African Heroes: stories of brave badasses

This is a song that plays every weekend at the bar where...

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 11:53:52 -0400

This is a song that plays every weekend at the bar where everyone in Goma hangs out. It’s from South Africa, apparently.

What's the point of this blog?

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 09:23:00 -0400

This blog began when Emily Meehan was stuck in Somaliland without any money left to pay for her hotel, driver, soldier-security guards, or food. But she wanted to go into the desert and walk with nomads, as freelance journalists are wont to do. So she told her friend Greg Galant that she was going to send an email to every single person she had ever met asking them for $20. She asked Greg to open a Paypal account for her so they could pay into it. The Internet connection was not fast enough for her to do that in Hargeysa, or maybe, she was just saying that because she was intimidated by the prospect of opening up a Paypal account. Greg advised her not to do this, but instead start a blog and raise money with the blog via the tool Chipin, which would connect to Paypal. This Emily did. She had already decided to start a blog about how cool Africa is after much conversation with William Deed over a lazy weekend in the Mara Triangle.

After gratefully collecting $1500 from friends, readers, and her devoted literary agent, Susan Rabiner, Emily was able to pay her team and head out to the desert to interview nomads for this NPR story about drought in the Horn of Africa. (The collection was made possible by Dan Wambua Muende and Alessandra Argenti of Nairobi, Kenya, who dutifully helped their roommate by withdrawing money two days in a row from an ATM with Emily’s bank card and then trying five days in a row to wire it to her in Somaliland, where there are no banks, via Dahabshiil, a Hawala money transfer agency.)

The seed of this idea to write about how cool Africa is came out of a conversation between Emily and Neil King in the Washington bureau of the Wall Street Journal. Neil and Michael Philips were coming up with story ideas for Emily to report while in Somalia. Neil said all anyone ever hears about from Africa is war and scourges. He said there must be some positive stories to tell and Emily should try to find some. He suggested one in Juba, Sudan, which Emily has since forgotten. But this got her thinking, she liked Neil’s suggestion. Neil himself seemed quite liberated for a finance reporter and Wall Street Journal employee.

And here you have the result, “African Heroes: Stories of Brave Badasses.” The original title was “African Heroes: Stories of Brave Badasses on the Last Frontier,” but when putting up the blog, Greg Galant left out the ending for reasons Emily never discovered but nonetheless agreed with. Greg is the one who chose the Tumblr platform.

African Heroes has been linked to by dozens of blogs and reviewed in a June 2009 article in the Diplomatic Courier called “Getting Out the Good News: Blogging Africa’s ‘Other Side.’”

Writes John Bavoso:

While some blogs focus on innovations, others choose to highlight the stories of people who make Africa such a unique region for other reasons. This was the reasoning behind the new blog African Heroes, which, as its tagline “stories of brave badasses” suggests, sheds some spotlight on Africans who are worthy of news coverage for the inspiring deeds they do and lives they lead. Emily Meehan, the blogger behind African Heroes and an American journalist living and writing in East Africa, chose this theme because she felt it would appeal to readers both inside and outside of Africa. “I use the theme of ‘badasses’ or heroes in proper English because I think it’s something Americans love,” Meehan wrote in a recent email correspondence. “It’s something my African heroes and most Americans have in common, they’re all pioneers.”

Meehan is familiar with both worlds – until fairly recently she was a columnist for the Wall Street Journal, covering issues relating to twenty-something’s in America. However, working in the mainstream media lost its appeal after a while. “I got very tired of seeing that every media outlet was covering the same stories, very few of which interested me,” Meehan remembers. “So I decided to work on news that was under-reported.” The first step in this process was to find a location which interested her and a place where she could see her journalism making an actual difference in the lives of people. “I have always loved traveling to obscure places. I drew up a list of some obscure places with misunderstood troubles: Chechnya, Georgia, Somalia, Venezuela, Congo. The Horn of Africa was just full of my ideal content.” So, in a move reminiscent of the badasses whom she has come to portray and admire, Meehan packed up her things and moved to East Africa with what most people would consider not much of a plan.

Meehan is currently working on a five-part piece on Somalia as well as other projects for various media outlets on a free-lance basis, but she really enjoys meeting people and writing her hero profiles. Her most recent hero is a man named Dr. Dihoud, a founder of the Somali National Movement (SNM) and the only psychiatrist in Somaliland, the autonomous region of Somalia which has claimed independence but lacks formal recognition from the international community. Included on the blog is an audio clip of the man telling his story in his own words and with his own voice. Dr. Dihoud is a very prestigious and accomplished man – but Meehan did not seek him out, per se. Instead, they met while staying in rooms across the hall from one another in a hotel – which is a testament to the fact that truly great African heroes can be found anywhere, doing anything.
In the end, these blogs may never be as popular or well-read as the traditional news outlets’ – but the positive information that is being put out for public consumption is being produced by people with a true dedication to helping Africa and Africans. And, for the most part, being different is just fine with these bloggers – they’re out to provide a distinct alternative for media consumers. “When I first came to Africa I was coached by a very good journalist named Pedro. I had plans to write about corruption and war in Somalia. He told me not to,” Meehan explains. “Nobody cares, it’s been happening for so long, don’t just write the same story as all the others, he said. I don’t completely agree with Pedro … But if my only news is bad news, how am I helping?”

A man washing his clothes in the jungle of Kasai Occidental.

Mon, 09 Mar 2009 09:37:26 -0400

A man washing his clothes in the jungle of Kasai Occidental.

A public service announcement I produced to encourage children...

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 05:34:00 -0500

A public service announcement I produced to encourage children in wartorn North Kivu to go to school.

Monique Tshisombi, director of nursing at Bemba regional...

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 12:25:04 -0500

Monique Tshisombi, director of nursing at Bemba regional hospital, Kasai Occidental Province, DR Congo, and proud mother of 16 children. She wants more.

Troupe Nyiragongo sketch about preventing les maladies...

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 11:01:00 -0500

Troupe Nyiragongo sketch about preventing les maladies diarrhéiques

Interview with Issa (French)

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 11:38:41 -0500

Interview with Issa (French)

Issa Muhima Bach

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 11:28:03 -0500

Issa Muhima Bach

Photo

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 11:26:59 -0500

ZuluRomeo10 to Logistics

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 11:25:00 -0500

Two weeks ago I was at a fabulous dance club here in Goma, DR Congo, with my 28-year-old coworker, Issa. I asked him to go dancing after a.) deciding he is a badass and b.) finding out he is an R&B singer. It was loud in the club but we still managed to talk by shouting. I asked the usual pleasantries and then went right to the heart of the matter. That matter was: What exactly gives Issa this glow of badassness, and how did he get that way?

Issa shared his perspective on life, and let me tell you, it is far from normal here. Most people in eastern Congo give me a five-minute personal rundown that sounds something like this: “I am so poor. I can’t find a job. I want to go to college in the United States. I have so many dreams. Can you help me accomplish them? I would like to be business partners with you. It is impossible to get ahead in this country with so much corruption. And the war. My house burned down last year. My wife is sick. My child has malaria. Give me money. Give me scholarship. Give me biscuits. I want to marry a white person. Be my wife.” Most foreigners fulfill some of these requests on a regular basis, but it’s hard not to get sick of being treated like the Bank of America.

Fortunately, Issa is not a mooch. He’s a logistician. That means he works in the logistics department of our company. He manages transportation — 30 drivers, 20 cars, who’s leaving, who’s coming, who’s driving down a road lined with bandits, who’s in an accident, who’s held up by bandits, who can’t figure out how to work the thuraya, who is going to miss her plane. Logistics is the department for badasses, a small and elite army that protects us and procures everything from satellite phones to beer for my press conference. They give us code names, like ZuluRomeo10, and check in every night at 7 p.m. to make sure we’re alive. The term logistics evokes maps, walkie talkies, lists of rebel commander cellphone numbers, ray ban sunglasses, and neat, sturdy dudes who don’t panic, ever. Issa’s boss has a motto for his team posted up on the door to his office: Strong Partners, Flexible Solutions. Logistics is an attitude, and a lifestyle.

Issa is true to the image. He’s famous for coming to a recent house party in a white suit. He’s assertive, confident. He doesn’t smile a lot, and he always looks busy. Right before our interview, I heard that the rebel leader who is causing a civil war in this province was overthrown. Shocked, I chattered to Issa about all the possibilities. “Are you worried?” I asked. “No,” he said phlegmatically. “Do you know how many times we have heard he was overthrown? I am just living my life.”

You can listen to our interview (in French) with the link above, or read the translation below.

Hero Q&A

African Heroes: Okay, so, we talked about a lot of things last weekend, but specifically I said: “You look very busy and very confident whenever I see you in the office, and I am very impressed with your demeanor. Especially here, [in DR Congo], It’s seems difficult for people to find a job and earn money. People tell me all the time that they live on around $100 a month, they have to hustle all the time, and life is so hard. They say they wish they could live in the United States.” And you had a response. Tell me the story you told me that night.

Issa Muhima Bach: Okay, if I remember correctly, what I told you that night is really just about my personality. I said I can’t stand people who say they’re waiting to move to the west. Because here, people have the means and the capacity to achieve what they want from life if they work hard. I mentioned the way people have traditionally thought:

“You have to wait, because God will make it happen.”

No. God will not act in your place. You have to be brave. Work hard.

I said, yes, there are people who say it’s difficult to find a job in Congo, in Africa. But me, I never had that idea. When I finished my studies, I was still very young. I got a job at Medecins Sans Frontiers Holland, working on vehicles because I had an associates degree in auto mechanics. I worked there for 5 years. Then I went back to school and earned an associates degree in information technology. I decided to try and work as a consultant for various NGOs, because my whole career I had worked for an NGO. I did that for a while. And after I got my degree I got a job with the NGO we currently work for. I knew then that this would be a good job and I hoped to advance my position within the company.

To get back to your question, I will compare my path to that of my peers, who always say: “I’m smart, and I need money, and I have to find a scholarship to study in the west.” Maybe they need that. But, sometimes I detect a certain laziness in that statement. It’s sort of like saying that you would be doing much better if you just were another person in another place with different history, but you’re not. You’re you, here, now, and you have to always fortify yourself now for a better future, for your own history. And it’s just those people who I tell that I have no interest in living in Europe. Never. I would hate to live abroad. But what I would like to do is visit Europe for two or three days, or go there for a professional training, and then return to Congo.

In my career with NGOs, I can’t just move about here and there, whenever I want. I am already married, even though I’m young, and I must save for the future of my children. I’m not in a position just to make money for myself because I have to save for my family. For this reason I really don’t ever plan to move out of my country.

AH: But you said at the club last weekend that you wanted to move to another country and work for an NGO as an expat.

Issa: Yes. In another African country maybe, but not in the west. Because all the young Africans dream of living in the west — in the U.S., Europe, or Australia. But me, no. I can enjoy myself traveling around Africa. This conversation is one example of when I tell people that I am proud to be African, especially Congolese.

AH: Why? Explain to those who are listening/reading, who don’t know Africa, why you are proud to be African.

Issa: It’s not to say that Africa is better than any other continent, it’s just that I have been hearing all my life all the stories about the west. That everything that comes from the west is better than what comes from my home. In reality it’s not true. Here, I am free. For example, if I want to travel a bit, around Africa or my country, I can. If I want to develop my intellectual capacities, I can certainly find people to exchange ideas with.

[phone call]

Okay, I have to go meet my friend because he is waiting for me. So I will get to the point. If there’s a small message about Africa that I can give to people who are reading this/listening, they must know that as an artist, because I am a musician, I tell people all the time that men die, but culture never does. One has to value his own culture. I’m saying that Africa is fabulous, as long as you have an open mind, and you see la vie en rose. Because if you see la vie en rose, it’s always en rose. And if you have a really negative perspective on life, it’s always going to be bad for you. It’s really very simple: Work very hard, cultivate your mind, and you will see that all goes well.

AH: One can say always in cases of success like yours that it’s all because of a comfortable childhood. It’s an argument used all over the world, that if you were raised with money, you grow up with the idea that anything is possible, full of hope for the future. But you have told me that you are not a case of someone who was brought up bourgeois or rich. Did you learn to value hard work and a positive attitude from your parents or was it something you came up with on your own?

Issa: I got 50% of my attitude from my parents influence and the rest I learned on my own. As you say I don’t come from a bourgeois family, my father started out working as a chauffeur. Now he is also a logistician like me. And we didn’t have sufficient means to live on when I was growing up. But according to my principals, one can come from a rich family and die poor. And one can come from a poor family and die rich. It’s just a matter of courage, and developing one’s capacities.

AH: And you have two kids right?

Issa: Yes.

AH: What do you think about all the young men our age, 28, or something like that, who don’t have wives, because they don’t want to make the commitment, who don’t have children, of course. They don’t have any responsibilities because they say it would interfere with their personal interests. [No offense meant to my unmarried boys reading this, I just can’t resist asking a classic question that concerns women everywhere.]

Issa: You have to go through a period of being affronted with problems, because man is measured by what he does in the face of problems. In reality, an experience is the accumulation of challenges one faces over a given period, and the solution one implements. That’s what I call “an experience.” Therefore, I don’t fear my responsibilities. I must prove time and time again that I am a responsible father, and I must arrange things so that my family’s situation is always improving. I always say to people that they need not fear facing responsibilities. You can’t tell yourself it’s impossible. You have to try before you decide that. If you find that you have certain difficulties, well, that’s part of any experience, so look for a solution. If there isn’t one, then you may decide that the situation is truly impossible. But if you haven’t tried, the solution is simple.

Ukoo Flani Maumau, from Kenya, in Kiswahili

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 10:13:11 -0500

Ukoo Flani Maumau, from Kenya, in Kiswahili

Principal Dancille

Sun, 28 Dec 2008 15:25:00 -0500

Principal Dancille

Très Dynamique

Sun, 28 Dec 2008 15:20:00 -0500

There are many wonderful things about speaking French, and among them are the terms we either have in English but don’t use, or simply don’t have. These words express cultural values that don’t exist in English speaking societies.

Take, for example, the word dynamique. Yes, we have it in English, along with cadre, austerity, and other sophisticated Latinate words that have atrophied to the point of death, living on only in “New Yorker” articles and in Kenya, where they still speak the Queens English. (In Nairobi today, 19-year old minibus conductors ask passengers where they want to “alight,” inbetween the thumping beats of Lil Wayne songs piped through the soundsystems.)

Principal Dancille is one of the only women principals in the whole province of North Kivu, DR Congo. I was practically in love with her after five minutes, because she was so smooth, beautiful, shrewd, and funny in spite of her suffering. (“You see the broken window there? Bandits did that. [smiling sigh] But other than the damage that [bandits, rebels, soldiers, Rwandans and Ugandans] have done to our school, we are fortunate to have God’s blessings.”)

“She’s amazing!” I whispered to my Congolese colleague when we walked out of the meeting.

“Oui,” he said. “Très dynamique.”

Yes. It says everything.

Mary at the Paroisse St. Aloys, Rutshuru

Sat, 27 Dec 2008 07:19:09 -0500

Mary at the Paroisse St. Aloys, Rutshuru

Here's Your Movie Character

Sat, 27 Dec 2008 07:02:00 -0500

On a recent day I was in Rutshuru, a town in North Kivu, the wartorn state in eastern DR Congo. We stayed in the Paroisse St. Aloys, a Jesuit mission with a lovely guest house. It reminded me of the old days of Sacred Heart, my elementary school in Atherton, Calif., before the earthquake forced us out of the red brick building into gray one story classrooms and the administration was seized by sleazy Catholic pretenders.

Rutshuru was bound to get into trouble that week, and on my first day in the Paroisse it happened. I was hanging around the town crossroads, pretending to be rubbing off celltell scratch cards at a kiosque with my driver. Like the rest of us, he was intently watching the Tutsis as they shifted machine gun guard and spoke into walkie talkies, shaking hands with police and generally distracting me from details with an uncanny resemblance to the praying mantis. Especially the 6’2” one in a red warm up suit.

We eventually set off towards the hospital for a walk and were making our way down the shoulder of a dusty road when a truck came barreling down the street and screeched to a halt in front of us. Another one of our drivers was hanging on the railings to the truck bed and hopped down to talk to us with wide, scared eyes. “Everyone is running out of Kiwanja! They’re heading towards Rutshuru! There’s bad news! We have to get back to the Paroisse and tell the others!” We got into the cab of the truck and headed for the mission. The other passengers talked excitedly about the prospect of a battle between CNDP, the Tutsi rebel group, and Mai Mai, a nationalist militia coming down from the woods.

It was pandemonium at the mission when we pulled into the courtyard. A stream of humanitarian Land Cruisers pulled into the lot and everyone paced on their cellphones, trying to find their teammates and find out what was happening in Kiwanja.

Ultimately I gave my room to a local staff member named Dieu Donner, and a driver, and went to sleep at a colleague’s boyfriend’s house, where I reread the Mogadishu section of “Emergency Sex.”

That night there was no battle in Kiwanja, it was an empty rumor. But that week, the rebels rounded up schoolchildren in Kiwanja and Rutshuru, accused them of being Mai Mai, and did who knows what with them.

The next day we worked, and the next night, after inadvertently drinking beer with a war criminal in a dive bar called Noblesse Oblige, I went back to my room at the Paroisse. As the cicadas turned on their hum and the sun started to set, I took a wander around the mission, sneaking through the rectory into a private backyard that looked out on a vast valley of Virunga Park, the lush and renown home of some of the last mountain gorillas. I sat there for quite a while, watching a mist cloak the silhouetted palm trees and thinking back to similarly wrenching moments of romanticism in the hidden gardens of Sacred Heart school. Thank God for Catholicism, I thought, or maybe just for Italy’s pivotal role in Catholic style. (A driver who was standing around with me earlier made this distinction. “The Catholic church comes from Italy,” he said quietly, with dreamy eyes. “The Italians, they make everything so beautiful.”) Yes, when I was a child I used to seek out grottos on the school campus alone, just to think amid roses and Mary and history.

As my inner peace mounted to a degree not experienced since before I went to work at the Wall Street Journal, a door was shut and locked. The stained glass one that I came through to reach the yard. I ran, shouting, to get the man to open it. It was Pere George, a sixtysomething with white hair. “We have to close this door at night,” he said scoldingly in French. “It’s not secure otherwise.” I imagined rebels climbing the wall in the dark to rape the women servants. “What are you doing here?” he asked me as we walked through the rectory and into the courtyard. “I was just thinking, it’s so beautiful here,” I said, explaining the resemblance to my childhood school.

As he came to know me, Pere George told me his origin, Poland, and his tenure at the Paroisse St. Aloys. Since 1982, Pere George has lived there in Rutshuru, through volcanic eruptions — “the lava flowed like a river!” — dictator Mobutu and coup d’etat. Now, he lives among Tutsi rebels. Sort of like St. Aloys. What does he think of them? I forgot to ask.

Saint Aloys
Was the Bishop of Blois,
And a pitiful man was he,
He grieved and he pined
For the woes of mankind,
And of brutes in their degree,
He would rescue the rat
From the claws of the cat,
And set the poor captive free;
Though his cassock was swarming
With all sorts of vermin,
He’d not take the life of a flea!
Kind, tender, forgiving
To all things living,
From injury still he’d endeavour to screen ‘em,
Fish, flesh, or fowl — no difference between ‘em —
Nihil putavit a se alienum.

Schoolboy at Kirotshe Primary School, near Minova, on Lake Kivu.

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 08:54:00 -0500

Schoolboy at Kirotshe Primary School, near Minova, on Lake Kivu.

Why street kids may not go to school, even if you pay for it

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 10:08:51 -0500

AH : So I met this little boy the other day who fishes every morning in Lake Kivu [eastern Democratic Republic of Congo] with his little brother. I really admire them because they work very early and long, and the little brother strings little talapia and sardines they catch onto a reed of grass through the fish's gills. I think they give the fish to their family because their father is unemployed and extremely poor. Last weekend the oldest brother, who is probably 12, invited me to his house. It's a shack on the lot of a large house currently in construction, on a bed of hard lava rock. They are squatters. The boy is amazingly smart, and speaks French perfectly, some English, Kiswahili, and his tribal language probably. He asked me for money to pay for school, because he said it was too expensive at $10 per term. But then the father indicated to me that he pays for the boy to go to school, $6 a month. I don't know if I should give him tuition -- I mean I would be happy to help, but will it really go to the school or will the boy just take it and keep fishing to feed his family? He has five siblings.

Franc: If he speaks those languages it means he has probably spoken with a lot of tourists to get money. He knows what stories to tell to get people's sympathy and money. Those children are very difficult cases, because usually if you pay for them to go to school they will not even go, they don't want to. Because they want to spend the money on themselves and keep fishing.

AH: So is there any way to help them?

Franc: What we usually do with those cases is to help the children make more money. Maybe to change from fishing to some other business and better organize themselves.

AH: What!? So, like, you just accept that they are determined to be little business people and help them to become more successful at it?

Franc: Yes.

Heroism, by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Military Attitude of the Soul

Towards all external evil, the man within the breast assumes a warlike attitude, and affirms his ability to cope single-handed with the infinite army of enemies. To this military attitude of the soul we give the name of Heroism. Its rudest form is the contempt for safety and ease, which makes the attractiveness of war. It is a self-trust which slights the restraints of prudence, in the plenitude of its energy and power to repair the harms it may suffer. The hero is a mind of such balance that no disturbances can shake his will, but pleasantly, and, as it were, merrily, he advances to his own music, alike in frightful alarms and in the tipsy mirth of universal dissoluteness. There is somewhat not philosophical in heroism; there is somewhat not holy in it; it seems not to know that other souls are of one texture with it; it has pride; it is the extreme of individual nature. Nevertheless, we must profoundly revere it. There is somewhat in great actions, which does not allow us to go behind them. Heroism feels and never reasons, and therefore is always right; and although a different breeding, different religion, and greater intellectual activity would have modified or even reversed the particular action, yet for the hero that thing he does is the highest deed, and is not open to the censure of philosophers or divines. It is the avowal of the unschooled man, that he finds a quality in him that is negligent of expense, of health, of life, of danger, of hatred, of reproach, and knows that his will is higher and more excellent than all actual and all possible antagonists.

Imprudent, but Ahead

Heroism works in contradiction to the voice of mankind, and in contradiction, for a time, to the voice of the great and good. Heroism is an obedience to a secret impulse of an individual’s character. Now to no other man can its wisdom appear as it does to him, for every man must be supposed to see a little farther on his own proper path than any one else. Therefore, just and wise men take umbrage at his act, until after some little time be past: then they see it to be in unison with their acts. All prudent men see that the action is clean contrary to a sensual prosperity; for every heroic act measures itself by its contempt of some external good. But it finds its own success at last, and then the prudent also extol.

Low-Maintenance

Self-trust is the essence of heroism. It is the state of the soul at war, and its ultimate objects are the last defiance of falsehood and wrong, and the power to bear all that can be inflicted by evil agents. It speaks the truth, and it is just, generous, hospitable, temperate, scornful of petty calculations, and scornful of being scorned. It persists; it is of an undaunted boldness, and of a fortitude not to be wearied out. Its jest is the littleness of common life. That false prudence which dotes on health and wealth is the butt and merriment of heroism. Heroism, like Plotinus, is almost ashamed of its body. What shall it say, then, to the sugar-plums and cats’-cradles, to the toilet, compliments, quarrels, cards, and custard, which rack the wit of all society. What joys has kind nature provided for us dear creatures! There seems to be no interval between greatness and meanness. When the spirit is not master of the world, then it is its dupe. Yet the little man takes the great hoax so innocently, works in it so headlong and believing, is born red, and dies gray, arranging his toilet, attending on his own health, laying traps for sweet food and strong wine, setting his heart on a horse or a rifle, made happy with a little gossip or a little praise, that the great soul cannot choose but laugh at such earnest nonsense. “Indeed, these humble considerations make me out of love with greatness. What a disgrace is it to me to take note how many pairs of silk stockings thou hast, namely, these and those that were the peach-colored ones; or to bear the inventory of thy shirts, as one for superfluity, and one other for use!”

Magnanimous

Citizens, thinking after the laws of arithmetic, consider the inconvenience of receiving strangers at their fireside, reckon narrowly the loss of time and the unusual display: the soul of a better quality thrusts back the unseasonable economy into the vaults of life, and says, I will obey the God, and the sacrifice and the fire he will provide. Ibn Haukal, the Arabian geographer, describes a heroic extreme in the hospitality of Sogd, in Bukharia. “When I was in Sogd, I saw a great building, like a palace, the gates of which were open and fixed back to the wall with large nails. I asked the reason, and was told that the house had not been shut, night or day, for a hundred years. Strangers may present themselves at any hour, and in whatever number; the master has amply provided for the reception of the men and their animals, and is never happier than when they tarry for some time. Nothing of the kind have I seen in any other country.” The magnanimous know very well that they who give time, or money, or shelter, to the stranger — so it be done for love, and not for ostentation — do, as it were, put God under obligation to them, so perfect are the compensations of the universe. In some way the time they seem to lose is redeemed, and the pains they seem to take remunerate themselves. These men fan the flame of human love, and raise the standard of civil virtue among mankind. But hospitality must be for service, and not for show, or it pulls down the host. The brave soul rates itself too high to value itself by the splendor of its table and draperies. It gives what it hath, and all it hath, but its own majesty can lend a better grace to bannocks and fair water than belong to city feasts.

Fun

Sport is the bloom and glow of a perfect health. The great will not condescend to take any thing seriously; all must be as gay as the song of a canary, though it were the building of cities, or the eradication of old and foolish churches and nations, which have cumbered the earth long thousands of years. Simple hearts put all the history and customs of this world behind them, and play their own game in innocent defiance of the Blue-Laws of the world; and such would appear, could we see the human race assembled in vision, like little children frolicking together; though, to the eyes of mankind at large, they wear a stately and solemn garb of works and influences.

Coming of Age, Making Mistakes

We have seen or heard of many extraordinary young men, who never ripened, or whose performance in actual life was not extraordinary. When we see their air and mien, when we hear them speak of society, of books, of religion, we admire their superiority, they seem to throw contempt on our entire polity and social state; theirs is the tone of a youthful giant, who is sent to work revolutions. But they enter an active profession, and the forming Colossus shrinks to the common size of man. The magic they used was the ideal tendencies, which always make the Actual ridiculous; but the tough world had its revenge the moment they put their horses of the sun to plough in its furrow. They found no example and no companion, and their heart fainted. What then? The lesson they gave in their first aspirations is yet true; and a better valor and a purer truth shall one day organize their belief. Or why should a woman liken herself to any historical woman, and think, because Sappho, or Sevigne, or De Stael, or the cloistered souls who have had genius and cultivation, do not satisfy the imagination and the serene Themis, none can, — certainly not she. Why not? She has a new and unattempted problem to solve, perchance that of the happiest nature that ever bloomed. Let the maiden, with erect soul, walk serenely on her way, accept the hint of each new experience, search in turn all the objects that solicit her eye, that she may learn the power and the charm of her new-born being, which is the kindling of a new dawn in the recesses of space. The fair girl, who repels interference by a decided and proud choice of influences, so careless of pleasing, so wilful and lofty, inspires every beholder with somewhat of her own nobleness. The silent heart encourages her; O friend, never strike sail to a fear! Come into port greatly, or sail with God the seas. Not in vain you live, for every passing eye is cheered and refined by the vision.

Congratulate Yourself if You Have Done Something Strange and Extravagant

The characteristic of heroism is its persistency. All men have wandering impulses, fits, and starts of generosity. But when you have chosen your part, abide by it, and do not weakly try to reconcile yourself with the world. The heroic cannot be the common, nor the common the heroic. Yet we have the weakness to expect the sympathy of people in those actions whose excellence is that they outrun sympathy, and appeal to a tardy justice. If you would serve your brother, because it is fit for you to serve him, do not take back your words when you find that prudent people do not commend you.

Adhere to your own act, and congratulate yourself if you have done something strange and extravagant, and broken the monotony of a decorous age. It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, — “Always do what you are afraid to do.” A simple, manly character need never make an apology, but should regard its past action with the calmness of Phocion, when he admitted that the event of the battle was happy, yet did not regret his dissuasion from the battle.

Seek Suffering

To speak the truth, even with some austerity, to live with some rigor of temperance, or some extremes of generosity, seems to be an asceticism which common good-nature would appoint to those who are at ease and in plenty, in sign that they feel a brotherhood with the great multitude of suffering men. And not only need we breathe and exercise the soul by assuming the penalties of abstinence, of debt, of solitude, of unpopularity, but it behooves the wise man to look with a bold eye into those rarer dangers which sometimes invade men, and to familiarize himself with disgusting forms of disease, with sounds of execration, and the vision of violent death.

Address Crises

Times of heroism are generally times of terror, but the day never shines in which this element may not work. The circumstances of man, we say, are historically somewhat better in this country, and at this hour, than perhaps ever before. More freedom exists for culture. It will not now run against an axe at the first step out of the beaten track of opinion. But whoso is heroic will always find crises to try his edge. Human virtue demands her champions and martyrs, and the trial of persecution always proceeds. It is but the other day that the brave Lovejoy gave his breast to the bullets of a mob, for the rights of free speech and opinion, and died when it was better not to live.

The Literature of Heroism

Thomas Carlyle, with his natural taste for what is manly and daring in character, has suffered no heroic trait in his favorites to drop from his biographical and historical pictures. Earlier, Robert Burns has given us a song or two. In the Harleian Miscellanies, there is an account of the battle of Lutzen, which deserves to be read. And Simon Ockley’s History of the Saracens recounts the prodigies of individual valor with admiration, all the more evident on the part of the narrator, that he seems to think that his place in Christian Oxford requires of him some proper protestations of abhorrence. But, if we explore the literature of Heroism, we shall quickly come to Plutarch, who is its Doctor and historian. To him we owe the Brasidas, the Dion, the Epaminondas, the Scipio of old, and I must think we are more deeply indebted to him than to all the ancient writers. Each of his “Lives” is a refutation to the despondency and cowardice of our religious and political theorists. A wild courage, a Stoicism not of the schools, but of the blood, shines in every anecdote, and has given that book its immense fame. We need books of this tart cathartic virtue, more than books of political science, or of private economy. Life is a festival only to the wise. Seen from the nook and chimney-side of prudence, it wears a ragged and dangerous front.

A boy in Sake, North Kivu province, Democratic Republic of...

Sun, 23 Nov 2008 10:11:00 -0500

A boy in Sake, North Kivu province, Democratic Republic of Congo. The southern frontline (for North Kivu state) between Tutsi rebels and Congo’s government army runs through this village. In other words, one half is controled by the government and the other is taken by rebels. Only a feeble pole in between.

What's a Badass?

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 08:55:00 -0500

A 69-year-old who recently found this blog was perplexed by the term “badass,” which unifies all the content.

Must be a generation gap thing. I thought that it was going to be about irresponsible screw-ups and how cool they are but of course it isn’t at all, it is sort of the opposite.

His reaction is totally understandable. I think only 12-35 year-old American or British people understand the term of admiration.

In short, “badass” means “hero.” Young people are too snarky to use such an earnest complement, so they made up a more appropriate one.

Yes, badass is a term of admiration, a high complement. I think it came about after people started using the term “bad” to mean “great.” Caifornians probably added the “ass” on the end, since we tend to add “ass” onto the end of a great many words (dumbass, bitchass).

I have solicited many definitions over the past months, like these:

“Someone who doesn’t care what anyone else thinks of him.”

“Someone who takes risks and bucks convention.”

When I think of a badass, I usually think of the rapper Too $hort. His classic song “Gettin It” pretty well captures my perception of what a badass does:

Get everything you want, get real, get your mail
Get your girl to make bail and get your ass out of jail
You should be gettin it, everything you want
Everything you dreamed of, never have to front
You should be gettin it, gettin money
I’m talking bout you black, don’t laugh it aint funny
Get your kids in school, so they can get an education
Get a degree, and take a vacation
You see I got all my game from the streets of California
Young millionaire with no high school diploma
Livin real good, taking care of my folks
roll up a fat one for the players to smoke
Short Dawg in the house, I know you aint trippin
Cause Life is Too $hort you gotta Get In Where You Fit In
Stop looking for what you never seem to find
It ain’t what you think you got to read between the lines
Cause life ain’t long, for a young black man
Tryin to make money doing all he can
Sellin dope don’t ya hope he would go to class
But the boy makes money and he makes it fast
with the twenties on top and the fifties on the bottom
It’s been a long time since I first got down
But I still keep makin these funky sounds
Get your money man
Get yours

Chorus:

You should be gettin it
Get it while the gettin is good, get it while you can
You should be gettin it
Get it while the gettin is good

I know you tired of being broke just hanging out
You gotta lot a dreams but you can’t get out
The first thing you need to do is set your self some goals
Think positive, everything else is old
And work hard, never stop hustlin
Cause they just love to see the black man strugglin
It’s time to come up, put your dollar bills in the air
He said meet me at the White House and I was there
Cause I’m one in a million, black man rising
They wanna keep me down but I always surprise em
Spend my money in the hood, I know it’s all good
And you should do the same
I lend my brother a hand cause I know I can
I keep going and goin but I’m not the pink bunny
I’m not beatin on a drum I never stop thinkin money
I’m gettin all I can if you don’t ya slip
I can’t wait to get to heaven just to have a grip
When I was broke, I couldn’t afford a meal
But now I’m now rich I can’t be fake I gots to keep it real
It’s been a long time baby since I first got down
But it still keep making these funky sounds

What Too $hort means is that underdogs, those not part of the aristocracy, whatever aristocracy rules their particular world and worldview, whether it be WHITE PEOPLE or THE WEST or THE GOVERNMENT or yesterday’s HEDGE FUNDS or THE POLICE, should just go for what they want anyway, and always advocate for themselves, however they can, with whatever tools are available to them and without concern for laws created by the establishment to keep them down.

A badass is usually facing adversity of some kind, and is almost always:

Unique

Fearless

Resilient

Creative

Self-contained

And often:

Iconoclastic

Stylish

Coveted by the opposite sex

Brutally honest/undiplomatic/uncouth/tactless

In common parlance, here are some ways people might use the term:

“Can you believe John kept playing even after the linebacker broke off his finger? What a badass.”

“Jill gets a lot of action for a 50-year-old. I know! She has at least five boyfriends that I know of, and they keep proposing to her, but she doesn’t like any of them enough. What a badass! I wonder why the hell I married Joel when I think about her situation… I could be living it up in Chile with a lover instead of being a bored housewife in Ithica. I hate snow! The only reason we live here is because of Joel’s tenure.”

“I met this coffee exporter on the airplane to Paris. He was from Burkina Faso, and grew up in the middle of nowhere. But he got sick of being poor and when he was like 14, he bought a suit and hitchhiked to Johannesburg to propose that he start a coffee plantation on his uncle’s land for this huge multinational coffee exporter. He just went to the office and said he had an appointment. They made him wait two days, and he slept in the lobby. Ultimately he convinced the president of the company to hire him, and now, 15 years later, dude lives in Geneva and makes like $150,000 a year as a major exporter. He put all his brothers and sisters through college and then paid for his family to resettle to another country when there was a war near their border in Liberia. Total badass!”

“Greg Mortenson is amazing. He got lost climbing down a mountain and wandered into some poor mountain village in Pakistan where they saved him from freezing to death. Then they told him they wanted him to repay them by building a school for the village. He was like, Okay. And then he built not just a school but a bridge, and then dozens of more schools all over Afghanistan and Pakistan. He was only making $20,000 a year but he didn’t care. What a badass.”

Needless to say, anyone who pulls out his own tooth, stitches up his own bulletwound, walks around the world, starts an orphanage, a revolution, or becomes the first black president of the United States of America qualifies immediately for badass status.

There’s a spiritual quality to being a badass, that thing that keeps a badass going regardless of what horrible conditions they may be living in. Badasses are not co-dependent. They could be surrounded by totally mean disgusting people and still find happiness in their own ways.