/bolivia-vot-para-elegir-magistrados_10577188-4La tensión se agudiza en Nicaragua a dos semanas de las presidenciales.Para más información: http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2011/10/18/actualidad/1318919187_018457.htmlPresos mantienen secuestrados a 60 trabajadores de cárcel en Venezuela.Para más información: http://www.eltiempo.com/mundo/latinoamerica/presos-en-venezuela-secuestran-60-trabajadores-de-una-crcel_10576625-4Brasil: otro escándalo de corrupción involucra a ministro de Dilma.Para más información: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-brazil-dilma-20111016,0,7107872.storyRevuelta en cárcel mexicana deja al menos20 muertos. Para más información: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexico-prison-20111016,0,1752360.story Primer Ministro jamaiquino nombra a su sucesor.Para más información: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/19/world/americas/jamaicas-prime-minister-names-education-official-as-successor.html?ref=world'Sería un duro golpe si Chávez muere': Rafael Correa.Para más información: http://www.eltiempo.com/mundo/latinoamerica/seria-un-duro-golpe-si-chavez-muere-rafael-correa_10592824-4ESTADOS UNIDOS / CANADÁLos "indignados" redoblan la presión en Estados Unidos.Para más información: http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-2 http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1415342-los-indignados-redoblan-la-presion#comentar http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2011/10/18/actualidad/1318958353_966494.htmlEn visita sorpresa a Trípoli, Hillary Clinton "saluda la victoria" de Libia.Para más información: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/19/world/africa/clinton-in-libya-to-meet-leaders-and-offer-aid-package.html?ref=world http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2011/10/18/actualidad/1318937456_884598.html http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/802020.html http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/18/world/africa/libya-clinton/index.html?hpt=wo_c2En un año fueron deportados de Estados Unidos 400.000 indocumentados.Para más información: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/19/us/latinos-said-to-bear-weight-of-deportation-program.html?ref=world http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1415799-eeuu-record-de-expulsiones-de-indocumentados#comentar http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/internacional/74785.htmlBarack Obama de gira por estados claves en carrera por la reelecciónPara más información: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/14/world/africa/africa-obama-troops/index.html?hpt=wo_bn10 http://www.eltiempo.com/mundo/estados-unidos/obama-de-gira-por-estados-claves-en-carrera-por-la-reeleccin_10585564-4 http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2011/10/16/actualidad/1318787773_176962.html http://www.nytimes.com/pages/politics/index.html?hpCain, el republicano hoy le ganaría a Obama.Para más información: http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1415544-cain-la-gran-sorpresa-de-la-campana-en-eeuu#comentar http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2011/10/18/actualidad/1318961539_985453.htmlCandidatos republicanos intercambiaron 'golpes' en debate televisivoPara más información: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-15361428 http://www.eltiempo.com/mundo/estados-unidos/debate-televisivo-entre-candidatos-republicanos-_10591805-4 http://www.lemonde.fr/ameriques/article/2011/10/19/les-candidats-a-la-primaire-republicaine-promettent-de-solder-le-bilan-d-obama_1590084_3222.html Migración centra debate electoral.Para más información: http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/internacional/74784.htmlLos amish salen de su silencio y denuncian ataques en Estados Unidos.Para más información: http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2011/10/18/actualidad/1318970940_744477.htmlGobierno de Estados Unidos refuerza sus sitios en la web.Para más información: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/19/world/africa/united-states-weighs-cyberwarfare-strategy.html?ref=worldEUROPAGrecia otra vez paralizada con una manifestación récord.Para más información: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15362678 http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1415955-protesta-record-en-grecia#comentar http://www.eltiempo.com/mundo/europa/huelga-general-en-grecia-por-medidas-de-austeridad_10591386-4Piden a ETA el cese definitivo de la violencia.Para más información: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/17/world/europe/spain-eta/index.html?hpt=wo_bn9 http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1415479-piden-a-eta-el-cese-definitivo-de-la-violencia#comentar http://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2011/10/19/l-agence-de-notation-moody-s-abaisse-la-note-de-l-espagne_1590072_3234.htmlFrancia, cerca de perder su calificación "triple A".Para más información: http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1415800-francia-cerca-de-perder-su-calificacion-triple-a#comentarAbsuelven a Berlusconi en un caso de sospechas de fraude fiscal.Para más información: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/19/world/europe/italys-interior-minister-anticipates-more-unrest.html?ref=world http://www.lemonde.fr/europe/article/2011/10/18/berlusconi-acquitte-des-soupcons-de-fraude-fiscale-et-d-abus-de-confiance_1589912_3214.html http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1415666-absuelven-a-berlusconi-en-un-caso-de-sospechas-de-fraude-fiscal#comentar http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/19/world/europe/tax-fraud-and-embezzlement-charges-against-silvio-berlusconi-are-dismissed.html?ref=worldEl socialista Hollande encabeza encuesta presidencial en Francia.Para más información: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-france-socialist-vote-20111017,0,4995709.story http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/802055.html http://www.eltiempo.com/mundo/europa/franois-hollande-fue-elegico-como-el-candidato-del-partido-socialista-para-prximas-elecciones-en-francia_10575324-4 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-15365469 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/19/world/europe/french-campaign-taking-shape-as-3-person-collision.html?ref=world http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2011/10/17/actualidad/1318872449_028848.htmlStrauss-Kahn pide declarar ante el juez que instruye un escándalo de prostitución.Para más información: http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2011/10/16/actualidad/1318785517_533837.htmlViolencia en la primera marcha global; Roma: escenario de una batalla campal.Para más información: http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1415094-violencia-en-la-primera-marcha-global#comentarLas tensiones en Kosovo y la crisis política en Bosnia y Albania desestabilizan la región.Para más información: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15355955 http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2011/10/16/actualidad/1318793428_156884.html http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/19/world/europe/europe-signals-its-ire-at-ukraines-president-yanukovich.html?ref=world http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15367388Medvedev emprende la campaña electoral del partido Rusia Unida.Para más información: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/17/world/europe/russia-putin-interview/index.html?hpt=wo_bn9 http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2011/10/15/actualidad/1318709881_117330.htmlRusia firma tratado de libre comercio con los ex Estados Soviéticos.Para más información: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15363770Una advertencia de Alemania asustó a los mercados.Para más información: http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1415541-una-advertencia-de-alemania-asusto-a-los-mercados#comentarLa justicia pone a la mujer más rica de Francia bajo la tutela de su familia.Para más información: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/17/world/europe/france-loreal-guardianship/index.html?hpt=wo_bn9 http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2011/10/17/actualidad/1318850617_214116.htmlReina Isabel comienza tour por Australia.Para más información: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15364751Más de 20 muertos en el peor ataque de los últimos años en Turquía.Para más información: http://www.eltiempo.com/archivo/documento/CMS-10591024ASIA- PACÍFICO/ MEDIO ORIENTEHistórico intercambio en Medio Oriente: Gilad Shalit a cambio de1027 prisioneros palestinos.Para más información: http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2011/10/18/actualidad/1318901857_778178.html http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/19/world/middleeast/hard-feelings-after-israel-hamas-swap-for-shalit.html?_r=1&ref=world http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-15361312 http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/internacional/74781.html http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/18/world/meast/israel-prisoner-swap-shalit-future/index.html?hpt=wo_c1 http://www.economist.com/blogs/newsbook/2011/10/gilad-shalit http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mideast-prisoners-freed-20111019,0,3020421.story http://israelpalestine.blog.lemonde.fr/2011/10/19/pourquoi-il-ne-faut-rien-attendre-de-lechange-shalit-pour-le-processus-de-paix/Los yemeníes desafían al régimen pese a la represión.Para más información: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/17/world/meast/yemen-unrest/index.html?hpt=wo_bn11 http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2011/10/16/actualidad/1318794219_261465.html http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-15365980Tropas francesas comienzan a volver de Afganistán.Para más información: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-15363624 http://www.lemonde.fr/asie-pacifique/article/2011/10/19/l-armee-francaise-commence-a-se-retirer-d-afghanistan_1590100_3216.htmlAccidente aéreo en Nepal: 6 muertos.Para más información: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-15363178Disidentes chinos desafían el poder.Para más información: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/19/world/asia/despite-violence-chinese-dissidents-emboldened-supporters-stream-to-see-him.html?ref=world http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/17/world/asia/china-toddler-hit-and-run/index.html?hpt=wo_bn7"New York Times" analiza: "Irak, la guerra olvidada".Para más información: http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/17/iraq-the-forgotten-war/?ref=worldContinúa la violencia en Siria.Para más información: http://www.economist.com/blogs/newsbook/2011/10/syrias-uprising-1 http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/17/world/meast/iran-saudi-plot/index.html?hpt=wo_bn11 http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/15/world/meast/syria-unrest/index.html?hpt=wo_bn11Ataque terrorista en Afganistán tenía como objetivo Central de Inteligencia.Para más información: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/17/world/asia/afghanistan-violence/index.html?hpt=wo_bn7Reactor de Fukushima puede dejar de funcionar antes de lo previstoPara más información: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/17/world/asia/japan-nuclear/index.html?hpt=wo_c2 http://www.lemonde.fr/japon/article/2011/10/19/dans-les-villes-mortes-autour-de-fukushima_1590284_1492975.htmlInundaciones continúan amenazando a tailandeses.Para más información: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-15368177La inflación continúa siendo una gran preocupación en China.Para más información: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-china-inflation-20111015,0,6423694.storyEjecuciones secretas de cientos de disidentes en Irán desde 2009.Para más información: http://www.eltiempo.com/mundo/medio-oriente/ejecuciones-secretas-de-disidentes-en-irn-desde-2009_10585865-4La guerra fría de Oriente Medio, el caso Irán-Arabia Saudita.Para más información: http://www.eltiempo.com/mundo/medio-oriente/la-guerra-fra-de-oriente-medio-en-caso-irn-arabia-saudita_10582024-4AFRICALa Haya quiere juzgar en rebeldía a los acusados del asesinato de líder libanés Hariri.Para más información: http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2011/10/17/actualidad/1318867023_270193.htmlKenia irrumpe en Somalia para combatir a los islamistas y evitar más secuestros.Para más información: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/19/world/africa/kenyan-officials-make-surprise-visit-to-somalia.html?ref=world http://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2011/10/18/le-kenya-entre-dans-la-guerre-en-somalie_1589711_3212.html http://politica.elpais.com/politica/2011/10/16/actualidad/1318786711_259229.htmlEn visita sorpresa a Trípoli, Hillary Clinton "saluda la victoria" de Libia.Para más información: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/19/world/africa/battle-for-surt-threatens-libyas-healing-process.html?ref=world http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2011/10/18/actualidad/1318937456_884598.html http://diario.elmercurio.com/2011/10/19/internacional/_portada/noticias/4B3195A5-934A-4355-AF63-610140F9E0D4.htm?id={4B3195A5-934A-4355-AF63-610140F9E0D4} http://www.lemonde.fr/libye/article/2011/10/18/visite-surprise-d-hillary-clinton-en-libye_1589905_1496980.htmlEn Liberia surge nueva fórmula para las elecciones presidenciales.Para más información: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-liberia-warlord-20111019,0,74864.storyEstados Unidos envió militares para dar recomendaciones en Uganda.Para más información: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-us-uganda-20111015,0,3346989.storyHuellas de violencia persisten en Libia.Para más información: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/middleeast/la-fg-libya-killings-20111017,0,6961741.storyFMI: Se espera un crecimiento económico del 5% en África durante el 2011.Para más información: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15366045OTRAS NOTICIAS"El Universal" presenta su portal dedicado al cambio climático.Para más información: http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/coberturas/cobertura3.html"The Economist" presenta su informe semanal: "Business this week".Para más información: http://www.economist.com/node/21532338

Professor David Dabydeen is a Guyanese-born writer, critic and academic at the Centre of Caribbean Studies at the University of Warwick. In 1993 he became Guyana's ambassador at UNESCO and is still a member of their Executive Board. He has been Guyana's ambassador to China since 2010. Professor Dabydeen has also won several international and national prizes such as the Commonwealth Poetry Prize, the Quiller-Couch Prize, and the Hind Rattan (Jewel of India). Among his works are Slave Song (1984), The Intended (1991), Disappearance (1993); and Our Lady of Demerara (2004). He also co-edited The Oxford Companion to Black British History in 2007. RB[1]: You are both a writer and a university professor of comparative literature. Do you know yourself first as a writer or a university professor?DD[2]: First as a writer. When I was a boy that is basically all I wanted to be. As a teenager I wrote the usual self-pitying stuff and, at 16 or 17, I attempted a novel in verse, inspired by some story in the Bible, I forgotten which; but gave up after a couple of pages. Why want to be a writer? I don't know. In my youth in Guyana I never encountered a writer. I think it must have been youthful aspiration to emulate the writers of Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys novels, which were standard childhood fare in Guyana. Also, since I come from a large family, it must have been the regular escape to the New Amsterdam public library to be alone, and whilst there( the place was usually empty), discovering books in the Ladybird series on great scientists, great politicians etc. I distinctly remember reading about Benjamin Franklin, Madame Curie, Alexander the Great, and others, at the age of nine or ten. There were also the odd books on Greek myths, lavishly illustrated for children. The story of Andromeda chained and naked and threatened by a monster, before being saved by Perseus, awakened unfamiliar boyish erotic feelings… perhaps not 'unfamiliar '( I was 8 or 9 ) but certainly the first time a book had aroused such feelings. When I was about 11 or 12 I came across V.S. Naipaul's MIGUEL STREET and was awed by how it made our lives in Guyana so familiar. It was set in Trinidad but the characters lived down my street. A great contrast to the Andromeda story which was exotic and erotic as opposed to the familiar lives of ordinary folk described by Naipaul.Being an academic has also been important to my writing. Firstly, you get a lot of time to read and discuss books with very bright students. Teaching in seminar groups has been amazingly exciting at times, and that intellectual excitement, sensuous in intensity, inspires the act of writing. I used to teach MA courses on Black British Literature and on Literature and Slavery. Certainly, Olaudah Equiano's autobiography in 1789, which I read multiple times for teaching purposes, left an impact on my writing, which is dotted with 'Equiano' figures ( people who moved from deprivation to the craft of writing, through cunning and an inclination for mischief mostly). Secondly, as an academic, you are exposed to theory, which can fertilised your writing and give it a 'metaphysical' content. Overexposure leads to didacticism, which I am sure my writing suffers from. As Derek Walcott says, you shouldn't "put Descartes before the horse." Most importantly, being an academic pays the bills, so whilst hunger has provoked a lot of writers, I preferred to have a house rather than a hovel. Growing up in Guyana was to exist in relative lack of material things. Many years ago I met Maya Angelou, she had kindly invited me to her house, and she had cooked a lovely Southern meal. She said: "I drive a Cadillac. I don't do bicycles, which were my youth. And I eat meat, because all I had as a child was garden vegetables'. I appreciated her extravagance, though deep down she was a kindly person, and generous. RB: You are also a politician. In 2010 you were appointed as Guyana's Ambassador in China. How have you proved yourself as a politician?DD: I don't belong to any political party in Guyana, but I enjoyed a close friendship with Cheddi and Janet Jagan. Cheddi had been cheated out of office as a result of the CIA and the British Government, in the 1960s, because he was a committed man of the left. In 1984, when I was appointed to Warwick University, I invited Cheddi to lecture there. He had no money, so the University and a travel agent friend, Vino Patel, were persuaded to provide his economy ticket and accommodation whilst at Warwick. We treated him as the true President of Guyana. All the national elections had been fiddled, and he was kept out of office for decades. Warwick offered him a platform, when other places thought of him as a 'has been'. He visited about five times, then in 1992, the Berlin Wall having fallen and the Cold war ended, the Americans allowed us to have free and fair elections, supervised by President Carter and Cheddi Jagan won and became President of Guyana. I was his regular houseguest from 1992 until 1997 when he died. He taught me more about how colonialism behaved than any textbook. He had lived through the colonial period and was jailed by the British in 1953. All his life was dedicated to the betterment of the poor: he was fiercely concerned with reducing and eliminating poverty. In return for his great hospitality, all I could do was to edit and publish some of his political speeches. He also asked me to be his Ambassador at Large and to sit on the UNESCO Executive Board representing Guyana. He had no money, since he inherited a bankrupt country in 1992, so it was an amazing honour to serve him pro bono. One day I will write something more extensive about him… one of the stories he told me was about Fidel Castro. The two of them were friends and political comrades in the late 50s and early 60s. It was Cuba who supplied us with food in the early 1960s when the CIA formented strikes and shortages in Guyana. Castro, however, needed allies in the region, against American embargo, so when Cheddi was manoeuvred out of Office, Castro started to court the friendship of our new autocratic Prime Minister, Forbes Burnham, and more or less dropped his relationship with Cheddi. I learn from this that politics trumps decency; that politicians by and large are opportunists. Learning this first hand from a great and ethical politician like Cheddi Jagan was more powerful than learning this from textbooks.As to Janet Jagan, his wife, who, when he died, was elected President in our national elections, with an enhanced vote, she was an astonishingly generous host. My role was to edit and publish her short stories for children. She was a bit lonely in Guyana, in terms of only a few people to share her passion for the arts, so whenever I showed up, a bottle of wine was uncorked, or better still, a bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream( we had a local equivalent). She too had been jailed by the British in 1953, so, again, I learnt from her intimate details of Guyana's struggle for independence, and the callousness of politicians ( Forbes Burnham had attempted to murder her in the 1964 but his bomb went off in the wrong place in the Party's Headquarters, killing a young activist instead, Michel Forde. Janet suffered from minor injuries.)As to Walter Rodney, Guyana's internationally renowned historian, assassinated by Forbes Burnham and the State apparatus in 1980( the International Commission of Enquiry into his death was issued to Guyana's Parliament last month), it was an enlightened decision on the part of the University of Warwick to set up an annual Memorial Lecture . The Walter Rodney lecture has been given, since 1985, by some of our leading Caribbean scholars, like Hilary Beckles, Carolyn Cooper, Harold Goulbourne, Michael Gilkes, Clem Seecharan, Ken Ramchand, Verene Shepherd and others.I don't think I have proved myself as a politician in any concrete way. My only possible 'political' act was, in 2012-2013 lobbying the Government of Guyana vigorously and regularly to set up an International Commission of Enquiry into the death of Walter Rodney. I took full advantage of my friendship with the then President, Donald Ramotar, who was readily sympathetic to Pat Rodney's written request for such an Inquiry( Walter's widow). As a member of the Walter Rodney Foundation's Advisory Group, I liaised with Pat Rodney and in 2013 the Government of Guyana agreed to set up the Commission. I don't think this was a 'political' act on my part, merely the obligation I felt to Walter Rodney, a fellow academic whose books were monumental. RB: How do you define politics?DD: In a small underdeveloped or developing country, politics normally is about the acquisition of power over state resources for the benefit of family and friends. Idealism goes out of the window as soon as the politician assumes Office; the struggle then is for survival and continuation of Office, so very little good gets done, political energy being spent on maintaining and expanding the arena of privilege. Exceptions are rare, people like CheddiJagan, Nelson Mandela…Cheddi was famous for his frugal lifestyle. He died intestate, owning no property. He never stole from the national treasury, rare for a politician from the developing world. Had Rodney lived, he would have been a leader of exemplary ethics. I should add my admiration for a previous, undemocratically elected President of Guyana, Desmond Hoyte, who, long before the Rio Summit and long before 'Climate Change' was topical, bequeathed a million acres of Guyana's rainforest to the Commonwealth, for the study of sustainable development (the Iwokrama Project). This was in 1989. It was an act of rare vision by a Caribbean politician. So, politicians like Hoyte might have been elected by crookery, but can prove to be significant and visionary leaders. I enjoyed cordial relations with him, when he was President (1985-1992) as well as when he was Leader of the Opposition, again based on books. We talked a lot about Egbert Martin, the first Guyanese poet and short story writer (19th century), and about the Guyana Prize for Literature which he had instituted in 1987, in the hope of bolstering the literary and intellectual life of Guyana and its Diaspora. He had a wonderful library, and he cared deeply for literary achievement. We talked little about party politics, except about the sharing of political power and the Mandela Rainbow ideal. Towards the end of his life he was all for power sharing, though he had enough integrity to worry about where oppositional ideas would come from if we were all in alliance. RB: Do your political affairs affect your creative writing?DD: There is no direct link, though I have written about the dereliction of Guyana under the autocratic rule of Forbes Burnham. My new novel-in-progress, set partly in China, is provoked by the unimaginable cruelty imposed on the people by the Emperors and their warlords. So, politics breeds in me a despair which can stimulate writing. One of the great disappointments, living in Britain, was Tony Blair's loss of idealism ( he seemed abundantly idealistic , which is why people voted him into Office in 1992) and the lies he told about Iraq's military capacity to justify a hideous and bloody invasion of Iraq. On the other hand, in Britain, there were politicians like Jo Cox, who was visionary and full of promise( she was murdered recently), and who made all of us feel hopeful and glad to be alive. If only we had a handful of such politicians in Guyana! I am privileged to enjoy a long-standing friendship with Clare Short, the former Labour politician whose heart is as big as Mount Kilimanjaro.RB: You have often depicted Guyanese characters and settings in your fiction such as Disappearance (1993), The Counting House (1996), and Our Lady of Demerara (2004). Does it mean that you still live in your past? and that you know yourself devoted to your homeland?DD: I do live in the past, in that my childhood in Guyana left indelible memories of family and friends and village landscape. Especially the creole language we spoke at home, and the creative tension with the 'proper' English we spoke at school. The slippages between the two are fascinating, with potential for comedy and pathos. The vigour of creole is always with me.Leaving Guyana as a boy was exciting (the prospect of adventure) but then proved to be lonely and hurtful, since I was never settled in England. On the one hand, England was a world of books but at the same time a world of grunting and guttural 'skinheads' daubing racist slogans on walls and threatening to assault immigrants. London has changed profoundly since the 60's and 70's, it is now a diverse space, enriched by waves of immigrants from the Commonwealth and from Europe. There is still a strong undercurrent of racial hostility, but more in the north of England, hence the recent vote to leave the European Community. Many in the north of England have not got accustomed to the loss of Empire and the new order of the free movement of goods and people. This hostility is at the ideological level, and contradictory, because on a day to day level, people are, by and large, decent to each other, irrespective of ethnicity. London is different; it is run by people of immigrant backgrounds: nurses, doctors, builders, hotel and retail staff, care workers. I am astonished at how much has changed, and I am excited to be living in London. The creative energy of the city is palpable, and the diversity of people is inspiring. I no longer feel culturally or physically threatened, as in the 1960's and 1970's. In other words, I feel London is home, but so is Guyana. I return to Guyana at least once a year, to renew my sense of the past, to be refreshed by creole language and creole ways, and to be awed and terrified by the rainforest. I also keep writing about Guyana partly out of a sense of obligation to the place. We only have a handful of writers, so I feel it is important to write about the place. Guyana came into modern being, in a sense, through literature: I am thinking specifically of Walter Raleigh's DISCOVERIE OF GUIANA (1596), the first text about us. RB: Why do you often depict historical tensions and challenge traditional cultural representations of the slave in your novels?DD: Guyanese history, in relation to contact with Europe, is stark: the decimation of indigenous people, the enslavement of Africans, the system of Indian indentureship. It is stark in terms of the immensity of suffering, and the sheer injustices of colonial rule. Yet, we became acquainted with Samuel Johnson's DICTIONARY and the magical properties of the English language; with the lyricism and storytelling of the Bible, of Shakespeare, of Victorian poetry. These new texts supplemented the ones we brought from Africa and India ( the KORAN, the RAMAYANA) . Ancient and living Carib, Arawak and other Amerindian stories fertilised the situation. We rewrote and reimagined our inheritance, hence Walcott, Naipaul, Jean Rhys, Pauline Melville, Grace Nichols, John Agard, and a host of others. I write about the injustice (historical, but also self-inflicted in our postcolonial condition) but more about the urge to creativity and expression that emerged from being on the margins; the fierce resolve to become educated, literate, creative, venturing beyond boundaries. Our postcolonial politicians may have failed us repeatedly, but I am forever astonished at how resilient Guyanese are. When I visit parts of India, parts of China, the nature of poverty there is brutal and overwhelming. We don't have that level of deprivation, because we have created the means of survival and the prospect of abundance, whether on the plate or on the page. RB: Do you believe that there is any nation on earth that enjoys true freedom and independence?DD: I don't know what true freedom or independence mean, we are all constrained and liberated and catapulted into creativity by being with each other. However, I recall what Walcott said about slavery: that the enslaved African being herded to the cane fields would have seen something sensationally beautiful along the way, given how lush Caribbean landscapes are. A hummingbird or kiskadee or blue-saki or brightly coloured viper…Walcott said that such encounters with beauty were moments of freedom which could only be partially understood, partially described, because they also contained the seeds of tragedy and terror. If you venture into Guyana's rainforest, you will experience the sublime which contain elemental terror and a tragic sense of how life is constantly being destroyed and remade and destroyed by tooth and claw.[1] Ruzbeh Babaee[2] David Dabydeen

Special Advent Issue of Volume 63 of the Review for Religious, 2004. ; .Sp~rttuality.Revtew, a supplcmcnt.of Rewew for Religious, is looki~g~i~6 facilita , , a~iitib aG oodg,. u:deia.loo~,e. within ~.,~ou"r s"elv aes~; d)ialo~e wi~th i~n:e anotbeg.~ s POpe.Paul~n Said, our ~ay, of beingchurcb # to~y the way qdialo~e. Spirituality Review, a supplement of Review for Religious, is published at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province twice a year during the Lent/Easter and Advent/Christmas seasons. Please send all correspondence to: Review for Religious; Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393 Telephone: 314-977-7363 ¯ Fax: 314-977-7362 See inside back cover for information on subscription rates to Review for Religious. Spirituality Review, a supplement of Review for Religious, is an interactive journal. We ask you, our readers, to give us your reactions and your suggestions. Please write to our address given above or fax: 314-977-7362 email us at: review@slu.edu * Web site: www.reviewforreligious.org ©2004 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material contained in this supplement issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribution, adver-tising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. S pi ituality eview Review .for Religious Supplement Editor David L. Fleming SJ Associate Editor Philip C. Fischer SJ Canonical Counsel Elizabeth McDonough OP Scripture Scope Eugene Hensell OSB Editorial Staff Mary Ann Foppe TracT Gramm Judy Sharp Webmaster Clare Boehmer ASC ~amer SM '-Iughes RSCJ Larkin OCarm .amgela Menard ry Steib SVD L~keritis CSJ ADVENT CHRISTMAS 2004 contents tracings reaching out Saint It! D.M. Flynn offers an overview of saints throughout history that challenges us to recognize the saints around us and to model saintliness for others. Reflection 13 expecting in hope l~ Imaging Isaiah David L. Fleming SJ suggests we meet the prophet Isaiah for his guidance through Advent. Prayer and Reflection Questions 17 remembering ~ Dismas's Dying Moments: Reflections on "Palpable Grace" Robert P. Maloney CM employs a type of lectio divina on the Lucan story of the "good thief" in order to offer some reflections on palpable grace. Prayer 23 expanding our world My Associates Robert North SJ enlarges our prayer by his suggestion of including "my associates," and he further explains the extent of this term. Prayer and Reflection Question SpiHt~ality Review ~.~,o mcmaea as a bonus A Spirituality fo: . orary Life:The Jesuit Heritage TodaCyo)n .t.e.m. p_ Prisms for a Christ-Life .@. .$1 Notes on the Spiritual Exercises @ God has imprinted upon all created things his traces, trail, or footsteps, so that the knowledge we have of his divine Majesty through created things seems nothing other than the sight of the feet of God. St. Francis de Sales Asking for help does not come easy for many adults. They mistakenly think that all mature persons (like themselves!) have all the resources they need. At the other extreme, there are peo-ple who are quick to condemn anyone who does not ask for help: "They are trying to be like a god, self-sufficient and not needing others." Yet our Christian understanding is that God, incarnate in Jesus, is one who asks for our help. In the New Testament, we see that Jesus sought out apostles and disciples and shared his mis-sion about the reign of God with them. Jesus was acting in continuity with God working with the Hebrew patriarchs Abraham and Moses and the kings David and Solomon and the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah. God is always reaching out and asking for our human help. This familiar thought expresses a deep truth: "God has no tracings Advent/Christntas 2004 Tracings hands but our hands, no other feet but our feet." That is the ordinary way that God reaches out to help others. The Christian belief in the communion of saints is based on our faith that God works with and through us to bring about the reign of God. We all are meant to help one another--those of us living now and those who have preceded us--and that is why we are the "commu-nion of saints." In our daily way of praying, we ask our brothers and sisters--canonized saints (especially our favorite ones) and family members, friends, teachers, and counselors (most of whom will never be officially rec-ognized as saints but helpful to us all the same)--for their support and intercessory aid as we travel our own life pilgrimage. Every Eucharist we celebrate brings home to us how we live as a faith community of sisters and brothers willing to ask for help, to provide help, and to receive the help that is offered. Asking for help is how we grow into being the body of Christ. Asking for help is how we grow in being like God. As editor, I want to thank our readers for helping us to improve this journal, Review for Religious. This Spirituality Review is the last regular supplement issue because it has served its purpose of getting feedback from you, our readers, through postcards and emails, about format and interactive-style changes that we will be including in Review for Religious. In the first issue of 2005, you will notice these adaptations. Spirituality Review facilitated the making of prudent changes in a revered and respected international journal sixty-plus years old. We are grateful for your help, and we hope that you will continue to find the pages of Review for Religious personally and apostolically enriching. David L. Fleming SJ Spirituality Review D.M. FLYNN Saint It! Every family has them. There are stories about the relative dubbed Daddy Fix-It. Without for-mal training he could repair anything from the children's toys to the family washing machine. Anecdotes about Nana are hardly lacking either. A European immigrant, she never mastered the complexities of English, but her family feasts surpassed the efforts of every gourmet chef in town. Then there are the tales of the frugal aunt and uncle who raised ten children. They sold their empty nest to buy an RV (recreational vehi-cle), then spent their wisdom years traveling around the country visiting family and friends. Yes, every family has them: the heroes who have gone on before us while their legends live on. Family members spend many enjoyable hours poring over photo albums and recalling such tales. These stories inspire us and help to shape our family heritage. In our increasingly D.M. Flynn, who wrote about Gregorian chant for us in 1999, may be addressed at 119 Royal Gardens Way; Brockport, New York 14420. reaching out ddvent/Cbristmas 2004 Flynn ¯ Saint I!! mobile society, they not only influence our identities, they impart a sense of unity. Perhaps that explains the popularity of genealogy in recent years. As our kinfolk uproot and transplant themselves, we feel the need to maintain our family tree. We seek roots in every sense of the word. Our Catholic family also has its heroes and their leg-ends: we call them saints. Their stories inspire us and shape our Catholic heritage. These tales testify to the kinds of lives that are appropriate for God's holy peo-ple. Our lineage spans thousands of years, making it impossible to trace all of it--not here, not ever. But the following pages give us a glimpse of our Judeo-Christian family album. Saints: Set Apart To the average Catholic, the word saint refers to deceased persons whom the church has officially canon-ized for their lives of service to God and their neigh-bors. But the canon--or list--of saints could not possibly include everyone who lived a life of virtue. Moreover, the definition of saint has evolved over the centuries. The word translated as saint from both Hebrew and Greek originally referred to gods, beings "set apart." The ancient Israelites viewed God as transcending his creation and therefore worthy of worship. They believed that God alone was "holy, sanctus," set apart ("sanctuar-ied"), distinct, unique. "Holiness" set God apart from the profane, the ordinary: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts" (Is 6:3). When God entered into a covenant with the Israelites, they were set apart from the other nations. "You are a people sacred to the Lord, your God; he has chosen you from all the nations on the face of the earth to be a people peculiarly his own" (Dt 7:6). With this Spirituality Review privilege comes a responsibility: "Be holy, for I, the Lord, your God, am holy" (Lv 19:2). Now the Israelites are God's chosen ones, a "holy people," or "saints," who are called to imitate the divine attributes. In the New Testament, the apostle Paul refers to the early Christians as saints because, as a community, they were set apart from their nonbelieving neighbors. The Christians were now God's own people, "the holy ones in Christ Jesus" (Ph 1:1). They, too, bear the task of emulating the Divine: "Put on the new self, created in God's way in Can we Use saint , to refer toChristians who lived exemplary lives ' of irtue and simplicity? righteousness and holiness of truth" (Ep 4:24). Eventually the term saint referred to Christians who lived exem-plary lives of virtue and simplicity, whose lifestyles served to inspire others. Christians at the Catacombs A cross-stitch sampler reads, "When someone you love becomes a memory, that memory becomes a trea-sure." As we peruse our family albums, we inevitably find the last photo taken of loved ones whose earthly lives are now memories. By visiting their graves and decorating the gravesites, we show that we treasure those memories. The ancient Israelites regarded death as the passage from life to Sheol (she-OHL), a dark place of confine-ment, but not one of punishment. In Sheol one was estranged from God: "Who among the dead remembers you? Who praises you in Sheol?" (Ps 6:6). From the moment of death, there were displays of grief, shown in clothing and in loud laments, wailing, and weeping. Advent/Christmas 2004 Flynn ¯ Saintlt.t Proper burial was required. To leave a body "for the birds of the air and the beasts of the field" (1 S 14:44) was an insult to God's creation. Poor people were buried in common graveyards. The wealthy had vaults dug into the hillsides. The entryway was closed with a circular stone slab. Families might have several interconnected rooms. Bodies were laid on shelves carved out for that purpose. The Jewish Christians also, of course, honored the memory of their loved ones. At first they simply con-tinued their Jewish practices, burying their dead amid laments and dirges. The resurrection of Jesus, however, changed their mourning into joy: "We do not want you to be unaware about those who have fallen asleep, so that you may not grieve like the rest, who have no hope" (1 Th 4:13). These new Christians, then, regarded the graves of their loved ones as a temporary resting place, not a final one. The word cemetery comes from a Greek word meaning dormitory, sleeping room. Christian burial customs continued to reflect the Jewish emphasis c~f respect for the body as God's cre-ation. To this end, Christians choose modest ground burial in common graveyards. During the 2nd and 3rd centuries, Christians made an effort to identify the graves of martyrs. They viewed death as a birthday: birth of a new life with God, as Jesus had promised. They occa-sionally gathered at these sites on the anniversaries of the martyrs' deaths to rejoice and commemorate their lives. In the 3rd century, Christians were buried in the cat-acombs, which were probably extensions of the hillside vaults of the wealthy. The catacombs were not used as a refuge for Christians during times of persecution. In the 4th cen .tury, however, they too were the site of memorial services. Here they celebrated the Eucharist "in memory Spirituality Review of those athletes who have gone before, and to train and make ready those who are to come hereafter."' Local Calendars and Canonization As we turn the pages in our family album, we come upon photographs of those who sacrificed their lives in the service of others--a widower uncle who refused to place his handicapped child in an institution despite pres-sure from doctors and family; an aunt who renounced marriage and children in order to care for her aging par-ents. They may not have died for their cause, but they laid down their lives nonetheless. To the Jewish community, a martyr was someone who was deeply devoted to God and lived life of exemplary piety and holiness. The martyr, or "witness," testi-fied to the manner of life appropriate for God's cho-sen people. To the new Christians a martyr was one who endured, not for the faith, but because of it. Faith allowed one to be "strengthened with every power, in accord with Mat does it'.mean .to'say a ,matyrr : one who endured; ,not for, the fai h, but ecause:ff it? [God's] glorious might, for all endurance and patience, with joy giving thanks to the Father, who has made you fit to share in the inheritance of the holy ones in light" (Col 1:11-12). The Book of Revelation refers to martyrs as those who gave their life for Jesus Christ. In later cen-turies martyrs came to mean those who willingly died for their beliefs. Christians faced persecutions until the peace of Constantine in the early 4th century. Recalling the acts of the martyrs served to inspire the .community in the Advent/Christmas 2004 Flynn ¯ Saint lt.t face of opposition. Each church had its own list of local heroes or saints. As intolerance subsided, martyrdom became uncommon. Christians now looked for new heroes to emulate. People who led extremely virtuous lives, especially those who lived in voluntary poverty, were included in the local calendar of saints. There were no formal criteria for sainthood: the devotion of the community was the sole requirement to set them apart. Over the centuries the lists of saints swelled and abuses occurred. Family legends often become exagger-ated as time passes; the sagas of the saints suffered the same fate. Consequently, the bishops began to set norms for calling people saints within their dioceses. In 1234 Pope Gregory IX declared that the sole route to official sainthood was papal canonization. Formal canonization has seen many changes since then. The most recent revi-sion came in 1983, but the devotion of the community is still an essential element. The lengthy and complex pro-cess begins when one or more persons submit a request to the bishop to examine the life of a deceased hero. All the Saints Sometimes, as we look through our family pho-tographs, we are surprised to discover an uneven repre-sentation of our relatives. Some people appear in almost every picture while others appear only rarely. Vghatever the reason for this, as families grow it becomes increas-ingly difficult to photograph the entire clan. Similarly, as our family of saints grew larger in num-ber than the days in a year, it became impossible to assign a specific day to honor each saint. The obvious solution was to select a day to honor all the saints, known and unknown, who did not have a personal feast day. Various places chose different days for this. November 1, the first day of Celtic winter, was the feast of all the saints in Spirituality Review Ireland. It was not until the 9th century that November 1 became the feast of All Saints for the entire church. While we celebrate the memory of all saints, we adore God alone. We pray to the saints to intercede with God for us. We venerate saints; we worship God alone. The distinction may be subtle, but it is significant. As Lawrence Cunningham observed, the saints "give us the encouragement to be more self-giving, more loving, less inclined to hate, more compelled to love. They invite us, in short, to transcend ourselves.''2 The Solemnity of All Saints is a day to honor those saints whom the Church formally recognizes for their lives of service to God and their neighbors. It is also a day when we can remember our loved ones who have gone before us and left memories to inspire us. It is a day when we can notice the goodness of people still among us, living relatives and friends who challenge us to be the person God calls us to be. At baptism each one of us was set apart for God. We became members of "'a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own, so that you may announce the praises' of him who called you out of dark-ness into his wonderful light" (1 P 2:9). Through baptism God lays claim to us, enabling us to become divine instru-ments. Whatever our situation in life, we are to imitate the divine attributes, to live virtuous lives, and to bear wit-ness to the way of life appropriate for God's holy people. The following stanza rarely appears in our hymnals despite its powerful imagery: For martyrs, who with rapture-kindled eye saw the bright crown descending from the sky and, seeing, grasped it, Thee we glorify.3 We, too, must grasp the crown, not necessarily by dying for our faith, but rather by persevering as witnesses who, through faith, live as God's image and likeness. Now it is /ldvent/Cbristmas 2004 Flynn ¯ Saintlt! our turn to be heroes and heroines for others, to "saint it," to act like saints. Our lives will then inspire a future gen-eration of saints and help to shape their Catholic heritage. Notes i From "The Martyrdom of Polycarp," 2rid century. 2 Lawrence S. Cunningham, The Meaning of the Saints (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1980), p. 162. 3 Marilyn Kay Stulken and Catherine Salika, Hymnal Companion to VVorsbip, 3rd ed. (Chicago: GIA Publications, 1998), p. 416. Reflection Reflect on/share your 'experience of the homespun sampler that says: "When someone you love becomes a memory, the memory becomes a treasure." Spirituality Review DAVID L. FLEMING Imaging Isaiah Readings from the book of the prophet Isaiah are used for more than half of all the Advent Masses. The Liturgy of the Hours for this liturgical season, too, depends frequently on a first reading from Isaiah. Who is this man Isaiah? Why has the church chosen him to lead us through Advent? I believe that if we will make use of an imaginative way of praying we will be graced by God to have a richer appreciation of our Christian Advent. Let us ask, then, for an encounter with this prophet of God, one specially chosen to help us "wait." We are on a country road, and Isaiah is walking towards us. He seems to have a face that people say is "typical"-- that is, a typical Judean face. He, an eighth-century man of Judah, appears to be a man of experience--average height and build, seemingly in good health, with the lines of aging already visible around his eyes and across his David L. Fleming SJ is editor of this journal. He may be addressed at 3601 Lindell Boulevard; St, Louis, Missouri 63108. expecting in hope Advent/Christmas 2004 Fleming ¯ Imaging Isaiah forehead. At the same time, his eyes, bright and steady in their gaze, seem younger than his face and body; they are dark and serious,-strong, and unflinching. He has a studious air about him, like a longtime, somewhat rumpled, university professor we can feel at home with. He speaks quietly, but with authority. There is a certain cadence in his speech, a bit like listening to a poet give a dramatic reading of his own poetry. And so he begins to share some of his own story with us. We listen. I am a typical Jewish man, married, with a family. But I know that I am not typical in the way that I experience how God works in my life. Let me say straightway that God is God, there is no Other, and God is the God of my whole life. I am now working with my fourth king here in Judah; kings have come and gone in my forty~year experience, but God always remains. He stays with me, with us, his people. From my very first extraord!nary experience of God reaching into my life, God for me has always been the "Holy One of Israel." Sure, I have felt the warm reality of God's love, the intimacy of his call, that first time almost sounding like a plea, "Whom shall I send?" With the boldness of my youthful faith, I had no hesitation in speaking up and saying, "Here I am, Lord, send me." But, above all, my experience of God is that God is awe-ful, God is holy--really "other" than us. We humans are not very good in letting God be God in our lives. We do not like the awe-ful, the totally Other, the mysterious One. We still prefer making God like ourselves, and we find it very hard to allow God to make us like him. That pretty well sums up what I have had to say to my people and to kings for forty years. I see human pridebour self-indulgence and even our indifference to those in need--writ large in our nation of Judah. Yet Judah is "my people" and Jerusalem is the holy city. So it is hard for me to cry out and condemn, but what Spirituality Review can I do? The words are not mine, but God's word. God could raise up an ass to do as much as I do. Some people call me that anyway, and on my good days I take it as a compliment. You see, God is God, and from a weak and insignificant remnant of a people God will raise up a king from David's line just as he promised. We are called to trust. The Lord is the faithful One--faithful to his promises--and where else but from the Lord will we find a rule of peace and justice and a real family of humankind? I have seen quite a few kings--my hope lies not in them. My hope is always in my God, working with us now and moving with us always to a future that is in his hands. In our good times and in our busy moments, we forget or ignore God. In our hard times, we complain against our God, and we say that we cannot trust him. With all our ups and downs as a people, our moments of pride and then our times of discouragement and destitution, I feel that I must say two things at once. God wants to use me to console, not to punish. Our faith needs to feel strengthened, and not face further trial or reprimand. We need to grow in our trust of God. God says that through me; God also acts this out--for me and for my people, his people. The kingdom of God is at hand, and the poor and the lowly-- just how we feel now--are the very ones who find their home within it. So I image God's word like a two-edged sword. It cuts into our pride, our vanity, and our callous injustice to the poor; but it also heals with its searing blade, and it provides strength and protection. Advent/Christnlas 2004 Fleming ¯ Imaging Isaiah This is my experience of being God's prophet. This is the way that I live my call from God, listening to his word. I am trying to live this vocation faithfully. As I continue to respond to God's word, I feel myself always being challenged to grow in my trust of the Lord. Maybe being God's prophet is really not so extraordinary an experience. We all have to be faithful to our vocations, don't we? And that requires a continuing interplay of listening and responding. Of course, this way of living demands an ever greater trust in God for all .:of us, Living with God is such an advent experience-- always awaiting God's coming, in a spirit of trust. Prayer To continue the conversation with Isaiah and with God, we might open our Bible to Isaiah, chapter 43. Perhaps this passage will call forth in us our own encounter with Isaiah and/or God. Perhaps there will be little conversation, and instead just being with each other and thinking similar thoughts. And then we might remain with whatever phrase or sentence captures our heart, like the refrain of a song that keeps coming backer is it us coming back to it? Who is waiting for whom? Reflection Questions How have we experienced Isaiah providing a doorway for us into our Advent season? Does our listening and responding to God increase out trust in God leading us on in our vocation? Spirituality Review ROBERT P. MALONEY Dismas's Dying Moments: Reflections on "Palpable Grace" All four Gospels paint the same stark picture of Jesus' death: he dies crucified between two criminals, one on his right and one on his left. But, whereas Mark, Matthew, and John say almost nothing about the two criminals, Luke gives them speaking roles in a dramatic episode. In fact, this scene is the longest and most important Lucan difference in the crucifixion story. We usually refer to its main character as "the good thief," though Luke calls him neither "good" nor a "thief." While Mark and Matthew describe both men crucified with Jesus as "bandits," Luke simply refers to them as "wrongdoers," perhaps because, as the evangelist who most emphasizes gentleness, he wants to avoid placing Jesus in violent company at his death. Robert P. Maloney CM, superior general emeritus of the Congregation of the Mission, continues to write from Via dei Capasso, 30; 00164 Roma; Italy. remembering Advent/Christmas 2004 Maloney ¯ Dismas's Dying Moments Later tradition gave various names to both wrongdoers 0oathas and Maggatras, Zoatham and Camma, Titus and Dumachus, Dismas and Gestas), Most of these names are forgotten today, but some readers may still recall the good thief as Dismas. Under that name the Roman liturgical calendar assigned him a feast day, 25 March, once regarded as the day of Jesus' crucifixion, but now celebrated as the feast of his incarnation. A charming legend found in an apocryphal gospel relates that, when the Holy Family went down into Egypt, two robbers set upon them. One, however, halted immediately when he saw the tears that welled up in Mary's eyes. It was these same robbers (now caught plying their trade in Jerusalem)--so the story goes--who were crucified with Jesus. The one moved by Mary's tears was the good thief at Jesus' right. But the Gospels are silent about the wrongdoers' past history and personal lives. At first reading, the dialogue in Luke seems simple and direct, but in fact it is filled with subtle undertones. One of the wrongdoers, the evangelist states, joins his voice with those blaspheming Jesus: "Aren't you the Messiah? Then save yourself and us." But the "other wrongdoer" (Luke never calls him anything else) rebukes his companion: "Have you no fear of God, seeing that you are under the same sentence? We deserve it, after all. We are only paying the price for what we have done, but this man has done nothing wrong." Notice that in this Lucan scene the good thief is the witness to Jesus' innocence. Later a second witness, the centurion, will confirm the good thief's judgment, testifying "Surely this was an innocent man" (Lk 23:47). Now the drama heightens as the good thief speaks directly to the crucified Lord: "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." "Jesus"! This form of address is stunning in its intimacy. Nowhere else in Spirituality Review the four Gospels does anyone address Jesus simply by his given name without any reverential qualification. Luke's artistic touch conveys the genuineness of the wrongdoer's request. But note the irony too. For Luke, the first person with the confidence to speak so familiarly with the Lord is a convicted criminal--and he is also the last person to speak with him. He phrases his plea as remembrance, a favorite Lucan idea that is also found on ancient Jewish gravestones: "Remember me." Against all ordinary probability, this wrongdoer, hearing Jesus mocked as "king of the Jews" and sensing that an injustice is being done, believes that Jesus really will rule over a kingdom and humbly asks to be remembered. Jesus responds with an "amen saying," the only use of this solemn form in Luke's passion narrative and also its sixth and final use in his Gospel. Here the solemn formula bestows the gift of God's forgiveness. Jesus' assurance goes beyond anything that the wrongdoer (or the reader) might have anticipated: "Amen, I say to you, this day you shall be with me in paradise." Much more is granted than was asked. The response includes not just forgiveness but intimacy: you shall be with me. The good thief will, in Jesus' company, enjoy the fullness of happiness with God. Let me offer two brief reflections on this wonderful Lucan story. 1. We believe that grace is a pure gift. God bestows it freely and abundantly. We do not earn it; we only respond to it. On the deepest level, grace is God's presence, God's offer of personal love and self-communication. The gift is the giver. God touches our hearts and stirs up, even creates, a response within us. But it is important to note that this gift is not merely an unseen reality; it also comes in palpable forms. The Gospels remind us of this again and again. For the good Advent/Christmas 2004 Maloney ¯ Dismas's Dying Moments How understand "Jesus" grace, thief in Luke's story, Jesus is grace. One can almost imagine this "other wrongdoer" studying Jesus and slowly arriving at the conclusion that the man beside him is not only innocent of a capital crime but genuinely good, In fact--this little detail often goes unnoticed-- Luke gives the good thief more time to observe Jesus than any of the other evangelists, for in his Gospel (different from Mark, Matthew, and John) the two wrongdoers walk the entire way of the cross with Jesus before dying with him (Lk 23:32). The goodness he sees in the person of Jesus touches the good thief's heart and evokes a response: "Jesus, remember me." Is that not how grace often works? It enters our lives through the faithful witness of others (like our parents, or a self-giving servant of the poor, or a sick person who bears illness with courageous faith) or through a saint's life or a martyr's death that we read about. The signs of God's love--what we call "grace"--are visible all around us. What is remarkable in the good thief is that he does not turn in on himself in the desperately grim moments when his life was draining away. Instead of sinking into depression or despair, he sees goodness itself in the person of Jesus and utters a hopeful plea: "Jesus, remember me." He sees grace personified and responds. 2. There is something remarkably humble in this "other wrongdoer." Unlike his companion, he recognizes the truth of his own situation. His sober analysis was, I suspect, shocking both for the first wrongdoer and for the bystanders: "We have been condemned jusdy. We are only paying the price for what we have done, but this man has done nothing wrong." Spirituality Review Thomas Merton once wrote, "We make ourselves real by telling the truth." Truth lies at the core of our being, straining to emerge. When we express the truth, we begin to build our true self. So it was for the good thief. Drawn by the innocence and goodness of the Lord, he recognized his own emptiness and, precisely in doing so, was able to see, hear, receive, and be filled. There is a humble and at the same time affectionate ring in the good thief's plea, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." And Jesus' warm response is another Lucan testimony that the humble are exalted: "Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise." As Jesus often 'reminded his followers, to the humble all good can come, whereas the proud always remain empty. In a time when there is so much war, so much terrorism, so much hunger, so much disease, and so much senseless death, Luke's account encourages us to see, along with the good thief, the abundant signs of God's gracious love, even in the midst of suffering. Luke urges us to stand before the Lord and before each other with great trut-hfulness and humility. Humility will enable us to see our companions on the journey as grace in our lives, visible signs of God's presence and love. As he approached the place of crucifixion, the good thief must surely have felt that this was his darkest hour. But light shone for him in that darkness because, with the Lord, "darkness itself is not dark anti night shines as the day" (Ps 139:12). Prayer We might enter into Dismas's experience by listening to Advent/Christmas 2004 Maloney ¯ Dismas's Dying Moments the Taiz~ hymn "Jesus remember me," with its repeated refrain: "Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom. Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom." O dying souls, behold your living spring: O dazzled eyes, behold your son of grace; Dull ears, attend what word this word doth bring: Up heavy hearts: with joy your joy embrace. From death, from dark, from deafness, from despairs: This life, this light, this word, this joy repairs: Gift better than himself God doth not know: Gift better than his God, no man can see: This gift doth here the giver given bestow: Gift to this gift let each receiver be. God is my gift, himself he freely gave me: God's gift am I, and none but God shall have me. --St. Robert So.uthwell Spirituality Review ROBERT NORTH My Associates Spirituality guides propose that to fill blanks or weariness in our prayer we readily have "recourse to familiar ejaculations like "Lord, have mercy on me a sinner," "Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening," or "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life." These help us to make our prayer legitir~ate!y.~e!.(Tce!3.t~-ed, aiming to make us more Christlike. But a dif-ferent legitimate focus of prayer aims at God's creative and caring concerns more directly than our own. We propose here an ejaculation less simple and familiar but more suited to this focus: "Son of God, help me to do my part in fulfilling your creation plan for myself, my associates, and the whole universe." The invocation "Lord" may mean either God or Jesus, but the equivalent "Son of God" evokes Robert North SJ writes us an article for the first time since 1944, when he wrote "Scripture in the Christmas Liturgy" during this journal's infancy--and only a year after Divino afflante Spiritu. His address is Jesuit Community; 10100 West Bluemound Road; Wauwatosa, Wisconsin 53226. expanding our world Advent/Christmas 2004 North * My Associates our chief doctrines, the Trinity and the incarnation, as the basis of our faith and prayer. But another key term follows: "my associates." It evokes the vastness of God's creative concerns in their relation to me. "My associates"--whether used in silent prayer or expressed publicly--doubtless usually suggests my fam-ily and friends, my business associates, and members of my community or parish or neighborhood. The term "associates" is also likely to include religious authori-ties- the pope, the bishop, other bishops worldwide, the world's Catholics--with the faintest hint of omitting or forgetting other Christians or people of no belief in any God at all. Such a hint is hopefully gradually vanishing in our ecumenical age, as we take cautious steps to share the aim of several world-renowned prayer sessions of Pope John Paul II with other believers in a God even with a different name or attributes. Our progress along these lines is strengthened rather than diminished by the pope's per-sistent promotion of this project in spite of vocal and well-publicized opposition from some top Vatican prelates. God's Own Religious Associatesmand Ours Our church does indeed admit and even sometimes pronounce emphatically that our creating and caring God "willed" (can this mean less than "intended"?) the salvation of all humans, "them" no less than "us." This has been often or generally taken to mean that God wishes all humans to be members of his one church, thus giving a strong urge to missionary activity. In the early years of a developing Bible-based theol-ogy, the church became the official religion of the Roman Empire, then dominating virtually the whole world. Thus there seemed nothing quixotic in hoping and making efforts toward "conversion" of those scarcely known or Spirituality Review suspected fringe tribes outside the Mediterranean world. But the world we know today, still incompletely and pro-gressively, is of course a vastly different story. A great many of today's conversions by the received methods are in the parts of Africa or Asia whose exis-tence had never even been suspected in the Roman world. But other regions, especially those incorporated into Islam, raise a great outcry against "proselytizing," and even forbid it by law as a political maneuver. Partly to escape such laws, but more because of their own growing ecumenical con-victions, some--far from all--of the well-estab-lished Catholic "missions" proclaim firmly that their goal is not conversion but "mutual understandingF."rom Catholic theology and traditions their effort is to recognize with sympathy how the creating and caring God has enabled all peoples to get some inadequate notions of him under different names and attributes oi" even with distressing notions of (human) sacrifice or other religious obligations. Not only Catholics but also prosperous Evangelical missions hope that a dialogue will thus develop, so that each side will see some merit in the other or some lim-ited revelation of himself by God in inscrutable ways he has chosen. From such open-minded dialogue, some few or many may freely and honestly choose Christianity. This hope may be unduly optimistic, especially in view of how Christian success has historically been imposed by warlords, though not to the grim and now soft-pedaled extent of moderate Islam. But frankly proselytizing efforts like "Bibles for (communist) Russia" or "Jews for Advent/Cbrispmas 2004 North * My Associates Jesus" inevitably arouse a self-defeating hostility. Religion must adapt to culture patterns. Slavery is now con-demned, and what was called "usury" is now widespread under various names. Today's goal is ecumenism. God's Associatesmand Oursm in Starving Africa and Asia Prominent among one's associates are those whom one must feed. Not only nursing mothers but also wage earners of large families quite naturally feel a special responsibility to their children and aged relatives who depend entirely on them for keeping alive. Some few of these for various reasons may not even be relatives, though usually they are already "associates." But many of the world's people have only their creat-ing and caring God to save them from starvation, despite the help they may receive from charitable organizations whose members may well regard them as "associates." If in our prayers we think it right to focus on God's interests as equal or even prior to our own, we should include among our own "associates" these starvelings who depend on us (the overaffluent rest of the world). But wait! There is a danger that we may feel that in praying for these "associates" we have discharged our obligation toward them, like the New Testament person who virtuously says to a beggar, "Go in peace; be warmed and filled" (Jm 2:16). We may be reassured that our prayer is not an empty or hypocritical gesture if we also make a regular contribution. But the real-world situa-tion is far more complex. The clamorous problem is that a small percent of the world's population owns most of its resources. They are needlessly rich, while the others are too poor--living below what statisticians of even the richest nations cal-culate and publish as "poverty level." And of course we Spirituality Review all know, even perhaps a bit complacently or thankfully to God, that our own too rich standard of living is at or near the highest in the world. "On the average," we must add, for the thousands of our citizens who must sleep on the cold streets or survive on handouts and soup kitchens make our disproportion even worse. We are not asking whose fault this is. No one's, really. A combination of circumstances over centuries: vast national and individual landholdings, brave pioneers who transformed the untilled territories of aboriginal nomad tribes into richly yielding farms, and "democracy," which with all its merits gets lawmakers to give a higher prior-ity to contenting their constituencies ("pork-barrel" deals, lobbies, sometimes actual graft, and so forth) than to world justice. A sensible redistribution (even if far from equality) would demand that legislators and voters rec-ognize that, for one pan of the scale to go down, the other must be more or less empty. Even our meritorious farm-ers and expensively trained pharmaceutical biochemists must not only tolerate but demand that their excesses be cut to help (even if only slightly) the truly intolerable position of most of the world. This is not to suggest that there be another (rash and counterproductive) political lobby, but rather a reasoning dialogue among holders of power. Something like this should be the object of our prayers for poverty-stricken associates. Such prayers can be honest and effective, not hypocritical (as pilloried in the letter of James), even though we do not consider the situation appropriate or ourselves competent to warrant "meddling in politics." Our "Planet Earth" Associates Though "the whole universe" is a separate focus of God's creative concern,, there is an aspect of it involving AdventlChristntas 2004 North ¯ My Associates "my associates." The Earth is truly "ours," though only a planet of a galaxy so small that it is scarcely noticeable in the vast sky maps shown in the latest telescopes. Yet our own material bodies are constituted of infinitesimal particles whizzing in and out from the farthest star. Of St. Ignatius Loyola a poet wrote, "His vigil was with the stars; his eyes were bright with radiance of them." Long before him Christians and others had gazed at the How do wefeel about the convictions.ofan Earth-centered universe:? stars with a mystic fas-cination, sometimes as the very "heaven" in which God was believed to dwell. Yet through all those centuries the star-studded sky was known only about as much as could be seen on the ceiling of a planetarium, and the Earth was thought to be the center which gave function to all the rest. Ignatius wrote in the "Foundation" of his Exercises that everything that exists is for me. This is not just lib-erality but a challenge and a test: to be used only as things help to the goal of my creation. Technology and inven-tions provide now a far greater and more tempting range of options, and the universe known to science today is vastly greater. Some devout science-minded Christians find this to confirm rather than lessen their faith: "More is better! If the immensity of reality known to antiquity showed forth the greatness and generosity of its Creator, this is now proved a trillion times more firmly." But others feel that Isaiah 45:18 must now be under-stood in an entirely new way: "the creator of the uni-verse., who formed the earth and made it. did not create a chaos, but formed it to be inhabited." Why should God have chosen to produce the sterile varieties Spirituality Review known to astronomy if his real goal was the tiny pin-point of it fit for human habitation? We cannot claim to intuit or know God's intentions: "my ways are not your ways" (Is 55:8). But surely all progress of science and theology too has been due to people reflecting on vari-ous possible intentions of the mysterious data of experi-ence. We can pray that we may do our part in the fulfillment of God's creation plan. Though the conviction of an Earth-centered uni-verse is today derided, we should not sell the idea short. Even the most demythologizing astrophysicists agree that our own Earth is unique in its formation through billions of years by explosions and floods implausible for their gradual releasing, from various locations in the whole universe as much as four million years ago, gaseous and solid elements indispensable for the human life which appeared shortly after. Of course, scientists still earnestly searching may yet find evidence that other stellar bodies by quite different explosions are in process of forming a surface capable of supporting human or humanlike life. But they and the general public are much more arrested by the question of whether human or any true "life" actually exists on another planet. Even before the recent exciting com-munications from Mars, the Vatican Jesuit astronomer Guy Consolmagno wrote that materials from Mars, though not life itself, were microbe combinations of the kind which on our earth eventually hooked up with car-bon to form primitive life-forms. Later he wrote the arti-cle "Could I baptize a Martian?" Our church has in fact been open and keen on whether there could be humanlike life on other planets. With sci-ence she recognizes that evidence for this is at most a remote possibility, but not altogether excluded. These merely possible beings would fall into the class of "asso- Advent/Christmas 2004 North ¯ My Associates ciates" for whom we should pray as objects of God's own creative concern. If indeed they were (evolutively) cre-ated, then they form part of God's desire and intention that they should share in salvation, even if they have not (yet) been baptized members of the Christian church. Union Replacing Divisiveness This widening of the concept of "my associates" has been developed in accord with modern scientific revi-sions of geography, economics, and astronomy. But its true merit for our prayer lies in recognizing the spiritual value of seeking a greater union among the peoples amid whom we live. "No peace among nations without peace among religions," it has been said. Hope of real peace and union among all humans may be realistically unlikely and nevertheless a valid goal--God's own creative caring goal--toward which our prayer may be directed. A Prayer When I think of you, Lord, I cannot say whether I find you more in this place or that place--whether I am contemplating you or whether I am suffering--whether I rue my faults or find union-- whether it is you I love or the whole sum of others. Every affection, every desire, every possession, every light, every depth, every harmony, and every ardor glitters with equal brilliance, at one and the same time, in the inexpressible relationship that is being set up between me and you: Jesus! Pierre Teilhard de Chardin "The Mystical Milieu" Writings in Time of War Reflection Question What has been my experience of praying for others? 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