Tethered by Love

by Soph Stentz

Learning

“Hey Alexa, give me a synopsis of the war in Ukraine.”

I went in knowing nothing, which in hindsight, was very irresponsible of me. I had never planned a lesson before. I had never spoken to a Ukrainian or knew how to deal with a language barrier.  And at sixteen, I was about to become her teacher. Although now, I tell everyone she has taught me far more than I could ever teach her.

I was about to meet her. Alya Lyaskovska, from Bila Tserka, Ukraine. Seventeen at the time, and she had marked almost everything on ENGin’s survey list as an interest of hers. I found this incredulous because who really likes dance, music, sports, education, science, architecture, and more? But at the time I thought to myself, maybe that’s what you have to do to get a decent shot at an education in a war-torn country: fake it ‘til you make it.

Unwittingly, Alya and I both stumbled upon the same platform a month prior, 5,103 miles apart: ENGin, a global non-profit program founded in 2021 by Katerina Manoff. ENGin wrote as a description of itself, “We aim to connect Ukraine to the world in order to propel its postwar reconstruction and longer-term economic and social development. Our one-of-a-kind program pairs Ukrainian youth with English speakers for free online conversation practice and cross-cultural connection. We work with students ages 9-35 and volunteers ages 14+.”

ENGin matched us together, and after an introductory email, we set a time for our first call. February 17th. 3 P.M. EST. On the day of, at 2:50 P.M. EST. I asked the question I felt so ashamed of, but thankfully, robots don’t care (at least not yet):

“Hey Alexa, give me a synopsis of the war in Ukraine.”

I was going in blind, but I got on the call and, thank god, I did. I fell in love with her instantaneously. Yet from the very first moment, she sent shocks into my life that I am still unprepared for to this day. I recall she asked about what to do if one of us couldn’t make it on the call, or how long I planned on “waiting for her.” While still adjusting to her accent, the language differences, and honestly, not fully understanding what she meant, I reassured her that if she was a few minutes late, due to a lost computer charger or something of the sort, I would stay on the call for a few minutes to give her time. And then the first shock was sent.

“No no, I’m so sorry let me rephrase. Sometimes, because of the war and the bombs, my power will go out for long periods of time. So, if I can’t reach you, I don’t want you waiting for me.”

As I mindlessly comforted her on the matter, saying something about it not being a problem and that I’ll be fine, my mind was elsewhere . . . my mind was on her, worried about me, as she described the reality of her being in danger. For the rest of the call, we were awkward, we were both on our very best behavior, but we clicked, nonetheless. And ever since, we’ve met over Google Meet every weekend for an hour. Nobody was getting paid. Nobody had to be doing this. But that’s the beauty of it. We came together through our love for education. I left that first meeting a vastly different person to the one I was when I started, only a mere hour prior. And then my life began to change.

Growing Up Worlds Apart

I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio.​​ There’s not much more to say beyond that. My parents were divorced, middle class, and despite my everlasting trauma, I went to Madeira—a good school for most of my upbringing. I was a cheerleader, I was in color guard, I had a small but stable friend group, and I made it through those arduous pre-teen years. As I got to high school, I soon realized my school focused heavily on academics and college prep, which connects to community service– another of Madeira’s pillars that they put an unbelievable amount of pressure on students to prioritize and excel at. And so, I did.

My reasons for joining ENGin were selfish. And I think about that almost every day.

Meanwhile, the half of me I had yet to meet, this unbelievably kind, amazing person living an entirely different life, would teach me so much during our weekly talks. Russia’s oppression was nothing new to Alya or her family. The people of her country lived their lives with their identities and culture being taken over since autumn of 1945. And by the time their independence was restored in 1991, they were taunted with the idea of respect, like dangling a carrot in front of a rabbit– for a mere 23 years until Russia invaded in 2014, and then again in 2021, the latter leading to the founding of ENGin.

However, this didn’t just divide the two at war, but also people within Ukraine. Those close to the nation’s border with Russia experienced much more visible violence and devastation from the war than those on the opposite side. Despite living within the same country, Ukrainians were having different experiences. The East suddenly viewed the West as privileged, whiny, and as a separate entity rather than one whole. Furthermore, due to the propinquity of east Ukraine with Russia, it’s not uncommon for Ukrainians close to the border to speak Russian. In an effort to ignite solidarity against Russia and its corresponding culture, the western half of the country began to apply pressure to the East to learn the native Ukrainian language. And while not everyone had the resources to learn a new language, on top of the contrasting effects of the war on various areas, an emotional civil war broke out.

“I think that our people are really unfriendly. Same in America, too. East Ukraine and west Ukraine are very divided and it’s really sad. But we have it and I don’t know what to do about it because the West hates the East and the East hates the West and I live right in the middle of it.”

Alya’s experience was unique in this respect, too. Being directly in the divide, Alya speaks Surzhyk, a combination of Russian and Ukrainian. She lives and breathes in the intersection of the two, having no room to escape the war. But the way she spoke surprised me. She didn’t have hate in her heart. She didn’t have a “team” she was siding with. Her openness to all sides and experiences was something I hadn’t thought of before. It shifted my entire lookout on life.

At age 11, as I was cheering for a school I didn’t like, and to be fully transparent, one that didn’t like me, Alya was walking to the grocery store with her mother one minute and then would find herself in a bomb bunker the next.

And by the time we made it to high school, I didn’t blink when the AP test was set in front of me. It was my norm.

And she didn’t blink when the air raid sirens went off. This was her norm.

“After a while, you just started, uh ignoring them. I don’t know. I’m not afraid. No no, when I hear that a rocket is flying, I’m not afraid. Because I know our military is really strong and they can, I don’t know how to say, they can stop it? Yes. But, if they can’t stop it, it’s life. I don’t know. I don’t know how to say it, but I know I’m not afraid.”

When I first met Alya and started hearing about her story, a weight formed within me. A massive amount of pure guilt established residence in my soul and has yet to feel the need to pack up and move. I felt rotten, like I’d been the worst, most unappreciative woman in the entire world. I had attended an accomplished, blue-ribbon school for 14 years, then accepted into an arts academy with unbelievable prestige. Had I truly been letting it go to waste this entire time?

It’s evident to note this thinking was distorted. I’m incredibly lucky and fortunate to have never had to worry about my safety, and I now acknowledge that every day. But this shouldn’t have ever become something people needed to fight for. Alya spoke on this topic beautifully:

“We are just trying to live. We just want to live our lives and laugh with our families without fear of having our freedom and human rights taken away.”

And after hearing her say that I didn’t have a response. As humans, we routinely find ourselves trying to sympathize and empathize with others close to us–to make them feel less alone. Like their experience is shared amongst almost all people on our planet; that what they’re speaking of, is regular. But I couldn’t do that with her. I found no way to say anything that would add to the magnitude of what she’d just so casually mentioned to me.

So, I said nothing. I let the silence speak for itself, which I’ve learned with her, it does.

Education

In the months that followed our first meeting, Alya had rapidly become one of my best friends. And yet, we had never been in the same room together (unless you count breakout rooms.)

With our conversations happening each week, I began to learn about her cultural background. She taught me about traditional Ukrainian clothing; how her grandmother made her some clothes years ago, and it’s one of her most cherished items. She was educating me on Ukrainian life that didn’t have to do with the war. I’ve found that to be more valuable than anything Fox News has to say.

I also learned about the type of person Alya is. She’s very “type A.” Methodical, organized, yet artistic and creative. She places her education on a high podium and dedicates every minute she can to enhancing her life and setting herself up for success, primarily because during Alya’s upbringing, it was excruciatingly challenging to receive a solid education in Ukraine. This being, first and foremost, because of the poor state of the English language education system in her country. She described how, beyond basic writing skills and a long list of vocabulary thrown in your face, English was not taught at a conversational (and useful) level in her schooling years. So, she had a private tutor. And her speaking skills expanded exponentially. And then the war happened. And with that, Alya’s tutoring came to a close just as quickly as it had started.

Her education was held back because of Russia’s oppression against the innocent. I hate Putin for that and for everything else. Fuck him.

But she and I have our shared experiences. And we, along with the world at this time, had just recently gone through a global pandemic (never thought I’d be saying that).

Alya spoke on the struggles of learning during​ these “unprecedented” times, and what she thinks the main focus needs to be on.

“It’s about our youth. My age and less. I remember my parents, and when I was a child, every teacher said, ‘Our people work in other countries but because we are really cool and really smart and because of our studying, every country wants to work with us.’  But now because of many situations, because of Covid and online studying, many young people have started to be thoughtless. I don’t want Ukraine to become thoughtless because of things that we didn’t cause.

And so, she began with ENGin. And we found each other. And after all she has been through to just learn, she was prepared and ready for each session. She’s a stickler about so many things. But most of all, being on time.

Media

By May of 2023, the war had progressed. Alya articulated, via frequent ranting, about how the media and entertainment industry had taken a turn for the worse. She described how nearly all Ukrainian books, songs, and most of all movies, were centered around the war. She, and the rest of Ukraine, want their lives and culture to be more than just the monstrosities they have faced. They want their identity.

But the media made its way to The United States. I would often see headlines articulating the atrocities that were happening in Kyiv–Ukraine’s capital, where Alya attends university. I worried, naturally. As one does. But she never gave me a reason to believe that she, herself, in that week, was in imminent danger.

She always showed up.

Until she didn’t.

I was sitting on my bed. I call it “The Day.” All of my close friends and family know about The Day. I don’t speak about it unless asked. So, I’ll say it here, once.

It was 1:01.

Since that day, I’ve become hyper-fixated on the number of seconds in a minute, for another half of me lives far away. My mind was–and still is– unwaveringly with her. I only hear from the other side of myself once a week. Sundays. At exactly 1:00 P.M. EST.

It was 1:02.

I stared at the time head-on; I was beginning to develop a personal vendetta against the tiny second hand on my clock. It bugged me, as small and ordinary things often do. I hated the way it moved. No. On The Day, I hate that it moved all together.

It was 1:05.

Our relationship has been tethered to our computers, which is something not abnormal in this day in age. My laptop fan was spinning, yelling at me for keeping it waiting. I told it to cool down.

She is probably going to log in any second.

It was 1:08.

I told myself that any second I’d hear that familiar ding, letting me know that she was safe.

It was 1:09.

I wondered how the hell it had only been a minute. She was never late. Maybe I should—

Ding.

I sighed. It was 1:12. She’s here. She’s alive. Just lost track of time.

Everything is okay. Right?

‡

Yet I was still teaching, and she was still learning, during wartime. And this thought has rarely left my head. I secretly get mad at her when she is late, despite how rare it may be. It’s consumingly terrifying.

“Yeah, yeah. We still hear it because Russia… I don’t know where they are finding all these rockets, but yes they still have them and use them and I’m sitting here wondering why they won’t just stop.”

It’s quite seldom that I’m not concerned with how she’s doing…although I don’t think that would change, even if she lived five minutes away.

My heart was growing across the world.

We Cry

As I have now surpassed one full year of being able to “tutor” this remarkable young woman, who I’m so proud to be able to call my friend, I still wrestle with myself in this matter. I wrack my brain for ways that I can do more. I think of how I fit into her life. Of, dreaded, the day she doesn’t need me anymore. I find it impossible to return to this life as I once was. So when the idea comes to mind, I do what she has always taught me:

“Think forward.”

I think about the day when I can use my privilege for good–and dedicate my life to helping war-stricken countries.

“Our children are really strong. Because it’s really affected them and their mind more than ours because they are just growing and trying to exist.”

I don’t have a happy ending yet. For her, for me, or for the millions of kids who are waiting each day, just to receive a chance. But this is where I’m at. An unfinished story. I’ll never truly be able to articulate how much Alya or this experience means to me. It’s because of her I’ve learned that some things, like love, just cannot be put into words. You must feel and experience them for yourself.

And as a writer, that’s so frustrating.

As I recounted before, Alya once asked me how long I would wait for her. I never properly answered her, but I will now:

I’ll wait forever.

But so much is unknown. So, I take comfort in the one thing I’m certain of: I know we cry. We cry when we think about each other. We cry over the fact that she’s “Team Gale” and I’m “Team Peeta.” We cry when we have to say goodbye, and when we cannot stand the first five minutes after ending the call marking the best parts of our week, we text each other. And we tell one another how valuable the other is to us. And then we cry more. We cry as we think about the distance between us, and cry over how the war will continue to drag on and deeply hurt both of us.

“At the end of the day, the people of Ukraine are very happy people. We live. We live our lives. We continue to work and laugh and dance through all of it.”

We cry because of our love, the one thing we’re forever tethered by.

333

by Kiff Joshua

History is not necessarily written by the victor, but whoever gets to write it may claim to be. There are records pertaining to brutality and mass murder inflicted on the native indios and alipins of the Philippines during the nineteenth century by the Iberian peninsulares. Fewer records of atrocities exist in the sixteenth; however, just because it wasn’t rigorously documented doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Necks were hung. Rebellions were squashed. Brother betrayed brother. Innocents died. Peaceful occupation is a legend writ in black. After the failed attempt of a Portuguese explorer, another tried his hand at conquest. This Spaniard brought more men and more arms, determined to finally subdue the Islands to the West. When Rajah Tupas—the last king of Sugbu—tried to resist, the Spaniard annihilated Tupas’ village for it. Many of our Filipino countrymen wonder where our plight started and I tell them it started here.

The story I’m about to tell isn’t real, not in the traditional sense. After all, how can I ever tell the truth? I don’t belong with the victors, therefore I can never give an honest accounting. None of this happened, especially that nonsense about gods. But if it were true and if it did happen, it might’ve looked something like this:

Most of the villagers perished. The ones who survived retreated into the mountains with the rajah. These tattooed men were the unlucky ones, shackled and herded into a pen like animals, although cattle were treated with more respect. Nothing more than an afterthought. It was the most vulnerable they’ve ever felt in their fatedly short lives, simply stupid enough to fight back. They wouldn’t be considered humans anymore.

In their caged existence, they were hardly worth the headache. Their captors could not think of an efficient use for them yet, so it was decided in an unspoken agreement that they’d be better off letting the natives die of thirst as they themselves drank and ate and whored and roared laughter all throughout the night.

Any fight our band of prisoners once had had now left. They lay motionless in the mud. No movement in the pen. You could’ve figured they were dead already. It was such a sad silence. Waves of emotions crashed through, praying and pleading for a reprieve. The one emotion that struck them most was confusion. Who do these rice-skinned men think they are? Why raid our homes? Why the women? Why the children?

One of the tattooed men couldn’t take it and wailed. He did so too loudly and was hurriedly hushed by his chained companions, but it did not deter him. “Where is my family?” he demanded. “Why, why, why is this happening?” He called for his elder brothers and little sisters, for his friends and fellow tradesmen of his now-defunct barangay, and most pointedly for Bathala. For his god. For their god.

“Wala na tayong magagawa,” said one. “There is nothing we can do.”

“Bahala na,” added another. “We leave it to fate.”

It was quiet now in the camp. Many of the rice-skinned men had fallen asleep. A salty gust of wind blew and the leaves of the rainforest danced in the damp dark. A fork of lightning pierced the clouds without the crack of thunder, and the world of isles and rivers and storms stood frozen still.

A man with a white-gray beard appeared out of the flash, leaning lackadaisical against a wooden stake in the middle of the pen. It almost seemed like he was always there in the semi-darkness and only now had these prisoners noticed. He was not one of the interlopers, they knew, his brown skin revealed as much. No one dared say anything. Only the briny breeze spoke.

One prisoner plucked the initiative. “Who are you?”

The gray-bearded man grinned. They could not tell if his age was fifteen or fifty as the beard indicated nothing. “I am merely a friend, riverlander.” The knowledge of who this was suddenly stabbed them like a bolo knife. Memories trickled of the countless gifts they offered him, the dances they celebrated, and the unending stories their lolos sang for him. He reigned the streams and skies and soil they pissed and shat on. This was a summer father to children of the sun. The forefather of their grandfathers.

Yet not all the tattooed men picked up on the clues. “What is your name?”

The gray-bearded man did not take offense, more than happy to relay that information himself. “Those who dwell in the Muslim south know me as Alataala. Your painted peoples recognize me as Abba. Many call me Diwata or Mulayari or Nuno. Many more saw fit to give me the name Maykapal, Maygawa, Maylupa; of shapes and works and earth. Some see me as Lumikha. Creator. Others bestow me the title of Magpalaylay; the One Fond of Incantations. I must confess I have more names than seas and more faces than islands, so I’d rather you call me—”

“Bathala?” asked a tattooed man.

A melancholic smile grew. “Bahala. Mister Bahala.” He performed a Rizal twist and bowed elegantly. The clothes on him were not something the tattooed men had seen in comparison to their loincloths. They would not see it again in their lifetime. He wore dark leather shoes and equally dark, flabby trousers. A white-and-yellow shirt finely embroidered and reaching all the way to his wrists. Most striking of all was a pattern of gold flowers swirling and splitting up the center.

A desperate one asked, “Where is my family?”

“Dead, I’m afraid.”

A curious one asked, “Our captors, who are they? Why are they here?”

“Wherever you find sugar, you’ll find ants.”

A furious one asked, “You hold sway over the fires and floods! Why not use this power and rid us of them?”

Mister Bahala slowly bent on one knee. “Summer child, I cannot do that. Such actions come with a caveat. There are fixed points in time.” He paused and pondered. “But I can provide you with an opportunity. We have a saying around these parts: ‘If someone throws a rock at you, throw them bread.’” Mister Bahala spat and said plainly, “Fuck that. Those worthless whites throw a rock at you, don’t hesitate to throw a bigger one in return.”

The men shared a look of uncertainty, and the most doubtful among them said what they’ve thinking, “We already tried to fight. We can’t beat them.”

“Oh, but you can. You will. Every jungle has a snake and every soul has the capacity to do something really fucking bad, if just for a moment. Heed me, you’re not teetering on a knife’s edge, you have fallen completely off.” He suffered a sigh. “Tsk, tsk, tsk, docile little things. Nasa Diyos ang awa, nasa tao ang gawa—mercy is for God, action is for man. Now is the time for action. I know life has not bred you for war and it’s not easy to wake a man pretending to be asleep, but you need not pretend. Wake up.” He applied the gentlest of boops on their forehead, then Mister Bahala shut his eyes and took one long breath, longer than humanly possible. As he let the air escape his lungs and his lids reopened, a blinding bridge of white light shot out from inside his sockets, stealing their minds to some waking nightmare. The tattooed men opened their first eye, then their second, then their third.

A conveyor belt of images flashed in split-seconds of everything that has and will. It was savage—they were forced to watch beaches boiling and the riverlands dying in the arms of the sea. Earth was scorched and villages, bigger than they thought possible, splintered in ruin. A city in mourning. Blood staining the pearl. A Dalakit tree strangling the life out of a coconut palm. The sun went out, the dark turned on, and so Land of the Morning burned at the touch of war. Archetypes of false saviors and remorseless imperials. Tens of thousands of their own kind on a malnourished march with slow death painted on their visage. Flames the size of mountains. A horrid bloodbath eating away at the very heart of a country. A landscape turned hellscape. Sacred grounds transformed into battlegrounds. The stormlands lived up to its name. Heads were hacked off, falling on the jungle floor. Red on green. History was lost, swept in the imperial light of a rising sun.

The men’s mouths hung open in the midst of this transient state; saliva dripping, gums exposed, and a fly entered. These visions were too much. Horror burned into the brain. It was their children and their children’s children, subjugated and subservient. It goes on for too long. Slaves in everything but name. Treachery between Unfounded Fathers. Failed revolutions. Snuffed sparks. The final image was the pomp and politics of a dictator. The hardship of many for the comfort of few. All that has gone down culminating into declining governments. Soon, the earth-shattering visions degraded into green nothingness and they snapped out of hypnosis. In the cage once again. The only thing that remained was more confusion and more questions brewing, not less, wondering if any of it was real, but fury overcame it just as quickly.

A prisoner spat out a fly and gasped for air. “What—was—that?”

In his lower register, Mister Bahala said apocalyptically, “Us, child. Your third eye has shown you three hundred and thirty-three years of forced labor, religious bullshit, and heart disease. And after that? The dogshit dogma of manifest destiny from another set of monsters. That isn’t even the worst part. You will meet a particularly vile batch of yellow bastards whose atrocities and crimes against humanity is practically a daily ritual for them. A racist, sexist phobia soup consuming everything in its fucked-up evil that makes even the demons of our land uncomfortable—puta—and you’re only in the beginning.”

Mister Bahala’s whispers boomed, “Your country will be ruthlessly raped time and time again. There is no honor in the end. No regard for the sanctity of life. They never pay for their crimes. Nothing is to be done. These motherfuckers stand proud while your story won’t even wash up on shore. The land deserves life and they are a death knell.”

The tattooed men were panting in a false rhythm, riled. Their looks twitchy and starey and crazy. The others could bear listen no more, so they begged Bahala to stop. Bahala laughed a sad laugh, and begged them to make it stop themselves.

“I didn’t spare you the details, because in the end none of you will be spared. I cannot give you hope either. Hope is too cruel. You lose and that’s the end of it. It is set in motion and cannot be undone, but it is no excuse to give up. Taong wala kibo, nasa loob ang kulo—never underestimate the wrath of a quiet man. I sure as hell don’t underestimate yours. Surely, one act of defiance couldn’t hurt? Our world isn’t going to cry for a couple of dead foreign fucks, so let us have at it. Go chuck a big fucking rock at them.”

They looked at Mister Bahala and at each other and nodded incessantly. Adrenaline rushed in and the tattooed men could not help themselves. The rabble among the prisoners turned into a symphony of yes.

Yes.

Yes!

YES!

One prisoner in a straw hat wasn’t convinced. “Not to doubt the infinite wisdom of the infinite god, but we’re useless in these bonds.”

Mister Bahala pursed and pointed with his lips. “What bonds?” They glanced down and the rope that tied their hands vanished into thin air. “Happily slice the throats of these white whores … or not. Bahala na kayo—I leave it to you.” Mister Bahala snatched the man’s straw hat and threw it in the air. “You are most likely to die but fuck it, we’re all dead anyway.” The sound of thunder finally came and lightning lit the great night sky once more. Mister Bahala was there no longer.

The tattooed men were fatigued, fearful but still formidable. From their new-found freedom, the goal that screamed the loudest in their heads were promises of death for their would-be slavers. They fulfilled this silently through in black of night, uncovering crude mechanical weapons which spat fire. Unsure of how to operate them, they were used as blunt instruments instead. They picked up rocks and used them as Mister Bahala recommended, bashing skulls and caving in faces. They stole daggers and with them they slowly slit from ear to ear. Monsters deserved a monstrous end. They eliminated them in that camp, doing all they could to ensure a gruesome demise for the rice-skinned bastards. Anyone who woke up in the camp found themselves in a mosh pit of their comrades’ corpses and joined them shortly thereafter. Some tried to flee. None succeeded. When the deed was done and the blood dried, they burned the bodies, then the camp, then the pens they were kept in. The tattooed men were never seen again.

Mister Bahala would reappear and disappear every now and then, checking on our people all throughout different periods in history. To watch us, laugh with us, cry with us, because he is one of us. More than three centuries later, he’d come across a motley crew of Filipino guerillas during a world at war, imprisoned as POWS plaintively miserable in their captivity. They were to be put to the sword come sunrise. He laughed at himself, thinking, Why don’t I go with the same speech?

Of course, Bahala isn’t real.

None of this is real. None of it happened.

We’re not the victors.

Editorial Note

Context is a pretext for subtext, so it’s pivotal that I provide some, especially for those who aren’t Filipino.

The Philippines is known as the “Land of the Morning,” the “Pearl of the Orient,” the “Orphans of the Pacific,” the “Gems of the East,” the “Treasure Islands of the Pacific,” the “Emerald Islands,” the “Isles of Hope,” the “Isles of Faith,” and the “Isles of Fear.” (A majority of these names come from the book The Republic of the Philippines by Gregorio F. Zaide, Ph.D.)

Our country is considered the citadel of Christianity in Asia, deeply rooted in folk Catholicism, no thanks to our Spanish conquistadors. We as a people are still heavily imbued with indigenous beliefs to this day, though not many realize it. Pre-colonial tales survived, such as those of tree-dwelling giants and mound-residing dwarfs and disembodied flying torsos with the wings of a bat.

We are a highly superstitious society. Our grandparents have engaged with Manghuhulas (fortune-tellers) and Mangkukulams (black magick users). Robert Lapham, a World War Two veteran who led guerilla operations against the Japanese, was once treated by an Albularyo (witch doctor), as stated in his book Lapham’s Raiders.

Animism (the belief that nature contains the souls of our ancestors) influences us to say, “Tabi tabi, po—excuse me,” before we unzip in the gecko-croaking wilderness, in fear of accidentally peeing on the private property of some jungle spirit.

Bathala is just one of many pagan faiths that went out of vogue. My version of Bathala is someone who reacts bitterly as his being replaced by the Abrahamic God. He is gravely disappointed, not just at the world who hurt his people, but at what the dog-shaped archipelago has become.

“Bahala na,” is Tagalog for:

“Who cares?”

“Pay it no mind.”

“Let’s hope for the best.”

Filipinos have hardly been the ones in control for most of their existence, hence why one might sense defeatism in the bahala na philosophy. If we can’t change anything, why bother stressing? It’s definitely a problem emblematic of our culture as a whole. We have a nation-wide inferiority complex, a little something we call “colonial mentality”. Our colonizers treated us as something lesser than them, and for a time we ended up believing it ourselves. Mister Bahala doesn’t take kindly to that.

Either we leave it to fate or we take fate into our own hands. Just letting it happen is the crux of Filipino fatalism, but Mister Bahala at the core of his character isn’t about that. In long, the man is fate incarnate and the embodiment of tradition, showcasing the smiling wrath capable in every countryman, the hidden bloodlust under all that sunny disposition. In short, he is one very angry brown man.

This fury is an uncommon way to portray Bathala, but who wouldn’t be furious, pray tell? Some downplay colonial injustices, disregard the disruption they did to our original societal configuration, and justify the irreversible damage done to Filipino psychology as a whole.

There are sections within Japan that deny any wrongdoing ever happened, many Americans don’t even acknowledge they colonized the Philippines, and some diehard Spaniards would claim everything they did was for our betterment. Backwards thinking.

The fatalistic militarism and religious leader-worship of Imperial Japan, the superiority complex ingrained in every American, and the gluttony of conquest from the Spanish conquistadors. Bartolomé de las Casas would frown upon them. They can say their empty excuses, poor platitudes, and regressive rhetoric, but we remember. As long as there are members of the Filipino faithful who still live and breathe, we always will.

The Filipino forgives but does not forget.

Yours in Don Bosco,

Kiff Joshua

Yes! We compensate contributors to the Young Writers Nonfiction Project with $40 per published piece. Additional compensation will be allotted to three writers whose work is deemed exceptional based on criteria such as theme and relevance, creativity and originality, language and style, and readability and engagement.

Simply put: no! A decent portion of what Consequence publishes involves historical context or investigations, or some slightly technical discussions, but most of what we focus on are personal stories from the individual’s point of view.

The forms such stories take are often quite unexpected, but they are unified by how they complicate, deepen, and humanize our understanding of war’s lived reality and its aftereffects. In the pages of our journal, writers hone in on specific moments—some inconspicuous, some dramatically vibrant—that have stuck with them for associative and emotional reasons.

It might be eating pistachio booza in Palestine’s West Bank. Or a man desperately clinging to a US army plane’s wing as it takes off from Kabul airport. Or coming to terms with ethical responsibility while watching an episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. All of these topics have been the basis for nonfiction pieces published in Consequence.

Please format your submission with the following guidelines in mind:

• Twelve-point font, double-spaced
• Use Times New Roman, Arial, or Calibri font
• Include the piece’s title and your name on the first page, before the main content
• Do not include a header or footer
• Please only submit in .DOCX form
• If you wish to include photos, please send a note about this to nonfiction@consequenceforum.org

Geopolitical violence is a term pointing to the intersection of violence and geography. Governments distinguish their geographic boundaries through designations on maps, creating borders—sometimes militarized (as in the case of North and South Korea), and sometimes demilitarized (such as the United States and Canada). This creation of geographic dividing lines inevitably includes the splitting up of resources and strategic physical terrain, affecting politics, international relations, and power dynamics between countries.

Geopolitics is an attempt to understand why nations act the way they do on the world stage, and includes decisions about trade, alliances, war, and diplomacy. Geopolitical violence is, therefore, essentially any violence driven by geopolitical factors, which include territorial disputes, competition for resources, or even ideological conflicts between nations or groups within nations.

The Cold War is an example of an ideological dispute between nations. It involved the United States and the Soviet Union fighting for differing political and economic systems through global influence campaigns and proxy wars.

The Irish Civil War is an example of an ideological dispute between groups within a nation that escalated to the level of physical war. It involved the Irish Republican Army—a paramilitary organization fighting for Irish independence from England—splitting into two opposed groups based on a dispute over the terms of independence given to Ireland by England.

Geopolitical violence typically occurs below the threshold of war but still influences global power struggles. For example, it includes things like cyberattacks, proxy conflicts, political assassinations, economic coercion, terrorism, and civil unrest.

A contemporary act of geopolitical violence includes Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, which involved armed conflict but was not a declared war. Similarly, China’s militarization of the South China Sea involves geopolitical aggression but is not an outright war.

War, on the other hand, is a declared or recognized large-scale armed conflict between states, nations, or organized groups that involves military engagement, battlefronts, and strategic warfare. World War II is a commonly known war that involved major powers in North America, the UK, Europe, and Asia. The Russo-Ukrainian War that began in 2022 is an example of an outright war that grew out of earlier geopolitical violence.

Yes! As part of this special project, Consequence’s Nonfiction Team will provide personalized editorial feedback and guidance to writers whose pieces are being considered for publication. In addition, the Nonfiction Team will host two or more online writing workshops for submitters during summer 2025.

Yes! There will be two global, online readings for the Young Writers Nonfiction Project after it is published.

The Young Writers Nonfiction Project will be published in interactive e-magazine format on the Consequence website and hosted there for two or more years.

Absolutely. Our project is open to young writers between the ages of fifteen and twenty four. If you are under eighteen, please read the Disclaimer for Minors and Parental/Guardian Release Form, both available on this web page below the FAQs. Please download and fill out the Parental/Guardian Release Form, and send it as an additional attachment with your final submission.

Disclaimer for Minors (Under Eighteen) Participating in Consequence Forum’s
Young Writers Nonfiction Project

Parental/Guardian Consent Required

Participants under the age of eighteen must obtain written consent from a parent or legal guardian before submitting work. The consent form must include acknowledgment of the project’s themes and content, as well as approval for publication if the work is accepted.

Mature Themes and Content

This initiative explores war, geopolitical violence, and their consequences. Participants should be aware that submissions may address mature topics such as combat, displacement, and historical atrocities. Please ensure readiness to engage with these subjects by reviewing our website and nonfiction features here: www.consequenceforum.org

Submission Guidelines

All work submitted must be original and adhere to the outlined themes. By participating, minors confirm that their submission is their own creation and agree to Consequence Forum’s editorial process, which may include feedback and edits.

Publication and Privacy

Selected works may be published online or in print. Consequence Forum is committed to protecting participants’ privacy; however, publication will include the author’s name unless otherwise requested in writing.

Contact and Support

Minors are encouraged to discuss their participation with a trusted adult and may reach out to Consequence Forum at nonfiction@consequenceforum.org for further clarification or support.

By submitting a piece, participants and their guardians agree to these terms.

Parental-Guardian_YWNP_Releaseform

(Click to download)