STANFORD UNIVERSITY ICA PROGRAMS & CENTERS: CENTER FOR AFRICAN STUDIES
Vol. 1, Issue 5
The World Is Our Classroom IPS Students Report from Rwanda
CENTER FOR EAST ASIAN STUDIES CENTER FOR LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES CENTER FOR RUSSIAN, EAST EUROPEAN AND EURASIAN STUDIES CENTER FOR SOUTH ASIA EAST ASIA INTERNSHIP PROGRAM THE EUROPE CENTER FORD DORSEY PROGRAM IN INTERNATIONAL POLICY STUDIES FRANCE-STANFORD CENTER FOR INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES HAMID AND CHRISTINA MOGHADAM PROGRAM IN IRANIAN STUDIES INNER ASIA @ STANFORD MEDITERRANEAN STUDIES FORUM PROGRAM IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS SOHAIB AND SARA ABBASI PROGRAM IN ISLAMIC STUDIES THE STANFORD HUMAN RIGHTS INITIATIVE TAUBE CENTER FOR JEWISH STUDIES
After meeting with IPS students, President Kagame shakes hands with trip participant Sarah van Vliet.
Students in the Ford Dorsey Program in International Policy Studies (IPS) visited Rwanda over Spring Break. This student-led study trip was conceived and coordinated by secondyear students Micaela Hellman-Tincher, Lukas Friedemann, and Danny Buerkli, giving 18 first-year students an experience they’ll never forget. But, why Rwanda? “Nearly twenty years ago, this was a country in the midst of a terrible genocide,” says IPS Director Kathryn Stoner. “This trip to Rwanda, although short, enabled students to see how a divided country can reconcile and rebuild while facing extreme poverty and few resources. Students were able to take knowledge acquired in the classroom and see how it might apply in a real-world situation.” The students traveled to several regions in Rwanda and learned first-hand how a small, landlocked country, at one time torn by genocide, is slowly transforming itself. According to student leader Danny Buerkli, "Organizing this study trip was a great experience. It was an opportunity to give back to the program and to deepen our own understanding of Rwanda. And Professor Jim Fearon, our faculty leader, contributed so much to the trip with his unparalleled understanding of ethnic conflicts." Students wrote about the trip and share highlights on the following page.
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The World is Our Classroom (continued from page 1)
Chris Coke This was my first trip to Africa, and really my first to a developing country. Of course, I gained perspective on true human suffering, something that can easily be lost while studying at Stanford. However, I drew the most value from deeply pondering major international and humanitarian issues in a specific setting with a small group of people all doing the same. I had more experiences debating political vs. economic development than I would have had in a year here at Stanford. Complete immersion, even if just for a week, was a great experience. Emmanuel Ferrario Our first trip within Rwanda was to a genocide memorial site. The memorial helped us comprehend the extent and implications of the peace and justice process in Rwanda. The Rwandan people we met conveyed clearly that reconciliation among the different ethnic groups was built on this premise: first, peace; second, development. Cho Kim Traveling alone, I would never have had the chance to participate in such intimate discussions with the Minister of Health, Agnes Binagwaho; the Permanent Secretary of MINAFFET, Mary Baine; or the President, Paul Kagame. I also enjoyed the meetings with the Akilah Institute, an organization that trains and educates women who might otherwise find it difficult to find employment. As one interested in the microfinance and education sectors, I appreciated hearing how the organization was carefully planning to help women finance tuition costs through micro-loans. Jessie Brunner When we visited the memorial at Nyamata Church, where thousands of men, women and children were slain in 1994, I was incredibly affected by the stoic manner in which the woman who led our tour, probably my age and seven months pregnant, recalled stories of the genocide. This interaction cemented my awareness that a vast percentage of the population (about 12 million) lives with memories of the genocide, either as survivors or perpetrators, in
Meghan Farley I have learned many things in my short time in Rwanda, many of which will stay with me for a long time, and many of which I am still slowly processing. But the things that will stay with me most are: • Nothing is black or white. Between a democracy that fails to provide economic development and adequate Ron Yamada public services, and an authoritarian I was amazed by the orphan village we regime that pulls its people out of visited in eastern Rwanda. Each child poverty and solves public health issues is assigned work such as farming or while restricting some civil liberties, cooking. The children are studying a which is better? I no longer think wide range of subjects, including math, this question can be answered in an history, chemistry, English, and French. absolute manner. One of the kids told me about his dream • There is a distinction between to start a business trading livestock reconciliation and peaceful domestically and internationally, which cohabitation. Sometimes the former was why he studied economics. The is beyond what is reasonably possible, children’s ambitious plans and bright and the latter is the only road to peace. faces touched my heart. • Policymaking has more challenges Lu Liu than I could have ever possibly Our meeting with President Kagame was imagined. From the time a need is definitely one of the highlights of this revealed, to when an idea is formed, to trip for me. The fact that he spent more when a policy is formulated and then than two hours with us, answering all the implemented, a successful outcome is questions that we had posed, attested never guaranteed, and there are many to the depth of the meeting. While there things that can go wrong along the way was clearly a limit to how much he to turn a good idea into a policy with could share with us, I thought that he awful consequences. was candid about the challenges and frustrations that Rwanda has had to face Siyeona Chang during its reconstruction. Without this trip, it is unlikely that I would have had the chance to get to Deirdre Hegarty Throughout the week, there were many know Rwanda in such depth. On our small group trips, we saw trucks carrying times when class material from our petroleum from Uganda, reminding first two quarters literally “came to life” during our meetings. When we met us of the development challenges of a landlocked country. On another occasion with the CEO of Crystal Ventures, John we were faced with the juxtaposition Birungi, he talked about the merits of of a Rwandan farmer, who receives 25 an import substitution (IS) strategy for cents for a kilogram of coffee beans he Rwanda. Most of us had taken the IPS harvests, and our guide, who took us course on International Trade, and we ended up in a lively discussion about the to the coffee washing station and was merits and limitations of an IS strategy. managing his schedule on the newest iPad Mini. I found this a fascinating When we met with Mike Hammond metaphor for the growing inequality and of the Department for International societal challenges that lie ahead. Development (DFID) and his staff, we gained insight into the tension between The Ford Dorsey Program in International DFID’s development goals and the Policy Studies (IPS) is a multidisciplinary Rwandan government’s interests. master’s program dedicated to the study Reading about issues of development and analysis of the international system. is much different than listening to a Contact ips-information@stanford.edu for conversation between staff members regarding the actual trade-offs they must more information.] make. a country with only seven practicing psychiatrists (there were none in 1994). The implications of this reality has encouraged me to pursue a much deeper understanding of transitional justice and what judicial mechanisms can be employed to encourage post-conflict justice and reconciliation.
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Five Questions for Director Abbas Milani Questions by Cara Reichard, '15
Iran here at Stanford and, through the community of our students, in the rest of the world. Finally, if we have had any success in our endeavors, it has been in no small measure because of the tireless and always gracefully efficient work of our program manager, Ms. Pasang Sherpa.
Since its establishment, what do you think the Iranian Studies Program has offered to the Stanford community at large? I think our most important contributions to the Stanford community have been Abbas Milani is Director of the Hamid and in the realms of pedagogy and cultural/ Christina Moghadam Iranian Studies Program, political awareness. When I began at and Research Fellow and Co-Director of the Iran Stanford, I was the only person at the Democracy Project at the Hoover Institution. University teaching courses on Iran. The The Division of ICA contains a variety Language Center had a part-time instructor of programs representing many in Persian as well. Today we have a wider different cultures. What do you think variety of courses—from Dominic Parviz the introduction of a program in Iranian Brookshaw’s course on medieval Persian Studies has contributed to ICA? images of wine to Bahram Beyzaie’s course It was remarkable that a university of on the semiotics of modern Iranian cinema, Stanford’s stature did not have an Iranian from my own course on the politics of Studies Program until a few years ago. modern Iran to Shervin Emami’s course Initially the vision of Hamid and Christina that studies texts in their original Persian. Moghadam, and the encouraging support This year the Program will be granting its of academic leaders at Stanford, helped first undergraduate certificate in Iranian us launch the program. After a few years, Studies. Moreover, through a variety of major donations by Bita Daryabari allowed activities—either events the Program us to expand our work in the domain sponsors, or those co-sponsored with other of literature and arts. Iran has been for groups at Stanford—the Program in Iranian almost three thousand years a country of Studies affords the Stanford community great importance to the West, and to the the chance to see some of the best Iran has evolution of our common human heritage. to offer. ICA rightly prides itself for standing at the forefront of cultivating, encouraging, Your nonpartisanship is fairly unique. and articulating truly interdisciplinary, What do you think the value is of a multi-cultural research and pedagogy nonpartisan approach to the type of at Stanford, and Iranian Studies has research that you do? How do you been, from its inception, as much about think it has benefited your work here the politics and economy of Iran as its at Stanford? literature, arts and theater. The fact that Policymakers no less than students, scholars the Program has invited many of the no less than journalists, want to hear the foremost scholars, artists, filmmakers, truth and it has always been my belief that poets, and political scientists from Iran (or as scholars our foremost responsibility is working on Iran) to Stanford, and the fact to seek and speak the truth. In speaking that many of our colleagues at ICA—and the truth, we sometimes disturb the facile many of our students—have attended peace of partisans of one view or another, these events, underscores our contribution but impartiality, or what one scholar calls to the enrichment of the scholarly, “eclipsing the self,” is the very foundation of intellectual and political discourse on scholarship—and good policy.
What kind of interaction do you see (if any) between your role as a professor, in which you are working primarily with students, and your role at the Hoover Institution, in which you are working more towards providing information for policymakers? Do the two positions affect each other in any way? In my experience, the two aspects have no essential conflict; indeed they are, in my view, complimentary. To offer advice to policymakers requires, more than anything, familiarity with the subject, and students, too, expect nothing less. While in a policy paper I can freely offer what I think is the best way to tackle a problem—after adequately and accurately describing the problem—in a class, I think it is my responsibility to give students, not my views, but the range of views, attitudes, theories, or surmises about the subject. Needless to say, “eclipsing the self” completely, even in the context of a class, is virtually impossible, but it is our goal and responsibility. What new research are you currently working on? How does it connect to your work in the Iranian Studies Program? As you might know, last year I published a book on the Shah (called The Shah, published in the US and UK by Palgrave Macmillan.) I have now written an expanded version of the book in Persian. The government in Iran has banned my books, and perforce, I am publishing it outside Iran and making it accessible to those in Iran through the Internet. The book is a political history of modern Iran through the prism of the Shah’s life. It tries to trace the roots of the Islamic revolution and explain why from a modernizing authoritarian regime a clerical despotism emerged. It covers, at some length, the role the US played in Iranian politics, particularly from 1941–1980, and much of what I teach in my classes covers these very issues. For more information about the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies, visit iranian-studies.stanford.edu.]
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DEAN'S AWARD of merit
CONGRATULATIONS LAURA HUBBARD! Center for African Studies Associate Director Laura Hubbard was awarded the prestigious Stanford School of the Humanities and Sciences Dean's Award of Merit in recognition of her outstanding performance and dedication.
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