In the second part of this exclusive web video, Nicholas Burns, Harvard Kennedy School Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Politics and former under secretary of State for Political Affairs (2005 to 2008), outlines steps the Obama administration should take to improve U.S. diplomacy and discusses the diplomatic successes of the outgoing Bush administration.
TRANSCRIPT
What are some of the examples of effective diplomacy of the current administration from which President-elect Obama can learn?
Well I guess I'd say if I had to look at the successes of the Bush Administration's foreign policy, I'd start with the fact that the Bush Administration was able to build good relations with nearly all of the other great powers of the world. And that is not a normal state of affairs if you look at the history of the world over that last several hundred years. But President Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Bob Gates were able to build good, effective working relations with the Chinese government, and of course that relationship has a multitude of problems and divisive issues, but by and large the United States and China have worked fairly well together. Second, the United States and India, of course, have achieved a new strategic partnership. There's been a substantial acceleration in the rate of, in the relations between the two countries and an improvement in those relations. And third, U.S. relations with Brazil have become very positive, as well. So I think in terms of those rising powers in the world – China, India, and Brazil – the administration did well. I also think that the United States is also highly regarded in Africa, for a couple of reasons. First was President Bush's championing of the $30 billion, ten-year HIV/AIDS program, primarily to suffering people in southern Africa and the malaria program. And the fact that we've been able to develop, I think, good working relations with both Nigeria and South Africa, the two dominant countries in the region. I also think after a very difficult first term of President Bush, our relations with the European countries were at a low ebb. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was able to lead the way to rebuild most of those relations in the second term, 2005-2008. So I would rank those as among the positive aspects, the most successful aspects of the Bush Administration's foreign policy. Where President-elect Obama doesn't feel, in my judgement, he doesn't need to recreate the wheel or fundamentally change the policy, but can build on some of the very good work that was done by President Bush and his administration.
One challenge President-elect Obama faces is rebuilding alliances and friendships with countries unhappy with the policies enacted in the last decade. What are some immediate actions the next president can take to start regaining the respect of the world?
I think that it's important that the United States and the American people understand that while the world is not awash in anti-Americanism – we're very well thought of in Africa, we're very well thought of in India and China and parts of Asia – but there is a problem, a major problem in the Muslim and Arab worlds, specifically in two regions: the Middle East and South Asia. You can make a case that the place where America's vital interests are most at stake are now in the Middle East and South Asia. Because in the Middle East we're dealing with, of course, the war in Iraq; the challenge to American power, and to stability, and to peace by Iran; and, of course, the continuing divisions and disaffections between Israelis and Palestinians. In South Asia, we're dealing with an increasingly bitter and increasingly bitter war in Afghanistan; the enormous problems associated with the Pakistani government, from al Qaeda and the Taliban having safe havens on Pakistani territory to the fact that Pakistan is an inherently unstable and rather weak state, at the present time, but strategically situated. So I think that the next administration of President Barack Obama will need to focus on these two parts of the world to ensure that America's vital interests are being met. Part of that, of course, will be trying to convince people that America is on their side, that our agenda incorporates some of the issues that they care most deeply about. And obviously because of what's happened with Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib and the Iraq War and extraordinary renditions, the feelings of many Muslim and Arab people toward the United States are quite bitter and negative. We can turn that around. We have to turn that around. And I think given the unique status of Barack Obama, the kind of campaign he ran, but also the kind of person he is – the fact that he spent time as a young kid in the world's largest Muslim country, Indonesia; the fact that he has family in Kenya; the fact that he campaigned as someone who would rebuild the bridges that America needs to have with the Muslim and Arab worlds – gives him a unique opportunity to put America's best foot forward and to try to reverse some of the very negative trends we've seen develop of the last several years.
This was originally published here: http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/18748/
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Friday, December 19, 2008
Memo to the Next President: Restoring Diplomacy (Part 1 of 2)
In this exclusive web video, Nicholas Burns, Harvard Kennedy School Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Politics and former under secretary of State for Political Affairs (2005 to 2008), outlines steps the Obama administration should take to improve U.S. diplomacy.
TRANSCRIPT
In a recent op-ed in Newsweek (Oct. 25, 2008), you wrote the U.S. must talk to our enemies, like Iran and Venezuela. Yet you also wrote that this is not a sure prescription for success in every crisis. When is talking to our enemies in our best interest and when should President-elect Obama pursue other options?
Well first I think it's important that American recognize that we are still the dominant world power. We play a decisive role in world affairs. We have a major impact in our military, our political, and our economic policy around the world. And because we're a global power, we need to smart about understanding what's going on in the rest of the world. And understanding, even what's going on especially in countries with which we have difficulties, such as North Korea, Iran, and Venezuela. So I think the Hallmark of a strong, self-confident country is that we're willing to sit down and talk to governments with which we might disagree, not out of weakness, not out of kindness, because it's in our national interest to understand them, to understand what motivates them, and to understand what lies behind the policies with which we disagree. We'll choose the time and place, as President-elect Obama has said, as to when we sit down with them and where. We'll choose the opportunity. But to give you some examples, when we began to talk to North Korea, it was then we began to make progress in the Six-Party Talks. When we began to have a bilateral relationship with them, we made the most progress. We had frozen our relations with Libya for quite a number of years. When we opened up to Libya, we were able to convince the Libyans to essentially to dismantle their nuclear apparatus and the illegal activities in which they had been engaged. The problem with Iran policy is that we haven't had for essentially three decades now, since the Ayatollah Khomenei's revolution of 1978, any meaningful and sustained contacts with the Iranian government. You can make the argument that Iran is the biggest problem that we have in the Middle East as a state trying to become a nuclear weapons power, that is funding most of the terrorist groups, and that is essentially a state that has lead to instability in both Iraq and Afghanistan. So I think it makes sense to sit down with them – not at the presidential level, but certainly at a level one or two below that – to get a sense of what's motivating them, to see if there's a bottom line with which we can work. We always have the option of walking away. We always have the option in Iran of sanctioning them. We always have the option of using any of the means at our disposal to achieve a national purpose that we have in mind. But talking to other countries makes sense as a way to understand their motivations and to best represent the interests of our own country.
In your op-ed you also discuss the need for the U.S. to revalidate diplomacy. What steps should President-elect Obama take to do that?
Well I think that it's important to understand that the United States has many strengths in the world. We have a very powerful and high-quality military. We have a very capable intelligence community. And we have our diplomacy. There are three legs to the national security strength of the United States. We have consistently funded and supported, as we should have, the intelligence and military arms of the government since the end of the Cold War. But we have not done so with diplomacy. Diplomacy has been underfunded in terms of the money going to the State Department and certainly to USAID for foreign assistance around the world. We also don't have the capacity in terms of the people and the trained people in the State Department that we need. It's a curious fact that we have just about 6,500 American diplomats worldwide, but that's exceeded by the number of lawyers in the Defense Department and by the number of musicians in the Armed Forces bands of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. Not a good standard if you're trying to become the strongest diplomatic country in the world, which we should want to be. So I do think President-elect Obama has an opportunity in front of him to ask the Congress to significantly expand the number of diplomats in the American foreign service, the number of people working for the U.S. Agency for International Development, to think about further increases in our international humanitarian and economic assistance as a country so that we can project more powerfully the so called smart power or soft power of the United States. So that we can be as strong on the diplomatic side as we are on the military and intelligence side. If you think about our foreign policy and think about the day-to-day activities that we conduct on the part of our government with governments all over the world, the vast majority of the activities, the vast majority of the conversations are diplomatic in nature. And so we need to have a better platform for that. We need to give the people in the State Department the tools with which they need to do their job. And I think given what President-elect Obama said on the campaign trail, hopefully he will undertake this sort of aggressive rebuilding of our diplomatic apparatus in the year ahead.
This was originally published here: http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/18737/
TRANSCRIPT
In a recent op-ed in Newsweek (Oct. 25, 2008), you wrote the U.S. must talk to our enemies, like Iran and Venezuela. Yet you also wrote that this is not a sure prescription for success in every crisis. When is talking to our enemies in our best interest and when should President-elect Obama pursue other options?
Well first I think it's important that American recognize that we are still the dominant world power. We play a decisive role in world affairs. We have a major impact in our military, our political, and our economic policy around the world. And because we're a global power, we need to smart about understanding what's going on in the rest of the world. And understanding, even what's going on especially in countries with which we have difficulties, such as North Korea, Iran, and Venezuela. So I think the Hallmark of a strong, self-confident country is that we're willing to sit down and talk to governments with which we might disagree, not out of weakness, not out of kindness, because it's in our national interest to understand them, to understand what motivates them, and to understand what lies behind the policies with which we disagree. We'll choose the time and place, as President-elect Obama has said, as to when we sit down with them and where. We'll choose the opportunity. But to give you some examples, when we began to talk to North Korea, it was then we began to make progress in the Six-Party Talks. When we began to have a bilateral relationship with them, we made the most progress. We had frozen our relations with Libya for quite a number of years. When we opened up to Libya, we were able to convince the Libyans to essentially to dismantle their nuclear apparatus and the illegal activities in which they had been engaged. The problem with Iran policy is that we haven't had for essentially three decades now, since the Ayatollah Khomenei's revolution of 1978, any meaningful and sustained contacts with the Iranian government. You can make the argument that Iran is the biggest problem that we have in the Middle East as a state trying to become a nuclear weapons power, that is funding most of the terrorist groups, and that is essentially a state that has lead to instability in both Iraq and Afghanistan. So I think it makes sense to sit down with them – not at the presidential level, but certainly at a level one or two below that – to get a sense of what's motivating them, to see if there's a bottom line with which we can work. We always have the option of walking away. We always have the option in Iran of sanctioning them. We always have the option of using any of the means at our disposal to achieve a national purpose that we have in mind. But talking to other countries makes sense as a way to understand their motivations and to best represent the interests of our own country.
In your op-ed you also discuss the need for the U.S. to revalidate diplomacy. What steps should President-elect Obama take to do that?
Well I think that it's important to understand that the United States has many strengths in the world. We have a very powerful and high-quality military. We have a very capable intelligence community. And we have our diplomacy. There are three legs to the national security strength of the United States. We have consistently funded and supported, as we should have, the intelligence and military arms of the government since the end of the Cold War. But we have not done so with diplomacy. Diplomacy has been underfunded in terms of the money going to the State Department and certainly to USAID for foreign assistance around the world. We also don't have the capacity in terms of the people and the trained people in the State Department that we need. It's a curious fact that we have just about 6,500 American diplomats worldwide, but that's exceeded by the number of lawyers in the Defense Department and by the number of musicians in the Armed Forces bands of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. Not a good standard if you're trying to become the strongest diplomatic country in the world, which we should want to be. So I do think President-elect Obama has an opportunity in front of him to ask the Congress to significantly expand the number of diplomats in the American foreign service, the number of people working for the U.S. Agency for International Development, to think about further increases in our international humanitarian and economic assistance as a country so that we can project more powerfully the so called smart power or soft power of the United States. So that we can be as strong on the diplomatic side as we are on the military and intelligence side. If you think about our foreign policy and think about the day-to-day activities that we conduct on the part of our government with governments all over the world, the vast majority of the activities, the vast majority of the conversations are diplomatic in nature. And so we need to have a better platform for that. We need to give the people in the State Department the tools with which they need to do their job. And I think given what President-elect Obama said on the campaign trail, hopefully he will undertake this sort of aggressive rebuilding of our diplomatic apparatus in the year ahead.
This was originally published here: http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/18737/
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Gore: Universities Must Take the Lead in Addressing the Climate Crisis
Former Vice President Al Gore charged universities with the task of bringing the truth of the climate crisis into the global consciousness yesterday at Harvard’s Tercentenary Theatre.
The keynote address – which drew several thousand of Harvard students, faculty, staff and guests despite the cold and threat of rain – followed a daylong private roundtable hosted by Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center and attended by leading climate change and energy experts.
The roundtable, hosted by Belfer Center Director Graham Allison, focused on Gore’s challenge of making all electricity used in the U.S. to be from renewable energy within ten years.
“We can make the transformation,” Gore said. “We can do it sooner than people think. It is possible. We can, with American leadership, galvanize a global commitment to solve the climate crisis. We must do it with this generation. We have everything we need, with the possible exception of political will, but political will is a renewable resource.”
Gore and Harvard President Drew Faust emphasized the role universities have and will continue to play in addressing climate change. “Universities are charged to look beyond the immediate and beyond the local, to take the long view and the broad view. Climate change requires just such an approach,” Faust said.
Gore highlighted the pattern of decisions being made based on flawed perspectives instead of knowledge, citing climate change, but also the economy and Iraq War. He compared the “sub-prime mortgage fiasco” to the greenhouse-gas emissions crisis because both were based on assumptions that led people to believe they were safe.
“We now have a few trillion dollars of sub-prime carbon assets, whose value is based on another assumption that is in the process of collapsing, namely that it is perfectly all right to put 70 million tons of global warming pollution into that thin shell of atmosphere every 24 hours. It’s not okay,” Gore said.
He also cited that the day before the Senate voted to invade Iraq, more than 75 percent of Americans thought Saddam Hussein was responsible for the terrorist attack on Sept. 11, despite the lack of fact to back up that perspective.
“Too many of our decisions in this country are now made on the basis of information supplied not from universities, not from processes governed by the rule of reason, but instead by self-interested institutions, corporations, groups that want to make questions of fact questions of power,” he said. “Our challenge is to find the truth of the climate crisis and use it as a basis of the development of a new consciousness of who we are.”
Gore’s keynote address was the highlight of Harvard’s first Sustainability Celebration, which highlighted the university’s previously announced commitment to reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions by 30 percent from 2006 levels in eight years. The celebration included booths giving out T-shirts that read “GREEN in the new Crimson” and reusable water bottles and serving squash bisque, apple crisp, warm cider, and kettle corn.
This article was originally published here: http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/18626/
The keynote address – which drew several thousand of Harvard students, faculty, staff and guests despite the cold and threat of rain – followed a daylong private roundtable hosted by Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center and attended by leading climate change and energy experts.
The roundtable, hosted by Belfer Center Director Graham Allison, focused on Gore’s challenge of making all electricity used in the U.S. to be from renewable energy within ten years.
“We can make the transformation,” Gore said. “We can do it sooner than people think. It is possible. We can, with American leadership, galvanize a global commitment to solve the climate crisis. We must do it with this generation. We have everything we need, with the possible exception of political will, but political will is a renewable resource.”
Gore and Harvard President Drew Faust emphasized the role universities have and will continue to play in addressing climate change. “Universities are charged to look beyond the immediate and beyond the local, to take the long view and the broad view. Climate change requires just such an approach,” Faust said.
Gore highlighted the pattern of decisions being made based on flawed perspectives instead of knowledge, citing climate change, but also the economy and Iraq War. He compared the “sub-prime mortgage fiasco” to the greenhouse-gas emissions crisis because both were based on assumptions that led people to believe they were safe.
“We now have a few trillion dollars of sub-prime carbon assets, whose value is based on another assumption that is in the process of collapsing, namely that it is perfectly all right to put 70 million tons of global warming pollution into that thin shell of atmosphere every 24 hours. It’s not okay,” Gore said.
He also cited that the day before the Senate voted to invade Iraq, more than 75 percent of Americans thought Saddam Hussein was responsible for the terrorist attack on Sept. 11, despite the lack of fact to back up that perspective.
“Too many of our decisions in this country are now made on the basis of information supplied not from universities, not from processes governed by the rule of reason, but instead by self-interested institutions, corporations, groups that want to make questions of fact questions of power,” he said. “Our challenge is to find the truth of the climate crisis and use it as a basis of the development of a new consciousness of who we are.”
Gore’s keynote address was the highlight of Harvard’s first Sustainability Celebration, which highlighted the university’s previously announced commitment to reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions by 30 percent from 2006 levels in eight years. The celebration included booths giving out T-shirts that read “GREEN in the new Crimson” and reusable water bottles and serving squash bisque, apple crisp, warm cider, and kettle corn.
This article was originally published here: http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/18626/
Monday, October 20, 2008
A nuclear weapon-free world is possible, Nunn says
The U.S. must work with other countries – both those with nuclear capacities and those without – to move toward a nuclear-free world, according to former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA).
Nunn outlined what he believes needs to be done to reduce and ultimately eliminate the threat of nuclear weapons while delivering the inaugural Robert S. McNamara Lecture on War and Peace on Friday (Oct. 17) at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum. The discussion was moderated by Belfer Center Director Graham Allison.
“I believe America would be far more secure if no one had nuclear weapons,” Nunn said. “Right now we can’t see the top of that mountain. It’s very difficult to see. But we can see that we’re heading down the mountain.
“But if we want our children or grandchildren to have any hope of seeing the top of the mountain, and in the meantime to help prevent a catastrophic terrorist attack in the United States, we’ve got to have that kind of world movement,” he said.
Nunn served in the Senate from 1972-97 and as the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee from 1987-95. Among his legislative achievements is the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program, which helps former Soviet states control and protect their nuclear weapons, weapons-usable materials, and delivery systems. Nunn is currently co-chairman and the chief executive officer of the Nuclear Threat Initiative.
To begin moving toward the goal of a nuclear-free world, Nunn told the Forum audience, the U.S. and other Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) signatories must complete the steps outlined in the treaty to address the new threats of nuclear terrorism and the familiar threats posed by nuclear countries using their weapons and non-nuclear countries attaining weapons.
Nuclear-armed countries in particular, Nunn said, have an obligation to reduce their arsenals.
“We and the Russians and other nuclear powers are viewed by the rest of the world as not living up to the Non-Proliferation Treaty,” he said. “We have to march up the mountain together.”
Nunn said the U.S. needs to begin serious and substantive discussions with Russian leaders on a number of critical issues – including missile defense, nuclear warning systems, and nuclear submarines – if the nuclear-free dream is to be realized.
“We’ve had all sorts of windows of opportunity to find ways to work with Russia, and for their reason and our own reasons, we have not done so,” Nunn said.
But while Russia’s actions and perceived intentions may arouse concern for some, Nunn is much more concerned about non-state actors using nuclear weapons.
“I’m much more concerned about a terrorist without a return address that cannot be deterred than I am about deliberate war between nuclear powers,” Nunn said. “You can’t deter a group who is willing to commit suicide. We are in a different era. You have to understand the world has changed.”
This article was originally published here: http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/18606/
Nunn outlined what he believes needs to be done to reduce and ultimately eliminate the threat of nuclear weapons while delivering the inaugural Robert S. McNamara Lecture on War and Peace on Friday (Oct. 17) at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum. The discussion was moderated by Belfer Center Director Graham Allison.
“I believe America would be far more secure if no one had nuclear weapons,” Nunn said. “Right now we can’t see the top of that mountain. It’s very difficult to see. But we can see that we’re heading down the mountain.
“But if we want our children or grandchildren to have any hope of seeing the top of the mountain, and in the meantime to help prevent a catastrophic terrorist attack in the United States, we’ve got to have that kind of world movement,” he said.
Nunn served in the Senate from 1972-97 and as the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee from 1987-95. Among his legislative achievements is the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program, which helps former Soviet states control and protect their nuclear weapons, weapons-usable materials, and delivery systems. Nunn is currently co-chairman and the chief executive officer of the Nuclear Threat Initiative.
To begin moving toward the goal of a nuclear-free world, Nunn told the Forum audience, the U.S. and other Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) signatories must complete the steps outlined in the treaty to address the new threats of nuclear terrorism and the familiar threats posed by nuclear countries using their weapons and non-nuclear countries attaining weapons.
Nuclear-armed countries in particular, Nunn said, have an obligation to reduce their arsenals.
“We and the Russians and other nuclear powers are viewed by the rest of the world as not living up to the Non-Proliferation Treaty,” he said. “We have to march up the mountain together.”
Nunn said the U.S. needs to begin serious and substantive discussions with Russian leaders on a number of critical issues – including missile defense, nuclear warning systems, and nuclear submarines – if the nuclear-free dream is to be realized.
“We’ve had all sorts of windows of opportunity to find ways to work with Russia, and for their reason and our own reasons, we have not done so,” Nunn said.
But while Russia’s actions and perceived intentions may arouse concern for some, Nunn is much more concerned about non-state actors using nuclear weapons.
“I’m much more concerned about a terrorist without a return address that cannot be deterred than I am about deliberate war between nuclear powers,” Nunn said. “You can’t deter a group who is willing to commit suicide. We are in a different era. You have to understand the world has changed.”
This article was originally published here: http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/18606/
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Memo to the Next President: Addressing the Energy Crisis
In this exclusive web video, Kelly Sims Gallagher, director of the Energy Technology Innovation Policy (ETIP) research group, outlines the priorities on which the next president should focus in order to address the energy crisis and climate change.
TRANSCRIPT
Kelly Sims Gallagher is director of the Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. She is an international member of the Task Force on Innovation for the China Council International Cooperation on Environment and Development.
One challenege in the way of an "energy revolution" is the lack of technology. What kinds of technology need to be developed, and how can the next president encourage this?
Well, I think the biggest challenge to the energy system right now is the need to develop low-carbon technologies that are economic in the market place. So, the next president will really need to focus on creating an incentive structure that allows both the private sector and government-funded research to flourish in terms of the development and deployment of low-carbon energy technologies.
Considering the recent discovery that there are reachable shale beds of natural gas in the U.S., what are the pros and cons of tapping this resource?
Natural gas from shale has been uneconomic to produce for many years and the reason why is that it's trapped in sedimentary rock. So it's quite difficult to extract. But recent technology, which permits horizontal drilling, has allowed previously uneconomic resources to be exploited. And this has helped to increase the production of natural gas in the United States for the first time in this century. It's still not clear that the reserves that we have in terms of shale oil can be economically fully exploited. And that really depends on the level of the natural gas price. Gas prices are still relatively high so it's economic to produce the shale gas. But if gas prices were to fall back down, it would be more difficult to economically recover it.
Should the U.S. drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and the off shore? Will this address the current energy crisis in a real way?
Depending on how you define the energy crisis, off-shore oil drilling and drilling in ANWR may help to increase the world supply of oil. The off-shore drilling and drilling in ANWR is not an immediate fix. Any kind of drilling will take quite a long time – the exploration needs to be done; wells need to be drilled; off-shore oil platforms need to be built. So it's a longer-term solution. And in any event, it's not guaranteed that increased off-shore oil production will help reduce gas prices at the pump. Whatever is produced will be sold on the world oil market, and whatever the prevailing world oil price is will be the level at which gas prices remain. So if it helps to add a lot to world supplies of oil, then prices should come down. But if the effect is pretty marginal, then prices may not fall too much.
What part does the international community play in the energy crisis, and in what way should the U.S. engage the global community?
I think, in my opinion, there are two dimensions to the energy crisis. One is the vulnerability and insecurity with large U.S. dependence on foreign oil and gas supplies. And the second, and more difficult challenge, is the global climate change challenge. In both cases high-degree of international cooperation is required to make significant progress to reduce or relieve the crisis. Taking the energy security question, if large consuming countries have a mechanism to cooperate with each other to release stock piles of oil in the event of a crisis or to build stockpiles in times of no crisis, that kind of cooperation really reduces the power that the oil suppliers have over consuming countries. And to take the climate change example, it's a global problem and the biggest emitters are the United States and China. And if those two countries don't cooperate with it's not going to be possible to address the climate change challenge.
How are energy policy and climate change connected?
Climate change is driven by burning of fossil fuels, and that's the main connection with energy. Some fossil fuels are more carbon intensive, and therefore more potent in terms of their global warming potential. Coal is the most carbon intensive of all the fossil fuels. And so to the extent we burn more coal, and we might want to do that from an energy security point of view, we make the climate change problem worse. And to the extent we're able to improve overall energy efficiency, use cleaner fuels, lower carbon fuels, and move, of course, to renewables or nuclear energy, which is carbon free, we're able to make great progress in terms of reducing global greenhouse gas emissions.
This was originally published here: http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/18590/
TRANSCRIPT
Kelly Sims Gallagher is director of the Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. She is an international member of the Task Force on Innovation for the China Council International Cooperation on Environment and Development.
One challenege in the way of an "energy revolution" is the lack of technology. What kinds of technology need to be developed, and how can the next president encourage this?
Well, I think the biggest challenge to the energy system right now is the need to develop low-carbon technologies that are economic in the market place. So, the next president will really need to focus on creating an incentive structure that allows both the private sector and government-funded research to flourish in terms of the development and deployment of low-carbon energy technologies.
Considering the recent discovery that there are reachable shale beds of natural gas in the U.S., what are the pros and cons of tapping this resource?
Natural gas from shale has been uneconomic to produce for many years and the reason why is that it's trapped in sedimentary rock. So it's quite difficult to extract. But recent technology, which permits horizontal drilling, has allowed previously uneconomic resources to be exploited. And this has helped to increase the production of natural gas in the United States for the first time in this century. It's still not clear that the reserves that we have in terms of shale oil can be economically fully exploited. And that really depends on the level of the natural gas price. Gas prices are still relatively high so it's economic to produce the shale gas. But if gas prices were to fall back down, it would be more difficult to economically recover it.
Should the U.S. drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and the off shore? Will this address the current energy crisis in a real way?
Depending on how you define the energy crisis, off-shore oil drilling and drilling in ANWR may help to increase the world supply of oil. The off-shore drilling and drilling in ANWR is not an immediate fix. Any kind of drilling will take quite a long time – the exploration needs to be done; wells need to be drilled; off-shore oil platforms need to be built. So it's a longer-term solution. And in any event, it's not guaranteed that increased off-shore oil production will help reduce gas prices at the pump. Whatever is produced will be sold on the world oil market, and whatever the prevailing world oil price is will be the level at which gas prices remain. So if it helps to add a lot to world supplies of oil, then prices should come down. But if the effect is pretty marginal, then prices may not fall too much.
What part does the international community play in the energy crisis, and in what way should the U.S. engage the global community?
I think, in my opinion, there are two dimensions to the energy crisis. One is the vulnerability and insecurity with large U.S. dependence on foreign oil and gas supplies. And the second, and more difficult challenge, is the global climate change challenge. In both cases high-degree of international cooperation is required to make significant progress to reduce or relieve the crisis. Taking the energy security question, if large consuming countries have a mechanism to cooperate with each other to release stock piles of oil in the event of a crisis or to build stockpiles in times of no crisis, that kind of cooperation really reduces the power that the oil suppliers have over consuming countries. And to take the climate change example, it's a global problem and the biggest emitters are the United States and China. And if those two countries don't cooperate with it's not going to be possible to address the climate change challenge.
How are energy policy and climate change connected?
Climate change is driven by burning of fossil fuels, and that's the main connection with energy. Some fossil fuels are more carbon intensive, and therefore more potent in terms of their global warming potential. Coal is the most carbon intensive of all the fossil fuels. And so to the extent we burn more coal, and we might want to do that from an energy security point of view, we make the climate change problem worse. And to the extent we're able to improve overall energy efficiency, use cleaner fuels, lower carbon fuels, and move, of course, to renewables or nuclear energy, which is carbon free, we're able to make great progress in terms of reducing global greenhouse gas emissions.
This was originally published here: http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/18590/
Economic Realities Must Guide Africa's Constitutional Reform Efforts
African countries need new constitutional orders to cope with modern economic challenges, Calestous Juma said at a recent lecture.
The lecture focused on Kenya, where Juma is from, because of the violence that followed its election in December 2007. While the international media blamed the violence on ethnic tensions, he believes these tensions are enflamed with each election because of the lack of inclusive economic development.
“This is largely because Africa’s governance systems are continuation of the colonial constitutional orders which defined the region as a source of raw materials,” he said
Juma, professor of the practice of international development and director of the Belfer Center’s Science, Technology, and Globalization Project, listed the steps African countries need to take to utilize the basic liberties they have to produce the economic gains and development they need for a stable future.
A major challenge is based in the constitutions and laws left behind for the newly liberated countries. “What was being negotiated as independence was really an exercise in constitutional continuity from the colonial period through independence,” Juma said. “And so you find a clear pattern, all across Africa, of continuing colonial practices.”
While there is enormous pressure on African countries to focus on economic programs, they are unable to because the governmental framework left behind did not integrate the economic role of the colonizer into the new role of president. “The role of the governor was transferred to the president,” Juma said. “The president was focused on ethnic balancing, not economic development.”
This fundamental problem has lead to a growing gap between the constitutional structure and objectives, according to Juma. The main areas to focus on to address these issues are: infrastructure, regional integration, technical and vocational training, and entrepreneurship.
Infrastructure is key “for the reinvention of the continent,” Juma said. China has played a large role in developing infrastructure ― both for travel and communication ― in Africa, which some feel is for its own benefit, but the impact is felt by everyone.
Infrastructure is an important part of economic development, specifically in terms of regional integration. Africa needs to open up its economic space, and sited several organizations already on their way. “Trying to fix the problem on a country-by-country basis is not working. It’s the same colonial model,” Juma said.
One challenge in the way of regional integration is that individual countries are concerned about the prospect of a regional president. But Juma thinks that option should be taken off the table because it is stalling the economic development opportunities that the countries need.
Another major issue linked with violence surrounding elections is the lack of job and education opportunities. Juma said that entrepreneurial opportunities need to be created to create new jobs. “The challenge of the continent is not managing existing businesses, but creating new enterprises,” he said.
One enterprise that needs to be developed is technical and vocational training institutions. Juma said people need access to training so they can get jobs, which will in turn foster economic development and ease tensions among different ethnic groups. Both of these will address the unemployment problem, which also adds to ethnic tensions.
Without addressing all of these issues, Kenya and other African countries will not be able to breakdown the colonialist system left behind and create a lasting political and economic structure, Juma said.
This article was originally published here: http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/18589/
The lecture focused on Kenya, where Juma is from, because of the violence that followed its election in December 2007. While the international media blamed the violence on ethnic tensions, he believes these tensions are enflamed with each election because of the lack of inclusive economic development.
“This is largely because Africa’s governance systems are continuation of the colonial constitutional orders which defined the region as a source of raw materials,” he said
Juma, professor of the practice of international development and director of the Belfer Center’s Science, Technology, and Globalization Project, listed the steps African countries need to take to utilize the basic liberties they have to produce the economic gains and development they need for a stable future.
A major challenge is based in the constitutions and laws left behind for the newly liberated countries. “What was being negotiated as independence was really an exercise in constitutional continuity from the colonial period through independence,” Juma said. “And so you find a clear pattern, all across Africa, of continuing colonial practices.”
While there is enormous pressure on African countries to focus on economic programs, they are unable to because the governmental framework left behind did not integrate the economic role of the colonizer into the new role of president. “The role of the governor was transferred to the president,” Juma said. “The president was focused on ethnic balancing, not economic development.”
This fundamental problem has lead to a growing gap between the constitutional structure and objectives, according to Juma. The main areas to focus on to address these issues are: infrastructure, regional integration, technical and vocational training, and entrepreneurship.
Infrastructure is key “for the reinvention of the continent,” Juma said. China has played a large role in developing infrastructure ― both for travel and communication ― in Africa, which some feel is for its own benefit, but the impact is felt by everyone.
Infrastructure is an important part of economic development, specifically in terms of regional integration. Africa needs to open up its economic space, and sited several organizations already on their way. “Trying to fix the problem on a country-by-country basis is not working. It’s the same colonial model,” Juma said.
One challenge in the way of regional integration is that individual countries are concerned about the prospect of a regional president. But Juma thinks that option should be taken off the table because it is stalling the economic development opportunities that the countries need.
Another major issue linked with violence surrounding elections is the lack of job and education opportunities. Juma said that entrepreneurial opportunities need to be created to create new jobs. “The challenge of the continent is not managing existing businesses, but creating new enterprises,” he said.
One enterprise that needs to be developed is technical and vocational training institutions. Juma said people need access to training so they can get jobs, which will in turn foster economic development and ease tensions among different ethnic groups. Both of these will address the unemployment problem, which also adds to ethnic tensions.
Without addressing all of these issues, Kenya and other African countries will not be able to breakdown the colonialist system left behind and create a lasting political and economic structure, Juma said.
This article was originally published here: http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/18589/
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
New Orleans still needs help
New Orleans could be wiped out tomorrow if another storm hit it, according to former Times-Picayune metro editor Jed Horne.
“The truth about Gustav is that it could have been a worse disaster than Katrina,” he said. “We are terribly vulnerable, still.”
Horne spoke at lecture hosted by the Belfer Center’s Broadmoor Project for Community Engagement in New Orleans about “Governance vs. Laissez-Faire in Rebuilding New Orleans” last week.
He said the levees must be rebuilt and brought past their current substandard condition if the city is to be truly protected from future storms.
The levees are currently designed to withstand a 100-year storm, which Horne said is only a category three storm. The term 100-year storm means statistically there is a one percent chance a storm of this strength will happen during any given year; it does not, however, mean it cannot happen two or more years in a row. Horne calls this standard a failure when compared with the Dutch levees that are built to withstand a 10,000-year storm. “Grown up countries take this sort of thing seriously,” he said, listing the British and Japanese in addition to the Dutch.
Horne is not surprised the federal government pays such little attention to the levees or New Orleans, despite the importance of the Ohio-Mississippi River mouth and the cultural significance of the city, since it took them a week to get enough buses to the city to evacuate everyone.
The government’s laissez-faire approach is seen as shrewd policy by neoconservatives who tout the healing powers of the corporate sector, but Horne said New Orleans has yet to see the positive impact of investments on the city.
“Shock capitalism, disaster capitalism – we ain’t got capitalism in New Orleans,” Horne said. “But here we are without capital infusion, without corporate support attempting to rebuild a city.”
As the city continues to be rebuilt, it is experiencing gentrification, as seen by the Trump Tower, and Disneyfication, which Horne said will leave a Williamsburg-type town in place of a real city. But New Orleans residents are less worried about either of the Donalds –Trump or Duck – than another D-word: Detroit. New Orleans is seeing “tiny, little posts of revival in some of the hardest hit areas surrounded by seas of abandonment, ruin, plagued by crime,” he said.
But New Orleans has success stories coming from within the community through grassroots activism; Horne compared the action and feeling in the city to the experimentation and revival that happened in Prague after the Soviet pullout in 1989.
Horne said LaToya Cantrell, President of the Broadmoor Improvement Association – a partner of the Belfer Center’s Broadmoor Project, and other local activists “have been paradigms of a new way of community organizing and a new hope for the city.”
The Times-Picayune, including individual work by Horne, won two Pulitzer Prizes for its coverage of Hurricane Katrina. He said that during the storm and its immediate aftermath, the newspaper, which had to move online because of no means to print or distribute, became a type of community bulletin for residents. Horne also said the newspaper played a large role in “truth spotting” bigotry in the large, national newspapers and networks coverage.
This article was originally published here: http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/18551/
“The truth about Gustav is that it could have been a worse disaster than Katrina,” he said. “We are terribly vulnerable, still.”
Horne spoke at lecture hosted by the Belfer Center’s Broadmoor Project for Community Engagement in New Orleans about “Governance vs. Laissez-Faire in Rebuilding New Orleans” last week.
He said the levees must be rebuilt and brought past their current substandard condition if the city is to be truly protected from future storms.
The levees are currently designed to withstand a 100-year storm, which Horne said is only a category three storm. The term 100-year storm means statistically there is a one percent chance a storm of this strength will happen during any given year; it does not, however, mean it cannot happen two or more years in a row. Horne calls this standard a failure when compared with the Dutch levees that are built to withstand a 10,000-year storm. “Grown up countries take this sort of thing seriously,” he said, listing the British and Japanese in addition to the Dutch.
Horne is not surprised the federal government pays such little attention to the levees or New Orleans, despite the importance of the Ohio-Mississippi River mouth and the cultural significance of the city, since it took them a week to get enough buses to the city to evacuate everyone.
The government’s laissez-faire approach is seen as shrewd policy by neoconservatives who tout the healing powers of the corporate sector, but Horne said New Orleans has yet to see the positive impact of investments on the city.
“Shock capitalism, disaster capitalism – we ain’t got capitalism in New Orleans,” Horne said. “But here we are without capital infusion, without corporate support attempting to rebuild a city.”
As the city continues to be rebuilt, it is experiencing gentrification, as seen by the Trump Tower, and Disneyfication, which Horne said will leave a Williamsburg-type town in place of a real city. But New Orleans residents are less worried about either of the Donalds –Trump or Duck – than another D-word: Detroit. New Orleans is seeing “tiny, little posts of revival in some of the hardest hit areas surrounded by seas of abandonment, ruin, plagued by crime,” he said.
But New Orleans has success stories coming from within the community through grassroots activism; Horne compared the action and feeling in the city to the experimentation and revival that happened in Prague after the Soviet pullout in 1989.
Horne said LaToya Cantrell, President of the Broadmoor Improvement Association – a partner of the Belfer Center’s Broadmoor Project, and other local activists “have been paradigms of a new way of community organizing and a new hope for the city.”
The Times-Picayune, including individual work by Horne, won two Pulitzer Prizes for its coverage of Hurricane Katrina. He said that during the storm and its immediate aftermath, the newspaper, which had to move online because of no means to print or distribute, became a type of community bulletin for residents. Horne also said the newspaper played a large role in “truth spotting” bigotry in the large, national newspapers and networks coverage.
This article was originally published here: http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/18551/
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Hassan Abbas, a research fellow at the Belfer Center's Project on Managing the Atom, offers commentary on the resignation of Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf.
Abbas is a former Pakistani government official who served in the administrations of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto (1995-1996) and President Pervez Musharraf (1999-2000). He is author of "Pakistan's Drift into Extremism: Allah, the Army, and America's War."
TRANSCRIPT
Hassan Abbas, a research fellow at the Belfer Center's Project on Managing the Atom, is a former Pakistani government official who served in the administrations of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto (1995-1996) and President Pervez Musharraf (1999-2000). He is author of Pakistan's Drift into Extremism: Allah, the Army, and America's War.
What does Pervez Musharraf;s resignation mean and what steps led to his decision?
I think this latest development of Musharraf's resignation, in fact, means victory for democracy in Pakistan. The background is that in 2007, March 2007, Musharraf decided to get rid of the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, and that led to a lawyers' movement. The judge was ultimately restored by the Supreme Court, but there was an overall feeling in the country that Musharraf, after eight or nine years of governance, was trying to sideline all the other institutions of the state, and there was a major mobilization of civil society, lawyers' movement, educated people, and political parties in the country. This led to an overall feeling or overall environment in the country in which the people stood against a military dictator. And Musharraf continued to commit blunders in terms of taking autocratic dictatorial decisions. This time around — this was the fourth Pakistani military dictator — but on this occasion the people rose and the political forces got their act together. And in the February 18 elections in Pakistan this year, there was a vote against Musharraf. All those political forces, who were against Musharraf, got a major vote back. And the political parties, which were supporting Musharraf, were ousted, basically. So these were the events: getting rid of judiciary; Benazir Bhutto's assassination also played a major role because people believed that Musharraf was responsible for providing security to Benazir Bhutto and when he failed, he miserably failed in that endeavor, that also led to a downfall in his support base. So these were the major events that led to his resignation.
How will Musharraf's resignation impact Pakistan's political stability?
I think contrary to some of the suspense in the media, international media, this will actually lead to stability in Pakistan. Because at this moment, Musharraf was standing on one side and all the mainstream, progressive political forces were standing on the other side of the divide. So this should bring more stability because the political forces, which won the elections on February 18, 2008, they are now at the helm of affairs. They are the ones who have to strategize and have to come up with an effective counterterrorism strategy. They are the ones who will be responsible to the ordinary people — to their aspirations, demands, dreams of the Pakistanis — and they are the real representative forces. So this should take Pakistan toward stability. I must add it will not be immediate. It will not be very quick. These forces will take time to develop consensus. They will take some time to develop strategies and policies for the benefit of the people. And in the short term, we may see some problems. But in the long run, I think this will bring more stability to Pakistan. And in any case, Musharraf had lost support.... The polls indicate that Musharraf's support base was hardly in double digits. So Musharraf was, by any means, no option for Pakistan, or for United States.
What kind of repercussions will this have for the region?
I think... we must give credit to Musharraf that he had started a peace process with India since 2004, at the least. Pakistan also, Pakistan's relations with other neighbors had improved, except in the case of Afghanistan, which is a major bone of contention — the Pakistani tribal areas where insurgents, militants, or terrorists are now in a strong position. Musharraf's departure will also bring Pakistan to a situation where democratic forces would like to engage the other political governments. Indian democracy should feel more comfortable with the Pakistani democracy. In case of political leadership, Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz al-Sharif — the major two political forces, two major political individuals, who are at the helm of affairs in Pakistan — they have shown some interest in improving relations with Afghanistan, also. So in these two major cases, the indicators are that the political leaders will reach out to Indians and to Afghans to develop some kind of consensus or a better arrangement to fight the war on terror and to improve bilateral relations.
How will Musharraf's resignation impact the U.S.'s relationship with Pakistan, specifically in terms of the war on terror?
I think United States had a good relationship with Musharraf all these years. To begin with, after the tragedy of 9/11, Musharraf had taken a U-turn of sorts — stop of support for Taliban, stopping the support of militant groups in Indian-controlled Kashmir — but in the second phase of Musharraf, from 2004-2008, Musharraf's relationship with United States had seen many ups and downs. It has something to do with loss of support for Musharraf within the country. I mean, the United States engaging with a military ruler who has little support within the country was a faulty policy. The United States had little options because the United States had to deal with the leader who is in control in Pakistan. But now, I see very clearly, that the United States had developed a partnership with democratic forces. In fact, U.S. did push Pakistan to hold free and fair elections in February 2008. United States had been involved in some arrangement with Musharraf and late Benazir Bhutto so that she could go back to Pakistan and participate in elections; unfortunately, she lost her life before that, but her political party did very well and is now in a leading role in the country. So U.S. has opted to develop relationships with democratic forces in the country. And that arrangement or relationship can be built upon in the months to come. So, Musharraf's departure should not be seen as something that will necessarily create instability or which will necessarily create any problems with Pakistan's relationship with United States. Very recently, a bill introduced in the United States Congress, introduced by Senator Biden and Lugar, calls for support: non-military aid to Pakistan. They are doubling, or perhaps tripling, the aid that is given to Pakistan. That is a good omen. That will be seen very positively in Pakistan. And in Pakistan there is a view that wherever there is a military ruler, United States supports that ruler. I think this support for democratic forces, this aid for development works in the country, will dispel this impression and be seen as support for democracy in Pakistan.
This video was originally published here: http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/18492/
Abbas is a former Pakistani government official who served in the administrations of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto (1995-1996) and President Pervez Musharraf (1999-2000). He is author of "Pakistan's Drift into Extremism: Allah, the Army, and America's War."
TRANSCRIPT
Hassan Abbas, a research fellow at the Belfer Center's Project on Managing the Atom, is a former Pakistani government official who served in the administrations of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto (1995-1996) and President Pervez Musharraf (1999-2000). He is author of Pakistan's Drift into Extremism: Allah, the Army, and America's War.
What does Pervez Musharraf;s resignation mean and what steps led to his decision?
I think this latest development of Musharraf's resignation, in fact, means victory for democracy in Pakistan. The background is that in 2007, March 2007, Musharraf decided to get rid of the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, and that led to a lawyers' movement. The judge was ultimately restored by the Supreme Court, but there was an overall feeling in the country that Musharraf, after eight or nine years of governance, was trying to sideline all the other institutions of the state, and there was a major mobilization of civil society, lawyers' movement, educated people, and political parties in the country. This led to an overall feeling or overall environment in the country in which the people stood against a military dictator. And Musharraf continued to commit blunders in terms of taking autocratic dictatorial decisions. This time around — this was the fourth Pakistani military dictator — but on this occasion the people rose and the political forces got their act together. And in the February 18 elections in Pakistan this year, there was a vote against Musharraf. All those political forces, who were against Musharraf, got a major vote back. And the political parties, which were supporting Musharraf, were ousted, basically. So these were the events: getting rid of judiciary; Benazir Bhutto's assassination also played a major role because people believed that Musharraf was responsible for providing security to Benazir Bhutto and when he failed, he miserably failed in that endeavor, that also led to a downfall in his support base. So these were the major events that led to his resignation.
How will Musharraf's resignation impact Pakistan's political stability?
I think contrary to some of the suspense in the media, international media, this will actually lead to stability in Pakistan. Because at this moment, Musharraf was standing on one side and all the mainstream, progressive political forces were standing on the other side of the divide. So this should bring more stability because the political forces, which won the elections on February 18, 2008, they are now at the helm of affairs. They are the ones who have to strategize and have to come up with an effective counterterrorism strategy. They are the ones who will be responsible to the ordinary people — to their aspirations, demands, dreams of the Pakistanis — and they are the real representative forces. So this should take Pakistan toward stability. I must add it will not be immediate. It will not be very quick. These forces will take time to develop consensus. They will take some time to develop strategies and policies for the benefit of the people. And in the short term, we may see some problems. But in the long run, I think this will bring more stability to Pakistan. And in any case, Musharraf had lost support.... The polls indicate that Musharraf's support base was hardly in double digits. So Musharraf was, by any means, no option for Pakistan, or for United States.
What kind of repercussions will this have for the region?
I think... we must give credit to Musharraf that he had started a peace process with India since 2004, at the least. Pakistan also, Pakistan's relations with other neighbors had improved, except in the case of Afghanistan, which is a major bone of contention — the Pakistani tribal areas where insurgents, militants, or terrorists are now in a strong position. Musharraf's departure will also bring Pakistan to a situation where democratic forces would like to engage the other political governments. Indian democracy should feel more comfortable with the Pakistani democracy. In case of political leadership, Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz al-Sharif — the major two political forces, two major political individuals, who are at the helm of affairs in Pakistan — they have shown some interest in improving relations with Afghanistan, also. So in these two major cases, the indicators are that the political leaders will reach out to Indians and to Afghans to develop some kind of consensus or a better arrangement to fight the war on terror and to improve bilateral relations.
How will Musharraf's resignation impact the U.S.'s relationship with Pakistan, specifically in terms of the war on terror?
I think United States had a good relationship with Musharraf all these years. To begin with, after the tragedy of 9/11, Musharraf had taken a U-turn of sorts — stop of support for Taliban, stopping the support of militant groups in Indian-controlled Kashmir — but in the second phase of Musharraf, from 2004-2008, Musharraf's relationship with United States had seen many ups and downs. It has something to do with loss of support for Musharraf within the country. I mean, the United States engaging with a military ruler who has little support within the country was a faulty policy. The United States had little options because the United States had to deal with the leader who is in control in Pakistan. But now, I see very clearly, that the United States had developed a partnership with democratic forces. In fact, U.S. did push Pakistan to hold free and fair elections in February 2008. United States had been involved in some arrangement with Musharraf and late Benazir Bhutto so that she could go back to Pakistan and participate in elections; unfortunately, she lost her life before that, but her political party did very well and is now in a leading role in the country. So U.S. has opted to develop relationships with democratic forces in the country. And that arrangement or relationship can be built upon in the months to come. So, Musharraf's departure should not be seen as something that will necessarily create instability or which will necessarily create any problems with Pakistan's relationship with United States. Very recently, a bill introduced in the United States Congress, introduced by Senator Biden and Lugar, calls for support: non-military aid to Pakistan. They are doubling, or perhaps tripling, the aid that is given to Pakistan. That is a good omen. That will be seen very positively in Pakistan. And in Pakistan there is a view that wherever there is a military ruler, United States supports that ruler. I think this support for democratic forces, this aid for development works in the country, will dispel this impression and be seen as support for democracy in Pakistan.
This video was originally published here: http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/18492/
Friday, August 15, 2008
Memo to the Next President: Intelligence & Counterterrorism
In this exclusive web video, Eric Rosenbach, Belfer Center Executive Director for Research and former professional staff member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, outlines the priorities on which the next president should focus in order to improve U.S. intelligence capabilities.
TRANSCRIPT
Eric Rosenbach, executive director for research at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center and former professional staff member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, recently wrote a book chapter, “The Incisive Fight: Recommendations for Improving Counterterrorism Intelligence,” in which he outlines five priorities on which the next president should focus in order to improve U.S. intelligence capabilities.
You note that the next president should think carefully before attempting to reorganize the intelligence community again. Why?
The reason the next president needs to think carefully before he launches into a new reorganization of the intelligence community is that after the Intelligence Reform Act was passed in 2004 a lot of boxes and wire chart diagrams were moved around to try and make the intelligence community perform better. However, when you do that, a lot of chaos results and often people can’t focus on their jobs. And so the next president needs to focus more on developing good strong leaders in the intelligence community rather than focusing on the wire and block diagrams and how it’s organized.
What has stopped the National Counterterrorism Center from reaching its full potential and what should the next president do to ensure that it does?
The National Counterterrorism Center was created in the intelligence reform legislation in 2004 and it is a good idea. The idea behind it is that it’s the nexis of all the intelligence agencies who can coordinate and collaborate together in one central location to share information and conduct intelligence analysis in a joint way. However, there have been a couple things that have held it from reaching its full potential. The first is that it’s gotten a little bit too bogged down in tactical level tracking of terrorists and needs to think big strategic picture. So the National Counterterrorism Center, in one specific part called the Strategic Operational Planning section, needs to provide the strategic policy planning type information that the White House would need. Also, the NCTC needs to continue to work on sharing information, not only at the national level, but push it down to state and local governments. And also the National Counterterrorism Center needs to work very closely with the CIA to help them fully develop targets and big picture analysis of where the next terrorist threat may come from.
Voters seem more concerned with the energy and economic crises than intelligence reform. Why should voters care about this issue and what questions should they be asking the candidates about their plans for reform?
It’s a very good question and you have to remember that intelligence isn’t just focused on counterterrorism or isn’t just focused on preventing nuclear terrorism. It’s not purely a national security field. So, for example, you could see how the intelligence community could play an important role in trying to provide the next president with information about a forth coming energy crisis or about oil prices. For example, the national intelligence community recently conducted a study on the impact of climate change on national security. That was done by the intelligence community. That’s a way the intelligence community can work on the more pressing problems that are at the forefront of Americans’ minds that may not be terrorism.
Despite criticism of the CIA's relationships with foreign intelligence services, you encourage the next president to foster more of these relationships. Why?
Just like the when you’re working in the military or when you’re a diplomat, it’s very important for intelligence operatives and officers to work with allies who they have. Some of the allies are those that you would expect, that have always been close, traditional allies. And over the past several years we have new allies in the war on terror that help us get access to places that would otherwise be extremely difficult. This is important, but the intelligence community needs to enter into these types of relationships with a little bit of caution. One example is to look at the Pakistani ISI, who is helpful to the United States, but also may present certain hazards if they are, or certain elements of them are, aligning with the Taliban or with Al Qaeda.
How would you assess the capabilities of the intelligence community today, as compared with prior to the intelligence reform legislation that passed in 2004?
It’s pretty difficult nowadays to hear about intelligence without hearing about a failure or something that has gone wrong or some type of problem. But the reality is if you look at the intelligence community in a very objective way and you compare it to where it was at 9/11 or before the war in Iraq, that it’s progressed quite far and that the capabilities are actually quite powerful now. We can actually track down people who are dangerous to the United States. We conduct good analysis. If we look at the story of the Iran NIE, although it was very sensational in its top headline, the United States intelligence community was able to collect a lot of sources on a very hard topic in Iran and the trade craft that was used to produce the Iran NIE was a lot stronger than the example of the Iraq NIE.
This was originally published here: http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/18487/
TRANSCRIPT
Eric Rosenbach, executive director for research at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center and former professional staff member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, recently wrote a book chapter, “The Incisive Fight: Recommendations for Improving Counterterrorism Intelligence,” in which he outlines five priorities on which the next president should focus in order to improve U.S. intelligence capabilities.
You note that the next president should think carefully before attempting to reorganize the intelligence community again. Why?
The reason the next president needs to think carefully before he launches into a new reorganization of the intelligence community is that after the Intelligence Reform Act was passed in 2004 a lot of boxes and wire chart diagrams were moved around to try and make the intelligence community perform better. However, when you do that, a lot of chaos results and often people can’t focus on their jobs. And so the next president needs to focus more on developing good strong leaders in the intelligence community rather than focusing on the wire and block diagrams and how it’s organized.
What has stopped the National Counterterrorism Center from reaching its full potential and what should the next president do to ensure that it does?
The National Counterterrorism Center was created in the intelligence reform legislation in 2004 and it is a good idea. The idea behind it is that it’s the nexis of all the intelligence agencies who can coordinate and collaborate together in one central location to share information and conduct intelligence analysis in a joint way. However, there have been a couple things that have held it from reaching its full potential. The first is that it’s gotten a little bit too bogged down in tactical level tracking of terrorists and needs to think big strategic picture. So the National Counterterrorism Center, in one specific part called the Strategic Operational Planning section, needs to provide the strategic policy planning type information that the White House would need. Also, the NCTC needs to continue to work on sharing information, not only at the national level, but push it down to state and local governments. And also the National Counterterrorism Center needs to work very closely with the CIA to help them fully develop targets and big picture analysis of where the next terrorist threat may come from.
Voters seem more concerned with the energy and economic crises than intelligence reform. Why should voters care about this issue and what questions should they be asking the candidates about their plans for reform?
It’s a very good question and you have to remember that intelligence isn’t just focused on counterterrorism or isn’t just focused on preventing nuclear terrorism. It’s not purely a national security field. So, for example, you could see how the intelligence community could play an important role in trying to provide the next president with information about a forth coming energy crisis or about oil prices. For example, the national intelligence community recently conducted a study on the impact of climate change on national security. That was done by the intelligence community. That’s a way the intelligence community can work on the more pressing problems that are at the forefront of Americans’ minds that may not be terrorism.
Despite criticism of the CIA's relationships with foreign intelligence services, you encourage the next president to foster more of these relationships. Why?
Just like the when you’re working in the military or when you’re a diplomat, it’s very important for intelligence operatives and officers to work with allies who they have. Some of the allies are those that you would expect, that have always been close, traditional allies. And over the past several years we have new allies in the war on terror that help us get access to places that would otherwise be extremely difficult. This is important, but the intelligence community needs to enter into these types of relationships with a little bit of caution. One example is to look at the Pakistani ISI, who is helpful to the United States, but also may present certain hazards if they are, or certain elements of them are, aligning with the Taliban or with Al Qaeda.
How would you assess the capabilities of the intelligence community today, as compared with prior to the intelligence reform legislation that passed in 2004?
It’s pretty difficult nowadays to hear about intelligence without hearing about a failure or something that has gone wrong or some type of problem. But the reality is if you look at the intelligence community in a very objective way and you compare it to where it was at 9/11 or before the war in Iraq, that it’s progressed quite far and that the capabilities are actually quite powerful now. We can actually track down people who are dangerous to the United States. We conduct good analysis. If we look at the story of the Iran NIE, although it was very sensational in its top headline, the United States intelligence community was able to collect a lot of sources on a very hard topic in Iran and the trade craft that was used to produce the Iran NIE was a lot stronger than the example of the Iraq NIE.
This was originally published here: http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/18487/
Friday, July 25, 2008
Pakistan needs strong judiciary for stability
The United States should change its tactics in Pakistan to win the battle against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, Pakistan’s Supreme Court Bar president, Aitzaz Ahsan, said recently.
Rather than looking at Pakistan through the “war on terror” lens, Ahsan suggested that the United States focus on winning over the local population. “If the local population looks at you as a tyrant, you have given up your most effective weapons,” he said.
Ahsan is a leader of Pakistan’s lawyers’ movement, which began in response to President Pervez Musharraf’s suspension of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry from his position on March 9, 2007. Despite Parliament unanimously reinstating Chaudhry in July 2007, Musharraf continued attacks against the judiciary by arresting Chaudry again and by removing and arresting 59 judges and thousands of lawyers between November 2007 and February 2008. Many of these cases have not yet been resolved, despite the power change in Pakistan’s parliament.
Ahsan discussed what is needed to fix the country’s dire judicial situation earlier this month at a seminar hosted by the Project on Managing the Atom and the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
Pakistan must have a fearless, independent judiciary in order to be a stable and sound democracy, according to Ahsan.
“The judiciary must begin to be reconstructed by the reinstatement of the independent chief justice and judges,” Ahsan said. “They have been prevented from performing their functions and they must be facilitated in returning to their posts and begin to perform their function and to impart justice,” he said.
This creates a problem for Pakistan, but also the United States, because it makes it harder to have an invested local population. He said the United States could actually aid their cause by coming out in support of an independent judiciary.
Ahsan said that the local population needs to be “equipped with enforceable rights, which means a justice system it has confidence in.” He explained that without a justice system the local population believed in, those rights could not enforced and therefore, the population will not be invested in the success of the system.
If “you deny a people an independent justice system, you actually contribute the people to the adversaries who promises a rough kind of justice,” he said.
“At the same time, you must remember that if you arrest 60 of the independent judges and there is no recourse or reinstatement,” Ahsan said, “which judge in Pakistan will be independent if he has the horrible example that Pervez Musharaff has made of the chief justice and his children in front of him? Which judge will ever be independent?”
Ahsan said that the lawyers’ movement was the voice of opposition against Musharraf’s actions because the opposition political leaders were in exile. “It was the lawyers who had taken up the battle cry against Pervez Musharaff when there was a barren and desolate political landscape,” he said.
Yet even after Pakistan’s exiled leaders returned and elections were held, which “sacked” Musharraf, the 60 senior and independent judges, who were arrested and removed from their posts, have not been reinstated.
“The lawyers’ movement, itself, waited upon the leadership and the new parliament to reinstate the judges,” Ahsan said. The leaders of the two major parties which make up the coalition signed the Bhurban accord, which promised the judges’ reinstatement by April 30, 2008. “However, the thirtieth of April passed. The judges were not reinstated. A new deadline was assumed and agreed upon. The judges are still not reinstated.”
The Project on Managing the Atom is housed within the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
This article was originally published here: http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/18457/
Rather than looking at Pakistan through the “war on terror” lens, Ahsan suggested that the United States focus on winning over the local population. “If the local population looks at you as a tyrant, you have given up your most effective weapons,” he said.
Ahsan is a leader of Pakistan’s lawyers’ movement, which began in response to President Pervez Musharraf’s suspension of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry from his position on March 9, 2007. Despite Parliament unanimously reinstating Chaudhry in July 2007, Musharraf continued attacks against the judiciary by arresting Chaudry again and by removing and arresting 59 judges and thousands of lawyers between November 2007 and February 2008. Many of these cases have not yet been resolved, despite the power change in Pakistan’s parliament.
Ahsan discussed what is needed to fix the country’s dire judicial situation earlier this month at a seminar hosted by the Project on Managing the Atom and the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
Pakistan must have a fearless, independent judiciary in order to be a stable and sound democracy, according to Ahsan.
“The judiciary must begin to be reconstructed by the reinstatement of the independent chief justice and judges,” Ahsan said. “They have been prevented from performing their functions and they must be facilitated in returning to their posts and begin to perform their function and to impart justice,” he said.
This creates a problem for Pakistan, but also the United States, because it makes it harder to have an invested local population. He said the United States could actually aid their cause by coming out in support of an independent judiciary.
Ahsan said that the local population needs to be “equipped with enforceable rights, which means a justice system it has confidence in.” He explained that without a justice system the local population believed in, those rights could not enforced and therefore, the population will not be invested in the success of the system.
If “you deny a people an independent justice system, you actually contribute the people to the adversaries who promises a rough kind of justice,” he said.
“At the same time, you must remember that if you arrest 60 of the independent judges and there is no recourse or reinstatement,” Ahsan said, “which judge in Pakistan will be independent if he has the horrible example that Pervez Musharaff has made of the chief justice and his children in front of him? Which judge will ever be independent?”
Ahsan said that the lawyers’ movement was the voice of opposition against Musharraf’s actions because the opposition political leaders were in exile. “It was the lawyers who had taken up the battle cry against Pervez Musharaff when there was a barren and desolate political landscape,” he said.
Yet even after Pakistan’s exiled leaders returned and elections were held, which “sacked” Musharraf, the 60 senior and independent judges, who were arrested and removed from their posts, have not been reinstated.
“The lawyers’ movement, itself, waited upon the leadership and the new parliament to reinstate the judges,” Ahsan said. The leaders of the two major parties which make up the coalition signed the Bhurban accord, which promised the judges’ reinstatement by April 30, 2008. “However, the thirtieth of April passed. The judges were not reinstated. A new deadline was assumed and agreed upon. The judges are still not reinstated.”
The Project on Managing the Atom is housed within the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
This article was originally published here: http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/18457/
Sunday, June 1, 2008
A Housing Tour in South Africa
At the entrance to the squatter camp sits a bright green chemical toilet, accented with a gray top and door. A narrow lane winds past it to a collapsing building where three young men lean against two pay phone booths with no phones. The door and windows are gone, and the tin roof protects only half the interior. The path leads into the heart of a cluster of improvised shelters–called an “informal settlement” in South Africa–where poverty confronts a visitor at every turn. From one shack, a young boy around three years old wanders into the tiny dirt yard amidst a few freshly sprouting weeds. He walks up to the bent chain-link fence and grabs hold, just inches from a twist of barbed wire. He wears no shoes, despite the fact that it is winter.
During the past few days, plunging temperatures have shattered fifty-four records across the country, according to the Mail & Guardian, South Africa’s main weekly newspaper. More than 15 people have died. In nearby Johannesburg, South Africa’s largest city, expecting temperatures to drop to freezing. The boy stands and stares as 11 students from Simmons College snap photographs of him while they shiver under their jackets, sweaters, hats, and socks. The dirt path, sprinkled with shards of glass and cigarette butts, winds past improvised wood and metal shelters–none with an internal source of heat–deep in the heart of Soweto (South West Township), which was created during the 1890s gold rush to house poorly paid black laborers and is now a magnet for impoverished rural migrants. Yet less than a mile away in Diepkloof, known as the Beverly Hills of Soweto, there are gated mansions owned by black families who have risen into the middle and upper classes.
Stark Housing Disparities
Despite the new Constitution’s guarantee of access to housing for all, the stark class disparities in the townships that ring all the country’s largest cities reveal the uneven process of remedying the inequalities institutionalized under apartheid, as a small number have benefited from “black empowerment” programs while the vast majority are still waiting their turn. When the African National Congress (ANC) came to power in South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994, more than 7 million people—almost all of them black—lacked adequate housing, according to the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC), itself a product of the new constitution. The ANC pledged to change this.
South Africa’s Department of Housing now claims on its Web site that it has built almost 2.4 million houses in the past twelve years. “Our annual production has grown from 252,000 (which in itself was a record we were proud of), to 272,000 (and still counting), for the past year,” says Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu. “We need to tell this good news, it portends a good future for millions still trapped in poverty, and it attests to the fact that the inhospitable firmament is clearing, and there will be better days.”
But while most South Africans say there has been progress under the ANC government, some are growing impatient with what they see as the slow pace of housing delivery, and a growing number worry that the promise of universal access to housing will not be met. “I’m too much of a realist to think that it’s possible,” says Kim Dennett, a white South African tour guide. “People have been waiting for five years on a waiting list for housing. People are made promises of being next on the list, and it’s broken time and time again.”
“I know a lot has been done,” she adds, “but it’s a drop in the ocean of what is needed.” Dennett also criticizes the quality of government-built housing, calling it “rubbish.” Meanwhile, new community organizations are protesting the government’s slow progress and pressuring it not only to fulfill the promise of adequate housing but to provide everyone with affordable basic services like electrification and sanitation. The fact that the rickety shacks in Soweto’s informal settlements lack such services, while a few blocks away Winnie Mandela’s three-story home sits behind a tall brick wall guarded by high-tech surveillance cameras, is not lost on these activists.
“South Africa actually is the most unequal society in the world,” says Trevor Ngwane, a leader of the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee, which is one of more than a dozen new protest groups that have banded together in a coalition called the Anti-Privatization Forum. “There’s more inequality now than under apartheid,” he says, arguing that apartheid is being de-racialized but not dismantled. “By and large, people are growing poorer, and most resources are being monopolized by fewer and fewer people.”
Apartheid’s Economic Exploitation
Part of the problem, according to ANC critics, is that apartheid was not just a political system that favored some and discriminated against others–one that could be fixed by taking down the “whites-only” signs and giving everyone the chance to vote. It was also an intricate system of economic exploitation that penetrated all levels of South African society and created self-perpetuating extremes of wealth and poverty. Communities like Soweto were used as dumping grounds to relocate black, “colored,” and Asian South Africans driven out of neighborhoods reserved for whites under the Group Areas Act of 1950. This was part of the National Party’s policy of complete racial separation–the essence of apartheid–after it came to power in 1948. Each of the four racially defined groups was given its own designated place to live. Blacks were further classified according to ethnic origin and assigned citizenship in remote tribal “homelands,” which reduced them to the status of temporary migrants while living or working in the cities. But this was not all.
Blacks were shunted into the most difficult and dangerous jobs, from construction to gold-mining, paid bare subsistence wages and blocked from organizing themselves, even as the best jobs were officially “reserved” for whites. Much the same was true for education, which was designed to prepare each group for its station in this draconian social experiment. The continuing impact of these policies and the economic gaps they entrenched is evident on the walk through the Soweto settlement. Along the dirt path, cushioned by overgrown grass and brush, the Simmons students come to a bridge over a small stream. To one side are red shirts, blue jeans, dingy white underwear, and other items hung out to dry in the cold, fall air. More wet clothes are rolled in a ball to the side, awaiting space on the line.
The tour guide, a Sowetan himself, calls this an example of the relationships among the different classes in Soweto: lower class families wash the clothes of the middle and upper classes to make money. Each group depends upon the other. What he does not say is that this was also true of the symbiotic relationship between whites and blacks throughout apartheid. Now, as then, the contrasts in the living standards produced by this skewed relationship are dramatic.
From the bridge, visitors gazing in one direction look back at a sea of tumbledown shacks, surrounded by overgrown grass, one with the clothesline tied to its side. On the other side of the bridge, within 50 feet, is a prosperous middle-class community of paved streets, well-tended lawns, and spacious two-story wood and brick homes. At one house, Joshua, a pensioner, unlocks the 10-foot high gate to his yard and invites the students to enter. His sits on a stool on his back porch, which is itself more than twice the size of a typical shack. He does not wear a jacket, but keeps warm with a paraffin lamp. He says that a small outbuilding nearby—his summer kitchen—now serves as storage with winter on its way. Inside the freshly painted, four-room house, which has electricity and running water, the students peer into one of the bedrooms where a woman watches over a sleeping baby, its bare feet sticking out from beneath a soft cotton blanket. “I was surprised by some of the better areas, like Diepkloof,” says Dennett later. “It looks like mine or some of my neighbors. The squatter camps got me the most. You see those shacks and children. I mean, it’s cold outside. Imagine living in a shack.”
The Promise of the Right to Housing
Its insistence that access to housing is a right makes South Africa’s Constitution one of the most progressive in the world. It also stokes high expectations among South Africans for what their government should do for them-—and when. While the focus on human rights in the West is often limited to individual civil and political rights, South Africa has embraced a commitment to a broad range of economic, social, and cultural rights, from housing to education, health care and a safe environment–what human rights professionals often term second and third generation rights–to mark the evolution in the global human rights movement. The difficulty comes in determining how to interpret the government’s performance.
Some, like the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee, say the government has done nowhere near enough. SAHRC Chair Jody Kollapen says it is more complicated than simply counting the houses that have been built and the number of people waiting for them because what has been promised is not houses themselves but access. “When you use the term access, it’s wider,” he says. “If it was housing, it would suggest that you have the right to housing, and therefore the state has an obligation to make housing available, whether it’s now or progressively. The right to have access to housing is interpreted as being the right to have an environment that enables you to acquire a house–whether it’s a house that’s built by the state, whether it’s access to a housing subsidy, whether it’s access to land. So it’s broader in terms of providing the enabling environment for someone to have access to a home, as opposed to limiting it to the right to housing.”
Nearly 900 miles to the southwest—just outside Cape Town, the country’s legislative capital–lies Langa, one of the oldest black townships in South Africa. Like Soweto, it houses people of radically different social classes, where the government is challenged to move people out of informal settlements and into permanent housing. An empty field is littered with garbage and the remnants of dismantled shacks, torn down to make way for new government-built housing. To one side are the five drab two-story wooden apartment buildings, which look even dingier beneath the dark, rolling clouds that signal an impending storm. On the other side is a massive, sprawling shack settlement. Two young men stand in the dark in their 15-by-10 foot tin shack. Black garbage bags and pieces of tarp are tacked on the roof and sides to keep the rain from leaking inside. There is no running water. Meanwhile, only 100 yards to the rear and closer to the heart of Langa, stands an evenly-laid brick road lined with homes that would not seem out of place on the Mediterranean-bright yellow and orange townhouses with late model cars in front of almost every one. The glow of an overhead light spilling over the edges of one window frame reveals a family whose members appear at ease and comfortable.
It is these kinds of stark contrasts, visible to most South Africans on a daily basis, that fuel the growing impatience among the poor for fulfillment of the promise of safe and secure housing for all. But government officials say they may have a long wait. “The right to access to housing can be realized only subject to the availability of adequate resources. Given the limited funds allocated every year in the budget for this purpose, it will take many years before the housing backlog will be eradicated,” says the SAHRC in a recent report. “Moreover,” the report says, “the large number of people who live in informal housing, or who have no access to housing whatsoever, also poses a serious challenge to the state, which is constitutionally obliged to formulate programs taking account of this reality.
This article was originally published in "Old Wrongs, New Rights: Student Views of the New South Africa," (Africa World Press, 2008). It can be purchased here: http://www.africaworldpressbooks.com/servlet/Detail?no=360
This article was republished here: http://www.plannersnetwork.org/publications/2008_spring/maclin.html
During the past few days, plunging temperatures have shattered fifty-four records across the country, according to the Mail & Guardian, South Africa’s main weekly newspaper. More than 15 people have died. In nearby Johannesburg, South Africa’s largest city, expecting temperatures to drop to freezing. The boy stands and stares as 11 students from Simmons College snap photographs of him while they shiver under their jackets, sweaters, hats, and socks. The dirt path, sprinkled with shards of glass and cigarette butts, winds past improvised wood and metal shelters–none with an internal source of heat–deep in the heart of Soweto (South West Township), which was created during the 1890s gold rush to house poorly paid black laborers and is now a magnet for impoverished rural migrants. Yet less than a mile away in Diepkloof, known as the Beverly Hills of Soweto, there are gated mansions owned by black families who have risen into the middle and upper classes.
Stark Housing Disparities
Despite the new Constitution’s guarantee of access to housing for all, the stark class disparities in the townships that ring all the country’s largest cities reveal the uneven process of remedying the inequalities institutionalized under apartheid, as a small number have benefited from “black empowerment” programs while the vast majority are still waiting their turn. When the African National Congress (ANC) came to power in South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994, more than 7 million people—almost all of them black—lacked adequate housing, according to the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC), itself a product of the new constitution. The ANC pledged to change this.
South Africa’s Department of Housing now claims on its Web site that it has built almost 2.4 million houses in the past twelve years. “Our annual production has grown from 252,000 (which in itself was a record we were proud of), to 272,000 (and still counting), for the past year,” says Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu. “We need to tell this good news, it portends a good future for millions still trapped in poverty, and it attests to the fact that the inhospitable firmament is clearing, and there will be better days.”
But while most South Africans say there has been progress under the ANC government, some are growing impatient with what they see as the slow pace of housing delivery, and a growing number worry that the promise of universal access to housing will not be met. “I’m too much of a realist to think that it’s possible,” says Kim Dennett, a white South African tour guide. “People have been waiting for five years on a waiting list for housing. People are made promises of being next on the list, and it’s broken time and time again.”
“I know a lot has been done,” she adds, “but it’s a drop in the ocean of what is needed.” Dennett also criticizes the quality of government-built housing, calling it “rubbish.” Meanwhile, new community organizations are protesting the government’s slow progress and pressuring it not only to fulfill the promise of adequate housing but to provide everyone with affordable basic services like electrification and sanitation. The fact that the rickety shacks in Soweto’s informal settlements lack such services, while a few blocks away Winnie Mandela’s three-story home sits behind a tall brick wall guarded by high-tech surveillance cameras, is not lost on these activists.
“South Africa actually is the most unequal society in the world,” says Trevor Ngwane, a leader of the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee, which is one of more than a dozen new protest groups that have banded together in a coalition called the Anti-Privatization Forum. “There’s more inequality now than under apartheid,” he says, arguing that apartheid is being de-racialized but not dismantled. “By and large, people are growing poorer, and most resources are being monopolized by fewer and fewer people.”
Apartheid’s Economic Exploitation
Part of the problem, according to ANC critics, is that apartheid was not just a political system that favored some and discriminated against others–one that could be fixed by taking down the “whites-only” signs and giving everyone the chance to vote. It was also an intricate system of economic exploitation that penetrated all levels of South African society and created self-perpetuating extremes of wealth and poverty. Communities like Soweto were used as dumping grounds to relocate black, “colored,” and Asian South Africans driven out of neighborhoods reserved for whites under the Group Areas Act of 1950. This was part of the National Party’s policy of complete racial separation–the essence of apartheid–after it came to power in 1948. Each of the four racially defined groups was given its own designated place to live. Blacks were further classified according to ethnic origin and assigned citizenship in remote tribal “homelands,” which reduced them to the status of temporary migrants while living or working in the cities. But this was not all.
Blacks were shunted into the most difficult and dangerous jobs, from construction to gold-mining, paid bare subsistence wages and blocked from organizing themselves, even as the best jobs were officially “reserved” for whites. Much the same was true for education, which was designed to prepare each group for its station in this draconian social experiment. The continuing impact of these policies and the economic gaps they entrenched is evident on the walk through the Soweto settlement. Along the dirt path, cushioned by overgrown grass and brush, the Simmons students come to a bridge over a small stream. To one side are red shirts, blue jeans, dingy white underwear, and other items hung out to dry in the cold, fall air. More wet clothes are rolled in a ball to the side, awaiting space on the line.
The tour guide, a Sowetan himself, calls this an example of the relationships among the different classes in Soweto: lower class families wash the clothes of the middle and upper classes to make money. Each group depends upon the other. What he does not say is that this was also true of the symbiotic relationship between whites and blacks throughout apartheid. Now, as then, the contrasts in the living standards produced by this skewed relationship are dramatic.
From the bridge, visitors gazing in one direction look back at a sea of tumbledown shacks, surrounded by overgrown grass, one with the clothesline tied to its side. On the other side of the bridge, within 50 feet, is a prosperous middle-class community of paved streets, well-tended lawns, and spacious two-story wood and brick homes. At one house, Joshua, a pensioner, unlocks the 10-foot high gate to his yard and invites the students to enter. His sits on a stool on his back porch, which is itself more than twice the size of a typical shack. He does not wear a jacket, but keeps warm with a paraffin lamp. He says that a small outbuilding nearby—his summer kitchen—now serves as storage with winter on its way. Inside the freshly painted, four-room house, which has electricity and running water, the students peer into one of the bedrooms where a woman watches over a sleeping baby, its bare feet sticking out from beneath a soft cotton blanket. “I was surprised by some of the better areas, like Diepkloof,” says Dennett later. “It looks like mine or some of my neighbors. The squatter camps got me the most. You see those shacks and children. I mean, it’s cold outside. Imagine living in a shack.”
The Promise of the Right to Housing
Its insistence that access to housing is a right makes South Africa’s Constitution one of the most progressive in the world. It also stokes high expectations among South Africans for what their government should do for them-—and when. While the focus on human rights in the West is often limited to individual civil and political rights, South Africa has embraced a commitment to a broad range of economic, social, and cultural rights, from housing to education, health care and a safe environment–what human rights professionals often term second and third generation rights–to mark the evolution in the global human rights movement. The difficulty comes in determining how to interpret the government’s performance.
Some, like the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee, say the government has done nowhere near enough. SAHRC Chair Jody Kollapen says it is more complicated than simply counting the houses that have been built and the number of people waiting for them because what has been promised is not houses themselves but access. “When you use the term access, it’s wider,” he says. “If it was housing, it would suggest that you have the right to housing, and therefore the state has an obligation to make housing available, whether it’s now or progressively. The right to have access to housing is interpreted as being the right to have an environment that enables you to acquire a house–whether it’s a house that’s built by the state, whether it’s access to a housing subsidy, whether it’s access to land. So it’s broader in terms of providing the enabling environment for someone to have access to a home, as opposed to limiting it to the right to housing.”
Nearly 900 miles to the southwest—just outside Cape Town, the country’s legislative capital–lies Langa, one of the oldest black townships in South Africa. Like Soweto, it houses people of radically different social classes, where the government is challenged to move people out of informal settlements and into permanent housing. An empty field is littered with garbage and the remnants of dismantled shacks, torn down to make way for new government-built housing. To one side are the five drab two-story wooden apartment buildings, which look even dingier beneath the dark, rolling clouds that signal an impending storm. On the other side is a massive, sprawling shack settlement. Two young men stand in the dark in their 15-by-10 foot tin shack. Black garbage bags and pieces of tarp are tacked on the roof and sides to keep the rain from leaking inside. There is no running water. Meanwhile, only 100 yards to the rear and closer to the heart of Langa, stands an evenly-laid brick road lined with homes that would not seem out of place on the Mediterranean-bright yellow and orange townhouses with late model cars in front of almost every one. The glow of an overhead light spilling over the edges of one window frame reveals a family whose members appear at ease and comfortable.
It is these kinds of stark contrasts, visible to most South Africans on a daily basis, that fuel the growing impatience among the poor for fulfillment of the promise of safe and secure housing for all. But government officials say they may have a long wait. “The right to access to housing can be realized only subject to the availability of adequate resources. Given the limited funds allocated every year in the budget for this purpose, it will take many years before the housing backlog will be eradicated,” says the SAHRC in a recent report. “Moreover,” the report says, “the large number of people who live in informal housing, or who have no access to housing whatsoever, also poses a serious challenge to the state, which is constitutionally obliged to formulate programs taking account of this reality.
This article was originally published in "Old Wrongs, New Rights: Student Views of the New South Africa," (Africa World Press, 2008). It can be purchased here: http://www.africaworldpressbooks.com/servlet/Detail?no=360
This article was republished here: http://www.plannersnetwork.org/publications/2008_spring/maclin.html
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Students protest gun policy on VTech anniversary
The only sound onlookers heard for three minutes on the sunny afternoon of April 17 was the clicking of cameras as photographers snapped away and the slight spring breeze rustling through the trees' branches.
Thirty-three students, faculty, and staff lay on the strip of grass between the sidewalk and the new Simmons College sign with their eyes closed, homemade maroon and orange ribbons draped around their necks, and their hands resting either on their stomachs or holding the hand of the person who lay next to them.
When junior Kathleen McKendry's cell phone alarm went off, marking the end of the three minutes, she sat up, told the lie-in participants they could get up, and thanked everyone for coming.
The students lingered on the corner of Avenue Louis Pasteur and the Fenway, chatting with their peers, answering journalists' questions, and giving hugs and support to those remembering Ross Alameddine, one of McKendry's best friends from high school and a student who died in the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University massacre last year.
The lie-in at Simmons, the only one in Boston, was part of Protest Easy Guns' national campaign on the one-year anniversary of the Virginia Tech massacre.
McKendry, the protest organizer, was contacted by Protest Easy Guns' founder Abby Spangler to organize the protest with the understanding that she was responsible for getting 32 people to participate and see about doing the protest on Simmons property, neither of which were easily accomplished.
"I had to go through Simmons to see if we could do it on Simmons property because if I didn't do it on [their] property then I would have to go through the city of Boston and get permits and the detail police workers, which I went through all the hassle anyway because Public Safety wanted to make sure since it was so close to public property that I didn't need permits and whatnot.
"So that took about a whole month's worth of jumping through hoops to get settled and I had everything settled and ready to go about four days before the protest," she said.
While she had the issue of location secured a few days before the actual lie-in, the issue of getting the bodies in place for the protest came down to the last minute.
"That day I was anxious because for a good while I only had 22 people, and I waited an extra five minutes and I still only had 22 people, and then, I said, 'All right, I guess that's all who are going to show up. So I guess we're going to lay down.' And then we were about to lie down and my best friend was like, 'Oh, hold on. We have more.'
"And then I got another 11 people within a matter of seconds, who either showed up or we pulled from off the street that were very interested in doing it, which made me happy. In total, we had 33 people, and that made me feel really good because it was one more than my intended goal," she said.
McKendry was also happy with the amount of media coverage the protest received, because "what's a protest that doesn't get noticed?" She said that photos taken at Simmons were used all over the country-from the Washington Post to a small Texas newspaperand around the world. One of the photos, taken by an Associated Press photographer, showed up on Yahoo! France.
Despite the timeliness of the protest with the announcement earlier this semester that Simmons' police officers will be armed as early as August, McKendry said the two are unrelated.
"Personally, I don't see the point because in an event like Virginia Tech, there were officers there that were armed and the killer had locked everybody inside, so there really wasn't anything they could do," McKendry said. "But I'm not uncomfortable with the idea or completely opposed to it. The whole message of our protest group isn't against guns, it's against how easy it is to get guns.
"We just want national background checks done, and also to close the gun show loop hole, which is in many states you can go to a gun show and buy a gun from an unlicensed dealer-walk in, get a gun, and walk out. That shouldn't be allowed to happen," she said.
Simmons was one of five schools in Massachusetts to participate in the Protest Easy Guns protests two weeks ago; the other schools were Harvard University, Wellesley College, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and Clark University. Simmons' lie-in had participants from Simmons, Wheelock College, Emmanuel College, Northeastern University, Boston University, Roger Williams College, and Bridgewater State College.
This article was originally published here: http://media.www.thesimmonsvoice.com/media/storage/paper829/news/2008/05/01/News/Students.Protest.Gun.Policy.On.Vtech.Anniversary-3752921.shtml
Thirty-three students, faculty, and staff lay on the strip of grass between the sidewalk and the new Simmons College sign with their eyes closed, homemade maroon and orange ribbons draped around their necks, and their hands resting either on their stomachs or holding the hand of the person who lay next to them.
When junior Kathleen McKendry's cell phone alarm went off, marking the end of the three minutes, she sat up, told the lie-in participants they could get up, and thanked everyone for coming.
The students lingered on the corner of Avenue Louis Pasteur and the Fenway, chatting with their peers, answering journalists' questions, and giving hugs and support to those remembering Ross Alameddine, one of McKendry's best friends from high school and a student who died in the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University massacre last year.
The lie-in at Simmons, the only one in Boston, was part of Protest Easy Guns' national campaign on the one-year anniversary of the Virginia Tech massacre.
McKendry, the protest organizer, was contacted by Protest Easy Guns' founder Abby Spangler to organize the protest with the understanding that she was responsible for getting 32 people to participate and see about doing the protest on Simmons property, neither of which were easily accomplished.
"I had to go through Simmons to see if we could do it on Simmons property because if I didn't do it on [their] property then I would have to go through the city of Boston and get permits and the detail police workers, which I went through all the hassle anyway because Public Safety wanted to make sure since it was so close to public property that I didn't need permits and whatnot.
"So that took about a whole month's worth of jumping through hoops to get settled and I had everything settled and ready to go about four days before the protest," she said.
While she had the issue of location secured a few days before the actual lie-in, the issue of getting the bodies in place for the protest came down to the last minute.
"That day I was anxious because for a good while I only had 22 people, and I waited an extra five minutes and I still only had 22 people, and then, I said, 'All right, I guess that's all who are going to show up. So I guess we're going to lay down.' And then we were about to lie down and my best friend was like, 'Oh, hold on. We have more.'
"And then I got another 11 people within a matter of seconds, who either showed up or we pulled from off the street that were very interested in doing it, which made me happy. In total, we had 33 people, and that made me feel really good because it was one more than my intended goal," she said.
McKendry was also happy with the amount of media coverage the protest received, because "what's a protest that doesn't get noticed?" She said that photos taken at Simmons were used all over the country-from the Washington Post to a small Texas newspaperand around the world. One of the photos, taken by an Associated Press photographer, showed up on Yahoo! France.
Despite the timeliness of the protest with the announcement earlier this semester that Simmons' police officers will be armed as early as August, McKendry said the two are unrelated.
"Personally, I don't see the point because in an event like Virginia Tech, there were officers there that were armed and the killer had locked everybody inside, so there really wasn't anything they could do," McKendry said. "But I'm not uncomfortable with the idea or completely opposed to it. The whole message of our protest group isn't against guns, it's against how easy it is to get guns.
"We just want national background checks done, and also to close the gun show loop hole, which is in many states you can go to a gun show and buy a gun from an unlicensed dealer-walk in, get a gun, and walk out. That shouldn't be allowed to happen," she said.
Simmons was one of five schools in Massachusetts to participate in the Protest Easy Guns protests two weeks ago; the other schools were Harvard University, Wellesley College, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and Clark University. Simmons' lie-in had participants from Simmons, Wheelock College, Emmanuel College, Northeastern University, Boston University, Roger Williams College, and Bridgewater State College.
This article was originally published here: http://media.www.thesimmonsvoice.com/media/storage/paper829/news/2008/05/01/News/Students.Protest.Gun.Policy.On.Vtech.Anniversary-3752921.shtml
Was Susan Scrimshaw fired?: Scrimshaw's abrupt departure leaves many questions
After serving less than two years at Simmons College, Susan Scrimshaw has begun her transition out of the presidency, which will end with the academic year. The announcement, sent out to the entire community via e-mail last Thursday, shocked many at the college and has led to questions that Board representatives have been hard-pressed to answer.
Those questions include:
- Did Scrimshaw really quit or was she fired?
- If she quit, why is she receiving a severance package?
- If she was fired, why? And why now?
The Board's response to many of those questions has been to insist that it was Scrimshaw's decision to leave because of a consulting opportunity. In another e-mail to the community, Scrimshaw said, "I have the chance to take the first real sabbatical of my decades-long career and pursue some significant opportunities to engage in work that promotes public health on the international level and to undertake a specific consulting assignment."
Few believe it.
"In totality, the statements concerning her leaving strain credulity. There are elements in the statements that appear to be contradictory. It is not common when someone resigns to provide with severance package," said Geoff Turner, associate professor of psychology.
The explanation strains credulity because of the severance package, the timing, and the fact that a number of people feel this is inconsistent with Scrimshaw's commitment to the College. One source said Scrimshaw planned on being here for 10 years, and another said she planned to retire from this job.
In fact, when Vice-Chairman Steve Jonas made that claim at an open forum on Friday, he generated groans and boos from many of the 200 faculty, staff, and students in attendance.
Peering through the smoke and mirrors
Multiple sources, independent of each other, said that Scrimshaw was fired.
The anonymous sources cited in this article would not go on the record, either out of concern for their job and position within the College or for Scrimshaw's exit deal.
One aspect that stands out as odd to many is the sabbatical the Board is giving Scrimshaw. To some it appears they are paying her to leave. And the exit deal is contingent on her staying quiet.
At the forum, Zachary Abuza, political science and international relations department chair, asked if Scrimshaw was under a gag order because she had said so little publicly about her leaving.
"I think a really significant mischaracterization of what is done in any situation like this," said Helen Drinan, current chair of the Board and soon-to-be interim president. "And I have 25 years of human resources experience to stand behind that. There is almost always a mutual agreement to remain confidential about any agreements surrounding any executive's departure for everyone's well-being."
A source with details of Scrimshaw's departure said that Scrimshaw, as well as others aware of what is currently confidential information, is unable to speak about the situation because it puts her severance package at risk.
Scrimshaw and Presidential Assistant Brenda Boyer were contacted five times via e-mail requesting an interview about her departure before and after the announcement came out; they replied to none. In a chance encounter, Scrimshaw said the only question she could answer was about the weather.
A reporter for the online publication Inside Higher Ed said, "While Scrimshaw did not respond to requests for an interview directly, the college released a reply from her in which she said that an opportunity that she wasn't at liberty to discuss had emerged and had led her to the 'particularly difficult' decision to leave."
Janie Ward, professor and department chair of Africana Studies, said that she hopes that Scrimshaw will eventually share with the community what her future plans are and what led her to the decision to leave.
One thing that remains unclear is if Scrimshaw was fired, why was that decision made?
Some think that the issue was the strategic plan, specifically the costs associated with the proposed initiatives. Abuza asked if the Board took a vote of confidence on the plan, to which Drinan said there had been no vote on the plan.
"What we do not have with the strategic plan is any sense of what that's going to cost. We have been asking for that as a board since last October and we have not seen it," Drinan said.
"Now, it is now in a place where obviously no decisions can be made . . . until we have that, because we may love all the ideas, but we may not be able to afford any or all of them at one time," she said.
Some also think it has to do with the so-far-failed provost search.
Turner thinks that neither of these things are grounds for firing Scrimshaw, and sees the problem lying more with the Board than with her. "Either they're not supporting the president enough or they have unrealistic expectations or they made a bad decision when they hired her.
"I see this as a problem that stems from the Board of Trustees," he said.
One example is that during Scrimshaw's first year, she was sent on about 40 trips, meaning she was away from campus for most of the year, leaving the senior administrators to run the College and not giving her the opportunity to get her feet grounded.
Another example is that the Board approved four retention contracts, which undermined her ability to hire her own team. Concerns have been raised about the impact the four retention contracts had on Scrimshaw's ability to do the job for which she was hired.
According to the Board, the contracts were given to Vice President for Administration and Planning Lisa Chapnick, Vice President for Finance and Treasurer Bert Goncalves, Vice President for Advancement Kristina Schaefer, and College of Arts and Sciences Dean Diane Raymond to ensure a smooth transition between former President Dan Cheever and Scrimshaw.
Scrimshaw, however, said in an earlier interview that she thought the contracts were not fair because they limited her in terms of who she could hire.
All four administrators will receive their bonuses on July 1. Chapnick will receive $100,000, Goncalves will receive $120,000, Schaefer will receive $87,500, and Raymond will receive $80,000, according to the College's 2004 Form 990, a tax form all nonprofits have to file.
Because this decision was made behind closed doors by the Board, it is unlikely that the full details will be known, or at least not for a while.
There are some on campus who accept the Board's explanation and are angry because she is leaving Simmons at such an inconvenient time, considering the empty provost and new senior vice president of finance and administration positions, the unfinished strategic plan, and the fact that Commencement is less than a month away.
Drinan said at the open forum held on Friday that it probably would have been better if the announcement came out at or after Commencement, but "that turned out not to be possible for reasons beyond the Board's control. That's all I can say about that."
Drinan said that the Board was pressed because Scrimshaw was eager to have the announcement made, but others speculate that the timing was actually determined by the schedule of the Simmons Voice.
On Monday, April 29, e-mails were sent to Scrimshaw and to Lucia Quinn, previous chair of the Board and current chair of the Board's compensation committee, stating that the Simmons Voice knew of the impending departure and requesting an interview.
On Tuesday, the director of Public Relations, Diane Millikan, contacted the newspaper and set up an interview for the following day with Jonas. Millikan stressed the importance of keeping the information quiet.
On Wednesday, Jonas and Millikan asked for specifics about what time the Simmons Voice would be distributed on either Thursday or Friday. The reporter informed them that the story would not be published until the following week. Jonas, again, stressed the importance of keeping the information gained from the interview quiet until after the announcement.
On Friday, Quinn received another e-mail stating that the Simmons Voice knew that the Board had fired Scrimshaw. Quinn declined to comment.
Many are curious about the "consulting opportunity in public health" that is pulling Scrimshaw away from campus.
A source said that Scrimshaw currently has no job lined up for after Simmons, which they think explains another reason why she has not said anything-there is nothing to announce.
Looking back
Many praise Scrimshaw for the changes she has implemented in the short time she has been here. She has been credited with refocusing the College on academics, restructuring the leadership, and taking a stand on issues of inclusion and human rights.
"She's worked very hard for Simmons and she really cares about Simmons, and the Board really appreciates her contributions over these two years," Jonas said.
Many faculty echoed sentiments of admiration for her accomplishments for Simmons. Gary Bailey, associate professor in the School for Social Work, said that Faculty Senate encouraged Scrimshaw to reconsider her decision to leave. "I think that's important because usually you would think that someone would leave where they're not getting along with their faculty, and I don't think that's true at all here."
Ward singled out Scrimshaw's response to the hate crimes as a sign of her commitment and leadership. "Her actions during the hate crime incidents was remarkable," she said. "It showed real leadership, true leadership to kind of step right up, jump into the middle of the fray, be absolutely clear about what Simmons stands for and what it will not tolerate."
Not everyone sang her praises, though. Some faculty said they feel she lacked vision and the ability to get things done, citing the provost search and the strategic plan. Others expressed concerns over her interpersonal skills, in terms of interacting with faculty, alums, and donors.
Moving forward
According to Jonas, Scrimshaw and Drinan will work to actively transition the College from one to the other during May and June. "We expect some good teamwork from the two of them. I think there is great mutual respect between Helen and Susan, so that should go quite well," said Jonas.
"And Susan will move on to other things beginning in July, and Helen will be full-time and fully ensconced here," he said.
Few have expressed concerns with Drinan's leadership or management ability. Many have used the word "competent" when describing her. Drinan left her position as senior vice president of Caritas Christi Health Care System officially at the end of April and will take over the College on July 1. She has two degrees from Simmons: a Masters from the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, and a MBA from the School of Management.
However, there are concerns over the length of her term, her academic credentials, and whether she can keep the College on the path to national prominence.
While the Board's decision to replace a departing president with a trustee is not out of the ordinary for how most colleges and universities find an interim president, the length of Drinan's term has raised eyebrows.
Scott Jaschik, an editor for the online publication Inside Higher Ed and a reporter who has covered institutions of higher education for 20 years, said that the two-to three year timeline to find a new president caught his attention.
"Some colleges do turn to a board member as interim, but typically only for a short time period while the board does an immediate search. What really stands out here isn't selecting a trustee, but doing so for a 2-3 year period," he wrote in an e-mail.
"More typical is for boards to turn to a senior administrator at the college to be interim. Sometimes a retired administrator will be asked back," Jaschik said.
An example of that is when in February 2006, Harvard University President Lawrence Summers resigned and was replaced by former Harvard President Derek Bok, who served for one year until then Dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Drew Faust was named the new president.
Simmons followed a similar plan in 1995 when Jean Dowdall was replaced by interim president Cheever, although an outsider, but former president at Wheelock College, who a year later in 1996 was inaugurated at the College's sixth president.
The reason this is a long-term appointment is because "we have a senior team to finish rebuilding and plan to get done and we want to get all of that stuff in and stabilized and then evaluate our options for a national search and move on from there," said Jonas.
One challenge that Drinan faces is filling the positions of provost and senior vice president of finance and administration. Jonas is not concerned that this change at the top will have a negative impact on either searches.
"I think because Helen is so known and so supportive of the existing agenda, I don't think candidates get concerned that we have either a problem, turmoil, or a change in direction, so this should look pretty comfortable and smooth here," said Jonas.
"And the fact that we have Helen as, you know, identified as interim president, but with a two to three assignment, I think we get the advantage of both having stability and the opportunity for senior players to be candidates in the next round," he said. "We're in hot pursuit of some very attractive candidates and hope to be able to land a good one and get them here within a reasonably short period of time."
Some wonder whether it is a good idea to have the provost search continued in spite of the recent change in presidents. "I was surprised to read Steve Jonas' comments in Inside Higher Ed, where he said the provost search is ongoing," said Turner.
"I think it would be incredibly destabilizing to hire an external provost at this time with no president, no senior vice president for finance and administration," said Turner. "To add somebody else external to that top tier management right now, I see as destabilizing. Now it's possible that they'll find some great candidate now, and that would be fabulous.
"But if it happens over the summer, there'll be less chance for the faculty to be involved in the search. I think that can only lead to problems. If they decide to not involve faculty in the search that would really lead to problems among the faculty," said Turner. "But the fact that they're continuing leads me to believe the Board doesn't understand the academic cycle."
Another issue surrounding Drinan's appointment is her lack of academic credentials. While some feel that requiring someone to have a Ph.D. to run an institution of higher education is elitist, others feel that it will lead to problems because of a lack of understanding between Drinan and the faculty.
"The Board is obviously aware that she has not worked in higher ed before," said Jonas. "The Board's aware that she does not have a Ph.D., and the Board, as I hope everyone in this room who is responsible for educating our students, believes in the promise and potential of everyone.
"The Board feels that Helen, with her background and capability, is capable of doing that for the next two-to three years. Her role is not to drive the academics of the institution, that will fall to her with the help of a provost, who one way or another will have a place here," said Jonas.
"Her role is to coordinate the entry of a senior team," he said. Drinan must get them to "come on board and has to work on completing the strategic plan and completing the agenda that Susan has begun, and get those things to begin to be implemented. So that is the agenda, and it does not take a Ph.D. to do those things over the next two years."
Jessica Rudis contributed reporting on the forum.
This article was originally published here: http://media.www.thesimmonsvoice.com/media/storage/paper829/news/2008/05/01/News/Was-Susan.Scrimshaw.Fired-3752923.shtml
Those questions include:
- Did Scrimshaw really quit or was she fired?
- If she quit, why is she receiving a severance package?
- If she was fired, why? And why now?
The Board's response to many of those questions has been to insist that it was Scrimshaw's decision to leave because of a consulting opportunity. In another e-mail to the community, Scrimshaw said, "I have the chance to take the first real sabbatical of my decades-long career and pursue some significant opportunities to engage in work that promotes public health on the international level and to undertake a specific consulting assignment."
Few believe it.
"In totality, the statements concerning her leaving strain credulity. There are elements in the statements that appear to be contradictory. It is not common when someone resigns to provide with severance package," said Geoff Turner, associate professor of psychology.
The explanation strains credulity because of the severance package, the timing, and the fact that a number of people feel this is inconsistent with Scrimshaw's commitment to the College. One source said Scrimshaw planned on being here for 10 years, and another said she planned to retire from this job.
In fact, when Vice-Chairman Steve Jonas made that claim at an open forum on Friday, he generated groans and boos from many of the 200 faculty, staff, and students in attendance.
Peering through the smoke and mirrors
Multiple sources, independent of each other, said that Scrimshaw was fired.
The anonymous sources cited in this article would not go on the record, either out of concern for their job and position within the College or for Scrimshaw's exit deal.
One aspect that stands out as odd to many is the sabbatical the Board is giving Scrimshaw. To some it appears they are paying her to leave. And the exit deal is contingent on her staying quiet.
At the forum, Zachary Abuza, political science and international relations department chair, asked if Scrimshaw was under a gag order because she had said so little publicly about her leaving.
"I think a really significant mischaracterization of what is done in any situation like this," said Helen Drinan, current chair of the Board and soon-to-be interim president. "And I have 25 years of human resources experience to stand behind that. There is almost always a mutual agreement to remain confidential about any agreements surrounding any executive's departure for everyone's well-being."
A source with details of Scrimshaw's departure said that Scrimshaw, as well as others aware of what is currently confidential information, is unable to speak about the situation because it puts her severance package at risk.
Scrimshaw and Presidential Assistant Brenda Boyer were contacted five times via e-mail requesting an interview about her departure before and after the announcement came out; they replied to none. In a chance encounter, Scrimshaw said the only question she could answer was about the weather.
A reporter for the online publication Inside Higher Ed said, "While Scrimshaw did not respond to requests for an interview directly, the college released a reply from her in which she said that an opportunity that she wasn't at liberty to discuss had emerged and had led her to the 'particularly difficult' decision to leave."
Janie Ward, professor and department chair of Africana Studies, said that she hopes that Scrimshaw will eventually share with the community what her future plans are and what led her to the decision to leave.
One thing that remains unclear is if Scrimshaw was fired, why was that decision made?
Some think that the issue was the strategic plan, specifically the costs associated with the proposed initiatives. Abuza asked if the Board took a vote of confidence on the plan, to which Drinan said there had been no vote on the plan.
"What we do not have with the strategic plan is any sense of what that's going to cost. We have been asking for that as a board since last October and we have not seen it," Drinan said.
"Now, it is now in a place where obviously no decisions can be made . . . until we have that, because we may love all the ideas, but we may not be able to afford any or all of them at one time," she said.
Some also think it has to do with the so-far-failed provost search.
Turner thinks that neither of these things are grounds for firing Scrimshaw, and sees the problem lying more with the Board than with her. "Either they're not supporting the president enough or they have unrealistic expectations or they made a bad decision when they hired her.
"I see this as a problem that stems from the Board of Trustees," he said.
One example is that during Scrimshaw's first year, she was sent on about 40 trips, meaning she was away from campus for most of the year, leaving the senior administrators to run the College and not giving her the opportunity to get her feet grounded.
Another example is that the Board approved four retention contracts, which undermined her ability to hire her own team. Concerns have been raised about the impact the four retention contracts had on Scrimshaw's ability to do the job for which she was hired.
According to the Board, the contracts were given to Vice President for Administration and Planning Lisa Chapnick, Vice President for Finance and Treasurer Bert Goncalves, Vice President for Advancement Kristina Schaefer, and College of Arts and Sciences Dean Diane Raymond to ensure a smooth transition between former President Dan Cheever and Scrimshaw.
Scrimshaw, however, said in an earlier interview that she thought the contracts were not fair because they limited her in terms of who she could hire.
All four administrators will receive their bonuses on July 1. Chapnick will receive $100,000, Goncalves will receive $120,000, Schaefer will receive $87,500, and Raymond will receive $80,000, according to the College's 2004 Form 990, a tax form all nonprofits have to file.
Because this decision was made behind closed doors by the Board, it is unlikely that the full details will be known, or at least not for a while.
There are some on campus who accept the Board's explanation and are angry because she is leaving Simmons at such an inconvenient time, considering the empty provost and new senior vice president of finance and administration positions, the unfinished strategic plan, and the fact that Commencement is less than a month away.
Drinan said at the open forum held on Friday that it probably would have been better if the announcement came out at or after Commencement, but "that turned out not to be possible for reasons beyond the Board's control. That's all I can say about that."
Drinan said that the Board was pressed because Scrimshaw was eager to have the announcement made, but others speculate that the timing was actually determined by the schedule of the Simmons Voice.
On Monday, April 29, e-mails were sent to Scrimshaw and to Lucia Quinn, previous chair of the Board and current chair of the Board's compensation committee, stating that the Simmons Voice knew of the impending departure and requesting an interview.
On Tuesday, the director of Public Relations, Diane Millikan, contacted the newspaper and set up an interview for the following day with Jonas. Millikan stressed the importance of keeping the information quiet.
On Wednesday, Jonas and Millikan asked for specifics about what time the Simmons Voice would be distributed on either Thursday or Friday. The reporter informed them that the story would not be published until the following week. Jonas, again, stressed the importance of keeping the information gained from the interview quiet until after the announcement.
On Friday, Quinn received another e-mail stating that the Simmons Voice knew that the Board had fired Scrimshaw. Quinn declined to comment.
Many are curious about the "consulting opportunity in public health" that is pulling Scrimshaw away from campus.
A source said that Scrimshaw currently has no job lined up for after Simmons, which they think explains another reason why she has not said anything-there is nothing to announce.
Looking back
Many praise Scrimshaw for the changes she has implemented in the short time she has been here. She has been credited with refocusing the College on academics, restructuring the leadership, and taking a stand on issues of inclusion and human rights.
"She's worked very hard for Simmons and she really cares about Simmons, and the Board really appreciates her contributions over these two years," Jonas said.
Many faculty echoed sentiments of admiration for her accomplishments for Simmons. Gary Bailey, associate professor in the School for Social Work, said that Faculty Senate encouraged Scrimshaw to reconsider her decision to leave. "I think that's important because usually you would think that someone would leave where they're not getting along with their faculty, and I don't think that's true at all here."
Ward singled out Scrimshaw's response to the hate crimes as a sign of her commitment and leadership. "Her actions during the hate crime incidents was remarkable," she said. "It showed real leadership, true leadership to kind of step right up, jump into the middle of the fray, be absolutely clear about what Simmons stands for and what it will not tolerate."
Not everyone sang her praises, though. Some faculty said they feel she lacked vision and the ability to get things done, citing the provost search and the strategic plan. Others expressed concerns over her interpersonal skills, in terms of interacting with faculty, alums, and donors.
Moving forward
According to Jonas, Scrimshaw and Drinan will work to actively transition the College from one to the other during May and June. "We expect some good teamwork from the two of them. I think there is great mutual respect between Helen and Susan, so that should go quite well," said Jonas.
"And Susan will move on to other things beginning in July, and Helen will be full-time and fully ensconced here," he said.
Few have expressed concerns with Drinan's leadership or management ability. Many have used the word "competent" when describing her. Drinan left her position as senior vice president of Caritas Christi Health Care System officially at the end of April and will take over the College on July 1. She has two degrees from Simmons: a Masters from the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, and a MBA from the School of Management.
However, there are concerns over the length of her term, her academic credentials, and whether she can keep the College on the path to national prominence.
While the Board's decision to replace a departing president with a trustee is not out of the ordinary for how most colleges and universities find an interim president, the length of Drinan's term has raised eyebrows.
Scott Jaschik, an editor for the online publication Inside Higher Ed and a reporter who has covered institutions of higher education for 20 years, said that the two-to three year timeline to find a new president caught his attention.
"Some colleges do turn to a board member as interim, but typically only for a short time period while the board does an immediate search. What really stands out here isn't selecting a trustee, but doing so for a 2-3 year period," he wrote in an e-mail.
"More typical is for boards to turn to a senior administrator at the college to be interim. Sometimes a retired administrator will be asked back," Jaschik said.
An example of that is when in February 2006, Harvard University President Lawrence Summers resigned and was replaced by former Harvard President Derek Bok, who served for one year until then Dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Drew Faust was named the new president.
Simmons followed a similar plan in 1995 when Jean Dowdall was replaced by interim president Cheever, although an outsider, but former president at Wheelock College, who a year later in 1996 was inaugurated at the College's sixth president.
The reason this is a long-term appointment is because "we have a senior team to finish rebuilding and plan to get done and we want to get all of that stuff in and stabilized and then evaluate our options for a national search and move on from there," said Jonas.
One challenge that Drinan faces is filling the positions of provost and senior vice president of finance and administration. Jonas is not concerned that this change at the top will have a negative impact on either searches.
"I think because Helen is so known and so supportive of the existing agenda, I don't think candidates get concerned that we have either a problem, turmoil, or a change in direction, so this should look pretty comfortable and smooth here," said Jonas.
"And the fact that we have Helen as, you know, identified as interim president, but with a two to three assignment, I think we get the advantage of both having stability and the opportunity for senior players to be candidates in the next round," he said. "We're in hot pursuit of some very attractive candidates and hope to be able to land a good one and get them here within a reasonably short period of time."
Some wonder whether it is a good idea to have the provost search continued in spite of the recent change in presidents. "I was surprised to read Steve Jonas' comments in Inside Higher Ed, where he said the provost search is ongoing," said Turner.
"I think it would be incredibly destabilizing to hire an external provost at this time with no president, no senior vice president for finance and administration," said Turner. "To add somebody else external to that top tier management right now, I see as destabilizing. Now it's possible that they'll find some great candidate now, and that would be fabulous.
"But if it happens over the summer, there'll be less chance for the faculty to be involved in the search. I think that can only lead to problems. If they decide to not involve faculty in the search that would really lead to problems among the faculty," said Turner. "But the fact that they're continuing leads me to believe the Board doesn't understand the academic cycle."
Another issue surrounding Drinan's appointment is her lack of academic credentials. While some feel that requiring someone to have a Ph.D. to run an institution of higher education is elitist, others feel that it will lead to problems because of a lack of understanding between Drinan and the faculty.
"The Board is obviously aware that she has not worked in higher ed before," said Jonas. "The Board's aware that she does not have a Ph.D., and the Board, as I hope everyone in this room who is responsible for educating our students, believes in the promise and potential of everyone.
"The Board feels that Helen, with her background and capability, is capable of doing that for the next two-to three years. Her role is not to drive the academics of the institution, that will fall to her with the help of a provost, who one way or another will have a place here," said Jonas.
"Her role is to coordinate the entry of a senior team," he said. Drinan must get them to "come on board and has to work on completing the strategic plan and completing the agenda that Susan has begun, and get those things to begin to be implemented. So that is the agenda, and it does not take a Ph.D. to do those things over the next two years."
Jessica Rudis contributed reporting on the forum.
This article was originally published here: http://media.www.thesimmonsvoice.com/media/storage/paper829/news/2008/05/01/News/Was-Susan.Scrimshaw.Fired-3752923.shtml
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Black women must reclaim their image, Hill says
Black women face the challenge of redefining and reclaiming their image in American society, according to Anita Hill, professor of Social Policy, Law, and Women's Studies at Brandeis University.
Hill gave the first keynote lecture of the Black Alumnae/i Symposium 2008, titled "The Power of Our Presence: African American Women Building Communities, Families, Ourselves," at Friday's luncheon, the first large event of the weekend.
"If we are serious about having a conversation about either race or gender in this country, but particularly if we're serious about both, black women along with other women of color must be reflected in our leadership," Hill said. "The women in this room embody both, and they, like no one else, can have that conversation without having the two competing with each other as to which one is the worst."
Hill outlined five pledges she thought black women needed to take to reverse the image of black women, specifically the one outlined in the Department of Labor's 1965 Moynihan Report, "The Negro Family: A Case for National Action."
The report said that the matriarchal structure of black culture put black men at a disadvantage, and therefore hindered the entire black community from moving forward and gaining economic and political equality. "Moynihan made bruising pronouncements about African American women.
"And I believe those pronouncements stayed in the public conscience even today, yet despite this public shunning, African American women continued then and continue today to believe in and work toward bringing themselves and their families ever closer to the American dream of equality," Hill said.
"We must demand that black women must be seen, heard, and recognized for the leadership and insight we offer," she said. "Black women are neither the overbearing shrews of the Moynihan report, nor Ronald Reagan's lazy cheats, nor Bill Clinton's irresponsible freeloaders, and most importantly, we are not Don Imus' nappy-headed hoes."
The first pledge Hill outlined was moving beyond the idea of just getting access to education. "We can't stop the access drive, but we've got to build on the drive," she said. Hill called for a change in curriculum, how the curriculum is delivered, and the environment in which it is delivered. "We've got to develop a better sense of educational equality," she said.
The second pledge is to integrate America, one workplace at a time. Hill said that the workplace is important because of how one's job defines a person and how they fit into society. "When we think of slavery, when we think about Jim Crow, when we think about all of the burdens of race and gender in the past, the workplace was where its impact, in many ways, was most profound because it held us from any opportunity of developing economically.
"We have to continue to see work as an effort to make sure that all of society understands that an integrated society is what is best for the entire society," Hill said.
The third pledge is to "secure our own safe haven." Hill said black women need to be concerned with not just what goes on in their homes, but what goes on in their streets and neighborhoods. She also commented on the issue of subprime mortgage rates and how that factors into the need to secure one's home.
Hill said that saving the community's soul is the fourth pledge. She said that in traditional black churches around the country, women occupy two out of every three seats. "When the struggle for the soul of the community is at stake, women must participate as leaders," she said.
The last pledge is for black women to take back their images. Hill referred to Dolores Tucker, an African American woman who spoke out about sexual violence and hip-hop lyrics in the 1980s, who said that there is racism, not just sexism, in the way black women are portrayed in music videos.
Hill said they cannot control the content, but can promote women to decision-making positions so that they can control the content. "I don't think we're ever going to be able to eliminate it, but we ought to flood the market with our own ideas and our own values and our own versions of ourselves," she said.
Hill finished her lecture discussing the 2008 election and how politics must be factored into the advancement of black women, women of color, and American society. "We have to become the political leaders we deserve," she said. "Black women's advancement in education, employment, religion, and community leadership must translate into roles as the elected officials at the highest levels."
This is the second Symposium Simmons hosted; the event is scheduled to happen every three years-the first was in 2005 and the next one will be in 2011. The weekend's agenda included other speakers, including Dr. Joy DeGruy-Leary, who spoke about posttraumatic slave syndrome; Dr. Carol R. Johnson, who spoke about her educational agenda for Boston's schoolchildren; and President Susan Scrimshaw, who spoke about her vision for the College, specifically about recruitment and retention of minority students and faculty.
Panels on issues of women in leadership, volunteering, health and well-being, the future of the black youth, among others were also part of the scheduled events. On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, the Symposium's attendees were given social and networking opportunities, including a kick-off event at The Beehive in Boston's South End.
This was originally published here: http://media.www.thesimmonsvoice.com/media/storage/paper829/news/2008/04/17/News/Black.Women.Must.Reclaim.Their.Image.Hill.Says-3752930.shtml
Hill gave the first keynote lecture of the Black Alumnae/i Symposium 2008, titled "The Power of Our Presence: African American Women Building Communities, Families, Ourselves," at Friday's luncheon, the first large event of the weekend.
"If we are serious about having a conversation about either race or gender in this country, but particularly if we're serious about both, black women along with other women of color must be reflected in our leadership," Hill said. "The women in this room embody both, and they, like no one else, can have that conversation without having the two competing with each other as to which one is the worst."
Hill outlined five pledges she thought black women needed to take to reverse the image of black women, specifically the one outlined in the Department of Labor's 1965 Moynihan Report, "The Negro Family: A Case for National Action."
The report said that the matriarchal structure of black culture put black men at a disadvantage, and therefore hindered the entire black community from moving forward and gaining economic and political equality. "Moynihan made bruising pronouncements about African American women.
"And I believe those pronouncements stayed in the public conscience even today, yet despite this public shunning, African American women continued then and continue today to believe in and work toward bringing themselves and their families ever closer to the American dream of equality," Hill said.
"We must demand that black women must be seen, heard, and recognized for the leadership and insight we offer," she said. "Black women are neither the overbearing shrews of the Moynihan report, nor Ronald Reagan's lazy cheats, nor Bill Clinton's irresponsible freeloaders, and most importantly, we are not Don Imus' nappy-headed hoes."
The first pledge Hill outlined was moving beyond the idea of just getting access to education. "We can't stop the access drive, but we've got to build on the drive," she said. Hill called for a change in curriculum, how the curriculum is delivered, and the environment in which it is delivered. "We've got to develop a better sense of educational equality," she said.
The second pledge is to integrate America, one workplace at a time. Hill said that the workplace is important because of how one's job defines a person and how they fit into society. "When we think of slavery, when we think about Jim Crow, when we think about all of the burdens of race and gender in the past, the workplace was where its impact, in many ways, was most profound because it held us from any opportunity of developing economically.
"We have to continue to see work as an effort to make sure that all of society understands that an integrated society is what is best for the entire society," Hill said.
The third pledge is to "secure our own safe haven." Hill said black women need to be concerned with not just what goes on in their homes, but what goes on in their streets and neighborhoods. She also commented on the issue of subprime mortgage rates and how that factors into the need to secure one's home.
Hill said that saving the community's soul is the fourth pledge. She said that in traditional black churches around the country, women occupy two out of every three seats. "When the struggle for the soul of the community is at stake, women must participate as leaders," she said.
The last pledge is for black women to take back their images. Hill referred to Dolores Tucker, an African American woman who spoke out about sexual violence and hip-hop lyrics in the 1980s, who said that there is racism, not just sexism, in the way black women are portrayed in music videos.
Hill said they cannot control the content, but can promote women to decision-making positions so that they can control the content. "I don't think we're ever going to be able to eliminate it, but we ought to flood the market with our own ideas and our own values and our own versions of ourselves," she said.
Hill finished her lecture discussing the 2008 election and how politics must be factored into the advancement of black women, women of color, and American society. "We have to become the political leaders we deserve," she said. "Black women's advancement in education, employment, religion, and community leadership must translate into roles as the elected officials at the highest levels."
This is the second Symposium Simmons hosted; the event is scheduled to happen every three years-the first was in 2005 and the next one will be in 2011. The weekend's agenda included other speakers, including Dr. Joy DeGruy-Leary, who spoke about posttraumatic slave syndrome; Dr. Carol R. Johnson, who spoke about her educational agenda for Boston's schoolchildren; and President Susan Scrimshaw, who spoke about her vision for the College, specifically about recruitment and retention of minority students and faculty.
Panels on issues of women in leadership, volunteering, health and well-being, the future of the black youth, among others were also part of the scheduled events. On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, the Symposium's attendees were given social and networking opportunities, including a kick-off event at The Beehive in Boston's South End.
This was originally published here: http://media.www.thesimmonsvoice.com/media/storage/paper829/news/2008/04/17/News/Black.Women.Must.Reclaim.Their.Image.Hill.Says-3752930.shtml
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