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(04/23/09 6:10am)
When I stepped into this weekly soapbox three years ago, I was an opinion columnist without a voice. Yes, I read voraciously and wrote feverishly. I (usually) had clear theses and lucid arguments. But the columns didn’t “sound” like me. “I” was drowning in the turbulent sea of facts, perspectives and events.Finding the shore was a Herculean task. After a few columns, I realized routine wasn’t enough. Developing your own voice, unfortunately, wasn’t like brushing your teeth. So I tried experimenting. At times, I was a fiery human rights activist, viscerally condemning the University administration using graphic images and bombastic words. That stage soon died a natural death; I couldn’t be a polemicist on steroids when writing about laundry theft or praising University undergraduate research. Fascinated by modern political theory during my second year, I became a philosopher. I would coolly muse about the “underlying assumptions” of arguments and find excuses to quote someone famous. That stage too, didn’t last. Logic is powerful, but presenting it dryly with excessively professorial overtones is little more than intellectual masturbation. Readers found it boring, even pretentious. As one averred, “You sound smart, but I don’t know what you are writing about”.Later that year, the historian stage was bound to kick in. Taking a full schedule of politics and history classes, I was inundated with information about the world. That knowledge soon seeped into my writing. Perorations about governments not “understanding the history” became a regularity. My editors cautioned me to “keep your audience in mind”, but there was no time for that. I was on a single-handed quest to expand my readers’ horizons, who I assumed shared the same passion for history as I did. That, as I would have written in my philosopher stage, was a flawed underlying assumption. While history was useful, one had to package it tightly and simply for readers to understand. My dad, who is a journalist, put it best: “Write for the layman. The simpler you can write, the better of a writer you are.” The evolution of my writing wasn’t all just neat little stages. I dabbled too. I tried individual columnist voices, from the personal style of Thomas Friedman to the cool, simple logic of David Brooks, from the biting sarcasm and irony of Fareed Zakaria to the eloquence of Charles Krauthammer. I also used different techniques that I thought were successful — writing conversationally, varying sentence length, and throwing in a dose of raw personal experience.My voice did not crystallize until around the beginning of last fall. My writing style became more stable and routinized. I wrote faster and it flowed more naturally. I fused my roles as historian, philosopher and activist, realizing that opinion writing is as much about churning out a draft of history as it is about shaping consciousness and challenging arguments. Two years after having my own weekly column, I was finally beginning to use it as a personal soapbox to convey my thoughts, rather than a private laboratory to experiment on how to express them.So, what is my voice, exactly? When I ask my mom for a recipe, she often frustratingly says, “I don’t know. I just throw in all the stuff because I’m so used to doing it.” Inchoate as that may seem, that’s sort of how I would describe my voice and the process of its formation. You start out clueless, drifting in the turbulent waters of your own prose. But after two years of weekly experiments and constant practice, the various techniques, personalities and styles you try eventually meld into a coherent whole — your whole. My voice.So, since this is my swan song, some thanks are in order for those that helped me find my writing voice. First, to you, dear readers and friends, for tolerating the swing of my writing pendulum for the first two years. You have functioned not only as an audience for my writing, but the lab rats for my experimenting. To my editors, for having the humility to tell me when I’m right, the courage to warn me when I’m wrong, and the patience to let me learn from my mistakes myself. To the administration: I haven’t written many columns about what you have done right, but “dog bites man” doesn’t make for an interesting column. While the University has a long way to go in addressing issues like diversity, I do admire your hard work to make this institution one of the best in the country.Lastly, and most importantly, to my family. Papa — for teaching me everything there is to know about journalism and imparting to me the importance of reading. For letting me badger you with mundane political arguments and hover over your shoulder as you wrote your weekend pieces. Amma, for being the best grammar teacher there ever was and sending my columns out to your extensive mailing list so I can live the dream of being a real columnist. And my brother Nishanth, whose biting sarcasm and blunt comments on my writing never cease to amuse and annoy me. Needless to say, this experiment wouldn’t even have begun without you all.And a word to future columnists: take it from a journalist’s son, there is no writing gene. Like everything else, it’s hard work. Write more and read more. And if you intend on doing this as a career, don’t skip the arduous but essential task of finding your own voice. Use these pages as a laboratory if you have to. The journey isn’t easy, but you won’t regret it once you reach your destination. I certainly don’t.Prashanth Parameswaran’s column appeared Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at p.parameswaran@cavalierdaily.com.
(04/14/09 5:43am)
Since successful student activism is so rare at this University, I get stirred by even the slightest rumblings of discontent, no matter how ineffectual or inchoate they may be. So when verbal outrage about fourth-year student Jason Smith’s honor trial crystallized into more concrete forms of protest, I immediately started to track down those responsible for this. What began as an exercise in intellectual curiosity soon became a case study of student activism at the University. And, after intense study, I’ve concluded that the group, now known as “Justice for Jason Smith”, has displayed great strategic vision and prudence in its campaign thus far.Previous news stories on Smith’s high-profile trial, which resulted in his expulsion for lying in a pass/fail, one-credit course, had either left out the group “Justice for Jason Smith” or mentioned it without bothering to interview its leaders. As a result, thin analyses often dismissed it as a ragtag group bent on launching ad hominem attacks against the third-year student who initiated the case, Mary Siegel.To a certain extent, this criticism is valid. Just days after Smith’s trial on March 29, the organization’s Facebook group, called “Remove Mary Siegel from Honor”, was launched. It detailed a range of ad hominem attacks against Siegel, including the irrelevant and obscure fact that her sorority sister had allegedly stolen an i-Pod. The group even linked itself to a petition to remove her from the Honor Committee, which regurgitated similar personal assaults. On the surface, this all seems too personal. Shouldn’t they be directing their anger at the system, rather than the Mary Siegels that are the product of it?But put yourself in the group’s shoes. The first short-term aim of any activist group is to shore up its base of supporters and find dedicated underlings to further its cause. Tainting the image of the case initiator and demonizing her as a poster child for the vices of single sanction is one effective way of doing so. It puts a vivid face on a systemic problem in a way that another honor reform campaign could not. After all, just weeks after the single sanction referendum suffered a dismal failure, would students really be enthusiastic about hopping into the bandwagon of another honor reform effort so quickly? I think not.Besides, some of the initiatives are actually smarter than people give them credit for. The petition to remove Siegel from the Committee, for instance, is not merely an exercise in venting frustration. If 10 percent of the student body signs on to the petition, it will initiate a referendum on Siegel’s potential removal. Even if the referendum does not end up passing (it probably won’t since only 300 students have signed it), the group’s leaders, Michael Hamilton, Eric Huang and Joe Liem, explained to me that having this support before Smith’s appeal may help boost his case. That seems pretty smart and constructive to me. Hence, while we may find some of ‘Justice for Jason Smith’s’ actions morally questionable, there is little question that they are strategically shrewd.Shrewder still was the group’s transition from a group initially directed at Siegel to one now dedicated to justice for Smith and honor reform. After a makeover, the Facebook group is now called “Justice for Jason Smith”. The picture of Siegel has been replaced by a scale representing justice, and most of the personal attacks against her have vanished. The petition now starts off with “this is not an attack on Mary Siegel” before delving into substantive reasons why she should be removed (the i-Pod reference has been dropped). There is even a “clarification of group position” section that waxes eloquently about balancing the Smith case and longer-term honor reform.The transition was groundbreaking because it illustrated the group understood that Siegel was just part of the system. As group leader Michael Hamilton told me, “The honor system is sick. We realize that Mary Siegel is only a symptom of the virus.” And despite his frustrations, Smith himself understands that the focus on his case needs to be paired with calls for honor reform. “What happened to me could have happened to anyone, and we need to make sure this injustice doesn’t happen again,” Smith said in an interview.This is only the beginning. Hamilton says the group is trying to collaborate with other reform groups at the University to change the honor system. That’s pretty wise. The momentum from such a high profile case will help galvanize waning efforts at repealing the single sanction. And partnerships between groups with overlapping agendas will help build support instead of fracturing or dispersing it. The group’s aim to foster media attention is also a good idea. When a student was expelled from the Semester at Sea program last year and left stranded in Greece, the Washington Post picked up the story. This case isn’t nearly as spectacular, but with the right packaging, the frenzied media may gobble it up.All this may turn out to be for naught. Smith’s appeal will probably bite the dust, and single sanction reform will likely continue to gather dust. But at a University notorious for its lackluster activism, “Justice for Jason Smith” deserves credit for at least trying to mount a strategic campaign toward these goals. To dismiss it just another misconceived endeavor would do it a great injustice.Prashanth Parameswaran’s column appears Tuesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at p.parameswaran@cavalierdaily.com.
(04/07/09 4:45am)
Foreign policy commentators, with their penchant for coining cute catchphrases, have waxed eloquent about “the Obama doctrine”. Yet, few agree on what it is. A quick dose of cold-blooded realism? A shrewd realization of the limits of American power? Or just a healthy mix of pragmatism and balance?Those characterizations don’t seem very original to me. At times, the Bush administration displayed shades of all those tenets: pursuing a realist approach to United States-China relations, negotiating with its allies on Iran and North Korea, and enlisting multilateral assistance in Afghanistan. True, unilateral excesses and bellicose rhetoric did eclipse these initiatives. But the point is that they are hardly novel ideas.So, what’s so new about the Obama doctrine? In my view, what’s innovative is not the measures it pursues, but how it balances and sequences them. Reeling from the tragedy of 9/11, the Bush administration decided to embark on an ideological crusade for freedom and against extremism. It saw the world in black and white terms and placed an emphasis on unilateralism, military power, and regime type. And this assertion of US dominance has alienated some of Washington’s allies, emboldened its enemies, and overstretched its capacities. The main thrust of the Obama doctrine is that this foreign policy is no longer sustainable. The philosophy is simple. Today, Washington’s power is burdened by the weight of rampant international opprobrium, a raging economic crisis, rising powers and rusty international institutions. Rather than recoiling back into its isolationist shell or resuming its sweeping unilateralism, America must revert to a more sustainable, cost-effective, and globally legitimate method of leading the international system it created after World War II. Doing so does not mean we should abandon war. But we should place multilateral cooperation and narrow bargains before potential war, and international support and regional pacts alongside current military operations. To do so, Washington must share responsibilities with allies in wars it is embroiled in, rework and work with international institutions to increase the prospects for future collective action, and at least try to reach accords with adversaries and competitors before resorting to conflict. Because, as Obama eloquently put it in a Foreign Affairs magazine article, while “America cannot meet this century’s challenges alone,” “the world cannot meet them without America”. Take Afghanistan and Iraq. In both cases, Obama has fused international aid with hard-nosed deals and tough military maneuvers. His Iraq strategy, unveiled in February, calls for reinvigorated international diplomacy to deal with the refugee problem, a regional dialogue that includes Iran and Syria, and a remaining 50,000 troops to advise Iraqi forces and protect US interests. And, last week, his Afghanistan-Pakistan plan spelled out increased responsibilities for NATO, a commitment to negotiate with moderate elements of the Taliban, and a 4,000 strong troop surge. The goal here is to share, and hence reduce, the cost of pricey U.S. interventions by marshaling international and regional support. On Russia, the Obama Doctrine counsels carving up areas of mutual interest to further Washington’s goals without papering over profound ideological and security differences. The 19 paragraph U.S.-Russia joint statement signed last week highlights Obama’s willingness to reconsider a missile defense system in exchange for Moscow reining in Iran’s nuclear program and signing a nuclear arms reduction treaty that will strengthen the global non-proliferation regime. But Obama also bluntly told President Medvedev to forget about the independence of Abkhazia or South Ossetia and protested the beating of a prominent human rights activist. Applied to rogue regimes, the Obama doctrine suggests trying engagement and international pressure to garner greater benefits and international backing before deciding on military force. For instance, the administration has dispatched officials to Syria to iron out a potential Israeli-Syrian deal and invited Iran to talks at the Hague on the future of Afghanistan. The rationale here is not dovish but sensible: Iran and Syria are central to Middle East stability, and greater stability will allow Washington to gradually scale back its military commitments. On North Korea, Obama has decided not to provoke the hermit regime by shooting down its rocket but instead work within the six-party talk framework toward tougher sanctions. This, he thinks, will increase the pressure on Beijing to rein in Pyongyang. It’s still too soon to tell if the Obama doctrine will work. True, it has delivered some impressive early successes, with NATO agreeing to shoulder more responsibilities in Afghanistan, Moscow willing to sign a nuclear arms reduction pact, and the Syrians welcoming renewed American engagement. But what happens if the olive branch to Iran falters and it continues to gallop toward a nuclear program? If international institutions and allies fail to back America’s defense of its vital interests? If military intervention becomes inevitable? Will Obama be willing to carry out that last resort, and will he do so convincingly? But up till that point, there’s nothing wrong with trying to boost global support and engage with our allies and adversaries at a time when we simply can’t afford to lead the world unilaterally. We tried the latter, but to no avail. What’s wrong with trying the former now? And won’t a sincere attempt at this strategy actually strengthen the case for unilateral action later on when we do need it? That is the fundamental premise of the Obama Doctrine. And only time will tell whether this attempt goes down in history as prudence or naivete.Prashanth Parameswaran’s column appears Tuesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at p.parameswaran@cavalierdaily.com.
(03/31/09 5:39am)
Even as a foolhardy, delinquent ninth grader in the Philippines, I vividly remember watching President George W. Bush’s groundbreaking ‘axis of evil’ speech in 2002. In that address, Bush famously asserted that Washington’s new post-9/11 security threat was the nexus between nefarious regimes and the vices of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism.But today, I think America has much more to fear from an axis of failure than an axis of evil. Just listen to what the top policymakers and academics are saying. Last year, the Pentagon’s National Defense Strategy emphasized the need to “build the capacity of fragile or vulnerable partners”. This February, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair told Congress that he ranked the global economic crisis as Washington’s No. 1 security threat (above terrorism and proliferation). And this month, British historian Niall Ferguson writes in Foreign Policy that he sees an “axis of upheaval” emerging from the ashes of global economic calamity, just like it did during the tumultuous 1930s.What gives? Well, the world financial meltdown has rendered Bush’s national security doctrine deficient. Today, we have to focus not only on noxious regimes but the toxic forces of economic and political discontent that can topple governments, trigger waves of instability or tire U.S. allies. National security is more about regime capacity than regime type. More about the weakness and desperation of states rather than their strength or hostility. More about failed states than bad guys. Though definitional debates about failed states have persisted, the most detailed study on the subject is from a Brookings Institution report entitled “Index of State Weakness in the Developing World”. Using 20 indicators, the rigorous report concludes that there are 3 “failed states” (Somalia, Afghanistan and Congo) and 25 other “critically weak” states, including Iraq, Pakistan and North Korea. The havoc these states have wracked is staggering — Somali pirates hijacking ships, Afghanistan housing the Taliban, Congo’s civil war dragging in 9 other nations . . . the list goes on. President Obama seems fully aware of the ‘axis of failure’ and the threat it poses to Washington. He has embraced the Millennium Development Goal of slashing extreme poverty and hunger in the world and backed this up by doubling foreign assistance. This, he eloquently notes, “will help the world’s weakest states build healthy and educated communities, reduce poverty, develop markets and generate wealth”. Intellectually, Obama’s longtime foreign policy adviser and current ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, was one of the co-authors of the Brookings report on failed states.But dousing the flames of global instability will require more than just personnel shuffles and aid showers. Washington must draw on past lessons in order to paint a future strategy for the axis of failure. A few fundamentals are in order. First, don’t make the perfect the enemy of the good. Take Somalia. The United States supported a botched Ethiopian military intervention in 2006 to defeat Islamist militants in Mogadishu rather than empowering moderate Islamists. That policy was an unmitigated disaster. Washington must come to grips with reality: propping up failed states sometimes means working with the least bad forces in order to undermine the rise of more heinous ones.Thwarting an axis of failure also requires more blood, sweat and tears. While the American electorate often grows weary of nation-building efforts fairly quickly, unfinished missions have a way of coming back to haunt Washington. Afghanistan is the poster child for this. The CIA successfully armed the Afghan mujahideen to victory against the USSR in the late 1970s but failed to rebuild the country. The resulting vacuum transformed Kabul into a cradle of Islamic fundamentalism under the Taliban, a shelter for Al-Qaeda and a breeding ground for 9/11. While nation-building may be costly in the short-term, it is often crucial to preserving long-term U.S. security. This should be ingrained in U.S. foreign policymakers minds as they think about Afghanistan and Iraq today.Lastly, the variegated nature of failed states demands maximal flexibility and discrimination. Washington should be creative about using multilateral tools at its disposal, such as the UN Peace Building Commission which helps rebuild post-conflict states like Sierra Leone and the Ivory Coast, or working with other powers like Britain, France and Germany to secure a solution. U.S. capacities should also be boosted, through efforts like President Bush’s Africa Command for the U.S. military, which will facilitate Washington’s future need for a military presence for combat, peacemaking or humanitarian reasons. Deciding which tools to use will hinge on the prudence of the President in determining the extent of threat, degree of international support and the capacity of American forces.Of course, an axis of failure does not relegate concerns about proliferation or terrorism into the attic of Washington’s memory. But what it does do is to force the United States to adopt a more sophisticated view about the relationship between instability, governance and transnational threats instead of simply rooting out the hydra-headed beast of terrorism in whack-a-mole fashion. And the extent to which Washington grasps this new paradigm shift will determine its success in curbing this axis of failure.Prashanth Parameswaran’s column appears Tuesday in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at p.parameswaran@cavalierdaily.com.
(03/24/09 6:26am)
President Obama, please tear down this wall. In the midst of your meteoric rise to become Harvard Law Review’s first black president in 1990, the Berlin Wall, which symbolized the Cold War, was reduced to rubble. But twenty years later, as you complete your second month in office as the nation’s first black president, I fear you have erected another wall between America and the world.I refer to the Grassley-Sanders provision in the economic stimulus package, which restricts financial institutions that receive taxpayer bailout money from hiring high-skilled immigrants on temporary work permits called H-1B visas. This makes it almost impossible for these companies to hire foreign employees for specialized work.This provision, Mr. President, is profoundly un-American. I know this wasn’t your idea and was the brainchild of two protectionist senators. I also realize that getting such a legislative monstrosity bulldozed through the Congress requires some tough compromises. But you should not have put your left-hooked signature on a document so antithetical to this nation’s values and so detrimental to its future.As a student of international relations and a well-read, cerebral politician, you know as well as I do that rejecting the world’s top talent will harm our economy. In which alternate universe does it make sense to prevent United States companies from hiring the brightest when they are most in need of bright ideas?Every study I’ve read confirms the centrality of immigrants to American prosperity. Vivek Wadhwa, a senior research associate at Harvard Law School, says immigrants founded more than half of Silicon Valley start-ups in the last decade and were inventors in a quarter of all international patent applications filed from Washington in 2006. A study by William R. Kerr of Harvard Business School and William F. Lincoln of University of Michigan found that when H-1B visas decreased, so did patent applications filed by immigrants in the U.S. I could go on sir, but you get the point: less visas, less innovation.Senators Grassley and Sanders may want to save American jobs (and their own electoral prospects) during this economic malaise. But their humanitarian impulses are based more on hype than fact. The truth is, companies aren’t flocking to hire foreign workers in large numbers. The National Foundation for American Policy, in a report released last month, found that the percentage of foreigners hired into the workforce of the nation’s top banks was negligible — 0.05% for Citigroup and 0.03% for Bank of America. NFAP also found in March 2008 that for every H-1B position that they had requested, U.S. technology companies had increased their employment by five workers. Foreigners aren’t pocketing American jobs en masse; companies are selectively hiring a few top-notch talents.At first, I thought I should warn you that, just like during the Great Depression in the early 1930s, protectionism will exacerbate our economic woes. That, if these policies continue, the world’s best and brightest will sell their talent elsewhere and America’s competitive advantage will erode. That U.S. companies who can’t grab the cream of the world’s crop will outsource even more jobs due to their dwindling profitability, hence slashing even more U.S. jobs.Sadly sir, most of this is already occurring. As Wadhwa notes, as of September 2006, there were over a million educated and skilled professionals waiting to get a green card, but only 120,000 were available. In 2006, Congress also hacked the H-1B visa limit down by a third from 195,000 a year to 65,000. As a result, tens of thousands of highly skilled workers have already fled the United States to New Delhi, Beijing and Canberra. America is already losing the battle for the future Googles and Apples of the world. The truth is, as renowned economist Jagdish Bhagwati put it, no matter what kind of depression we are in, “a lot of our progress and prosperity depends on having such people”.What can you do about this, Mr. President? Well, two years ago, former President George W. Bush begged Congress to reverse its H-1B cap cut. For him, it was simple: “I think it’s a mistake not to encourage more really bright folks to fill jobs here in America”. But I’m not naïve, sir. I realize that trying to increase foreign visas during the current economic climate may be close to political suicide.But I’ll tell you what you could do to tear down this wall. You could take a stand against all future legislative provisions that run contrary to the bedrock principles of the U.S. economy — openness and creativity. You could summon the piercing honesty you displayed during your “race speech” to tell the American people that while the economy is floundering now, it will tank if we undermine the formula that governed its decades-old success. And you could commit to increasing the H-1B count and scaling back the effects of these provisions after the economy gets back on its feet.Because patriotism, as you’ve rightly said Mr. President, isn’t just about flag pins. It’s about defending this nation’s principles and values in the face of seemingly insurmountable challenges, the way your presidential hero Abraham Lincoln did. And what would better symbolize the abiding commitment of America’s diverse president to core American principles than taking a stand for openness against the vices of protectionism? Now, that would be the kind of change I’d want to believe in.Prashanth Parameswaran’s column appears Tuesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at p.parameswaran@cavalierdaily.com.
(03/17/09 5:45am)
Since this is my last semester at the University, I often find myself evaluating my overall experience at this institution. There are some things I’ll feel nostalgic about when I leave, including the scintillating Lawn and this weekly column. And there are others, like its preppiness and lack of diversity, that I’ll be glad to forget. But then there are those few moments that just make my blood boil. That make me ashamed to be part of this University. That will probably make Mr. Jefferson turn over in his grave.The University’s selection of Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III as commencement speaker is one of those moments. Wilkinson, like the many, many other potential nominees, is a smart man with an illustrious career — he was a former United States deputy assistant attorney general and ex-chief judge on the Fourth Circuit. He also has a deep and abiding commitment to this University.But respect for intelligence and illustriousness should not lead to veneration. Wilkinson’s vociferous defense of post-9/11 detention policies and inflammatory statements on diversity are radical views would make even the most abashed conservative look like MoveOn.org. By selecting Wilkinson as commencement speaker, President John Casteen III has tacitly endorsed views that run contrary to this institution’s eternal dedication to the rule of law and long-standing commitment to diversity.Commencement speeches are not the same as discussions or panels where organizations can bring in speakers of any ideological stripe. Commencement speeches are selected by the University to offer words of wisdom to a graduating class, so a nominated speaker says something about whose advice the University values. Also, nominations for commencement nonetheless bestow an honor upon speakers’ accomplishments and their views — which are both inseparable in practice. Lastly, a commencement speech does not give students an opportunity to question a speaker’s past record or challenge his views. And while Wilkinson is an accomplished man, his views are incompatible with those embodied by the University and too baseless to go unchallenged by the students within it.Take post-9/11 detention policy. Bush-bashing aside, there is a legitimate debate to be had about whether the “war on terror” is a war and what the president can do in times of war. But, if you read excerpts of oral arguments between Wilkinson and federal public defender Geremy Kamens in the “Hamdi case” involving an American citizen captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan and held at Guantanamo, Wilkinson asks incredulously: “What is so unconstitutional . . . ?”, ignoring the fact that the Constitution prohibits the indefinite detention of American citizens without charge or access to a public defender. He then suggests that the president should have the final authority on these matters, and the judiciary should not interfere.This is a radical view that not many conservatives or liberals share. Even Bush administration officials such as Condoleezza Rice and Robert Gates have tacitly acknowledged that detention policies need to be subjected to some measure of rule of law, whether through military tribunals or closing Guantanamo Bay. Wilkinson, by contrast, doesn’t think we even ought to try, despite the fact that these policies have wrecked America’s reputation colossally as a bastion of liberty across the world. It is downright humiliating for a University with so much adulation for honor and law to honor a man with so little respect, and at times disdain, for these bedrock principles.Wilkinson’s incendiary statements on race and diversity is another case in point. Again, there’s a lot of room for disagreement on the merits of affirmative action policies and diversity. But when I read Wilkinson’s book, acerbically subtitled “How Ethnic Separatism Threatens America”, I was shocked at his labeling of affirmative action and other pro-diversity policies as modern-day equivalents of racial segregation which will eventually destroy the fabric of national unity. The constructive approach to race relations in this country has always been to find the balance between cultural autonomy and national unity. Condemning diversity as “separatist” erroneously and ludicrously equates patriotism with cultural variety, without contributing much to the substance of the debate.It also does not augur well for a University who has (at least rhetorically) touted diversity as one of its keystone goals for the 21st century. Carlos Oronce, co-chair of the Minority Rights Coalition, told me the selection “is disappointing to say the least and does not signal praise for diversity.” Manal Tellawi, president of the Middle Eastern Leadership Council, says “this will only serve to alienate minority communities at U.Va.” (But what do these “separatists” know anyway, Wilkinson might say, with their “unpatriotic” notions of “diversity”?) This university cannot promote diversity by honoring those who question this very principle.Now, one might ask, how could the University select a speaker so contradictory to what this institution stands for? Apparently, University President John T. Casteen III is given a list of 10 possible candidates by a committee which includes University student leaders, but is free to select any speaker he wishes. This process seems pretty contradictory to me. Either a presidential committee makes recommendations from which the president selects, or the president selects any speaker he wants. The University needs to make up its mind; it cannot pretend to be inclusive of other viewpoints while dictatorially being run under the president. Otherwise, it will continue to nominate speakers like Wilkinson, who have close-knit ties with the University but are so antithetical to the values that it represents and embodies. Let the assault on dear old U.Va. commence.Prashanth Parameswaran’s column appears Tuesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at p.parameswaran@cavalierdaily.com.
(03/10/09 5:34am)
As a political junkie, nothing sweetens my Spring Break vacation more than a dose of international justice. Indeed, there is plenty to celebrate about the International Criminal Court’s issuance of an arrest warrant for Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir.Bashir’s regime has actively participated in the deaths of 300,000 Darfuris and the displacement of over 2.5 million others through a systematic pattern of murder, extermination, rape, torture and pillage. He is a war criminal who belongs behind bars. The indictment is also a boost for the toothless ICC, which has yet to convict a single war criminal. And by going after a sitting head of state instead of just rebel group leaders, ICC Prosecutor Luis-Moreno-Ocampo has sent a strong signal to the world’s despots: no one is above the law. Hence, in many ways, this decision is one of those few moments which international lawyers and human rights groups can rejoice in their arduous years of work.But should they? While they uncork their champagne bottles, the decision has unleashed a major humanitarian crisis in Darfur and could threaten the viability of Sudan more generally. If the primary function of justice is to serve the interests of the aggrieved, Bashir’s indictment has actually harmed the welfare of Darfuris instead of promoting it. And by placing feel-good symbolism above real-world consequences for peace and stability, the ICC has rubbed even more salt on an already sore Darfur wound.Hours after the ICC warrant was issued, the Sudanese government ordered as many as 10 foreign aid agencies to leave Darfur. If this pattern of expulsion continues, hundreds of thousands of Darfuris who rely on the mercy of the world’s largest humanitarian operation will be affected. The future looks grimmer still. The International Crisis Group predicts a flood of government-sponsored attacks on United Nations relief personnel and refugee camps, a state of emergency, opposition crackdowns and a spike in violent attacks. Darfuris must be asking: is this price worth paying for justice?The ripple effects of the decision will be felt beyond just Darfur’s humanitarian crisis. Well-connected sources say powerful rebel groups in semi-autonomous South Sudan will now shelve peace talks and lobby instead for Bashir’s ouster. If true, it will spark the collapse of the fragile Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the south and Khartoum, and open the floodgates to even more violence. This is more than an apocalyptic prediction – in mid-February, Bloomberg cited Gebreil Ibrahim, economic adviser for the Justice and Equality Movement, the most powerful rebel group in Darfur, as saying he was skeptical about peace and urged Bashir to step down.Optimists are hoping the arrest warrant will send pragmatists springing up from the fractious Khartoum regime, cohere oppositional forces and restrain Bashir. But history shows that brutal dictators respond to threats to their power with more repression, not less. Bashir himself, according to Sudan expert Alex De Waal, is known to respond to insults with fury. Is it wise to stoke the embers of a dictator’s wrath, particularly one that has proven capable of so much destruction? Fearing more bloodshed, the ICC previously issued warrants for bloodthirsty tyrants like Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic and Liberian president Charles Taylor after they left power. Why did this not apply to Sudan? Are Sudanese lives worth any less?By now, readers of this column must be crying out as loud as Darfuris probably are on the ground: what is all this for? The sobering answer is probably empty justice. The ICC already issued two arrest warrants in 2007 for Sudanese Humanitarian Affairs Minister Ahmed Haroun and Janjaweed militia leader Ali Abdul Rahman, hoping at least for some fortuitous political changes. Not only are they both still in Sudan; Haroun’s government portfolio has broadened to include more responsibilities. How is the ICC going to seize Bashir if it cannot even seize his underlings? Arrest warrants, powerful symbols as they are, rarely catalyze a chain of benevolent political events.If these trends continue, I suspect the transient euphoria following the ICC’s warrant may well translate into bitter regret in the nightmarish weeks that follow. Maybe then the ICC and the human rights groups that lauded its decision will get this registered in their rigidly legalistic minds: Justice is important, but, in humanitarian crises, it must be weighted against the security concerns and interests of the immediate victims which it serves. And, in this case, the price just isn’t right.In one of his notorious fits of anger, Bashir announced at a rally in Sudan that the ICC could eat its warrant whole. Looking at Sudan today, I can’t help but wonder how long it will be before the ICC eats the words of its own warrant announcement. One thing’s for sure: it will be shorter than the time it takes to actually arrest Bashir.Prashanth Parameswaran’s column appears Tuesdays in the Cavalier Dailly. He can be reached at p.parameswaran@cavalierdaily.com
(02/24/09 6:54am)
NO ONE likes service cuts. No surprise then that students huffed and puffed after the Information Technology and Communication office announced its plans to gradually phase out public computer labs from the University last week. But I was surprised when these emotive knee-jerk reactions did not quickly give way to rational policy critiques. Because if students were to make this transition, they would realize that ITC’s proposed changes were inconvenient but necessary in these tough economic times.Desperate times call for desperate measures. And these are pretty desperate times for the University. It saw a 25 percent decline in its endowment in 2008 and faces three rounds of state budget cuts. To cope with this financial strain, University President John T. Casteen III announced in his state of the University address earlier this month that some projects and programs would have to be cut or placed on hold.Public computing labs are a good place to start. Yes, I do enjoy the luxury of perusing them in between classes or the convenience of not having to lug my laptop to Grounds all the time. But in the face of financial adversity, University officials are (and ought to be) thinking about what is essential rather than what is comfortable.Generally speaking, these computing labs are anything but essential. Roughly 99 percent of incoming students have a laptop – a consistent ITC statistic for the last four or five years. When students do use University desktops, Matt Ball, an Outreach and Student Services Librarian at Clemons, says that 85 percent of the time is spent on Firefox, Webmail, Microsoft Office and Adobe Acrobat. It doesn’t take a computer whiz to realize you don’t need public computing labs to access these widely available programs.And that’s exactly what ITC surmised. If students are overwhelmingly using these labs to access ubiquitous programs they can easily get on their laptops, then what’s the point of having these labs? Better substitute bulky, space-hogging desktops with a few ultra-fast computer stations for printing and quick use, more laptop power outlets and new mobile seats to facilitate collaboration. Sure, that saves some bucks. But it also moves the University further into the laptop world, where power and mobility trump bulkiness and rigidity.What exactly would this vision mean in practice? Michael McPherson, University associate vice president and deputy chief information officer, told me that it includes a hodgepodge of measures. Contrary to doomsday scenarios of a lab-free University, ITC plans to keep a “scaled-down version of current labs” for high end applications unavailable in most laptops, while common applications like Microsoft Office would be available for easy download and everywhere access. That seems pretty fair to me. The empty space would be filled in a very Clemon-esque way – with more power outlets, large monitors, a couple of printers and scanners, and re-configurable furniture.Arguments against this policy change are fiery but don’t hold much water. Yes, this will mean that we have to carry our laptops on Grounds. But as one of the fittest universities in this nation, I am sure we can deal with it. I have a condition called recurrent shoulder dislocation which severely weakens my carrying capacity, and I manage just fine. You can do it too.And what about the odd laptop malfunction or the odd student without a laptop? Well, one ought not to make policies based on exceptions. Instead, we need to figure out how to overcome them within the framework of the new policy. One example is renting laptops from the libraries, a service which is still available. Alternatively, the University can also try to deepen its program with Dell to provide more laptop scholarships for students.The few regular readers of my column must be scratching their heads wondering how I would square this with my zero-tolerance classroom laptop use piece three weeks ago. But who says carrying laptops on Grounds automatically means you have to use them in class? You can still fit in a composition book or two without straining those arms of yours. Besides, even if it is more probable that students will utilize these annoying devices, there are ways to inhibit this effect. Most obviously, professors can be more vigilant about banning laptops, which is precisely what I suggested earlier.So, I’m sure fellow students are furious about a luxury being wrested away from them by the claws of economic distress, no more than CEOs resent being able to buy those jets they crave. But at some point that whining must give way to the reality that it’s time to tighten our belts and focus on what we need rather than what we like. As McPherson aptly put it, “when forced by trying economic times to reduce service, we choose to reduce convenience rather than eliminate essential services.” This is the pragmatic attitude we ought to expect from our budget-strapped University: nothing more, nothing less.Prashanth Parameswaran’s column appears Tuesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at p.parameswaran@cavalierdaily.com.
(02/17/09 7:10am)
IF I WERE to reluctantly put on my patronizing fourth-year hat for one column and advise undergraduates to do one thing at the University, it would unquestionably be undergraduate research. My field research trip to southern Thailand in summer 2007 to study an ongoing insurgency first hand was (probably literally) a once in a lifetime experience. No, I didn’t write this for that shameless plug. I wrote this because slightly over 50 percent of all University students pursue some kind of undergraduate research during their time at the University. While this is often parroted as a remarkable statistic, I find it to be rather depressing. Think about it for a second. Undergraduate research allows you to study what you like where you like (yes, no more dull classrooms and awkward still desks). It affords you the opportunity to not only deepen your knowledge of a field, but “develop new knowledge”, as Center for Undergraduate Excellence Director Lucy Russell puts it. Faculty will love to work with dedicated researchers, while employers are impressed by your creative abilities. What more could you (or anyone) ask for? Well, more money for undergraduate research I guess. So I was quite pleased when the Wilson Journal of International Affairs decided to throw its hat in the ring by inaugurating a new $1,500 undergraduate research grant last week. For those of you who saw the dollar signs and then went “The Wilson what?”, the Wilson Journal is an undergraduate research journal run by the International Relations Organization that publishes research articles on, well, international relations. While it has been published for years, this marks the first time it is allocating funds for the specific purpose of undergraduate research. So what does that mean? Well, if you are an undergraduate, there are just over twenty research funding opportunities available to you, according to the CUE website. But before you start waving the mission accomplished banner, keep in mind that most of these grants are discipline, school or topic based. Given this sobering reality, the Wilson Journal’s drop in the bucket of undergraduate research funding should be welcomed, even if it is discipline-specific. “We saw a gaping hole in undergraduate research funding at the University, and we decided to fill it”, said Maria Li, the journal’s editor-in-chief. But a brief pause to reflect on progress made must quickly give way to long contemplation of further progress needed. While the Wilson Journal’s drop in the bucket is appreciated, it is exactly that – a drop. Other organizations at the University ought to trim their precious party budgets and start thinking about how they can make tangible contributions to the University’s advancement. College is after all about balancing letting your hair down and keeping your head straight. Just money won’t do it either. Some organizations must eventually make the transition from money machines to facilitators of higher purpose. Engineering Students Without Borders is one good model for this. The group assembles students interested in undergraduate research from an engineering perspective and helps them with networking and proposal drafting. Another good example is the Global Development Organization, which has just led the campaign for a new Global Development major that includes a strong research component. The group has also showcased dozens of research presentations by experts and students alike at its weekly meetings. Collaboration might facilitate this process even further. “There are so many organizations doing almost identical things, and it would be very helpful if all these groups would work together instead of overlapping”, says Eric Harshfield, President of ESWB. To some extent, this is already beginning. For instance, the Social Entrepreneurship and International Development Conference that will take place this March is the fist co-sponsored event by ESWB, GDO and other groups. More efforts of this ilk are needed. The University can also play an active role in enhancing undergraduate research. Distinguished and interdisciplinary major programs should have a small budget dedicated to funding research that students produce; even small grants for travel could go a long way. We should also look to emulate the successes of other institutions. William and Mary’s Sharpe Programs admit 75 students who live together and work with faculty to execute a community based project, sowing the seeds of independent research in the minds of talented freshmen. This might be more of a tangible benefit for advanced students than registering early on ISIS. I could go on, but you get the point: we should be proud of how far we have come, but we still have a long way to go. So whether you’re a student, organization, or member of the administration, consider making undergraduate research a priority. At best, it will be life changing and academically beneficial endeavor. At worst ... well, you will be studying something you are passionate about for free. I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a pretty good deal to me.Prashanth Parameswaran’s column appears Tuesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at p.parameswaran@cavalierdaily.com.
(02/05/09 7:03am)
Frigid and half-asleep, I nestled into my seat in Ruffner Hall last Wednesday, ardently awaiting another lecture by Melvyn Leffler, Edward Stettinius professor of history. What I got instead was a spasmodic tirade on the ‘extracurricular’ use of laptops in classrooms. Leffler didn’t hide his disdain for the machines. To him, Web surfing during lecture was blatantly disrespectful and utterly distracting. The perpetrators were also effortlessly distinguishable behind their seemingly inviolable screens. So, after flirting with the idea of banning laptops altogether, he ended his consternation with a plea to students to use them more judiciously. But this appeal to our ethics didn’t seem to suffice. My (admittedly unscientific) survey of luminous screens across the hall during lecture revealed the staple mix of Facebook pages, Gmail accounts and ESPN scoreboards. Rather than relying on hallowed student self-governance, Leffler should have used the stick he briefly brandished – a blanket ban on all laptops. And all University professors should follow suit. Laptops distract not just their users but those around them. Over the past four years, I’ve encountered virtually every breed of laptop abuser – the Facebook stalker, the Victoria’s Secret fashionista, the incessant ESPN score-checker, the Gmail addict, the New York Times politico, and even the Food Network queen. And no, it’s not just my wandering mind or short attention span. In a 2006 study by Professor Carrie Fried at Winona State University, students identified other students’ laptop use as by far the biggest source of distraction during class (their own laptop use was second). Laptops also inhibit classroom discussion and learning. Note-taking, which should involve thoughtful information translation, morphs into mindless robotic transcription. Slower, old-fashioned note-taking forces students to filter information or sieve out important concepts because they can’t write that fast. Laptops, by contrast, encourage verbatim transcribing. The former is learning, the latter is copying. And professors know which one they should encourage in an institution of this caliber. Robots aren’t just individually mindless; they are also socially disengaged. Professors ought to promote an interactive classroom with some class discussion and student engagement. Laptops stifle this. Moments of reflection or introspection during lecture are treated as windows for Web surfing rather than opportunities to ask inquisitive questions. After banning laptops from his classroom, Georgetown Law professor David Cole found in an anonymous survey that about 80 percent of his students were more engaged in class discussion when they were laptop free. I suspect that more is at work than Georgetown students’ geekiness. One less draconian solution would involve imposing punishments on individual violators rather than depriving the collective of their electronic sweethearts. That is logically true but practically unfeasible. It’s unclear to me how (or why) professors and their teaching assistants would police their lecture halls, tyrannically singling out potential perpetrators. They have better things to do. Besides, lest you think we are dealing with just a handful of bad apples, Professor Cole’s anonymous survey revealed that 95 percent of students were using their laptops for purposes other than taking notes. Good luck individually policing that. But won’t laptop-less students just devolve back into doing Cavalier Daily crossword puzzles or doing their homework for another class? Maybe. But that’s much less distracting than having a portable machine with conversations, shopping and news media. And just because we can’t ban lesser forms of student distraction doesn’t mean we shouldn’t ban its worst manifestation yet. In addition to banning laptops, professors could (and some already do) give explicit warnings about reading newspapers in class. Concerns may also surface about those with learning disabilities. Obviously, exceptions should and would be made for these students. To a certain degree, they already have been. The Learning Needs Center can provide excuse slips for these students, or even ask another student in that class to take notes in carbon copy form. And that’s worked fine so far. Frankly, I’ve enjoyed some sporadic laptop distractions courtesy of Victoria’s Secret or the New York Times. But laptops are an affront to the spirit of learning. Professors shouldn’t shy away from banning them from the classroom because of some misplaced notion of individual freedom or accepting modernity. Students who sign up for a class have a duty to listen with the same undivided attention that a professor devotes to teaching. No innovation ought to change that bedrock principle of reciprocity. And since the movement to ban laptops has barely gathered steam at this University, let me make an appeal to my fellow University students in the meantime. If you don’t like a class, drop it. If you don’t want to go to lecture, don’t go. It’s your right. But if you’re going to attend lecture, don’t preclude other students and yourself from learning. I love my laptop dearly, but I always tell her I need my personal space in order for our relationship to flourish. Its a tough 50 or 75 minutes, but she understands. I suggest you do the same. Prashanth Parameswaran’s column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at p.parameswaran@cavalierdaily.com.
(01/30/09 8:00am)
AS MY SWEATY pen scribbled ferociously at a Middle East Institute conference in Washington, D.C., the panel moderator Graeme Bannerman pursed his lips, furrowed his brow, and unleashed a stinging rebuke of U.S. foreign policy. Quoting Michael Jackson’s hit “The Man in the Mirror,” Bannerman urged the United States to renovate its own image instead of championing radical reform abroad. “The election we just had probably did more to promote American views of democracy in the Middle East than eight years of the Bush administration,” he quipped. The crowd erupted in an applause so euphoric that even the King of Pop would have been flattered.Brief diatribes about democracy promotion have become commonplace in academic conferences about U.S. foreign policy. They do have a grain of truth: Democracy promotion has had a pretty agonizing last eight years. The United States’ model as a beacon of freedom has been tarnished by secret prisons, ghost prisoners, and forcible rendition. Its grandiose rhetoric conflating the war on terror with a global liberty crusade has run into charges of hypocrisy when weighed against its coddling of friendly autocrats in Pakistan and Egypt. Meanwhile, Bush’s Freedom Agenda has failed to even produce stable governments (let alone democracies) in Iraq and Afghanistan, and has strengthened forces working against U.S. interests like Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Muslim Brotherhood. Globally, the “Third Wave” of democracy has virtually stagnated. Given all this, it is no surprise President Obama has eschewed the rhetorical use of “democracy promotion” altogether (he prefers the more modest “dignity promotion”). Nevertheless, significantly downgrading the place of democracy promotion in U.S. foreign policy would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Spreading liberty is a U.S. tradition, not a Bush innovation. The Declaration of Independence, according to Abraham Lincoln, gave liberty “not alone to the people of this country, but hope to the world for all future time.” The United States has always believed that its political ideals are universally applicable and that it has a unique moral role in international affairs. From Jefferson’s “Empire of Liberty” to Wilson’s “Fourteen Points,” blending national identity with foreign policy in rhetoric and enunciating goals in moralistic terms are as American as apple pie. Downplaying democracy promotion would weaken bipartisan support for and the moral foundation of U.S. involvement in foreign affairs. Stifling democracy promotion would also undermine vital U.S. interests. Actively advancing liberty facilitates the rise of democratic governments, which have the best track record of any regime-type in bolstering individual liberty, sustaining political stability, boosting stable long term economic growth, curtailing the risk of famine, and containing state-sponsored violence. The United States would benefit from a more stable and prosperous world order with more transparent and accountable allies.And though democracy has seen some erosion recently in places like Russia and Venezuela, history shows that the international community can have a limited but real impact in nurturing its development. Assisted democratic transitions in South Korea, South Africa, Taiwan, and Spain deepened these nations’ ties with the United States, while the U.S.-led transformation of powerful autocracies into democracies in Germany and Japan form the basis of its military alliances in Europe and Asia today.Sure, the Bush administration has wrecked America’s efforts to spread liberty. But President Obama need not significantly de-emphasize democracy promotion in order to repair its image. After all, lofty rhetoric aside, the place of liberty in the Bush administration has had remarkable continuity with administrations past — it was a substantive but not central concern, praised in rhetoric but often shelved in reality in pursuit of more realist considerations. Even some of Bush’s most destructive innovations can be met by shifts in tone or changes in strategy, rather than a reordering of priorities. If democracy promotion is too closely wedded to regime change, then stop holding out Iraq and Afghanistan as paragons of this goal. If some policies have eroded the United States’ image in the mirror as a beacon of democracy, then restore the rule of law by reversing them. And if America faces allegations of hypocrisy, badger some friendly autocracies like Egypt or Saudi Arabia into serious reforms. Or take a page out of Bush’s more favorable democracy initiatives — like the Millennium Challenge Program, which links development to good governance, or his meeting with more than 100 dissidents across the world, including the Dalai Lama. These reforms require refocusing, repositioning, restoring, and renewing elements in the democracy promotion toolbox, rather than simply downplaying the place of a vital U.S. goal. Democracy promotion has become a dirty word after the Bush years. But I sincerely hope President Obama doesn’t listen to those who claim we now need a solely interest-based, “realist” foreign policy. Because American statecraft has always been about how to balance our ideals and interests, not choosing between delusional moral crusades and hard-nosed strategy. What we need now is a pragmatic, modest and comprehensive strategy for democracy promotion. For nothing less than the future of liberty is at stake. Prashanth Parameswaran’s column usually appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at p.parameswaran@cavalierdaily.com.
(01/23/09 6:55am)
OOPS, HE did it again. Staring down at over a million frigid spectators at the Capitol, Barack Obama didn’t deliver a speech for the ages.The usually ebullient president-elect was grim, his face drooping under the weight of the Herculean task that lay ahead. His speech had few applause lines (and little applause) and no memorable one-liners. On a day when everyone expected Lincoln’s flowery poetry or Kennedy’s uplifting rhetoric, he painted a somber picture of “raging storms,” imploring us to “set aside childish things” and face up to a generational challenge as our forefathers had done — a “new era of responsibility.” And so the most anticipated inauguration address in modern U.S. history was quickly written off by some as “fluff” and “uninspiring.” But that’s probably what Obama was going for. Grandiloquence in his predecessor’s second inaugural brought him nothing but charges of hypocrisy and insanity (how exactly would we “end tyranny?”). And soothing words would only set stratospheric expectations for the American people that would plunge with the dreary stock market numbers. So Obama decided to just tell it like it is in his inauguration speech. To tell Americans where they came from, where they are now and where he is taking them. Yes, there was some vivid imagery, but those who praised the address did so for its plainness, honesty and directness. As he said himself in a recent interview, “If you play it straight with them ... then I have enormous confidence that the American people will rise to the challenge.” Playing it straight was not an inauguration innovation for Barack Obama; it is his defining oratory quality. Remember his Democratic nomination speech at Invesco Stadium? When a feverish crowd of 80,000 expected another “I Have A Dream” speech, Obama deftly used the occasion to address criticisms about the vagueness of his policies. He laid out “what exactly change would mean,” issue by issue, in programmatic style. It wasn’t a speech for the ages but it was an honest speech for the time. And remember his race speech? Instead of sweeping the race issue under the rug by disowning Reverend Jeremiah Wright, he grabbed the issue by the horns and wrestled with it, talking bluntly about a racial “stalemate” in our yet to be perfected Union. It was the most candid assessment of race relations in decades. Obama can afford to play it straight because, in his case, the man is the moment. Think back to Obama’s key speeches — the Democratic nomination speech, the Berlin speech, the election victory speech, the race speech or even the inaugural. I bet you can’t recall many era-defining lines from them the way you can with speeches by Kennedy, FDR, Reagan, and Lincoln (no, “yes we can” doesn’t count). All you can remember is his clear, resolute voice, his articulate nature, his coolness under pressure and his presidential stature. All you remember is Obama himself. That’s because Obama is the moment. He doesn’t have to sermonize about diversity when he is the son of a poor Kenyan immigrant and the nation’s first black president. He doesn’t need to lecture about hope when we know his story is impossible without the American dream. He doesn’t need to ramble on poetically about equality when we understand his array of experiences that span from Chicago’s South Side to Harvard. The man makes the speech. Obama has probably figured this out. That’s why his speeches are so similar, but the moments themselves seem so unique. Biographer David Mendell writes that Obama’s message has remained remarkably consistent, linking Americans through a common bond of humanity and collective salvation through equality, change, unity and hope, and peppered with references to the Bible, Dr. King and the founding fathers. What changes is the moment that Obama places himself in – the setting, the time, the tableau. It’s not a coincidence that Obama chooses symbolic locations for his addresses – announcing his candidacy where Lincoln gave his famous “House Divided Speech” or accepting the nomination at Invesco Stadium. Or that he spends so much time in his speeches placing his audience in a particular time – be it his sweeping review of race relations or his generational overview in the inaugural. So if you’re expecting a poetic Lincoln or a florid Kennedy in Obama, forget it. Since he is the embodiment of his message in a way no president has ever been, Obama knows he’s got the moment down. So, while there are some poetic lines in his speeches, this special quality gives him an unprecedented latitude to play it straight – to tell Americans where they are in history, to grapple with uncomfortable issues like race or to unveil grim realities like our wasteful ways. Obama simply captures moments; he doesn’t need to create them.And that’s what he did in his inaugural. He spoke plainly and honestly about the crisis America was in, how Americans had dealt with such situations in the past, and what they needed to do now. It wasn’t a speech for the ages, but it was perfect for the time. It wasn’t the poetry experts yearned for, but the straight talk we needed. It wasn’t ground-breaking, but it hit all the right notes. And it’s exactly what we should expect from a president who plays it straight.Prashanth Parameswaran’s column usually appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at p.parameswaran@cavalierdaily.com.
(01/14/09 5:00am)
SEVEN YEARS ago, President-elect Obama vilified the Iraq war as the kind of dumb, rash war he would oppose. But as he spearheads an Iraq-like surge into Afghanistan, I wonder whether he is himself committing the American colossus into another reckless and foolish quagmire. Conventional wisdom previously held that Afghanistan was “the right war.” We didn’t need to find elusive weapons to justify going in after those that carried out 9/11. It was the most concrete battle in the notoriously amorphous “war on terrorism.” Our initial advances were praised, while subsequent setbacks were faulted solely (and rather unfairly) on the Bush administration’s Baghdad distraction. Now Obama thinks he can “refocus” his attention on Kabul by doubling the U.S. presence there, intending to deploy up to 30,000 more troops over the next year or so. But that conventional wisdom is now proving both unwise and increasingly unconventional. For one, experts are beginning to comprehend that Afghanistan is not Iraq. It is a much bigger country, with incredibly rugged terrain and porous borders. Its 28 percent literacy rate is barely a third of Baghdad’s, life expectancy is a dismal 44 years, and it sells nothing to the world except opium. It is the graveyard of the world’s empires, frustrating the ubiquitous British in the 19th century and the ruthless Soviets in the 20th (they had an eye-popping 100,000 troops). And, unlike Iraq, it has no tradition of centralized authority, with a dizzying array of tribes whose loyalties bend quite readily with the prevailing wind. Surging past these grim realities will be a gargantuan task. The realities on the ground are equally bleak. Yes, seven years of U.S. and NATO involvement have led to improvements in health, education, and governance. But Afghanistan still has a corrupt central government, overextended and incompetent security forces, and a drug-based economy. Meanwhile, the previously south-centered Taliban has spread across 75 percent of the country, inflicting more casualties on coalition troops more frequently. Even last year’s doubling of U.S. and NATO troops failed to stem this. As for Al Qaeda, it has largely fled to Pakistan via the countries’ leaky border. Given all this, Afghanistan specialist Barnett Rubin soberly concludes that “there is no foreseeable trajectory under which the Afghan state will become a self-sustaining member of the international community” in 10 years. In other words, fixing Afghanistan will require a constant deluge of resources, not just a spontaneous surge.Does this mean that Washington ought to “cut and run” from Kabul? Absolutely not. The United States must not forget that the seeds of 9/11 were planted when it decided to disengage from Afghanistan instead of rebuilding it after the U.S.-trained Afghan mujahideen defeated the USSR. Washington’s failure to construct a centrist government transformed Afghanistan into a cradle of Taliban fundamentalism in the mid-1990s and a sanctuary for Al Qaeda thereafter. Neglecting this war-ravaged and battered country once again would not only display an ignorance of history, but an utter disregard for long-term national security. Kabul was the birthplace of 9/11, and we should do everything in our power to make sure it does not serve that role again. But it does mean that Obama must adopt a more modest notion of victory in Afghanistan and communicate the difficulty and importance of this task to the American people. We will probably have to talk to moderate insurgent factions who we don’t like in order to form a more inclusive national government. We have to stop pretending that Afghanistan can be governed centrally from Kabul, and balance national institutions with local ones such as the village shuras. We can’t keep on yelling “surge, baby, surge!” when we know, as Afghan former interior minister Ali Jalali has written, that pure security concerns should not subordinate justice, the rule of law or state-building. And we won’t be able to solve our Afghan dilemma without tackling the myriad related regional problems, from India-Pakistan tensions to Iran. Thus far, the Obama transition team has barely sounded ominous warnings about the arduousness and adversity of the task in Kabul. Gen. Petraeus, Chief of U.S. Central Command, came closest when he said Afghanistan will require a “sustained, substantial” commitment. But alliterative, vague rhetoric just won’t do. The surge will not work as briskly or as well as it did in Iraq due to Afghanistan’s conditions. And, with their pockets tight, Americans will have little patience for wars they can’t win or won’t benefit from. If Obama does not handle and sell Afghanistan pragmatically and wholeheartedly, it could become his Vietnam. In his often quoted 2002 anti-Iraq war speech, Obama warned the nation not to “travel down that hellish path blindly,” for it would involve making “an awful sacrifice in vain.” That was an eloquent speech. Now let’s hope he practices what he preaches in Afghanistan.Prashanth Parameswaran’s column usually appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at p.parameswaran@cavalierdaily.com.
(12/04/08 6:53am)
BY NOW, you have probably gotten the declinist memo: the United States’ arrogance has led to its decline. Washington’s unipolar moment is over, and the world is now (take your pick) “multipolar,” “non-polar,” “post-American” ... the list goes on. It’s not just the pundits. Intelligence agencies released a significant joint report last week predicting a “global multipolar system” emerging by 2025. In a world of emerging powers, a globalized economy, and powerful non-state actors, it said Washington would have “less room to call the shots”. All this worries me. While partisans clamor over how President-elect Barack Obama appointing Clintonites signals too little change (who were they expecting: fresh college graduates?), I’m worried about too much change. For the last six years, we watched as a president who promised a humble foreign policy reacted to 9/11 by recklessly buying into the fairytale of America’s indefatigable might. In the face of Bush-bashing at home and international lectures abroad, will President-elect Obama now swing the other way and buy into this myth of America’s inevitable decline? Yes, I said myth. Myth because predictions of US decline have surfaced every decade or so since Washington rebuilt the international system after World War II — from journalist Walter Lippman in 1960 after the Soviets launched Sputnik, the New York Times in 1971 in the midst of the Vietnam War, historian Paul Kennedy in 1987 in the face of economic distress, and so on. Today’s declinism fetish is nothing new. Nor is it true. American military power is still unmatched and vastly technologically superior to any other nation. The American economy averaged just over 20 percent of the world’s total GDP in 2004 (as it did in 1975) and dominates futuristic industries like biotechnology and nanotechnology. As Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria notes, the United States still trains more engineers per capita than China or India (to say nothing of their quality) and has eight of the world’s top ten universities. The American Dream is still alive for millions, while America’s melting pot of cultures bodes well for its exceptional innovative capacity. There are few signs of a new “global multipolar system” emerging anytime soon. Despite doomsday realist predictions, no country has attempted to balance Washington’s hegemony since 1991. India is building itself, China is renovating and Europe is getting its house in order — all long-term projects. Iran, Russia and Venezuela are flexing their muscles as proud spoilers, not global powers. Globalization is occurring, but with the powerful and dynamic American economy at its core. And despite America’s recent unilateral streak, the world still relies on Washington’s leadership to fix major problems, including the current economic crisis. Embedded in the myth of American decline is the fable of Bush’s ‘revolutionary’ and ‘cataclysmic’ foreign policy. But, as historian Melvyn Leffler has argued, there’s nothing really new about Bush’s foreign policy. Preemption is at least as old as Theodore Roosevelt. Both Eisenhower and Kennedy considered preventative action against nuclear China. The Vietnam War and the 1962 Cuban blockade were hardly multilateral. The only change, Leffler wrote, was that 9/11 increased threat perceptions and led policymakers to dwell on ideas instead of interests, leading to an overwhelming use of power. To dismiss Bush’s foreign policy as irredeemable is equally nonsensical. Yes, U.S. legitimacy has suffered an ephemeral setback. The ubiquitous Pew polls show that our favorability ratings around the world have dipped worldwide. But they are hardly the End of Days — and are likely to improve once President-elect Obama takes office. Besides, Bush has had his share of popular successes in the North Korean six-party talks, aid for AIDS relief, and the Indian nuclear deal. Some have been unpopular but necessary, such as the President’s meeting with more than 100 dissidents worldwide as part of the Freedom Agenda. Hence, the declinist thesis is wrong about Bush’s past legacy, our current position, and the world’s future shape. But, as Robert Kagan has noted, the danger of today’s declinism is not that it is true but that the next president will act as if it is. President-elect Obama must realize that this is a mixed period of sustained American dominance but sagging legitimacy, rather than the nadir of U.S. power. That means forging a nuanced foreign policy. Multilateralism and deterrence should be tried, but preemptive and preventative war must not be disavowed. America should be a good listener and coalition builder, but it should not shirk from giving countries an earful about their repression of democracy or taking the lead on issues when others refuse.As I’ve written before, Obama’s cool-headed pragmatism and clear-eyed intellectualism make him uniquely suited to shape this nation’s foreign policy in an American-dominated world. But then again, the sight of the President-elect grasping a copy of the book “The Post-American World” on CNN does send chills up my spine. And I sure pray the candidate of America’s hopeful future does not morph into the president of its gloomy decline.Prashanth Parameswaran’s column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at p.parameswaran@cavalierdaily.com.
(11/20/08 5:54am)
I HAVE participated in and written on international student advocacy for the last four years. And I’ve concluded that its failure lies in a perennial Catch-22. An obdurate administration sees little need for change when there is such lackluster mobilization among current and former international students. But international student activism is anemic precisely because the administration’s icy rebuffs generate cynicism among students and stifle loyalty among alumni.But I was willing to give the international student community one more chance to prove my cynicism wrong. So, last Wednesday, I snuggled into a comfortable green chair at Alumni Hall, munching on my sandwich and eagerly awaiting the launch of the new Global Student Council. Half of me begged to be impressed, while the other predicted I would be dejected. As usual, the result fell somewhere in between. If it is accorded CIO status, the GSC will create the first common platform to address international student issues at the University. That alone is a phenomenal achievement. But the organization risks becoming a white elephant if the notoriously discordant cultural organizations refuse to bless it, the miserly administration refrains from supporting it, or docile international students simply do not utilize it. International students have long needed a single body to address their wealth of grievances. They receive paltry incoming credit because they pursue non-AP programs like the International Baccalaureate. They face linguistic and cultural barriers in a new environment that most Americans do not. And the immigration hiccups they encounter make simple applications to jobs, internships and health insurance so time-consuming they ought to receive credit hours for them. Creating a monolithic group also streamlines cooperation with a bureaucratic administration. Rather than deal with episodic huffs and puffs over international student financial aid or curriculum internationalization, the University will now have a sustained and unified partner that is representative of all its international students. As Senior Assistant Dean of Admissions Parke Muth put it, “having an organization is good because international student interests are part of a concrete group rather than just a reciprocation of interests on a periodical basis.”But GSC’s goal of serving as the umbrella organization for international student interests is a lofty one. The multitude of cultural organizations on grounds represent innumerable parochial interests that will be difficult to pool. These organizations are content to restrict advocacy to organizing parties, selling food and advertising their traditions. Turning them political is itself a gargantuan task. Even if these groups do huddle under GSC’s umbrella, my experience with other ‘umbrella’ organizations suggests there will still be nit picky bickering over why certain cultural groups are represented more than others. The umbrella may turn out to be a leaky one. The administration was extremely helpful at the meeting in guiding GSC toward concrete short term goals. Wayne Cozart, vice president for alumni engagement, advised the group to identify five or six specific countries where international students would help publicize the University through high school visits. Muthe broached the interesting idea of GSC linking up with faculty who travel a lot internationally. But while such goodwill should be noted, this comes at little cost to the administration. The real test will be when the University has to devote actual resources to aiding international students through financial aid or scholarships. When I asked Cozart about what specific resources the University was willing to devote to GSC, he rattled off the usual babble about this being a process and the University being a complex organization. Needless to say, that did not reassure me. While GSC will take incremental steps initially, like publicity and alumni engagement to gain momentum, it won’t be long before it confronts the elephants in the room like financial aid. If the University does not reciprocate with the same goodwill then, it will once again fail its growing international student population.GSC co-presidents Ansuya Harjani and Miloni Shah must also ensure that there is continuity within the organization to sustain it for decades to come. That will mean cozying up to the International Residential College and other cultural groups to sieve out committed leaders instead of resume builders. It also means publicizing a full calendar of interesting events through effective channels of communication. GSC has already planned for a Web site and blog. But these pathways must be connected to more familiar links to international students like the IRC Web site, International Studies Office, or even the University’s main page. Writing articles in The Cavalier Daily and working with Student Council are also essential pieces of the puzzle. If GSC is set up, it will undoubtedly be a landmark event in the black-marked field of international student advocacy. But whether or not it can pull reform efforts out of the Catch-22 abyss is another question altogether. Prashanth Parameswaran’s column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at p.parameswaran@cavalierdaily.com.
(11/13/08 5:44am)
I’VE BEEN writing this column for three years now. And, to be honest, I’ve grown weary of composing the typical University article. You know, the one that rails against a sinister or inept administration for 500 words then broaches a hodgepodge of reforms in the next 200. That this University oscillates between being a bungling bureaucracy, a heartless corporation, and (if you’re lucky) an entity with student welfare at heart is “dog bites man” in the news business. It’s trite and easy to write. But it’s not news. But every once in a while, the budding journalist comes across a “man bites dog” story. It’s often hidden in the rubble of banality. In my case, it was the administration’s rash decision to designate Hereford Residential College as a first-year-only housing option.I had already read the rants and skimmed the sobbing on Hereford’s demise. Students who had previously equated “displaced” with refugees or vagabonds now saw their own compatriots suffer this same fate as they attempted to renew their housing arrangements. The administration predictably fell back on excuses of staff illness and the unpredictable nature of construction, despite the fact that years of planning that involved more than a handful of individuals went into this. Aggrieved students, autocratic administration. So far, so trite.But as I wolfed down Thai food with my high school friend and Hereford resident Mia Choi on Friday night, a different angle emerged. A grassroots student effort was flourishing in Hereford in response to this decision, and its story had not been fully told. What started as a light bulb moment at Lemongrass blossomed into fruition as I conducted several interviews. The story was Hereford’s response, not the University’s policy. And Hereford’s student mobilization is not only an epitome of grassroots action rarely seen at this institution, but also one that played a pivotal role in changing the administration’s policy. Crucially, the Hereford Student Senate’s first step on hearing they were to be “displaced” was to demonstrate to the administration that Hereford was not taking this sitting down. It roused residents to flood University administrators with e-mails and phone calls to demonstrate how important Hereford was to them. It encouraged residents to attend its weekly Tuesday meeting on October 28. And it huddled into a committee in charge of conversing with the administration. “Displaced” notices on housing screens and ambiguous statements simply would not do. But an initial spurt of discontent is a necessary but insufficient condition for grassroots activism. A movement could lose steam very quickly. So, it was admirable that this spark was translated into the flames of revolutionary fervor. According to committee member Anna Pfeiffer, the first week of November saw a wide assortment of grassroots mobilization efforts by Hereford residents. The weekend was spent coating Beta Bridge and chalking Grounds. Residents donned Hereford T-shirts which, on some days, read “I am Hereford”, and on others, displayed the rich stew of activities the college conducts.If the administration was trying to test the cohesion of Hereford’s community, students passed with flying colors. Appalled at the wave of disgruntlement, the University backed down on Nov. 6. After a face to face meeting with Hereford’s committee, a blanket “reclassification” (read: kicking out) of residents evolved into a stunning compromise: current Hereford members could now return to the college next year if they wished. They would also meet with students to help them crack the coded language in the administration’s e-mails and ease their transition. Hereford’s activism had reigned supreme. But declaring victory now would be premature. The Hereford Committee and Student Senate should press the administration about the future status of Hereford. Up to this point, it isn’t clear whether the administration is planning to wipe out Hereford entirely or use it as temporary Housing for first years. Humanity suggests the latter, but the administration’s coded language hints at the former. If it is abolished, a community will be lost amidst the stone and brick. Every Hereford resident I spoke to gushes on about their innovative short courses, banquets, Faculty fellows, the herb and vegetable garden, and much more. Students must fight to preserve it; the administration won’t willingly inconvenience itself. When I interviewed Hereford College Principal Nancy Takahashi, she was awash with praise for her students. “Students mounted their own campaign, and I tried to stay out of it because I really wanted students to find their own voice. I’m really proud of them for doing this,” she said. And she should be. This Herefordian activism flies in the face of critics who allege it is nothing but a deserted, desolate and depressing place. It also answers the question of what distinguishes Hereford as a residential college. The IRC has its internationalism. Brown has its creativity. But Hereford will always be remembered for its chummy community and ardent activism.Prashanth Parameswaran’s column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at p.parameswaran@cavalierdaily.com.
(11/06/08 7:03am)
PREDICTING anything about Barack Obama is a dangerous business. The media had written his political obituary several times; yet, his remarkable story lives on, as he was elected president this week. But the political scientist in me still thirsts for a forecast of how President Obama will govern the country.An Obama administration will probably exude coolness and control. His overzealous, botched bid against Rep. Bobby Rush in 2000 tempered his raging ambition with a tinge of political realism. He has successfully tamed the childhood demons that haunted him throughout his tortured search for racial identity as a mixed child. The wounded, lost Obama of “Dreams From My Father” has been replaced by what David Brooks calls a “homeostasis machine” of first-class temperament. The sole indicator of Obama’s executive style comes from his campaign management. Hence, he will most likely run the White House with the same ruthless discipline and finite tolerance he has shown thus far. His campaign slogan of “No Drama” will become a governing mantra. There will be no room for bitter factional struggles and no tolerance for leaks. Dissenting opinions will be heard and valued, but only with an insistence on completion. There won’t be a return to the endless Socratic debates in the Clinton administration. But there may be a danger of replicating the culture of secrecy and opaqueness that characterized the Bush administration. Obama’s outlook will be pragmatic and practical in both style and substance. His record bears this out. He transcended titanic ideological struggles as president of the Harvard Law Review. He was “extremely results-oriented” as Illinois state senator according to biographer David Mendell, with a high rate of bill passage and a deep commitment to reaching across the aisle on tough issues like welfare reform. His advisers and potential administration picks also run the gamut from centrists like Jason Furman and Austan Goolsbee on the economy and moderate Republicans such as Robert Gates and Colin Powell. Some wonder whether Obama’s coolness, pragmatism and discipline will collapse like a house of cards once he achieves a “liberal super-majority” in Congress. Is America poised for another Democratic overreach resembling FDR’s 100 days or Clinton’s two-year bulldozing of liberal reforms? Will the National Journal’s 2007 most liberal senator finally show his true colors by giving in to party leaders Pelosi and Reid?But Obama’s record suggests that he is a staunch liberal, not a wayward radical; a pragmatic listener, not a blinkered ideologue. That’s why all this Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright stuff hasn’t stuck. Nor is he a stranger to taking on his base or taking the scars from it. He strove for ideological harmony as president of the Harvard Law Review in the face of African-American discontent. And he muddled through his failed 2000 House bid despite having his black credentials questioned due to his affiliation with “white power” institutions in Harvard and Chicago. He is also a deft politician who understands the limits of his power. As Chicago Sun-Times reporter Lynn Sweet put it, his willingness to sacrifice the “perfect for the good” suggests he would revel in the executive ability to pick his priorities strategically. Experts also expressed confidence at a Miller Center event last Friday that the Democratic Party leadership itself had internalized the failures of going for broke in the past (some of them were backbenchers during Clinton’s first term bungle). Given all this, Obama and a Democratic Congress will most likely view the election as a chance to advance their agenda rather than a mandate to shove it down their opponents’ throats. Finally, Joe Biden’s suggestion that Obama will be tested in the first six months of his presidency was politically incorrect but is substantively plausible. Think back to the Vienna summit between John F. Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1961, where Khrushchev concluded Kennedy was a weak president who could be pushed around. Some historians still claim that this may have prompted Khrushchev to trigger the Cuban Missile Crisis to test his adversary. But a closer examination of the Cuban Missile Crisis reveals the merits of Obama’s governing method during such a foreign policy “test.” When the crisis began Oct. 15, 1962, Kennedy convened his group of 12 most important advisers. They debated the issue secretly for seven days. Kennedy eschewed hawkish and dovish approaches in favor of pragmatism. Exercising restraint under pressure, he called for a blockade and then concluded a secret deal to dismantle U.S. missiles in Turkey in exchange for removing Soviet missiles in Cuba. The coolness, pragmatism, and discipline displayed by Kennedy are all critical elements of Obama’s likely governing philosophy. They are also the same ingredients needed to resolve America’s other crises, including Iran. Winning a campaign is prologue; governing is the real act. Barack Obama has excelled at the former. Now let’s see how he makes the transition to the latter. Prashanth Parameswaran’s column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at p.parameswaran@cavalierdaily.com.
(10/30/08 8:45am)
EIGHT years ago, I attended the world’s largest Model United Nations conference in the Netherlands. I was representing Egypt and the issue was torture.There was an irony about debating the legality of torture in a country where just about everything was legal. But the image of us smartly dressed adolescents sprawled across the carpet amidst ferocious debates and vigorous resolution-drafting is still etched in my memory. Since torture was an epidemic in Egypt, I had to stifle progress by miring my opponents in the torture of nitpicking words and definitions. But, alas, my sinister stalling was thwarted by a coalition of principled nations led by the United States. As their proposal passed overwhelmingly, I remember thumbing my nose in utter frustration at the power of human rights. But as I nestled into my seat at the Law School last week for a discussion on “Torture in U.S. Policy,” the contrast could not have been starker. Bush administration lawyers had drafted definition-tweaking memos to authorize prisoner abuse in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. By 2006, the UN was condemning one of its founders in the same breath as the world’s pariah torturers. Authoritarians gleefully pointed to Guantanamo when Washington trumpeted its ideals. And yet, it still took two three-star generals to tell us torture was boneheaded. The world’s greatest superpower had lost its moral authority. Torture is not only amoral. International law says it’s illegal, experienced interrogators say it’s ineffective, and star-studded generals say it is un-American. Yet bizarrely, a policy that barely works is damaging our image across the world. Hence, the next President should waste no time in drafting a clear repudiation of torture and repairing the U.S. image. It’s time to stop this self-torture. Torture defies both logic and law. It violates international law, most notably Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions and the U.N. Convention Against Torture. Common sense also says it’s ineffective, since tortured detainees would rattle off just about anything, like Ibn al Shayk al Libbi, who claimed Iraq had trained al-Qaeda to use biochemical weapons. The September 11 Commission has long since rubbished that phony link, which was ironically the one used to invade Iraq.Ironically, torture wrecks America’s reputation in the world and the values it embodies more so than any terrorist can hope to achieve. Graphic videos and gruesome stories of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay have proliferated across the world and fueled anti-Americanism and terrorist recruitment. The United States is shooting itself in the foot. No surprise then that the 2006 Army Field Manual says torture “undermines both short and long-term counterinsurgency efforts.”Torture has turned the world’s human rights’ champion into one of its most derided transgressors. Which is why those who fuss about how inhumane our enemies get to be miss the point. As Lt. Gen. Harry E. Soyster told the forum, “it doesn’t matter what they do, it’s what we do. We don’t lower ourselves to the level of this terrible enemy we are fighting.” Even if Al-Qaeda refuses to respect the rules of war, we ought not to abandon our great tradition of liberty that distinguishes us from them.Stopping this self-torture must be a priority for the next president. Since both candidates have called for the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, they should deliver on this promise. Despite all its flaws, criminal prosecution is still more effective than preventive detention because it avoids netting innocents and preserves due process and international law. The next president must also ensure that torture in Iraq remains only in the history books. From Jan. 1, all U.S. prisoners must be charged in Iraqi courts under U.N. regulations. But since the risk of torture in Iraqi facilities is fairly high, Washington must ensure that Iraqi authorities meet these regulations instead of taking a hands-off approach or finger-pointing. But most importantly, the next commander-in-chief must deliver a clear rebuke of torture so that commanders in the ground have clear sense of direction and purpose. It should read something like this: “Some may argue that we would be more effective if we sanctioned torture or other expedient methods to obtain information from the enemy. They would be wrong. Beyond the basic fact that such actions are illegal, history shows that they are also frequently neither useful nor necessary.” I wish I were that eloquent, but this is a letter from the revered Gen. David Petraeus to his troops that Lt. Gen Charles Otstott cited at the forum. We’ve endured eight years of an administration that thought it was time for “the gloves to come off” and then contaminated the nation’s reputation and values. The next president must battle our enemies but keep the ideals we stand for and the image we live for intact. Because, as Abraham Lincoln said at the height of the Civil War, military necessity does not admit to cruelty. Prashanth Parameswaran’s column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at p.parameswaran@cavalierdaily.com.
(10/21/08 4:47am)
I DON’T know about you, but I felt pretty worthless after missing conservative activist David Horowitz’s talk on campus last Wednesday about “Islamofascism.” I couldn’t sleep soundly knowing that I had failed to “stop the jihad on campus” waged by the renegade Muslims Students Association. I couldn’t walk around campus freely because I hadn’t learned how to distinguish a “good Muslim” from a “bad Muslim” (does it have to do with turbans or beards?). And I didn’t attend my classes because I couldn’t ask Horowitz which 5 percent of my professors were not “on the left.”There was something missing in my life. After hours spent wallowing in depression, I decided to fill this void by contacting the sponsors of the event to watch a taped version. The conservative Burke Society gleefully responded. And so my Friday night was spent partying it up with the bearded master.Horowitz did not disappoint. He condemned the Arab culture as “sick,” “racist” and “misogynist.” He insisted that the “spineless” Israelis “carpet-bomb” Palestinian territory to free themselves of daily missile strikes.Lest anyone dare question Horowitz’s expertise, he drew a circular map of part of the Middle East, quoted hateful Islamic statements (how come we don’t have those in the Bible or Torah?), and asked why moderate Muslims did not condemn the resistance movements Hamas and Hezbollah (just like the Israelis used to condemn their terrorist Prime Minister Menachem Begin).Enough. By now, you can see why Horowitz has two bodyguards and has been the victim of flying cream pies and disruptive boos. His modus operandi is very much like the very terrorists he condemns. He prefers inciting over educating. He wraps somewhat legitimate premises in a cloak of hatred. And Horowitz’s main strategy is a page straight out of any insurgent manual: Anger your opponent to force a corresponding overreaction that weakens his hand and strengthens yours. Reactions are as, if not more, important than actions themselves. Hence, those protesting Horowitz’s hate-mongering sermons ought to focus their efforts on measured critiques and educational initiatives, rather than the blood-stirring denunciations or radical protests Horowitz hopes to elicit. University students did a decent job at being measured at the event but much more could have been done to counter the bearded bigot’s bluster. Like most hateful ideologues, Horowitz is successful because his rice bowl of hate speech contains a lone grain of truth. In this case: Islamic extremism exists. If you don’t acknowledge this lone grain, Horowitz dismisses you as a leftist or an Islamofascist. So the first two questioners did well to accept the premise that suicide bombings and terrorism were a problem, before asking why Horowitz then generalized about a monolithic Arab or Palestinian culture. This robbed him of cheap rhetorical tactics and forced him to engage them on substance. Just as the radical Islamic clerics he detests denounce America, Horowitz also rails on about Islamic extremism in a deterministic way without critically examining why it results. It makes for a rousing speech but a poor history lesson. So graduate student Arsalan Khan’s question about what drives people to these radical religious interpretations was a good, direct assault against this approach. Horowitz predictably sidestepped the question with a workaday rant against “Muslim fanatics.” But no amount of empty anger could fill the gaping substantive hole in his argument. Palestinian suicide bombings grow out of grievances and economic dislocation caused by Israeli occupation. The seeds of radical Islam were partly sowed by America’s support of Middle Eastern dictatorships and Israel. Saying Arab culture or Palestinian culture causes extremism is an insulting oversimplification.But although Horowitz struggled to answer the last query, measured questions are only half the answer against ideologies of intolerance. Muslim Students Association President Alla Hassan’s e-mail to members urging them to “make sure you stay calm and that you don’t get emotional” was indeed a pragmatic step. Overreactions would have merely pumped air into Horowitz’s empty and laughable argument that MSA is affiliated with Islamic extremism. But the organization could have gone much farther. Americans for Informed Democracy, which has a strong record of promoting inter-faith relations in college campuses, sent out a whole list of events to colleges that they could fund to promote awareness about Islam. This ranged from movie screenings about American Muslims, interfaith discussions, panels of experts, benefit concerts and art exhibits. The idea is to shift the focus from merely responding to negative propaganda to “responding with alternative programming to promote U.S.-Muslim relations.” MSA and other organizations should look to AID as a potential source to counter hate speech instead of merely responding or ignoring it. All pretenses aside, speeches like Horowitz’s are ultimately designed to sow hate rather than implant knowledge. While students have the right to invite a hate monger, those who disagree have a corresponding obligation to ensure that his message of hate is actively countered rather than passively or measuredly engaged. Empty vessels always make the most noise. But the ones with substance ought to drown them out with concrete arguments.Prashanth Parameswaran’s column usually appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at p.parameswaran@cavalierdaily.com.
(10/16/08 4:00am)
UNLIKE most partisan hacks, I don’t go into cardiac arrest when John McCain quizzically wonders who the real Barack Obama is. But while we’re on the subject of character, I do think McCain should look in the mirror to face what people across the political spectrum are whispering: who is the real John McCain? Given that 51 percent of voters in the latest ABC/Washington Post poll said the “maverick” will continue Bush’s policies, I suspect even the well-seasoned Arizona senator may need to use a lifeline. Senator John McCain is suffering from schizophrenia. The campaign has muddied the man’s ideology and personality. This is not a partisan statement. Even conservatives ponder: how does he straddle between courageous patriot and erratic politician? Bipartisan pragmatist and right-wing ideologue? Bitter old man and straight-talking veteran? That’s too much straddling, even for a maverick.As a foreign policy junkie, I love John McCain. He’s done it all. He bled for his country. He battled his own party on the surge and Guantanamo Bay. He reached across the aisle on immigration reform and campaign finance. And he did all this with a cheery smile and straight talk. His story is unconventional and almost unreal. His character is biographical and authentic. So it is was with great sadness that I watched McCain’s authentic personality shift during the election. The unnerving, unscripted McCain of the Straight Talk Express gave way to a prickly, robotic sourpuss. In an August TIME interview, a stiff McCain choked out scripted talking points and abrasive one liners like “read it in my books.” By September, his Senate colleague Tom Daschle spoke of “two kinds of John McCain”, one irate and irritable, the other human and humorous. So, like a tragic episode of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, I watched these two John McCains unravel over the months that followed — delivering touching speeches about service on one hand while railing acerbically against Obama’s character on the other. I wondered — who is the real John McCain? McCain’s foreign policy speeches alternate between the irreconcilable extremes of stone-cold realism and the irascible neoconservatism. The surge was the epitome of rational self interest — more troops would lead to better security for reconstruction or withdrawal. But McCain’s proposal to kick Russia out of the G-8 and set up a “League of Democracies” sacrifices a clear-eyed view of interests for a senseless ideology. We need Russia on issues like non-proliferation, and we need China on any meaningful economic or environmental effort. So which is the real John McCain? Even McCain’s campaign frustratingly mirrors the candidate’s erratic divergence. Neocon icon Bill Kristol told McCain to fire his campaign. And Republican strategist Ed Rollins says it is “in chaos.” There have been three managerial changes in 18 months, from McCain’s clean 2000 campaign staff to Karl Rove’s filthy cronies. As a result, campaign speeches and advertisements are incoherent on issues like Obama’s character. “The end result,” Rollin concludes, “is a campaign suffering from schizophrenia.” When a campaign is rife with internal divisions, it does not communicate who the real John McCain is. Most disastrously, schizophrenia has struck at the very fabric of McCain’s character. Remember the 2000 South Carolina presidential primaries? Karl Rove and friends ran a smear campaign that accused McCain of being a homosexual who wedded a drug addict and fathered an illegitimate black child. The senator then courageously quipped, “if all you run is negative attack ads, you don’t have much of a vision for the future.” Fast forward to 2008, and McCain has less trouble putting politics above character and country. Negative ads on Obama’s character, though not nearly as dishonest, are commonplace. During a recession, McCain prefers political stunts like suspending his campaign instead of meaningful policies. He says he puts his country first, then selects a grotesquely inexperienced vice president for political reasons. So, who is the real John McCain? American political satirist Christopher Buckley recalls that McCain once said: “we came to Washington to change it, and Washington changed us”. This campaign has changed John McCain beyond recognition. No one can tell if he is a warm, realistic and straight-talking maverick, or a bitter, divisive ideologue. Voters aren’t looking for uncertainty in uncertain times, while analysts know McCain will face the same problem balancing his base and the center even after he is elected. So, Senator McCain, if you want to win this, you need to sway voters with a clear image and message. Forget the economy and the deck of Obama “cards.” Just show them who you are. Weave a narrative of you as a “fighter” and the speech will write itself. Fighting in Vietnam, fighting against your own party, fighting to reach across the aisle, and fighting for the American people amidst a financial crisis and two wars. The John McCain I used to admire would not give up without a fight. Show us how it’s done. Give us a fight to remember. Prashanth Parameswaran’s column appears Thursday in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at p.parameswaran@cavalierdaily.com.