When the world’s two most populous countries held a summit this month in Beijing, their agenda was brimful with collaboration. India and China, once adversaries that fought a war in 1962, are now leading trading partners. But, while they see eye to eye on several key geopolitical issues such as Iran and have even conducted… Continue reading Eyeing Burma
The United States acts as if it owns the world. This might seem counter-intuitive. After all, more and more foreign entities are lapping up bargain properties in our “homeland.” And aside from U.S. military bases — a not inconsiderable amount of territory — the United States is not land-grabbing the way imperial Rome or London… Continue reading Who Owns the World?
Stefan Theil thinks that his fellow Europeans are brainwashed. He’s done a trans-Atlantic study of textbooks and discovered that schools teach little French and Germans all the wrong things about economics. “Free markets offer chaos while government regulation brings order,” Theil describes the messages transmitted to European students in “Europe’s Philosophy of Failure” in the… Continue reading Poor, Deluded Europeans
On the international community In 1999, after the NATO bombing, the international community deployed in Kosovo with a clear perception that the Kosovo Albanians were the victims and that the Serbs were the bad guys. If you were only looking what took place in Kosovo during the bombing, that headline made sense. But then the… Continue reading Interview with anonymous UN official
Attila Durak, photographer For almost 100 years, the system here has been trying to create a nation, one nation that represses, that says we are one Turkey. For the Ottoman Empire, religion was the base; ethnicity was not important. When Italy was formed, only eight percent of Italian people spoke Italian. From that base population,… Continue reading Interview with Attila Durak
Lirak Celaj, theater director On Albania and Kosovo During the period when we were in ex-Yugoslavia, there was always pressure on us to change our identity. We were told, “You are Shqpitars and they, in Albania, are Albanians.” I think we are same nation – the same nation in two countries. Some countries and some… Continue reading Interview with Lirak Celaj
On nation-building and nationalism After the Ottoman Empire was dismantled, there needed to be a nation-state to replace it. As often happens in Europe, this notion of nation-state led to bloodshed. People had coexisted for centuries without treating each other as ethnic aliens; that was how the Ottoman Empire had been run. But the nation-state… Continue reading Interview with Serdar M. Degirmencioglu,
Andrej Nosov, youth initiative, Serbia On joint projects between Belgrade and Pristina We’ve developed some new initiatives between Belgrade and Pristina, including an art gallery, Rizoma, which opened last year. For the last two years, we’ve been trying to use cultural workers to promote a different relationship between Pristina and Belgrade. For instance, we’ve supported… Continue reading Interview with Andrej Nosov
Valentine Mitiev, minorities expert When I was at university, I had to work at a factory every summer to earn money. I worked with many Turks there. Before 1998, we didn’t emphasize any difference between Turks and Bulgarians. You had to hike a lot to get to their villages in the Rhodope Mountains, where women… Continue reading Interview with Valentine Mitiev
Turkish activist On anti-Americanism When I was a schoolchild, almost everyone was in favor of America. Right-wingers especially were all pro-American. Today, it has almost completely changed. Now right-wingers are anti-American, particularly after the Iraq War. Almost every government and state source openly declares that the United States is after a divided Iraq; that this… Continue reading Interview with Ertegrul Kurksu
Here’s the secret to the last seven years of foreign policy disasters coming from Washington. President Bush has become an acolyte of Timothy Ferriss. Haven’t heard of Ferriss yet? He’s the motivational author who champions a four-hour work week. In order to slim down his schedule, Ferriss recommends a low-information diet. “I never watch the… Continue reading Ignorance Is Bliss
Are we ready for the first missionary president? While the media debates endlessly whether America can overcome racism and sexism and finally elect an African-American commander-in-chief or a female to the White House, there’s been very little consideration of what it might mean to have a former missionary in the Oval Office. Like many Mormons,… Continue reading Missionary Zeal
South Korea’s new president underwent his own personal green revolution when he became mayor of Seoul. In charge of major construction projects at Hyundai for three decades, Lee Myung-bak reversed himself in the new millennium. He made rivers spring from concrete and grass grow where there had once been only cars. President-elect Lee now has… Continue reading A Green Bulldozer
Roumen Yanovski, ACCESS On the media Despite the changing laws, the international position, and the emergence of two generations, there has been extremely limited change in Bulgaria in terms of ideas about ethnicity and ethnic groups. A lot of people would disagree with me. But this is what I feel, and it is the saddest… Continue reading Interview with Roumen Yanovski
Albert Heta, curator and artist On art and conflict Recently, the communication between Serbia and here has been flowing more openly. In 2006, when the Stacion Center for Contemporary Art organized two symposiums – one called, “Cultural Policies as Crisis Management?”, the other “Altered Identities: On Nationalism and Contemporary Art” – we aimed to… Continue reading Interview with Albert Heta
Nigar Goksal of European Stability Initiative On the United States An opinion poll conducted by the ARI Movement last year revealed that 80 percent of the Turkish population holds a negative opinion of the United States. When we broke down the question further, we found that while most people felt negatively toward the Bush administration,… Continue reading Interview with Nigar Goksal
Tan Morgul, Turkish journalist On internal immigration In the old model of migration – and this applies to other cultures as well as to the Kurdish population – one individual would come and settle in a neighborhood. If he did well in Istanbul, he would call his other relatives. They would come to settle near… Continue reading Interview with Tan Morgul
On corruption The only thing missing in the Kosovo government is a legal ministry of corruption. Everybody knows it, but nobody cares. They are immune to criticism. In our first elections – the first elections in our history – 92 percent of the people voted. The disappointment came so fast. Nobody can do anything now… Continue reading Interview with Arben Castrati
“Spreading the Word,” Foreign Policy In Focus, December 19, 2007 “Take the Plunge,” World Beat, December 17, 2007 “A Return to Diversity in the Balkans?” The American Prospect, December 13, 2007 “The Paradox of East Asian Peace,” Foreign Policy In Focus, December 13, 2007 “Eighth Circle of Hell,” World Beat, December 3, 2007 “The Shadow of Vietnam,” Internationale Politik, Winter… Continue reading 2007 Archives
Korean Quarterly, Spring 2007
Review of Andrei Lankov, North of the DMZ (McFarland and Co., Inc. 2007), 346 pages. In general, scholars love the countries they study. Those who focus on Nicaragua can’t wait to visit the country. Experts on Morocco eagerly await the day they can live there to do fieldwork or archival research. But when… Continue reading North of the DMZ (Review)
Review of Roland Bleiker, Divided Korea: Toward a Culture of Reconciliation (University of Minnesota Press, 2005) and Richard Saccone, Living with the Enemy (Hollym, 2006) According to the ideology of South Korean nationalism, all Koreans are one: one people, one blood. Korea can claim thousands of years of common history. The last 60 years… Continue reading Living with the Enemy (Review)
Albert Beveridge was a promising politician in his 30s when he stood up to speak in favor of war and the promotion of democracy to his peers in the U.S. Senate. A historian, Beveridge unabashedly called for the United States to remake the globe. “We will not renounce our part in the mission of our… Continue reading American Foreign Policy Is Broken
Back in September 2002, Maher Arar was passing through JFK airport in New York. He was expecting a simple transit. A Syrian-born Canadian citizen and wireless technology consultant, Arar was traveling home to Ottawa after a vacation with his family in Tunis. The stopover in New York was the best deal he could get with his frequent… Continue reading Can We Pursue Terrorists without Becoming Like Them
Thanks to all of you who contributed last week, we’re halfway to our goal of raising $5,000 to qualify for our matching gift. For those of you who merely thought about giving a year-end, tax-deductible donation, go on and take the plunge. Time is running out–we need to meet our goal by December 19. Don’t stand on the… Continue reading Take the Plunge
The foreign teachers at the Chinese university were frank. Teaching English and computer science was a means to the end. They wanted to save souls. In 1998, I spent a day at a university tucked into the corner of northeast China. The evangelical Christians who built the Yanbian University of Science and Technology (YUST) catered… Continue reading Spreading the Word
A special place is reserved in Dante’s inferno for false prophets and fraudulent advisors. The heads of those who pry into the secrets of the future are twisted around so that they can only look into the past. Those who give lousy advice earn their own personal sheath of fire. It’s not a very nice… Continue reading Eighth Circle of Hell
The all-you-can-eat lunch buffet at the hotel in Pusan had only a couple dozen pieces of the long strips of dark red sushi. I managed to snag one piece before it ran out. My first experience of whale meat was not chewy at all. It tasted like an especially rich piece of raw tuna. Whale… Continue reading Whale of a Meal
Okay, you Hollywood types are busy, so I’ll cut to the pitch. You all know the Left Behind series? Exactly: the bestsellers about the Apocalypse. You haven’t read them? Here’s a quick summary. Just as Russia launches an attack against Israel to take over the Middle East, the Rapture takes place. Israel’s enemies are mysteriously defeated. All… Continue reading Right Behind
Ataka’s party car. Photo by Don Russell You can find anti-Turkish and anti-Roma slogans spray-painted on the walls of Sofia, in Bulgaria, just as you can elsewhere in the Balkans. But in Bulgaria, the slogan has moved up a level to appear on the side of cars. Like its Balkan neighbors, Bulgaria has significant… Continue reading Postcard from Sofia