Condi

 

I haven't been online in a while, but here's something I wrote on Thursday night to post:

Today was one of those days I was glad that I go to BYU. Today, I was privileged to hear the former United States Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, address our student body. Every Tuesday, Brigham Young University holds a university devotional or a forum where a prominent university professor, a general authority for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or an important academic and/or American dignitary gives an hour long talk, sometimes followed by a Q&A session. The Wheatley Lecture series is also brings an amazing set of exceptional American leaders to campus; early last year many of my friends got to see General David Petraeus address the student body as well. And the best part is most of these lectures and forums are recorded on video and in transcripts for everyone to access in the future (see BYU Speeches Website). (Unfortunately, Rice’s address was not broadcasted).

Today’s forum, which occurred on a Thursday, was a particularly remarkable one. The Wheatley Institute helped put this together making it an especially valuable learning experience. The Wheatley’s are close friends of Rice and invited her to speak this year. Generally devotionals and forums are spiritually uplifting and encouraging, which is great, but I enjoy the more academic themed ones the most. As Rice has been a professor at Stanford University since the early 1980s, this was one I could not miss. As usual, the forum began with an opening song and prayer. We sang Rejoice, The Lord is King, which is typically an LDS hymn (fact check), but, as my friend Michele pointed out, Condoleezza was singing along as well. “I like her already,” Michele said. Rice comes from a deeply religious background growing up in the deep, segregated South in Birmingham, Alabama. It’s always interesting to me to hear the personal views and life experiences of people with that kind of background as I feel so far removed from such a time. I didn’t know the true meaning of racism or prejudice for most of my life growing up in Hawaii where everyone was expected to come from a million different race and ethnicities.

While I may not have agreed with everything she said, Rice gave a wonderful talk. After all, there aren’t many people (if there are any at all) with whom I agree with completely, and I think this should be true for most people with the level of diversity we have in America. Her talk reminded me of my commencement speech this past May given by outgoing USC President, Steven B. Sample. While I love President Sample and everything he has done for USC and helping us Trojans to become not only an athletically prominent school, but also an academic one (US News Report Rankings list us at 23 this year – finally above UCLA and just below Berkeley) – I have to admit that I was disappointed with the commencement speech he gave in 2010. As a hostess for the university’s Protocol and Events office, I often heard him speak, and as the president of the school he was supposed to address us anyway. I feel like it would have been more appropriate to include his speech with another more traditional speaker from the world outside of academia, the world most of us were about to enter. Anyway, as Rice spoke, I kept thinking how great it would have been to have someone like her speak at my USC commencement last year.

One of the most interesting things that happened at the forum wasn’t what Rice said at all; it was the reactions of the supposedly conservative student body surrounding me. There was this random guy who sat at the end of my row at the last minute, and when Rice walked into the room, everyone rose to their feet and applauded her until she was seated. This strange guy all of a sudden turned to me as we were clapping and said, “We stand and applaud for the prophet and apostles who come to speak here. Why are we applauding her? She’s not anything! Just a former politician!” I was quite taken aback by this man’s disrespect. I told him, “well, she was the US Secretary of State. That means something.” The man kept going, “She’s not even a politician now! That means nothing.” Seriously? No matter who it was, if someone came to speak to my student body and they had served in a difficult, respectable position for this country, I would stand and applaud them as they walked in as a sign of respect. Even former politicians have accomplished great things, whether or not I agree with their political views. I told this guy, “Well, wouldn’t you applaud the former President if he came to speak to us?” and he said no! What a strange guy. In our religion, “we believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates” (Article of Faith #12) and in obeying the law of the land. I always thought that a part of this responsibility that comes with being a citizen was loyalty and respect for our leaders, whether they are in office or not. I was utterly shocked to witness such a sign of disrespect, and at BYU nonetheless! And I heard many other classless comments regarding their opinions on Rice based on any political differences that exist between them. Regardless of politics, Rice has accomplished many reputable things in her lifetime. I mean, Stanford is one of the best universities our country has to offer, and she is a highly regarded staff member there, even before her service as the Secretary of State.

Perhaps my interest in working for the State Department colored my interest in her speech today. I have always been interested in doing something in diplomacy for my career, especially coming from a state where everyone has a parent or grandparent from a different country (myself included) and with my experience working on the state student council and interning at the Hawaii State Legislature in high school. The work the State Department does against human trafficking also interests me. I always read their annual Trafficking in Persons Report which compiles global information regarding the status and nature of trafficking events we know about in each nation as well as efforts to prevent it. Working at the Thai Community Development Center in Los Angeles which has a heavy hand in the work against trafficking in America has developed my passion in this area of advocacy. It takes a lot of work to manage a department in charge of such broad, important issues: international development, human trafficking, the defense of our nation, managing our foreign relationships and affairs, and more. It’s a tough job, and I truly respect anyone who holds this position.

Coming from the recent Bush administration, many people are very critical toward Rice, and perhaps

unnecessarily so. I’m not one to decide that, however, ever since September 11^th, there have been lots of finger pointing and name calling regarding the state of our nation in all its different capacities. I have noticed lots of this occurring in the Obama administration with lots of blame and name calling directed toward the Republican party in his public addresses in 2010; whether or not he was right, name calling seems like a pretty immature way to address party differences from my perspective and as an Independent. I never understood that. People are so quick to point fingers and blame others, especially for political purposes. But I’m not sure who to believe about anything in politics. Now, all I know is that it really bugs me when people point fingers rather than try to unify this country and fix problems first. Do people really want someone to blame for things that go wrong? Why does that seem almost more important than fixing any problem itself? Maybe I’m just too much of a pragmatist.

Anyway, Rice made an interesting  statement that seems to fit in with the theme of finger pointing, name calling and blame in the political arena: “Today’s headlines and history’s judgments are rarely the same.” How true this is. Today’s headlines are fabricated by the media. They can choose to put a positive or negative spin on almost any story (i.e. 30% of the Legislature votes to ban chocolate milk from schools vs. Chocolate milk to remain in school lunches with 70% of the Legislative vote). Headlines are all political. History needs time to develop. And it’s important to note that history itself is also fabricated to a degree. For instance, people’s idea of King Richard III of England from 1483 to 1485 is mostly negative tainted with accusations of the murder of his two nephews. All this controversy mostly surrounds Sir Thomas More’s account of him in his book, The History of King Richard III. However, most people fail to realize that More was just 6 years old when Richard passed away, thus More barely knew any facts about him. Either way, "much of the traditional account of the evil Richard III is based on this work, and Sir Thomas More's reputation as a saint and a martyr has had a pronounced effect on the history's acceptance." Even Shakespeare's account of Richard III is heavily based upon More's account of his history. This just goes to show that the way history is written and whether or not it is based on accurate facts is so fascinating. After all, More's account is now famed more for its classical Renaissance style than for its historical accuracy. These dynamics at play in what comprises "history" is so interesting to try to figure out. It just goes to show how history is most definitely a socially construction of reality as opposed to reality itself, which is especially true the further one goes into the past and the further removed one is from the actual records, "facts," and events. I wanted to study history as my major, but I couldn’t see myself having a practical career in that area. Nevertheless, the history of what happened during the Bush administration will be written by future generations. We won’t know what people think about him until people can only look back, not from experience, and believe certain things about it. This is how history is written.

I think I have written enough for today, but I will be sure to address some of the other interesting things Rice said in my future posts. Laa gorn na kha.