Jess Ostfeld joins LEAP
Jess is one of the wonderful students I had the pleasure to mentor in my role for the Albright Institute at Wellesley College. Given her interest and undergraduate research in environmental policy and sustainability, I introduced her to Peter and to LEAP, which sponsored her internship in water research in France’s Alsace region. Jess kept a journal to which she recollected the following in 2019:
This week was an introduction to the subject matter, study site, and my colleagues. This summer, I will be helping Agnes Lambardche collect data for her thesis on hydrology of groundwater-fed streams in the Alsace region. Last summer, Serge Dumont noticed that these streams reached such low levels that fish and plants perished. In the nearby areas farms use groundwater during the summer to water their fields, particularly maise. Maize, or corn, does not normally grow in France, but its production has been encouraged by EU policies, such as the CAP program. These dynamics show just how complex the issue is, how it is has been shaped by local geography and commerce, regional and national agricultural goals, and international policy.
University of Strasbourg PhD student Agnes Labarchede, and her advisor, Geography and Development Professor Carmen De Jong, have done a wonderful job in working with governmental agencies so that there is minimum overlap and maximum collaboration. One of the main reasons why I wanted to work with Carmen and Agnes this summer was to learn how to work with policymakers and governmental agencies to shape policy through research. Given Carmen’s previous work on artificial snow, the resulting media stories, and her success in shaping policy at her focal sites, I have hope that their research will help improve Grand Est (the French Region within which the study is taking place) water management. Over the summer, I look forward to learning from them both about successful stakeholder involvement, media relations, and how to translate complicated scientific jargon into something everybody can understand.
After the image: Making Books and Exhibitions
“This three-day workshop with Philip Blenkinsop and Daniel Schwartz in Sarajevo addresses the critical period between the end of a photographic project and the moment when a designer genius embarks on squeezing your images and vision into a book that will neither make you proud nor rich, or when an artist-turned-curator hijacks them to illustrate his agenda. In other words, the period when you need to exercise an author’s authority but still want to listen to those with experience in making books and exhibitions. Generally, it is a period marked by mental exhaustion, self-doubt, and disappointment. Nothing you had envisaged in the field seems to work on pages or walls. Your “best” images prevent you from seeing the true good ones, and there are gaps in the narrative which you are not able to bridge. You stare at your work and your work stares back at you. You are locked in a struggle that is neither stalemate nor armistice. What you need is a breakthrough! To see your work from the outside. But how to achieve this perspective? Moreover, not every great photographer is the best editor or curator of her/his own work.”
This workshop asked critical questions:
Why, in the first place, make a book or an exhibition?
If you can choose, which should it be: a book or an exhibition?
When should you think about a book or an exhibition?
What are the motivation and raison d’être of a book or an exhibition?
Will it be a book or an exhibition that flatters your ego or that makes an impact?
Do you envisage a book or an exhibition before you set out to take the photographs?
Or do you want to turn an existing body of work into a book or an exhibition simply because you want to move on?
Who will publish the book? Who will host the exhibition?
Who is your audience?
Participants, selected from across the Balkan region, brought existing bodies of work or work in progress, photocopies or prints of the images considered, flat plan sketches and drafts of book dummies or maquettes. During the workshop, they were encouraged to forego InDesign and other digital platforms, and use physical spreads of their printed work to explore the composition of a book or exhibition.
In committee with VII photographer Ron Haviv, and VII Foundation staff Diane Wargnier and Amber Maitland, we selected the participants below as scholarship recipients for the workshop.
A retrospective on the workshop and its value to the participants can be found here.
Ukrainian Stories
Photo by Anush Babajanyan
During this nine-day workshop, each participant will go through the beautiful process of building a story, with the support of John Stanmeyer and Anush Babajanyan. In addition to practical work, lectures on narrative development, the language of photography and the art of visual storytelling will be given. There will be discussions about today’s constantly changing field of photography and how your career and purpose expands through the art of visual narratives and social media communication.
The creation of a concise body of work is one of the aims of this workshop, but the most important goal is the learning experience itself, and the beautiful process of overcoming the challenges while making a story happen. These gatherings with Anush and John are more spiritual and expansive than pragmatic.
This workshop will teach, but it will also inspire participants to become a better photographer and visual storyteller. VII also believes in the importance of creating and expanding its community by sharing intimately and candidly the experience of decades in the field of its photographers.
In committee with VII Academy Curator Yonola Viguerie, VII Trustee Jennifer Gross, and VII Foundation Manager of Operations Amber Maitland, here are our selections for the workshop:
Nichole Sobecki - "Her Take: (Re)Thinking Masculinity"
One of my extraordinarily talented former students, Nichole “Nicki” Sobecki, is now one of the VII Photo Agency’s photographers.
She has just visited Boston with other members of the “Seven of VII” - the seven women of VII Photo Agency - to present on their project “Her Take: (Re)Thinking Masculinity.”
Nicki is an EPIIC alumna, and one of the first formidable student leaders in the Institute’s inaugural photojournalism program, Exposure.
Her stellar undergraduate documentary work with Exposure included A Khmer Prognosis: Health in Cambodia, Disarming the Kibus: Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Battle for Lebanon: The Nahr Al Bared Conflict, and Between Bhutto and the Border in Pakistan. In Rwanda, she also created the Amahoro Project: Obstacles and Advances in Rwandan Reconstruction (Amahoro Kinyarwanda word for “peace”).
She shot and edited the video documentary “The Luckiest Man: Gun Violence in Urban America,” and “Shooting for Peace” in Uganda.
Nicki presenting her photography
I brought her and her colleagues in “Seven of VII” to the Albright Institute at Wellesley, where she also presented her work on refugees impacted by climate change in Africa.
One of her colleagues who presented with her was Sara Terry. LINK
Sara was one of Exposures mentors, and her Aftermath Project co-led Exposure trips in Uganda and at Wounded Knee.
Sara Terry, center
College Freedom Forum, Boston
The Human Rights Foundation has just convened a highly successful College Freedom Forum in Boston, a formidable evening presenting inspiring and compelling witnesses to our hostile current international environment for human rights.
The speakers provided a wonderful juxtaposition between the cautiously optimistic scholarly context provided by Steven Pinker; the unbelievable courage of Abdalaziz Alhamza in the face of ISIS death squads; the galvanizing presence of Leyla Hussein, who is highlighting female genital mutilation as a global human rights issue; the candor and good humor of Enes Kanter in the face of persecution by Erdogan’s regime in Turkey (luckily, since he was traded to Portland, I will not need to have any rooting interest in the Knicks!); the incredible performance, resilience, and moral courage of Wuilly Arteaga; and Ti-Anna Wang’s ordeal as the daughter of a Chinese prisoner of conscience.
Our intent was to create this program as a consortium of universities and colleges in Greater Boston. Of the 275 people who attended the three hour event, most students from over twenty universities and colleges, including Harvard, Northeastern, Boston University, Boston College, Wellesley, Tufts, and Emerson.
Eliza Ennis, Abdalaziz Alhamza, Amitai Abouzaglo
The Forum was co-sponsored by the International Relations Council of Harvard University, with the invaluable help of their wonderful President Eliza Ennis. Without her intervention, we would not have been able to secure Harvard’s Science Center as our venue, and our audience would have been quite diminished. The International Relations Council will act as the liaison of the Human Rights Foundation at Harvard, and will be responsible for selecting each successive generation of Harvard Oslo Scholars.
I was delighted to see Amitai, who last year was selected to be the first Oslo Scholar from Harvard. I am excited to see the development of his Embodying Peace in Israel-Palestine initiative.
Steven Pinker, Jianli Yang
It was wonderful to reconnect with Jianli Yang, a Chinese dissident who began his activist career at Tiananmen Square, and founder of the Citizen Power Initiatives for China. I keynoted his conference on constitutional issues and minority rights in China at the Weston Theological Center, and worked to help secure his release in 2007 when he was a prisoner of conscience in solitary confinement in China for his nonviolent labor rights activism.
Abdalaziz Alhamza, Amitai Abouzaglo, Jerome Krumenacker
Wuilly Arteaga
Wintersession Culmination
The culminating project of the Albright Fellows occurs during Wintersession, when the students give group research presentations before the Scholar in Residence. This year, they presented to Amb. Samantha Power.
I had last met Samantha when she and I were ushers at the memorial service of a wonderful mutual friend, Amb. Jonathan Moore, at Harvard’s Memorial Church.
I approached her to ask if she would deliver an inaugural Lecture on Ethics and Global Affairs at Institute for Global Leadership in honor of Jonathan, and she agreed. This is the last program I initiated for the Institute.
Albright Institute Faculty Director, Professor Takis Metaxas, and Ambassador Samantha Power
Takis Metaxas and Secretary Madeleine Albright
Albright Institute Wintersession
The most gratifying aspect of Wintersession for me is meaningfully interacting with the wonderfully impressive Fellows.
I look forward to working with them, opening my network to them, and connecting them to experts and practitioners I know in the subject areas they will be researching for their group presentations to Samantha Power.
As one example, yesterday I had breakfast with a close friend, Dan Holmberg, who is open to corresponding with all of the Fellows. He has decades of experience in foreign aid, disaster response, and public health issues in Africa and the Middle East.
I am also enthusiastic to learn of the personal and professional trajectories and aspirations of the Fellows, and hope to assist them into the future wherever I can. Among the students who spoke with me on the opening day, one already has an admirable background in sustainable development and is interested in the LISD’s LEAP program.
Another is a young woman from Kashmir who intends to work in development in the region upon graduating, and would love to be connected to Healing Kashmir, whose founding director Justine Hardy is a good friend, and whose program manager is my wonderful former student Cody Valdes.
Here are the research groups and their eclectic topics:
The Legacy of the Arab Spring in Egypt
Rhea Mehta, Sabrina Beaver, Yuxi Xia, Tanvi Kodali, Mariana Hernandez
Climate Change Lawsuits by Youth Against Australia
Alexandra Saueressig, Charlotte Kaufman, Megumi Murakami, Annabel Rothschild, Kavindya Thennakoon
Populist Authoritarianism in Brazil
Sarah Smith-Tripp, Hazel Wan Hei Leung, Aniqa Hassan, Christine Halle Rubera, Emma Burke
Authoritarian Challenges to the European Union
Frances Dingivan, Xiao Rosaling Liang, Abeer Dhanani, Maheen Akram, Emma Carter-LaMarche
Tech Policy in the Chinese Market
Gabriela Varela, Sarah Winshel, Natalia Bard, Aida El Kohen, Jessica Ostfeld
Democratizing Access to Antimalarial Medication
Soumaya Difallah, Tarushi Nigam Sinha, Daria Osipova, Hollis Rammer, Esa Tilija (not present)
Political Violence in South Africa
Yookyung Sandra Chung, Denise Becerra, Yashna Shivdasani, Mar Berrera, Alberta Born-Weiss
Erasure of Rohingya Cultural Identity and Narratives in Myanmar
Tine Oginga, Elizabeth Lambert, Maggie Ugelstad, Catherine Stauber, Malak AlSayyad
VII Foundation Newsletter
The VII Foundation is entering a very exciting 2019, with the culmination of its Peace Project, the creation of a full-fledged Academy in Perpigan, France, and much else.
I have finished reviewing the manuscript for the forthcoming Peace Project book, which I found fascinating and tremendously powerful. The book, which will cover the tremulous peace in Bosnia, Cambodia, Lebanon, Liberia, Northern Ireland, and Rwanda, features contributions from eminent journalists and photographers who reported on the former conflicts.
Particularly meaningful is VII’s profile of Shahidul Alam, and its creation of two student grants at the Danish School of Media and Journalism, one in honor of Shahidul and the other in honor of the late Alexandra Boulat:
Shahidul Alam
On November 20, 2018, after more than 100 days in prison, Shahidul Alam, a member of our VII Foundation Advisory Board, was released on bail, but the case against him has not been dropped. If convicted after trial, he faces a jail term of up to 14 years on charges of spreading propaganda against the government under Bangladesh’s Information Communication and Technology Act (ICT), a law that human rights groups have decried as ‘draconian.’
He has received a number of awards recently, some accepted by friends and family who fought for his release from prison. These include the Frontline Club Tribute Award, the Lucie Humanitarian Award, and being named among TIME magazine's Person of the Year 2018.
VII Photo Agency and the VII Foundation were involved in advocating for Shahidul’s release. Board member Sherman Teichman led that initiative for the Foundation and we will continue to support Shahidul in the coming months. The VII Academy will be supporting the Chobi Mela Festival, which was founded by Shahidul in Dhaka, Bangladesh, in February by sending teachers to work with Bangladeshi students during the festival.
Alexandra Boulat & Shahidul Alam Grants
After a research trip by Gary to the Danish School of Media and Journalism in Aarhus, Denmark, we stepped in to replace two grants that had been withdrawn from the school by the Danish Government (due to reduced funding for journalism education) for students from the majority world. We asked that one grant be given to a female and one to a male student and that they be given in honor of Alexandra Boulat and Shahidul Alam. Once the grants were announced, there were over 50 applicants in 48 hours. The Directors of the Danish School selected Deepti Asthanafrom India, who received The Alexandra Boulat Grant, and Mushfiq Mahbub Turjo from Bangladesh, who received The Shahidul Alam Grant to study photojournalism for one semester in the spring of 2019. Both grants were funded by the VII Academy with funds donated by Jennifer and include accommodation, tuition, and some expenses.
The Alexandra Boulat Grant is given in remembrance of the late prize-winning French photographer who was a member and co-founder of VII Photo Agency. The Shahidul Alam Grant is given in honor of the great importance Shahidul Alam has for the development of independent photojournalism, particularly elevating the presence of young men and women from the majority world.
Shahidul Finally Receives Bail
Shahidul, who has been in jail and repeatedly denied bail since early August, has finally been given leave from detainment by Bangladesh’s High Court. The charges brought against him by the government, however, have not been dropped, despite an international outcry denouncing them as an act of intimidation and stifling of free expression.
Seminar on Behalf of Jamal Khashoggi and Shahidul Alam
I spoke today on behalf of Jamal Khashoggi and Shahidul Alam, with Ambassador William Milam, who has served as US Ambassador to Pakistan and Bangladesh, for the Bangladesh Progressive Alliance of North America and Amnesty International, in an event at Harvard entitled “Implications on Human Rights and Democracy in the Age of Targeting of Media and Journalists.” My remarks touched more broadly on the fate of global journalists in a world now debased even more by the rise of Trumpian fake news, and on the avenues available to us to combat this.
This event was co-sponsored by Harvard’s undergraduate International Relations Council, whom I advise, and introduced by its President, Eliza Rebellion Ennis.
I had met Jamal Khashoggi at events organized by the Human Rights Foundation, the last being at 2018’s Oslo Freedom Forum, where I sat in on a late night conversation on an effort to increase the impact the Arab Tyrant Manual, an “independent online publishing platform focused on freedom, human rights and the fight against all forms of authoritarianism globally.”
That our government seeks to avoid really confronting the atrocity of his murder hurts in a more personal way than anything Trump has done heretofore.
The continued imprisonment of Shahidul Alam, with whom I serve on the Advisory Board of VII Photo Foundation, is now seemingly totally lost and obscured in the news cycle here. In a Dhaka jail since his abduction in early August, he has repeatedly been denied bail by the High Court, and continues to be slandered as a “traitor” by Bangladesh’s ruling party.
A Moment in Time
Adam White, Mike Niconchuk, Taarika Sridhar, Amit Paz
In the space of twenty-fours on the 22nd and 23rd of September, I was visited by six of my alumni. I dined with Taarika Sridhar, of the EPIIC year on South Asia, and a member of PPRI and Empower; Adam White, an EPIIC engineering student also of the 2009 South Asia year; Mike Niconchuk, a co-founder of the BUILD program; and Amit Paz, a former student leader of NIMEP and contributor to its Insights magazine. The following day, I was visited again by Amit, and by San Haddad, who participated in the 2000 EPIIC Global Sports year.
Taarika is in her third year at Northeastern Law School, and will be clerking for another EPIIC alumnus, Jacob Silberberg, her mentor at Ropes & Gray.
Mike is now off with alum Biz Herman to the Za’atari refugee camp in Jordan, where they are working with Questscope.
Adam White is off to Cairo working on traffic management with SIPA and MIT professors.
Amit is working for Baker Tilly on a very sensitive project affecting what is possibly left of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and he has asked for my student interns from Wellesley to assist him.
Ghassan is in the midst of writing his critical book on the Palestinian and Israeli Olympic files and the politically-motivated distortion of their history, and organizing to create a center for sport and conflict studies in Jerusalem with the International Olympic Academy.
First Meeting with Albright Institute Fellows
I have held my first session with the Fellows of the Albright Institute at Wellesley, for whom I serve as their inaugural Fellows Mentor.
I presented a talk on the topic of “Distorted History and the Perversion of Politics,” which is both of profound personal interest to me and, I believe, critical to understand at our own current juncture in history.
To impress on the Fellows the importance of challenging their convictions and preconceptions, I heavily referenced a book which has challenged my own, In Praise of Forgetting by David Rieff. Writing as a contrarian to the aphorism that “those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it,” Rieff questions whether collectively remembering the traumas of the past really leads to reconciliation or justice in the present.
On this theme, I introduced them the work of EPIIC alumna Dacia Viejo Rose, with whom I had the recent pleasure of reconnecting as I interviewed her for EuropeNow on her research.
The talk was attended by a large cohort of Wellesley students, many of whom were not Fellows. I was pleased by their enthusiasm and receptivity to the topic, and I am eager to beginning working with them individually.
Shahidul Alam Denied Bail
Shahidul Alam is still being held in Dhaka Central Jail after his bail plea was denied by the Dhaka Metropolitan Session Judge’s Court. His bail petition had been repeatedly deferred by the High Court of Bangladesh for nearly a month, and and an order to grant him status as “Division 1 Under Trial Prisoner,” filed on August 27th, was implemented only yesterday.
We are in contact with his lawyer, Sara Hossain, to learn of what we can do to help his situation from afar. We are also receiving regular updates on his situation.
Lumay Wang and Padden Murphy
I spent the Rosh HaShana holiday at Three Forks, the headwaters of the Missouri River, in Bozeman, Montana, and in the mountains of the magnificent Big Sky country. Perfect, cool, crystalline days magnificently elevating my spirits, especially at the top of Big Sky Mountain at over seven thousand feet. With its panorama and broad horizon, the perfect setting for reflection for an agnostic pantheist. I’ve now descended from the mountain, surely without “tablets,” back into this too fraught and demoralizing a world, certain that the Institute has helped mentor a rising new generation of committed ethical activists.
I was in Three Forks because I had the privilege of officiating as Justice of the Peace for the wedding of two of my former Institute students, who I introduced to one another a decade ago, Padden Murphy and Lumay Wang. Exemplary students, extraordinary educational and professional trajectories, and now wonderful friends. They are also very good friends with my son, Nathaniel, who was a groomsman, and many of their common Tufts friends gathered to celebrate. Amazing youngsters.
Padden was one of my EPIIC students, a Synaptic Scholar, the founding editor of Discourse, a co-founder of our civil-military program, ALLIES, and a member of our human rights photojournalism program, Exposure. Lumay, likewise my EPIIC student, who succeeded Padden as editor-in-chief ofDiscourse, graduating with Phi Beta Kappa, and Summa academic status.
In one of my marriage remarks, I made note of the integrity and perceptiveness of these young people who in creating Discourse had already a decade ago anticipated the severe political antagonisms now engulfing us, and the dangers of the lack of civility and decency.
It is this generation that hopefully will finally galvanize sufficient others of their Millennial peers to get to the polls in fifty four days.
The letter below was composed by Lumay in 2014, and sent to the Provost of Tufts University, as part of an external review process of the Institute conducted by the university.
Letter Signed by Over 100 Alumni
We write to you today as Tufts alumni who have had the great fortune of being involved with the Institute for Global Leadership (IGL) when we were students. The experiences that the IGL opened to us were integral to our Tufts education, and in many cases they influenced our careers and our concepts of active citizenship. We believe the IGL is one of the most unique, innovative, and valuable parts of Tufts University.
Some of us conducted research through various IGL grants; some started new programs such as ALLIES and the Compass Fellowship for Social Entrepreneurship; some studied complex problems through EPIIC, the rigorous yearlong class. We have gone on to be public servants, international negotiators, journalists, entrepreneurs, academics and more. All can attribute a strong influence on our careers to the IGL because of the passionate and enthusiastic leadership in Sherman Teichman and Heather Barry. They and the institution help students“make it happen.”
The IGL is one of the few outlets on campus that is willing to take a risk on a student’s idea, to push us to be grounded in reality, and to take a stance on how we want to make a positive impact in the world. It connects what we learn in the classroom and read in books to events happening today and the power of our agency. The achievements and failures of our pursuits are lessons that we will take after our time at Tufts. We appreciate that the IGL nurtured our aspirations but did not hold our hands to achieve them. Nothing prepares you so well for the real world as understanding our limitations and learning to overcome them.
We have many stories of alumni who found a jumping off point into their careers, and it was not in the classroom. It was while talking with guest speakers, conducting research, participating in a workshop, or a student-lead trip, all sponsored and organized by the IGL.
As Tufts moves forward with the ten-year strategic plan (T10), we applaud the emphasis on increasing opportunities for transformational experiences on campus. Without a doubt, the IGL excels at providing those experiences to any student who walks through the creaky door of 96 Packard Ave. Under Sherman’s leadership, the IGL has transformed the lives, perspectives, and careers of countless students. The IGL’s commitment to active learning outside of the classroom is the future of higher education, and will be replicated not just at Tufts but also around the world. The institution represents Tufts’ commitment to active citizenship to the greatest degree.
We are happy to discuss our experiences at Tufts and the IGL at any time, and we appreciate the opportunity to share our perspective.
Sincerely,
Lumay Wang
Solar for Gaza Published
The Solar for Gaza research project that we began in 2009 as a collaboration between the Institute for Global Leadership, the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, and the Institute of Architecture and Planning of the University Liechtenstein, has been published in Urban Energy Transitions 2nd ed, edited by Peter Droege and distributed by Elsevier.
“Solar for Gaza: An Energetic Framework For Renewable Peace and Prosperity for Gaza and Its Greater Region,” is now featured as a chapter 2nd edition of Urban Energy Transition, edited by Peter. We revived and published it as an example of Israeli-Palestinian cooperation, penetrating the current self-defeating climate of anti-normalization, with hope in its message of "an alternative to war through alternative energy." My co-author with Peter is Cody Valdes, an Institute alumnus who was instrumental in developing Solar for Gaza at the Institute (Cody was also invaluable in helping me develop The Trebuchet in its infancy).
Also acknowledged is Hannah Flamm, one of my previous wonderful assistants who, as an Institute student in 2010, conducted a Solar for Gaza training workshop, “Assessing Renewable Energy Potential in Palestine,” together with Dr. Tareq Abu Hamed. They convened Palestinian, Israeli, and other international scientists, engineers, professors, and entrepreneurs.
We relied on the insights of Sara Roy, a senior research scholar at Harvard's Center for Middle Eastern Studies and renowned Gaza expert, for the chapter introduction framing the current Gazan situation (her daughter Annie Schnitzer was the first LEAP Fellow while a Wellesley undergraduate student).
For more information and to order the book:
https://www.elsevier.com/books/urban-energy-transition/droege/978-0-08-102074-6
Millennium Fellows Retreat Outcomes
I have received the following reaction from Daniel Bennet about the session of the Millennium Fellows retreat I led at Waterloo in July:
A HUGE thank you to you for coming out to Waterloo to join us. I’m thrilled by the connections you established and the actions that were able to come out of it. This is fantastic and a best-case outcome for any session. At the end of the day, what are all our efforts to “connect” people worth if they don’t yield some sort of synergy that translates to actions afterwards. I had very positive reviews and the shear number of follow-ups you reference below is evidence of that success. I do think it was a learning experience, and for future iterations there are certainly changes we can make intentionally to structure the session differently, but honestly - it was great. Thank you again. Hopefully I will have a good sense of our funding situation for next year in October/November, at which point I would love to reconnect and discuss further collaboration.
I am very excited to stay in touch with the Fellows, and to create interfaces between them and my community. Here are some of the connections I have begun to make, and will be making:
• Ali Ahmad has written me from Beirut and we will be working together on developing common contacts in the MENA region as I pursue my desire to revive Pugwash chapters and thinking.
• I will introduce Mark Boris Andrijanic to the Council for European Studies, having been asked by him to help create a conference in Ljubljana on "The Future of Europe," with the Trilateral Commission.
• Lauren Bohn turns out to be best friends with my close alum Biz Herman. I hosted Lauren at my home for dinner a few days ago, and met her partner Andrew Gruen, who has asked me to collaborate with on the development of a stronger Gates Fellowship alumni group he has been tasked to create.
• I introduceed Priyali Sur to Shahidul Alam and George Mathew, who are working with me on Rohingya concerns to help her develop her 2017 Atlantic Council Fellows group initiative on refugee assistance. I am on the Strategy Board of both the VII Foundation and Music for Life International.
• I will help Artemis Seaford in her own refugee work. She highly regards my very good friend and alum Sasha Chanoff. I helped him create his organization RefugePoint and continue to serve as a strategic adviser for RP.
• I introduced David Martinez, my alums Matan Chorev and Dan Feldman who will be invaluable allies for the Atlantic Council.
• I introduced Ben Flatgard to Lucas Kello and his highly regarded work on cyber, The Virtual Weapon
• Maria Lourdes, is close friends with Javier El-Hage, who taught her brother in law school, and is now the Chief Legal Officer of the Human Rights Foundation, for whom I am a Strategic Advisor.
• Laura Klick has just joined the Board of Seeds of Peace. I helped design their initial curriculum, hosted their first cadre of students at Tufts, and mentored their program's first adult leaders at Boston's Outward Bound Thompson Island in 1993.
• Marta Poslad is an Humanity in Action Fellow, a program I helped grow in its earliest days with founder Judy Goldstein. She serves on HIA's Board with my alum and another very close friend, Ben Harburg, who will be one of The Trebuchet’s first funders
Shahidul Alam arrested
Shahidul Alam, the world renowned Bangladeshi photojournalist and founder of Drik Picture Library, who sits with me on the Board of the VII Foundation, has been arrested in Bangladesh, charged with violating a draconian defamation law, after speaking out against the government's crackdown on student protests.
I have reached out to my community of human rights activists and organizations, in hopes that we can develop ideas, and find access and influence where feasible, to assist Shahidul.
Here are the responses I have received:
- Ken Roth, the Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, has indicated that HRW is involved in the case. Here is HRW's statement.
- The Human Rights Foundation will be reaching out to Shahidul's family for consent to submit a complaint on his behalf to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.
- Irwin Cotler, the Founding Chair of the Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, indicates that they will work closely with the Human Rights Foundation's initiatives, and will alert the Global Affairs Ministry Canada so that Bangladesh knows that it cannot conduct itself with impunity.*
- Alberto Mora is the Associate Director of Global Programs for the American Bar Association's, and will place this on their list of action items.
- Josh Rubenstein, formerly the Executive Director of AI New England, has advised us to reach out to our Congress representatives to encourage the State Department to speak out on Shahidul's behalf.
- Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen made the following public statement:
Freedom of expression, including through photojournalism, is extremely important for democracy. We have good reason to admire the work that Shahidul Alam has been doing with great skill and courage for many years. His work should receive praise and appreciation, rather than being ground for harsh treatment.
Sookrit Malik joins LEAP
My alumnus Sookrit Malik, from the 2013-14 EPIIC year on "The Future of the Middle East and North Africa," and recent Fletcher School graduate, joined LEAP as a young India-based practitioner.
Here is Sookrit's description of his current venture, Energeia:
"We are working on building smart industrial microgrids which are cleaner, more reliable and cost-effective. I think these microgrids will have a fundamental role to play in India's energy and transportation future, especially, considering the limitations of our transmission infrastructure. We have an opportunity to leapfrog here and bypass the structural and financial limitations posed by aging and inefficient infrastructure. I am also working on collecting and modeling demand level data which could provide important insights for designing these systems in an Indian context. Recently, there has also been a spike in diesel cars, buses, and trucks being converted from Diesel to CNG. I can also delve deeper into these transitions and what challenges the future of the microgrid ecosystem (integrated with e-mobility) may have in store for us."
Strategic Development Board
I have been invited by Executive Director Nicole Shea, and have accepted, to join the Strategic Development Board of the Council for European Studies.
I am excited to be working on the Board with the President of Elizabethtown College, Carl Strikwerda, and my wonderful alumnus of Synaptic Scholars, CES Treasurer Duncan Pickard.
Odd Arne Westad
Odd Arne Westad is the S.T. Lee Professor of U.S.-Asia Relations at Harvard University, where he teaches at the Kennedy School of Government. A world-renowned expert on what he has termed the “Global Cold War,” he is an analyst of contemporary international history and an expert on the eastern Asian region. Noted for his keen appreciation of global shifts, he has long insisted on the imperative that policy-making be informed by history. Before coming to Harvard in 2015, Westad was School Professor of International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) where he directed LSE IDEAS, a leading center for international affairs, diplomacy and strategy. Professor Westad won the Bancroft Prize for The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times. His book, Restless Empire: China and the World since 1750, won the Asia Society’s book award for 2013. Against the backdrop of Europe’s current political and economic volatility, we asked Professor Westad for his perspective on China’s increasing engagement on the continent. He believes that Europe, as a singular investment region, is of increasing importance to China not only in economic and commercial terms, but also very gradually, in strategic terms.
EuropeNow China’s foreign investment in Europe has increased from one billion euros in 2008 to thirty-five billion euros in 2016. What is behind this?
Odd Arne Westad The change in China’s FDI in Europe reflects the growth of the Chinese economy. It would have happened with any major economy growing at the rate that China’s has been over the past thirty years. But Europe is an interesting area to invest in. Many Chinese, including Chinese companies, see clear opportunities in future commercial development in Europe also understood as a key part of a much larger economic area.
The Chinese government views the world in broad strategic terms. It wants to create an integrated economic area that goes from the Atlantic Coast all the way to Japan, understood as its Belt and Road Initiative. Chinese leaders believe that this economic area will be the future center point of the global economy.
EuropeNow In immediate terms, does Britain’s Brexit pose an opportunity for China?
Odd Arne Westad Without any doubt. If you look at what’s happening today with Chinese economic interest in Europe, a lot of it is in fact centered on Britain, much more than generally recognized. I would not be surprised if, as a result of Brexit, Britain receives the greatest amount of Chinese interest and investment in Europe in the immediate future. On paper, London real estate is of course a very significant part of it. But it also has to do with the relative stability of the UK, despite Brexit. Obviously, the currency fluctuations that have taken place as a result of the Brexit decision has strengthened the Chinese position overall. The UK government has put itself in a much weaker position in economic negotiations relative to where it would have stood as a member of the EU. So, that’s certainly a relationship to watch.
EuropeNow Would you isolate any region, or bilateral relationships, that are particularly intriguing currently for China in Europe?
Odd Arne Westad The big story at the moment is Southeastern Europe.
In Greece, investments in communications, and infrastructure in Piraeus harbor are important. The Piraeus arrangement is interesting, because it’s obviously an economic interaction that has been cleared by the Chinese government. From the Chinese view, in extended Belt and Road terms, you could hardly get a better position than to invest in the biggest harbor in the inner Mediterranean. From the Greek perspective, the lack of foreign investment has been pretty glaring over the last decade because of Greece’s own economic difficulties, and the Piraeus arrangement is a tremendous opportunity.
It is, without a doubt, a strategic investment for the future, far beyond the immediate commercial transaction and interaction. From the Greek side, and similarly for Serbia and Malta with comparable arrangements, it is a safe bet, unless one creates a situation with one’s economic interactions on the global scale where the Chinese become too predominant.
EuropeNow If you were an advisor to the Greek government, would you have advised in favor or against the transaction as it has now transpired?
Odd Arne Westad I’m not too worried about Chinese investment, even in the Greek context, but it’s all a question of balance. Getting into a situation where most Greek ports, and therefore the instruments with which Greece expands its foreign trade, are dominated by China would not be good. That’s not the kind of situation that anyone wants to be in.
I probably would have advised against the form it has taken, because it is borderline in making China too predominant in Greece’s infrastructure. But it is not a question of yes or no – it’s a question of scale and degree. Saying, “No! We don’t want the Chinese taking any stake in Greek infrastructure!” would be a very bad line for Greece to take in terms of its own economic development.
EuropeNow Looking beyond Greece, what do you foresee?
Odd Arne Westad In the longer run, what’s happening between China and Serbia, Bulgaria, and to some extent Hungary and Croatia – although those are slightly different in terms of the actual framework for Chinese activities – may turn out to be more important for Europe.
With Serbia there is a real issue. As an applicant state to the EU, but not yet a member state because of their situation with Kosovo, Serbia presents China with a real opportunity to try to work with a country that is within Europe, but still not a part of the EU. Here China can leverage its political support on the global stage against economic advantages. Again, this is the kind of opportunity, or lucky break, that almost any major country would be looking for elsewhere. It certainly is one to watch from an EU perspective.
EuropeNow How do you understand China’ relationship with Hungary?
Odd Arne Westad I don’t quite know what to read into that. I think, from a Hungarian perspective, building relations with China is a way of showing dissatisfaction with how political directions in Hungary have been seen by major EU countries. From a Chinese perspective, I’m not so sure. There are few potential investments in Hungary that would interest China commercially. In terms of strategic infrastructure, when compared to the Southern parts of Southeastern Europe, Hungary plays a much less significant role. What Chinese companies would be looking for in Hungary, with some support from the Chinese government, are extraordinary opportunities that open up if the relationship between EU Central, let’s call it, Brussels, and Hungary actually deteriorate further. But that deterioration has to go quite a bit further, I think, before people in Beijing or commercial centers in China think to go for this.
In Hungary, and sometimes elsewhere in Europe, the idea prevails that China’s economic influence can somehow balance what they see as the EU, which is of course all other European countries but themselves. I think that this is a pipe dream, so far. It’s not going to happen. Or it might happen with time, but now we are thinking in the very long term, as the Chinese do themselves. The only exception is Southeastern Europe – Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia, and the smaller countries in that region.
EuropeNow How does conditionality, or quid pro quo in their transactions, work?
Odd Arne Westad The conditionality issue is complex. It appears in some specific cases and is absent in others when it comes to trade and especially to investment. You will see a lot of conditionality, at least proposed, during negotiations with countries that are relatively isolated and weak, where China can have an outsized influence in its economic interaction. That’s not all that different from what you saw in the behavior of Europe and the United States in the first half of the twentieth century. So the Chinese haven’t discovered conditionality. You could say that they have rediscovered it, and they are trying to make use of it where they can see it having a benefit.
EuropeNow What is the extent of China’s political leverage in Europe? Can it be obstreperous within the EU over issues it cares about?
Odd Arne Westad I don’t think that we are even close to the stage where it would be possible for China to try to exert predominant leverage against European attitudes on human rights issues, on the South China Sea, or on broader economic issues and world trade arrangements, which are probably even more important.
One needs to watch this going forward. It is very clear that the leverage of the Chinese government within Europe – particularly in ways that EU cannot easily attempt to control, as in the case of Serbia – will increase, allowing China to have more influence in the bigger picture on these kinds of issues. This would happen as the economic interaction between Europe as a whole and China increases, and there is no doubt that it will increase for a whole set of really good reasons that are mutually beneficial to both sides in economic terms. China hasn’t yet achieved this kind of leverage, but I can easily see it developing five to ten years down the road.
EuropeNow Looking more long range, can you explain how the Chinese think about their Belt and Road Initiative?
Odd Arne Westad It goes back to the idea of trying to tie in Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, and East Asia, into one large economic region. The BRI is why, in China’s view, Europe is so closely related with what happens in the Middle East, in Russia, and in Central Asia. The Chinese idea of sending trains from Tianjin to Brussels, even though it’s a stunt, is a sign of how China wants economic integration to work, not least infrastructure-wise. The Chinese are fully aware that this could take one generation, perhaps two.
EuropeNow How do you see its future?
Odd Arne Westad If you want to anticipate the future of the BRI you have to look at China’s infrastructure investments beyond just ports and airports, which have seen a lot of the emphasis so far, and examine rail transport developments, which would be really indicative of how far China is looking to go in spending its own money to tie together the whole region.
Given the relatively low capacity of the EU to invest itself in these kinds of infrastructural developments, I would not be surprised if many people across the EU, including Germany, France, and Italy, began to say that we should welcome what the Chinese put in. That’s the point where I think one has to be very careful in balancing good Chinese investment with the need to diversify the funding sources for bigger projects.
It is very interesting to think about the direction that this seems to have taken. I was in Beijing a few weeks ago discussing it – not just because of who is included, but also because of who is excluded. China doesn’t want to see Southeast Asia as part of the BRI. It wants to have its own separate economic arrangements with Southeast Asia, that are in part influenced by what China wants to do in this broader sense, but also for political reasons. India plays almost no role, because China sees it as a potential political and security problem in the long term.
EuropeNow What is the distinctive Chinese perspective on the Mediterranean? Why does Malta matter?
Odd Arne Westad Malta is becoming very important. China is investing in Malta as an EU member state that is a relatively small country, but one that holds a key position in the Mediterranean. It is perfect in terms of investment and coordination, interaction, integration, and communications further afield.
EuropeNow Do China’s investments in the Mediterranean have implications beyond trade?
Odd Arne Westad Any kind of investment in harbors elsewhere may have a concrete strategic use in the long run. Of course, it is not accidental that you find China investing in ports in the Mediterranean, particular the inner Mediterranean, just as you find Chinese investments in Djibouti, or building an entirely new port in Gwadar, Pakistan, and in Sri Lanka. All of these activities can be seen from a commercial perspective, but also eventually in a broader strategic sense, as China’s effort to increase its influence. The important thing for me is that we are quite far away from that now, with the exception, perhaps, of Djibouti because China, like everyone else, has had problems with pirates and various other threats to its trade along the East African Coast.
For the other investments, that will depend on what the host country allows China to do, which is where one has to be very careful. Coming back to a European context, it’s particularly important for the EU to think about these things jointly. China has never liked multilateral institutions of any kind, be it the ASEAN, the EU, whatever. China prefers, and there are historical reasons for this, to negotiate with individual countries. Again, one has to be very careful not to make this into a simple power play kind of issue. It’s not just about that. It’s also that China, with its enormous emphasis on sovereignty and the strength of the nation-state, prefers to deal with other countries that see things similarly. They do not want their relations to go through international organizations.
EuropeNow How do Chinese and European visions of the Mediterranean and the Middle East differ?
Odd Arne Westad For China, the Mediterranean and the Middle East form a single region. This is particularly important for Europeans to think about. The idea that the links between Europe and the Middle East are of a purely commercial character, which is very much the European approach, is very different from the Chinese conception, where Southeastern Europe, the Mediterranean, North Africa, the Black Sea, and the Middle East are all connected into one region.
The importance of this region for China began with oil and energy resources, but has grown far beyond that, especially with the BRI. Its importance now encompasses infrastructure and communications as well. In part, its future will be centered on what happens to the Iran issue, which is probably the only Middle Eastern conflict in which China has a real stake. China relies on Iran as one of its biggest oil suppliers, and its Iranian investments are significant. It would strongly oppose further Western, particularly US, confrontation against Iran. That would be very different from the Iraq conflict, or in the larger Gulf region with Yemen.
China would like to see the current crisis with Iran to blow over and to move back to a perspective where Iran is one “bookend,” with the Mediterranean being the other, of a larger region in which China could play a very significant commercial role.
EuropeNow Ideologically, how does China understand the emerging disdain for liberal democracy and human rights that’s emerging right now in some countries in Europe?
Odd Arne Westad This is one of the biggest problems right now with China in Europe. That is, parts of the Chinese leadership would be looking at these illiberal developments as a sort of justification for an increase in authoritarian tendencies within China itself. This is problematic for the European-Chinese relationship, because, with a few exceptions, the general tendency in Europe is evidently not towards authoritarian government. EU countries tend to strongly emphasize what sets European-style institutions apart from most of the world, namely their focus on inclusion and democracy. This is a problem for China. The perception of China as becoming increasingly authoritarian is not something that is serving China well within Europe.
In overall terms, though, you can get a different impression sometimes when you are in Beijing. The idea that authoritarianism equals efficiency in dealing effectively with big economic problems doesn’t necessarily have that much of a resonance in Europe. This may change over time, but at the moment the general perception, and we have some really good public opinion data on this, of China and authoritarian rule are far more negative in Europe than what they are, for instance, in the United States.
EuropeNow What is the U.S. impact here?
Odd Arne Westad It depends on what the United States does on many of these international issues. If the United States wants to be, as it has been until recently, a leader in international affairs, not least with issues that have to do with international trade, then I think China’s room for maneuvering vis à vis Europe is dramatically reduced. If the United States moves in a direction of gradual withdrawal, then of course China’s leverage will increase.
EuropeNow How has the Trump Administration coming to power affected China’s thinking?
Odd Arne Westad That’s an interesting issue. I think some of the changes that have taken place in the US under the Trump presidency haven’t quite sunk in yet in China. When I was in Beijing a few weeks ago, I still heard the same old litany of complaints about the real problem with US-China relations being American disapproval of China’s form of governance and goal to change China from within. I kept telling them that Donald Trump doesn’t care two cents how China is governed internally. That’s not the issue. Things have changed.
Is that an opportunity for the Chinese government? Probably, in many ways, for dealing with many issues that are more important to them. But it’s also a huge challenge, because I can so easily see how Trump’s open admiration for authoritarian rule could end up intensifying conflict rather than reducing it. If the Chinese authoritarian government acts in ways that the current administration here does not like, the potential for misunderstandings and conflicts of various sorts increases. The idea that strongmen across the world will be in a better position to solve problems among themselves is not how the world has worked in the past. They are much easier to get into some kind of bigger conflict, because there are so few mechanisms that are holding them back.
Click here to read Syllabus: Restless Empire – The Past, Present, and Future of Chinese Power by Odd Arne Westad.
Odd Arne Westad is the S.T. Lee Professor of U.S.-Asia Relations at Harvard University. He teaches at the Kennedy School of Government based at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation. He served as general editor for the three-volume Cambridge History of the Cold War, and is the author of the Penguin History of the World. Professor Westad’s newest book is The Cold War: A World History, a history of the global conflict between capitalism and Communism since the late 19th century, it provides the larger context for how today’s international affairs came into being.