Addis Ethiopia

AWAKENING GIANT!
CAN ETHIOPIANS AND ETHIOPIAN AMERICANS LIVING IN AMERICA MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN THEIR HOMELAND?
(Full text of address given on July 2, 2006, at the Ethiopian American Council of the United States Forum, the LAX Hilton, Los Angeles, CA.)
Amesegnalehu. Enquan dehna metachehu.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
First, I would like to thank all of you for taking the time to come to this event. We
appreciate very much your presence here today.
I would like to offer my special thanks to the Ethiopian Americans Council of the
United States ( EAC US) for organizing and sponsoring this event and for
facilitating dialogue on issues that are critical to us in America, and our brothers
and sisters in Ethiopia.
The very existence of the Ethiopian Americans Council and other similar
organizations is proof positive that we have come of age in America.
I would like to congratulate the Ethiopian Sports Federation of North America as
it opens its 23 rd annual Ethiopian Soccer and Culture Festival in Los Angeles.
Ms. Ana Gomes is here with us today.
As you all know, Ms. Gomes is a great friend and a staunch defender of
democracy and human rights in thiopia.
Who can forget?

Ana is the one who called the international cops when she witnessed the wholesale
theft of an election, and the hijacking of democracy in thiopia in 2005.
Ms. Gomes, thank you for being here with us, and for standing up for us.
Although our great champion, Representative Christopher Smith of New Jersey, is
not here with us today, we have our brother in the cause of justice and human
rights, Mr. Greg Simpkins of the House Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human
Rights and International Operations.
Greg, we are indebted to you and chairman Smith for your dedicated and tireless
service in the cause of freedom, democracy and human rights in Ethiopia.
When others chose to became mouthpieces for the doers of inequity and apologists
for ballot thieves, cold-blooded murderers and jail keepers, chairman Smith and
yourself stood up and upheld the principles of human rights and insisted that
democratic verdict of the people must be respected.
We thank you!
Last but not least, I want to extend a warm welcome to any government
representatives who may have traveled far and wide from the homeland or the
nation’s capital to attend this event.
When you return and file your reports on these proceedings today, I hope you will
dare tell the truth -- nothing extenuate -- that you came upon a peaceful gathering
of Ethiopians in Los Angeles.
That you heard them talk. And that they talked of nothing but freedom, human
rights and democracy in their homeland.
Report to your superiors that these Ethiopians bear malice towards none, but
stretch out their hands in friendship, peace and good will to all.
Ladies and Gentlemen:
I am an academic and a lawyer by profession.
I have spent a good part of my adult life teaching young Americans in the art and
science of politics and the law.
The balance of my professional life has been largely dedicated to defending the
rights of the accused, and safeguarding American civil liberties to the best of my
ability.

I believe this has been and continues to be a worthwhile commitment for me.
I will confess to you today that I have not had the good fortune of rendering much
service to the land of our fathers and mothers.
I assure you, this is not for lack of interest or desire on my part.
The fulfillment of my boyish hopes and dreams was to return to the motherland
one day and make a contribution, however small.
But as you know, things fall apart, and so did my hopes and dreams.
Perhaps, some of you may sympathize with me if I tell you that I carry with me a
sense of guilt about the way things turned out.
I should also let you know that I have been away from the motherland for many
years now, perhaps to many to count.
But I assure you that I may have left thiopia, but thiopia has never left me.
My case is a simple one. To adapt an old saying: "You can take the kid out of
thiopia, but you can not take thiopia out of the kid!"
That is exactly how I feel.
Let me also set the record clear at the outset.
I am a follower of Mahatama Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr., two great
leaders who were deeply inspired by the teachings of hrist.
I believe in the ways of nonviolence, truth and love.
I also believe that mere declaration of faith in these principles is not enough.
Ghandi and King have taught that the highest expression of love for mankind is to
love justice, the highest virtue to stand for truth, and the highest value, compassion
for our fellow man and woman.
There is no place for violence where justice stands tall.
No place for oppression where law reigns supreme.

I believe we prove the righteousness of our cause not in battlefields soaked in
blood and filled with corpses, but in the living hearts and thinking minds of men
and women of good will.
And so today I come before you to share a few words about a question of great
interest to all of us:
an we -- thiopians and thiopian Americans-- make a difference in our
homeland while living, working and struggling in America?
I shall argue that we can, and in fact, are making a world of difference today.
As I labor to answer this weighty question, I wish to speak with you, my friends,
not as an thiopian, not as an American, but as an thiopian American.
I want to speak with you as one who was blessed to have been born in a country
unrivalled for its beauty and the compassion of its people, and also as one who had
the great fortune of living in a country that strives to be a beacon of democracy in
the world.
I am going to speak with you bluntly today, and so I ask for your forgiveness in
advance if the truth as I see it makes you uncomfortable, makes you question
yourselves and your values.
I believe we must step out of our comfort zones if we are to do anything that will
make a difference in our homeland.
It is no secret that our homeland today is gripped with terror and tyranny. And our
people are floating precariously on a sea of melancholy and despair.
Over the past year, an irreversible course of tyranny has been charted in our
country. And the light of freedom has been extinguished.
veryday, our people look towards the westward sky for signs of hope.
But the star on the westward sky shines dimly.
Their despair deepens, and they are overwhelmed by a sense of abandonment.
And so today I have come here to gaze with you towards the heavens and face the
question: " an we make a difference in our homeland while living, working and
struggling in America?"
My friends, this innocent question is pregnant with a serious accusation.

Today, we stand accused of the crime of moral indifference to the suffering of our
people, moral indifference to evil!
You may ask: Who dares make such an outrageous accusation!!
Allow me to me tell you a little story.
A few weeks ago, I had a chance meeting with a bright young man who had
recently arrived in this country from thiopia.
In the course of our conversation, this young man asked me to explain to him why
it is that thiopians in America seem not to care or be able to do much to help the
suffering of their brothers and sisters in the motherland.
He said to me words to the following effect:
"There are many of you in America who are well educated, prosperous, politically
and socially aware, but you do not seem to do much for the country that gave you
birth."
I must admit, I was caught a bit off guard by this matter-of-fact observation.
For a moment, I thought I was being asked not so much to offer an explanation,
but to present an instant defense to a state of facts.
But the young man’s inquiry was innocent enough.
Surely, he asked not out of malice but with the same innocence of a child who
notices something out of place and is puzzled.
I don’t know if it was a reflexive reaction of a guilty mind on my part, but
suddenly I felt I was standing accused:
Is this young man asking a question or condemning us all for living in America in
relative luxury, apparently unconcerned and disengaged from the life of our
homeland?
Is he asking me and the rest of us to make sacrifices?
In that fleeting moment, I thought I should object strenuously:
"What right do you have to expect sympathy from us or even assume we are
patriotic enough to care?

Who are you to question our morality?"
I was uncomfortable. I was being held accountable. I did not like it.
I wanted to feign righteous indignation. hastise him for his audacity to ask such
an impertinent question.
But I thought it safer for me to steer the conversation away from this unrelenting
question, and casually brush him off with an off-the-cuff response about not really
being able to do much from thousands of miles away.
May be, I thought, he will buy it and will not insist on an answer. I will be off the
hook.
But he did not have to ask again. I was deeply stung by his question.
I could not walk away by giving him a flippant answer. It would be disrespectful.
And if I did not answer his question forthrightly, I thought I’d be at serious risk of
compromising my own intellectual integrity.
I did not have to think much.
It dawned on me that the young man was not merely asking a question, but in fact
indicting us all for the crime of moral indifference in the first degree, for failure to
assist in the plight and suffering of our brothers and sisters in thiopia.
It was distressing to me.
You know, moral indifference to evil is the greatest crime of all.
It comes bundled with the lesser included offense of moral cowardice.
If the philosophers are right in teaching that suffering is what makes a human
being human, then indifference to the suffering of our brothers and sisters is a
demonstration of our inhumanity.
If the philosophers are right in teaching that compassion is what makes a human
being human, then indifference to their plight is an act of cruelty.
If justice is what makes a human being human, then indifference to injustice is an
injustice itself.
I submit to you today that when one is indifferent to the suffering of others, one
has indeed taken a moral stand.

A moral stand which says, the life or pain of one’s countrymen and women is of
no consequences. That their lives have no real value or meaning.
Now, I know, it is convenient to be indifferent. We do not have to get involved in
another person’s despair or pain.
But if the accusation of indifference in the young man’s question is true, we are at
perilous risk of losing not only our moral standing, but our essential humanity as
well.
I felt I had to say something to convince this young man that everything is OK!
Stop him from pursuing this uncomfortable line of questioning.
I desperately wanted to present a credible defense.
I wanted to tell this young man that life in America is really difficult.
He must understand that everyday we are fighting for survival.
We work long hours and we get weary.
We do not have time to tend to our own affairs, let alone to get involved in politics
and save others. We need to be saved ourselves.
I wanted to tell him that he was new and naïve.
It will take time for him to understand the trials and tribulations of the black
immigrant experience in America.
He will soon find out. It’s a jungle out there. Yes, live in America for a year and
ask me the same question, I wanted to challenge the young man.
I wanted to tell him it takes generations to mature politically and integrate into the
American political system and influence policy outcomes. He must understand,
it’s not that easy.
I desperately wanted to convince him there really wasn’t much that we could do.
That is just the way things are!
But I knew this litany of lame excuses was disingenuous at best, perhaps bordering
on the dishonest.
I knew better.

There is really no defense against a charge of moral indifference to the suffering of
others.
There is no argument in support of silence in the face of injustice.
There is no defense against a charge of inaction, apathy and political paralysis
when our people suffer under the yoke of a brutal and merciless dictatorship.
There is no excuse for not taking a stand when our motherland teeters on the
precipice of disaster.
I thought I should be honest with this young man, and answer his question without
evasion.
"It is not lack of interest or compassion or inability to identify with the suffering
of our brothers and sisters," I confessed to the young man.
The real reasons, I said, are simple.
"You see, some of us do not know how to get involved, organize politically, or use
resources available to us. We lack knowledge and experience."
Some of us, I said, remain estranged from our homeland.
The wounds that have been inflicted upon us in the past are too deep and too
painful, and have yet to heal.
Our thoughts can not be homeward bound. It hurts too much to look back. To
think back.
Some of us live in America, I told the young man, resigned to a life of quiet
desperation.
We feel lost. We do not feel at ease and at home in America. America is a
wilderness to us.
We feel permanently cut off from our roots.
Some of us, I said, have given up hope and faith in the future of our motherland.
We are overwhelmed by the unending misfortunes that have befallen our beloved
country.

We know all too well, our brothers and sisters die everyday not only from the
bullets of ballot thieves and oppression, but also from the scourge of AIDS and
debilitating poverty.
It is all too much to bear.
Some of us are afraid, I told the young man, afraid to speak, afraid to take a stand,
afraid to be seen doing the right thing.
We lack courage. We fear our own shadows.
We are paralyzed by distrust and mistrust of each other, unable to unite or
cooperate in any meaningful collective action.
Some of us, I said, are drowning in a sea of consumerism and suffocating
ourselves in lifestyles well beyond our means. We struggle to keep our heads
above water.
We don’t have time to worry about anyone else.
I told the young man some of us have our own individual interests to protect.
We are building homes, operating businesses and helping in the economic
development of our people. We want the best of both worlds.
Our credo is "Business and politics do not mix."
Our mantra: "Leave politics to the politicians." We can’t get involved.
We stand on the sidelines hoping against hope that if things change, we will still
be around and still get ahead.
And, I said, yes, some of us, some of us, just do not care. We couldn’t care less!
I saw an expression of shock and dismay on this young man’s face.
Perhaps he did not expect such disarming honesty.
But I was not about to let him down!
"But look at us now!" I said effusively. "We are the sleeping giant beginning to
awaken!"

"Did you feel the tremor in the thiopian political landscape when hris Smith
introduced the thiopia freedom, human rights and democracy act in the United
States ongress?" I asked the young man.
Did you feel the earth move when we stood together shoulder-to-shoulder and said
to Pharaoh:
"Release the prisoners of conscience, now!"
"Keep your hands off the free press!"
"Let justice flow in our country like the mighty waters of the Blue Nile!"
Did you feel it?
"Look at us now," I said.
We are organizing, building coalitions and action groups, not only to demonstrate
in the streets of America but also to walk the halls of ongress and executive
branch offices.
"Look at us now!" I said. We are mobilizing at the grassroots level, groups with
different agendas are coming together, uniting in a common purpose.
A new generation of thiopian Americans is taking upon the cause, and their thirst
for justice in their ancestral homeland is no less than our own.
Our sons and daughters, born and raised in America, have claimed their identity,
and their pride in their heritage is only exceeded by their enthusiasm to help their
people.
Look at us now!
We are forging ahead-- without discouragement or reserve of action.
I could see the young man’s eyes lit up with anticipation and joy.
I wanted to reassure him.
"We can not turn our backs on the history of the past year.
We can not sit silent when freedom is rooted out, democracy hijacked in broad
daylight, our brothers and sisters butchered in the streets, human rights trampled
and the innocent languish away in overcrowded and unsanitary jails."

We can’t. We won’t!!
We insist on a forward course, the only course. We have no avenue of retreat from
our present struggle for human rights, democracy and freedom in our homeland.
And so, I told the young man what I believed to be the truth.
I am not sure if he believed me, but I tried.
As I left the young man, the question he planted in my mind kept gnawing at me.
I felt he had served us all in America with a summons issued by our brothers and
sisters in thiopia.
It is a summons that calls upon us to testify in the cause of freedom and justice.
It is a summons that calls us to be drum majors for human rights, and advocates
and defenders of democracy.
And this is what the summons says:
"We are your brothers and sisters in thiopia. We have no voice, could you speak
for us?
We can not tell the story of our suffering because we have no free press. ould
you tell the story of our suffering to the world?
Our eyes have been blinded. ould you help us find our way?
And our ears have been rendered deaf? ould you sign for us?
Our faith is wilting under tyranny and oppression. ould you pray for us?
We are in despair, could you be our hopes?
My friends: If we fail to answer the summons of our people today, we will surely
be indicted by posterity, by generations to come who will point an accusatory
finger and say:
"They remained silent when they could have spoken.
They stood by idly, when they could have acted.
They turned their backs, when they could have extended a helping hand.

They saw our sacrifices, and walked away."
Then, my friends, we will have no defense.
And so, generations yet unborn will look back at us and pay tribute for what we
have done or condemn us for sitting by idly.
We will face the judgment of history, that there once lived thiopians away from
their homeland.
Much was given to them, but they returned little.
Much was expected from them, but they turned up empty.
But I am optimistic that when a jury of posterity sits in judgment and renders its
verdict, we will be praised for our courage, for our unflagging pursuit of justice
and human rights, and indefatigable defense of democratic principles.
My friends, in the tradition of folklore, there was once a mighty man who fell
asleep.
Seeing this mighty man in deep sleep, a crowd of small men began to tie him up
from stake to stake, across hand and foot, leg and arm, neck and body.
These little men bragged to each other that they have finally caged the great giant
into submission.
From time to time, the giant would take a deep breath, and some of the stakes and
ropes would snap.
The little men, terrified by the thought of the giant waking up, would scramble
furiously and retie the ropes.
But in time something happened that was beyond the imagination of the little men.
The giant began to awaken and flex his muscles.
The ropes which seemed to be permanent shackles to the little men broke like
strands of cobwebs as the giant began to stretch.
I submit to you that thiopians in America today find ourselves in a position
similar to that of the giant.

We had fallen into a mighty sleep, and in our sleep little men had bound our minds
with ethnic hatred and division, shackled our wills with fear, riveted our mouths
with savage threats, and blinded our vision with gifts of shimmering gold and
silver.
But, we are awake now!
We awakened when we heard the cries and wails of the innocent who languish
away in Zenawi’s jails.
We awakened when we heard the call for help in the dying voices of the
courageous young men and women who were massacred chasing ballot thieves.
We awakened when we heard the voice of Ana Gomes saying, "The thiopian
people have been betrayed by those who continue to govern in their name without
a proper mandate."
We awakened when we heard the voice of hristopher Smith ringing in the halls
of the United States ongress pleading for freedom, human rights and democracy
in thiopia!
We awakened because the silence of the thiopian free press was deafening.
We awakened when our children tugged on our hands and said, "Wake up mother
and father. It is a new day. It’s time to act!"
We began to flex our muscles when we heard the savage threats and boastful
arrogance of the adversary.
We began to stretch our muscles when the adversary thumbed his nose at
international law.
We stood up and proclaimed to the adversary: "The people have spoken. You must
accept their verdict!"
My friends, I began my conversation with you with a question:
" an we – thiopian and thiopian Americans -- make a difference in our
homeland while living, working and struggling in America?
I suppose I do not have to give a definitive answer to that question now.
The giant i
The giant is at this soccer tournament, and in every state, city and town in
America.
Look around you and ask him.
Look around you and ask her.
The giant can give you the answer.
But I will be glad to share with you my humble personal views on this important
question.
The tragedy for us in America today is that we have great power, but do not know
how to use it.
We have great energy of purpose, but we do not know how to harness it.
And we have great knowledge, but we do not know how to put it in the service of
justice.
My view is that whether we can answer the question put to us by history depends
on our answers to a number of other vital questions.
And so I will advance them to you today.
Can we purge t e poison of et nic atred from our earts and minds?
I believe we must undertake an internal struggle in our minds and hearts and
cleanse ourselves of the poison of ethnic hatred.
I realize that maintaining perpetual ethnic antagonism is the lifeline of those who
misgovern our homeland today, and it is an issue that causes me the deepest
anxiety and anguish.
We must stand united, shoulder-to-shoulder and stamp out this malignant cancer
from the body politics of our country.
Some of us, long denied our rightful place in society and politics, speak of
secession and separation from the motherland.
Such talk, I believe, springs from deep feelings of dispossession and deprivation
and frustration, and testifies to the success of our adversary’s ability to sever the
everlasting bonds of marriage and blood, and sisterhood and brotherhood and
nationhood we have shared for millennia.
s awake! The giant is sitting in this room.

I can not accept the core principle of those misgovern us today that thiopia is
merely a nation of ethnic reservations. thnic federalism is the tool used by the
adversary to keep us alienated from each other and in perpetual antagonism.
No! No! No. We are first and foremost thiopians, one people, woven by the hand
of the Almighty into the most beautiful ethnic mosaic in the world.
Look in the Holy Bible. Look in the Holy Q’uran.
The learned scholars tell us that thiopia and thiopians are mentioned in the
Holy Bible no less than thirty-three times, and as many times in the Holy Q’uran.
And so, whatever language or dialect we speak in our country, we have shared the
same name for millennia: thiopia and thiopians. No one can change that! We
should not allow anyone to change that!
And so, I reject those who proclaim that we live in our country merely as ethnic
partners in a marriage of convenience.
I take great pride not only in our unique regional and geographical communities,
but also rejoice in our tradition of diversity and tolerance.
But we must take a clear and unambiguous stand against the politics of ethnic
hatred.
If we allow ethnic hatred to fester and smolder, one day we will find ourselves
consumed by it.
Let us also not forget that the world is shrinking every day through advanced
technology.
More and more people are thinking and acting globally.
The politics of narrow nationalism and ethnic division have appeal only to those
leaders who seek to feed their own insatiable appetite for power.
I have no doubts that we will ultimately overcome the destructive passions of
ethnic hatred, but we can do so only if we value our brotherhood and sisterhood
and nationhood more than the vestigial bonds of ethnicity.
Do we ave a vision?
We must be clear about what it is that we want for our homeland. We want
change, but what kind of change do we want?

If we are not clear about what change we want, any change will do. We will be
back to square one soon enough.
We will need substantial intellectual force to help us define a vision of what we
want to become as a society and as a nation.
We have that force, we are that force, but we need to deploy it.
Without a vision, my friends, we will only have sight, and only a blurred view of
the future.
Can we cultivate leaders w o are able to subordinate t eir personal
ambitions to t e common good?
Leadership is the flip side of vision.
We need to cultivate leaders who want to lead not out of personal ambition or
selfish interest, but out of a desire to serve the common good.
We have many such leaders amongst us today, but they need to come forward and
join the march, lead the march, follow the march!
Can we build welcoming and nurturing organizations?
It is true, we can do a few things individually, but if we participate and
collectively act within the framework of organizations, there is no limit to what we
can do.
During the American civil rights movement, there was a popular catchphrase that
went something like this:
"If I push you with a single finger, you may not move, but if I push with all ten,
you will surely lose your footing."
I realize that some of us may have had disappointing experiences in the past with
organizations of one type or another.
Some of us may have been turned off by the lack of vision, transparency and
accountability in our prior experiences with organizations.
But if we insist on bringing this baggage of discontent and disillusionment from
the past to our future collective efforts, we would be giving the adversary the
greatest gift he can hope for -- self-defeat, disunity and discord. We would have
done his job for him!

But if we unite in a common purpose, in the words of the old song: "There ain’t no
stopping us now!"
Can we c ange t e way we look at ourselves?
Far too many of us look at the world as victims.
We are quick to sound the trumpet of defeat and say, "men yaregal, yalekelet
neger new. sun te-wew."
Some of us counsel defeatism: "Don’t waste your time. It is impossible to organize
and unite thiopians in action."
Some of us explain the die was cast by the Almighty: "We have been cursed to a
fate of discord, disunity and division. There is no hope!"
We tell each other things have been bad for a long time in thiopia. Nothing can
change. Nothing will ever change.
Some of us even doubt divine mercy and declare: "God has abandoned thiopia!"
Some of us in our bootless cries ask where thiopia’s educated children have gone
when their people are being massacred and jailed by the thousands, their country’s
wealth mismanaged and plundered by the practitioners of corruption.
"Why are they silent?" we ask. "Where have the thiopian men gone?"
Some of us even comfort ourselves in despair saying: " ompared to the Derg, it’s
really not that bad. This too shall pass."
Some of us are quick to criticize and condemn each other, and sit in judgment of
each other’s organizations and leaders for sins committed, and yet to be
committed.
We malign and defame those individuals who strive to offer leadership and build
organizations, and spread rumors about their individual and leadership integrity,
often with little evidence.
We accuse each other of misconduct and improprieties, which if proven, could be
felonious violations of the law.
I get weary listening to some of our brothers and sisters who, out of frustration and
despair, have become unwitting prophets of defeatism, self-negation, self-doubt
and doom.

I don’t blame them for their frustrations and disappointment.
When your spirit is broken by a long train of abuses, and you have no outlet for
your frustrations, it is easy to cling to defeat.
When your hopes for democracy and freedom are dashed, and find yourself
floating on a sea of despair, defeatism offers a comfortable safe harbor.
But I believe we must change our attitudes and perceptions about ourselves before
we exert our labors to help others in changing their circumstances.
We must constantly remind ourselves that we are in charge of our destiny, but if
we do not change the way we look at ourselves and act decisively, destiny will
surely be in charge of us.
Are we prepared to take on t e c allenge?
Knowledge is power, but knowledge combined with action has the force of cosmic
energy capable of moving individuals and nations.
We must educate ourselves on the American political process.
More importantly, we need to educate ourselves and our children on our rich
history and heritage.
We need to learn from each other. We need to teach each other.
Can we learn from our experiences in America?
I believe there are two great lessons we can learn from our experiences in
America.
One is that people of diverse national, ethnic and racial backgrounds can live in an
imperfect harmony with each other and prosper together. Thrive together.
Another lesson is that we need to learn to do politics in the open. To debate our
differences in the open. To challenge each other in the open.
And to do so, always, with civility and respect for each other.
We should abandon the politics of intrigue and suspicion.
It has proven destructive our homeland, and it will not serve us well here.

Can we take advantage of t e resources available to us ere?
We have enormous resources on our hands. We have the advantage of numbers.
We count in the hundreds of thousands in America.
We have expertise. We have brothers and sisters who have excelled in the arts,
sciences, law, medicine, the humanities and other fields of knowledge.
We have allies in the halls of the government and elsewhere -- members of
ongress, executive branch officials at all levels, and international human rights
organizations.
They want to hear from us. They want to help us.
But we must seek their help fully prepared to answer their questions and address
their concerns.
There is nothing more irksome to our allies than to seek their help but be ignorant
of our own cause.
We have the most powerful communications tool -- the internet -- at our fingertips.
Let us it to create and network virtual communities across cyberspace.
And we have the greatest resource of all: ourselves and our children.
We need to engage our youth in the great cause of freedom, human rights and
democracy in thiopia.
Their yearning to learn about their ancestral homeland is deep and expansive.
We must teach our youth in America to be proud of their history and heritage.
They should know in their hearts and minds that our people are not the wretched
of the earth. We are not merely news footage from the pages of the apocalypse that
they see on television.
Let us also answer their questions honestly:
"Why is there so much suffering in thiopia? Why is the news about thiopia
mostly about famine and starvation and political turmoil? Why do they allow so
many kids of our age to die from AIDS? What are you doing about it mom? Dad?"

It causes me great pain to see our children, with downcast eyes, deny to their
school mates that they are not really the same as those thiopian children you see
on TV dying from famine, starvation and poverty.
It causes me great pain to see the sheer terror in the faces of our children who take
upon a class project on our country, but are embarrassed and ashamed to talk
about our people’s poverty and suffering.
But I tell the young ones, "Do not feel ashamed. You come from a great and proud
people who have maintained their independence for 3000 years. You come from a
land of heroes. You come from good people. ompassionate people. Affectionate
people. Respectful people."
I believe our youth have the intensity of passion that most of us had not too long
ago.
Let’s help them lead us. Let us prepare them for leadership.
Let us also strive always to be inclusive of all who agree with our principles and
our cause, but disagree with us on strategy.
If we agree on the destination and we are all aboard the freedom train, we can sit
at a table of brotherhood and sisterhood and chart the course of our destiny.
Let us join with each other in a common purpose.
Now, allow me to say a word or two about resource management.
Resources require careful husbandry. We should not overtax and make
unreasonable demands of our allies and supporters.
Those of us who play leadership roles, and aspire to such roles should be careful in
the way we administer the funds and resources we gather for our cause.
Some complain that adequate accounting is not given for the administration of
resources. Some even hold back in their contributions because they feel unsure
about the ultimate use of their funds.
We should strive to inspire confidence that resources we collect for our cause are
administered not only with the highest ethical standards, but also professional
standards of accounting.
Do we understand t e adversary? Can we learn from im?

We should not be naïve. We have a formidable adversary. We should not
underestimate him.
He is wily. He is treacherous. He is resourceful.
He has unlimited financial resources. And he is resilient.
And, my friends, he has a Master Plan.
It is a stealthy and Machiavellian Master Plan.
It relies on the use of mercenaries to defeat, buy or destroy the opposition in the
Diaspora.
You will find this Master Plan in a 52-page Amharic booklet with the title roughly
translated as " onstituency Building Strategy for the thiopian Year 1998." You
will find it on the web. http://www.ethioforum.org/pdf/tplf_secret.pdf
When you read the Master Plan, you will see that the adversary will use every
device of political partisanship to subdue the giants in the Diaspora, to give them
the opiate of money and privilege just to lull them back into slumber.
Skip reading this Master Plan at your own risk.
Now, we should be mindful that our boastful and arrogant adversary has great
contempt for us.
I suppose he is probably sitting somewhere now and laughing at us with contempt,
saying:
"Let them talk. What are they going to do? We got ourselves in power with the
force of arms, let them come and remove us with the force of arms, if they can!"
Yes, we have a clever adversary. He knows of our difficulties to act in unity, to
follow through.
In fact, he uses our apparent weaknesses to discredit us before the international
community, and use every avenue of propaganda to scandalize our name.
He tells the international community, "The opposition is disunited. They have no
plan or program. Those in America are just bankrollers. They are former Derg
supporters, outdated royalists, Amharas who lost their privileges, and so on.

If they ever took power, the sky will fall. The country will go to hell in a hand
basket."
The adversary has been successful in painting a false picture of us before the
international community, and some like Tony Blair have been duped into
surrendering to him the crown jewels.
But the adversary has succeeded in his international propaganda because we have
been busy with the small picture, pointing fingers at each others and calling each
other names.
We have done little to expose his deceits, chicanery and hypocrisy. That is our loss
and his gain.
The adversary tells our people at home and abroad: "These mischief makers from
America are only interested in meddling in our affairs from the comfort of their
luxury. They are not interested in us."
He seeks to denigrate us in his usual boastful and dismissive way saying: "If they
are so dedicated to their country, why don’t they come here and help! After all, it
is a free country!"
And in our fractious politics, in our inability to unite in a common purpose to
wage a united struggle for democracy and human rights, we have played right into
his hands.
Shame on us!
So, my friends, have no doubts.
The adversary will be hard at work scheming and crafting divisive strategies to
weaken our influence and our ability to act collectively.
He will do anything, spare no expense to keep us divided and at each other’s
throats.
After all, he has used this strategy successfully for a decade and a half to keep
himself entrenched in our country.
Yes, he is a grand master at divide and rule. He will try to use every trick in the
book. Offer gifts of gold and silver. Threaten and intimidate.
I assure you when the giant is awake, the little men will not sleep. They can’t
afford to sleep!

Like the little men of folklore, the adversary now has a big problem on his hands.
He is terrified of the awakening giant. He is confused.
He is asking himself, "What went wrong? It’s not supposed to be this way! The
giant should be asleep!"
And so now, he has organized a mighty army of the most powerful lobbyists in
Washington to subdue the giant.
This mighty army will be marching on the Hill -- the United States ongress --
everyday!
He will feed this mighty and voracious army with thousands of dollars every
month -- money that could go to care for AIDS victims, build schools, clinics and
many other worthy causes.
And so, my friends, the giant,We, stand alone against the mighty armies of
Nebuchadnezzar.
But we will not be subdued. No! No! No! We will not give in!
In the end, we are assured of victory because we have something that
Nebuchadnezzar does not have.
We have truth on our side.
We have the cause of justice on our side.
We have the power of democratic ideals and ideas on our side.
But above all, we have the Almighty God on our side!!!
And so, in the end Nebuchadnezzar’s mighty army will be vanquished by freedom
advocates and defenders of human rights and democracy in the Diaspora.
And in the end, Nebuchadnezzar will meet his fate!
But I caution you, we must maintain perpetual vigilance against this cunning
adversary.
We must be prepared, and yes, his malicious campaigns will lay a heavy toll upon
our reserve of power and will.
Can we all contribute?

This is a very important question for each one of us.
I have heard so many of us express doubt about ourselves and stand on the
sidelines saying: "I am not a politician. There is not much I can do. I lack this art
or that profession, or this skill or that aptitude."
I believe this self-induced self-disempowerment is perhaps the most important
obstacle to any collective action we may be able to undertake in the Diaspora in
the future.
One need not be a professor or a lawyer, a doctor, an engineer, a scientist or
whatever else to make a contribution.
In the larger scheme of things, I believe the contributions and sacrifices of the
average citizen have proven more decisive in changing the course of history.
If truth be told, the thousands of heroes who died defending our country against
fascist aggression were average men and women whose unique distinction was
patriotism and love of country, and not necessarily learning or education.
The American civil rights movement was sparked by a seamstress, a woman who
sewed clothes for a living. One day she sat down and said " nough is enough!"
The leaders of the American ivil Rights Movement were barely out of their
teenage years when they laid their bodies in segregated buses and restaurants.
Martin Luther King Jr. was 24, and Harry Belafonte, who did not even finish high
school, was 26 when the Montgomery Boycott was launched.
The millions of Indians that populated the British colonial jails in Ghandi’s
movement were ordinary citizens.
So, yes, I believe every thiopian living, working and struggling in America can
contribute, indeed has a moral duty to contribute to improve the lives of our
brothers and sisters in thiopia!
We can, and must, contribute according to our abilities. Those with learning, with
ideas. Those with means, with financial support.
But no one, no one, can be exempt from offering at least moral support and
encouragement to those on the frontlines.

And so when you doubt your capacity to make a contribution, think of the
contributions of the young men and women who were massacred chasing ballot
thieves.
Think of the contributions of thousands of our brothers and sisters who are
suffering and dying in Zenawi’s jails every day.
When you doubt ability to make an impact, or feel you are just too small to make a
difference, consider the thought of going to bed with a mosquito in the room.
That tiny mosquito can keep you awake all night. And so, you can keep the little
frightened men awake all night!!
I have no doubts we will rise to the occasion. We will not merely survive, but
surely prevail in the end.
I have confidence in the future, because I have pride in our past.
Sometimes when I think upon the fate of our country and the suffering of our
people, I get weary and dispirited.
But I quickly pick myself up. I reinvigorate and inspire myself with thoughts of
the deeds of our ancestors, their immortal courage and honor and dignity, and their
immeasurable sacrifices, which remain the glory of our history.
I pick myself up with visions of our young people in America and thiopia
carrying the torch of freedom, human rights and democracy in every city, town
and hamlet, in every village and neighborhood in thiopia.
Oh! "My cup runneth over!"
And so, as I come to the end of my remarks today, perhaps some of you might
think that I do not fit the usual mold.
I admit I have a different approach and style.
Indeed, some of you may listen to my message and call me utopian.
I don’t mind that. I don’t mind being called a utopian thiopian.
And one day soon, I hope to meet the young man I spoke about earlier.
I am sure each and everyone of you will meet him too.

Let’s tell him it is a new day for us in America!
Tell him that we have accepted the summons of our people, and we will stand in
their defense!
Tell him to reassure our brothers and sisters in the streets and jails, and in every
city and hamlet to hold on, hold steady, and to keep hope alive!
Friends, before I close my remarks, I want to tell you that I have come to this
place, as I hope you have, not only to have a conversation about what is possible,
but also to remember the untold thousands of our brothers and sisters who
languish away in jail in thiopia today accused of bogus crimes or no crimes at all.
I stand here at this podium and offer my deepest sympathies for their suffering.
I stand here and express my appreciation for their sacrifices and declare my eternal
indebtedness for their contributions.
I stand here to praise their courage and express my admiration for their
incorruptible character and unimpeachable virtues.
And so, I stand here to proclaim my affirmation of those principles of civil and
human rights for which they continue to be persecuted.
They sit in jail today because they stood up for democracy and human rights
yesterday.
They suffer and die in the darkness of Kaliti jail and Kebele jails and other jails
throughout the land, because they wanted to bring the light of freedom, democracy
and human rights to their people.
And so I would like to respectfully ask you all to stand up and join me in thanking
our brothers and sisters in thiopian jails:
Thank you, brothers! Thank you sisters!
Thank you for your sacrifices!
Hold on! Hold on! The Almighty willing, redemption is near!!
God bless you and protect you wherever you are!!!
Thank you my friends, thank you all for being here.

God bless thiopia! God bless you all, and your children! And God bless
America!
_____________________
Alemayehu (Al) Mariam, Ph.D., J.D. ( sq.) is professor of political science and a defense
attorney in alifornia. Readers are invited to visit and share their comments at:
http://www.almariamforthedefense.blogspot.com/
http://almariamforthedefense.wordpress.com/

Excerpts from R.J. Rummel’s Death By Government

Definition of Democide

Genocide: among other things, the killing of people by a government because of their indelible group membership (race, ethnicity, religion, language).
Politicide: the murder of any person or people by a government because of their politics or for political purposes.
Mass Murder: the indiscriminate killing of any person or people by a government.
Democide: The murder of any person or people by a government, including genocide, politicide, and mass murder.

How do we conceptualize the purposive government killing of protesters or dissidents, the reprisal shooting of innocent villagers, the beating to death of peasants for hiding rice, or the indiscriminate bombing of civilians? How do we conceptualize torturing people to death in prison, working them to death in concentration camps, or letting them starve to death, when such killing is done out of revenge, for an ideology, or for reasons of state having nothing to do with the social groups to which these people belong?
Because of such questions scholars have generalized the meaning of "genocide." In some cases it has been extended to include the intentionally killing of people because of their politics or for political reasons, even though this has been explicitly excluded from the Genocide Convention. Some scholars also have extended the definition of genocide to cover any mass murder by government whatsoever; To all these scholars the critical aspect of "genocide" is intentional government killing.
All this is confusing. Both the non-killing aspect of "genocide" and the need to have a concept covering other kinds of government murder. The linking of all such diverse acts or deaths together under one label has created an acute conceptual problem that begs for the invention of new concepts to cover and be limited to intentional government murder. Thus, both Barbara Harff and R.J. Rummel have independently developed the concept of politicide for a government's premeditated killing of people because of their politics or for political reasons. But this new concept is still not sufficient, since many mass murders by government cannot be so labeled either.
Already in general use we have the concept of "mass murder" or "massacre." Although usage varies, both usually mean the intentional and indiscriminate murder of a large number of people by government agents, such as the shooting down of unarmed demonstrators by police. They can also include the random executions of civilians.
We also have the concept of "terror" applied to government killing, whose meaning is usually that of the extrajudicial execution, slaying, assassination, abduction or disappearance forever, of targeted individuals. That is, the killing is discriminating. This may be to exterminate actual or potential opponents or for social prophylaxis. Such killing also may be for the purpose of promoting fear among a people and thus ensuring their obedience and subservience.
But then there is killing that does not easily fit under any of these labels. There is, for example, murder by quota carried out by the late Soviets, Chinese communists, and North Vietnamese. For the Soviet and Vietnamese communists, government (or party) agencies would order subordinate units to kill a certain number of "enemies of the people," "rightists," or "tyrants," and the precise application of the order was left to the units involved. Moreover, millions of people wasted away in labor or concentration camps not because of their social identity, their political beliefs, or who they were, but simply because they got in the way, violated some Draconian rule, did not express sufficient exuberance over the regime, innocently insulted the Leader, or simply was a body that was needed for labor. And there are the hundreds of thousands of peasants that slowly died of disease, malnutrition, overwork, and hunger in Cambodia as the Khmer Rouge forced them under penalty of death to labor in the collectivized fields, expropriating virtually their whole harvest and refusing them adequate medical care.
Moreover, even when applicable the concepts of "genocide," "politicide," "mass murder" or "massacre," and "terror" overlap and are sometimes used interchangeably. Clearly, a concept is needed that includes all intentional government killing in cold blood and that is comparable to the concept of murder for private killing.
The killing of one person by another is murder whether done because the victim was Black or White, refused to repay a loan, or hurled an insult. It is murder if the killing was a premeditated act or the person died because of a reckless and wanton disregard for their life. Nor does it matter whether the killing is done for high moral ends, for altruistic reasons, or for any other purpose, it is murder under Western and most other legal codes (unless officially authorized by government, as for judicial executions or military combat). And as a crime murder is limited by definition to taking the life of another in some way. Although we use murder metaphorically, as in someone "murdering" the language, it is not the crime of murder to hurt someone psychological, to steal their child, or to rob them of their culture.
As an analogous concept for public murder, that by government agents acting authoritatively, Rummel offers the concept of democide. Its one root is the Greek dTmos, or people; the other is from the Latin caedere, to kill. Democide's necessary and sufficient meaning is that of the intentional government killing of an unarmed person or people. Unlike the concept of genocide, it is restricted to intentional killing, and does not extend to attempts to eliminate cultures, races, or a people by means other than killing people. Moreover, democide is not limited to the killing component of genocide, nor to politicide, mass murder or massacre, or terror. It includes them all and also what they exclude, as long as such killing is a purposive act, policy, process, or institution of government. In detail, democide is any actions by government:
(1) designed to kill or cause the death of people
(1.1) because of their religion, race, language, ethnicity, national origin, class, politics, speech, actions construed as opposing the government or wrecking social policy, or by virtue of their relationship to such people; (1.2) in order to fulfill a quota or requisition system; (1.3) in furtherance of a system of forced labor or enslavement; (1.4) by massacre; (1.5) through imposition of lethal living conditions; (1.6) by directly targeting noncombatants during a war or violent conflict.
(2) that cause death by virtue of an intentionally or knowingly reckless and depraved disregard for life (which constitutes practical intentionality), as in
(2.1) deadly prison, concentration camp, forced labor, prisoner of war, or recruit camp conditions; (2.2) killing medical or scientific experiments on humans; (2.3) torture or beatings; (2.4) encouraged or condoned murder, or rape, looting, and pillage during which people are killed; (2.5) a famine or epidemic during which government authorities withhold aid, or knowingly act in a way to make it more deadly; (2.6) forced deportations and expulsions causing deaths.
(3) with the following qualifications and clarifications:
(a) "government" includes de facto governance,
(b) "actions by governments" comprise official or authoritative actions by government officials, including the police, military, or secret service; or such non-governmental actions (e.g., by brigands, press-gangs, or secret societies) receiving government approval, aid, or acceptance; (c) clause 1.1 includes, for example, directly targeting noncombatants during a war or violent conflict out of hatred or revenge, or to depopulate an enemy region or terrorize or force the population into urging surrender; this would involve, among other actions, indiscriminate urban bombing or shelling, or blockades that cause mass starvation; (d) "relationship to such people" (clause 1.1) includes their relatives, colleagues, co-workers, teachers, or students; (e) "massacre" (clause 1.4) includes the mass killing of prisoners of war or of captured rebels; (f) "quota" system (clause 1.3) includes randomly selecting people for execution in order to meet a quota; or arresting people according to a quota, some of whom are then executed; (g) "requisition" system (clause 1.3) includes taking from peasants or farmers all their food and produce, leaving them to starve to death; (h) and excluding from the definition:
(h.1) execution for what are internationally considered capital crimes, such as murder, rape, spying, treason, and the like, so long as evidence does not exist that such allegations were invented by the government in order to execute the accused; (h.2) actions taken against armed civilians during mob action or a riot (e.g., killing people with weapons in their hands is not democide); (h.3) the death of noncombatants killed during attacks on military targets so long as the primary target is military (e.g., during bombing enemy logistics).
Democide is meant to define the killing by government as the concept of murder does individual killing in domestic society. Here intentionality (premeditation) is critical. This also includes practical intentionality. If a government causes deaths through a reckless and depraved indifference to human life, the deaths were as though intended. If through neglect a mother lets her baby die of malnutrition, this is murder. If we imprison a girl in our home, force her to do exhausting work throughout the day, not even minimally feed and clothe her, and watch her gradually die a little each day without helping her, then her inevitable death is not only our fault, but our practical intention. It is murder. Similarly, for example, as the Soviet government forcibly transported political prisoners to labor camps hundreds of thousands of them died at the hands of criminals or guards, or from heat, cold, and inadequate food and water. Although not intended (indeed, this deprived the regime of their labor), the deaths were still public murder. It was democide.
Moreover, when conceptually there is not a clear domestic analog to murder, as in the indiscriminate bombing of urban areas, Rummel has tried to follow the Geneva Conventions and Protocols. Killing helpless people in time of war or military action in breach of these international agreements is a violation of the international law they codify a crime and is ipso facto democide. Therefore the forced detention of prisoners of war under conditions that cause their death is democide, as is death caused by medical experimentation on them. Bombing, shelling, or bombarding civilians indiscriminately is also democide, as is the forced removal of all food stuff in occupied areas, thus causing the death of the inhabitants from starvation. Similarly, food blockades that cause the indiscriminate death of civilians is democide, as was the largely British blockade of the Central Powers during and after World War I. As Article 14 to Protocol II of the Geneva Conventions affirms: "Starvation of civilians as a method of combat is prohibited."

Pulling all this together, a death constitutes democide if it is the intentional killing of an unarmed or disarmed person by government agents acting in their authoritative capacity and pursuant to government policy or high command. It is also democide if these deaths were the result of such authoritative government actions carried out with reckless and wanton disregard for the lives of those affected (as putting people in concentration camps in which the forced labor and starvation rations were such as to cause the death of inmates). It is democide if government promoted or turned a blind eye to these deaths even though they were murders carried out "unofficially" or by private groups. And these deaths also may be democide if high government officials purposely allowed conditions to continue that were causing mass deaths and issued no public warning (as in the Ethiopian famines of the 1970s). All extra-judicial or summary executions comprise democide. Even judicial executions may be democide, as in the Soviet show trials of the late 1930s. Judicial executions for "crimes" internationally considered trivial or non-capital, as of peasants picking up grain at the edge of a collective's fields, of a worker for telling an anti-government joke, or of an engineer for a miscalculation, are also democide.
Rummel has found that in the vast majority of events and episodes democide is unambiguous. When under the command of higher authorities soldiers force villagers into a field and then machine gun them, there should be no question about definition. When a group armed by the government for this purpose turn the teachers and students out of their school, line up those of a particular tribe and shoot them, it is surely democide. When all food stuffs are systematically removed from a region by government authorities and a food blockade is put in place, the resulting deaths must be democide.
Sad to say, most cases of government killing in this century is that clear. The number of deaths will be hazy for many of these cases; the perpetrators and intent will not.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

We Ethiopians believe in One God, God the Father, Almighty who possesses all,
Maker of the Heavens and Earth, the visible and the invisible.
We believe in God the Son, Jesus Christ, One Lord, the only begotten Son of the
Father, who was with Him before the creation of the world. He is Light from Light, True
God from True God, begotten not made, and, in His Divine Essence, one with His Father.
All things were made by Him, and without Him nothing whatsoever was made, in
Heavens or on Earth.

Lets all pray.

Let me start with this:

We are usually convinced more easily by reasons we have found ourselves than by those which have occurred to others.
Blaise Pascal

However, we all might learn something from other’s experiences.

Hear Ye! Hear Ye!

To Meles Zenawi and Co.

He who fox-like got his rank, Is wolf-like in his office.
V. A. Zhukovsky
I personally call the type of government which can be removed without violence 'democracy,' and the other, 'tyranny.'
Karl Popper
The ultimate authority ... resides in the people alone.
James Madison
Democracy means having the choice. Dictatorship means being given the choice.
Jeannine Luczak
It is a paradox that every dictator has climbed to power on the ladder of free speech. Immediately on attaining power each dictator has suppressed all free speech except his own.
Herbert Clark Hoover
The price of the democratic way of life is a growing appreciation of people's differences, not merely as tolerable, but as the essence of a rich and rewarding human experience.
Jerome Nathanson
Only the person who does not evade conflict and directs his efforts in keeping with the course of society's development can be an effective leader.
G. V. Plekhanov
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
George Bernard Shaw
Those who make peaceful change impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
John F. Kennedy
Anarchy is the sure consequence of tyranny; for no power that is not limited by laws can ever be protected by them.
John Milton
He who strikes terror into others is himself in continual fear.
Claudian
As a rule, dictatorships guarantee safe streets and terror of the doorbell. In democracy the streets may be unsafe after dark, but the most likely visitor in the early hours will be the milkman.
Adam Michnik
The ballot is stronger than the bullet.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
Democracy is the government of the people, by the people, for the people.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
Elections belong to the people. It is their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.
Abraham Lincoln
The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.
Frederick Douglass
Freedom is when the people can speak, democracy is when the government listens.
Alastair Farrugia
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a lamb contesting the vote!
Benjamin Franklin
Dictatorships are one-way streets. Democracy boasts two-way traffic.
Albert Moravia
A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular.
Adlai Ewing Stevenson
Intellectual freedom is the only guarantee of a scientific - democratic approach to politics, economic development, and culture.
Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov
As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
As long as the differences and diversities of mankind exist, democracy must allow for compromise, for accommodation, and for the recognition of differences.
Eugene McCarthy
Firmness in decision is often merely a form of stupidity. It indicates an inability to think the same thing out twice.
H.L. Mencken (1880-1956)
Democracy means: Sticking to the rules of the game, even when the referee is not looking.
Manfred Hausmann
When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.
Plato


To The Opposition

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
Margaret Mead
Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope...building a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.
Robert F. Kennedy
There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.
Machiavelli
Nonviolence is not a weapon of the weak. It is a weapon of the strongest and bravest.
Mahatma Gandhi
A "No" uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a "Yes" merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble.
Mahatma Gandhi



To The Federal Police (and the Red Berets?)

If...the machine of government...is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.
Henry David Thoreau
Governments need armies to protect them from their enslaved and oppressed subjects.
Lev Tolstoy
It is the old practice of despots to use a part of the people to keep the rest in order.
Thomas Jefferson
He who allows oppression, shares the crime.
Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of Charles Darwin


To The People of Ethiopia

It is wrong to ask who will rule. The ability to vote a bad government out of office is enough. That is democracy.
Karl Popper
Liberty is the possibility of doubting, the possibility of making a mistake, the possibility of searching and experimenting, the possibility of saying No to any authority - literary, artistic, philosophic, religious, social, and even political.
Ignazio Silone
Democracy is based upon the conviction that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people.
Harry Emerson Fosdick
In a democracy dissent is an act of faith. Like medicine, the test of its value is not in its taste, but in its effects.
J. W. Fulbright
The job of a citizen is to keep his mouth open.
Gunther Grass
Those wanting to improve democracy in their countries should not wait for permission.
Bulent Ecevit
Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state becomes lawless or corrupt.
Mahatma Gandhi
Democracy cannot be forced upon a society, neither is it a gift that can be held forever. It has to be struggled hard for and defended everyday anew.
Heinz Galinski
General rebellions and revolts of a whole people never were encouraged now or at any time. They are always provoked.
Edmuns Burke
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.
Edward Abbey
There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.
Elie Wiesel
Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want rain without thunder and lightning.
Frederick Douglass
Arbitrary rule has its basis, not in the strength of the state or the chief, but in the moral weakness of the individual, who submits almost without resistance to the domineering power.
Friedrich Hatzel

Those believing they have not voted are mistaken, for their indifference affects all our futures.
M.A. Denck
They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty or safety.
Benjamin Franklin
The highest measure of democracy is neither the 'extent of freedom' nor the 'extent of equality', but rather the highest measure of participation.
A. d. Benoist
Democracy is not something you believe in or a place to hang your hat, but it's something you do. You participate. If you stop doing it, democracy crumbles.
Abbie Hoffman
Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth.
Aldous Huxley
Remorse--Regret that one waited so long to do it.
H.L. Mencken (1880-1956)
Those against politics are in favor of the politics inflicted upon them.
Bertolt Brecht
Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote.
George Jean Nathan
Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them.
Frederick Douglass
Democracy is ….that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.
H.L. Mencken (1880-1956)
It's dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire
What you do is of little significance, but it is very important that you do it.
Mahatma Gandhi


To The International Community

It's not the voting that's democracy; it's the counting.
Tom Stoppard
I am strongly convinced that the people or society is the best and the most unerring critic.
Vissarion Belinsky
In actual fact those who do not care for politics and sit on the fence do indeed side for a political party: The ruling party.
Max Frisch
The human race has entered a stage where we are all dependent on each other. No other country or nation should be regarded in total separation from another….
Mikhail Gorbachev
It is not only for what we do that we are held responsible, but also for what we do not do.Moliere
Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.
Paulo Freire
When the government fears the people, that is LIBERTY. When people fear the government, that is TYRANNY.
Unknown
When a nation's government becomes more fearful of its citizens' rights than protective of them, that nation's future is only despotism and extinction.
Unknown
Whatever field of human activity one may take, only those trends that are in harmony with the needs of society show rapid progress.
Nikolai Chernyshevsky
Everybody's for democracy in principle. It's only in practice that the thing gives rise to stiff objections.
Meg Greenfield

Indians - descendants of Ethiopians.
Original Christian Church - Ethiopian!
Read on.

Truth Journal

The Existence of God and the Beginning of the Universe

William Lane Craig

William Craig earned a doctorate in philosophy at the University of Birmingham, England, before taking a doctorate in theology from the Ludwig Maximiliens Universitat-Munchen, West Germany, at which latter institution he was for two years a Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung. He is currently a visiting scholar at the Universite Catholique de Louvain. He has authored various books, including The Kalam Cosmological Argument, The Cosmological Argument from Plato to Leibniz, and The Problem of Divine Foreknowledge and Future Contingents from Aristotle to Suarez, as well as articles in professional journals like British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Zeitschrift fur Philosophische Forschung, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, and Philosophia.
The kalam cosmological argument, by showing that the universe began to exist, demonstrates that the world is not a necessary being and, therefore, not self-explanatory with respect to its existence. Two philosophical arguments and two scientific confirmations are presented in support of the beginning of the universe. Since whatever begins to exist has a cause, there must exist a transcendent cause of the universe.
Source: "The Existence of God and the Beginning of the Universe." Truth: A Journal of Modern Thought 3 (1991): 85-96.
Introduction
"The first question which should rightly be asked," wrote G.W.F. Leibniz, is "Why is there something rather than nothing?"[1] This question does seem to possess a profound existential force, which has been felt by some of mankind's greatest thinkers. According to Aristotle, philosophy begins with a sense of wonder about the world, and the most profound question a man can ask concerns the origin of the universe.[2] In his biography of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Norman Malcolm reports that Wittgenstein said that he sometimes had a certain experience which could best be described by saying that "when I have it, I wonder at the existence of the world. I am then inclined to use such phrases as 'How extraordinary that anything should exist!'"[3] Similarly, one contemporary philosopher remarks, ". . . My mind often seems to reel under the immense significance this question has for me. That anything exists at all does seem to me a matter for the deepest awe."[4]
Why does something exist instead of nothing? Leibniz answered this question by arguing that something exists rather than nothing because a necessary being exists which carries within itself its reason for existence and is the sufficient reason for the existence of all contingent being.[5]
Although Leibniz (followed by certain contemporary philosophers) regarded the non- existence of a necessary being as logically impossible, a more modest explication of necessity of existence in terms of what he calls "factual necessity" has been given by John Hick: a necessary being is an eternal, uncaused, indestructible, and incorruptible being.[6] Leibniz, of course, identified the necessary being as God. His critics, however, disputed this identification, contending that the material universe could itself be assigned the status of a necessary being. "Why," queried David Hume, "may not the material universe be the necessary existent Being, according to this pretended explanation of necessity?"[7] Typically, this has been precisely the position of the atheist. Atheists have not felt compelled to embrace the view that the universe came into being out of nothing for no reason at all; rather they regard the universe itself as a sort of factually necessary being: the universe is eternal, uncaused, indestructible, and incorruptible. As Russell neatly put it, " . . . The universe is just there, and that's all."[8]
Does Leibniz's argument therefore leave us in a rational impasse, or might there not be some further resources available for untangling the riddle of the existence of the world? It seems to me that there are. It will be remembered that an essential property of a necessary being is eternality. If then it could be made plausible that the universe began to exist and is not therefore eternal, one would to that extent at least have shown the superiority of theism as a rational world view.
Now there is one form of the cosmological argument, much neglected today but of great historical importance, that aims precisely at the demonstration that the universe had a beginning in time.[9] Originating in the efforts of Christian theologians to refute the Greek doctrine of the eternity of matter, this argument was developed into sophisticated formulations by medieval Islamic and Jewish theologians, who in turn passed it back to the Latin West. The argument thus has a broad inter- sectarian appeal, having been defended by Muslims, Jews, and Christians both Catholic and Protestant.
This argument, which I have called the kalam cosmological argument, can be exhibited as follows: 1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause of its existence. 2. The universe began to exist. 2.1 Argument based on the impossibility of an actual infinite. 2.11 An actual infinite cannot exist. 2.12 An infinite temporal regress of events is an actual infinite. 2.13 Therefore, an infinite temporal regress of events cannot exist. 2.2 Argument based on the impossibility of the formation of an actual infinite by successive addition. 2.21 A collection formed by successive addition cannot be actually infinite. 2.22 The temporal series of past events is a collection formed by successive addition. 2.23 Therefore, the temporal series of past events cannot be actually infinite. 3. Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence.
Let us examine this argument more closely.
Defense of the Kalam Cosmological Argument
Second Premiss
Clearly, the crucial premiss in this argument is (2), and two independent arguments are offered in support of it. Let us therefore turn first to an examination of the supporting arguments.
First Supporting Argument
In order to understand (2.1), we need to understand the difference between a potential infinite and an actual infinite. Crudely put, a potential infinite is a collection which is increasing toward infinity as a limit, but never gets there. Such a collection is really indefinite, not infinite. The sign of this sort of infinity, which is used in calculus, is ¥. An actual infinite is a collection in which the number of members really is infinite. The collection is not growing toward infinity; it is infinite, it is "complete." The sign of this sort of infinity, which is used in set theory to designate sets which have an infinite number of members, such as {1, 2, 3, . . .}, is À0. Now (2.11) maintains, not that a potentially infinite number of things cannot exist, but that an actually infinite number of things cannot exist. For if an actually infinite number of things could exist, this would spawn all sorts of absurdities.
Perhaps the best way to bring home the truth of (2.11) is by means of an illustration. Let me use one of my favorites, Hilbert's Hotel, a product of the mind of the great German mathematician, David Hilbert. Let us imagine a hotel with a finite number of rooms. Suppose, furthermore, that all the rooms are full. When a new guest arrives asking for a room, the proprietor apologizes, "Sorry, all the rooms are full." But now let us imagine a hotel with an infinite number of rooms and suppose once more that all the rooms are full. There is not a single vacant room throughout the entire infinite hotel. Now suppose a new guest shows up, asking for a room. "But of course!" says the proprietor, and he immediately shifts the person in room #1 into room #2, the person in room #2 into room #3, the person in room #3 into room #4 and so on, out to infinity. As a result of these room changes, room #1 now becomes vacant and the new guest gratefully checks in. But remember, before he arrived, all the rooms were full! Equally curious, according to the mathematicians, there are now no more persons in the hotel than there were before: the number is just infinite. But how can this be? The proprietor just added the new guest's name to the register and gave him his keys-how can there not be one more person in the hotel than before? But the situation becomes even stranger. For suppose an infinity of new guests show up the desk, asking for a room. "Of course, of course!" says the proprietor, and he proceeds to shift the person in room #1 into room #2, the person in room #2 into room #4, the person in room #3 into room #6, and so on out to infinity, always putting each former occupant into the room number twice his own. As a result, all the odd numbered rooms become vacant, and the infinity of new guests is easily accommodated. And yet, before they came, all the rooms were full! And again, strangely enough, the number of guests in the hotel is the same after the infinity of new guests check in as before, even though there were as many new guests as old guests. In fact, the proprietor could repeat this process infinitely many times and yet there would never be one single person more in the hotel than before.
But Hilbert's Hotel is even stranger than the German mathematician gave it out to be. For suppose some of the guests start to check out. Suppose the guest in room #1 departs. Is there not now one less person in the hotel? Not according to the mathematicians-but just ask the woman who makes the beds! Suppose the guests in room numbers 1, 3, 5, . . . check out. In this case an infinite number of people have left the hotel, but according to the mathematicians there are no less people in the hotel-but don't talk to that laundry woman! In fact, we could have every other guest check out of the hotel and repeat this process infinitely many times, and yet there would never be any less people in the hotel. But suppose instead the persons in room number 4, 5, 6, . . . checked out. At a single stroke the hotel would be virtually emptied, the guest register reduced to three names, and the infinite converted to finitude. And yet it would remain true that the same number of guests checked out this time as when the guests in room numbers 1, 3, 5, . . . checked out. Can anyone sincerely believe that such a hotel could exist in reality? These sorts of absurdities illustrate the impossibility of the existence of an actually infinite number of things.
That takes us to (2.12). The truth of this premiss seems fairly obvious. If the universe never began to exist, then prior to the present event there have existed an actually infinite number of previous events. Hence, a beginningless series of events in time entails the existence of an actually infinite number of things, namely, past events.
Given the truth of (2.11) and (2.12), the conclusion (2.13) logically follows. The series of past events must be finite and have a beginning. But since the universe is not distinct from the series of events, it follows that the universe began to exist.
At this point, we might find it profitable to consider several objections that might be raised against the argument. First let us consider objections to (2.11). Wallace Matson objects that the premiss must mean that an actually infinite number of things is logically impossible; but it is easy to show that such a collection is logically possible. For example, the series of negative numbers {. . . -3, -2, -1} is an actually infinite collection with no first member.[10] Matson's error here lies in thinking that (2.11) means to assert the logical impossibility of an actually infinite number of things. What the premiss expresses is the real or factual impossibility of an actual infinite. To illustrate the difference between real and logical possibility: there is no logical impossibility in something's coming to exist without a cause, but such a circumstance may well be really or metaphysically impossible. In the same way, (2.11) asserts that the absurdities entailed in the real existence of an actual infinite show that such an existence is metaphysically impossible. Hence, one could grant that in the conceptual realm of mathematics one can, given certain conventions and axioms, speak consistently about infinite sets of numbers, but this in no way implies that an actually infinite number of things is really possible. One might also note that the mathematical school of intuitionism denies that even the number series is actually infinite (they take it to be potentially infinite only), so that appeal to number series as examples of actual infinites is a moot procedure.
The late J.L. Mackie also objected to (2.11), claiming that the absurdities are resolved by noting that for infinite groups the axiom "the whole is greater than its part" does not hold, as it does for finite groups.[11] Similarly, Quentin Smith comments that once we understand that an infinite set has a proper subset which has the same number of members as the set itself, the purportedly absurd situations become "perfectly believable."[12] But to my mind, it is precisely this feature of infinite set theory which, when translated into the realm of the real, yields results which are perfectly incredible, for example, Hilbert's Hotel. Moreover, not all the absurdities stem from infinite set theory's denial of Euclid's axiom: the absurdities illustrated by guests checking out of the hotel stem from the self-contradictory results when the inverse operations of subtraction or division are performed using transfinite numbers. Here the case against an actually infinite collection of things becomes decisive.
Finally one might note the objection of Sorabji, who maintains that illustrations such as Hilbert's Hotel involve no absurdity. In order to understand what is wrong with the kalam argument, he asks us to envision two parallel columns beginning at the same point and stretching away into the infinite distance, one the column of past years and the other the column of past days. The sense in which the column of past days is no larger than the column of past years, says Sorabji, is that the column of days will not "stick out" beyond the far end of the other column, since neither column has a far end. Now in the case of Hilbert's Hotel there is the temptation to think that some unfortunate resident at the far end will drop off into space. But there is no far end: the line of residents will not stick out beyond the far end of the line of rooms. Once this is seen, the outcome is just an explicable- even if a surprising and exhilarating- truth about infinity.[13] Now Sorabji is certainly correct, as we have seen, that Hilbert's Hotel illustrates an explicable truth about the nature of the actual infinite. If an actually infinite number of things could exist, a Hilbert's Hotel would be possible. But Sorabji seems to fail to understand the heart of the paradox: I, for one, experience no temptation to think of people dropping off the far end of the hotel, for there is none, but I do have difficulty believing that a hotel in which all the rooms are occupied can accommodate more guests. Of course, the line of guests will not stick out beyond the line of rooms, but if all of those infinite rooms already have guests in them, then can moving those guests about really create empty rooms? Sorabji's own illustration of the columns of past years and days I find not a little disquieting: if we divide the columns into foot-long segments and mark one column as the years and the other as the days, then one column is as long as the other and yet for every foot-length segment in the column of years, 365 segments of equal length are found in the column of days! These paradoxical results can be avoided only if such actually infinite collections can exist only in the imagination, not in reality. In any case, the Hilbert's Hotel illustration is not exhausted by dealing only with the addition of new guests, for the subtraction of guests results in absurdities even more intractable. Sorabji's analysis says nothing to resolve these. Hence, it seems to me that the objections to premiss (2.11) are less plausible than the premiss itself.
With regard to (2.12), the most frequent objection is that the past ought to be regarded as a potential infinite only, not an actual infinite. This was Aquinas's position versus Bonaventure, and the contemporary philosopher Charles Hartshorne seems to side with Thomas on this issue.[14] Such a position is, however, untenable. The future is potentially infinite, since it does not exist; but the past is actual in a way the future is not, as evidenced by the fact that we have traces of the past in the present, but no traces of the future. Hence, if the series of past events never began to exist, there must have been an actually infinite number of past events.
The objections to either premiss therefore seem to be less compelling than the premisses themselves. Together they imply that the universe began to exist. Hence, I conclude that this argument furnishes good grounds for accepting the truth of premiss (2) that the universe began to exist.
Second Supporting Argument
The second argument (2.2) for the beginning of the universe is based on the impossibility of forming an actual infinite by successive addition. This argument is distinct from the first in that it does not deny the possibility of the existence of an actual infinite, but the possibility of its being formed by successive addition.
Premiss (2.21) is the crucial step in the argument. One cannot form an actually infinite collection of things by successively adding one member after another. Since one can always add one more before arriving at infinity, it is impossible to reach actual infinity. Sometimes this is called the impossibility of "counting to infinity" or "traversing the infinite." It is important to understand that this impossibility has nothing to do with the amount of time available: it belongs to the nature of infinity that it cannot be so formed.
Now someone might say that while an infinite collection cannot be formed by beginning at a point and adding members, nevertheless an infinite collection could be formed by never beginning but ending at a point, that is to say, ending at a point after having added one member after another from eternity. But this method seems even more unbelievable than the first method. If one cannot count to infinity, how can one count down from infinity? If one cannot traverse the infinite by moving in one direction, how can one traverse it by simply moving in the opposite direction?
Indeed, the idea of a beginningness series ending in the present seems to be absurd. To give just one illustration: suppose we meet a man who claims to have been counting from eternity and is now finishing: . . ., -3, -2, -1, 0. We could ask, why did he not finish counting yesterday or the day before or the year before? By then an infinite time had already elapsed, so that he should already have finished by then. Thus, at no point in the infinite past could we ever find the man finishing his countdown, for by that point he should already be done! In fact, no matter how far back into the past we go, we can never find the man counting at all, for at any point we reach he will have already finished. But if at no point in the past do we find him counting, this contradicts the hypothesis that he has been counting from eternity. This illustrates the fact that the formation of an actual infinite by successive addition is equally impossible whether one proceeds to or from infinity.
Premiss (2.22) presupposes a dynamical view of time according to which events are actualized in serial fashion, one after another. The series of events is not a sort of timelessly subsisting world-line which appears successively in consciousness. Rather becoming is real and essential to temporal process. Now this view of time is not without its challengers, but to consider their objections in this article would take us too far afield.[15] In this piece, we must rest content with the fact that we are arguing on common ground with our ordinary intuitions of temporal becoming and in agreement with a good number of contemporary philosophers of time and space.
Given the truth of (2.21) and (2.22), the conclusion (2.23) logically follows. If the universe did not begin to exist a finite time ago, then the present moment could never arrive. But obviously, it has arrived. Therefore, we know that the universe is finite in the past and began to exist.
Again, it would be profitable to consider various objections that have been offered against this reasoning. Against (2.21), Mackie objects that the argument illicitly assumes an infinitely distant starting point in the past and then pronounces it impossible to travel from that point to today. But there would in an infinite past be no starting point, not even an infinitely distant one. Yet from any given point in the infinite past, there is only a finite distance to the present.[16] Now it seems to me that Mackie's allegation that the argument presupposes an infinitely distant starting point is entirely groundless. The beginningless character of the series only serves to accentuate the difficulty of its being formed by successive addition. The fact that there is no beginning at all, not even an infinitely distant one, makes the problem more, not less, nettlesome. And the point that from any moment in the infinite past there is only a finite temporal distance to the present may be dismissed as irrelevant. The question is not how any finite portion of the temporal series can be formed, but how the whole infinite series can be formed. If Mackie thinks that because every segment of the series can be formed by successive addition therefore the whole series can be so formed, then he is simply committing the fallacy of composition.
Sorabji similarly objects that the reason it is impossible to count down from infinity is because counting involves by nature taking a starting number, which is lacking in this case. But completing an infinite lapse of years involves no starting year and is, hence, possible.[17] But this response is clearly inadequate, for, as we have seen, the years of an infinite past could be enumerated by the negative numbers, in which case a completed infinity of years would, indeed, entail a beginningless countdown from infinity. Sorabji anticipates this rebuttal, however, and claims that such a backwards countdown is possible in principle and therefore no logical barrier has been exhibited to the elapsing of an infinity of past years. Again, however, the question I am posing is not whether there is a logical contradiction in such a notion, but whether such a countdown is not metaphysically absurd. For we have seen that such a countdown should at any point already have been completed. But Sorabji is again ready with a response: to say the countdown should at any point already be over confuses counting an infinity of numbers with counting all the numbers. At any given point in the past, the eternal counter will have already counted an infinity of negative numbers, but that does not entail that he will have counted all the negative numbers. I do not think the argument makes this alleged equivocation, and this may be made clear by examining the reason why our eternal counter is supposedly able to complete a count of the negative numbers ending at zero. In order to justify the possibility of this intuitively impossible feat, the argument's opponent appeals to the so- called Principle of Correspondence used in set theory to determine whether two sets are equivalent (that is, have the same number of members) by matching the members of one set with the members of the other set and vice versa. On the basis of this principle the objector argues that since the counter has lived, say, an infinite number of years and since the set of past years can be put into a one- to-one correspondence with the set of negative numbers, it follows that by counting one number a year an eternal counter would complete a countdown of the negative numbers by the present year. If we were to ask why the counter would not finish next year or in a hundred years, the objector would respond that prior to the present year an infinite number of years will have already elapsed, so that by the Principle of Correspondence, all the numbers should have been counted by now. But this reasoning backfires on the objector: for, as we have seen, on this account the counter should at any point in the past have already finished counting all the numbers, since a one-to-one correspondence exists between the years of the past and the negative numbers. Thus, there is no equivocation between counting an infinity of numbers and counting all the numbers. But at this point a deeper absurdity bursts in view: for suppose there were another counter who counted at a rate of one negative number per day. According to the Principle of Correspondence, which underlies infinite set theory and transfinite arithmetic, both of our eternal counters will finish their countdowns at the same moment, even though one is counting at a rate 365 times faster than the other! Can anyone believe that such scenarios can actually obtain in reality, but do not rather represent the outcome of an imaginary game being played in a purely conceptual realm according to adopted logical conventions and axioms?
As for premiss (2.22), many thinkers have objected that we need not regard the past as a beginningless infinite series with an end in the present. Popper, for example, admits that the set of all past events is actually infinite, but holds that the series of past events is potentially infinite. This may be seen by beginning in the present and numbering the events backwards, thus forming a potential infinite. Therefore, the problem of an actual infinite's being formed by successive addition does not arise.[18] Similarly, Swinburne muses that it is dubious whether a completed infinite series with no beginning but an end makes sense, but he proposes to solve the problem by beginning in the present and regressing into the past, so that the series of past events would have no end and would therefore not be a completed infinite.[19] This objection, however, clearly confuses the mental regress of counting with the real progress of the temporal series of events itself. Numbering the series from the present backwards only shows that if there are an infinite number of past events, then we can denumerate an infinite number of past events. But the problem is, how can this infinite collection of events come to be formed by successive addition? How we mentally conceive the series does not in any way affect the ontological character of the series itself as a series with no beginning but an end, or in other words, as an actual infinite completed by successive addition.
Once again, then, the objections to (2.21) and (2.22) seem less plausible than the premisses themselves. Together they imply (2.23), or that the universe began to exist.
First Scientific Confirmation
These purely philosophical arguments for the beginning of the universe have received remarkable confirmation from discoveries in astronomy and astrophysics during this century. These confirmations might be summarized under two heads: the confirmation from the expansion of the universe and the confirmation from thermodynamic properties of the universe.
With regard to the first, Hubble's discovery in 1929 of the red-shift in the light from distant galaxies began a revolution in astronomy perhaps as significant as the Copernican revolution. Prior to this time the universe as a whole was conceived to be static; but the startling conclusion to which Hubble was led was that the red-shift is due to the fact that the universe is in fact expanding. The staggering implication of this fact is that as one traces the expansion back in time, the universe becomes denser and denser until one reaches a point of infinite density from which the universe began to expand. The upshot of Hubble's discovery was that at some point in the finite past-probably around 15 billion years ago-the entire known universe was contracted down to a single mathematical point which marked the origin of the universe. That initial explosion has come to be known as the "Big Bang." Four of the world's most prominent astronomers described that event in these words:
The universe began from a state of infinite density. . . . Space and time were created in that event and so was all the matter in the universe. It is not meaningful to ask what happened before the Big Bang; it is like asking what is north of the North Pole. Similarly, it is not sensible to ask where the Big Bang took place. The point-universe was not an object isolated in space; it was the entire universe, and so the answer can only be that the Big Bang happened everywhere.[20]
This event that marked the beginning of the universe becomes all the more amazing when one reflects on the fact that a state of "infinite density" is synonymous to "nothing." There can be no object that possesses infinite density, for if it had any size at all it could still be even more dense. Therefore, as Cambridge astronomer Fred Hoyle points out, the Big Bang Theory requires the creation of matter from nothing. This is because as one goes back in time, one reaches a point at which, in Hoyle's words, the universe was "shrunk down to nothing at all."[21] Thus, what the Big Bang model of the universe seems to require is that the universe began to exist and was created out of nothing.
Some theorists have attempted to avoid the absolute beginning of the universe implied by the Big Bang theory by speculating that the universe may undergo an infinite series of expansions and contractions. There are, however, good grounds for doubting the adequacy of such an oscillating model of the universe: (i) The oscillating model appears to be physically impossible. For all the talk about such models, the fact seems to be that they are only theoretically, but not physically possible. As the late Professor Tinsley of Yale explains, in oscillating models "even though the mathematics say that the universe oscillates, there is no known physics to reverse the collapse and bounce back to a new expansion. The physics seems to say that those models start from the Big Bang, expand, collapse, then end."[22] In order for the oscillating model to be correct, it would seem that the known laws of physics would have to be revised. (ii) The oscillating model seems to be observationally untenable. Two facts of observational astronomy appear to run contrary to the oscillating model. First, the observed homogeneity of matter distribution throughout the universe seems unaccountable on an oscillating model. During the contraction phase of such a model, black holes begin to gobble up surrounding matter, resulting in an inhomogeneous distribution of matter. But there is no known mechanism to "iron out" these inhomogeneities during the ensuing expansion phase. Thus, the homogeneity of matter observed throughout the universe would remain unexplained. Second, the density of the universe appears to be insufficient for the re-contraction of the universe. For the oscillating model to be even possible, it is necessary that the universe be sufficiently dense such that gravity can overcome the force of the expansion and pull the universe back together again. However, according to the best estimates, if one takes into account both luminous matter and non-luminous matter (found in galactic halos) as well as any possible contribution of neutrino particles to total mass, the universe is still only about one-half that needed for re-contraction.[23] Moreover, recent work on calculating the speed and deceleration of the expansion confirms that the universe is expanding at, so to speak, "escape velocity" and will not therefore re-contract. According to Sandage and Tammann, "Hence, we are forced to decide that . . . it seems inevitable that the Universe will expand forever"; they conclude, therefore, that "the Universe has happened only once."[24]
Second Scientific Confirmation
As if this were not enough, there is a second scientific confirmation of the beginning of the universe based on the thermodynamic properties of various cosmological models. According to the second law of thermodynamics, processes taking place in a closed system always tend toward a state of equilibrium. Now our interest is in what implications this has when the law is applied to the universe as a whole. For the universe is a gigantic closed system, since it is everything there is and no energy is being fed into it from without. The second law seems to imply that, given enough time, the universe will reach a state of thermodynamic equilibrium, known as the "heat death" of the universe. This death may be hot or cold, depending on whether the universe will expand forever or eventually re-contract. On the one hand, if the density of the universe is great enough to overcome the force of the expansion, then the universe will re-contract into a hot fireball. As the universe contracts, the stars burn more rapidly until they finally explode or evaporate. As the universe grows denser, the black holes begin to gobble up everything around them and begin themselves to coalesce until all the black holes finally coalesce into one gigantic black hole which is coextensive with the universe, from which it will never re-emerge. On the other hand, if the density of the universe is insufficient to halt the expansion, as seems more likely, then the galaxies will turn all their gas into stars and the stars will burn out. At 10[30 ]years the universe will consist of 90% dead stars, 9% supermassive black holes, and l% atomic matter. Elementary particle physics suggests that thereafter protons will decay into electrons and positrons, so that space will be filled with a rarefied gas so thin that the distance between an electron and a positron will be about the size of the present galaxy. At 10[100] years some scientists believe that the black holes themselves will dissipate into radiation and elementary particles. Eventually all the matter in the dark, cold, ever-expanding universe will be reduced to an ultra-thin gas of elementary particles and radiation. Equilibrium will prevail throughout, and the entire universe will be in its final state, from which no change will occur.
Now the question which needs to be asked is this: if, given sufficient time, the universe will reach heat death, then why is it not now in a state of heat death if it has existed for infinite time? If the universe did not begin to exist, then it should now be in a state of equilibrium. Some theorists have suggested that the universe escapes final heat death by oscillating from eternity past to eternity future. But we have already seen that such a model seems to be physically and observationally untenable. But even if we waive those considerations and suppose that the universe does oscillate, the fact is that the thermodynamic properties of this model imply the very beginning of the universe which its proponents seek to avoid. For the thermodynamic properties of an oscillating model are such that the universe expands farther and farther with each successive cycle. Therefore, as one traces the expansions back in time, they grow smaller and smaller. As one scientific team explains, "The effect of entropy production will be to enlarge the cosmic scale, from cycle to cycle. . . . Thus, looking back in time, each cycle generated less entropy, had a smaller cycle time, and had a smaller cycle expansion factor than the cycle that followed it."[25] Novikov and Zeldovich of the Institute of Applied Mathematics of the USSR Academy of Sciences therefore conclude, "The multicycle model has an infinite future, but only a finite past."[26] As another writer points out, the oscillating model of the universe thus still requires an origin of the universe prior to the smallest cycle.[27]
So whatever scenario one selects for the future of the universe, thermodynamics implies that the universe began to exist. According to physicist P.C.W. Davies, the universe must have been created a finite time ago and is in the process of winding down. Prior to the creation, the universe simply did not exist. Therefore, Davies concludes, even though we may not like it, we must conclude that the universe's energy was somehow simply "put in" at the creation as an initial condition.[28]
We therefore have both philosophical argument and scientific confirmation for the beginning of the universe. On this basis I think that we are amply justified in concluding the truth of premiss (2) that the universe began to exist.
First Premiss
Premiss (1) strikes me as relatively non-controversial. It is based on the metaphysical intuition that something cannot come out of nothing. Hence, any argument for the principle is apt to be less obvious than the principle itself. Even the great skeptic David Hume admitted that he never asserted so absurd a proposition as that something might come into existence without a cause; he only denied that one could prove the obviously true causal principle.[29] With regard to the universe, if originally there were absolutely nothing-no God, no space, no time-, then how could the universe possibly come to exist? The truth of the principle ex nihilo, nihil fit is so obvious that I think we are justified in foregoing an elaborate defense of the argument's first premiss.
Nevertheless, some thinkers, exercised to avoid the theism implicit in this premiss within the present context, have felt driven to deny its truth. In order to avoid its theistic implications, Davies presents a scenario which, he confesses, "should not be taken too seriously," but which seems to have a powerful attraction for Davies.[30] He has reference to a quantum theory of gravity according to which spacetime itself could spring uncaused into being out of absolutely nothing. While admitting that there is "still no satisfactory theory of quantum gravity," such a theory "would allow spacetime to be created and destroyed spontaneously and uncaused in the same way that particles are created and destroyed spontaneously and uncaused. The theory would entail a certain mathematically determined probability that, for instance, a blob of space would appear where none existed before. Thus, spacetime could pop out of nothingness as the result of a causeless quantum transition."[31]
Now in fact particle pair production furnishes no analogy for this radical ex nihilo becoming, as Davies seems to imply. This quantum phenomenon, even if an exception to the principle that every event has a cause, provides no analogy to something's coming into being out of nothing. Though physicists speak of this as particle pair creation and annihilation, such terms are philosophically misleading, for all that actually occurs is conversion of energy into matter or vice versa. As Davies admits, "The processes described here do not represent the creation of matter out of nothing, but the conversion of pre- existing energy into material form."[32] Hence, Davies greatly misleads his reader when he claims that "Particles . . . can appear out of nowhere without specific causation" and again, "Yet the world of quantum physics routinely produces something for nothing."[33] On the contrary, the world of quantum physics never produces something for nothing.
But to consider the case on its own merits: quantum gravity is so poorly understood that the period prior to 10[-43] sec, which this theory hopes to describe, has been compared by one wag to the regions on the maps of the ancient cartographers marked "Here there be dragons": it can easily be filled with all sorts of fantasies. In fact, there seems to be no good reason to think that such a theory would involve the sort of spontaneous becoming ex nihilo which Davies suggests. A quantum theory of gravity has the goal of providing a theory of gravitation based on the exchange of particles (gravitons) rather than the geometry of space, which can then be brought into a Grand Unification Theory that unites all the forces of nature into a supersymmetrical state in which one fundamental force and a single kind of particle exist. But there seems to be nothing in this which suggests the possibility of spontaneous becoming ex nihilo.
Indeed, it is not at all clear that Davies's account is even intelligible. What can be meant, for example, by the claim that there is a mathematical probability that nothingness should spawn a region of spacetime "where none existed before?" It cannot mean that given enough time a region of spacetime would pop into existence at a certain place, since neither place nor time exist apart from spacetime. The notion of some probability of something's coming out of nothing thus seems incoherent.
I am reminded in this connection of some remarks made by A.N. Prior concerning an argument put forward by Jonathan Edwards against something's coming into existence uncaused. This would be impossible, said Edwards, because it would then be inexplicable why just any and everything cannot or does not come to exist uncaused. One cannot respond that only things of a certain nature come into existence uncaused, since prior to their existence they have no nature which could control their coming to be. Prior made a cosmological application of Edwards's reasoning by commenting on the steady state model's postulating the continuous creation of hydrogen atoms ex nihilo:
It is no part of Hoyle's theory that this process is causeless, but I want to be more definite about this, and to say that if it is causeless, then what is alleged to happen is fantastic and incredible. If it is possible for objects-objects, now, which really are objects, "substances endowed with capacities"-to start existing without a cause, then it is incredible that they should all turn out to be objects of the same sort, namely, hydrogen atoms. The peculiar nature of hydrogen atoms cannot possibly be what makes such starting-to-exist possible for them but not for objects of any other sort; for hydrogen atoms do not have this nature until they are there to have it, i.e. until their starting-to-exist has already occurred. That is Edwards's argument, in fact; and here it does seem entirely cogent. . . .[34]
Now in the case at hand, if originally absolutely nothing existed, then why should it be spacetime that springs spontaneously out of the void, rather than, say, hydrogen atoms or even rabbits? How can one talk about the probability of any particular thing's popping into being out of nothing?
Davies on one occasion seems to answer as if the laws of physics are the controlling factor which determines what may leap uncaused into being: "But what of the laws? They have to be 'there' to start with so that the universe can come into being. Quantum physics has to exist (in some sense) so that a quantum transition can generate the cosmos in the first place."[35] Now this seems exceedingly peculiar. Davies seems to attribute to the laws of nature themselves a sort of ontological and causal status such that they constrain spontaneous becoming. But this seems clearly wrong-headed: the laws of physics do not themselves cause or constrain anything; they are simply propositional descriptions of a certain form and generality of what does happen in the universe. And the issue Edwards raises is why, if there were absolutely nothing, it would be true that any one thing rather than another should pop into being uncaused? It is futile to say it somehow belongs to the nature of spacetime to do so, for if there were absolutely nothing then there would have been no nature to determine that spacetime should spring into being.
Even more fundamentally, however, what Davies envisions is surely metaphysical nonsense. Though his scenario is cast as a scientific theory,. someone ought to be bold enough to say that the Emperor is wearing no clothes. Either the necessary and sufficient conditions for the appearance of spacetime existed or not; if so, then it is not true that nothing existed; if not, then it would seem ontologically impossible that being should arise out of absolute non-being. To call such spontaneous springing into being out of non-being a "quantum transition" or to attribute it to "quantum gravity" explains nothing; indeed, on this account, there is no explanation. It just happens.
It seems to me, therefore, that Davies has not provided any plausible basis for denying the truth of the cosmological argument's first premiss. That whatever begins to exist has a cause would seem to be an ontologically necessary truth, one which is constantly confirmed in our experience.
Conclusion
Given the truth of premisses (1) and (2), it logically follows that (3) the universe has a cause of its existence. In fact, I think that it can be plausibly argued that the cause of the universe must be a personal Creator. For how else could a temporal effect arise from an eternal cause? If the cause were simply a mechanically operating set of necessary and sufficient conditions existing from eternity, then why would not the effect also exist from eternity? For example, if the cause of water's being frozen is the temperature's being below zero degrees, then if the temperature were below zero degrees from eternity, then any water present would be frozen from eternity. The only way to have an eternal cause but a temporal effect would seem to be if the cause is a personal agent who freely chooses to create an effect in time. For example, a man sitting from eternity may will to stand up; hence, a temporal effect may arise from an eternally existing agent. Indeed, the agent may will from eternity to create a temporal effect, so that no change in the agent need be conceived. Thus, we are brought not merely to the first cause of the universe, but to its personal Creator.
Summary and Conclusion
In conclusion, we have seen on the basis of both philosophical argument and scientific confirmation that it is plausible that the universe began to exist. Given the intuitively obvious principle that whatever begins to exist has a cause of its existence, we have been led to conclude that the universe has a cause of its existence. On the basis of our argument, this cause would have to be uncaused, eternal, changeless, timeless, and immaterial. Moreover, it would have to be a personal agent who freely elects to create an effect in time. Therefore, on the basis of the kalam cosmological argument, I conclude that it is rational to believe that God exists.
NOTES
[1]G.W. Leibniz, "The Principles of Nature and of Grace, Based on Reason," in Leibniz Selections, ed. Philip P. Wiener, The Modern Student's Library (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1951), p. 527.
[2]Aristotle Metaphysica Lambda. l. 982b10-15.
[3]Norman Malcolm, Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir (London: Oxford University Press, 1958), p. 70.
[4]J.J.C. Smart, "The Existence of God," Church Quarterly Review 156 (1955): 194.
[5]G.W. Leibniz, Theodicy: Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man, and the Origin of Evil, trans. E.M. Huggard (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1951), p. 127; cf. idem, "Principles," p. 528.
[6]John Hick, "God as Necessary Being," Journal of Philosophy 57 (1960): 733-4.
[7]David Hume, Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, ed. with an Introduction by Norman Kemp Smith, Library of the Liberal Arts (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill. 1947), p. 190.
[8]Bertrand Russell and F.C. Copleston, "The Existence of God," in The Existence of God, ed. with an Introduction by John Hick, Problems of Philosophy Series (New York: Macmillan & Co., 1964), p. 175.
[9]See William Lane Craig, The Cosmological Argument from Plato to Leibniz, Library of Philosophy and Religion (London: Macmillan, 1980), pp. 48-58, 61-76, 98-104, 128-31.
[10]Wallace Matson, The Existence of God (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1965), pp. 58-60.
[11]J.L. Mackie, The Miracle of Theism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), p. 93.
[12]Quentin Smith, "Infinity and the Past," Philosophy of Science 54 (1987): 69.
[13]Richard Sorabji, Time, Creation and the Continuum (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1983), pp. 213, 222-3.
[14]Charles Hartshorne, Man's Vision of God and the Logic of Theism (Chicago: Willett, Clark, & Co., 1941), p. 37.
[15]G.J. Whitrow defends a form of this argument which does not presuppose a dynamical view of time, by asserting that an infinite past would still have to be "lived through" by any everlasting, conscious being, even if the series of physical events subsisted timelessly (G.J. Whitrow, The Natural Philosophy of Time, 2d ed. [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980], pp. 28-32).
[16]Mackie, Theism, p. 93.
[17]Sorabji, Time, Creation, and the Continuum, pp. 219-22.
[18]K.R. Popper, "On the Possibility of an Infinite Past: a Reply to Whitrow," British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 29 (1978): 47-8.
[19]R.G. Swinburne, "The Beginning of the Universe," The Aristotelian Society 40 (1966): 131-2.
[20]Richard J. Gott, et.al., "Will the Universe Expand Forever?" Scientific American (March 1976), p. 65.
[21]Fred Hoyle, From Stonehenge to Modern Cosmology (San Francisco: W.H. Freeman, 1972), p. 36.
[22]Beatrice Tinsley, personal letter.
[23]David N. Schramm and Gary Steigman, "Relic Neutrinos and the Density of the Universe," Astrophysical Journal 243 (1981): p. 1-7.
[24]Alan Sandage and G.A. Tammann, "Steps Toward the Hubble Constant. VII," Astrophyscial Journal 210 (1976): 23, 7; see also idem, "Steps toward the Hubble Constant. VIII." Astrophysical Journal 256 (1982): 339-45.
[25]Duane Dicus, et.al. "Effects of Proton Decay on the Cosmological Future." Astrophysical Journal 252 (1982): l, 8.
[26]I.D. Novikov and Ya. B. Zeldovich, "Physical Processes Near Cosmological Singularities," Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics 11 (1973): 401-2.
[27]John Gribbin, "Oscillating Universe Bounces Back," Nature 259 (1976): 16.
[28]P.C.W. Davies, The Physics of Time Asymmetry (London: Surrey University Press, 1974), p. 104.
[29]David Hume to John Stewart, February, 1754, in The Letters of David Hume, ed. J.Y.T. Greig (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932), 1:187.
[30]Paul Davies, God and the New Physics (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983), p. 214.
[31]Ibid., p. 215.
[32]Ibid., p. 31.
[33]Ibid., pp. 215, 216.
[34]A.N. Prior, "Limited Indeterminism," in Papers on Time and Tense (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), p. 65.
[35]Davies, God, p. 217.