TUESDAY, JANUARY 17, 2023 - NON-VIOLENCE, HATE AND LOVE

 TUESDAY, JANUARY 17, 2023 NON-VIOLENCE, HATE AND LOVE

Following on Martin Luther King day: (Matthew 5:38-40)

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.”

Turn the other cheek.  I guess I read this as don’t fight hate with hate, fight hate with love.  

But, it is so easy to fight hate with hate.  Paint the opponent as being evil.  

I went to Belarus twice.  I didn’t know much about the country, except they were part of the old Soviet Union (USSR).  

At Quinnipiac University, in early January 2002, I got a call asking if I wanted an exchange professor from Belarus.  I was department chair of the Computer Information Systems Department (newly elected in May 2001).  I had come to Quinnipiac in August 2000 - and didn’t know if this was standard.  But, hey, why not?  

So, “we” got Andrei Semeniuta as an exchange professor from Belarus.  

*****

Now, growing up after World War II, the United State’s big opponent was the USSR - the Soviet Union.  They were the “evil empire”.  They wanted to make the world Communist.  In the 1950s Eastern Europe was all Communist - Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary.  Communism - under Mao - had kicked the “good people” out of China (and to Taiwan) and changed China into the People’s Republic of China. After World War II, Communist North Korea wanted to take over the free people of South Korea.  (And, with the United Nations' approval, the United States joined with allies to support South Korea).

Then in the 1960s, North Vietnam - an evil communist country tried to take over South Vietnam.

Yes, Communism was bad - it was Godless - it was atheistic.  I learned this in school.

We had designed bomb shelters.  Schools had fire drills, tornado drills, and bomb drills.  We were told that Cedar Rapids Iowa was a target as Collins Radio was there and Collins Radio made communications media that was used by the good side against those evil Communists.

It was the “Cold War”.  Soon the United States had stockpiled enough nuclear weapons to blow the USSR out of existence.  And, of course, the USSR had a stockpile of nuclear weapons to knock the United States out of existence.  

We became competitors on all levels.  The Olympic Games were the good people of Western Europe and the United States against the USSR, Eastern Germany, and China.  

We competed in the space race.  We didn’t know we were in a space race until the Russians sent up a rocket ship with Yuri Gagarin. OH NO!!!  Russia has a spaceship that could rain nuclear weapons on the United States from space. 

Then the USSR made friends with Fidel Castro in Cuba - just 90 miles from the United States and wanted to put rockets on that island - pointing towards the United States.  We can’t let that happen!!!.

*****

So, here I was - welcoming a scholar from the former Soviet Union.  And, not only was he a scholar, he was a card-carrying communist!!!  

And, Andrei and I became friends!!!  We went to college hockey games together, and we explored areas around Connecticut and New York together.  His English was very good, but my Russian was non-existent!!!  (He had been in England earlier and loved the Beatles - how could one of those Russians like the Beatles???) 

This was part of the RSEP - Regional Scholar Exchange Program.  Andrei came for a semester.  

Andrei was amazed at what he saw.  Most Americans owned their own houses, while most Belarussians lived in large apartment buildings.  We had cars.  Andrei had a car, but couldn’t drive it much as it took gas (Benzene) and gas was expensive.  

Andrei was a nice friend!!  

Then I got to go to Belarus for a week.  (Since I didn’t know Russian I was limited).  I’m sure I was leery.  Was I being spied on?  Was the Belarussian equivalent of the KGB watching me?  I stayed in a hotel in Minsk, the capital of Belarus.  This was also about the time our (United States President) called Belarus one of the last dictatorships in the world.  We went to a concert by the Belarussian Symphony Orchestra playing music I knew.  We ate out. 

[Aside - Belarus after the breakup of the Soviet Union had terrible inflation.  One night I took Andrei, his wife, and another couple for dinner and it cost me 80,000 Belarussian Rubles.  (which was about $40 USD).]  

I saw these people in a different light.  They were also human beings, getting up and going to work in the morning, and coming home at night to their families.  They liked sports (basketball, hockey, and soccer). I saw families pushing baby carriages in the park.  There were churches (I even went to Mass at a Catholic Church).  We watched a Russian Orthodox procession through the streets.  

I spoke at the Belarussian University of Business.  I didn’t see hate.  

Andrei came again in 2012 on a Fulbright scholarship.  And, I went to Belarus on a Fulbright scholarship and spoke at a regional conference about distance learning and even spoke at the American embassy and a technology incubator.  

Where was the hate?  I don’t know.  I wasn’t brainwashed, but I saw that under the ideology, under the rhetoric, we were human beings.  

This may have sown some seeds in my brain.  Seeds of “LOVE WINS” - seeds of non-violence. I didn’t agree with everything in Belarus, but I also don’t agree with everything in the United States.  

*****

I too have a dream - it is a bit different than Dr. King’s dream, but in reality, almost the same.  A dream of unconditional love, of acceptance, of loving your enemy.  

LOVE WINS

LOVE TRANSFORMS

KAREN ANNE WHITE, ©, JANUARY 17, 2023