On Interning in Bulgaria

The bent neck escapes the sword.

All cultures develop pithy phrases over time, distilling wisdom accumulated through the ages.  'Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise’ is a famous American one. Despite its inexact description of all successful people, and its unfortunately gimcrack rhyme, Dr Franklin’s maxim expresses an enthusiasm emblematic of the American outlook.

Bulgaria’s history is different, and wisdom focused on survival emerged with the years.

In order to explain my work here in Bulgaria, perhaps the country deserves a bit of description. Not many Americans (including myself) know much about Bulgaria until they come here.

Leaving the impressive ancient history of Bulgaria aside (Emperor Constantine referred to the capitol as ‘‘my Rome’’), the country’s modern history includes invasion by the Ottoman Empire in 1396, an occupation which lasted ostensibly until 1878.  A nearly 500 year-long period popularised by the title of his novel, ‘‘Under the Yoke’’, Ivan Vazov notes the oppression of Bulgarian cultural identity, including Bulgarian Orthodox identity, during Ottoman rule.  Sadly, the pluralism notable of the late Ottoman Empire only began as Bulgaria finally achieved its desired independence.

Independence did I say?  Many Bulgarians describe this part of their history with dismay.  For, even as the Ottomans left, the Great Powers decided (in their characteristic humility and respect for sovereignty) to divide Bulgaria into fragments even as it achieved autonomy.  Wars ensued, alliances formed. And Bulgaria, like all small European countries during the Great Wars of the 20th century, threw her destiny behind one of the major alliances it thought had the best success of weathering a continent in convulsion.  Regrettably, Bulgaria joined the Central Powers in the Great War, and the Axis powers during WWII.  In 1944, a left-wing uprising abolished the monarchy, and in 1946 Bulgaria entered the Soviet sphere of influence.  

Communism wrought effects still evident in the capitol of Sofia.  Interrupting beautiful neoclassical architecture inspired by Austrian and French styles of the 19th century, cement block buildings yawn intentional gloom, producing their architects’ desired effect.  Surely mothers taught their children ‘the bent head evades the secret police.’

But in 1989 communism fell. Since then, Bulgaria has been on an uncertain road to recovery. 

Out of these historical circumstances come significant challenges. For example, an Anti-Corruption Report by the European Commission in March of this year reported that 84% of Bulgarian respondents say that corruption is widespread in Bulgaria.[1]  

And corruption does not cease at courthouse gates.  ‘‘In modern Bulgaria corruption is one of the significant concerns plaguing the current legal system. With historical roots in the Ottoman Empire and the Communist regime, Bulgaria faces challenges in sustaining a strong judicial system that holds its members accountable. Since the transition from communism to democracy in 1989, Bulgaria’s biggest challenge has been reforming its judicial system to combat corruption.’’[2]  

Advocates Europe was registered in the UK in 2001 and re-registered in Bulgaria in 2009. It has over 400 members with contacts in 35 countries around Europe. AE focuses on combating corruption and human trafficking, but also promotes human rights and equal justice for the poor, the sanctity of human life, religious freedom, the rule of law, peace and reconciliation, the family & community.

My internship is with the President of Advocates Europe, Latchezar Popov. As President of AE he is the administrator of the network of attorneys involved with AE across Europe. As an attorney, he is dedicated to helping rebuild Bulgaria through the rule of law. He is also the founder of the Rule of Law Institute which concentrates on issues particular to Bulgaria. 

During my internship I have drafted an application to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France. The case involves a church which has been denied registration as a legal institution. Of course, the case is more complicated than what can be summarised here. In essence, the church has climbed the appeals process in Bulgaria and at every level been denied due process. Besides facing the corruption of the courts, we’re concerned that the courts may be adopting an antagonistic disposition to religious plurality in Bulgaria. Religious freedom, including the freedom of institutional association, is protected by the Constitution; however, the courts have found illegitimate ways around this protection.  In April of 2014, the Supreme Cassational Court rejected the church’s final appeal. 

If the level of appeal ended in Bulgaria this would, obviously, be the end of the road. However, Bulgaria is a member of the European Convention of Human Rights. As a result, we are appealing the case to the European Court. Legally speaking, the case is evidently strong. And yet the applicants (the members of the church) aren’t holding their breath, even though AE has a strong track record with the Court. They are demoralised by the corruption experienced in the Bulgarian court system. It is our hope that a correction from the Court will not only secure the applicants’ rights but will send a message to the courts that Bulgaria must continue to reduce corruption. 

I’ve also helped draft a supplemental memorandum to the European Court involving a case that has sat in its dock for five years (there’s some explanation for this I won’t get into here). The applicant in this case is a radio broadcaster who has tried to secure a frequency to produce a Christian radio programme. To date, Bulgaria has never granted a radio frequency to a Christian radio programme. In 2001, the State granted this applicant a license, but has consistently prevented the applicant from attaining a frequency. Again, it is to be hoped the European Court will strike a balance.

Applying to the European Court is an interesting experience, for me. As a conservative, I am sceptical of para-national courts’ abilities to support inter-national stability, and not usurp inter-national sovereignty. But perhaps this comes from my perspective as an American steeped in the common law of America and Britain, with its 1,000 year history. For post-communist countries in the East, the tremendous flux of government and law leaves them without long, accumulated legal history. At least in the short term, I see the direct net benefit of the European Court providing justice to those who without it might never see justice. ‘‘I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD In the land of the living.’’ (Psalm 27:13).

Until next time,

PJS

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[1] http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/organized-crime-and-human-trafficking/corruption/anti-corruption-report/docs/2014_acr_bulgaria_chapter_en.pdf.  See also http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/bulgaria/3463957/Inside-Europes-corruption-capital-how-Bulgarias-crime-mafia-plunders-EU-grant-money.html.  However, the Report also noted that the European average is 76%.

[2] http://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1063&context=honors.

Fissiparous Iraq

This post is rooted in the conviction that ‘politics stop at the water’s edge.’

It was a mistake to make the physical invasion of Iraq as we did. There were strong humanitarian reasons for doing so; Saddam Hussein was a barbarous dictator. However, deposing Hussein, invading, and embarking on a state-building project requiring massive investment in resources, was untenable.

But we invaded.

The impetus behind the invasion was not, I believe, mischievous. There were, of course, the mendacious tales of weapons of mass destruction.  Whereas it seemes plausible that Hussein got rid of the potentional ‘smoking gun’ before troops landed, semper necessitas probandi incumbit ei qui agit.  After the invasion the United States managed the acquisition of Iraq’s oil fields to China, Canada, the Netherlands, and others, taking little for itself (a move that would have been justifiable, perhaps, to contribute toward repaying war costs). But our motivation was patently not to ‘build an empire’ and amass spoils, extending our reach like Imperial Rome. To do so is not in our national character—and besides, we had reliable lessons in history from mother Britain.

To my mind, the mistake of the Bush administration lay in this myth: that pax americae can exist, not by Imperial conquest, but by Imperial democracy-spreading.

The call to leave Iraq was a reasonable one. After the passion of vengeance for 9-11 subsided with the invasion of Afghanistan and with the passing of time, our heads cleared and we realized invading Iraq was not a wise decision. Losing soldiers, loving peace, and with Monroe’s doctrine still in the back of our minds, we wanted to be done with it.

So we left.

In my opinion, an unwise decision compounded upon another. Leaving Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki to his sectarian impulses, and the Iraqi army half-trained, we left a vacuum waiting to be filled.

At this point, one can argue that, because we should have never invaded in the first place, it didn’t matter what happened next: all that mattered was that we leave.

But that, it seems to me, is not a prudent conclusion to make. It seems to me that after accepting the burden of Iraq, we should have carried it through.

But now what shall we do?

A question above my pay grade, I will quote someone with a higher salary, more experience, but goodness-knows if anything else. Here it is:

In Iraq, the answer is not to send troops back in. It is to provide Maliki help in exchange for concrete measures to reduce sectarian tensions. The Iraqi government could empower regional governments, acknowledging the nation’s diversity. Maliki could re-professionalize [sic] the Army. The Constitution could impose term limits on prime ministers.

But these provisions would require a more forward-leaning American posture around the world, an awareness that sometimes a U.S.-created vacuum can be ruinous. The president says his doctrine is don’t do stupid stuff. Sometimes withdrawal is the stupidest thing of all.

-David Brooks

Part of the lesson we should learn from our mother, the mother of empire, is that in our globalised world, a hegemonic ‘referee’ with the (albeit imperfect) values of the United States is a relief; a gift to the world we should not be shy of recognising. The full-scale invasion of Iraq was arguably a mistake, yes, but that does not mean we should shuffle back to our shores in shame. To do so is to leave—the Middle East in particular—in a precarious spot with hellish radicals stealing the attention and resources of nation-states who should be concentrating on providing security, stability, and freedom for their peoples. The United States is just—and as of now the only—power who can provide resistance to radicals’ movements, allowing nation-states in the Middle East room to grow and breathe. The modes of our resistance are sundry; full-scale ‘boots on the ground’ invasions are not our only play.

On Poetry of the Sun: A Pleasant Sunday Read

Today, I'm passing on this fascinating read from a high-school run blog. The author, who I take is a high-schooler, has a bright future in thought and writing ahead of him.

On The Cooling Of Global Warming

When I read former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams on global warming, I do not instantly recoil as I do when former Vice President Al Gore blows hot air on the subject.

This may have something to do with an indelible memory I received as a boy. The Bush v Gore election was the second presidential contest to have entered my consciousness, the first being the 1996 presidential race where the predominate question in my mind was whether Bob Dole was somehow responsible for the production of the delicious juices my mother poured for me at the breakfast table (if he was, I figured he probably deserved the youth vote). As we know, the Bush v Gore runoff was not so peachy. And hardly anyone could blame Mr Gore for being severely disappointed at his loss, especially with so close an election.

But then there was the Inaugural Address a few months later. I remember watching Mr Bush’s speech on the Capitol from the distance of the family television in Chicago. The cameras would pan the audience and occasionally zoom-in on particularly famous or incongruous faces.

Al Gore’s face was both of these.

Unbelievably to my tender eyes, the man had gained an enormous amount of weight and was sporting a scraggly, ugly, beard, looking like all he wanted in the world was to hurt someone. I recoiled at the spectacle in an instant; it was the sort of image that came to mind when my parents warned me to avoid strangers, especially strangers cruising in windowless vans.

I understand now that my response was a bit over the top; I’ve never been one for underreacting. Yet the memory stays.

In college, when Mr Gore began travelling the world in his profusely polluting jet, I found it hard to take his apocalyptic message seriously. On top of that my Geology professor, a sceptic of anthropogenic warming, shared the reasons for his scepticism. Naturally, I took him seriously. Then came the report that researchers at one of the leading centres of climate change study, the University of East Anglia, had circulated a string of eyebrow-raising emails casting doubt on the integrity of their work product. The global warming lobby was not wooing this young conservative's vote.

I continue to wonder whether the rhetoric of calamity has more to do with the Left’s penchant for magnanimity than the gravity of the situation. What I am confident in is the Left’s desire for increasingly centralised control of human affairs; and a global catastrophe provides exactly the sort of emergency where concentrating power to the few becomes plausible to the many.

I also recognise that it was Lady Thatcher and the Tory party in Britain in the 1980s who encouraged concern over global warming. They very much wanted nuclear power plants after their surly shutdown of coal.  

For all that, I still have ears to hear what Dr Williams has to say. For, I happen to hold a prejudice that he does, a scepticism that threatens to nudge me closer to those who voice their concern for the environment as 'global warming'. It is a scepticism of the industrialised and plasticised way we Westerners handle . . . everything. You can read some of Dr Williams's remarks at the Telegraph.

It is a remarkable thing how much we extract from our earth to turn around and process into non-degradable matter. It is remarkable how drastically we few billion humans affect our soils, rivers, and oceans. And children's future.

A young JRR Tolkien, a deep lover of nature, witnessed with horror the blackening of his beloved countryside before his move to the even blacker and smaugy Birmingham. Tolkien possessed the notion that the universe is alive; not in the discredited sense of pantheism (and its weird offspring the Gaia and Green movements) but in an imaginative sense. Here is an example of what he felt:

You look at trees and label them just so,
(for trees are 'trees', and growing is 'to grow');
you walk the earth and tread with solemn pace
one of the many minor globes of Space:
a star's a star, some matter in a ball
compelled to courses mathematical
amid the regimented, cold, inane,
where destined atoms are each moment slain.

- Mythopoeia

Tolkien penned these words the night (early morning, to be exact) after he tried convincing C.S. Lewis that myths and mythical thinking have a reasonable place in the human repertoire. More on that another time. Suffice it to say Tolkien, and Dr Williams, share a view that nature should not be reduced to a commodity; trees are not merely paper-and-2x4s-to-be.

Where does this take us? I submit not to the apocalyptic vision and resulting usurpation of Mr Gore and his excitable hotheads. Roger Scruton, though, offers some reasonable and humane advice.

Rather than add to the hysteria of modern discourse, we should resurrect old notions of what Scruton calls 'oikophilia', that is, the love of home. The Left tends to argue in the abstract; conservatives should be more down-to-earth. The Left concentrates on phrases like 'environment', 'habitat', 'ecosystem'. One would think it was the baboon display at the zoo up for discussion.

Conservatives, on the other hand, ought to concentrate on local matters. Conservative vocabularies should include words like 'River Thames' and 'Lake Michigan'. Perhaps the ominously named 'Fresh Kills Landfill, New York' deserves attention. Scruton writes: 'The propensity for settlement and stewardship is at the heart of conservative philosophy, I argue, and ought to be at the heart of Conservative politics, too.' You can read his book Green Philosophy, watch his intriguing videos on Youtube, or read his own summary of the argument at the Guardian.

Let's end with a few sympathetic words from Milton, of whom our Hilaire wrote a biography.

And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark Satanic Mills?

Dark Satanic Mills indeed. The kind that produce the plastic nearly each piece of food we purchase at the grocers is wrapped in.

By the by, if you haven't heard Milton's poem set to tune, stop everything and have a listen.

Until next time,

PJS

 

 

 

On Blogging

'Too much talk leads to sin. Be sensible and keep your mouth shut.' - Proverbs 10:19
'Whoso keepeth his mouth and his tongue keepeth his soul from troubles.' - Proverbs 21:23

The ancient Hebrews were not the only civilisation to consider silence as they did gold. Indeed, we all know how chatter can leave us feeling tired, shallow, and distracted from what's important. Why then do we blog, adding to the ceaseless chatter found online?

My aim in beginning this virtual notice board is to practise my hand at writing. Of course, better men and better writers have commonly written down their thoughts to remain unpublished. Because I hope to one day publish a work of value, it seems to me prudent to practise two things: 1) writing not only what interests and satisfies my own itch to write, but to give expression to what others might be interested in, as well; pushing my considerations outside of my self and towards the interests of others; and 2) to practise writing which I know could potentially be read by . . . anyone. Employers, friends, not-so-friends. In other words, to exercise writing with care.

So much for my explanation (there is that difference between 'explaining' and 'explaining away' which is not always so easy to tell) but there you have it.

Among American readers, the observant who know how to spell will have noticed by now that I have misspelt two words four times: 'civilization' once, and 'practice' thrice. My personal, though not my native spelling, follows Queen's English. You might think I'm pretentious or silly for doing so; that is understandable. But I hope I am neither.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines Queen's English as: 'the English language as regarded as under the guardianship of the Queen; hence, standard or correct English'.

Americans, republicans, and hyper-rationalists will at once disregard the notion of language as under the protection of its monarch. I am American, republican with caveats, and a Romantic Realist; I think Queen's English is a good standard to follow. But above all, I have regard for Standard English for historical and integral reasons.

It is true of course that the English language did not always have a protective guardian. For example, texts from the 17th century (not so far removed from English today to make them unintelligible) are replete with various spellings, yet presumably readers generally could make their way through them. And yet, not quite so smoothly as with standardised spelling.

In approximately three weeks, we will be celebrating the 259th anniversary of Dr Johnson's Dictionary. A masterpiece completed in nine years, this dictionary codified the English language as it had organically developed over a thousand years. This year will also involve the 208th annual lament of Webster's Dictionary. In stark contrast to Dr Johnson's book that served a unifying purpose working within the language itself, Mr Webster's book served, in part, a political and schismatic purpose intentionally driving a wedge in communication between the English living in the United Kingdom and the English living in the United States. Webster's codification was like plastic surgery, artificially altering the natural body. You might say that sometimes plastic surgery makes someone look better than they did naturally. True enough. But the opposite is also true. Is anyone prepared to defend the look of Websterised words, and the sound of Websterised pronunciation, as more beautiful and sublime than the original Received? I doubt it. No, Webster's rebellion was one of the first major acts of using language as a tool for power and control rather than for communication and expression.

To ignore Webster's innovation is not un-American. While there were certainly elements of radicalism within the American revolution, on the whole it was a considerably English sort of event. The English in the United Kingdom (officially not the 'United Kindom' until nineteen years later) had raised a Glorious Revolution 101 years before the US Constitution came into effect. To wave Webster's dictionary away as an annoying and distracting plot is as American as waving away flies attempting to settle on the brim of one's glass of sweet summer iced tea.

You can read more about Queen's English and the perennial threats it endures by Dr Bernard Lamb in the Independent here.

Some might possess an uncomfortable notion that insisting on Queen's English might somehow be ethnocentric. Thankfully, reality may allay such fears. Queen's English is used beautifully from Sussex to Sweden to Sri Lanka. Perhaps someday it will be rediscovered in Savannah.

I should also note that I defend Queen's English as a newcomer, like King Josiah rediscovering the old Law. Though I am not proficient in it, though I have much to learn, yet I love Her and seek to know Her more. Therefore, I welcome any and all corrections to my spelling.

And now for this blog's title. Hilaire Belloc was an Anglo-French man of letters who lived from 1870-1953. You can read his Wikipedia article here. I'm interested in writing on faith, politics, poetry, and much else just as he did, borrowing liberally from many of his thoughts. Perhaps we can come to know Mr Belloc better together as we go along.

By the by, now that you're introduced to Hilaire, do you think the title of this blog is hilarious?

Until next time,

PJS