From Russia with Love Behind enemy lines

Author: Andrey Tolstoy

The humble author of this column was nurtured by bears on the outer reaches of the rapidly shrinking Arctic Circle, among the caviar bushes, liquor streams and herring-tree lined promenades of stately Leningrad. For two years now he has been hiding behind his impeccable American accent, taking copious notes and recording observations of the brave and allegedly free folk who populate this vast land. With time, some of this liberty and boldness rubbed off on your humble servant, and he tasted the dangerous and delectable fruit - forbidden in his native tundra ­- of opinion. Now, drunk on the noxious fumes of intellectual frivolity, he shall inflict his musings twice monthly on the literate and the curious. As a subspecies of the studentus internationalis, he will seek to represent, among other things, the views of his underpublicized peers. Not that there is a dearth of reportage on the international population at Middlebury, but rather the international student is roughly compartmentalized into the ISO show, My Middlebury Experience, and the smoking area outside the library. It is the author's hope that these short sketches will provide a stronger voice from the tar-lunged and passport-endowed.

On that note… Not long ago, the Middlebury College Republicans planted the hill beneath Mead Chapel with three thousand little American flags and took turns reading out the names of Americans who died in the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. The author would like to interrupt the light tone of this essay and devote the rest of it to commemorating victims from countries whose flags were, admittedly, an inconvenience to purchase, specifically Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Bermuda, Canada, Chile, China, Côte d'Ivoire, Colombia, Cuba, DR Congo, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Ecuador, France, Germany, Ghana, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Lebanon, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, Moldova, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Panama, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Portugal, Poland, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Trinidad and Tobago, the Ukraine, Uzbekistan, the United Kingdom and Venezuela.

The short-term memory of the elephant, it seems, outdoes that of men and women gathered under its mascot. Only a year ago, a forum was held to deal with the outrage over the College Republicans' attempt to usurp the tragedy of international terrorism as a calamity befalling the American people, and them alone, forgetting completely the "Coalition of the Willing" that was gathered in the wake of Sept. 11, not to mention the terrorist acts that the same organizations have perpetrated on other nations since. Worldwide disdain for the Republican Party and the government it represents should therefore be of no surprise to anyone. The deafening crowds generated overseas by Barack Obama abroad should not be regarded as superstardom, but rather appreciation for those who recognize the suffering and loss as a burden on the shoulders of us all, and not just the free and the brave.