Hay Festival 2012: "Revolutions in the Arab World" and nun turned ELN guerrilla Leonor Esguerra

"This is still the Arab winter."
Revolutions in the Arab World

On Thursday 26 January at 3:30 in the Salón Rey of the Santo Domingo convent in Cartagena, panellists Lebanese poet and journalist Joumana Haddad; Venezuelan Alejandro Padrón, ambassador to Libya from 2000 to 2002, and author of the book Yo fui ambajador de Chávez (I Was Chávez's Amabssador); and Egyptian Khalid al-Berry, BBC journalist and medical doctor, participated in a discussion moderated by Sergio Dahber on the subject of "Revolutions in the Arab World."

Former Venezuela Ambassador Alejandro Padrón considers that the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi was a gradual process, the result of repression, corruption, terror. He said that the revolution in Libya was the consequence of the emerging middle class demanding employment and political participation, more than being an uprising of the lower classes. Padrón considers that the West is hypocritical to maintain trade relations with dictators, but when questioned by a member of the audience he did not see any contradiction in the fact that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez maintained relations with Gaddafi's regime, explaining that these were for military and financial cooperation. Other than that, Padrón wanted to talk about himself, how he became ambassador, how other international diplomatic corps representatives were jealous of him because he was actually granted audiences with Gaddafi.

Khalid Al-Berry said that the uprisings in the Arab world took him by surprise. Previously he had felt that Islamism was the only viable option for Egypt and in his youth he had been involved in an Islamic movement, from which he has since distanced himself. He expressed concern that although a revolution has happened, no preparations are in place for what will come next.

Joumana Haddad was the most insightful of the three speakers. She commented on the uprisings in terms of their significance for women, and her view was pessimistic. In Haddad's words, "This is still the Arab winter." She does not consider that the Arab Spring has arrived because dictatorships are being traded for religious extremism. She noted that women do not appear to have a role or representation in this new order, and suggested that another 20 to 25 years might be needed before change evolves in the Arab world so that women are viewed as equal citizens. "When will the bomb of Arab women explode?" she asked. "Women need to be selfish," she added, they need to say, "I have rights too. My dignity needs to be respected. I have a role in the new order, because otherwise, no one is going to give them this respect and uphold their rights." Both she and al-Berry consider that the roots of revolution must come from within, as opposed to being modeled on the West.

Overall this conference did not go far toward shedding much light on the forces that drove the Arab uprisings that began a year ago, nor did it make any suggestions about what sort of political systems, social order, and living conditions that might result from these revolutions, nor their durability. Religion, in particular the Muslim Brotherhood, is playing a significant role in this new world order. What sort of relations will be brokered with the Western world remains to be seen.



The Seduction of Danger
On Thursday 26 January at 7:30 at the Hotel Santa Clara in Cartagena, former nun turned ELN guerrilla Leonor Esguerra spoke to journalist Marta Ruiz.

I was excited at the prospect of hearing Leonor Esguerra speak. A former nun, Esguerra was the director of the trio of Marymount schools in Colombia (in Bogotá, Medellín, and Barranquilla) until she caught revolutionary fever, espoused the cause of the armed struggle in Colombia, and joined the ELN (National Liberation Army) guerrilla movement. That was a while ago. To look at her, you wouldn't think that this grandmotherly woman was once a revolutionary firebrand.

Even after hearing Esguerra speak, it is hard to conceive of her story. Partly this is because she apparently presumes that the audience is already familiar with the story of the political and social circumstances that gave rise to the armed struggle in Colombia, and partly because as she speaks she meanders and gets off-topic because, frankly, she's old. The result is somewhat unsatisfying.

As with many of Colombia's guerrilla leaders, Esguerra came from a family in gentile poverty: growing up with the trappings of wealth and culture, even though money was tight. She and her sisters were sent to Catholic schools, because that is how old money Bogota families educated their children. Her induction into the world of social consciousness was gradual. As a child she hated being sent to take alms to the poor at the church dispensary. The poor were an omnipresent part of the landscape, but she found this forced contact with the "dirty gamines" of the social underclasses terrifying.

As a high school principal she was expected to replicate the existing class differences. As head of the Marymount schools, she was in charge of educating the daughters of Colombia's ruling class. The nuns also ran a school in a low-income neighbourhood of Bogotá. There the nuns supervised while older students who barely had any education themselves were put in charge of educating the younger students. The unfairness of this system, and the hypocrisy of providing good quality education to the well-to-do and next to no education to the underclass, all the while upholding the value of charity, became apparent to Esguerra. She began to take issue with the double standard, and she realized that her well-heeled students were out of touch with Colombia's social, economic, and political reality.

She visited the Marymount Mother House in the United States in the sixties. While she was there she was impressed by the student activism and political involvement. At the same time in Colombia rebel priest Camilo Torres was gaining notoriety as a proponent of liberation theology. Upon returning to Colombia Esguerra was approached by a Marxist-Communist who was interested in the work that she was doing, in trying to bring good quality education to the poor. This brought her into contact with others who were exploring new channels to right Colombia's deeply entrenched economic and social inequality.

Her explanation for why she chose to join an armed guerrilla movement was because she felt that all the legal channels for social change had been exhausted. She joined the ranks of the ELN. She was impressed by the fact that everyone in the guerrilla movement in Colombia had been personally affected by violence. This was no longer theoretical discourse; revolution and struggle were the result of lived experience. She also fell in love with ELN leader Fabio Vásquez.

The ELN sent her as liaison to develop revolutionary education programs abroad. She spent seven years working with the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, an experience that taught her that revolution does not come about quickly or easily.

In Mexico she was present at the talks between the Colombian Government and the ELN, FARC, and EPL guerrilla groups. This was the dawning of a new period of disillusionment. The men representing these armed groups were not clear that they wanted peace, and she, having now lived outside the country for many years, felt like a fraud in claiming to represent the interests of the Colombian people. This was the point when she began the process of distancing herself from the armed struggle.

Esguerra has disavowed armed struggle as a means of taking power but many of the issues and the social inequality that gave rise to this attempt at revolution are still in place. Nowadays war had been "degraded." Once idealist armed groups have lost sight of their ideals and have slipped into criminal activity. The military is also degraded, as seen by the cases of the "false positives," in which young men from low income neighborhoods in Bogota were promised jobs working on farms, and then were executed, dressed in makeshift guerrilla togs and presented a "guerrillas killed in combat." Recent scandals such as the contracting carrousel in Bogota, in which former Mayor Samuel Moreno and his brother Ivan were demanding kickbacks for city contracts, is another example of how corruption remains the order of the day. The guerrilla movements may be discredited, but poverty, corruption, and the debasement of the value of human life have not been rectified.

In response to questions from the public, Esguerra said that she does not see the church in Colombia as being committed to peace and social change, mainly because of the stance adopted by recent popes. Answering another question, Esguerra said that talks, per se, are not enough to solve Colombia's problems because people have been talking for years; the key, according to her, lies not in talking, but in listening.

I found this conference largely unsatisfying because I wanted to understand the process of how an educated woman could be seduced by the concept that armed struggle could somehow lead to a better life for Colombians. I guess I'll have to read her book to find out: La búsqueda, testimonio de Leonor Esguerra. I'm ready to listen.

Canada Day and the Invisible Immigrant

Although I have come back to Canada for a visit every year, this year I am looking at the country with new eyes, as I consider what it would be like to live here when I return next year after having lived outside the country for 22 years.

The first thing that strikes me is just how multicultural the face of Canada has become. When I left it was still pretty white bread, at least it was in suburban Montreal. Now I go to the local YMCA and it is like working out at the United Nations. The local grocery store that I have been frequenting for years has gone from having half an aisle of ethnic food to having two whole aisles that cater to the new consumer base. I have become accustomed to cooking Colombian-style so I went looking for the beans I like to prepare. They were in the ethnic aisle. Apparently I'm an "ethnic immigrant" too

Colombians like to pride themselves on the diversity of their culture. They have very rich native cultural heritage. It is not a multicultural country in the sense of housing large communities of diverse national and ethnic origin. This means that I have been living in an insular and homogenous cultural environment. The contrast with Canada's social variety is shocking.


It amazes me is to watch the television news here. The newscasters span all the hues of the human race, but when you shut your eyes and just listen to them they all sound Canadian. Language and accent have become the great levellers.

All this diversity can be a bit intimidating. My sister works at a high school in Ottawa. The other day we were discussing the phenomenon of gangsta youth: teens from different ethnic backgrounds have adopted the clothing and attitudes, and embraced the angry music, of ghetto youth. Most of these kids haven't come from underprivileged environments and they have the opportunity to get a good education and decent jobs. So why would they want to marginalise themselves, is the question that begs to be asked.

Not all the youths who immigrate to Canada aspire to adopt a disenfranchised persona. I have a friend who moved back to Canada from Colombia almost two years ago. Her daughter has found the process of adapting to life in Canada to be challenging. Although she speaks fluent English and had visited every year, she felt a bit lost in the strange new environment. She phrased it best in saying, "Mom, I'm an immigrant here and nobody knows it."

My boys are going to have that experience too. They have expressed some concerns about their accents and somewhat halting English, but they will probably be no worse off than anyone else they encounter. Actually more of a concern for them is the fact that they don’t know how to skate. In fact I expect that their transition to life in Canada might be easier than mine because they don't have the same sort of notions about what to expect.

I may have been born here but I haven't lived here for a ling time. Even though I am clear about my reasons for wanting to come back, there are a lot of things that worry me: the relevance of my job skills, finding fulfilling work, being able to retire with some degree of security some day, how my children will adapt, making new friends, coping with the climate, finding a new relationship. There is a lot of uncertainty.

I am the invisible immigrant, learning to make her way in a world that is strange and unknown to me.

Colombia's Eastern Plains, Los Llanos Orientales

The Lagos de Menegua resort, located 12 km from Puerto Lopez on the road to Puerto Gaitan, is advertised as being just 3 hours from Bogota. We left my house at 9:30 in the morning. The first hour was spent simply wending our way through Bogota's increasingly insufferable traffic.

We stopped at a gas station to fill up, and Sally, being a practical and cautious person, checked the pressure of the tires. The front tires were low. The tire jockey swung into action, removed the tubeless tires, shook out several pieces of glass and pointed out the large tack that was embedded in one of the tires, probably picked up during the recent truck drivers' strike. He applied a total of 13 patches to the leaks and cracks in the 18-month-old Michelin tires.

Two hours after departing from home, we left the city of Bogota behind us. The city ends abruptly. Suddenly there are no more red cinder block houses and we were surrounded by fields. There is no industrial park or buffer zone on the outskirts of town.

It had been years since I had been to the plains region. The new highway apparently shaves 4 hours off of the trip to Villavicencio, the capital of Meta Department. The old route used to be breathtaking; it was a winding goat path precariously perched along the edge of the abyss, with some of the most spectacular views ever, probably heightened by an imminent sense of impending death. The new road is wider, better paved, has more tunnels (one of them 4.5 km long) and a much higher survival rate. We only passed one accident, with the uncovered body laid out on the road.

Despite being caught behind some slow moving trucks, we made good time to Villavo (as the locals call it). Billboards along the roadside announced the Festival de la Mujer Vaquera (Cowgirl Festival) under way this weekend. Don't think Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, these are honest to goodness female cow wranglers competing in rodeo events, including the local specialty coleo, a competition in which the rider chases down a year-old calf and has to flip the animal by applying a grip and twist technique to its tail, then jump off the charging horse and rope the calf.

From Villavicencio we lucked out in getting the road to Puerto Lopez, cunningly stopping to ask the very last roadside pineapple vendor who was located just before the place where we had to make a quick right on a discreet and unmarked turnoff before the bridge. There is no signage. The route was dotted with gorgeous pink trees in full boom. I wish that I knew what they were called.

The contrast between the mountains of the Cordillera and the Eastern Plains is amazing. Suddenly the last of the mountains disappeared behind us, and the flat plains stretch before us, all the way to Venezuela. The land between Villavicencio and Puerto Lopez is neatly parceled into cattle ranches extending for miles, the cattle grazing leisurely with plenty of room. There were no signs indicating land for sale. By all accounts the region looks very prosperous.

Many farms have their own landing strips and small planes were visible out front. We also passed the Apiay base that houses the crop spraying planes that fumigate the FARC's coca crops in La Macarena. There were a huge number of tanker trucks on the road, transporting oil from the oilfields of Casanare and Arauca to Bogota. It stuck both of us that the investment and energy expenditure of transporting all that oil by road would be better used in building oil pipelines.

We arrived at the hotel at 4:30 in the afternoon, seven hours after Sally picked me up at home, including two brief stops, one for lunch and one for tropical fruit desserts and coffee. The Lagos de Menegua hotel is nice but certainly not luxurious. A cold beer and a dip in the pool were the order of the day. As the day drew to a close, hundreds of tropical birds filled the air, catching insects in the dusk, particularly a lot of split-tail swallows.



Saturday morning we were up at 6:00 for a bird-watching hike. Didn't really see all that many birds in the wooded grove; 5:00 would have been a better time. Did see three bands of red monkeys. Coming out by the lake there were quite a few water birds: ducks, cranes and ibises.

The hotel's property is quite large. Owner Don Bene arrived in Colombia 1948 after being displaced from Palestine, and bought up 1,300 hectares of land (13 square km). As well as the hotel he has a booming fish farm that produces 5 to 6 tons weekly of the river fish mojarra and cachama that are native to the Orinoco region. The fish farm is fascinating. We had a look at the incubators where the fish eggs are hatched, and the different types of pools where the fish grow. All of the pools are covered with mesh so that the birds don't get at them. Cachama (a delicious member of the characid family, which includes piranhas --eat it before it eats you) was on the dinner buffet twice during our stay. I got the card for the distributor in Bogota, which is actually not far from my house (http://www.cendismar.com/default.htm).



In the afternoon we went to Puerto Lopez, which really is not much of a town. I bought a half bottle of my favorite aguardiente Llanero, which is only available in Meta Department. At the market place Sally bought a couple of bags of farofa, toasted manioc granules that are sprinkled on food at every meal in Brazil. After having eaten it for a whole week while traveling on cargo ships down the Amazon River, I still cringe at the sight of it. On the way back we stopped at the monument that marks the geographic center of Colombia. We stayed to watch the sunset, because the sunset over the plains is supposed to be particularly red and spectacular, but it was hazy and we really did not get the full effect. The full moon was also woozy under its cape of haze.



Many of the hotel's guests arrived quite late on Saturday. The road between Bogota and Villavicencio was closed for several hours because of a serious bus accident that left 15 dead.

Sunday morning after a leisurely sleep-in, Sally and I went out to kayak on the lake. We saw lots of aquatic birds. As we were coming around the small island to approach the red ibises known as coracora, something large and fast lunged at a wading bird on the bank, just off the right side of our boat. That made us paddle out of there PDQ. When we got back to the hotel the staff confirmed that there are babillas (spectacled caiman (caiman crocodilus) in the lake.



During lunch of carne llanera (meat cooked on a lean-to over an open fire), we had a performance of music and dance by a group of llanero musicians. Llanera music is characterized by the use of the harp, guitar, and maracas. A giant iguana came by to check out the excitement.



In the afternoon we went horseback riding. The cattle ranching in the primary activity in the plains and horses are the way to get around. I had a lovely buff colored gelding that was beautifully responsive. We rode far out on the property to a promontory in hopes of seeing the famed llanero sunset, but again the haze spoiled our plans. It was dark by the time we got back but the horses know their way to the stable. The following morning Sally realized that she had left her camera hooked around the pommel, but when she went to the stable to see if it had been found, no one had turned it in.



That put a bit of a damper on the weekend. Seeing as it took so long to arrive on Friday, we left shortly after breakfast on the long-weekend Monday, arriving back in Bogota in the afternoon without incident.

A Talisman for Protection?

Twenty-three Colombian workers carrying out oil explorations in Vichada Department for the Canadian oil company Talisman were kidnapped by FARC Front 16. Subsequently 22 of the men were released. It is speculated that the kidnapping was meant as a warning to the company for having failed to pay protection or extortion money.

In the wake of this incident President Juan Manuel Santos announced that any multination company that is found guilty of paying protection or extortion money would be thrown out of the country.

The companies argue that the safety and security of their personnel and facilities is at risk, and that the government is not in full control in many regions. These are not new concerns. These are the same reasons that gave rise to the self-defense groups that gradually evolved into the paramilitaries. It is ironic that as the paramilitaries have demobilized, a number of their former members have resorted to forming criminal gangs that engage in extortion.

Officially no one is supposed to pay any money to illegal armed groups, for any reason. But many people who live or work in regions where security problem are ongoing will acknowledge that the practice persists.

The president's position that foreign companies should not pay protection and extortion money to illegal armed groups because this serves to perpetuate crime is logical, but it fails to contemplate the full extent of the problem. Why should this only apply to foreign companies? Shouldn't this principle apply to all companies, including Colombian companies?

The same logic of refusing to sponsor crime led to a radical shift in the policy on kidnapping during the Uribe government. Previous governments had been willing to negotiate hostage exchanges for humanitarian reasons. The Uribe government refused outright to consider negotiating hostages on the grounds that this would only encourage hostage-taking, and that it cheapens human life by making it into a negotiable commodity.

It is one thing for a government to adopt this as a policy. A family who has had a relative kidnapped might see the situation differently. Officially it is illegal to pay ransom money. A number of years ago, the first thing that the officials did when a kidnapping was reported was to freeze the family's bank accounts and assets to make sure that they did not pay. This policy has quietly slipped by the wayside. Individuals who are dealing with private tragedies are tacitly allowed to do what they need to do, even if it is technically still illegal.

The principle in both cases may be clear and logical, but the practical reality of the matter remains murky.

Peace or justice?

On 16 September 2010 the Bogota High Court issued a 26-page ruling in which it considers that the crimes committed by the M-19 guerrillas during the November 1985 occupation of the Supreme Court building constitute crimes against humanity, on the grounds that the occupation was an attack on defenseless civilians. As a crime against humanity, there is no statute of limitations for prosecution.

The M-19 was pardoned in the late 1980s as part of the group's demobilization. It became a left-leaning political party that was influential in Colombian politics, although a number of its high profile members were subsequently threatened or murdered. The party is now effectively defunct, although some of its former members remain active in Colombia's political scene.

The issue at the surface of this recent court ruling is one of justice versus peace. Amnesties and pardons do not serve the interests of justice and preventing impunity, but they do serve to ensure peace, which is sometimes the overriding concern of a society, particularly if those being pardoned have made full confessions of their crimes. In that case the interest of truth will be served, even if justice is not done.

The underlying issue here, and the one that is most disturbing in the current political context, is that of legal security or juridical security, which refers to whether a law or decree that has passed will remain stable or whether it can be overturned. In this case the government had to pass legislation to grant the M-19 guerrilla group pardon or amnesty.

The same debate has been raised concerning the validity and effectiveness of the justice and peace law through which paramilitary leaders have received reduced sentences for committing their crimes, as part of the demobilization process. A similar legal mechanism has been proposed to enable guerrilla groups like the FARC and the ELN to demobilize. How is the government going to encourage these groups to demobilize if there is no guarantee that the deals that the groups make to avoid prosecution or serve reduced sentences will not be upheld in court?

Effectively fighting the illegal armed groups in Colombia requires a carrot and stick approach. The Uribe government was very effective in unrelentingly combating the guerrillas and restoring public security in much of the country. At the same time it offered incentives to rank and file guerrillas to desert and demobilize, and thereby qualify for relocation, education, and aid. It appeared that the Santos government intended to continue to implement this policy.

The court's ruling throws a monkey wrench into the works. Who would be willing to confess crimes and demobilize, knowing that the deal for pardon could be overturned?

The fact that investigations have revealed that a number of the deaths attributed to the M-19 during the occupation of the Supreme Court were actually the result of the military operation to retake control of the courthouse is another issue that also merits further examination.

The Bogota High Court's decision goes against the interests of peace in Colombia, and peace should be the country's prevailing priority. For legal security and for peace in Colombia, the pardon should stand.


Pictures of individuals who went missing during the operation to retake control of the courthouse.

Parque Nacional Los Flamencos, La Guajira, Colombia

Entre la tierra, el cielo y el mar.

The War We Have Not Seen

The exhibition "The War We Have Not Seen" opened on 14 October at the Bogota Museum of Modern Art, Calle 24 No. 6-00. It runs until 14 November.


View the exhibition online at:
http://www.laguerraquenohemosvisto.com/

"The War We Have Not Seen: a historical memory project," is an exhibition of 89 paintings organized by the Puntos de Encuentro Foundation. It presents works by former combatants from the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), ELN (National Liberation Army), AUC (United Self-Defense Groups of Colombia), and National Army soldiers who were wounded in combat. All of them are anonymous fighters: campesino men and women whose common denominator is the desire to paint what they witnessed and experienced as the protagonists of Colombia's armed conflict. The objective of the exhibition is to provide an occasion for artistic and social debate, so as to raise awareness and take a stance against war.

Picture a Unicef card: The naïve style of painting scenes of daily rural life and celebrations in bold bright colors. Picture a child's painting of a hamlet in the mountains where the townspeople are dancing in the streets in celebration of a saint's day, or simply going about their business: the world of Macondo where "nothing happens." Now picture the same scene, only instead of dancing, people are fleeing armed gunmen, and rather than banners festooning the streets, bodies streaming blood are strewn about.

Because the technical execution of these paintings is not skillful, the portrayals are not very realistic. This makes it possible to view them without turning away in the way that a more graphic and realistic image would cause the viewer to do. Still, the contrast between the primitive, childlike technique, with simple shapes and bold, bright colors, and the profoundly disturbing subject matter, dispels any illusion of innocence. One artist stands out in terms of technical excellence. His paintings were signed John Jairo. In his paintings the landscape dominated the few figures he showed; the denseness of the tropical forest practically swallowing up the scene. He conveys a sense of silence, remoteness, and oppression. I hope to see more of his work.

Recurring themes in the paintings

Anonymity and ambiguity: As untrained painters, the artists lack the skills to effectively differentiate the individuals in their paintings. This technical deficiency becomes a commentary on the anonymity of war. It is often difficult to distinguish which armed group is being represented: Is this the Army, the guerrillas, or the paramilitaries? Are they attacking or protecting? The methods and actions are often interchangeable, giving rise to the question, who are the good guys?

Closeness to the civilian population: In war the distinction between combatants and civilians is often not respected. The image most commonly portrayed in the paintings is that of the civilian population caught in the crossfire of war. Executions of civilians who are suspected of being collaborators are portrayed a number of times. One painting shows two kidnap victims bound in the forest; in the distance between the mountains, a nearby village may be seen. The distance between barbarity and civilization is very close.

The undercurrent of violence: In many of the paintings, the violence is not always apparent on first glance. It takes a while to shift through the details before noticing the figures moving between the trees, or the fact that in the lower corner all of the passengers have disembarked from the bus and are standing on the road while a couple of their fellow passengers are being executed.



Context information: A brief introduction to the armed conflict in Colombia

The guerrilla movement grew out of poverty and abandon, in a misguided attempt to vindicate rights by through armed violence. The rank of the guerrillas were populated with humble peasants who allowed themselves to be convinced that their movement would lead to more fairness and a better standard of living for all, as promised by the idealist, university-educated leaders who had embraced the socialist banner. You can't run a rebellion for free: revenues to support their war came from "taxing" the rich, extortion, kidnapping, and then they branched out into drug trafficking. They also waged a highly successful international campaign by claiming to represent the true voice of the people and alleging that the people were being forcibly repressed by the government. The Colombian public has expressed overwhelming repudiation for the guerrilla movements and their tactics.

The self-defense movement was the response by landowners who found themselves under siege by these guerrilla groups. Their private security forces grew in strength and number until these were operating on their own, as paramilitaries, and selling their security services to landowners and businessmen, making them "offers they could not refuse." As the de facto authority in their regions, they considered themselves to be above the law. They also found drug trafficking to be a lucrative way of funding themselves. As the paramilitary groups have demobilized, a percentage have continued to be involved in drug trafficking.

The Army: For many years the Military Forces were ineffective at fighting the guerrillas. They tacitly acquiesced to the self-defense groups, thus giving rise to the denomination paramilitaries. Under paid, ill-prepared, the ranks of the military were rife with corruption and human rights abuses. Most of the rank and file soldiers come from the obligatory military service requirement that young men must fulfill upon completing high school. In recent years the Colombian military has made enormous strides in terms of better preparation, better equipment, and better strategy. The military has managed to secure control in regions that had no government presence for many years, although in some areas this control is still not consolidated, and human rights violations continue to be a problem.

The common denominator of these three groups is that the foot soldiers in this war all come from the same campesino roots, joining the armed groups via threat of forced recruitment, lack of other opportunities in life, or military conscription, with a minority joining because of shared ideals. It is the humble who are the cannon fodder in war.