A Tribute to Change

Rewind 91 years back in the past. July 18, 1918. Transkei, South Africa: A leader was born. It takes one pair of hands to change the world.

Nelson Mandela has been widely acclaimed for his many distinctions, notably receiving a Novel Prize to merit his great contributions to peace. Eliminating apartheid in South Africa, and becoming the first black president of the country, he has been a true revolutionary, devoted to his cause regardless of the many obstacles that he’s had to endure for his ideal of freedom to prevail.

His path was not short of difficulties. Born into a noble family, the Madiba clan of the Thembu people in a small village in the Eastern Cape of South Africa, Mandela was known as Madiba by his people. Notably, Nelson Mandela was born as Rolihlahla Dalibhunga, and while attending English School he was given the name Nelson, marking his first identity experience with the white regime.

Frustrated with the South African white regime and apartheid from an early age, in 1943, Mandela became part of the African National Congress, initially as an activist, and later as the founder and head of the ANC Youth League. Notably, to further his fight, Mandela became a lawyer in 1952 and opened a practice in Johannesburg with his partner, Oliver Tambo. With joint efforts, Mandela and Tambo led a fight against apartheid, the system headed by the all-white National Party oppressing the black majority.

As a result of his campaign, Mandela faced charges along with 155 other activists. Nevertheless, this did not hinder his efforts, and resistance to apartheid increased, notably, against the Pass laws that determined people’s home locations and employment. However, frightened by the ANC’s growing threat, the white regime outlawed the ANC in 1960. In response, Mandela started employing more risky mechanisms of change. After going underground, Mandela enacted a campaign sabotaging South Africa’s economy, the white regime eventually arresting him for utilizing violence to overthrow the government.

His last words before spending the next 27 years of his life imprisoned were, “I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die." In 1964, Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment for attempting to achieve such an ideal.

Notably, achieving his democratic ideal proved a struggle that Mandela would face for the rest of his life; however, he could take little action from the confines of his prison cell. While in exile, his partner, Tambo, launched an international effort to free Mandela by calling upon the world’s conscience to tighten its sanctions against the South African apartheid. Tambo’s campaign proved successful, as in 1990, President FW de Klerk annulled the band on the ANC, freeing Mandela at last.

Through their joint efforts, Mandela and de Klerk gave birth to a new multi-racial democracy in South Africa, receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for their realization of Mandela’s democratic ideal in 1993. Shortly, during the first full suffrage election, the myriad of colorful South Africans elected Mandela president, making him the first black president of South Africa. Notably, during his presidency, Mandela tackled South African poverty and integrated South Africa into the international community. Successfully guiding the country to a bright future, Mandela retired in 2000, not resigning from his ideal, but passing on the governmental reigns to the younger generations.

Fast forward to July 18. 2009. The world gathered to honor a great man; a man ahead of his time.

A full ninety-one years from Nelson Mandela’s birth, upon the South African Ambassador Baso Sangqu’s suggestion, the United Nations General Assembly declared July 18 the Mandela Day, marking Nelson Mandela’s contribution to world freedom. Accordingly, this past July, the world gathered on the 18th for the first time to honor this leader of change. "It serves as a catalyst for each and every person around the world to realize that they have the ability to change it [the world] through action," Nelson Mandela Foundation's chief executive Achmat Dangor reflected.

Namely, many events took place this past July marking Mandela Day. An online initiative was struck encouraging people to spend 67 minutes contributing to a good cause emanating the 67 years Mandela has spent as an activist. Additionally, a concert in NYC’s Madison Square Garden featuring stars such as Steve Wonder, Alicia Keys, Aretha Franklin and the unforgettable, Carla Bruni, was held to honor this great leader and his dedication to democracy.

“Democracy is unambivalent,” said Belize in Kushner’s Angels in America, which is why we must never forget Mandela’s mission to uphold democracy’s principle. How many more leaders remain locked away in prison cells today? How many more will suffer the same obstacles as Mandela, who solely wished to change the old regime which oppressed his people. Unhesitatingly, the world must never forget its responsibility to foster change and take action to improve the society we live in. In the words of Mandela himself, “It’s in our hands”.

The Facebook Alter Ego

1. Log in. Ten new notifications! I am complete!
2. ~HOME PAGE~
3. Notification: Iskra Dzundeva liked so and so’s link on so and so’s wall.
-Alien-O M G, now that must mean that Iskra likes so and so!
Fatal consequence: Gossip Girls (males included) thrive. A like on someone’s post is worth a thousand words, of course.
Drama ensues. The Facebook alter egos come alive. We, the real people, become aliens.

In fact, making a decision to push that like button on someone’s profile can mean nothing, but to some of the most prominent Facebook socialites it means absolutely everything. It is a pity that societal communication has come down to such exchange. Pushing a button instead of expressing an opinion? How amoeba-like. It is a pity that I partake in it.

However, it didn’t always used to be so. How has Facebook changed my life? What was my social life like before Facebook, 3 years ago, when I was a wee bit freshman, inarticulate in the eloquence of the virtual world? Actually, I was one of the strongest opponents of the cyber face. Scratch that, I was THE enemy of the virtual world and networking. Wasting countless hours on MySpace, forgetting reality’s face, no way, I was so above that. Mock the hypocrite I have become; so I succumbed. Now, I am just one the many faces in the world’s largest encyclopedia of information: Facebook.

Why did I make a decision to join? Oh, surely, that’s simple: I was smitten by the allure of retaining contact with my long distance friends.

Alien- Wait a minute, by that you mean checking your Facebook ten times a day just to get “in touch” with people?

Obviously, the Facebook addiction stems from something else, a concept far more complex. Why do we have the urge to follow people’s lives and acquire intimate information that in no way we should have access to?

Alien-Geez, why would you care about my profile? What a stalker. Oh, what has HE been up to?

The answer is simple. It is not what we demand, but it is what the market supplies that hooks us. In other words, Facebook users have access to whatever their friends post on their profile pages. Thus, if you decide to have a public argument with your best friend on Facebook, guess what: your private life has been penetrated. In less than five minutes this dispute will appear on everyone’s home page, and the whole world will know about that dude cheating on your best friend. Oops; so much for privacy.

Let’s face it: it’s not like most of you don’t know this. All Facebook users in fact, are very aware of the information they post on their profiles. After all, this is the face that we would like the world to identify us by, isn’t it? This is the face that is supposed to be a reflection of the real self; a metonymic representation of the people behind the screen. In reality, through our desperate attempts to identify ourselves as the unique individuals that we are, the Facebook profile has become its own persona, our alter ego, cooler than our real selves. This alter ego defines itself through the lame self taken pictures and the never ending list of our wide interests, because we are incapable of making a choice and being selective. Of course, let’s not neglect the most important segment, the more friends the better, because we are just THAT popular. Who cares if we don’t even have a clue about who half of them really are? Reach out and grab them, they are the closest that we will ever get to reality, they are part of our virtual world.

Let’s turn the tables: something must be wrong with the real world for us to flee to our alter ego and create a new world with several clicks of the mouse. What exactly is wrong?

Analyzing the different socio-economic factors of our decade, I’ve come to the conclusion that the general global devastation has led to people’s self imposed alienation from society. People choose to stay at home because they do not have the means to go outside; in today’s material culture, having fun means spending tremendous amounts of money, and of course, the more you spend the better. So what do those who cannot afford such expensive entertainment do? They, in fact, stay at home clicking away on the internet, bonding in the virtual way. Sad yet true, materialism has driven the world into two extremes of alienation: one in which individuals turn to the excessive material pleasures to fill their emotional holes and the other in which individuals turn to the virtual to escape reality. Siddhartha’s words have been forgotten; could it be that we prefer reading the Face-Book over real books?

Alien-Wait, like, those old things that ppl used to read bak in da Neanderthal age? Y read those when I can just go on Spark notes. LMAO, YOUR SO ridic.(Yes, the objects with dusty covers sitting alone on your bookshelves, the lonely remnants of the distant past).

Similarly to Siddhartha’s struggle with materialism, nowadays, the extreme trend of the material escapist modes has created a shift in the way that individuals communicate amongst themselves. Today’s youth does not use the internet to facilitate their communication with people; rather they abuse it to meet new people. The tragedy lies in the practice of getting to know people more profoundly through MSN, Facebook chat, or other internet sites, rather than through good old human contact. Call me old fashioned, but whatever happened to dates, frequent social gatherings during the day, and spontaneous meetings with people to have a chat,” on a coffee”*?

The more time we spend clicking away, the less time we spend with real people, which leads to our self inflicted alienation from society. Let’s face it: the more friends we have on Facebook solely distances us from our real friends. We need to reevaluate our priorities and focus on quality over quantity, because after all the most valuable things are the scarcest of them all. Let’s reach out for the people who exist outside of the virtual world; those who do not necessarily have a Facebook alter ego as the passport substitute of the 21st century.

Alien logs off Facebook and proceeds to call her friend up for coffee so they can talk in person. Like real people. Alien masks fall. Humanity is reborn. Just like in that Coca Cola commercial.


*”On a Coffee” refers to the newly built sculpture by GTC on the Kej in Skopje. It is a literal translation of the archaic Macedonian tradition of meeting up for coffee, “na kafe”.

How to Give

Charity has become a fad. For the rich it is a hobby: something they do in their spare time to “help the world”. From tax cuts to better grades, the many artificial incentives our society has created in order to stimulate people to become more openhearted have distorted the ethics of our world. Why would anyone need any other incentive to participate in charitable acts, save the real incentive: help someone? Artificial incentives are meant to motivate members of society to become more humane, however, all that they do is dehumanize the act of good will and strip the humane ones of their initial will to help. Thus, offering incentives for charitable acts is unethical because the main incentive to perform acts of charity should not come from an alterior motive, but from our genuine desire to help someone.

Currently, through school community service programs young students are trained in the art of selflessness. Driven by the motivation to increase their number of community service hours in order to complete that indispensible part of their college application, our youth’s perception of aid is distorted. The argument that some people require a little motivation to help and consequently students should be motivated is a fallacy, since school rewards programs solely encourage students to participate in charity acts for their own benefit. Although it is truly beneficial to the community as a whole for its individuals to participate actively in its creation, recently, community service has become more about the individual than about the community. Amidst all the fervor it has created, in the pursuit of quantity, students often lose the main impetus as for why to partake in this activity—good will. Let us not forget: charity is not meant to provide the donor with benefits, rather, it is meant to help those receiving the aid.

From firsthand experience, I know that motivating students rebukes the whole purpose of charity. In my former school, students were awarded honor roll status if they completed 75 hours of community service. Many of my peers were driven to complete the hours solely for the purpose of receiving the distinction. Some even went so far as to forge their hours! Thus, instead of looking to help others, they followed an alterior (selfish) motive. In my opinion, it would have been better for them to complete less hours rather than have completed the 75 “hard earned” hours in vain with a false incentive. In fact, this is the failure of alterior incentives; they not only rebuke the purpose of goodwill, but also encourage donors to become entrenched in the lie that they are honestly helping someone.

The individualistic motives imposed by our society to partake in charitable acts continue in the business world. Through tax cuts for big businesses that choose to donate a small part of their immense profits to charity, the needy are cheated again. Once again, such alterior motives as tax cuts rebuke the purpose of aid, as money is solely thrashed upon the needy. Those big businesses that “truly wish to help”, do not even come in contact with the individuals they “seek” to help. I cannot help but wonder: would those same businesses be eager to donate money if they did not receive the tax cuts? In truth, we shall never know, since our society’s ethical incentives are distorted by greed.

Creating alterior motives in order to persuade people to become more humane perverts our humanity and rips us off our genuine desire to help others. If people give in order to get something back in return, they are not only deceiving those who they claim to be helping, but they are also deceiving themselves. Hence, it does not matter how much you give, but WHY you give, and that is why our society must revaluate its ethics.

Re: Medusa and the Snail

In his essay “The Medusa and the Snail”, biologist Lewis Thomas claims that humans are built to make mistakes. Furthermore, he argues that mistakes are the basis for human progress. According to his claims, there are always right and wrong choices of which one needs an equal balance. Wrong choices are necessary and one learns from them by trial and error. Thomas argues that mistakes are common and that they serve as an important guide towards discovering the new and creating progress. Additionally, he contends that all new kinds of thinking are created in opposition to a previous state of mind. For every argument there has to be a counterargument, and moreover, Thomas claims that in debates there is a mutual understanding that one is right and the other wrong. Thus, Thomas maintains that “landing on the wrong side” is responsible for the greatest human achievements. I agree with Thomas that error is the basis for progress because faced with errors humans are pushed to correct them. However, I find his contention to be contradictory because in “Medusa and the Snail”, Thomas states that new ideas and progress are created in opposition to past accomplishments. In fact, the greatest human achievements have been made when past precedents have been adapted. Trial and error is not about experimenting with the unknown; it’s about improving what is already there.

I firmly disagree with Thomas that new thinking is created in opposition to past ideas. If this was so, then there would be no continuity in the world which is necessary for progress. Furthermore, if every generation made fresh starts and neglected the past accomplishments only trials would be made but no errors. Without errors the motivation to improve is absent thus yielding no success. True success is achieved when one builds off of past achievements and continues the traditions of the past while adapting them. As has been evident throughout much of history, progress has often been due to civilizations borrowing from their past and each other. For example, the Chinese dynasties existed for millennia and lasted till the 20th century. The reason for this great continuity was that the Chinese retained some of the traditions of the past such as Confucianism and Daoism and built off of them to create a strong base which would withstand and enable future improvements. China’s dynasties eventually ceased to exist; however, this was due to their modernization, which wasn’t totally against the past traditions. Rather, it was an adaptation to the new conditions. In fact, to this day the Chinese have maintained much of their old ways of thinking and have become successful because they have effectively blended the old with the new.

Additionally, in Huntington’s book, “The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order”, the author contends that non Western civilizations such as China are most successful when they borrow from past traditions and spin them in order to adapt to future challenges. Other countries which completely neglect their past traditions and old ways of thinking are bound to fail because they adopt foreign ways of thinking instead of their own. Huntington states that China’s communism is effective because in the ancient Chinese Confucianism the same values as in communism are endorsed, such as work ethic and community. Thus, continuity has enabled effective trials such as communism to be made, which have helped to lead China to progress. Furthermore, in the past century after the Communist Revolution, China had isolationist politics which caused it to regress, however, in recent years, the Chinese have learned from this error and have become more open towards the world. This openness which has been backed by a strong cultural identity and tradition has resulted in their booming economy and rapid progress. Thus, contrary to Thomas’ argument, new ways of thinking are not created in opposition to something old, but rather they build off of past discoveries and traditions to create a new blend.

The discovery of penicillin was also an unintentional error which led to a scientific breakthrough and progress in the field of medicine. Fleming discovered penicillin after leaving his laboratory in a mess and going off on vacation, only to come back to mold in his petri dishes. He’d been performing experimentations and raising bacteria and unexpectedly his untidiness led to the discovery of the first antibiotic. The discovery of the first antibiotic was completely unintentional and at the beginning was unacknowledged, and without further experimentation its value could have never been fully revealed. Frustrated with his efforts towards perfecting his discovery and nearing old age, Fleming eventually passed on the development of penicillin to other younger scientists in the US, who successfully managed to improve it, enabling it to attain its wide importance and usefulness. These followers of Fleming succeeded in creating an effective penicillin antibiotic which very soon became so readily available that it was indispensably used during WWII. The history of the development of penicillin supports the claim that those progressive individuals who develop breakthroughs need to ensure that their developments have continuity either toward the future or from the past, because inventions that have no previous basis or future implications are not progressive or beneficial to humanity. Lasting progress is timeless and offers room for error, which opens up the opportunity for future adjustments, just like those that were made to penicillin.

The French Revolution was a major turning point in history when egalitarianism, liberty and democracy were instituted by the people’s uprising in resistance to the French monarchy. One might argue that the people revolted in opposition to the monarchy, and thus one may contend that Thomas correctly states that important developments occur due to an existent opposition, however, this would be a naïve statement. One might support this argument if they solely look at the history regarding this period and neglect human history as a whole, thus neglecting an essential perspective in historical analysis. In fact, looking back to the past examples, the French philosophers who heavily influenced the revolutionary thinking all endorsed the democratic principles of government previously invented by the Greeks. Montesquieu, for example, developed the theory of separation of powers which is simply a continuation of the ideas of democratic rule. Furthermore, as a result of the French Revolution, assemblies were instituted in efforts to decentralize the power from the monarch. Assemblies were also previously present in both Greek and Roman classical civilizations. Thus, though the French Revolution has been considered as a period in history when drastic change was instituted in opposition to the monarchy, the revolutionary ideas of change were actually a continuation of the Greek and Roman political ideology.

In opposition to Thomas’ contention, most of the world has been successful when it has recycled the old to create something new. Thomas’ argument has a strong base by contending that trial and error lead to success, however, his argument is flawed because he naively maintains that progress and effective change is created in complete disagreement with the past developments. This argument is feeble because in reality as Thomas contends but fails to expand upon, making errors leads to progress and there would be no room for recognizing and learning from errors if each error was due to a different discontinuous trial. Furthermore, anyone can make a mistake, but the mistakes that matter are those that have ground set in the past and those that offer the possibility of continuity. Errors that lead to progress are those that yield timeless results.

The Process of Elimination

They follow you everywhere. Slowly but surely, they creep onto your pages. Assuming an omnipresent reputation, they numb down your alertness to them as they find their way onto all of your school exams and standardized tests. All of a sudden, you become aware that they force you to make difficult choices, crucial choices that pave the path for your future. The answers to the multiple choice questions all seem valid; moreover, all have the potential to be the right answer. Nevertheless, only one choice is the right answer, which accordingly makes all the other answers wrong. Neglect your individual thoughts, it is not about what you think, it is about what The College Board© wants you to think. Eliminate, narrow down your answers, lastly, do not over think it; make “your” choice. Hold back for a second, did you miss a step from their instructions?

Before we become robots, we must reexamine ourselves: doesn’t this process of thought go against all the foundations of the modern liberal education? Doesn’t liberal education encourage students to follow their independent thoughts and seek out their own answers? From its inception and in practice, liberal education fosters the approach that encourages students to activate their nervous systems, develop their own perspective and be mindful of others’ manner of thinking. This approach is supposed to enable students to surpass the-conventional-and-limiting-one-answer-system and generate alternative manners of thinking. Moreover, liberal thinking is supposed to free the mind of its boundaries and allow new ideas to reach the surface. Currently, in our so-called “liberal education” system, many students come across “liberal” books such as 1984, which teach us about the immense power of language. In 1984, Orwell outlines a horrifying society in which the spoken and written word are limited, where words such as “doublethink” serve the purpose to limit thought. After reading this novel, the majority of students are left with an important lesson: language controls thought. Hence, in a similar manner, don’t the limitations imposed upon us by multiple-choice answers essentially limit our process of thought? The facts concur with this notion, since when preparing for multiple-choice tests such as the SAT and AP exams, our generation is often tempted—if not strongly encouraged to—purchase prep-books and fill the pockets of test prep institutions that make fortunes from students’ simple desire to attend solid academic institutions. The prep-books issued by such institutions claim to posses all the secrets to defeating the multiple choice. Unfortunately, instead of presenting us with knowledge, these books contain the secret methodology of circling that one right answer. These friendly manuals, which help us achieve our dreams, train us to eliminate answers and analyze texts mechanically. The more time we spend with our good-intentioned friends, the more they rid us of our creativity and individual ability to offer different interpretations on texts. Furthermore, the pragmatic and future paving tricks that these prep-books teach strip us of our analytical eye as they rob literature from its beauty by forcing it to become one-dimensional and limited. Suddenly, our interpretations, therefore our thought processes and schema become wrong. Students and teachers, wake up: a new era has arrived, where the multiple choice judges us and not vice versa.

Through the multiple-choice system, we are taught to disregard our independent manner of thinking, and mold our brains to the standardized process of generating answers. The tragedy of our generation is that we are forced to prepare for standardized tests not in order to gain knowledge and be tested on our knowledge, but rather, we are forced to prepare for how to defeat the test, thus, to prepare to defeat the multiple-choice system. However, will we ever defeat the multiple choice if we continue in this manner? Will we ever defeat the system if our admittance to academic institutions depends upon circling answers? It is up to us to circle the right choice.