Speech Before the Congress of the United States
Speaker:Yelena Bonner
Elena Giorgiovna Bonner, also referred to as Yelena, was a human rights activist. Although journalists often referred to her as the wife of the renowned scientist and Soviet dissident, Andrei Sakharov, Bonner’s commitment to activism did not begin with their marriage. From her service in World War II until her death in 2011, Bonner was a tireless advocate for human rights.[note]Alessandra Stanley and Michael Schwirtz, “Elena Bonner, Widow of Sakharov, Dies at 88,” New York Times, June 19, 2011, U.S. News & World Report, February 24, 1986, Nexis Uni; “Yelena Bonner,” The Telegraph, June 19, 2011, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/.[/note] Later in her life, Bonner would suggest that her father’s commitment to the Communist Party and his death motivated her lifelong activism.[note]“Personality Spotlight; Yelena Bonner: Human Rights Activist,” United Press International, October 29, 1985, Nexis Uni.[/note]
During World War II, she joined the Soviet army as a nurse to fight against Nazi Germany. She suffered serious injuries during her service, including a head injury that left her partially blind. Following the war, she attended medical school and worked as a district doctor and a pediatrician. She also served in the USSR’s Ministry of Health in Iraq.[note] Yelena Bonner, Alone Together (New York: A.A Knopf, 1986), 33-34.[/note] In the late 1960s, Bonner began writing for The Chronicle of Current Events, a publication that reported on rights violations committed by the Soviet government.[note]“Personality Spotlight; Yelena Bonner: Human Rights Activist,” United Press International, December 23, 1986, Nexis Uni.[/note] Despite her conflicted opinion on the Communist Party, Bonner officially joined the party in 1965.[note]Bonner, Alone Together, 35.[/note] Her membership would not last, however. In 1972, the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia, and in protest, Bonner left the party.[note]“Yelena Bonner,” The Telegraph; Bonner, Alone Together, 35.[/note]
That same year she married Sakharov. They met in 1970 outside a courthouse in Leningrad while protesting the trial of Jewish dissidents.[note]Gal Beckerman, “Remembering Yelena Bonner—Natan Sharansky Reminisces About His Ally and Friend,” The Jewish Daily Forward, June 22, 2011, https://www.webcitation.org/5zggFEyD8.[/note] Sakharov was also an outspoken critic of the Soviet government despite having helped design a hydrogen bomb for the Soviets in the 1940s. He began to question the ethical implications of nuclear weapons and other political actions in the 1960s and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975 for his efforts on behalf of human rights. The Soviet government prohibited Bonner from traveling to the award ceremony, but he traveled to Oslo and read his acceptance speech to the Nobel committee.
Both Sakharov and Bonner were subsequently persecuted in the decade following Sakharov’s receipt of the Nobel Peace prize. Even though the couple was under increased scrutiny, Bonner helped found the Moscow Helsinki Group in 1976, an organization that monitored the Soviet Union’s compliance with the Helsinki Accords.[note]“Yelena Bonner,” The Telegraph.[/note] In 1980, Sakharov publicly denounced the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan, and in response, the government banished him to Gorky, a city approximately 400 kilometers east of Moscow that foreigners were prohibited from visiting. Following Sakharov’s exile, Bonner served as his conduit to the outside world until she too was banished in 1984. Her crime was allegedly seeking asylum in the United States, which the Soviet government considered treason.[note]“Personality Spotlight; Yelena Bonner: Human Rights Activist,” United Press International, December 23, 1986, Nexis Uni.[/note] While in Gorky, both Sakharov and Bonner experienced deteriorating health conditions.
Starting in 1984, Sakharov undertook three hunger strikes to pressure the government to allow Bonner to travel to the United States for medical treatment.[note]Alison Smale, “Yelena Bonner Leaving For Gorky Tonight,” Associated Press, June 3, 1986, Nexis Uni.[/note] She was eventually allowed to make the trip in December of 1985, and before she left the United States, she delivered this speech before members of the U.S. Congress on May 21, 1986—Sakharov’s 65th birthday.
As Bonner spoke, international leaders around the world honored Sakharov’s birthday with appeals to Mikhail Gorbachev to end the couple’s internal exile in Gorky.[note]“West Europeans Mark Sakharov's Birthday,” New York Times, May 22, 1986, A8, ProQuest Historical Newspapers.[/note] While in the United States, she also requested a meeting with President Ronald Reagan to address rights violations in the Soviet Union. Yet, several publications in the United States reported that Ronald Reagan refused to meet with Bonner in person.[note]“Reagan Cool to Talk With Yelena Bonner,” New York Times, April 24, 1986, Nexis Uni.[/note] Instead, he sent a letter. When a journalist asked her if a meeting with Reagan would help, Bonner responded, “Of course. You can’t be for human rights and be secretive.”[note]Mary McGrory, “Bonner’s Habit of Free Speech,” Washington Post, May 22, 1986, A2.[/note] Following Bonner’s speech, Senator Malcolm Wallop (R-WY) remarked, “I just came from the celebration in the House of Representatives honoring the 65th birthday of Dr. Sakharov. I heard a speech by his wife, Dr. Bonner, which I think may well risk her life.”[note]Senator Malcolm Wallop, "Speech on Dr. Sakharov and Dr. Bonner," May 21, 1986, 99th Cong., 2nd sess., Congressional Record, 132, no. 69:S6281, https://congressional.proquest.com/congressional/docview/ t17.d18.9eaa1550edc1e003?accountid=14696[/note]
Even though a meeting with Reagan never happened, Gorbachev lifted the exile for Bonner and Sakharov in December of 1986.[note]“Gorbachev’s New Broom Keeps on Sweeping / The Release of Soviet Dissidents Andre Sakharov and Yelena Bonner,” The Guardian, December 20, 1986.[/note] Following Sakharov’s death in December of 1989, Bonner continued to work on behalf of human rights. When Gorbachev was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 1990, she wrote a letter to the committee asking for Sakharov’s name to be deleted from the list of winners. She was angered because she believed that Gorbachev was responsible for bloodshed in multiple cities and states across the Soviet Union, including Karabakh, Tbilisi, Baku, Ferghana, Uzen, and Osh.[note]“Yelena Bonner's Letter to the Head of the Nobel Committee,” Russian Press Digest, January 15, 1991, Nexis Uni.[/note] The Nobel committee declined to remove Sakharov’s name.[note]Stanley and Schwirtz, “Elena Bonner, Widow of Sakharov, Dies at 88”; “Yelena Bonner’s Letter to the Head of the Nobel Committee,” Russian Press Digest, January 15, 1991, Nexis Uni.[/note] Starting in the late 1990s, Bonner brought international attention to Russia’s invasion of Chechnya.[note]“Yelena Bonner seeks Boutros-Ghali mediation on Chechnya,” Agence France Presse, March 27, 1996, Nexis Uni; “Yelena Bonner demands peace talks in Chechnya,” Agence France Presse, September 27, 2001, Nexis Uni.[/note] And, until her death in 2011, she was an outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin, warning that “excessive trust in Putin may be dangerous for democratic countries.”[note]“Yelena Bonner Awarded With Masaryk Order,” CTK National News Wire, October 1, 2003, Nexis Uni.[/note] For her life’s work, she received international recognition, including the Truman-Reagan Medal of Freedom, which is awarded to individuals who “have demonstrated a lifelong commitment to freedom and democracy and opposition to communism and all other forms of tyranny.”[note]“Yelena Bonner to be Decorated with Estonia’s Terra Mariana Cross,” Baltic News Service, February 6, 2008, Nexis Uni; “Yelena Bonner Awarded With Masaryk Order,” CTK National News Wire; Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, “Truman-Reagan Medal of Freedom,” https://www.victimsofcommunism.org/medaloffreedom.[/note]
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Perspectives on Lebanon
Speaker:Clovis Maksoud
Born in Bristow, Oklahoma, in 1926 to Christian Lebanese parents, Clovis Maksoud (كلوفيس مقصود) moved with his family to Beirut as a teenager. Maksoud was educated at the elite International School of Choueifat and the American University of Beirut before he returned to the United States to study law at George Washington University. He later went on to complete post-graduate studies at Oxford University. During his time in England, Maksoud developed an interest in India and a reputation as a capable debater. He was appointed as the Arab League Ambassador to India in 1961 at age 29 and served as League Ambassador to both the United States and the United Nations from 1979-1990. In addition to his diplomatic work, Maksoud was also a prolific author, journalist, and editor. Known for his passionate dedication to Arab nationalism, Maksoud was a staunch advocate for Palestinian independence. Upon Maksoud’s death, former Lebanese Ambassador to the United States Masoud Maalouf remarked that “Maksoud was one of the last warriors who truly believed in Arab nationalism and believed in the fight to defend Palestine as the cause for all Arabs.”[note]“Arab-American scholar Clovis Maksoud Dies aged 90,” Al Jazeera, May 16, 2016, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/05/arab-american-scholar-clovis-maksoud-dies-aged-90-160515210141960.html.[/note]
In promoting Arab nationalism, Maksoud believed in the political unity of Arabic-speaking people: “People who spoke a unitary language... have one heart and a common soul... constitute one nation” and strive for a unifying “state.”[note]Abu Khaldun Sati’ al-Husri, Ma Hiya al-Qawmiya? Abhath wa Dirasat ‘ala Dhaw’I al Ahdath wa al’Nadhariyat/What is Nationalism?: Enquiries and Studies in Light of Events and Theories (Beirut: Dar al-‘Ilm li al-Malayeen, 1963), 57. Albert Hourani, for instance, sees examples of Arab nationalism in the life and work of fourteenth-century philosopher Ibn Khaldun; Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples (New York: Warner Brooks, 1991), 4.[/note] While some scholars find traces of this thinking as far back as the medieval era, contemporary Arab nationalism developed as a political ideology in the early twentieth century.[note]Arab nationalism as a political ideology was popularized in the West by the figure of T.E. Lawrence following the Great Arab Revolt of World War I.[/note] During World War I, aspirations for an independent, united Arab nation-state helped fuel the Great Arab Revolt against Ottoman rule.[note]Salim Yaqub, Containing Arab Nationalism: The Eisenhower Doctrine and the Middle East (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2004), 31-32.[/note] Although the imperialist ambitions of Britain and France prevented the full realization of this vision during the interwar period, Arab nationalism emerged as a vibrant force with a revolutionary edge following the Egyptian Free Officers’ Coup in 1951. Promulgated by Egyptian Premier Gamal Abdul Nasser, Arab nationalism came to rest on four principles: (1) a belief that the Arabs were a common people sharing a common destiny, (2) a secular commitment to anti-colonialism and anti-Zionism, (3) a commitment to social and economic justice, and (4) a diplomatic nonalignment in the Cold War.[note]Salim Yaqub, Containing Arab Nationalism: The Eisenhower Doctrine and the Middle East (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2004), 31-32.[/note] Well-suited for the era of European decolonization, Arab nationalism made major strides until Nasser’s defeat in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War (also called the Six Day War). Despite this setback, advocates for Arab nationalism, like Maksoud, continued to make the case that pan-Arab unity offered the best path for an equitable Middle East order.
Starting in 1975, the Lebanese Civil War also presented a major challenge to Arab nationalism. As a multi-sided conflict lasting 15 years, the war pitted numerous militias and other sub-state actors against one another and the state. The war directly challenged the tenets of Arab nationalism as combatants organized along religious, ethnic, or regional lines, privileging confessional or other identities over pan-Arab attachments. Syrian dictator Hafez al-Asad cited the division caused by the war as a reason for intervention. Claiming to promote "the Arab cause and the Arab nation" and end a conflict that "undermin[ed] the principles of Arab nationalism," he sent troops to Lebanon following the Tel al-Zataar massacre of Palestinian refugees by a force of Lebanese Christian militias.[note] Adeed Dawisha, Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century: From Triumph to Despair (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003), 271; See also A.J. Abraham, The Lebanon War (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996), 69-85.[/note] Far from rallying regional sentiment for Arab nationalism, however, Syrian intervention was decried by governments across the Middle East, exposing Arab disunity.
Maksoud delivered a speech on October 2, 1976 at the 9th Annual Convention of Arab-American University Graduates (AAUG). The convention was held at the Biltmore Hotel in New York City. Maksoud’s speech directly addressed the challenge that the Lebanese Civil War posed to pan-Arab unity. Stylistically, Maksoud was known for his extensive vocabulary and for using extremely long sentences to argue his points, seemingly adopting elements of a more free-flowing Arabic syntax in his speeches.[note]James G. Abourezk, “Clovisizing America,” Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, March 2009, https://www.wrmea.org/2009-march/clovisizing-america.html.[/note] Both these elements of Maksoud’s rhetoric, as well as his fervent commitment to Arab nationalism, can be seen in his speech before the AAUG Convention.
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