Shake Hands with the Devil - Romeo Dallaire - part 4 of 10

2020 Reading Challenge - Day 195

July 14, 2020

Book 55 - Shake Hands with the Devil
Roméo Dallaire
 Part 4 - pages 152-209 (e-book)
Reading Time - 60 minutes

Everytime a new chapter in this book starts, I keep expecting it will be a horrific story. And it is, but it's not. We haven't gotten to the genocide yet but... it's still horrific how the disaster unfolded in the weeks before April 1994.

Chapter 7 - The Shadow Force

Dallaire opens this chapter in early 1994 and we learn that, even after several months in Rwanda, the UN mission still had very little office equipment, no defensive stores, no spare parts, no night vision equipment as well as a severe shortage of radios and vehicles. Not an auspicious start to the new year.

In early January, the swearing in of the BBTG (Broad-Based Tranisitional Government) was to take place. Unfortunately, there was a bit of a power sturggle going on. Most of the important portfolios had gone to the moderates and the former regime and president feared that when the new government was sworn in, that they would be sent to jail for their crimes. In negotiating the Arusha Accord, the leaders of the former regime had wanted amnesty from prosecution but they didn't get it... the new government could impeach the former president with a two-thirds majority.

When the day for the swearing in arrived, only the President was sworn in... it turns out that the document outlining the portfolios had been changed at the last minute. The moderates had been eliminated and the Hutu Power wings had been put on. Not surprisingly, the RPF stormed out of the proceedings.

Several other attempts at a swearing-in were made but there were violent demonstrations against the moderates, often egged on by Presidential Guards in civilian clothing. Dallaire got a tip that the demonstrations had one goal, to incite the Belgian soldiers into firing their weapons, at which point ten Belgian soldiers would be killed and... they would then withdraw from the mission. They knew that the Belgians were the backbone of the mission and if they withdrew, then the mission would collapse.

At the same time, Dallaire got a tip from an extremist youth group that militia cells were being told to make lists of Tutsis living in their area. When the time came, the Tutsis were to be rounded up and killed. The militia were being trained at army bases by army instructors and were armed with machetes, AK47s and grenades. Dallaire also learned that there were four separate arms caches in Kigali and wired the UN about his intention to go after them. He received a reply to stop immediately. The UN was reeling from what had happened to American soldiers in Somalia and thought Dallaire was being to aggressive. He was instructed to inform the President of his information but... the president's wife and her family were associated with Hutu Power, so all that would really happen was that word would get back to them.

By late January, machete-carrying mobs began attacking innocent civilians, partly out of frustration due to the failure of the BBTG installation. Moderate government officials were getting death threats and wanted UN soldiers as guards but there weren't enough to cover everyone. Dallaire felt that the installation of the BBTG needed to be sped up but the political liaison said it needed to slow down.

Chapter 8 - Assassination and Ambush

By February, Rwanda was still stuck in a political impasse and the World Bank was threatening to cut off funding. Dallaire again asked for permission to address public security issues in Kigali but, again, was denied by the UN. More soldiers had arrived from Tunisia and Ghana and were quite well-trained and disciplined. This stood in stark contrast to the Belgian troops who had numerous disciplinary infractions. Some Belgian soldiers had forced their way into the home of the head of the extremist CDR party and assaulted him in front of his family. They had then threatened to come back and kill him. Such aggressive and destructive attitudes did nothing to help the UN mission. On top of that, some Belgian soldiers, accompanying a convoy back into Kigali were told to hold the convoy as the roads into Kigali were dangerous. They disobeyed orders and when the convoy came under attack, abandoned it.

Again... it's hard to see how this mission was ever expected to succeed. And yes, there were issues with infighting within the different Rwandan parties but... still... rather than receiving all the support requested, the UN mission was essentially a second-rate shoe-string mission. And why? Because, again, the country had no strategic, geographic or human significance, at least not in the eyes of the Western powers...

Shake Hands with the Devil - Romeo Dallair - Part 3 of 10

2020 Reading Challenge - Day 194

July 13, 2020

Book 55 - Shake Hands with the Devil
Roméo Dallaire
 Part 3 - pages 100-151 (e-book)
Reading Time - 60 minutes

Reading the next two chapters in this book, I was amazed at the sheer ineffectiveness and massive inertia of an organization like the United Nations. It has no money, no teeth, no mandate. I'm not sure the word "United" reflects the organization... "Squabbling Nations" or "Side-stepping Nations" might be better.

Chapter 5 - The Clock is Ticking

Dallaire arrived back in New York after conducted a reconnaissance missio nin Rwanda. They had a plan and wanted it approved by the 10 September, the deadline laid out in the Arusha Accord. But... the UN does not work that quickly. Dallaire was shocked at the molasses-like pace of the bureaucracy but was convinced that it could happen and moved and pushed hard to get it to happen. Not only did he believe that the peacekeeping mission would help Rwanda but it would also be an Operational Command and he wanted it for that reason as well.

As negotiations proceeded, Dallaire realized that he would not be getting his 5500 troops but likely only 2600. On top of that, much of the equipment and specialized units that they requested would not be the same. He wanted helicopters but would only get them in late March 1994... and they would abandon the mission the day after the genocide started in April 1994. He wanted an HQ staff but that didn't handle either... nor the requested communications section. Basically UN peacekeeping missions were at the mercy of the countries who were volunteering their soldiers.

Still, with 2500 soldiers, he figured he could cover the demilitarized zone and have small, unarmed military observer teams for the rest of the country. He was also counting on the fact that Burundi, to the south of Rwanda, was a safe and peaceful country. They had elected a Hutu president in democratic elections after a minority Tutsi military-run dictatorship. He wasn't worried about Rwanda's southern flank. Later, he would wonder if he compromised too much but he kept getting reassured by UN staff that it was a good plan. "Instead of quitting an impossible task, I was determined to do the best I could to secure peace for Rwanda."

The deadline of 10 September came and went and the UN was still "reviewing the options". The big players on the UN Security Council (America, Britain) didn't take Rwanda seriously. The peacekeeping mission really needed a NATO country to step up and volunteer their forces but only the former colonial overlords of Rwanda, the Belgians, volunteered. Even Canada refused to supply 30 troops to coordinate the unloading of aircraft. Apparently, everyone was too busy with the Balkans and eastern Europe. There were some Third World countries who offered troops (e.g. Bangladesh) but they had very little material, sustainability and training specific to complex conflicts and vast humanitarian catastrophes.

Most UN staff thought that Rwanda was doable but one staffer reminded Dallaire that the Hutu hard-liners had only signed the Arusha agreement under enormous pressure. The UN wanted the mission to be "small, cheap, short and sweet". Dallaire is quite harsh in his assessment of the UN and its member nations:

"Member nations do not want a large, reputable, strong and independent United Nations, no matter their hypocritical pronouncements otherwise. What they want is a weak, beholden, indebted scapegoat of an organization, which they can blame for their failures or steal victories from."

Dallaire had no intelligence on Rwanda and was relying on other countries to provide it... which none did (e.g. France, US, UK). And so, he flew off to Africa on the mission, starting in Uganda where it was clear that arms were still trickling through the border which was riddled with mountain trails. While in Uganda, there was a coup d'etat in Burundi which completely destabilized the southern border of Rwanda.  Things were not off to a good start...

Chapter 6 - The First Milestones

The moderate Hutu leadership in Burundi had been toppled by Tutsi military leaders and that little country was headed for an ethnic bloodbath. Kigali was thick with rumours and the local media were full of hysterical talk about Tutsi hegemony. After arriving in Rwanda, some officers from Uruguay, Bangladesh and Poland arrived.

Dallaire got a crash course in UN bureaucracy, being assigned a CAO (Chief Administrative Officer) who was all about "process" and red tape. Dallaire was forced to fight a petty internal war over vehicles and office supplies. On top of that, the political liaison had not arrived so Dallaire was trying to wear two hats: military liaison and political liaison. After a month, and with nothing happening, Dallaire arranged a flag raising in the demilitarized zone and one in Kigali as well. All parties who attended the raising of the UN flag expressed high hopes for peace and cooperation and yet... beneath the surface, old grievances were simmering.

Attacks happened against the Hutu near the demilitarized zone and the RPF was blamed. Later, Dallaire wondered if the attacks were a test of the resolution of the West. Many of the Rwandan leaders had studied in Canada or elsewhere in the West and they knew that response would be minimal. The massacres were an immediate challenge to the UN mission but Dallaire didn't have all his personnel in place.

The Belgian troops arrived, 450 para-commandos with light weapons and few vehicles, despite the fact that Dallaire had requested motorized infantry. The Belgians also came from Somali where they had been part of a Chapter 7 UN mission. They were quite racist and also refused to stay in tents at the airport but settled throughout the city. This would cause problems later... In mid-December, the Bangladeshi soldiers arrived with no supplies other than their weapons and personal kit - no food, no tents, no ammunition, no soap. They were also very officer heavy, but with their arrival, the last of the French detachment flew home.

The political liaison finally arrived, working 9 to 5 on weekdays and rather disinclined to take the lead on the international political effort. Another massacre took place in northwestern Rwanda and again was pinned on the RPF. Later, Dallaire would learn that translator communicating with the massacre survivors was an RGF spy and that several other RGF spies had infiltrated the local staff of the UN mission. Other information seemed to indicate that at least one of the massacres had been carried out by para-commandos from an RGF base.

By December 1993, Dallaire was getting word from several sources that elements close to the president were out to sabotage the peace process. The conspiracy's opening act would be a massacre of Tutsis. He learned that there were several weapons caches around Kigali but the political liaison disagreed.

By the end of December, the UN mission had established the Kigali Weapons Secure Area so the RPF could attend negotiations with their leader. Plans to establish the BBTG (Broad-Based Transitional Government), however were stalled. Extremist parties who were not part of the Arusha Accord had infiltrated the other parties and were whipping up public paranoia. 

Thoughts

I'm not sure if this level of dysfunction and inefficiency is common in other endeavours but... it seems quite appalling. If this is standard operating procedure, then it's a miracle that anything gets done at all and that there aren't more disasters. Although... when you look at it... Syria is one long disaster with the world standing aside wringing its hands in despair... or covertly supporting one side or the other. It makes me wonder if the Cold War ever really ended. I've read elsewhere that the US and Russia are still fighting each other, it's just that they now use other countries to fight their skirmishes... Afghanistan, Syria, Ukraine...

Shake Hands with the Devil - Romeo Dallair - Part 2 of 10

2020 Reading Challenge - Day 193

July 12, 2020

Book 55 - Shake Hands with the Devil
Roméo Dallaire
 Part 2 - pages 50-100 (e-book)
Reading Time - 60 minutes

I covered three chapters in this section, and they were all pretty safe, if you can call it that.

Chapter 2 - "Rwanda, That's in Africa isn't it?"

This chapter covers Dallaire's rise in the army. I thought it was kind of interesting to learn that senior or retired officers remain intimately connected to their regiment. One of their key responsibilities is to select "streamers", young men or women who the elders believe have the right stuff to become future generals. It's like an invisible hand guides the young officer, nurtures their career - through a carefully selected series of command and staff positions that test and prepare the officer for higher command.

Dallaire seems to have been one of those streamers. He was also incredibly dedicated to the army. While other officers would marry and have kids, Dallaire was single and available. When he did get married, it seems that his first relationship was always with the army.

Dallaire was eventually promoted to Brigadier General in 1989 and posted as commandant of  the College militaire royal, training new officers. Those two years, according to him, were among the happiest, not only for himself, but also for his wife. But what he started to notice was that training soldiers for UN peacekeeping missions was problematic. The world had changed since the Cold War when class peacekeeping worked. It was less effective in the modern world and some of the peacekeepers had even been killed (e.g. Bosnia). As he was mulling over how best to train the next generation of Canadian soldiers, he got the call that would change his life, a peacekeeping reconnaissance mission to Rwanda.

Chapter 3 - "Check out Rwanda and You're in Charge"

Rwanda was in the middle of negotiating a peace agreement to end a vicious two and a half year civil war between the RPF (Rwandan Patriotic Front) and RGF (Rwanda Government Forces). Some of the parties had signed the agreement after a great deal of pressure and all sides felt that the UN could help to ensure that subsequent negotiations to form a new government went well. The reconnaissance mission included Dallaire, one other Canadian soldier and 80 unarmed observers.

Dallaire and his fellow Canadian tried to figure out the history of Rwanda from newspaper articles and some scholarly papers. They had no access to intelligence reports from, for example, Belgium, France or the USA. The history of Rwanda is one of colonialism. In 1916, the Belgians chased the Germans out of Rwanda. They found two main tribes, the Tutsi who were tall, light-skinned herders and the Hutu

were shorter, darker farmers. The Belgians elevated the Tutsi into positions of power, since they saw them as more "European" but the Tutsi formed a minority in Rwanda. The Belgians simply wanted to exploit the vast network of coffee and tea plantations in Rwanda.

In 1962, with Rwandan independence, a popular uprising slaughtered or drove out the Tutsi elite and installed a Hutu-dominated government. Over the next decade, violent pogroms against the Tutsi left in Rwanda continued and many more fled to Uganda, Burundi and Zaire (now the D.R.C.). The Tutsi diaspora coalesced into the Rwandan Patriotic Front which was a highly effective military and police movement. Living as unwelcome refugees in neighbouring countries put a lot of pressure on the Tutsi and in 1991, the RPF and the international community put pressure on the Rwandan government.

With this sketch of Rwandan history in his pocket, Dallaire went to New York to learn more about the mission. He found the DPKO (Department of Peacekeeping Operations) to be very underfunded and understaffed. The logistics in overseeing seventeen peacekeeping missions around the world was a nightmare. There was lots of disorder and not a few disasters (e.g. Bosnia, Somalia). Some within the UN thought that a small and quick success story in Rwanda might inspire member nations to place increased confidence in the United Nations' peacekeeping efforts and... be more generous with military and financial resources.

The Rwandan mission started with no support staff, no proper military maps of the area and borrowed laptops. Dallaire got the firm message from the DPKO that the reconnaissance trip to Rwanda needed to be small and inexpenisve... and that their recommendation for a Chapter 6 peacekeeping mission needed to follow the same format otherwise it would not be approved by the Security Council.

Chapter 4 - Enemies Holding Hands

Dalliare landed in Kigali, Rwanda on 19 August, 1993. According to the negotiated Arusha Accord, the UN needed to have the peacekeeping mission in place by 10 September... less than one month later. It was an impossible schedule and fraught with a lot of political uncertainty as the country attempted to transition from an acrimonious civil war to a multi-party, power-sharing, democratic system.

On top of that, as Dallaire conducted his fact-finding mission, he learned that there were extremist elements and militia who had inserted themselves into the youth wings of various political parties, even the moderate ones. He recognized that time was of the essence and that the UN needed to get boots on the ground as soon as possible.

The RPF was very well-organized but had limited logistical support (e.g. vehicles). They were unanimous in their support of the Arusha Accord and portrayed themselves as a group of Rwandan refugees who only wanted to go home and live in peace.

The RGF had less effective leaders but some elite units had been trained by the French and Belgians. Front-line units, on the other hand, were poorly trained recruits who lacked food, medical supplies, weapons. leadership and morale.

As his technical mission drew to a close, Dallaire was convinced that Rwanda could benefit from a Chapter 6 peacekeeping mission. As such, the UN forces would include unarmed observers and armed soldiers who could only use weapons in self-defence. Contrast this with a Chapter 7 peace-enforcement mission (e.g. Korea, Gulf War, Somalia) where the UN forces would come in and take over. But such a mission for Rwanda would never have been approved by the UN Security Council.

Dallaire came up with several different options for a UN force and would have preferred to to have 8000 troops at his disposal but thought the ideal number was 5500. He also came up with a reasonable viable option of 2500. Interestingly, the US, France and Russia thought a force of 500-1000 would be enough.

Dallaire ran his plan by both sides of the Rwanda conflict and gotten positive feedback. He thought that he had come to Rwanda to assess the different parties but, in reality, he was the one being assessed.

"Were they in fact already betting that white Western nations had too much on their hands to attempt another foray into black Africa? Were the hard-liners playing us, and me, for fools? I think so. I believe they had already concluded that the West did not have the will, as it had already demonstrated in Bosnia, Croatia, and Somalia, to police the world, to expend resources or to take the necessary casualties. They had calculated that the West would deploy a token force and when threatened would duck or run. They knew us better than we knew ourselves."

That is a sad commentary on the state of the First World... similar to the quote about the bureaucrats from the previous blog. Rwanda had nothing of value to the West and... when ten Belgian soldiers died in Rwanda... Belgium abandoned the peacekeeping mission. This was a hard section to read... to see the ineffectiveness and in-fighting that happens at the level of the United Nations. It does not paint a hopeful picture for the world. Clearly, given the situation in, for example, Syria, the world has learned nothing about how to prevent/avoid/handle humanitarian disasters.

Shake Hands with the Devil - Romeo Dallair - Part 1 of 10

2020 Reading Challenge - Day 192

July 11, 2020

Book 55 - Shake Hands with the Devil
Roméo Dallaire
 Part 1 - pages 1-50 (e-book)
Reading Time - 60 minutes

I'm several decades behind in reading this book. I remember when the Rwandan Genocide was happening but I was busy with my own life and Rwanda was pretty far away. Heck, I thought Rwanda was somewhere up in the Gold Coast of Africa, the northwestern part somewhere, south of Morocco. So, if nothing, this book is bringing me up to speed on African geography. Rwanda is a tiny country in Central Africa, just south of Uganda, sandwiched between Tanzania, Burundi and the DRC (a.k.a. Zaire).

This is not an easy book to read. Knowing the outcome of the genocide, with a million killed in 100 days... it's hard to read of the systemic failures that led to those horrific events. And harder still to get that... at the heart of this humanitarian disaster lies systemic racism, on a national scale.

Dallaire made this one statement that stuck with me:

Engraved still in my brain is the judgement of a small group of bureaucrats who came to "assess" the situation in the first weeks of the genocide: "We will recommend to our government not to intervene as the risks are high and all that is here are humans".

Had they been white humans... I wonder if things would have gone differently.

Roméo Dallaire was a Canadian Brigadier-General who was given military command of the UN's Chapter 6 peace keeping mission to Rwanda. The goal was to help the country roll out the Arusha Accord, an agreement signed by all sides after several years of civil war. Dallaire wrote the book several years after the genocide. It was not an easy book to write and his ghost writer actually committed suicide before the book was finished. That should tell us something...

But, we start out easy enough... with an introduction...

Introduction to the 25th Anniversary Edition

Dallaire knows he isn't perfect and it sounds like he has tortured himself over what happened in Rwanda, second-guessing himself repeatedly. But as I continue through this book, I get the clear message that the fault for Rwanda lies higher up the food chain... with the United Nations and specifically with the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council: China, USA, France, UK and Russia.

Dallaire has mulled over the events and says we need to get to the essence of the genocide in order to keep it from happening again. We need to address the root of mass atrocities. We need to prevent conflict. That makes complete sense to me... it's treating the disease... not the symptoms. If all the UN does is run around the world treating the symptoms... we are going to get nowhere.

Dallaire hopes that this book will "help inspire people around the globe to rise above national interest and self-interest to recognize humanity for what it really is: a panolopy of human beings who, in their essence, are the same". Given what is happening in the US right now with #BlackLivesMatter... it would seem that we have still not even recognized it at a personal level, let alone a national level.

Dallaire's goal is to "tell the story of how the world abandoned millions of Rwandans and its small peacekeeping force". It's a story of betrayal, failure, naïveté, indifference, hatred, genocide, war, inhumanity and evil. In just 100 days, over 800,000 innocent Rwandan men, women and children were brutally murdered while the developed world, impassive and apparently unperturbed, sat back and watched the unfolding apocalypse or simply changed channels.

And... it would seem that the Holocaust and Cambodia and Rwanda taught us nothing, for Dallaire's fear is that the failure of humanity, as evidenced by the Rwandan genocide, could easily happen again. Dallaire pulls no punches and lays the blame for Rwanda squarely at the feet of the world powers. He wanted to tell the tale of how "the international community, through an inept UN mandate and what can only be described as indifference, self-interest and racism, aided and abetted these crimes against humanity--how we all helped create the mess that has murdered and displaced millions and destabilized the whole central African region." In particular, Dallaire lays the blame at the feet of the US, France and the UK who either watched what happened, pulled out their troops or didn't offer troops in the first place.

Finally... Dallaire reinforces what I, having read several chapters now, recognize--"What I have come to realize as the root of it all, however, is the fundamental indifference of the world community to the plight of seven to eight million black Africans in a tiny country that had no strategic or resource value to any world power." In the grand scheme of world power and politics, a tiny country with no strategic value, no resource value and no white human value... was dispensable.

Chapter 1- My Father Told me Three Things

The first chapter recounts Dallaire's upbringing, born into a military family who demonstrated a model of self-sacrifice. He attended military college but, as a francophone, struggled with a fair bit of discrimination. This was at the same time as the FLQ crisis in Quebec and French Canadians were viewed with a lot of suspicion in the military.

This was a fairly tame chapter and it helped me get a sense of who Dallaire was... of his background and what made him tick.

I have to admit, I am reading this book in the mornings as I don't think it would make for a restful sleep as part of my bedtime reading...

The Alchemist - Paolo Coelho - Part 4 of 4

2020 Reading Challenge - Day 191

July 10, 2020

Book 54 - The Alchemist
Paulo Coelho (1993)
 Part 4 - page 159-167
Reading Time - 15 minutes

Santiago and the Alchemist part ways and he is three hours away from the Pyramids. He arrives on a sand dune and see the Pyramids, falls to his knees and weeps. As his tears fall on the sand, he remembers what the Alchemist had told him: "wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure". Santiago starts digging. A couple of Arabs appear, beat him up and rob him of the gold that the Alchemist had given him at the Coptic Monastery. They want to know what he is digging for... and finally, Santiago tells them that he had a dream about a treasure. One the Arabs laughs and tells him that he had a dream too, on that exact spot, of a ruined church in Spain with a treasure buried at the base of a sycamore tree. The men then leave Santiago to marvel... he knows that church... that's where he had his dream about the Pyramids.

And so the story comes full circle. Santiago travels back to Spain, digs up the treasure and gets ready to head back to the oasis and his love, Fatima.

The question that I am left with, pragmatic me, is why couldn't Santiago have had the dream of a treasure buried in the church but... that wouldn't have generated much of a story! And, through his adventures, Santiago has become an adventurer, who has discovered the love of his life. He has learned much... and the excitement lies in the journey, not the destination.

Reading about Santiago and seeing his trials and tribulations as part of a grand adventure is a bit easier than doing the same with my own life! When you're in it... trials and tribulations seem a bit overwhelming... but Santiago had trust... and faith... and that is really what carried him through.

The Alchemist - Paolo Coelho - Part 3 of 4

2020 Reading Challenge - Day 190

July 9, 2020

Book 54 - The Alchemist
Paulo Coelho (1993)
 Part 3 - page 104-159
Reading Time - 60 minutes

Santiago is stuck at the oasis in the desert, waiting for the warring tribes to settle down. In the meantime, he has met the Alchemist, the one the Englishman was searching for. The Alchemist is less interested in the Englishman and his book knowledge but more interested in Santiago and his connection to the Soul of the World.

Santiago starts this section by warning the tribal chiefs at the oasis of an impending attack by the warring tribes. Such an attack would be a grave violation of the tribal code and the chiefs are skeptical but cut a deal with Santiago. If there is an attack, he'll get a piece of gold for every 10 enemies killed. If there is no attack... he will be killed. Luckily, Santiago read the omens correctly and the people of the oasis are saved.

The Alchemist teaches Santiago and then offers to lead him across the desert to the Pyramids. Santiago is told that "wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure". He is a bit torn because, while stuck at the oasis, he has met Fatima, a young woman who has captured his heart. He has been thinking about giving up the quest for the treasure and just settling down with Fatima, buying a herd of sheep and being content with life. The Alchemist tells him that the unfulfilled quest would eat away at him... and so... they head out into the desert.

Along the way, they are captured by one of the warring tribes and threatened with death for being spies. The Alchemist gives all of their gold, including Santiago's, to the tribal chief and then says that Santiago is a great magician who can turn himself into the wind. The chief wants to see that... and so Santiago has three days to prepare... Even though Santiago has no idea how he can turn himself into the wind, he communes with the Soul of the World, with the desert and the wind and the sun and the hand that controls it all and... the chiefs are convinced he is a great magician. The two are free to continue their journey and end up at a Coptic monastery. After using the Philosopher's Stone to turn some lead into gold, the Alchemist shares the gold with the monk, and with Santiago and then leaves Santiago to continue his journey alone.

There was one quote that spoke to me: "When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too." We don't live in isolation - everything that we think and do has an impact on the world around us - not just the people, but the actual world. Which makes me think that the flip side of that quote is also true: "When we become worse than we are, everything around us becomes worse too." We then have some serious choices to make. We don't live in isolation... we should know this by now during Covid-19. Our very breath can affect those around us... particularly if we are asymptomatic carriers. But even beyond that... if we live a life of love and compassion for our selves, for others, and for the world around us... we can make a difference and make the world a better place.

The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho - Part 2 of 4

2020 Reading Challenge - Day 189

July 8, 2020

Book 54 - The Alchemist
Paulo Coelho (1993)
 Part 2 - page 48-104
Reading Time - 60 minutes

Santiago is working for the crystal merchant in Tangiers who has a dream of his own... to one day make the pilgrimage to Mecca. But... he is afraid to go because he doesn't want to grow... he likes the life that he has. And... in not going... he can continually dream of going. If he actually went to Mecca... then what?

As for our friend Santiago... he's been with the merchant for almost a year and has enough money saved up to buy twice the amount of sheep that he sold before he started this adventure. He could easily go back home and be twice as wealthy as before but he remembers Melchizedek... And so he continues his Personal Dream, joining a camel caravan to cross the desert. Along the way, he meets an English alchemist who is always reading a book... while Santiago learns to read the desert. They eventually reach an oasis and hunker down for a while due to tribal warfare in the surrounding region.

There were a few quotes that really struck me from this section of the book.

Intuition is really a sudden immersion of the Soul into the universal current of life, where the histories of all people are connected and we are able to know everything because it is all written there".

I was going to say that this reminded me of the quote by Albert Einstein... but in looking for that quote, I discovered that the following was never said by Einstein but is a paraphrase of a guy named  Bob Samples who did his own individual analysis of Einstein.

The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.

Still... the quote does ring true... after the Enlightenment, we have became a very rational culture and have tossed intuition to the curb. The Alchemist is all about listening to the Soul of the World and trusting in the signs and omens that come our way. To do that, we need to trust our intuition...

Another quote:

We are afraid of losing what we have but fear evaporates when we understand that our life stories and the history of the world were written by the same hand.

I've been mulling the idea of loss for awhile... It is one of the things that is front and centre during this time of Covid-19. Losing jobs, routine, employment, money, health, connections... it's all there. And makes me think that we came onto this earth to experience that sense of loss. Because if we come from a place where there is no loss... how could we even comprehend that... only by the experience of it. Our entire lives are a form of loss or entropy... losing friends, family, health, wellness, eyesight, hearing. Growing old is not for the faint of heart... and yet... we need to remember that ultimately we/it are all one.

Which leads to the next quote... a short one... "everything, every thought has a soul"... Huh... We can barely comprehend that humans have souls. Now let's add in animals... that gets tricky right off the bat. But to think that plants, rocks, even created things, and thoughts, have souls... Just slightly mind-blowing... Although I do remember from Philosphy 101 - the idea that each object has a form and an essence. Not too far off from soul... But I guess in many ways, if we believe that everything is One... then why would a rock not have a soul? Or some connection to the Oneness... different from ours but legitimate in its own right? It might make our handling of the earth slightly different if we didn't always keep our superiority complex front and centre.

I think I could spend a lot more time mulling that over...