BEST things about America so far...

If anyone still reads this I'll be frankly amazed! Its been a prolonged absence, I know. Im sorry - the last month has been nothing but research papers and  revision (Harvard broke the whole 'no-exams' contract we had) so Ive not really had anything interesting to say for myself... However, the semester has now drawn to a close so I thought I would take this opportunity to draw up a short list of the best things about Harvard and America I have come across so far... Its doubtless incomplete but this is what immediately comes to mind:

• Vending machines in the library..... that sell stationery! This clearly excites me far more than it should, but I can't help it. Embrace the inner geek. Who wants Doritos when you could get a blank CD? Who wants a KitKat when you can have a calculator?? Nobody, I tell you. Nobody at Harvard, anyway...

• The etiquette of drivers. Over here - in Cambridge, anyway - the pedestrian reigns supreme. When we want to cross the road, we cross the road. When we tell a car to stop, it blinking well stops!  Just remind me to adjust before returning to the UK...

• Toilet facilities. I know, I know, I'm sorry to bring this up but it has to feature. Everything is automatic - hand soap, paper towels, taps, flushes... its just brilliant! Granted, its probably to make things less confusing for Americans rather than a case of hygiene but still! (sorry, quick aside - who on earth knew hygiene had an 'i' in it?!)

• Cafes that stay open late at night. There's something so comforting about knowing that everything doesn't just shut down at 6pm and that even at 11pm you can nip off to Starbucks for a change of scenery (/pumpkin bread. Don't judge me.)

• The power of the British accent: nothing you say can be wrong. It is unthinkable that anything said in a British accent can be anything other than 100 percent fact. Its frankly brilliant. 

• On the topic of accents, cash machines: imagine my delight when my local one spoke to me in a Scottish accent. I admit, I didn't chose the bank based on this quirky bonus but in future Im going to add this into my list of selection criteria (just below 'how well do their free pens write?' and just above 'what are their interest rates like?' - I'm all about priorities, people).

I shall leave it there - I could probably think of a lot more but I will save that for next semester! The next post will inevitably be longer - the WORST / most confusing things about America so far...

Harvard Vs Yale Football

Last weekend was an auspicious occasion: 200 young men, half in crimson, half in white, donned some ridiculous padding and made ready for battle. There was tension in the air - clearly a lot of dignity was at stake: Yaleians (?) wore intimidating hats declaring "Harvard sucks!" while Harvardians - ever the more sophisticated of Ivy Leaguers, I'm told - opted for merchandise running with a message of subtle yet biting irony: "FALE". If ever there was a time for handbags, this was most certainly it...

I don't really know what to say other than it was right up there with some of the most ridiculous things I've ever witnessed. Probably because I'm comparing it to rugby - y'know, that sport without the helmets, where people play continuously without stopping every 5-20 seconds for the sake of sorting out a wedgie or performing some chest-bumps? Yeah thats the one, well I'm comparing it to that...

Now I won't do it a total disservice: the half-time entertainment was inspired. This is where the two university orchestras took over - and let me tell you, I nearly wet myself laughing when, after the football players left the field, both brass bands charged at each other from their opposite ends of the field to meet in the middle in the strangest braveheart-does-bandcamp style face-off you've ever seen. Never has a trombone been made to look so intimidating. Yale kept things classy by performing a rendition of that   acclaimed hit by Cee Lo Green, while Harvard kept up the battle-theme with a Pirate's of the Caribbean number. Magic. Next we were treated to a bizarre Avatar reenactment (I say bizarre because I haven't seen the film) and a lot of smashing up model-mascots with baseball bats... no biggie.

Anyway, you'l all be pleased to know that the ending was a happy one: Good triumphed over Evil, red conquered white. What a thoroughly ridiculous sport!

addendum

I totally forgot to mention in my last post that I was also fortunate enough to have dinner with him as well (as the title suggests!) - it was excellent!

Dinner with Thorbjørn Jagland

Yesterday afternoon I happily skipped unwillingly dragged myself away from my research on India's Bharatiya Janata Party to attend this year's Samuel L. and Elizabeth Jodidi lecture delivered by Thorbjørn Jagland to the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.

By means of quick introduction, Jagland was Norway's Prime Minister from 1996-1997, President of the Storting (parliament) from 2005-2009, and is currently both the Secretary-General of the Council of Europe and Chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee. Its fair to say that we were pretty lucky to have him... Enough about his past and present titles, though, and onto what he actually had to say.

First of all, I should make clear that it was predominantly in his capacity as chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize committee that he was speaking, delivering a talk aptly entitled 'Individual Rights - Universal Peace'. Now, if I'm honest, the lecture itself was sort of all over the place: littered with barely relevant (though quite entertaining) anecdotes and quotes, it was really more a verbalisation of his stream of consciousness than anything else. Nonetheless, a handful of interesting things certainly came out of it. For the sake of your patience, though, I'll concentrate on three things (which I'll set out now just in case you suddenly need to rush off and watch some paint dry... its ok, I know how it is) : 1) His justification for awarding Obama the Peace Prize in 2009, 2) Liu Xiaobo's receipt of the award this year, and 3) his notion that human rights stand above national sovereignty. There we go - you've been duly warned!

So onto the first of these issues - Obama getting the prize in 2009. There's nearly always controversy surrounding whoever gets the Peace Prize and 2009 was no exception. However, its probably most instructive to begin by detailing the official criteria according to which the recipient is chosen, as laid out by Alfred Nobel (inventor of dynamite) in his will. By his stipulation, the award should be given 'to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses'. By the Committee's estimations, Obama - barely 9 months into his presidency - seemed to fit the bill...

On what particular grounds? Two things really: his vision of a world without nuclear weapons and his commitment, as President of the US,  to have his country engage in more multilateral diplomacy. At heart, this decision clearly wasn't based on accomplishment - for me, the first 9 months of the Obama administration, consumed almost entirely by domestic issues, were decidedly disappointing from an international relations standpoint - a period of missed opportunities, really. Rather, the decision seemed to amount to more of a plea than a reward - a plea to follow through on that grand rhetoric which aimed to sculpt the figure of C21st-US leadership into a more appropriate and palatable form. Maybe he deserved it, maybe he didn't - for now, I can see both sides of the debate and am content to sit on the fence. Instead, what really interests me is something that the debate nonetheless throws up - the inescapable fact that America is a deeply puzzling place... and I'll come back to that.

Ok so now onto the second issue: Liu Xiaobo, the human rights activist who has been calling for democratic reforms in China and is currently in prison for 'inciting subversion of state power'. For me, this is super interesting: I think I mentioned in a previous post that I'm writing a paper all about China's (or rather, the CCP's) portrayal of itself to the West so this is really hugely relevant for me. What I found quite interesting was the view of a couple of Chinese people in the audience who asked questions, both of which suggested that the award had actually done more harm than good as concerns human rights in China - and in the short term, its hard to disagree. The great firewall has blocked anything with Liu Xiabo's name, while more generally it has served to significantly increase the insecurity of the CCP which only translates into increased repression. China's angry response highlights a couple of things worth noting: first, it reminds us yet again that if there is one thing the CCP hates more than anything, it is challenges to its sovereignty - that is, outside actors meddling in its internal affairs. Second, I think it also shows an acute awareness on the part of the CCP of the long-term influence the decision could have. This is no flash in the pan - the western media (which the Communist Party utterly detests) now has in Liu Xiabo a permanent focal point when it comes to the human rights struggle in China. Whatever he does in the future is guaranteed significant worldwide coverage - and the CCP is going to find that very difficult to deal with.

This issue of China and sovereignty brings me nicely onto my last issue: Jagland's notion that human rights are above sovereignty. Now just to briefly say, Jagland in general is very much for states devolving more and more of their sovereignty to international bodies - for him the C21st is one characterised more than ever by interdependence among states, and as such he really does subscribe to the notion that global values and global rules should have a very prominent place in the way states conduct both internal and external affairs. But not everyone by any means thinks along these lines: China obviously doesn't want to devolve sovereignty to anyone, but we certainly shouldn't kid ourselves that the US is any different. Rhetorically, the US stresses its willingness to adhere to the same rules as everyone else but too often the reality is quite different. To put it another way, the US is quite happy to play a very active role in drawing up international treaties for this that and the next thing and its often even quite happy to sign them. But ratify them? No thank you very much... or when they do ratify them, its usually on the condition that they are 'non-self-executing' (e.g. the Convention Against Torture). What this all comes down to is that when it comes to international law, the US really is no role model. So my point is merely this: Jagland's notion that human rights are above sovereignty is a wonderful ideal. They absolutely should be universal. Unfortunately, though, the reality again falls well short - and not just in China. I can't think of a more basic human right than that to life - and yet, here I am sat in a country in which nearly every state deems this a right humans do not have.

Elections? What elections...?

Definitely time for an update.

So its probably not escaped your attention that we've had some midterms over here. Actually, scratch that - it might have. Heck, it nearly escaped my attention and I'm over here!

Its funny, because going through the interviews for getting the fellowship to come here, my answer to the inevitable question of "why do you want to go to the US?" was that - among other reasons - I will get to witness first-hand the midterms - midterms that I, as many other people of course do, hold to be hugely significant. And yet, somehow they managed to come and go almost without me even noticing (except for the annoying campaign adverts that would come on at the start every time I tried to watch amazing videos like this one on YouTube)....

When Obama assumed the presidency, it was a moment marked by an effervescence of promise and hope. However, some observers - determined not to get carried away on a wave of popular sentiment - astutely compared it to the moment that Woodrow Wilson became president many years prior. He too had the hopes of the world bearing down on him yet - as these observers warned - it wasn't long until the reality that one person can only do so much, that change can't happen over night kicked in. And so, history appears to have repeated itself*.  The reasons I came up with for these midterms having been so muted - in Boston/Cambridge at least - are twofold.

First, I don't have a TV. If I did, I'm pretty sure this post would be more along the lines of my British sensibilities being offended by American electioneering. Lucky for you I don't have a TV then. Second, and most importantly, I think its because the writing was already on the walls well beforehand. In two senses - in the first, Massachusetts - as a Democrat strong-hold - was never really going to be hugely competitive (though, that said, results were far closer this year than they have been in a really long time). More generally, though, I think it was fairly clear to everyone that this was going to be a massively disappointing verdict from the polls for Obama (after all, midterms are never that good for the incumbents, though admittedly this was worse than usual). There was a sense in which, like Woodrow Wilson before, the man in the White House never stood a chance of living up to the enormous expectations heaped on him. I'm certainly not saying that Obama has achieved nothing, merely that Americans have had a long way to fall from the dizzying heights of optimism that abounded two years ago. Its clear that they are now deeply disillusioned and looking for someone to blame.

Instead of elaborating any further, I'll just point you to an article that I thoroughly recommend on the topic. Apart from the paragraph where it questions the ability of Americans to relate to Obama's race, this article comes closest to capturing my feelings on what this recent round of voting means and can tell us. Its an interesting read...



*Disclaimer: having discovered a previous supervisor now drops in occasionally to check up on my blog I should probably say that, no, I don't believe history truly repeats itself... just a rhetorical flourish, y'know?!

Life is really hard.

As of last week, my levels of sophistication have increased tenfold. 'For why?', you may ask. Well I went clubbing. YACHT clubbing.

It began with a chance email I sent a couple of weeks ago to the master of Caius, Sir Christopher Hum. I'm writing this research paper on China, you see, (all about national image building and public diplomacy as part of Chinese foreign policy, 1989-2010 for those who care...) and thought it might be quite 'cool' (I use the word liberally, of course) to be able to drop in some comments from a former British Ambassador to China. In return, I was rather lucky to receive a last-minute invite to the annual Caius NYC gathering to be held at none other than the New York Yacht Club...

A week later I was boarding my bus and bound for New York! It was a whistle-stop tour to be sure - I was in the city for less than 24 hours - but it was nice to finally make my way to the big apple and see what all the fuss is about. I really thought I wouldn't like New York - I thought it would be too big, too impersonal, too busy, and too superficial. But the very short time I spent there was, by all accounts, highly enjoyable. The reception at the yacht club was phenomenal - the food was to die for and the room we were all congregated in was stunning. Most important, though, I managed to talk to some really fascinating people. What was most striking about the evening, I think, was that here was a room full of ridiculously accomplished people - people who hang out on Wall Street, get invited to the White House - and yet here they were, more than happy to go out of their way to speak to a small-time student - special though I am. It did fill me with a rather warm feeling, a huge sense of privilege at knowing that, while I may have graduated and moved on from Cambridge, you never really leave it behind. As the title of our college magazine so aptly puts it, "Once a Caian, Always a Caian"...

Nostalgia aside, the evening really was brilliant. After drinks, a group of us then went on to have sushi at a restaurant just off 5th Avenue which made me feel truly cosmopolitan! Ah the city that never sleeps.... I could definitely get used to it.

I'll finish by saying that if there's one thing I've come away from the last couple of weeks feeling, its that I'm now - more than ever before - acutely aware of the atomizing forces of modern culture and - well capitalism, I guess. Don't get me wrong, I've always had a sense of it: but with Benjamin in London, myself over here hopping between New York and Boston, and William having just moved to Melbourne, I suppose I feel like I've been well and truly sucked into the trend...

What the US has to say about Kenya

Another noteworthy episode of the past couple of weeks was the discussion I went to with the current US Ambassador to Kenya, Michael Ranneberger. The first thing I should note is that it really was a discussion - made possible by the fact that it was only a small group of 20-25 of us or so, which really was perfect. Any more people and it may have turned into a less stimulating lecture, but as it was we could take the Ambassador up on issues, push for clearer answers and genuinely engage in a dialogue about America's intentions and goals in the region. 

The discussion was interesting on two levels. First, content-wise it was of course interesting to hear what the US take on the 2007 post-election violence was and what its hopes and aims for Kenya's future are. For the sake of the KEP-ers reading this (you mock, but I know you do!), I'll see if I can note the main points to come out of the discussion:

• First of all, the ambassador was quick to point out, with significant pride, that the US - when it became apparent during the vote count that things were being fiddled by both candidates - was the only power to push for a political settlement over calling fresh elections which is what Britain and the EU did. The sense of pride he took from this seemed a little odd - lets face it, neither solution was going to stop people feeling bitterly disappointed that Odinga hadn't won, but I'll come back to this a bit later. The other brief aside to add to this is that the elections were a lot closer than the media portrayed, with blatant vote-fixing on both sides. Odinga - contrary to the (utterly flawed) polls - was never going to run away with it.

•  America's current policy with regards to Kenya is to really put pressure on them to implement this new constitution. This is no mean feat seeing as both Kibaki and Odinga essentially just want to preserve the status quo - that is, limited accountability, corruption, personalistic politics.

• In addition, the ambassador himself seems to have a real passion for focussing on the young people in Kenya. In encouraging them to join the equivalent of our youth councils and engaging them in political discussions he seems to have become less than popular among the kenyan elite. I have to say that I think this is the most hopeful thing not just for Kenyan politics but for African politics in general - to cut short a topic I could go on and on about, the most significant obstacle I see to democratic consolidation in Africa isn't the region's poverty but its current political personnel (though thats not at all to imply the two are mutually exclusive).  

• The US isn't concerned about Chinese investment in the region: he recognised that China had no intentions whatsoever to involve itself in the politics of Kenya and that its investment was purely infrastructural. It was interesting that he noted that this was undercutting the emergence of small- and medium-businesses in Kenya which is damaging, yet in the same breath suggested that the US would do well to go back to delivering aid as it used to in the form of infrastructural projects....               

• The final thing of note was his predictions for the 2012 elections: unless the new constitution is properly implemented, he imagines that the potential for more violence in 2012 is significant.  

The second level on which the discussion was interesting was that I feel like it gave me quite a unique glimpse of what an American ambassador is like, and a better understanding of what actually goes on in these discussions with the likes of Odinga and Kibaki behind closed doors. In terms of Ranneberger's frankness and his real willingness to with engage us, I really can't fault him. But at the same time, there was a lot in the way he spoke that I found very difficult to admire or like.  

For example, on recounting a meeting he had been present at with Condoleezza Rice, he proudly exclaimed that: "She just ripped right through them, she tore Kibaki to pieces! It was brilliant, I've never seen anyone speak to anyone like that! She just ripped right through him and told him straight!" More recently, Hillary Clinton also "Tore Odinga to pieces! I'd never dare use such forceful language! It was incredible!" - you get the picture. 

There's a lot wrong with the way so many African politicians go about their business, no doubt. And its certainly true that its absolutely paramount that Kibaki and Odinga don't get away with dragging their feet with respect to implementing the political reforms that they have agreed to. But at the same time, when I hear a US ambassador talking like this I feel just as much - if not even more - despair for the prospects of democracy not just in Africa's fledglings, but those all over the world. Why? Because it smacks of US arrogance, something that countless commentators (most of whom are Americans, I should add) have warned against for a considerable amount of time now. Its because of language like this, no doubt, that so many people in these developing countries view the US with such deep suspicion, and also why leaders of these developing countries are increasingly turning to China for aid: as Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade has said; "China's approach to our needs is simply better adapted than the patronizing post-colonial approach". 

In taking this gung-ho, "here's what we want and here's what you'l do" approach, the US risks alienating a lot of people - and that would be bad - very bad - for democratic prospects. Taking one issue to highlight this: It's of course correct to highlight human rights abuses, but at the same time US representatives have got to be far more sensitive to the thin line they are walking, and need to realise that often they appear sanctimonious and thoroughly hypocritical (Guantanamo, anyone? Should we make a list?) - not just to political elites, but their populations too.  I found it odd when he claimed that 'Kenyans really love Americans', because thats not the impression I got at all. Granted, they love Obama, but thats very different to liking US policy in Africa. On the whole, I was staggered to find that Kenyans thought far higher of Britons than they did Americans but who knows - maybe I wasn't speaking to the right people. I'm certainly not saying that America has no right to push these political elites for change - of course it does, and it should. But some ways are less damaging than others. 

And I suppose this goes back to my post about Cathy Ashton's lecture and the Chatham House report which said that America would do better to stop trying to lead all on its own as the world's supreme superhero. Unfortunately though, from the 2-hour glimpse I got of Michael Ranneberger I saw no signs of change. In his estimations, America is the only power really taking an active interest in Kenya, the US has all the ideas, and its the one applying all the pressure. In short, its not the amount of pressure being applied that worries me, its far more the manner in which the US is going about it...