![]() We get an order - maybe tomorrow, maybe in one month, we don’t know - to go to point ‘X,’” said one of the squad’s leaders, known by his call sign Grunwald. “We are preparing for big actions right now. Today in History: May 19, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis passes away and other allies have boosted Ukraine’s arsenal with modern weaponry, but critical shortages of ammunition and manpower persist. Over a year since Russia invaded Ukraine, the war’s front lines have been all but static for months, with Russian forces holding nearly a fifth of the country. The Associated Press joined a unit of the Stalevy Kordon or Steel Border, a brigade of Ukraine’s National Guard. ![]() But they said when the time comes, they will be ready to fight. By their own admission, the servicemen have outdated weapons, and many feared not enough training or resources. The squad is part of a brigade that’s been chosen to prepare for a counteroffensive, and it’s had just a few months to train on new skills and incorporate new recruits. It’s a crash course in new assault tactics for the National Guard squad, a mix of volunteers whose ages range from 22 to 51. They’re training for a long-anticipated campaign that Ukraine hopes will shift the momentum of its war with Russia. What my students and I shook our heads over was how precisely for both Rowson’s characters and the current administration the dream is the same: that the world will become an empire of liberty under the leadership of the United States, a country that considers itself entitled to tell everyone else what freedom means and impose itself as "the standard of the world.".SOMEWHERE IN CENTRAL UKRAINE (AP) - The fighters depart at dawn, single-file, rifles slung, compasses in hand, and disappear like chameleons into the lush greenery of central Ukraine’s dense forests. Constitution and the country’s first military victory following the Revolution. Bush’s speech was delivered less than two months before the tanks rolled into Iraq Rowson’s dialogue, less than a decade before the United States’ invasion of Tripoli, the first war authorized under the U.S. Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation." Gratifyingly, I heard sucked-in breaths and exclamations at the echoes between early national and contemporary political rhetoric as we contemplated the continuing presence of the past. We exercise power without conquest, and we sacrifice for the liberty of strangers. ![]() Henry speaks of returning to the United States, "where liberty has established her court–where the warlike Eagle extends his glittering pinions in the sunshine of prosperity." And Olivia concludes, "Long, long may that prosperity continue–may Freedom spread her benign influence thro’ every nation, till the bright Eagle, united with the dove and the olive branch, waves high, the acknowledged standard of the world." "Hang on," I told my students, "Now listen to this–" and I read to them from the conclusion of President Bush’s 2003 State of the Union speech: "America is a strong nation and honorable in the use of our strength. Its closing words are shared by the young American hero and heroine, Henry and Olivia, separated by their respective captivities and now reunited following the Americans’ victory over their Muslim captors. The galvanizing moment in our class discussion came as we reread the play’s conclusion. On other political levels, Slaves in Algiers reveals uncomfortable strains of xenophobia and anti-Semitism and–most conspicuously to readers in the present political era–it makes evident the deep roots of America’s imperial fantasies concerning the Islamic world. But it is equally dedicated to serving the ongoing commitment of Rowson (best known as the author of the wildly popular seduction novel Charlotte Temple) to advocate for women’s rights in the new republic and maintain the importance of female virtue. On the surface level, the play was part of a wide public effort in the early 1790s to stir sympathy for the real white captives of the time. The play is not distinguished by great literary excellence or readability, but it is fascinating in its complex mix of political agendas. 2004):Ībout midway through my undergraduate seminar on American captivity narratives last fall, we were discussing one of the earliest American literary works to deploy this essential historic genre: Susanna Haswell Rowson’s 1794 play Slaves in Algiers, or, A Struggle for Freedom, a comedy-melodrama focusing on a group of Americans held captive in Algiers, one of the Barbary States of North Africa. ![]()
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