November 2011 by The Washington Diplomat

■ INSIDE: EDUCATION AND MEDICAL SPECIAL SECTIONS

A World of News and Perspective

EDUCATION Q A Special Section of The Washington Diplomat

■ VOLUME 18, NUMBER 11 LATIN AMERICA

■ WWW.WASHDIPLOMAT.COM

Q November 2011

■ NOVEMBER 2011

SOUTHEAST ASIA

Can Argentina Serve as Economic Model for Greece? Since its debt default a decade ago, Argentina’s economy has roared back to life, leading many to wonder if it could serve as a model for Greece today, but others caution that Argentina’s own economic future has yet to be written. PAGE 8

UNITED STATES

Saudi Plot Stuns D.C., But City Has Seen Its Share of Intrigue The bombshell that U.S. authorities allegedly foiled an Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador represents one of the most serious threats against a diplomat in recent Washington history — but while rare, political attacks targeting diplomats have happened here before. PAGE 10

culture

Warhol Gives Media ‘15 Minutes of Fame’ Andy Warhol grabs “headlines” yet again in two major shows that explore his love, and manipulation of the media. PAGE 42

INDONESIA’S FRESH FACE

Ambitious and fast rising — that description could easily be applied to either Dino Patti Djalal or his homeland of Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim nation and its third largest democracy, which the driven young envoy says is not just a regional power, but also “a global player.” PAGE 15

PEOPLE OF WORLD INFLUENCE

DIPLOMATIC SPOUSES

New Media In, Old Politics Out

Despite Personal Tragedy, Gambia Judge Perseveres

A former head of the Nixon Center and Democratic advisor, Steve Clemons has parlayed his popular blog into a top job at the Atlantic magazine, employing a mixture of non-ideological intellectual curiosity and a tireless work ethic to emerge as a top foreign policy opinion leader. PAGE 6

Aminatta N’gum, wife of the Gambian ambassador, has the wisdom of 32 years of legal and judicial experience in her long career, but underneath there is also the solemn resilience of a mother who’s had to cope with the loss of her son. PAGE 44

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November 2011

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November 2011

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November 2011

CONTENTS THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT

November 2011

21 Nicaragua

[ news ] 6

33 Brain injury

Chinese ceramic painting

PEOPLE OF WORLD INFLUENCE

ECONOMICS

[ education ]

Since its debt default 10 years ago, Argentina’s economy has rebounded, leading to suggestions that Greece should take a page from its playbook, but others caution that the volatile Latin nation’s own economic future has yet to be written.

DIPLOMACY

The D.C. government has transformed its public school system thanks to an ambitious, determined push to breathe new life into schools that had been neglected for decades.

[ medical ] 33

VANTAGE POINT

[ culture ]

INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT Parochially viewed by the developing world as “big bad businesses,” multinational corporations are in fact some of the main actors behind the push to eradicate global poverty.

COVER: Photo taken at the Residence of Indonesia by Lawrence Ruggeri.

ART Andy Warhol grabs headlines again with two major exhibitions that explore his clever manipulation of the news media to boost his art, and his own fame.

DIPLOMATIC SPOUSES A judge with 32 years of legal experience, Aminatta N’gum exemplifies the dedication to education needed to build a developing nation.

ART “CHINA Town: Contemporary Ceramic Painting from Jingdezhen” is the latest in a fruitful collaboration between the Meridian International Center and Beijing.

ART Edgar Degas’s famed obsession with the world of ballet is mirrored in the disciplined dedication of the dancers he so masterfully painted.

PHOTOGRAPHY FotoWeek DC has turned the lens on the power of photography, and given it a new venue: the entire nation’s capital.

ART The inventive use of space and provocative social commentary bind two different Chilean exhibits together at the OAS.

FILM REVIEWS From the director of big-budget flicks comes “Anonymous,” a British costume drama on Shakespearean fraud.

HEART DISEASE Statin drugs like Lipitor are big business in America, and all over the world, but while hugely beneficial to some people, they’re hardly benign cure-alls.

Joseph Nye argues that gloomy predictions of U.S. decline amid the “rise of the rest” underestimate America’s power.

BRAIN INJURY Traumatic brain injury has become a tragic consequence of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, leading to renewed research to combat the condition’s debilitating aftermath.

COVER PROFILE: INDONESIA As Indonesia gears up to host two major regional summits this month, its driven ambassador in Washington is embracing the opportunity to showcase his fast-rising powerhouse.

SCHOOL MODERNIZATION

DIPLOMACY Ambassadors lobby Washington policymakers just like any other political interest group, and the race is on to influence Capitol Hill in the wake of the government’s cutting spree.

VISITS To reach American audiences beyond the Beltway, foreign ambassadors regularly tour U.S. colleges and universities to meet the future generation of leaders.

Diplomats in D.C. are much more likely to be victims of traffic incidents than they are to be targets of assassination plots, but that doesn’t mean the danger is nonexistent.

POLITICS As Nicaraguans go to the polls to elect a president, there’s no mystery who the winner will be: Daniel Ortega, the aging revolutionary comandante who’s embraced elements of Western capitalism, but not its politics.

In an era when most Beltway political pundits are prone to predictable and fiercely partisan posturing, Steve Clemons is an informed rarity.

FILM FESTIVALS This year’s Arabian Sights Film Festival sets its sights on the foremost event on everyone’s minds, the Arab Spring.

CINEMA LISTING

EVENTS LISTING

DIPLOMATIC SPOTLIGHT

WORLD HOLIDAYS / APPOINTMENTS

CLASSIFIEDS

REAL ESTATE CLASSIFIEDS

P.O. Box 1345 • Silver Spring, MD 20915-1345 • Phone: (301) 933-3552 • Fax: (301) 949-0065 • E-mail: news@washdiplomat.com • Web: www.washdiplomat.com Publisher/Editor-in-Chief Victor Shiblie Director of Operations Fuad Shiblie Managing Editor Anna Gawel News Editor Larry Luxner Editorial Assistant Julie Poucher Harbin Contributing Writers Martin Austermuhle, Rachael Bade, Michael Coleman, Patrick Corcoran, Stephanie Kanowitz, Ky N. Nguyen, Fresia Rodriguez, Gail Scott, Gina Shaw, Jordan Michael Smith, Gary Tischler Photographer Jessica Latos Director of Sales Ben Porter Account Managers David Garber, Christina Langer, Chris Smith Graphic Designer Cari Bambach The Washington Diplomat is published monthly by The Washington Diplomat, Inc. The newspaper is distributed free of charge at several locations throughout the Washington, D.C. area. We do offer subscriptions for home delivery. Subscription rates are $29 for 12 issues and $49 for 24 issues. Call Fuad Shiblie for past issues. If your organization employs many people from the international community you may qualify for free bulk delivery. To see if you qualify you must contact Fuad Shiblie. The Washington Diplomat assumes no responsibility for the safe keeping or return of unsolicited manuscripts, photographs, artwork or other material. The information contained in this publication is in no way to be construed as a recommendation by the Publisher of any kind or nature whatsoever, nor as a recommendation of any industry standard, nor as an endorsement of any product or service, nor as an opinion or certification regarding the accuracy of any such information.

November 2011

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PEOPLE OF WORLD INFLUENCE

Steve Clemons

Opinion Leader Moves Past Punditry To Provide ‘Ambidextrous’ Analysis by Michael Coleman

n an era when most Washington political pundits are prone to predictable and fiercely partisan posturing, Steve Clemons is an informed rarity. A former director of the Nixon Center and policy advisor to a Democratic senator, Clemons this year parlayed his popular foreign policy and political blog — thewashingtonnote.com — into a job as Washington editor-atlarge of the Atlantic magazine.

Employing a mixture of non-ideological intellectual curiosity, a clear, easily digestible writing style and a tireless, roll-up-thesleeves work ethic, Clemons has gradually emerged as one of Washington’s premier foreign policy opinion leaders. In addition to his editor-at-large duties, Clemons is also director of Atlantic Live, the magazine’s event arm. It’s a position that has solidified his status as one of the leading organizers of major policy and news events in the city. Clemons’s last event, the wide-ranging Washington Ideas Forum at the Newseum on Pennsylvania Avenue, boasted interviews with foreign policy stalwarts ranging from Vice President Joe Biden to former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. Clemons describes himself as a “progressive realist,” and sometimes displays a Democratic-leaning bent in his writing, but he’s not hesitant to criticize foreign policy leaders of all political stripes. Over the past two months, Clemons has chastised President Obama for telling the Palestinians to effectively “stay in the back of the bus” during their recent United Nations statehood bid and ripped Republican Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona for threatening to abandon the so-called congressional super committee’s negotiations on deficit reduction if he doesn’t get his way on defense spending. Clemons also chided Defense Secretary Leon Panetta for hyping the al-Qaeda threat to win budget increases from Congress, while calling Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney’s foreign policy vision “a big dud.” “I’m not ideological, and I find that a weakness of how people operate in this town,” Clemons said during a recent expansive interview at the Atlantic offices in Washington’s famed Watergate building. “I try to be open minded and ambidextrous intellectually. You have to keep an open mind in this town. I just don’t believe in drawing a line. “Anybody who reads my writing will see an effort at trying to continually challenge myself, reach out to different communities, and not let the flame-throwers define who I am and what my views are,” Clemons added. The son of an Air Force officer, Clemons

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was born in Texas and moved around frequently as a kid. In 1987, he landed a job as the youngest executive director of the Japan America Society of Southern California. “It was right on the end of when the Japan investment boom began in the United States, and California was the beachhead of that,” Clemons recalled. “I developed a real interest in foreign affairs and I was interested in the shift I felt about how strategists analyzed power.” Clemons said the “Kissinger-Nixon crowd” tended to think about power in terms of military might, or “throw weight in nuclear arsenals and things of that sort.” But Japan’s economic emergence in the 1980s altered that reality. “Those were the building blocks of power during the Cold War but then you had Japan rising,” he said.“Japan didn’t have a real military capacity. It was defensive and it was tied with the United States. But you saw the yen begin surging and you saw the ’85 Plaza Accord, which essentially devalued the dollar and increased the value of the yen. PHOTO: NEW AMERICA FOUNDATION

“

I’m not ideological, and I find that a weakness of how people operate in this town…. I try to be open minded and ambidextrous intellectually. You have to keep an open mind in this town. I just don’t believe in drawing a line.

”

— STEVE CLEMONS, Washington editor at large of the Atlantic “It changed the economic weight of Japan,” Clemons said. During seven years at the Japan America Society, Clemons learned a lot about international power and economics and met influential people in the U.S. foreign policy establishment, including Kissinger, Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.) and former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft. His work impressed them and those contacts led to an offer in 1994 to move to Washington to become the first executive director for the Nixon Center, which this year was renamed the Center for the National Interest. “It got me thinking about how to orga-

nize a public affairs center that would deal with these foreign policy issues in a contemporary kind of way,” Clemons said. During the mid to late 1990s, Clemons went to work on Capitol Hill for Sen. Jeff Bingaman, a New Mexico Democrat who served on the Armed Services Committee and was interested in U.S.-Chinese relations and U.S.-Asian relations in general. After a few years writing op-eds for Bingaman and advising him on foreign policy, Clemons decided he wanted to write in his own voice. He joined the New America Foundation think tank, serving as executive vice president and later as found-

er and director of the American Strategy Program. He remains a senior fellow at the organization, in addition to his Atlantic work. In a Washington environment where information is currency and the number of eyeballs reading your work is indicative of influence, Clemons realized early on that Internet blogs were gaining traction, especially those that weren’t affiliated with mainstream media or the often stodgy op-ed pages at newspapers like the Washington Post and New York Times. His friend Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo, a respected source of left-leaning reporting, encouraged him to start the Washington Note blog. “To be a blogger and write every day is a hard thing,” Clemons said with a laugh.“I was writing but [as an op-ed contributor]. I wanted to take time to think and strategize and seduce the editor. Blogging is immediate — you get rid of all that foreplay and uncertainty. I didn’t know if I had it in me. But he [Marshall] got someone to design my site and I haven’t really stopped since.”

November 2011

The transition to blogging wasn’t easy but it was illuminating. “It completely changed how I looked at the policy and ideas industry in Washington,” Clemons said.“Because you realize that the people who succeeded in the blogosphere are the same people who were succeeding in the old systems — they’re writers, they are professors, thought workers, knowledge workers — but they are coming up in a system that is much faster.You have a new ability to carve up content and deliver it in much more sexy ways with video, etc.” Clemons, in fact, was an early adopter of videoconferencing to project public policy events across the Web. “No one was doing live streaming, no one was saying I can have eight people in the room but I can have 600 people watching at their desk,” he said. “The order of magnitude changed the outreach we were doing and it made a difference in a lot of the policy stuff.” Although Clemons is an avid reader and occasional contributor to newspapers, he doesn’t romanticize them. He is also relieved that blogs are becoming more widely accepted as disseminators of real news — not just snark and commentary. “I’m not one of those who lament the death of mainline journalism, or the slow erosion,” he said. “There was this point where the blogs became recognized by the political set as powerful and people began talking to them.The accountability became something.” The root of all of Clemons’s new media exploration remains foreign affairs, evident in his writing at the Atlantic and his ongoing Washington Note blog. In the middle of the Palestinian statehood bid at the United Nations in September, Clemons wrote an essay after Obama’s speech comparing it to his highly regarded Cairo speech a year earlier and concluding that the president had “lost his groove.” “Perhaps most disappointing is that President Obama … who felt that achieving an IsraelPalestine two state deal was of such strategic significance to the United States that he made it one of the very first out-of-the-gate priorities of his administration, has not only offered nothing new to break the Israel-Palestine negotiations deep freeze but has acquiesced to the very narrative on the negotiations that Israel embraces,” Clemons wrote.“For Israel at the moment, doing nothing is best.” He added: “Obama is assuring the further emasculation and perhaps final demise of Palestine’s moderates.” Clemons told The Diplomat that Obama hasn’t helped to create a solution to the conflict because he hasn’t set forth a “broad plate” of issues that could be negotiated by the Israelis and Palestinians. “Don’t solve everyone’s problems but lay out generally what the parameters of American expectations are and force the Israeli electorate to respond. He should make the weather,” Clemons suggested.“What we’re doing is letting [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu make the weather and we’re responding to that weather.We’re in a mode of holding our finger in the dike and trying not to offend many on the Israeli side of the equation and the American Jewish community, although I think the American Jewish community is frankly mixed on this. It has put Obama on the defensive, not the offensive, and it makes him look inconsistent with the values he talked about in Cairo.” Clemons also recently called out Leon Panetta, the former CIA director and current defense secretary, for talking out of both sides of his mouth on al-Qaeda. “It seems that one week, al-Qaeda is on the run and ‘near collapse’ and the next, al-Qaeda remains the reason why the U.S. needs to continue to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on a Pentagon designed to fight the wrong wars,” Clemons wrote in September. “This is irresponsible hyping of a threat to justify massive defense spending during a period of real fiscal stress. “Leon Panetta needs to get to work transforming the Pentagon and needs to elevate his game — learning how to talk about vital national secuNovember 2011

rity deliverables in terms of deeds done and future strategy rather than trying to convince increasingly skeptical Americans that national security is purely a function of the dollars spent.” In his interview with us, Clemons made it clear that he respects Panetta, but thinks he should be held accountable for contradictory statements coming from the CIA and Defense Department. “He said the biggest threat to the U.S. is alQaeda and I’m going, ‘Wait, didn’t the intelligence agencies just this week say they are decimated and on the verge of collapse?’” Clemons pointed out. “This is fear mongering for budget numbers that isn’t educated.What I was saying is this flamboyant overstatement of need is no way to do this. “He was essentially using a beaten foe or hyping a threat to some degree because of what I see as legitimate concerns about how the defense budget will be cut,” Clemons added. “What I object to is the manufacturing of threats to justify budgets.” In the realm of domestic politics, Clemons has also been critical of what he views as a growing acceptance of anti-Sharia rhetoric from conservatives who fear the influence of radical Islam in America. “We are at the point today where well-organized minority viewpoints matter,” said Clemons, who has spent time in recent months trying to understand the Tea Party movement better.“New technology has given everybody a voice, even the ones who are more radical or maybe fringe. “The anti-Sharia groups are probably a combination of people,” he continued, referring to the religious law of Islam. “Some of them see themselves as patriots — in my book pugnacious patriots who have a pretty nativist view of normal Americans based on race. There are many Muslims in the country, and the [anti-Sharia crowd] won’t accept the notion that a Muslim can fundamentally be American. What you have are people stoking fear to network and organize in their communities.” Turning the subject to President Obama and the recent Libyan conflict, Clemons said the president might have established a laudable “new intervention model” for how the United States responds to international crises. He pointed out that America didn’t get all the credit for Libyan strongman Muammar Qaddafi’s demise, but neither did America have to do all the heavy lifting. “Allowing others to have the spotlight — whether it’s Arab nations or the French — we’re going to get less credit for a successful operation. We’re engaged but we’re not the whole thing,” Clemons said.“I think that’s where we need to be today because we just don’t have the resources to manage everything in the same way we did before.” As for Obama’s re-election chances heading into 2012, Clemons said the president has serious reason for concern. “His deficit with Americans right now is some degree of doubt, not about his vision but his ability to produce results and get things done without conceding so much of the field to his opponents politically, so it looks like he’s not a man of principle and doesn’t have the courage of his convictions,” Clemons explained. Of course, the economy, not foreign policy, is priority number one — something that Clemons said Obama waited way too long to realize. “A lot of Americans like myself are saying,‘You had a lot of choices in the policy things you did and you chose a track that many of us said wasn’t going to work,’” Clemons argued. “He should have focused on jobs and the economy right up front and he didn’t do it.” As a result, Obama may learn the same lesson that President George H.W. Bush learned in 1992, when President Clinton stymied his re-election chances, Clemons says. “Fundamentally, his fortunes are going to rise and fall on two things: the quality of the opponents who oppose him and where the economy is.”

Michael Coleman is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat. The Washington Diplomat Page 7

ECONOMICS

Debt Default

Argentina 2001 vs. Greece 2011: The Parallels, Pitfalls of Comparison by Patrick Corcoran

ince its catastrophic financial crisis and debt default a decade ago, Argentina’s economic performance has been among the strongest in Latin America. The economy grew by 9.2 percent in 2010 and is projected to expand by another 8.3 percent in 2011. High commodities prices and growing Chinese demand have helped Argentine exporters fill their coffers at impressive rates. Even as the world financial system careened into crisis in 2008 and 2009, Argentina’s decline was comparatively mild; according to the World Bank’s data, the nation’s worst year came in 2009, when the economy still grew by 0.6 percent. Such was the confidence that President Cristina Fernández famously used the crisis to poke at Western economic prescriptions for her nation, saying in a conference with investors at New York’s Council of the Americas in 2008,“it seems to me that you are the ones needing a Plan B.” But Argentina’s current relevance doesn’t stem merely from robust GDP growth during the past several years. Because of its success in overcoming the aftermath of its economic calamity in 2001 and 2002, some today look to Argentina as a model for how Greece can crawl its own way back from calamity. After all, if Argentina, just one decade ago, could survive the world’s biggest sovereign default and a massive devaluation when it abandoned its dollar-pegged peso, why can’t Greece — burdened with a debt load that amounts to 150 percent of its GDP, which many economic experts say it will never have the means to pay off — do the same today? As Stephen Brown of Reuters reported, at one point protesters in Athens floated a balloon in front of parliament asking: “Yesterday, Argentina;Today, Greece;Tomorrow?” The question though is not that simple, nor is Argentina’s own economic outlook.The bigger question is why, with the same team responsible for the recovery from the crash handily winning another four years in power in the October presidential election (with Fernández far surpassing her nearest competitor), are so many people so bearish about the future of the booming Argentine economy?

OMINOUS HISTORY LESSONS One big reason is history: For the past century, Argentina has been one of the most economically volatile countries in Latin America, with a business cycle known for wild swings and periods of extreme optimism culminating in harsh downturns.“Every decade or so there is a crisis in Argentina, and it looks like we are moving toward that,” said Riordan Roett, director of the Latin American Studies Program at the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. The depth of the crisis in 2001-02 also helps fuel lingering pessimism. It was not merely a nasty recession — the crash was the culmination of three years of decline, which gave the episode the hallmark characteristics of a depression. The peso devaluation ruined the savings of millions of Argentines; the number of poor skyrocketed in the once-rich nation, with more than a quarter of its citizens unable to afford even a healthy diet in 2002 and 2003; and the default on more than $132 billion in foreign debt was the largest the world

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CREDIT: UN PHOTO / EVAN SCHNEIDER

Argentine President Cristina Fernández, seen above addressing a U.N. meeting of the “Group of 77” developing countries last year, was resoundingly re-elected into office last month on the back of robust growth, with Argentina’s economy among the strongest in Latin America — only 10 years after its catastrophic debt default.

“

Every decade or so there is a crisis in Argentina, and it looks like we are moving toward that. — RIORDAN ROETT

”

director of the Latin American Studies Program at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies

had ever seen. History aside, a handful of current factors has also contributed to the concern over the future of Argentina’s economy. One is that the recent growth is based on unsustainable policies as well as fortuitous international circumstances. On the latter for instance, prices for soybeans, a major Argentine export, have soared to around $500 a ton — buoyed by food demand in Asia and the biofuels market — from about $180 at the time of the 2001 crisis. On the former issue, the recent tiger-like growth rates have been fueled by increases in the fiscal and monetary base, as Cristina Fernández’s team readied itself for the coming election. But because of the resulting budget deficits, Kirchner’s administration will be forced to tighten its belt in the years to come, which will, in turn, kneecap the explosive growth rates. Indeed, the Economist Intelligence Unit predicts that after 8.6 percent growth in 2011, the economy will expand by only 4.9 percent next year; by 2016, growth will have slipped down to 3.5 percent. Other agencies differ in the specific statistics, but offer a broadly similar forecast. Inflationary pressures, which have a long track record of torturing Argentine policymakers, have also set off alarm bells. Worse still, independent economists say that the government’s inflation numbers are doctored. The government

has even resorted to fining economic forecasters who publish alternative figures and pressuring journalists who write critical accounts to give up their sources.This feeds the perception that for Fernández, the health of the economy is secondary to her administration’s political ambitions.“Under her it’s been clear that they either have no policy or don’t care about the creep-up of inflation,” Roett charged. Fernández’s longstanding habit of flouting traditional economic orthodoxy has also provoked concern. She nationalized the pension system in 2008, so as to obtain the $30 billion in the system.Two years later, she fired the central bank president, after he refused to hand over $6.6 billion in reserves that Fernández had demanded so as to service the foreign debt. A disregard for international consensus is essentially written into Fernández’s political DNA. As the foundation stone of the recovery, many analysts point to the decision by Néstor Kirchner, the nation’s former president and Fernández’s late husband, to force a harsh “haircut” onto creditors in 2005.As Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, told The Diplomat, “If you envision that they went down the IMF path of trying to pay the debt, it was hard to see how they would get out of that.” Roett, referring to the policy adjustments most responsible for the recovery, makes essentially the same point, though in much less favorable language:“They have basically walked away from all their obligations, which has made it much better for the domestic economy.” That may be so, but it has not inspired confidence in Argentina’s future. With the central bank widely seen as a puppet of the Fernández administration, and little confidence in government data, an unflattering image with a long history in Latin America begins to take shape: that of a populist government, either unconcerned or genuinely unaware of the eventual consequences of its risky actions, blithely leading the economy down the path to disaster yet again. But is that ominous picture accurate? More to the point, is another crash inevitable?

November 2011

developing country government. Argentina’s success suggests that these capital inflows are not necessarily as essential as is commonly believed.” For her part, Fernández and her team remain defiant about their policies. In September, she spoke admiringly (if not particularly modestly) to the U.N. General Assembly about her “faith in the path we have chosen, of growth with social inclusion.” In perhaps the clearest sign of that faith, Fernández also elevated her minister of the economy, Amado Boudou, to serve as her vice president in her second term.

GREECE: A COMPARABLE CALAMITY?

GDP growth (annual %) Annual percentage growth rate of GDP at market prices based on constant local currency. Aggregates are based on constant 2000 U.S. dollars.

-5

-10 1960 World

1970

1980

1990

2000

2010

Argentina

SOURCE: WORLD BANK NATIONAL ACCOUNTS DATA, AND OECD NATIONAL ACCOUNTS DATA FILES CATALOG SOURCES: WORLD DEVELOPMENT INDICATORS

Baker does not believe so.“You are not going to sustain 8 percent growth, that’s not realistic,” he said.“But 4 or 5 or 6 percent growth, I think there’s every reason in the world to expect that. That translates into really large gains in living standards in the country.” Baker pointed to political rivalries as a factor driving much of the gloom surrounding Argentina’s future, and said he didn’t expect any major changes to the government’s policy to be necessary in a second Fernández term. “I don’t see any imminent catastrophe,” he said. Other economic experts agree, and argue that Argentina serves as a shining example that bond markets and foreign investors need not be the end-all-be-all when it comes to generating economic prosperity. “Argentina’s experience contradicts the widely held conventional wisdom that recessions caused by financial crises must be followed

November 2011

by slow, painful, difficult recoveries. Argentina started growing just one quarter after its default, and reached its pre-recession level of GDP just three years later,” said Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, in the report “Argentine Success Story and Its Implications.” “There has also been a huge reduction in poverty and inequality, and record gains in employment. Clearly most Argentines have benefitted enormously from the government’s economic policies, and that’s why Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is likely to be re-elected. The percentage of Argentines in poverty and extreme poverty has fallen by about two-thirds from its peak,” Weisbrot added. “This should give pause to those who argue, as is quite common in the business press, that pursuing policies that please bond markets and international investors, as well as attracting FDI [foreign direct investment], should be the most important policy priorities for any

Even if you chalk up the recent economic performance to a combination of good fortune and myopic irresponsibility, and even if you regard the Fernández administration and that of her late husband with distaste, the mere fact that the political system is stable enough for the same regime to remain in power essentially for three presidential terms is an impressive achievement. At the height of the crisis in 2001, Argentina had five presidents in less than two weeks, amid riots in the streets that left dozens dead. Political stability was then a distant fantasy. The situation in Greece is not so severe — yet — but even if it gets far worse, Argentina serves as a reminder of how quickly things can improve. That potent reminder is why many economists such as Nobel winner Paul Krugman say Greece, like Argentina 10 years ago, cannot keep stomaching painful austerity measures while expecting economic growth to magically bounce back. In fact, Daniel Gros, director of the Brussels-based Center for European Policy Studies, outlined the eerie similarities between the two nations in the Project Syndicate op-ed “A Tale of Two Defaults.” He described how “there was a country plagued by large deficits, high inflation, and decades of economic stagnation.” So it tied itself to a more powerful currency and growth returned, but the government’s fiscal policy was a mess and its ballooning public debt unnerved investors. At first, the international community stepped in to support the ailing economy. “The first rescue package envisaged a resumption of growth, a decline in the fiscal deficit, and structural reforms. None of this was achieved, as the economy deteriorated under the impact of the fiscal measures, which were not offset by a surge in exports, because wages could not be lowered to gain competitiveness,” Gros wrote.

See ARGENTINA, page 11

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DIPLOMACY

Washington, D.C.

Saudi Assassination Plot an Oddity, But D.C. Has Seen Occasional Intrigue by Martin Austermuhle

he early October bombshell that U.S. authorities had exposed a plot to assassinate Saudi Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir in Washington, D.C., provoked shock, skepticism, outrage and bewilderment throughout the world. Not only were elements of Iran’s government behind the alleged assassination plot, U.S. officials claimed, but, if successful, it would have represented the highest-level killing of a diplomat in Washington in recent history — if not ever. Iran, and specifically the elite Quds Force fingered in the foiled plot, has been linked to violence and terrorist acts around the world — mostly by supporting insurgents and proxy groups such as Hezbollah — but never to attacks on U.S. soil, which could be considered an act of war. An additional cloak-and-dagger element in the bizarre mystery is Iran’s accusations that Israel, backed by the United States, has orchestrated the killing of several of its top nuclear scientists in recent years (including the near-death of one scientist who escaped a car bombing) in a covert campaign to sabotage Tehran’s nuclear program, fueling suspicions that the Saudi plot may have been retribution for those assassinations. But there are still plenty more questions than answers when it comes to the bafflingly clumsy plot, whose details are as salacious as they are strange — a divorced used car salesman tries to hire a member of the Mexican drug cartel to kill a top advisor to the Saudi king while he dined in his favorite D.C. restaurant. And to carry out this unprecedented hit, the highly disciplined, shadowy Quds Force relies on a criminal mastermind who manages to be talking to an American informant the whole time, while wiretapping huge sums of easily traceable money? It all sounds more like a Tom Clancy thriller novel, though it will have major real-life repercussions for Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United States. But for the tens of thousands of foreign diplomats who work their way through the hundreds of missions in the U.S. capital, diplomacy is a far more mundane affair; only a tiny minority has ever been the target of political violence or acts of terrorism. All told, diplomats serving in D.C. are much more likely to be victims of common crime (in 2010, Colombia’s ambassador had her residence burglarized) or traffic incidents than they are to be killed for political reasons. It has happened, though. In the early morning hours of July 1, 1973, Col. Yosef Alon, the 43-year-old air and naval attaché to the Israeli Embassy, was shot five times in front of his home on a quiet street in suburban Bethesda, Maryland. The killing, which took place as Alon and his wife returned from a colleague’s party, shocked the diplomatic community — according to the Washington Post, Nicaragua’s ambassador to the United States, who had served in the city for 30 years, said,“I recall nothing like this in the past.” Though no one person or group claimed responsibility, officials in Washington and Israel assumed that Arab terrorist groups targeted Alon due to his role as a fighter pilot in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. At a brief memorial service at Andrews Air Force Base, Israeli Ambassador Simcha Dinitz said,“The hands of those who tried to kill him in the air reached him here.”

Page 10

The Washington Diplomat

Ambassador of Saudi Arabia Adel al-Jubeir, left, talks with Iraqi Ambassador Samir Sumaida’ie at a Pakistani National Day reception in Washington. Last month, U.S. authorities alleged that Iran was behind a murder-for-hire plot to kill al-Jubeir, reportedly while he dined at his favorite D.C. restaurant.

For the tens of thousands of foreign diplomats who work their way through the hundreds of missions in the U.S. capital, only a tiny minority has ever been the target of political violence or acts of terrorism. But in a twist worthy of the Cold War tensions of the time, Alon’s widow Dvora eventually came to be convinced that he had been killed because he wasn’t just an attaché, but also an agent of the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency (others have also speculated that Alon was an intelligence officer whose covert work endangered his life). Though the claim was contested, Alon’s daughters continued fighting to uncover the truth about their father and his death. In April 2011, Fred Burton, a former U.S. State Department diplomatic security official and neighbor of Alon’s at the time of the killing, published a book on the case. In “Chasing Shadows: A Special Agent’s Lifelong Hunt to Bring a Cold War Assassin to Justice,” he concluded that the killing was likely carried out by Black September, a Palestinian paramilitary group that killed 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Three years later after Alon’s death, on Sept. 21, 1976, former Chilean Ambassador to the U.S. Orlando Letelier

was killed in what became one of the most infamous acts of targeted violence in Washington, D.C. At 9:35 a.m., a plastic explosive detonated under the seat of the car he was driving, killing him and an assistant, 25-year-old Ronni Moffitt. Her husband managed to survive. Letelier’s killing was quickly linked to a campaign of violence against dissidents by the regime of Augusto Pinochet, who had overthrown President Salvador Allende in 1973. In 1975, the FBI warned two other prominent Chileans, including another former ambassador to the U.S., that they might be at risk. Letelier, who was outspoken in his opposition to Pinochet, had his citizenship revoked by the Chilean regime only weeks before he was killed. Three men were eventually tried and convicted of killing Letelier and Moffitt, one U.S.-born and the other two Chilean. All three had links to Chile’s intelligence agency, and the assassination was later tied to a broader campaign against dissidents outside of Chile’s borders. To this day, a modest memorial to Letelier and Moffitt stands at the location in Sheridan Circle in D.C. — in the heart of the city’s Embassy Row — where they were killed. One of the most recent politically motivated attacks on a diplomat in Washington, D.C., took place on June 3, 1980. In the morning hours, the Crestwood home of Yugoslav chargé d’affaires Vladimir Sindjelic was bombed, resulting in significant damages but no deaths. “Through the smoke, [Sindjelic and his wife] assessed the damage: Antique wood furniture had been snapped like twigs, the front door was bent off its frame and two layers of brick beneath the picture window had been November 2011

blown apart. Virtually every window in the house was broken, several lamps, a silver service and a valuable Indonesian Batik painting had been destroyed,” reported the Washington Post of the bombing. The attack was eventually linked to a Croatian nationalist group upset with President Jimmy Carter’s planned visit to Yugoslavia. The bombing wasn’t the first time a Yugoslav diplomat had been targeted, though — in 1967, the embassy in Washington was similarly bombed. Other such attacks have struck at a number of embassies, in fact. In 1970, the Portuguese Embassy was bombed by the Revolutionary Action Party, a group that opposed American support for South Africa’s apartheid regime. In 1971, the Jewish Defense League set fire to three cars owned by the Soviet Embassy, while in 1973 a letter bomb went off at the British Embassy, causing a secretary to the military attaché to lose a hand. (The Irish Republican Army claimed responsibility for that attack.) In 1975, anti-Castro extremists attacked the Costa Rican Embassy.

In 1981, a man was shot and wounded during the occupation of the Iranian Embassy by antiKhomeini forces, and a group known as the Black Brigades claimed responsibility for setting a fire at the Liberian Embassy. In 1983, the Embassy of the Philippines was firebombed. Probably the country that has suffered most from attacks on its diplomats isTurkey.According to the Assembly ofTurkish American Associations, Turkish diplomats have been the victims of up to 27 attacks worldwide by Armenian terrorists. Five of those have been in the United States, three in California alone — one in 1973, and two in 1982. Despite the fact that none took place in Washington, D.C., to this day the Turkish ambassador’s residence off Sheridan Circle enjoys round-the-clock protection from the U.S. Secret Service.

Martin Austermuhle is a freelance writer in Washington, D.C., and associate editor of DCist.com.

from page 9

Argentina “One year later, risk premia were even higher than before, and a second bailout package was put together, followed by a large ‘voluntary’ debt rescheduling. But none of this was enough to restore the confidence of international investors, who were not convinced that the government could service its debt in the face of mounting social resistance and an economy that continued to contract.” That sequence of events of course led to Argentina’s downward spiral a decade ago. “Greece also had a history of fiscal problems and inflation, which were supposed to be cured by admission to the European Union’s Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) in 2001 (coincidentally, just as Argentina was preparing to default),” Gros writes. “Its first decade in EMU was also characterized by rapid economic growth, fueled mainly by abundant and cheap capital inflows. But during this first decade, a key underlying problem emerged as Greece lost competitiveness relative to Germany, just as Argentina had lost competitiveness to Brazil. “The Greek experience — so far, at least — looks like a replay of the Argentine drama,” Gros concludes. But the drama doesn’t necessarily follow the same script.While Greece can take heart from the fact that Argentina bounced back relatively unscathed, there are some important differences in each nation’s finances. At the time of its default, Argentina’s debt-toGDP ratio was about one-third the size of today’s Greek debt, which stands at around 150 percent of its GDP. Greece has also already received billions in bailout funds from other eurozone countries. And as Gros points out, “If Greece were to follow the Argentine script and be forced to leave the eurozone after a messy default, its nominal GDP is likely to be halved. In that case, the Greek government’s debt to its eurozone partners would be equivalent to 400% of its GDP, very little of which would be repaid. Argentina defaulted on its private debt, but at least it repaid all its official debt.” Perhaps most important,whileArgentina’s debacle certainly caused some international ripples, especially among neighboring nations, the threat of a Europe-wide — and even global — contagion in the event of a Greek default is much greater, with Spain, Portugal and Italy all tabbed as future problem spots that could tip the world back into full-blown recession. The primary lessons are perhaps not in how to recover from a financial catastrophe,

November 2011

PHOTO: LARRY LUXNER

Businessmen walk Calle Florida, one of the main pedestrian shopping streets in Buenos Aires. Last year, Argentina’s economy grew by 9.2 percent and is projected to expand by another 8.3 percent in 2011.

but in how to avoid a certain species of them. Both Argentina and Greece locked themselves into a currency regime controlled outside their borders, linking them to nations with very different economic needs and business cycles. In Argentina’s case, this stemmed from tying the Argentine peso to the dollar in the 1990s in a system known as convertibility; in Greece, the currency regime is the euro. In both instances, there was a lengthy initial period of calm that made the monetary regime seem a wise course. However, when circumstances turned unfavorable, policymakers in both Greece and Argentina were unable to use the flexibility of a national monetary policy — like the United States can — to smooth out the instability. Furthermore, the monetary straightjacket of convertibility and the eurozone has made exiting the regime a far more complicated undertaking (and, as indicated above, more difficult for the Greeks than in Argentina). This original sin eventually led to disaster in both cases. Argentina, like perpetually mismanaged Greece, would have been better off never linking its economy to a stronger currency managed abroad. Hindsight of course is 20/20. The question now is how steep the price will be for that mistake — for Greece, Europe and the world. And even if Argentina offers some important history lessons, that country’s own economic future has yet to be written.

Patrick Corcoran is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

The Washington Diplomat Page 11

DIPLOMACY

Washington, D.C.

Power Play: Embassies Make Their Case to Congress Via Lobby Shops by Jordan Michael Smith

efore arriving in Washington as Trinidad and Tobago’s ambassador in February, Neil Parsan did what any savvy envoy hoping to influence D.C. bigwigs does. He studied Congress. “I read and researched the structure of Congress,” said Parsan. “I had to find out which committees dealt with our issues.” Impacting the shape and direction of legislation affecting the national interests of Trinidad and Tobago is the ultimate objective for Parsan — as it is for almost every single ambassador working in the seat of American government. Indeed, though it is rarely discussed, the international diplomatic community lobbies Washington policymakers just like any other political actor.Ambassadors are the elite members of their home nations — usually the cream of the foreign service crop.To busy U.S. policymakers, however, they are just one more special interest pushing for influence — a prestigious one, surely, but another interest group all the same. Furthermore, ambassadors cannot vote or donate to political campaigns, making them far less valuable than other constituents. (In August, a federal appeals court upheld a ban on campaign contributions by foreigners.) And those constituents are almost always more concerned with domestic matters than foreign policy. So to compete for attention, ambassadors need to roll up their sleeves and think outside the box, using their country’s leverage, whether in the form of trade and investment or military ties, while also utilizing their personal contacts — and sometimes retaining expensive Washington lobbying firms for their contacts. Lobbying is an intrinsic part of politics in the nation’s capital, and despite the occasional moves to limit the business of buying influence in Congress, the industry is only set to grow with the U.S. government’s current frenzy to slash spending, as those on the chopping block look to lobbyists to help them avoid the axe. The State Department has a website listing the city’s top lobbying firms, a resource Parsan tapped. The ambassador refers to these public relations, lobbying and law firms as “intermediaries,” and they are not his preferred form of interaction with Congress. Parsan said he relies 70 percent on individual contact with legislators and their staff, and only 30 percent on lobbying and PR shops. Nations such as Trinidad and Tobago make up a small fraction of the hundreds of businesses and other entities that regularly descend on Capitol Hill. The big money in lobbying comes from major corporate interests with deep pockets such as ExxonMobil. Still, there is little doubt foreign countries devote huge sums to working the American political system.And the world’s richest, most powerful countries are not necessarily the biggest spenders. According to records obtained by the Sunlight Foundation, a nonprofit organization tracking money in politics, the Cayman Islands in 2009 spent more than $7.8 million to promote the islands to American tourists. The United Arab Emirates followed, shelling out $5.9 million in 2009 to lobby the U.S. government.The Republic of Congo spent $3.9 million doing the same.

Page 12

The Washington Diplomat

PHOTO: B. BOURDAGES / FOTOLIA

Reports filed under the Foreign Agents Registration Act show that in 2009, individual lobbyists communicated with lawmakers or their staff on behalf of foreign clients an astounding 17,000 times. Foreign governments, political parties and government-controlled entities spent $60 million influencing Washington that year. Other major players include Britain, Japan, Turkey, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Equatorial Guinea, among many others. Reports filed under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA, passed in 1938 to track Nazi propaganda) show that in 2009, individual lobbyists communicated with lawmakers or their staff on behalf of foreign clients an astounding 17,000 times. Foreign governments, political parties and government-controlled entities spent $60 million influencing Washington that year. Trinidad and Tobago paid lobbying firm Ainsley Gill and Associates $3.5 million in 2008 and 2009, and

nearly $200,000 in 2008 to Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide. For policymakers, dealing with lobbyists representing foreign entities has become routine. Not surprisingly, the most powerful lawmakers on Capitol Hill get the most action. Then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her staffers had 85 contacts with lobbyists for various foreign clients in 2009. Many members of the House or Senate foreign affairs or homeland security committees met with foreign-hired lobbyists more than 50 times. Several prominent former lawmakers have also signed on to represent foreign coun-

November 2011

tries, among them ex-Senate leader Bob Dole (who represents Taiwan and Montenegro) and former House Appropriations Chairman Robert Livingston (who represents Turkey and others). Most recently, the Podesta Group brought in Frank Lowenstein, a former staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and principal foreign advisor to Sen. John Kerry, to expand its international portfolio. Foreign lobbying in fact has become a boon to firms like the Podesta Group that charge tens of thousands of dollars in retainer fees each month. Other big-name shops include DLA Piper, BGR Group and Qorvis Communications, which has represented a range of countries from Cyprus to Saudi Arabia. Indeed, the governments that indirectly lobby Capitol Hill are as varied as the causes for which they try to curry favor. For example, the Georgian Embassy spends about $1 million a year on K Street lobby groups, currently employing Orion Strategies and the Podesta Group, largely to make its case against its perennial nemesis Russia, which has also turned to lobbyists over the years. South Korea hired the Glover Park Group, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, and Thomas Capitol Partners in recent years to push for its long-stalled free trade agreement with the United States. The Cayman Islands have worked to keep their status as a tax haven from being eroded by increased regulation. Morocco has fought to sway opinion against Algeria in its long-standing battle over the disputed territory of Western Sahara, mirroring efforts by Algeria to do the same. Armenia and Turkey regularly lock lobbying horns over the “Armenian genocide” question. The UAE has sought greater access to U.S. nuclear technology. Poland turned to K Street to rework the planned U.S. missile defense shield on its soil after President Obama came into office. Many of these issues naturally deal with top foreign policy priorities on Washington’s agenda as well, from energy to military matters. The Kurds, for instance, have been some of the busiest movers and shakers in town, with the Kurdistan Regional Government shelling out more than $5 million since 2007 to further the interests of its oil-rich autonomous region and bring in American businesses as the Iraq war winds down. More recently, the Arab Spring has shone an uncomfortable light on some of the backroom dealings with states such as Egypt, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Libya, from arms purchases to favorable oil deals, as the New York Times documented in an article earlier this year. “Just last year, three of the biggest names in the lobbying club — Tony Podesta, Robert L. Livingston and Toby Moffett — pulled off a coup for one of their clients, Egypt. They met with dozens of lawmakers and helped stall a Senate bill that called on Egypt to curtail human rights abuses. Ultimately, those abuses helped bring the government down,” Eric Lichtblau wrote in the newspaper. “Now the Washington lobbyists for Arab nations find themselves in a precarious spot, as they try to stay a step ahead of the fast-changing

events without being seen as aiding despots and dictators.” Of course, aiding despots and dictators has been a time-honored tradition in an industry that gets paid to put a positive spin on a client’s otherwise negative reputation. Notably, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, longtime dictator of Equatorial Guinea, has plowed millions into rehabilitating his image and that of his energy-rich but perpetually poor (except for the elites) nation. Lawyer Lanny J. Davis has represented Equatorial Guinea (as have groups like Qorvis) along with a host of other questionable clients, including the embattled government of former Côte d’Ivoire President Laurent Gbagbo when he defied the international community by refusing to concede his election defeat, nearly sparking a civil war. Industry heavyweight Bob Livingston became associated with another notorious figure when he worked to help Libyan strongman Muammar Qaddafi, who employed several Washington firms after he renounced nuclear weapons and tried to normalize relations with the West. But even before his recent ouster, Qaddafi’s erratic behavior was too much for Livingston, who had been working to resolve legal claims surrounding the Pan Am bombing but ended his Libya contract in 2009. On the flip side, in their fight against Qaddafi, rebels with the fledging National Transitional Council turned to Patton Boggs this summer to help them obtain diplomatic recognition as the “legitimate government of the sovereign nation of Libya,” according to documents, with an eye on gaining access to billions of dollars in frozen assets, which they eventually did. So whether the purpose is less-than savory or simply practical, there is an obvious reason for the use of lobbying firms in Washington: they work. The investment research firm Strategas prepared a report comparing the economic performance of the 50 companies that spend the most on lobbying with the S&P 500. According to the Economist magazine, “In aggregate the results have been stunning, comparable to the returns of the most blistering hedge fund.” On average, the index outperformed the S&P 500 by 11 percent a year.“The outright return on lobbying costs, according to one of the various studies that served as inspiration for the Strategas index, was $220 for each $1 spent,” the Economist wrote. By this measure, hiring American lobbyists seems less an extravagance than a wise investment that pays big dividends. Not all foreign nations hire these “intermediaries,” however. Smaller, poorer countries that have less international clout tend to be the ones most in need of external assistance in Washington, even if they are the nations that can least afford the expenditures. The big boys have a natural advantage in that they have the funds to hire lobbyists — but often don’t need to anyway. Canada, for instance, sharing a border with the United States and being its

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Continued from previous page largest trading partner, doesn’t employ the services of a single public relations or lobbying firm, according to Deanna Horton, Canada’s minister of congressional, public and intergovernmental affairs. “If you look at the location of the Canadian Embassy, it’s so close to Congress — it reflects the importance of Congress in our eyes,” said Horton.“We deal with both the administration and Congress.” Indeed, many embassies have dedicated attachés and diplomats whose job is to specifically liaise with legislators and members of the White House (also see “Globalization Increasingly Blurs Line Between Domestic, Foreign Affairs” in the November 2010 issue of The Washington Diplomat). Horton says that whenever possible, it is wise to build alliances with nations that have similar interests. “On any number of given issues, we will work with other stakeholders and build alliances,” she said. “We leverage everything we can.” Trade in particular is an issue where Canada can work with other nations.“One of our biggest challenges is in advocating for an integrated market,” she noted. At the same time, each country has to look out for itself. To that end, Canada goes to great lengths to remind U.S. policymakers that America’s problems on its southern border — illegal immigration and drug trafficking — are not shared on its northern border.“Our main work is in informing policymakers, not in trying to influence them,” Horton said. Close geography, culture, language, history and trade ties surely assist in that effort. Even with such built-in advantages, a nation like Canada occasionally resorts to cold calling policymakers and their staffs.To boost face time, Horton prefers having Canadian officials come to Washington and arranging for lawmakers to take trips to Canada (junkets are a favorite congressional pastime). Whatever the advantages wealthy nations like Canada have in the Washington spin machine, Trinidad and Tobago and similar nations still participate in the race. For all the resources the country devotes to lobbying, Parsan maintains there is no substitute for Trinidad and Tobago’s face-to-face meetings with legislators and their staffs.“I call and go directly to them,” he said.“Sometimes Trinidad and Tobago will go by itself, and other times it will go with like-minded nations in collaboration.” Parsan will team up with Jamaica, El Salvador and Costa Rica to

“sensitize Congress to the deep impact” its trade decisions have on Caribbean and Latin nations. Specifically,Trinidad and Tobago, a major provider of liquefied natural gas to the United States, is carefully watching what Congress does to ethanol tariffs, the Caribbean Basin Initiative (a program providing trade benefits to Caribbean countries), and the debt ceiling-related spending cuts. The fate of ethanol tariffs and subsidies in proposed spending cuts may seem obscure in the larger domestic debate over tax or entitlement reform, for example, but they illustrate how even minor provisions in American-crafted legislation can have big consequences for foreign nations and may even be felt worldwide. For Parsan, that is the most important fact he wants to impart to legislators in his congressional meetings. In particular, decisions made on Capitol Hill about tariffs on Brazilian ethanol have the potential to greatly hinder or encourage production in some Caribbean nations. The United States currently maintains a 54-cent-per-gallon tariff on ethanol from Brazil, so Caribbean nations buy Brazilian ethanol, process and export it to the United States for a tidy profit. But in its attempts to balance the U.S. books, Congress is likely to remove the tariff. “We try and sensitive Congress vis-à-vis the deep impact the decision would have on Caribbean nations, while it has only a minimal impact on the American economy,” Parsan explained. He says he has always been “generously received,” but he concedes that there is sometimes “a lack of sensitivity” on the part of U.S. lawmakers about their decisions regarding ethanol.The recently appointed ambassador has had about six meetings with members of Congress, and he is aiming for four or five more. Each one lasts from 20 minutes to one hour,“depending on the level of understanding” of the issue on the part of legislators. “We try and make them consider the social impact of their decisions on Caribbean nations,” Parsan said, noting that he attempts to meet with whoever has a part in writing the bill. He admits that in such a crowded and competitive arena, he is “fighting an uphill battle,” but is hopeful nonetheless. “At least we left with them having more consideration for our position.” “We cannot take a position on the debt talks,” the ambassador adds, “but Trinidad and Tobago exports a lot of natural gas to the U.S., and so if the American economic conditions deteriorate, we are hurt as well.”

It’s true that while foreign governments cannot officially take sides in the ongoing debt talks, they have a tremendous stake in what comes out of the so-called “super committee,” the congressional panel charged with slicing at least $1.2 trillion from the federal budget over the next decade. For example, in the line of fire is foreign assistance, with the State Department poised to take a significant budget hit.And even though foreign aid only accounts for a tiny sliver of total federal spending, it still has a big impact in many nations. The impact of reining in federal debt will be huge for Americans and foreigners alike, which is why in six weeks alone, nearly 200 companies and special interests reported lobbying the 12-member panel, according to Politico — a blitz that will continue until Nov. 23, when the committee is set to wrap up its work. In fact, a tally of congressional data prepared by the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan watchdog group, found that an astonishing 109 current and/or former lobbyists are past aides to lawmakers serving on the super committee, a reflection of the revolving door of powerbrokers in and out of Congress. Over the next few weeks, these lobbyists will be highly sought after for their special access to their former bosses. Foreign nations turn to these insiders as well. According to the nonprofit Project on Government Oversight, in the past year, all 12 members of the super committee have been contacted by at least one foreign-hired lobbyist. Over that same period, all but two members received campaign contributions from foreign lobbyists. Based on FARA records filed in 2011, members of the super committee have also received more than $50,000 in direct campaign contributions from foreign lobbyists, and much more through fundraisers held by those lobbying firms. It’s a legal paradox — foreign governments cannot give money to U.S. politicians, but their lobby groups, who also represent a number of other clients, can. Paradox or not, lobbying is a fact of life in Washington, and everyone from ambassadors to medical associations line up to protect their turf. It is just one more instrument in the diplomat’s American toolkit to further their national interests and make their case on Capitol Hill.

Jordan Michael Smith is a freelance writer in Washington, D.C., who has written for the New York Times, Washington Post and Boston Globe.

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Page 14

The Washington Diplomat

November 2011

COVER PROFILE

Ambassador Dino Patti Djalal

Indonesia’s Ambassador Embodies Ambitions of His Emerging Nation by Larry Luxner

he business cards of most ambassadors in Washington generally contain the bare, boring minimum: name, title and phone number, and usually an email address or two. Dino Patti Djalal’s card is almost a case of TMI — too much information.

The entire front consists of a color photo of Jakarta’s envoy to the United States standing against a stylized red-and-white Indonesian flag; the back is embossed with a gold map showing the largest of Indonesia’s 17,508 islands. The fancy little card then opens up to reveal not only Djalal’s cell phone number, fax, email addresses, website and Twitter account — but also a bulleted list of highlights about the country he represents: Indonesia is the world’s largest Muslim nation and its third largest democracy, it’s the leading economic power of Southeast Asia, it contains 30 percent of the world’s tropical rainforest, and it’s a member of the G-20 as well as a founding member of ASEAN and the Non-Aligned Movement. One gets the feeling that Djalal would have crammed even more on his business card, if only there were room. Thankfully, he’ll get plenty of opportunities to talk up his beloved Indonesia later this month when, as president of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, it hosts the 19th ASEAN Summit as well as the Sixth East Asia Summit. That latter event, set for Nov. 17-19 in Bali, will be attended by President Barack Obama, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and the heads of state of Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand, as well as those of the 10 nations that comprise ASEAN. Djalal is justifiably proud that the global spotlight will finally shine on Indonesia, a country of 235 million people that up until just 1999 was a typical Asian dictatorship. “We used to be called part of the Third World, and we never liked that,” said the 46-year-old ambassador, who first came to Washington as a teenager in 1979, when his father, Hasjim Djalal, was the embassy’s deputy chief of mission. “Today, we are a confident, emerging economy. Our democracy is strong, our civil society is vibrant, and on a microeconomic level, things are also looking good. We’re a member of the G-20, so that puts us on the global stage. We don’t see ourselves as just a regional power, but also as a global player.” Djalal spoke to us for nearly an hour at his secluded residence on Tilden Street. As the ambassador discussed Indonesian history and the country’s transition to democracy, his 5-year-old son Keanu clamored for attention. Djalal (who with his glamorous wife Rosa, a dentist, also has two daughters,Alexa and Chloe) sent the little boy on an urgent mission to find paper and colored pencils.

November 2011

“I’ve always believed that the Indonesian ambassador to the U.S. has to understand the American mindset,” he told The Diplomat. “Having lived here, I understand Americans well.” Born in Belgrade, capital of what was then Yugoslavia, Djalal learned all about life in the United States while attending McLean High School in suburban Fairfax, Va. He graduated in 1981 at the age of 15, and got on-the-job training in his first official embassy function: dishwasher. When Djalal’s father later became ambassador to Canada, the younger Djalal stayed behind to attend Queensborough College while living with an American family (his roommate, Mike Carlo, went on to become a New York City firefighter who died trying to save lives during 9/11). Djalal then obtained his bachelor’s degree from Carleton University and his master’s in political science from Simon Fraser University, both in Canada. In 2000, he received a doctorate from the London School of Economics and Political Science, with a thesis on preventive diplomacy. He joined Indonesia’s Department of Foreign Affairs in 1987 and was posted to PHOTO: EMBASSY OF INDONESIA

“

We don’t see ourselves as just a regional power, but also as a global player. — DINO PATTI DJALAL

”

ambassador of Indonesia to the United States

Dili, London and Washington before being named to head the North American unit of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he served from 2002 to 2004. In October 2004, he became the spokesman for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono — a position he held right up to his current appointment as ambassador in September 2010. “My father trained me to be a diplomat, so I get on very easily with other cultures,” Djalal told us. “Nothing really surprises me anymore.” The ambassador, who’s written five books including a bestseller on leadership that became a TV show, says his job is helped by the fact that “Indonesia is an easy sell in Washington.” That’s the result of profound changes in the bilateral relationship in the last 20 years — but especially in the nearly three years since Obama’s inauguration.

“Before, the relationship was just walking. Now it’s running,” Djalal said. “And it’s not driven by crisis but by opportunity. A key part of that partnership is people-to-people contacts. Unlike 40 years ago, when most of the contacts were between government officials, today the contacts between our two nations are mostly between individuals through Facebook and Twitter. We’ve got to make sure these people-to-people contacts bring positive and mutual benefits to both sides.” It also helps that Obama spent much of the late 1960s as a boy in the upscale Jakarta suburb of Menteng. At Besuki Elementary School, the future politician learned about Islam, the religion professed by 88 percent of Indonesians. When he returned as president one year ago this month, Obama paid his respects at Istiqlal Mosque, one of the largest

Islamic houses of worship in Southeast Asia. Djalal said Obama’s was the most successful visit of any foreign head of state in Indonesian history. “His speech was televised live throughout Indonesia. Everybody stopped what they were doing to listen. And that speech was repeated over and over again. The president reminded Indonesians how we have changed since the days when he lived there, and how we should not take that change for granted,” said Djalal. “Since that visit, the image Indonesians have of the United States has rebounded significantly. Indonesia sees itself as one center of gravity within the Islamic world, economically, politically and diplomatically — even though the religious center will always be Mecca — and Indonesians like President Obama.” That goodwill toward the 44th president has translated into bonus points for Djalal, a well-known fixture on the Washington diplomatic circuit.At an after-dinner speech a year ago, the new ambassador jokingly told his guests how he’d managed to stop his little

Continued on next page The Washington Diplomat Page 15

Continued from previous page boy Keanu from blowing his runny nose on Obama’s suit during a White House ceremony, thereby preventing a potentially nasty diplomatic incident. Sniffly snafus aside, he said,“The hardest thing to do in Washington is get the president to notice your country. Every ambassador competes for that, so having a president who knows Indonesian food, culture and language, and understands what we’re all about, is very important. Every time I see him, he speaks to me in Bahasa Indonesia.” Yet Djalal — who’s met with Obama at least half a dozen times — says bilateral relations aren’t built around personal sentiments, but rather shared ideals.That, in fact, is the basis for the strategic partnership announced in November 2010 between Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her Indonesian counterpart, Marty Natalegawa. “Before, our relations weren’t based on democracy, because Indonesia wasn’t a democracy,” the ambassador said. “In 1999, we had our first free elections since 1955. Before that, we had many decades of authoritarianism, so our relationship was distant and defensive, I think, on both sides. For many years, the preoccupation was on human rights issues.That’s what we want to leave behind. Our comprehensive partnership is now forward looking and not based on a single issue, but on a wide range of sectors for cooperation.” One of those issues is the international struggle against terrorism — a fact driven home by the latest incident, the Sept. 25 suicide bombing of a church in Java by an Islamic fanatic with ties to two previous attacks: a 2004 blast outside the Australian Embassy in Jakarta that killed 11 people, and the 2002 hotel bombings in Bali that left 202 dead, including 88 Australians and 38 Indonesians. Recently, Indonesia’s Ministry of Information and Communication announced it would close down 900 websites containing messages or images of extremist violence, though so far, only 300 such sites have actually been blocked.

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PHOTO: THE INDONESIAN MINISTRY OF TOURISM

Istiqlal Mosque, one of the largest Islamic houses of worship in Southeast Asia, sits across from Jakarta Cathedral, a Roman Catholic cathedral completed in 1901, in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta. Ambassador Dino Patti Djalal is proud of his religiously tolerant nation, although he admits that there are “a few small groups of extremists in Indonesia, but in a country of 235 million, that small group can create problems.”

“There are only a few small groups of extremists in Indonesia, but in a country of 235 million, that small group can create problems,” said Djalal. “We are realistic enough to admit that perhaps we will never get rid of terrorism permanently. So we have a de-radicalization program, whereby Islamic clerics befriend the terrorists we have detained and engage them in spiritual debate.A lot of them have been manipulated to believe that violence is necessary. Some of them were trained in Pakistan and Afghanistan, others in the Philippines. In fact, a week before Osama bin Laden was killed [in Abbottabad, Pakistan], an Indonesian terrorist, Umar Patek — wanted in the Bali hotel bombings — was caught in the same town.” Djalal says Indonesia categorically rejects fanati-

cal Islam, whether it’s spread by Wahabi fundamentalists in Saudi Arabia or Shiite zealots in Iran. “To restore Islam to its glory, we do not have to bring Muslims back to the 13th century. Muslims must be forward looking and must not be afraid of globalization. The problem is we’ve always seen Islam’s glory in terms of nostalgia.” Instead, Djalal says Muslims should learn from other civilizations and religions.“By sharing experiences and learning from one another, Muslims will become stronger and better.We passionately believe not in an exclusive approach but in an inclusive one.” That approach appears to be lost on the government of Saudi Arabia, which in June ordered the beheading of a 54-year-old Indonesian woman, Ruyati binti Sapubi. The maid — one of about 1.2

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million Indonesian guest workers in the oil-rich Gulf kingdom — had confessed to killing her boss with a kitchen knife after suffering years of abuse and, according to officials in Jakarta, after she was denied permission to return home to her family in Indonesia (the exploitation of domestic workers is a widespread problem in Gulf states). Indonesians were horrified by the maid’s punishment. The Foreign Ministry, expressing “deep sorrow” over the beheading, ordered an immediate moratorium on sending migrant workers to Saudi Arabia, though it’s unclear if the ban is still in effect. Saudi officials later apologized to their Indonesian counterparts — not for executing the woman, but for failing to inform Jakarta that it had been carried out. “That case rallied the whole country together, because the protection of Indonesian workers abroad is a very big political issue,” said Djalal, discussing the future of ties between the world’s largest Muslim country and the nation where Islam was born. “The damage is not permanent, but it did disrupt bilateral relations,” he said. “The majority of our workers overseas are well-treated — we have about 2 million workers in Malaysia — but there are quite a number of cases that warrant our attention.These people are most vulnerable to abuse.” Djalal said that despite Indonesia’s status as the world’s largest predominantly Muslim country, Islamic extremism holds little appeal for his people. “When we became independent, we did not opt for an Islamic state,” he explained.“This was a pragmatic decision, because even though we’re 88 percent Muslim, we have many Christians in central and eastern Indonesia and Hindus in Bali. We want Indonesia to be a home for all religions. “What’s surprised us in the last decade is how well democracy and Islam work together. There was an argument that if we became democratic, then Islamic parties would spring up and push for an Islamic state. But in fact, it’s the opposite. The Islamic parties have become the strongest propo-

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Today, we are a confident, emerging economy. Our democracy is strong, our civil society is vibrant, and on a microeconomic level, things are also looking good. We’re a member of the G-20, so that puts us on the global stage. — DINO PATTI DJALAL ambassador of Indonesia to the United States

nent of democracy.” Meanwhile, Indonesia has done surprisingly well on the economic front.The country’s $1 trillion economy translates into annual per-capita GDP of $4,300, though today’s growth doesn’t come anywhere near the 545 percent explosion in per-capita GDP Indonesia enjoyed between 1970 and 1980, thanks to a sudden increase in oil exports. Earlier this year, the Indonesian government revised its GDP growth projection downward from 6.7 percent to 6.4 percent — a growth rate the United States and European Union can only dream of these days. Corruption is still a big problem, though it’s not nearly as bad as in the mid1990s, when Transparency International named former dictator Suharto, who died in 2008, the world’s most corrupt leader. “We have a very strong domestic sector, so domestic demand is quite strong,” Djalal explained.“Secondly, we’ve done very aggressive economic reforms since 1998. We learned our lessons from the [1997 Asian] financial crisis; that’s why our banks are healthy. We’ve maintained a prudent fiscal policy, so our budget deficit is never more than 2 percent of GDP, and our debt-to-GDP ratio has gone down drastically, from 90 percent to 26 percent in the last 10 years.” At the same time, U.S.-Indonesia trade has grown to about $23 billion, with the United States now the number-two foreign investor in Indonesia, trailing only Singapore. But Indonesia’s trade with China is about $30 billion, so there’s room to grow. There’s also room to improve.The World Bank currently ranks Indonesia 121st out of 183 countries when it comes to ease of doing business. Asked recently by Forbes magazine what his government is doing to cut red tape, Djalal responded: “The time needed to start a business has been reduced significantly. Our rank in a World Economic Forum report jumped from 54 to 44 this year. The president has established a unit which tracks decisions being made, how they are implemented and whether ministries are working hard enough to reach the goals. We realize being pro-jobs means being pro-business [because] the government cannot provide all jobs — in fact, the government is very restricted in providing jobs. It has to be done by the private sector.” The world economic slowdown will be high on the agenda of the ASEAN Summit in Bali later this month, as will long-running regional tensions over the Spratly Islands, a chain of 750 barely inhabited reefs, islets and atolls that cover 425,000 square kilometers of ocean and are jointly claimed by China,Taiwan, Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam and the Philippines. This May, Chinese naval vessels opened fire on four Vietnamese fishing boats operating off the coasts of several islands. Later that month, Philippine President Benigno Aquino III warned China’s defense minister of a regional arms race if tensions worsened over the maritime disputes. Since then, ongoing friction over the South China Sea — and fears by smaller Southeast Asian nations that Beijing is exhibiting an aggressive new posture in the region — has brought the United States back into the geostrategic fold. Washington has taken the opportunity to reassert its presence in Asian-Pacific affairs, much to China’s ire. The Asian giant prefers to settle the competing claims in bilateral discussions with the countries involved, although with skirmishes over shipping lanes and natural resources increasing, the United States — as well as nations such as the Philippines and Japan — has been leaning

November 2011

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toward multilateral and regional settings such as ASEAN to resolve the claims. Shortly before the ASEAN summit, China and Vietnam signed an agreement to work toward resolving the dispute, a sign that hostilities were dying down, but with the potential for vast oil and gas reserves in the 1.4 million-square-mile area, the issue is far from over. “Oil hasn’t been found in the South China Sea, but once it is, the stakes will get a lot higher, and the risks will increase. An outbreak of conflict would be destabilizing to the region,” Djalal warned. “That’s why we need a good code of conduct among the claimants. We need to find a way to manage potential conflicts and hopefully turn them into cooperation.” While Indonesia has no claim on the barely inhabited Spratlys, it does have continuing problems with secessionist movements from Aceh in the west to Papua in the east. The United States supports Indonesia’s special autonomous status for Papua — a forested, California-size province of 2.9 million inhabitants, some of whom are demanding outright independence from Jakarta. “I admit that this autonomous status hasn’t been implemented in the most perfect way,” the ambassador conceded.“There’s still a lot that can be done, in terms of bureaucracy.” He added that Aceh — a special region on the northern tip of Sumatra that was ravaged in the December 2004 tsunami that killed some 170,000 Indonesians — “was where we had the strongest secessionist movement, but that was resolved peacefully, with negotiations.We still have a problem in Papua, and my government aims to address that with the same goodwill and good faith that we resolved the issue in Aceh, where the tsunami created a new opportunity for peace because everyone was desperate for peace.” It’s definitely been a new dawn for Indonesia, and Djalal embodies that newfound energy. Two months into his job, the ambassador told Forbes how the Internet was helping to modernize politics back home. “President Yudhoyono has established a P.O. box, SMS and email service where citizens can directly lodge complaints and report corruption and other things. That’s a form of direct democracy,” he said.“I announced I would be Indonesia’s first Twitter ambassador. Now I have 23,000 followers.” Ten months later, Djalal is up to 59,417 followers (though he only follows 11 other people). On his Twitter account he calls himself a “public servant who combines realism with idealism.” He also has 4,299 Facebook friends. Ernest Z. Bower, director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Southeast Asia Program, calls Djalal “an Indonesian rock star in Washington’s hallowed diplomatic circle of trust.” Desi Anwar, writing in the Jakarta Globe, says she’s proud that Djalal represents her country in the United States. “It’s not only because he is probably the youngest ambassador ever to fill such an important position, or because he writes eloquent speeches and is blessed with the gift of gab — those are useful tools in the world of diplomacy — but mainly because I think he and Rosa are the ideal faces to represent our country on the international stage,” said Anwar, a popular TV commentator. “Modern, intelligent, open-minded and optimistic, the young couple is the embodiment of what Indonesia is, or at least should be, and I hope their presence in Washington, D.C., would reinforce America’s view of this country

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See INDONESIA, page 22 The Washington Diplomat Page 17

GLOBAL VANTAGE POINT

United States

The Decline and Fall Of America’s Decline and Fall by Joseph S. Nye

AMBRIDGE — The United States is going through difficult times. Its post-2008 recovery has slowed, and some observers fear that Europe’s financial problems could tip the American and world economy into a second recession. American politics, moreover, remains gridlocked over budgetary issues, and compromise will be even more difficult on the eve of the 2012 election, when Republicans hope that economic problems will help them unseat President Barack Obama. In these circumstances, many are predicting America’s decline, especially relative to China. And it’s not just pundits who think so. A recent Pew poll found that in 15 of 22 countries surveyed, most people believe that China either will replace or has replaced America as “the world’s leading superpower.” In Britain, those putting China on top rose to 47 percent, from 34 percent in 2009. Similar trends are evident in Germany, Spain, and France. Indeed, the poll found more pessimistic views of the U.S. among our oldest and closest allies than in Latin America, Japan, Turkey, and Eastern Europe. But even Americans are divided equally about whether China will replace the U.S. as a global superpower. Such sentiments reflect the slow growth and fiscal problems that followed the 2008 financial crisis, but they are not historically unprecedented. Americans have a long history of incorrectly estimating their power. In the 1950s and 1960s, after Sputnik, many thought that the Soviets might get the better of America; in the 1980s, it was the Japanese. Now it is the Chinese. But, with America’s debt on a path to equaling its national income in a decade, and a fumbling political system that cannot seem to address the country’s fundamental challenges, are the “declinists” finally right? Much will depend on the uncertainties — often underestimated — brought about by future political change in China. Economic growth will bring China closer to the U.S. in power resources, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that China will surpass the U.S. as the most powerful country. China’s GDP will almost certainly surpass that of the U.S. within a decade, owing to the size of its population and its impressive economic growth rate. But, measured by per-capita income, China will not equal the U.S. for decades, if then. Moreover, even if China suffers no major domestic political setback, many current projections are based simply on GDP growth. They ignore U.S. military and soft-power advantages, as well as China’s geopolitical disadvantages. As Japan, India, and others try to balance Chinese power, they welcome an American presence. It is as if Mexico and Canada sought a Chinese alliance to balance the U.S. in North America. As for absolute decline, the U.S. has very real problems, but the American economy remains highly productive.America remains first in total R&D expenditure, first in university rankings, first in Nobel prizes, and first on indices of entrepreneurship.According to the World Economic Forum, which released its annual report on

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PHOTO: ROMAN SIGAEV / FOTOLIA

In the 1950s and 1960s, after Sputnik, many thought that the Soviets might get the better of America; in the 1980s, it was the Japanese. Now it is the Chinese. economic competitiveness last month, the U.S. is the fifth most competitive economy in the world (behind the small economies of Switzerland, Sweden, Finland, and Singapore). China ranks only 26th. Moreover, the U.S. remains at the forefront of such cutting-edge technologies as biotech and nanotechnology. This is hardly a picture of absolute economic decline. Some observers worry that American society will become sclerotic, like Britain at the peak of its power a century ago. But American culture is far more entrepreneurial and decentralized than was that of Britain, where industrialists’ sons sought aristocratic titles and honors in London. And despite recurrent bouts of concern throughout its history,America reaps huge benefits from immigration. In 2005, foreign-born immigrants had participated in 25 percent of technology start-ups in the previous decade. As Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew once told me, China can draw on a talent pool of 1.3 billion people, but the U.S. can draw on the world’s seven billion, and can recombine them in a diverse culture that enhances creativity in a way that ethnic Han nationalism cannot. Many commentators worry about America’s inefficient political system. True, America’s founding fathers created a system of checks and balances designed to

preserve liberty at the price of efficiency. Moreover, the U.S. is now experiencing a period of intense partisan polarization. But nasty politics is nothing new to the U.S.: its founding era was hardly an idyll of dispassionate deliberation. American government and politics have always experienced such episodes, and, though overshadowed by current melodramas, they were sometimes worse than today’s. The U.S. faces serious problems: public debt, weak secondary education, and political gridlock, to name just a few. But one should remember that these problems are only part of the picture — and, in principle, they can be solved over the long term. It is important to distinguish such problems from those that cannot, in principle, be solved. Of course, whether America can implement the available solutions is uncertain; several commissions have proposed feasible plans to change America’s debt trajectory by raising taxes and cutting expenditures, but feasibility is no guarantee that they will be adopted. Still, Lee Kuan Yew is probably right to say that China “will give the U.S. a run for its money,” but not surpass it in overall power in the first half of this century. If so, the gloomy predictions of absolute American decline will turn out to be as misleading as similar predictions in decades past. And, in relative terms, while the “rise of the rest” means that America will be less dominant than it once was, this does not mean that China will necessarily replace the U.S. as the world’s leading power.

Joseph Nye, a former U.S. assistant secretary of defense, is a professor at Harvard University and author of “The Future of Power.” Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2011. • www.project-syndicate.org

November 2011

INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Private Sector

Maligned Multinational Corporations? The Business of Building a Better World by Rachael Bade

n a small village in northeast Bangladesh, Ojud Miah watched his duck hatchery crumble. A destructive cyclone had slammed into his property in 2004, killing his business, his livelihood and his means to feed his family.

Several years later, Miah had not only rebuilt his hatchery — 1,800 ducks strong — but he had also expanded his business and hired several fellow villagers. Miah’s recovery funds didn’t come from a foreign aid stash. They came from Chevron, a worldwide oil and gas company. Long viewed by many in the developing world as the “big bad businesses” that exploit the poor, multinational corporations are in fact some of the main actors behind the push to eradicate global poverty.The goodwill isn’t exactly fueled by generosity. Corporations still run on profits, but creating healthy societies, and therefore new consumer markets, makes good business sense. Of course, multinational corporations go where the money is, and in recent years, the money trail has led directly to emerging powerhouses such as China, India and Brazil, which continue to expand while Western economies remain anemic or contract. But beyond the mad dash to tap into emerging growth, the private sector has become an integral part of international development efforts as it increasingly seeks out partnerships with governments, nonprofits and NGOs. And the timing couldn’t be any better. As congressional appropriators slash U.S. foreign aid budgets — a rude awakening that’s only just begun — multinational corporations (MNCs) have become critical financial backers in development circles. Some MNCs are major philanthropic donors, while others are stewards of corporate social responsibility, promoting best business practices, for instance. But companies are also simply answering the demands of developing nations by tailoring services to them, whether it’s introducing mobile phone banking apps to help people without access to banks manage their money, training women to become small business entrepreneurs, offering microloans to farmers, or providing low-cost health care for diseases that are now becoming prevalent in the developing world, such as cancer and diabetes. The end result is the same: improving lives.“These companies understand there is no conflict between doing well and doing good because they do both every day,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said at the State Department’s 12th Annual Awards for Corporate Excellence last year, which honored companies such as Coca-Cola, Cisco Systems, Intel and Mars Inc. (This year’s finalists include Cargill in India, General Motors in Uzbekistan, and Procter & Gamble in Pakistan and Nigeria.) “They invest in the communities where they operate to create a healthy workforce. They protect the environment to make their investment sustainable. They educate the next generation of employees, managers and customers. They win market share, they win respect, and they prove that corporate social responsibility is not an added cost of doing business; it’s a core part of doing business right,” Clinton said.

November 2011

PHOTO: MARS INC.

Mars Inc. invests in cocoa vocational schools in the developing world to improve yields for farmers who struggle with aging cocoa trees, pests and disease, depleted soils and unpredictable rainfall. Because 38 percent of the world’s cocoa is produced on small farms in Côte d’Ivoire and 21 percent in Ghana, the corporation, which owns candy brands such as M&M’S and Snickers, has invested heavily in developing those countries.

“

As a global company, we understand that we do better in a world that’s more stable and where people can lead productive lives. — NILS TCHEYAN

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General Electric director of Africa energy policy

Private sector involvement in the developing world was explored during the Society for International Development’s 2011 World Congress conference in Washington this past July.“As a large company, we can innovate on a large scale,” Nils Tcheyan, General Electric director of Africa energy policy, said at the conference. “As a global company, we understand that we do better in a world that’s more stable and where people can lead productive lives.… We see our future as closely connected to the global challenges of poverty, energy, environment, health and infrastructure.” Connecticut-based GE in fact now derives half of its profits overseas — reinforcing concerns among American workers that their jobs are being outsourced. Indeed, whether in Detroit or Delhi, corporations aren’t exactly seen as a force for good for the average worker.The global economic slump has only further tarnished the luster of Western-style capitalism. Skittishness over free trade eroding middle class wages as well as revulsion over banking and investor greed have given big business a bad rap — anger that has boiled over into the anti-corporate protests now sweeping the world. Even the once-touted microfinance industry has come under closer scrutiny amid accusations that high-interest loan sharks have been preying on the poor, not lifting them out of poverty.

Indeed, the issue of exploitation to turn a corporate profit remains very real around the world. Chevron, for instance, is still wrangling over an $18 billion judgment against it for damage inflicted on Ecuador’s Amazon region by Texaco, which Chevron acquired in 2001.The long-running legal saga has pitted the oil giant against a group of Ecuadorians whose hometowns essentially become toxic dumping grounds. Likewise, Shell and BP have doled out billions for contamination clean-ups — Shell for polluting parts of the Niger Delta for decades and BP for the recent Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Such disputes naturally garner international attention, and justifiably so, but these multinational energy companies have also quietly supported a range of life-changing projects in the developing world. Partnering with NGOs and governments, Chevron, for example, has invested $700 million between 2006 and early 2011 to help jumpstart small businesses though microfinance loans; fund initiatives that increase access to health care; and donate to projects that oversee job training and promote education in math, science, technology and engineering. As Chevron’s website states, “Our investments in communities also are investments in the long-term success of our company, and they deliver mutual benefit and promote shared progress.” Feel-good corporate mission statements aside, as critical as foreign aid and good governance are to the developing world, no nation will ever be able to lift itself out of poverty without a thriving private sector. And this nexus of economic growth, poverty reduction and corporate profit is changing the face of international development, especially as cash-strapped governments scale back foreign aid and the role of MNCs in development will — and, experts believe, should — expand.

Continued on next page The Washington Diplomat Page 19

Continued from previous page

‘CONNECTED CAPITALISM’ The Society for International Development’s 2011 World Congress this past summer brought together some of the biggest players in the development arena, from World Bank President Robert Zoellick to former Ghanaian President John Kufuor. But it also attracted top CEOs and representatives from companies such as Booz Allen Hamilton, Deloitte, KPMG, Chevron and Mars to explore the role of private sector corporations in building sustainable societies around the world. That role has grown quietly yet exponentially. In the 1960s, official development assistance (ODA) in the form of public sector funds accounted for about 70 percent of all resources transferred from developed to developing nations. Private corporate engagement accounted for the rest. But 50 years later, that statistic has flipped, according to a report by Carol Adelman, director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Global Prosperity. Now, official flows stand at 17 percent; the rest — 83 percent — comes from private engagement, including remittances, philanthropy and foreign direct investment. “Official aid is a minority shareholder in the growth and development of poor countries,” Adelman wrote in the 2009 report. For example, in 2007, U.S. ODA accounted for only 9 percent, or $21.8 billion, of the total $235.2 billion flowing from the United States to the developing world. The rest, $213 billion, came from private entities. Although “private entities” include everything from nonprofits to religious organizations, a large bulk of the funds came from businesses in the form of remittances, investment and donations. Daniel Runde, former director of the Office of Global Development Alliances at USAID, the main government agency that provides U.S. economic and humanitarian assistance worldwide, says multinational corporations are a positive and powerful force in international development and that pub-

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lic-private partnerships are the key to stimulating poorer economies. “The private sector has so much to offer,” Runde, now director of the Project on Prosperity and Development at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told The Washington Diplomat. He calls it “connected capitalism.” Others have dubbed it “philanthrocapitalism.” “Sophisticated MNCs impact the lives of hundreds of thousands and even millions of people through supply chains, through their hiring, through their corporate philanthropy, through their business practices,” he said. Runde, who’s focused much of his career on development, acknowledged that the traditional view of foreign assistance has relied mostly on government and the work of intergovernmental organizations and NGOs — very little on private enterprise. In that regard, MNCs have not always been part of the development discussion. But over the past decade, there has been a major shift. Agencies such as USAID and the State Department, for example, have come to view MNCs as potential partners that offer economic expertise, the latest technology, supply-chain buying power, innovation, agility and major financial resources to cut through the painstakingly slow and oftentimes underfunded bureaucratic process. Adelman of the Hudson Institute is another expert who welcomes the change.“Whereas disaster relief and humanitarian programs generally have been handled well by government donors, there is widespread agreement that the government foreign aid model for development projects — top down and centrally planned — has been unsuccessful,” she wrote.“Development funds too often have been concentrated in the hands of a few large contractors with high overhead who are incentivized by lasting contracts, not by building lasting institutions and capabilities in poor countries.” But the emerging paradigm of partnering with the private sector allows for “opportunistic innovation,” decentralization and flexibility, she said.

Multinational corporations bring more to the table than just efficient business models — they bring money. Indeed, some experts believe the future of international development will be financially difficult if not impossible to sustain without the help of MNCs and others in the private sector. Although the Obama and Bush administrations have tripled foreign aid and jumpstarted numerous development initiatives, contrary to popular opinion, foreign assistance remains a tiny fraction of total U.S. government spending — roughly 1 percent. The Defense Department famously has more military band members than the State Department has Foreign Service officers, and USAID has been steadily hollowed out by years of interagency turf wars and today is a shell of its former self. Moreover, any budgetary increases have already begun to slow and reverse after years of federal overspending, with foreign assistance always first on the chopping block. As Runde noted, the ODA “bull market” of the past decade has died in the tough economic climate, and aid funding will likely continue to shrivel in the coming years.

trouble getting funds into the devastated country. Although Western Union’s 400 Haitian agent locations were closed in the chaos, the company was able to recruit agents in the neighboring Dominican Republic to physically move funds to the disaster area so the nonprofit could begin purchasing food and blankets for Haitians. Over the next few months, Western Union would donate more than $1 million to the Haitian relief effort and waived transaction fees for Americans donating to the cleanup effort, a waiver the company frequently offers following major world disasters. D’Angelo, who’s overseen the Western Union’s philanthropic branch for nearly a decade, said the corporation has maintained its donations during the economic crunch by sourcing funds from multiple places. She calls it a “corporate community hybrid.” Financing for grants to NGOs comes not only from the company’s profits, but from its employees as well. The foundation also asks its business partners to donate money, including vendors such as airlines, office supply companies and banks.

LEVELS OF HELP

INVESTING IN GROWTH

Audra Jones, former senior director for partnership at the United Nations Foundation, said private companies spur international development through three “corporate spheres of influence” — at the operational, community engagement and strategic investment levels. At the “operational” level, MNCs impact the lives of millions by providing jobs both internally and through supply chains. This includes remittances, which in 2007 accounted for $79 billion, or 34 percent, of U.S. engagement with the developing world. That’s more than three times what the U.S. government gave in ODA that year. “The World Bank and other studies are clear that funds sent back by migrants to their families and to community development projects are one of the strongest poverty reduction forces in poor countries,”Adelman wrote of remittances. Also on the “operational” level, companies can improve their employees’ lives on a “day-to-day” basis, Jones said, by offering solid health care benefits and safe working conditions. Jones said the second sphere of influence, “community engagement,” is more known for helping the world’s poor. It encompasses philanthropic giving such as donations to NGOs and charitable groups. In 2007, corporations provided $6.8 billion in cash and in-kind giving. Many corporations have dedicated foundations for charitable giving. For instance, Sylvia Mathews Burwell, president of global development at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, recently announced that she’ll be heading to Walmart in January 2012 to lead the company’s charitable giving efforts and its Global Women’s Economic Empowerment Initiative.Walmart and the Walmart Foundation donated about $800 million in cash and in-kind gifts (mostly food) around the world last year, and the foundation has made about $262 million in cash grants this year. Another company with a global presence, Western Union is a major player in worldwide remittances, having moved $76 billion in payments or money orders across borders. But the Western Union Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the Fortune 500 money-transfer provider, has also awarded more than $73.8 million in grants to some 2,000 NGOs in 100 countries and territories. Its donations to organizations that focus on education, job training, disaster relief and business startups during the past three years of economic turmoil have also stayed consistent, not declined. Luella Chavez D’Angelo, Western Union Foundation president, said her company is uniquely poised to foster international development because of its tight-knit connections with people who live in poverty-stricken areas. It partners with 470,000 agent locations in more than 200 countries, some with populations that live on less than $1 and $2 a day. “No other company on the planet has the global reach and the security systems in place that we do,” D’Angelo said. After the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, for example, one of its partner NGOs, Mercy Corps, was having

Increasingly, companies are transitioning from the philanthropy and donation-based methods of international development to “more strategic social investing,” said Jones. Investing in less developed countries is the last, and arguably most important, corporate sphere of influence. “Over the years we’ve moved away from pure corporate philanthropy to what we call ‘strategic corporate investment,’” said Kirsten KnoepfleThorne, a senior policy advisor for Chevron. “Simply giving money is not enough, but building economic growth is something that companies are really good at.” Such strategic investments in emerging economies naturally benefit corporations’ bottom lines. GE’s Tcheyan said it’s a positive cycle. He explained that future profits for GE — which specializes in advanced technology, services and finance — depend largely on strong infrastructure, a highly skilled workforce and stable institutions within the countries in which the company operates. So to succeed as a global corporation, GE must build up the societies it hopes to derive profits from, he said. To that end, over the past decade, GE has repositioned about half of its investments to focus on key global issues such as energy, water and health care, according to Tcheyan. Company engineers design products and services that meet the needs of various developing nations, Tcheyan added, which “enables us to build revenue and returns for our stakeholders.” The Vscan, for instance, a pocket-size battery-powered ultrasound scanner, was created to allow physicians to travel around remote regions and test children for early signs of heart disease. Mars Inc., which owns candy brands such as M&M’S, Snickers, Milky Way and Twix, depends on other nations for its most basic ingredient. Because 38 percent of the world’s cocoa is produced on small farms in Côte d’Ivoire and 21 percent in Ghana, the chocolate company has invested heavily in the well being of those countries. According to Jeff Morgan, company director of global programs, these cocoa farmers, some of whom live on $1 a day, often lose 30 percent of their yields to pests and crop disease.Their output is also only a third or a quarter of what they could be producing because of the lack of education on best soil and agricultural practices, limited government support, and their inability to afford fertilizers. Mars, consequently, launched a sustainable cocoa program to strengthen farming communities by improving education and production. Better yields not only help Mars, they also boost the farmers’ incomes. GE and Mars are also responding to an inevitable trend toward the developing world, where growth has leapfrogged ahead of stagnating Western economies such as the United States, Europe and Japan. Especially after the global economic downturn in 2008, multinational corporations know that future customers and profits lie with emerging middle classes abroad.

See BUSINESS, page 63 November 2011

POLITICS

Latin America

Nicaragua’s Capitalist Comrade Consolidates Political Power by Larry Luxner

icaraguans will go to the polls Nov. 6 to elect a president, but there’s no mystery concerning the outcome. Daniel Ortega, the aging revolutionary who led his leftist comrades to a military victory in 1979 and has been a key figure in this Central American nation ever since, will in all likelihood trounce his two adversaries — despite past allegations of voter manipulation and outright fraud by Ortega’s ruling Sandinista Party. The reason: Nicaragua’s economy is doing quite well, buoyed by record factory exports, the sale of Venezuelan oil to other countries and a steadily growing tourism industry. It also helps that Ortega enjoys widespread popularity in a still-impoverished country where personalities usually matter far more than issues. Ortega’s hand-picked man in Washington, Ambassador Francisco Campbell, wouldn’t discuss the upcoming elections with us, though a variety of Nicaragua experts agree that something doesn’t smell quite right in that New Yorksize country prone to earthquakes, dictatorships, revolutions and widespread corruption. “At least 55 percent of the population says Ortega has been doing a good job, so the allegations that he’s corrupt — even though they’re right — are not an issue for the majority of Nicaraguans,” says Manuel Orozco, a senior analyst at the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue. For one thing, Orozco told The Diplomat, the president has succeeded in keeping the opposition weak and divided. Secondly, he enjoys strong support from two of Nicaragua’s most important institutions: the private sector and the church. And thirdly, “he’s been able to adopt a populist stand, basically using government resources to provide favors for the people.” Orozco, a Nicaraguan who was approached by a close ally of Ortega after the president’s 2007 election victory and asked to advise the government on economic policy (he politely refused), said that the president, running for a third term, has basically won the support of businessmen through handouts and old-fashioned cronyism.That stands in stark contrast to other Latin leftists and socialists like Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez and Bolivia’s Evo Morales who have largely alienated the business community. “He learned right after his defeat in 1990 that in order to win an election, you have to gain the favor of the private sector,” Orozco said of Ortega.“So for the past 15 years, he’s been respecting private property and doesn’t charge high taxes on the private sector. He was able to keep the country relatively stable during the recession, mainly by utilizing revenues from the sale of Venezuelan oil to pay for welfare services.” Orozco estimates that Nicaragua — thanks to Ortega’s solidarity with fellow populist Chávez — receives $500 million a year worth of Venezuelan oil at subsidized prices. According to the latest CID Gallup poll, Ortega is by far the leading candidate, with a 45.5 percent margin of support among likely Nicaraguan voters. In second place is Fabio Gadea Mantilla of the Independent Liberal Party, with 33.5 percent.Trailing Gadea in the polls with 10.1 percent

November 2011

PHOTO: LARRY LUXNER

“

Politics in many Central American countries, especially Nicaragua, is based on personal appeal, and Ortega has that. He’s also an experienced politician, and he knows how to move money and satisfy constituencies. — STEPHEN JOHNSON

”

director of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies

is the Liberal Constitutional Party candidate Arnoldo Alemán Lacayo, a former president of Nicaragua who was convicted of embezzlement in 2003. Thanks to a deal hatched in 1999 between then-President Alemán and Ortega, whose FSLN party was in the opposition, a presidential candidate needs only 35 percent of the vote to avoid a runoff election, a threshold polls indicate Ortega will surpass. “Politics in many Central American countries, especially Nicaragua, is based on personal appeal, and Ortega has that. He’s also an experienced politician, and he knows how to move money and satisfy constituencies,” said Stephen Johnson, director of the Americas Program at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). “The problem with the opposition is coming up with a candidate who knows how to appeal to the people and spread patronage around.” Johnson said Ortega has avoided the radical anti-American agenda that marked his years as a Sandinista comandante. In fact, the comandante has embraced America’s

Propaganda for the ruling Sandinista Party can be seen throughout Managua, Nicaragua. Longtime Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega — bolstered by record factory exports, the sale of Venezuelan oil to other countries and a steadily growing tourism industry — is widely predicted to win the country’s Nov. 6 presidential elections.

capitalists and gone out of his way to take full advantage of Nicaragua’s free trade agreement with the United States under DR-CAFTA. “By not upsetting the apple cart with a wholesale return to the days of sandinismo, he’s managed to maintain good graces with a broad base of the population,” said Johnson, who traveled to Nicaragua frequently during the 1980s as a military attaché with the U.S. Embassy in Honduras, and in 2001 as an election observer. What irks Ortega’s opponents is the way in which he circumvented Nicaragua’s own election laws to be able to run again, even though the constitution specifically forbids the re-election of an acting president following a five-year term and bans the candidacy of any president who has already served two terms. Tim Rogers is editor of the Nicaragua Dispatch, an online news service covering politics and business. He says Ortega and his cronies in the judicial system blatantly sidestepped the constitution in 2009 to allow him to stand for re-election. “The Sandinista judge decided that [Article 147 of the constitution], which says there are no consecutive re-elections, does not apply to Ortega. They said it violates other articles which state that everyone is created equally, so if the president can’t run again, he’s not being treated equally,” Rogers told The Diplomat from Managua. In addition to relying on Sandinista judges to declare his candidacy legal, his supporters even took advantage a public holiday declared by Ortega himself to quietly reprint a newer “version” of the constitution with an arcane law from 20 years ago reinserted into it while opposition law-

Continued on next page The Washington Diplomat Page 21

Continued from previous page makers were away. “This could mark a real turning point in Nicaragua’s fragile democracy, in that here’s essentially a candidate whom the opposition calls illegal, running in an electoral system controlled by his party,” Rogers said. “That electoral council has already been accused of various kinds of electoral fraud. It’s a very precarious situation.” Ortega’s running mate is retired Gen. Omar Halleslevens, one of the founders of the Sandinista army, who until last year commanded the country’s armed forces. “Halleslevens is highly regarded and gives that ticket a great deal of respectability which Ortega lacks, particularly on constitutional grounds,” said Rogers, though he warns that the general’s inclusion on the ticket is also seen as a thinly veiled attempt by Ortega to curry favor with Nicaragua’s military. “The country has become very polarized, and the Sandinistas are constantly keeping tabs on their neighbors, on who’s supporting whom,” he charged.“Whether or not you’re a Sandinista determines whether or not you receive government aid.” Yet with all the focus on Libya, Syria,Afghanistan and Iran, Foggy Bottom has been strangely silent on the dubious dealings in Nicaragua, notes CSIS’s Johnson. “You don’t hear anyone in the State Department complaining very loudly about how he manipulated the constitution to run again, so it’s likely our government will live with it, although an Ortega victory will certainly leave an unsavory aftertaste,” he said. One reason might be that the Washington political establishment — while not exactly in love with Ortega — prefers to look the other way as long as the old rebel stays out of trouble and keeps the door open to U.S. investors. There’s no question that since Ortega’s return to power in 2007, Nicaraguan exports have doubled and foreign direct investment has grown

PHOTO: LARRY LUXNER

Little boys run along a deserted beach on Corn Island, a growing Nicaraguan tourist destination. Just over 1 million foreign tourists visited Nicaragua in 2010, the first time that country has exceeded the million mark.

nearly five-fold. “Nicaragua now has the fastest-growing economy in Central America. Ironically, it’s become the poster child for the IMF,” noted Rogers.“Every year Ortega’s been in power, Nicaragua has set new records for exports and FDI. The macroeconomic numbers are encouraging, and at the end of the day, that’s what people care about.” The numbers evidently speak for themselves. In the first half of 2011, Nicaragua attracted $284 million in FDI. While that rate of investment may cause the country to fall short of the $1 billion goal Ortega set at the beginning of the year, it still represents a 32 percent increase from the year-ago period, according to Veronica Rojas, vice minister of the country’s Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Development.

Nicaragua is also the only country in Central America to not only recover the free trade zone jobs it lost during the 2008-09 global economic slump, but to surpass previous employment highs in that sector. Retired Gen. Álvaro Baltodano, presidential delegate to the investment agency PRONicaragua, said that by the end of this year, 97,000 Nicaraguans will be employed in the country’s free trade zones — producing everything from women’s underwear to blue jeans for the nearby U.S. market. Tourism is booming as well. Just over 1 million foreign tourists visited Nicaragua in 2010, the first time that country has exceeded the million mark; this represents an 8.4 percent increase over the 931,000 foreigners who visited Nicaragua in 2009, said Mario Salinas, president of the Nicaraguan Tourism Institute. “The increase is due to the fact that Nicaragua is perceived as an interesting destination on the international level,” said Salinas, noting that his country expects $100 million worth of investment in tourism projects over the next year. He said 60 percent of the tourists who visit Nicaragua come from other Central American

from page 17

Indonesia as a modern, dynamic and moderate nation that could play a significant role in global politics that are increasingly marked by religious extremism and divisiveness.” Despite his charm, however, not everyone is enamored with Jakarta’s man in Washington. Two groups, the East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) and the West Papua Advocacy Team (WPAT), last year urged the Obama administration to reject Djalal as Indonesia’s ambassador, labeling him a “defender of the Suharto dictatorship” whose career involved him in a supposed 1999 act of repression that cost the lives of 1,500 East Timorese, displaced two-thirds of its population, and destroyed 75 percent of East Timor’s infrastructure. “While defending the Indonesian security forces in East Timor (now independent TimorLeste), he would often attack human rights investigators and organizations,” the two somewhat obscure groups claimed in a press release. “He sought to portray the violence there as civil conflict among East Timorese, rather than resulting from repression of resistance to Indonesia’s illegal and brutal occupation.” ETAN and WPAT further argue that “Ambassador Djalal’s past as an apologist for the worst behavior of the Indonesian military and its minions augurs poorly for international

Page 22

The Washington Diplomat

countries, mainly Honduras, followed by the United States, Canada and Europe.The average stay in the country is 7.3 days and each tourist spends an average of $50 per day.Authorities registered gross income of $360 million from foreign tourism in 2010, up from $346 million in 2009. Anticipating even more tourism, the Ortega government plans to build an international airport at Lake Nicaragua’s Ometepe, the world’s largest volcanic island in a freshwater lake.The $7 million facility will boast a 1,500-meter runway and serve aircraft carrying up to 42 passengers, said Orlando Castillo, manager of the country’s state-run airport authority, noting that the new airport will be built on the site of a long-gone tobacco factory. “The decision to build an airport in Ometepe was taken due to the island’s great potential for tourism development,” said Castillo, adding that the government also plans to open two more international airports in Greytown and Punta Huete. In addition, a $1.5 million project is under way to restore the historical center of Granada, a charming colonial city and Nicaragua’s leading tourist attraction, with funds from the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation, the European Union and the Inter-American Development Bank. Private money is pouring into tourism projects too. One of the country’s largest planned ventures is Guacalito de la Isla, a massive resort that stretches 670 hectares along the Pacific beaches of Guacalito and Manzanillo. Such luxury resorts cater to the ever-growing numbers of Americans who’ve decided to retire in Nicaragua, lured by the country’s natural beauty and relatively low cost of living. They also boost Ortega’s standing in the foreign investment community, which values stability and the rule of law. If past is prologue, Johnson observed, Ortega may be populist enough to satisfy his Sandinista support base, but pragmatic enough not to irritate close neighbors. “He might offer refuge to old fellow travelers like Muammar Qaddafi, but probably won’t block commerce with the United States. It’s not a strategy that will help Nicaragua progress in any sense of the term, but that was never the point,” Johnson said. “It’s about running a political machine, nothing more. And until the majority of voters get sick of the corruption, that’s all it will ever be about.”

Larry Luxner is news editor of The Washington Diplomat.

efforts, especially in the United States, to press for justice and accountability for past human rights crimes and genuine reform of Indonesia’s security forces.” Yet Djalal says he counts one-time resistance leaders José Ramos-Horta and Xanana Gusmão — now the president and prime minister of Timor-Leste, respectively — as among his closest friends. “Relations with Timor-Leste are excellent, beyond expectations, to be honest,” he said. “Timor-Leste considers us the closest neighbor and partner in the region, and Indonesia is actively promoting Timor’s efforts to become a member of ASEAN. In 1999, after the referendum, things were very tense. From there to where we are now, it’s a tremendous leap.” Ramos-Horta, in congratulating Djalal on his appointment in Washington a year ago, noted that as a junior diplomat, his friend served in Timor-Leste with distinction and integrity back in 1999, when he publicly denounced the breakdown of law and order following the former Portuguese colony’s referendum on independence. “President Yudhoyono could not have chosen a better man to represent Indonesia in the U.S.,” he said. “Dino is energetic and creative, and belongs to the new breed of young Indonesian reformers who will lead Indonesia into the future.”

Larry Luxner is news editor of The Washington Diplomat.

November 2011

EDUCATION ■ A Special Section of The Washington Diplomat

■ November 2011

Kenyan Ambassador Elkanah Odembo speaks about his optimism for Africa at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville during its Ambassadors’ Speakers Forum. PHOTO: COLE GEDDY / UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

Campus Diplomacy

Ambassadors Reach U.S. Students With Regular Visits to Universities by Stephanie Kanowitz Education is the surest antidote to misconception, so it should come as little surprise that many ambassadors to the United States try to inform people about their countries via many avenues, especially the media and politicians. But beyond the usual outlets — and the confines of the Beltway — lies a vast community that’s home to an eager audience and the future generation of leaders: American students, hundreds of thousands of them all the way from Washington, D.C., to Washington state.

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■ INSIDE: After years of neglect and decay, D.C. schools are getting some much-needed TLC with a massive modernization overhaul. PAGE 28 ■

November 2011

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Continued from previous page â&#x20AC;&#x153;I reach audiences that I otherwise would not reach,â&#x20AC;? said Iraqi Ambassador Samir Sumaidaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ie, who has spoken at universities including Eastern Illinois and Duke. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Of course, I appear in the media, I occasionally write articles in the media, but these donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t reach everyone, and the United States is not just Washington. I do my job in Washington, but part of my duty is to reach out and make sure that public opinion is well informed, and Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m using universities and schools as a kind of multiplier because these people are connected to their communities, they are leaders and thinkers.â&#x20AC;? Norwegian Ambassador Wegger Christian Strommen kicked off his diplomatic tour of duty with a string of college visits in 2008, namely those with strong Norwegian ties, including St. Olaf College and Augsburg College in Minnesota and the universities of North Dakota and Minnesota. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I went to see the president and delivered my credentials and the next day flew out to the Midwest because that is where the heartland is,â&#x20AC;? he told The Washington Diplomat.â&#x20AC;&#x153;There are seven, eight, nine colleges or universities that have strong Norwegian roots.â&#x20AC;? Visits to U.S. colleges and universities usually involve a meeting with school officials, a formal speech by the ambassador followed by a question-and-answer session, and a less formal reception where attendees can get personal face time with the guest of honor. The speech topic is usually tied to the politics and current affairs of the envoyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s nation. The University of Virginia has long welcomed ambassadors, and in 2008, it established the Ambassadorsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Speakers Forum as a way for students to hear about the world firsthand without leaving Charlottesville. For instance, on Sept. 29, Kenyan Ambassador Elkanah Odembo spoke about his optimism for Africa at UVA (the year before he also talked about that topic at the University of Pennsylvaniaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Wharton School). Earlier that month, Pakistani Ambassador Husain Haqqani addressed his countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s role in the U.S. fight against terrorism; in April, former Moroccan Ambassador Aziz Mekouar discussed the civil unrest that has been shaking his country; and last year, former Ambassador of Iceland HjĂĄlmar W. Hannesson spoke about the collapse of his island nationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s banking sector. Understandably, conversations about Iraq are in high demand.At

PHOTO: DAN ADDISON / UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

the University of Tennessee- Shortly after coming to Washington, Knoxvilleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Howard H. Baker Indonesian Ambassador Dino Patti Djalal Jr. Center for Public Policy in went to the University of Virginia for its March, Sumaidaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ie â&#x20AC;&#x201D; who has Ambassadorsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Speakers Forum, also visited with wounded sol- in part because his father, Hasjim Djalal, an diers around the country â&#x20AC;&#x201D; ambassador to Germany and Canada, was spoke about why Iraq is still the first Indonesian student to attend UVA, important to the United States earning one of the first-ever doctorates of despite the pending pullout of jurisprudence in 1959. â&#x20AC;&#x153;This is a special troops, a theme he has address- day for me,â&#x20AC;? the younger Djalal told the ed often, especially as the students, wearing a UVA tie and holding a country still relies on U.S. assis- black hardbound book. â&#x20AC;&#x153;This is the day I tance in progressing toward a got my hands on my dadâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s thesis.â&#x20AC;? stable democracy. (The Baker Center is named after a former U.S. ambassador to Japan.) â&#x20AC;&#x153;I usually give an illustration of that and put it in the regional context of the Middle East, the whole region, being in transition,â&#x20AC;? said Sumaidaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ie, who is leaving his post after more than five years in Washington. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The way it goes is going to be important for the United States.The Middle East is an important part of the world. A lot of the energy for the whole planet comes from that region. Of course, a lot of the headache for the whole world comes from that region. I try to put Iraq in the regional context and international

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Page 24

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EDUCATION

November 2011

context.” “Of great value to all who met with the ambassador was the opportunity to hear an Iraqi perspective about the current state of affairs in Iraq and the role of the United States in helping the Iraqi government and people realize their aspirations for a secure, stable, independent and democratic nation,” said Carl A. Pierce, director of the Baker Center.“They also valued the ambassador’s insights about the Iraqi aspiration for democracy, tempered as they were by his concern that a ‘rush’ for democracy had created problems with which the Iraqis were still struggling.” Most recently, Sumaida’ie spoke in his own backyard at the George Washington University. Indeed, with the plethora of top-notch, internationally focused universities in the nation’s capital, from GW to Georgetown, many local diplomats don’t have to travel far to talk shop with American students. In mid-October for instance, newly appointed Indian Ambassador Nirupama Rao — India’s former foreign secretary and one-time press minister here in Washington — joined U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at Georgetown University for the 2011 U.S.-India Higher Education Summit. Both Iraq and India figure prominently on the Washington agenda, but foreign issues and relations run the gamut in various pockets of the country. Tackling vastly different terrain, Strommen’s approach depends on where he’s headed.There are almost 6 million Norwegian Americans, compared to Norway’s population of 5 million, the ambassador pointed out — a large and important audience for him to reach. “We are the second largest immigrant country to the United States after Ireland,” he said. “They built some very, very good educational institutions, so the first thing you do when you’re the ambassador of Norway to the United States you go to these colleges or universities and you present yourself, because this is my base, these are my people.” “St. Olaf’s ties with Norway are long-standing, broad and deep,” said St. Olaf College President David R. Anderson. “They originated in the experience of Norwegian immigrants to America, who founded St. Olaf. But the world has changed since then, and Norway and the college have changed with it.Ambassador Strommen’s visits to campus help us to keep our understanding of Norway current and to preserve the personal bond that keeps our ties so strong.” At schools with less Norwegian heritage, the envoy talks climate, and he’s done it in at least 10 states. Strommen invites scientists to speak about how the ice is melting in Norway, for example, and what that means for weather patterns and sea levels around

PHOTOS: EMBASSY OF IRAQ

Last month, before formally leaving his post, Iraqi Ambassador Samir Sumaida’ie spoke to students and officials at the George Washington University in Washington about the Arab Spring and the reconstruction effort in Iraq, one of many college stops Sumaida’ie has made during his five years in office.

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Continued from previous page the world.Then a local expert on climate issues, usually affiliated with the school, discusses local impact. In New Mexico, for instance, the topic was dwindling water supplies. The Embassy of France’s presence on American campuses comes in several forms, including financial contributions to academic centers to promote research on French matters and events that showcase the country, such as film festivals like Tournées, which has been screened at 350 schools. Since arriving in D.C. in February, French Ambassador François Delattre has visited New York and Columbia universities and the Georgia and California institutes of technology.“I myself do not miss an opportunity to meet students and scholars. Tapping into college life is one of the best ways, in my view, of capturing the pulse of the country,” Delattre told us. “University and research cooperation between France and the United States is one of the very first priorities of my action as ambassador, and I observe it is one of the most dynamic fields of cooperation between the two countries.” Ambassadors agree that the best part of visiting U.S. universities is interacting with the students via the Q&A. “That’s the most interesting part because then I get to know what the students are thinking about,” said Sumaida’ie. “I have to respond to all different ideas. They do follow a pattern. There was a time when there was opposition to military intervention, for example, and many students were coming from that angle.” No questions surprise him anymore. “But they do reveal a good knowledge. Some of these students are quite interested in being well informed. They have followed events and issues, they highlight very often humanitarian concerns, issues relating to casualties,” Sumaida’ie said. Strommen, however, still catches the occasional curveball.“This is one of the great things about America: If you

“I do my job in Washington, but part of my duty is to reach out and make sure that public opinion is well informed, and I’m using universities and schools as a kind of multiplier because these people are connected to their communities, they are leaders and thinkers.” — SAMIR SUMAIDA’IE, ambassador of Iraq to the United States give a lecture in Europe, very often the audience is very quiet and they don’t say much. If you give a lecture in America, you bet there is someone who wants to try out something.This is a great thing,” he said. Sometimes though, the open discourse can become heated, especially when it deals with contentious debates like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For instance, the Irvine 11, as they have come to be known, are a group of Muslim students who were recently found guilty of disrupting a speech by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren at the University of California-Irvine back in February 2010 (also see “Legal Battle over Campus Protest Raises Questions of Free Speech, Islamophobia” in the August 2011 issue of The Washington Diplomat). The students called Oren an accomplice to genocide and a war criminal to protest his speech. In September, 10 of them were sentenced to three years’ probation for the disruption. (Charges against the 11th defendant were tentatively dismissed pending completion of 40 hours of community service.) The case generated a local uproar and nationwide headlines, although Oren has quietly continued to make the rounds giving periodic university speeches across the nation. Indeed, most speeches are far less dramatic, though no less consequential. For Delattre, the visits are a chance to gauge the cultural temperature. “I value the occasions of

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exchange with students, where I can measure what they think of France, or how they perceive their own futures in the context of a swiftly changing world,” he said. The ambassadors’ messages may differ, but the goal is the same: to get students thinking. “The most important thing with young people is to get them curious so that they get interested,” said Strommen, who has an 18- and 21-year-old attending British universities. “I’m not sure how much they learn of facts or directly what I’m saying, but they get curious about issues that I raise.That is what I really hope — that they play on their own curiosity.” Sumaida’ie said students often thank him for clarifying issues for them. “I go and explain the background in a human sense and people begin to understand,” he said. “When they understand, they empathize and when they empathize, they support. It gets people closer to the issue and much more appreciative that these issues are complex.” The students are not the only ones learning from these exchanges. “Not only do you learn other people’s perception of the country you represent, but you might also pick up on good ideas,” Strommen said. “We are a large energy producer, and many places, particularly out West where they

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are very concerned about energy use, I found a lot of very good questions about how you diversify your energy supply.” The ambassadors also learn about America. “This is very, very important,” Strommen said.“You travel around America, you talk to people, you give these lectures, you meet a lot of people and you understand America, because for all I like being in Washington — and I do — you’ve got to get out of here every now and then as well to understand America.” Sumaida’ie’s term ended in October, but his travels helped him understand the American psyche.“I learned that the American people, despite the fact that they have very different opinions and different orientations, are very open minded,” he said. “Wherever I went, I found that people are ready to give

Recently appointed Indian Ambassador Nirupama Rao announces a new chair of Indian culture and society at Georgetown University on Sept. 28, two weeks before the 2011 U.S.-India Higher Education Summit was held at the university. “We have a saying in Sanskrit: ‘The wealth that education offers is the greatest wealth of all,’” Rao told the Georgetown students.

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Stephanie Kanowitz is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

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[ buildings ]

Overdue Makeover Huge Modernization Campaign Transforms D.C. School System

PHOTO: D.C. DEPARTMENT OF GENERAL SERVICES

by Martin Austermuhle

ardozo Senior High School cuts an imposing figure, a hulking structure that overlooks Washington, D.C., from its perch between Florida Avenue and Clifton Street, NW, in the Columbia Heights neighborhood. Originally built as Central High School in 1916 and intended for use by white students in the city’s segregated school system, architect William Ittner designed the building in a Collegiate Gothic style, with limestone trim and tile work juxtaposed against the dark red bricks used for the majority of the construction. According to observers at the time, Ittner “conceived the modern school as a splendid civic monument, to become a potent factor in the academic development of the community.” The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1993. But like many of D.C.’s public schools, over the years Cardozo suffered from neglect that was both academic and physical. In 1998, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reported that 70 percent of the facilities under D.C. Public Schools “were in poor physical condition.”A 2005 report by the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs called the physical state of the city’s schools “deplorable,” detailing conditions that “most people associate with slums.” By 2007, city officials reported a backlog of 20,000 work orders, hinting at a system that wasn’t just sinking, but failing to do even the most basic repairs to stay afloat.The same year, Cardozo was declared a “failing school.”

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Eastern High School was re-inaugurated in August 2010 after a $77 million modernization, part of an unprecedented 15-year, $3.5 billion capital campaign to transform D.C. schools that in many cases had not seen any concerted rehabilitation efforts in a generation.

But this September, D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray proudly announced that Cardozo would undergo a year-and-a-half-long modernization. When the school reopens in 2013, it will feature a brand new 24,000-square-foot gymnasium, renovated classrooms, improved technological capacity, and new windows, doors and exterior treatments. It will, many hope, become the splendid civic monument Ittner conceived it to be. The new Cardozo will be but a small part of an ambitious plan to renovate, rehabilitate, modernize and, in some cases, replace the 123 D.C. Public Schools facilities that serve the system’s 45,000 students but have suffered severe institutional decay that has built up over decades. In fact, years before President Barack Obama’s current jobs proposal to rehabilitate aging school buildings across the nation as a way to stimulate the U.S. economy, the nation’s capital began a major drive to radically overhaul its own troubled public school system. In 2007, then Mayor Adrian Fenty engineered legislation that granted him almost absolute control of school governance and established the Office of Public Education Facilities Modernization (OPEFM), an independent agency that would lead the charge in fixing public schools across the District’s eight wards. Under the leadership of former Executive Director Allen Lew — who called the state of the city’s schools a “monumental calamity” — OPEFM was tasked with spearheading an unprecedented 15-year, $3.5 billion capital campaign to

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attend to schools that in many cases had not seen any concerted rehabilitation efforts in a generation. Just as former D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee famously fought her way to improve academic standards, Lew — former chief executive of the D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission — took to creating the buildings in which teachers could better educate and students could better learn. “We knew that a piecemeal approach drawn out over a long period of time would be doomed to repeat the failures of the past. We needed a new concept, massive funding and a ‘get it done’ attitude to save our school facilities,” Fenty said at the time. By many measures, the results to date have been impressive. According to OPEFM, from 2007 to 2010, 13 schools and 33 athletic fields and playgrounds were fully modernized. (For 2011, 11 more schools were set to be overhauled.) Twelve schools had roofs replaced, 16 received major repairs to heating systems, 75 underwent significant plumbing work, 35 had electrical work done, and more than 9,000 work orders for health code violations were completed. In addition to badly needed repairs and fixes, the modernization project aims to do just that — modernize D.C. schools to compete for the 21st century.That includes state-of-the-art technology, brand new academic and athletic facilities, and a major focus on eco-friendly building design, from dual-flush toilets that save water to white roofs that reflect heat to underground geothermal heating and cooling systems

(also see “District of Eco-Columbia: D.C. Public Schools Blooming Thanks to Unprecedented Green Rejuvenation” in the January 2011 Education section of The Washington Diplomat). “Our goal in modernizing public schools in the District of Columbia is not only to transform classrooms and campuses across the District to provide students with facilities that can positively impact student achievement,” said Ollie Harper Jr., acting executive director of OPEFM. “Our goal is also to transform schools into state-of-theart campuses that can serve teachers, staff, students and their communities.” By 2010, the turnaround was such that the Washington Lawyers’ Committee said that “the state of DCPS facilities has dramatically improved over the past five years.” Eastern High School, long known as “the pride of Capitol Hill,” was re-inaugurated in August 2010 after a $77 million modernization that included a rehabilitation of the school’s grand performance theater. H.D. Woodson High School, located in the northeastern neighborhood of Marshall Heights, was once an imposing eight-story, 1960s-era concrete building, but as part of a $102 million modernization, it was demolished and rebuilt from the ground up. It was inaugurated in August 2011. Woodrow Wilson High School in Tenleytown, which serves some 1,550 students, also reopened in August and now features a soaring glass atrium, a new 850seat auditorium and a fully renovated aquatic center.

Continued on next page

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Continued from previous page

From

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At the reopening of the school, originally built in 1935, Mayor Gray said,â&#x20AC;&#x153;The ribboncutting ceremony for Woodrow Wilson High School is a shining example of how the District of Columbia can transform a historic campus into a first-class facility with an extraordinary design and state-of-the-art technology.â&#x20AC;? He added:â&#x20AC;&#x153;Wilsonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new academic, visual arts, performing arts and athletic facilities create an exciting 21st-century campus for learning.â&#x20AC;? According to Lew, who is now the city administrator, â&#x20AC;&#x153;What made Wilson an exciting project was the fact that this modernization involved the renovation and adaptive reuse of all of the existing landmarked structures through a complete renovation of all existing program space and the conversion of substantially underutilized existing space into program or support space,â&#x20AC;? he said at the reopening.â&#x20AC;&#x153;The next step was to then take the existing Wilson and strategically insert new construction to take the campus to the next level.â&#x20AC;? While prior efforts had been made to

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Many of D.C.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s public schools, such as Eastern High School, above, boast historic architecture and stately exteriors, but on the inside, they suffered from decades of neglect and severe institutional decay.

modernize the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s public schools â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the Army Corps of Engineers worked on D.C. schools in the late 1990s, while a 2001 master plan approved by the D.C. Board of Education laid the groundwork for Fenty and Lewâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s campaign â&#x20AC;&#x201D; many school advocates note that OPEFM has been successful because it has enjoyed access to more money, flexibility and committed leadership than its predecessors. â&#x20AC;&#x153;When Allen [Lew] took it over, what he was able to do was take projects that were in the pipeline and move them. He took projects that were in design, that had been planned, that had their specifications, and he was like, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;OK, letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s get contracts out the door.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; He was absolutely able to get contracts out the door in a way that nobody else could,â&#x20AC;? said Mary Filardo, executive director of the 21st Century School Fund who has been working and advising on school modernization-related issues since

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“Our goal in modernizing public schools in the District of Columbia is not only to transform classrooms and campuses across the District to provide students with facilities that can positively impact student achievement…. Our goal is also to transform schools into state-of-the-art campuses that can serve teachers, staff, students and their communities.” — OLLIE HARPER JR., acting executive director of the D.C. Office of Public Education Facilities Modernization

PHOTO: D.C. DEPARTMENT OF GENERAL SERVICES

Long known as “the pride of Capitol Hill,” Eastern High School recently underwent a major modernization makeover that included a rehabilitation of the school’s grand performance theater.

the early 1990s. Lew himself admitted that fixing the city’s schools was a challenge that paled in comparison to prior projects he had helmed in Washington, including the Washington Convention Center and Nationals Park baseball stadium. Of course, governments don’t often get things done well and quickly, and Lew and OPEFM have been accused of sacrificing accountability for the sake of speed. According to a May 2011 report from the Office of the D.C.Auditor, the speed at which OPEFM worked has come at a cost — expenditures have been tough to track

and have often exceeded predicted budgets. In one case, the report found that Lew’s office could not account for $15.3 million in spending. The Washington Post reported earlier this year that 12 of the 16 major modernization projects he had overseen went over budget. (Wilson’s modernization saw its budget grow from $85 million to more than $120 million.) During a March hearing in the D.C. Council, legislators expressed concern over the cost of the modernizations yet to come — some $2.4 billion is budgeted for

Continued on next page

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H.D. Woodson High School, above, was rebuilt from the ground up as part of a $102 million campaign. From 2007 to 2010, the D.C. Office of Public Education Facilities Modernization has fully modernized 13 schools and 33 athletic fields and playgrounds, with 11 more schools set to be overhauled in 2011.

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the rest of the campaign, which will wind down in 2019 — especially considering that in late 2010, financial officials warned that the city was fast approaching a 12 percent debt-to-expenditures cap. “We probably paid at least a couple hundred million too much for things. [Lew] was not worried about the cost. He was worried about the speed,” said Filardo, who also accused OPEFM of often shutting out residents in discussions over school modernizations and inequitably spreading funds throughout the city. Former D.C. Mayor and current Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry seemed to hint as much, saying recently that while Lew did a good job on the schools he worked on, too few schools in the city’s poorer neighborhoods received needed attention.“I don’t know where it all went ... too much in Ward 3,” he said. (The first phase of the modernization of Anacostia

High School in Barry’s ward only began this year.) Of course, during Barry’s terms as mayor in the 1980s and ’90s, the city’s schools plummeted into disrepair and neglect, with the system consistently ranked one of the worst in the entire nation. Now, for the first time in decades, schools that were once decrepit have discovered new life. To that end, the school modernization push will continue, and more renovated buildings will continue to emerge where dilapidated structures once stood. Coupled with improving academic standards, the new facilities may well have an impact on what was once the country’s lowest-performing public school system. In October 2010, school officials reported that enrollment had increased for the first time in 39 years.

Martin Austermuhle is a freelance writer in Washington, D.C., and associate editor of DCist.com.

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EDUCATION

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MEDICAL ■ A Special Section of The Washington Diplomat

■ November 2011

PHOTO: EMRAH TURUDU / ISTOCK

Wounds of War

U.S. Soldiers on Front Lines Of Traumatic Brain Injury Research by Gina Shaw A land mine explodes near an armored vehicle on the battlefield in Afghanistan. The soldiers inside see a blinding flash and hear a deafening noise. Dazed, they grab their weapons and continue the battle. They assume they’re fine. But they might not be. Continued on next page

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Do you dream Continued from previous page Over the next few days and weeks, the soldiers may realize that they’re having trouble with their memory and concentration, suffering from mood swings, feeling constantly irritable and having trouble sleeping — all hallmarks of a condition called traumatic brain injury. Traumatic brain injury has become known as the“signature injury”of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, due in large part to blast exposures from improvised explosive devices (IEDs), suicide bombers, land mines, mortar rounds and rocket-propelled grenades. According to the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center (DVBIC), which is tasked with tracking cases of traumatic brain injury (TBI) within the military, medical diagnoses of TBI among U.S. forces nearly tripled between 2000 and 2010, jumping from 10,963 to 31,353. Over the course of the 10 years that DVBIC has been keeping records, more than 220,000 service members have experienced a traumatic brain injury. At its worst, severe TBI can leave the injured person devastatingly impaired — unable to walk, talk or think as he or she once did, having to relearn almost everything like a child. But even in its milder forms, TBI can have longterm consequences, especially if a service member experiences several such injuries, not uncommon among the rotating tours of duty imposed on today’s military personnel. For example, veterans who experienced a traumatic brain injury in the field develop dementia and other cognitive problems at more than twice the rate of other returning soldiers, according to a study presented in July at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference 2011. Researchers at the San Francisco VA Medical Center and the University of California, San Francisco, analyzed more than 280,000 records from military vets ages 55 and older who received care from the Veterans Health Administration between 1997 and 2007; none had been diagnosed with dementia at the start of the study. They found that veterans who had experienced a traumatic brain injury faced a 15.3 percent chance of developing dementia within 10 years of the study; those who had not had a TBI had only about a 7 percent risk of developing dementia during that timeframe. The study was one of the first to examine the association between dementia and different types of TBI diagnosis, including intracranial injuries, concussion, post-concussion syndrome and skull fracture. “It didn’t matter what type of diagnosis it was — they were all associated with an elevated risk of dementia,” said the study’s lead author, Deborah Barnes, a mental health researcher at San Francisco VA Medical Center and an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of California. After years in which TBI was swept under the rug — no specific military research dollars were devoted to the issue in the first half of the 2000s — the military is devoting an increasing amount of resources to tackling the problem of TBI and its aftermath. This includes everything from providing services to military families struggling with the day-to-day realities of TBI, to leading-edge research on TBI therapy and rehabilitation. In 2007, Congress allocated $150 million for TBI research in the military, and another $150 million on PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). In September, the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS) and the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine hosted the fourth annual TBI Spectrum conference, a multidisciplinary symposium on the challenges of traumatic brain injury that brought together experts from the military, government, industry and the private sector.

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One of them was Dr. Stanley Prusiner, director of the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases and professor of neurology at the University of California, San Francisco, and the 1997 winner of the Nobel Prize in Medicine. He and Daniel Perl, director of the Military Brain Injury Studies program and professor of pathology at USUHS, are studying how a brain protein called Tau, associated with dementia, relates to traumatic brain injury in veterans. Tangles in the front of the brain created by the Tau protein have been found in professional football players who have dementia after repeated head traumas, as well as other dementia patients. They’re found in veterans with TBI injuries as well, putting them at heightened risk for suicide. “You can take those symptoms and overlay them on soldiers with PTSD who go on and take their lives,” Prusiner said in an Army press release. “While Dan is looking at the pathology of the accumulation of the Tau protein, we’re trying to take the other side of it and look for ways, such as a pill, to decrease the Tau protein so the aggregates that cause the tangles disappear.” One innovative study of a potential treatment for TBI is now under way at four military sites — two Marine and two Army bases. Over the course of eight weeks, service members back from combat in Iraq or Afghanistan after suffering mild brain injuries will spend an hour each weekday breathing pure oxygen inside a hyperbaric chamber, which creates an artificial state of pressure on the body similar to what divers experience at about 20 feet underwater. As the pressure forces the oxygen into the body’s cells, the hope is that it will speed healing and allow the brain to recover more quickly and completely, lessening the headaches, memory loss and other problems that brain-injured veterans face. Overall, the aim is to enroll 100 participants by the end of 2011; if the study yields positive results, a larger trial is planned. “I’m really hopeful that this potential treatment will help,” said Navy Cmdr. James Caviness, head of occupational health services and the study’s principal investigator at one of the four sites, Naval Hospital Camp Pendleton in California, which had recruited six participants at press time.“Some civilian doctors have treated veterans with mild TBI using hyperbaric

U.S. Army Pfc. Jeremiah Mullins plays “Brain Academy” on the Nintendo Wii at the Task Force Duke mild traumatic brain injury-reconditioning center in Afghanistan. The video game has been adopted by several mild traumatic brain injury centers across Afghanistan to help wounded soldiers recover from what’s become a “signature injury” of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

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See BRAIN INJURIES, page 38

MEDICAL November 2011

The Washington Diplomat Page 35

[ pharmaceuticals ]

Heart of the Matter Statins: Widespread and Beneficial, But Not Benign Wonder Drugs

PHOTO: DAVID WATKINS / BIGSTOCK

by Gina Shaw

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that one out of every four Americans over 45 is taking a statin. That’s more than 30 million people.

tatin drugs are big business in America — and all over the world. These cholesterol-lowering medications can be found in millions of medicine cabinets. Indeed, half of all men over 65, and about 36 percent of women in the same age group, take a statin drug, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that one out of every four Americans over 45 is taking a statin.That’s more than 30 million people. Statins appear to have a host of benefits beyond just lowering “bad” (LDL) cholesterol levels and reducing the risk of heart disease.Two major studies published in the journal Cancer Causes and Control recently suggest that high cholesterol is linked to the development of prostate cancer, and that men taking statins have a decreased risk of getting prostate cancer. And another recent study in the Journal of Trauma found that seniors who were taking a statin at the time they suffered a head injury were much more likely to survive the trauma and recover with more of their function intact. So does that mean that if you’re over 45, you should be taking a statin medication even if you don’t have high cholesterol? After all, a major study has found that people without high cholesterol but with high levels of a substance called C-reactive protein — an independent risk factor for heart attacks — cut their risk of a heart attack in half by taking statins. The answer: not necessarily. This month, the patent on Lipitor, the world’s best-selling drug, which is worth more than $11 billion in revenue a year to Pfizer, expires. Pfizer has

Statins appear to have a host of benefits beyond just lowering “bad” (LDL) cholesterol levels and reducing the risk of heart disease, but they also have side effects and have been associated with an increased risk of kidney failure, liver problems and a muscle disease called myopathy.

floated the idea of introducing an over-the-counter version of its popular statin to recoup some of the loss in profits once the drug becomes generic. But that has many doctors warning that statins like Lipitor — while hugely beneficial to some people — are hardly benign. First, while there is no doubt that statins do help a lot of people, the ones who benefit most from these drugs are those with major risk factors — most notably, those who have already had at least one heart attack or other symptom like angina or atrial fibrillation. But among healthier people, their benefits are much smaller. Last year, a meta-analysis (a study of studies) published in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that you’d need to treat 1,429 people with statins in a year to prevent one death. The other 1,428 might not see any benefit at all. That finding is echoed in a study published in October in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. This study, also a meta-analysis, found that low-risk people who take statins get a small, but real, benefit in terms of a lowered risk of death, heart attack and stroke. But look more closely at the numbers, urged an accompanying letter from Canadian family physician Dr. Patrick Quail, who pointed out that “the absolute risk reduction and therefore the number needed to treat is of such an order that I would have to treat nearly 250 of my low-risk patients for a median of two years to prevent one death.”

See STATINS, page 38

MEDICAL Page 36

The Washington Diplomat

November 2011

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MEDICAL November 2011

The Washington Diplomat Page 37

from page 36 from page 35

Statins

Brain Injuries

Second, statins arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t candy. Homeopathic medicineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s claims aside, you canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t create a drug that has any kind of measurable positive effect on the body (such as lowering cholesterol) without raising the risk of some potential negative effect. Statin drugs have been associated with an increased risk of kidney failure, liver problems, and a muscle disease called myopathy. Some people taking statins also report memory loss, musculoskeletal pain and weakness. Third, some of the benefits seen in the big studies could well be overstated.Yet another review of the statin data (seems like everyone is trying to answer this question!), this one published in January by the prestigious Cochrane Collaboration, found similar benefits for low-risk people who take statins â&#x20AC;&#x201D; but raised some important questions about how good the research is. The Cochrane authors described â&#x20AC;&#x153;evidence of selective reporting of outcomes, failure to report adverse events and inclusion of people with cardiovascular disease. Only limited evidence showed that primary prevention with statins may be cost effective and improve patient quality of life.â&#x20AC;? Ultimately, they concluded,â&#x20AC;&#x153;Caution should be taken in prescribing statins for primary prevention among people at low cardiovascular risk.â&#x20AC;? So what does that mean? It means that if youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re a relatively healthy person over 45, you might benefit from taking a statin â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and you might not. It means that thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no clear-cut, simple formula to help you figure out whether you should take one or not. So, we have to go back to the same recommendation thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s made so often: Talk to your doctor. But really, talk to your doctor. Ask him or her to sit down with you and go over your total health history, family history and risk factors. Think about whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s important to you. For one person, a statin might be a no-brainer. For another person with a very similar health history but other personal priorities and concerns, a statin might be a â&#x20AC;&#x153;no way.â&#x20AC;? Either way, take your doctorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s advice to heart â&#x20AC;&#x201D; statins are a widely relied-upon drug, but theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re neither wonder drugs nor a one-sizefits-all prescription.

oxygen therapy and reported good results, which led to Congress asking the Department of Defense to launch this pilot study. Mild TBI is one of the signature injuries of our war on terror, and we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have a complete treatment for it at this point. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m very pleased and privileged to be involved in a program that may ID another potential treatment for our wounded warriors.â&#x20AC;? But before you can treat TBI, you have to recognize that it exists. Many veterans â&#x20AC;&#x201D; like many pro athletes â&#x20AC;&#x201D; suffer â&#x20AC;&#x153;silent TBI,â&#x20AC;? developing brain damage from a concussion or blast injury without having obvious symptoms, or having only mild issues that they donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t associate with the injury. But if they go back into the battlefield (or onto the playing field) too soon and sustain another injury, the potential for more severe and lasting trauma is increased. Last year, the military announced that it had developed a blood test that could accurately diagnose TBI by looking for unique proteins that pour into the bloodstream from damaged brain cells.The test has shown promise in a small-scale trial involving about three dozen vets, and soon will be tested in Phase III studies. â&#x20AC;&#x153;When you look back on this war, 20, 30 years from now, I believe that the greatest advances will be in the area of brain science,â&#x20AC;? said Vice Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. Peter Chiarelli at the TBI Spectrum. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve already made tremendous progress in what has largely been uncharted territory with effective protocols, new treatment and imaging methods, therapies, technologies and protective devices. And these and other advances are

CREDIT: U.S. AIR FORCE PHOTO BY SENIOR AIRMAN AMBER BRESSLER

U.S. Air Force Maj. Maria Alvarez, a neurologist at Wilford Hall, injects Robert Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Reilly with botulinum toxin at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. Alvarez is leading a case study to improve treatment of traumatic brain injury patients with chronic headaches.

benefiting not only todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s service men and women, but people outside of the military, including athletes.â&#x20AC;?

Gina Shaw is the medical writer for The Washington Diplomat.

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arts

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■ NOVEMBER 2011

DIPLOMATIC SPOUSES

Devoted Judge Aminatta N’gum, wife of the Gambian ambassador, is an appeals court judge on a leave of absence while she continues her long career of public service for her tiny West African country here in D.C. PAGE 44

ART

Ceramic ‘CHINA’ “CHINA Town” at the Meridian International Center offers a contemporary twist on the ancient tradition of porcelain art in Jingdezhen, known as China’s capital of ceramics. PAGE 47

PHOTOGRAPHY

FotoWeek DC’s Snap Success In just a few short years, FotoWeek DC has morphed from an annual festival into a yearlong celebration of the enduring power of photography. PAGE 49

FILM REVIEWS “Anonymous” presents the theory that the world’s greatest writer didn’t really know how to write. PAGE 52

“Untitled (Madonna, I’m Not Ashamed)” by Andy Warhol and Keith Haring

ART

NEWS

PHOTO: KEITH HARING FOUNDATION, NEW YORK / 2011 THE ANDY WARHOL FOUNDATION FOR THE VISUAL ARTS, INC.

HOUND

Perhaps no American artist of the 20th century stirred as much passion and ambivalence as Andy Warhol. But whether you admire or attack him, one element of Warhol’s work is indisputable: He had an uncanny understanding of pop culture and the media and used it to smartly skewer tabloid notions of “news” while relishing in its fame-making abilities. PAGE 42

[ art ]

Warhol Makes News Man Behind ‘15 Minutes of Fame’ Skewers Media That Riveted Him by Michael Coleman

erhaps no American artist of the 20th century stirred as much passion and ambivalence as Andy Warhol. To his devotees,Warhol was a visionary who transcended abstract expressionism, offered brilliant artistic commentary on the issues of the day, and made the world of high art more accessible to the masses. To his detractors, Warhol was overrated and derivative, pilfering ideas about pop art from groundbreakers like Jasper Johns and Roy Lichtenstein while convincing the world that his own works said more than they really did. Regardless of your own view of Warhol, one element of the Pittsburgh native’s work is indisputable: He had an uncanny understanding of pop culture and the media and used it to smartly skewer tabloid notions of “news.” The guy who coined the now ubiquitous expression that “in the future everyone will be worldfamous for 15 minutes” was unparalleled in his intelligent exploration of the intersection of media, fame and art. A new exhibition at the National Gallery of Art, “Warhol: Headlines,” presents the diverse works that Warhol created from tabloids and other news sources in the first comprehensive examination of his media-related art. It’s a tightly focused exhibition that succeeds in capturing the offbeat, sometimes whimsical nature of Warhol’s vision, while offering a serious study of the man and his methods.The headline motif is explored through about 80 works representing Warhol’s paintings, drawings, prints, photography and sculpture, as well as film, video and television. A couple of blocks away, the Hirshhorn Museum presents a less penetrating but more visually appealing look at Warhol with a companion exhibition. “Andy Warhol: Shadows” is a monumental painting installation (and that’s not an exaggeration; the canvases take up nearly an entire level of the Hirshhorn circular second floor) that marks the first time all 102 of Warhol’s “Shadows” — silkscreened and hand-painted canvases featuring distorted photographs of shadows generated in the artist’s studio — have been shown at once. “Shadows” represents Warhol in the winter of his career, when he moved away from commentary on popular culture and took up PHOTO: NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART abstraction. It’s a beautiful, contemplative exhibition full of rich color that begs the viewer to linger and think. “Headlines,” by contrast, is busy and frenetic — and a prescient look at where the news media was a few decades ago and where it is now. Warhol’s fascination with all forms of news media — tabloids, magazines, television, etc. — prompts the viewer to wonder what he would have made of the instantaneous and unedited nature of Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites.

Page 42

The Washington Diplomat

PHOTO: BISCHOFBERGER COLLECTION, SWITZERLAND / 2011 THE ANDY WARHOL FOUNDATION FOR THE VISUAL ARTS, INC. / ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY, NEW YORK / 2011 THE ESTATE OF JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT / ADAGP, PARIS

“

If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, and there I am. There’s nothing behind it. — ANDY WARHOL

”

From clockwise top, “Ailing Ali In Fight of Life,” “Gardner Cowles” and “A Boy for Meg [2]” are among the 80 works that Andy Warhol created from tabloids and other news sources that are now on display at the National Gallery of Art in “Andy Warhol: Headlines.”

PHOTO: THE ANDY WARHOL FOUNDATION FOR THE VISUAL ARTS, INC. / ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY, NEW YORK / ART RESOURCE, NY

November 2011

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paintbrush and then Basquiat would finish the job by altering the lettering and adding his through Jan. 2 own motifs. According to the museum’s wall text, this exercise recalled a Dada exercise National Gallery of Art known as exquisite corpse. The collaboration 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue, NW allowed Basquiat to have the “last word” on the For more information, please call (202) 737-4215 painting, so to speak. That reportedly suited or visit www.nga.gov. Warhol fine. The exhibition also showcases some interesting, colorful work that Warhol did with the Warhol had a keen eye for the absurd and reveled in late New York artist Keith Haring. The two highlighting the incongruity of some newspaper layouts. men seemingly had a blast mocking the New For example, one work shows a newspaper clipping York Post’s breathless reporting on some nude with a headline about an artist who was choked to death. photos of pop star Madonna that had surfaced. Adjacent to that news, on the same page, is a department Warhol substitutes a picture of Madonna with store ad promoting “cupid and lovable” bras for 25 perPHOTO: BILL JACOBSON / © 2011 THE ANDY WARHOL FOUNDATION FOR THE VISUAL ARTS, INC. / ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK her then boyfriend, actor Sean Penn, for a cent off. “Andy Warhol: Shadows” at the Hirshhorn Museum is the first time all 102 photo that originally appeared in the newspaFor people born of a certain age, Warhol’s newspaper of Warhol’s hand-painted, silkscreened canvases featuring distorted photoper of a random woman “staying cool.” The reproductions will bring back a flood of memories.“Marine graphs of shadows have been shown at once. piece employs Warhol’s sly commentary but Death Toll Hits 172,” for example, reminds us of the awful really pops because of Haring’s jumpy, colorful attack on the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983. adornments. Stripped across the top of the same page is word of newsAndy Warhol: Shadows Regardless of where one puts Warhol in the panthewoman Jessica Savitch’s death in a car crash. through Jan. 15 on of 20th-century artists, there is no denying his The exhibition spends admirable time and space exploring Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden impact and the National Gallery of Art and Hirshhorn Warhol’s artistic relationship with the young up-and-coming Independence Avenue at 7th Street, SW give that impact its proper due. artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, who died in 1988. In two of the For more information, please call (202) 633-1000 Warhol-Basquiat paintings displayed here — “Ailing Ali in Fight or visit www.hirshhorn.si.edu. Michael Coleman is a contributing writer for The of Life” and “Plug Pulled on Coma Mom” — Warhol would start Washington Diplomat. the artistic process by recreating the headlines with his own

Warhol: Headlines

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November 2011

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[ diplomatic spouses ]

Solemn Resilience Public Service, Personal Loss for Gambian Judge by Gail Scott

ight away, this wife exudes wisdom tinged with warmth — and solemn resilience. Aminatta N’gum, wife of the Gambian Ambassador Alieu Momodou N’gum, is a distinguished appeals court judge on a leave of absence while she and her husband, an appointed envoy who is a well-known international economist and civil servant back home, represent their tiny West African country here and in Canada. Always decorated in bright cotton native dress, Aminatta, who has 32 years of legal and judicial experience, is walking proof that a strong educational base makes a critical difference in cultivating a country’s leadership. She stands straight, is quick to smile, and has a depth of genuine knowledge that can be hard to find, even on Embassy Row. She is kind but forthright, intelligent and understanding. And while her professional CV is seven pages long, her list of charitable organizations is also impressive. So is her family. Four days before she was to board her flight to the United States, she was supposed to see her son Jibril, the couple’s third youngest child. Instead, it was two of his friends who came to their home to tell them that their beloved son had died. Jibril was killed instantly when the taxi he was in with several other people swerved off PHOTO: WHITE HOUSE a windy road in heavy rain and wrapped around a pole. All of the other passengers survived, Aminatta N’gum, a Gambian appeals court judge, second including the two friends who brought Aminatta from left, stands next to President Obama during the creLosing a child is so devastating the news. Her 21-year-old son, a first-year student at the dentialing ceremony of her husband, Gambian Ambassador University of Liverpool studying international economics, Alieu Momodou N’gum, right, joined by their two daughthat it is not possible to recover from was the unlucky one; he was seated next to the rear door ters and son, all of whom live and study abroad. of first impact. it…. We have learned to carry on with ing into the student union. He was two “Losing a child is so devastating that it is not possible years ahead of me.” Later, a courtship to recover from it,” Aminatta said with profound sadness. our lives and our religion has ensued as the smart young woman “We have learned to carry on with our lives and our reliwent to study in the Gambia from her gion has sustained us in these trying times. I am now sustained us in these trying times. native Zimbabwe. They married in working on founding a charity in Jibril’s name for 1981. youths.” — AMINATTA N’GUM Graduating in 1978,Aminatta received As she recounts her story, the pain becomes etched on wife of the Gambian Ambassador Alieu Momodou N’gum a dual bachelor’s of arts in law and socithis friendly woman’s face. She looks as only a mother can ology from Keele with “subsidiary studwho must endure the untimely death of her child. “We still don’t understand why the police never came to see us,” she told me ies” in biology and politics. A year later, Aminatta — born Annie Lois Runeni as she reflected on hearing the devastating news.“This is a terrible loss for our Ruredzo in Harare, Zimbabwe (then Salisbury, Rhodesia) — passed the bar in London and was accepted to the bar of England and Wales as a barrister. In whole family,”Aminatta added in a quiet moment of grief. The N’gums have three other children. Their eldest daughter, 28-year-old March 1980, the Gambian bar appointed her a magistrate. Although she was already a lawyer and a presiding judge, she never fully left Mignone, holds an undergraduate degree in geography and a master’s in rural development from London’s Imperial College. She has served in the Gambian the classroom. Over the years,Aminatta has studied French, information technolMinistry of Trade and spent 10 months at the World Trade Organization in ogy and research services such as Westlaw and LexisNexis. And in September Geneva. Mignone currently lives in Bonn, Germany, working with the Afrika 2005, she received her master’s in public international law with an international Kommt Program. Momodom, 26, is studying international business at the criminal law specialization from Leiden University in the Netherlands. While she is in D.C. on leave from her judicial post, Aminatta will work as a University of Bradford. Daughter Sohna, 24, just graduated this past June from England’s University of Aberdeen. While she majored in French and interna- visiting researcher at the International Law Institute while serving as a member tional relations, she is currently consumed with starting her own line of fashion of a number of organizations, including the International Association of Women Judges; the African Ambassadors’ Spouses Association; the Mhina Tumaini designs. Aminatta and her husband first met abroad at university in 1974, not surpris- Foundation, which aims to improve health and educational access for at-risk ing since they have both spent so many years educating themselves. She was a youth; the Public Policy Council of the Tahirih Justice Center, which protects new student at Keele University in Staffordshire, Britain, where he was in his immigrant women and children seeking justice in the United States from gensecond year of studies. “I was with a brand new friend from Botswana who der-based violence; and THIS for Diplomats. She also recently helped to raise knew him.We had just checked our mailboxes and were leaving as he was com- funds for charity by walking nearly 40 miles in New York City’s Avon Walk for

“

”

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The Washington Diplomat

November 2011

Breast Cancer. She had already “enjoyed” the same walk here in Washington earlier in the year. But she’s also keenly aware of her newfound role as an ambassador’s wife in promoting her homeland. The Gambia, a tiny nation of 1.8 million, has had its share of political turbulence in the past and its president has been in power since 1994, although the nation has made some progress in holding generally free and fair elections in recent years and it’s avoided the political violence that’s roiled neighbors such as Guinea. Aminatta is clearly proud of her country’s accomplishments.“We are on the Western tip of Africa, surrounded by Senegal on three sides, and have this lovely Atlantic sea coast on our fourth. Our beaches are pristine, our resorts lovely and draw people from all over the world. Most of our tourists come from Europe, especially the U.K.

and Nordic countries, and other parts of Africa. Gambians are known to be welcoming, warm hosts who always have smiling faces.And our big river, the Gambia, gives us our name and our heritage of river people,” she explained. “Often Americans visit the Gambia when they are young and in the Peace Corps and they continue to return, some every year, to our beautiful beaches the rest of their lives, bringing their families and friends,” she added. Aminatta is also proud that her nation is a mixed society that has welcomed other nationalities into its midst.“People come from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Senegal because life is easier and better in the Gambia,” she said, noting that these immigrants are often “running away” from repressive regimes and difficult economic

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Continued from previous page circumstances at home. “We take them in,” she said, with a big, broad smile. I asked how she feels U.S. society has so far taken her in. Her answer is polite but makes me wonder if there hasn’t been some unfavorable reaction to her Islamic head covering. Although she always wears a scarf when she leaves the house or if “there’s a strange man at home, I don’t cover my head when I’m at home with the family,” she explained. “I was a Christian before I married and since then have adopted the Muslim way of life. I have never covered my face; we don’t do that in the Gambia. That’s really more for the women in Saudi Arabia. Of course, as a practicing Christian, I usually wore a hat to church and my favorite was a French beret.” But Aminatta is all too aware of the religious and sectarian divides that can brutally tear societies apart, something she’s witnessed from Rwanda to the white minority rule over Rhodesia. “Man’s inhumanity to man is so awful,” said this distinguished lawyer. “I say, ‘Look at them, they look like you and me — not like the devil — they look just like us.’ “I feel so especially sad because I don’t think it’s over. It’s not religion — the Hutus, the Tutsi — people are killed across the board. I feel so sad because I don’t think that it’s over. I know it isn’t. It’s happening all the time in the Congo where they want to wipe out the Tutsi. It’s all because of power.” It is this sadness, growing up in war-torn Rhodesia, then hearing more details of war’s toll while presiding on the bench, and her own recent personal loss of their son that makes this stunning woman even more of a wonder. Despite the death of her child, she sees a bright future for herself, her husband, their family and her country. “I would like to work with the United Nations again. I did that before,” Aminatta said, noting that she would also like to

Aminatta N’gum is taking a leave of absence from her career as an appeals court judge in Gambia while she and her husband, Ambassador Alieu Momodou N’gum, represent their West African country in Washington.

write a book on one or more of her passions. And she’s always working to help other Africans, fight for women and children, protect the environment and improve relations with the West. There’s always something to do for this hardworking, wide-ranging, highly educated woman, from the professional to the deeply personal, like the charity she hopes to establish in her son’s name. “I dream of founding a religious charity for the youths who need assistance with education, learning through the things they love like music and sports.” Gail Scott is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat and lifestyle columnist for the Diplomatic Pouch.

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November 2011

[ art ]

Delicate Canvases Ancient Capital of Ceramics Goes Modern in ‘CHINA Town’

by Michael Coleman

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erhaps no nation on earth is as important diplomatically to the United States as China. The U.S. State Department devotes massive amounts of money and manpower cultivating its relations with the powerful rising giant in the East, who just also happens to be America’s biggest creditor, while the Pentagon warily eyes China’s growing military might. When tensions occasionally flare over human rights or economic issues, the U.S. government deploys its highest-ranking officials to Beijing, the heart of a region that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently called the “key driver of global politics” in the Foreign Policy article “America’s Pacific Century.” Meanwhile, over at the Meridian International Center in Northwest Washington, a savvy and inspired group of art lovers are engaging in a different kind of Chinese diplomacy. “CHINA Town: Contemporary Ceramic Painting from Jingdezhen” marks the first exhibition resulting from a recent memorandum of understanding between the center and the China International Culture Association. It also follows a second major collaboration with Chinese artists at the Meridian Center,“Metropolis Now! A Selection of Chinese Contemporary Art,” which opened to rave reviews last year. “CHINA Town” is actually the sixth in a series of exhibits organized over the last decade by Meridian’s Art for Cultural Diplomacy program in partnership with the Chinese. And what a stunning exhibition it is. “CHINA Town” once again succeeds in showing us a fascinating exhibition that showcases both ancient and modern China with 56 works of porcelain art on display throughout the Meridian Center’s stately galleries. Of course, China is well known for its porcelain arts, but the history of ceramic painting is fairly new.The exhibition celebrates the connection to Jingdezhen, a city of 1.6 million people about 350 miles southwest of Shanghai. Jingdezhen has been at the epicenter of Chinese porcelain art for centuries, especially for its famous blue-andwhite decorative motifs. According to exhibition materials, during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), China exported vessels, plates and other porcelain objects from Jingdezhen to the Middle East, Africa and Europe. But today, Jingdezhen artists are offering an innovative new approach to their ancient porcelain heritage, in some cases maintaining traditions and in other cases reinterpreting or discarding it altogether. The results can be seen at the Meridian, where paintings on large, flat porcelain surfaces vary from abstract forms and geometric patterns to representational landscapes and stylized portraits. A common refrain among visitors at the exhibition’s opening was that at first glance, the ceramic paintings — especially from afar — appear to be traditional oil paintings or even watercolors on canvas. Perhaps none of the ceramic paintings on display embodies this disconnect as well as Fang Yuan’s “Twilight.” In this lifelike painting, what appears to be a riverCHINA Town: Contemporary Ceramic bed is covered with endless white snow. Yang’s attention to detail — the rocks Painting from Jingdezhen partially covered with snow and the frothrough Jan. 15 zen, leafless branches of trees lining the Meridian International Center brook — is breathtaking. 1630 Crescent Place, NW A more traditional, but no less expert For more information, please call (202) 667-6800 approach is employed by Jiang Baolin. A or visit www.meridian.org/chinatown/. series of Baolin’s work reveals the typically ethereal blue and white colors, spiked with earthy brown and tan tones. “Cucumber,” a busily decorated, elongated piece of ceramic, is a good example of this eye-pleasing technique. Jin Zhaotao’s simply titled “Flowers” is a ceramic painting of just that, a vase of flowers. But Zhaotao’s vaguely impressionistic technique creates an almost threedimensional effect as the red-gold petals seem to burst off the porcelain “canvas.” Some of Zhaotao’s other works, mostly hauntingly beautiful landscapes, are much more subdued. A work titled “Autumn” depicts a craggy cliff in somber browns, whites and greens, while another titled “Summer” uses whites and yellows to infuse

November 2011

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PHOTOS: MERIDIAN INTERNATIONAL CENTER

Zhao Mengge’s “Broken Strings,” above, and You Cuiqing’s “Spirit of the Han and Tang Dynasties,” left — as well as Jiang Baolin’s “Luffa” on the culture cover — demonstrate how artists in Jingdezhen have used ceramic painting to reinvent ancient traditions of Chinese porcelain art.

the porcelain with a lighter, brighter feel. The exhibition moves into the abstract with Liu Zheng’s work, which, according to the exhibition’s catalogue, is “driven by an inner struggle to find a balance between tradition and innovation.” There is definitely a struggle evident in Zheng’s paintings, which incorporate boxy, abstract lines in a manner that, at times, makes it look as if the painting is wrestling with itself. The effect is somewhat hypnotic and almost creates a funhouse mirror sensation. Luo Xuezheng, one of the older artists in the exhibition, takes a more traditional approach. His art employs more realism than most and has a soothing, eye-pleasing touch. “Autumn Waterfall,” for example, recreates a rushing brook surrounded by colorful, dense foliage. The image, through its soft colors, manages to be calming, while at the same time the flowing water keeps the picture kinetic, as well. Ma Dingmin differs from his ceramic painting colleagues in his depictions of urban, or at least more residential, scenes as opposed to natural ones. He seamlessly blends traditional Chinese painting techniques with Western oil painting styles. Curtis Sandberg, the exhibition’s curator and Meridian’s senior vice president for the arts, said the center is incredibly proud of the exhibition and is gratified that it can help bring China and the United States closer together. “We find it to be quite exciting and innovative,” Sandberg said. “We literally went through hundreds, if not thousands, of works to show the medium to greatest effect. The exhibition is based on the premise that people can really understand one another in a profound way by looking at one another’s highest achievements.” Michael Coleman is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

The Washington Diplomat Page 47

[ art ]

Obsessive Grace Degas’s Struggle for Perfection Mirrors Dancers He Perfected by Gary Tischler

[ Page 48

he Phillips Collection has two of the most iconic works of French impressionism among its holdings, showering founder Duncan Phillips’s already rich reputation with further treasures. Without a doubt, Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s “Luncheon of the Boating Party” and Edgar Degas’s “Dancers at the Barre” are the crown jewels in the Phillips Collection. Both paintings represent two legendary artists at one with their oeuvre, a dazzling manifestation of their obsessions and their dreams. Renoir’s painting is a kind of perfect portrait of tactile and social happiness, people basking in his vibrant colors and light as the artist breathtakingly brings out every movement of the scene — the time of day, the flesh tones, the expressions, the energy of the splendidly casual moment that he captures with such unforgettable panache. In Degas, we see a similar graceful fluidity — a snapshot of movement in all its multihued glory. But lurking behind “Dancers at the Barre” is the artist’s famed obsession with anything and everything ballet, which consumed him for more than four decades. You can almost picture him off to the side of a rehearsal studio, drawing, sketching, working in pastel, paint and sculpture, changing and tweaking, always figuring out ways to bring his dancers to life on canvas. That obsession — and the masterpiece it created — takes center stage in the deliriously beautiful exhibition “Degas’s Dancers at the Barre: Point and Counterpoint” at the Phillips, curated with the spirit of an archeologist at a dig and the eye of an artist by Eliza Rathbone. Degas in fact produced an astonishing 1,500-plus works depicting the world of dance, culminating in “Dancers at the Barre,” which took the artist two decades to complete. A recent conservation study revealed that Degas began the painting before 1884 but revised it dramatically around 1900, according to the Phillips, intensifying its color palette, repositioning its two figures, and blurring their contours. In addition, the exhibit features about 30 related paintings, works on paper and bronzes, created between 1870 and 1900, to trace the techniques that led to “Dancers at the Barre.” It is of course fascinating to see this evolution as well as the various incarnations of Degas’s late masterwork in the form of full-scale pastel and charcoal sketches of the painting’s subjects. The final piece itself also reveals much about the artist’s process, largely unearthed by Phillips Head of Conservation Elizabeth Steele, who, while restoring the work after years of grime and decay, found intriguing clues as to how Degas perfected his vision over time, including evidence that he cut the canvas down after the painting was under way and repositioned the dancers’ arms and legs multiple times. The constant back-and-forth strugDegas’s Dancers at the Barre: gle to realize his vision mirrors the rote, repPoint and Counterpoint etition and discipline inherent in ballet that through Jan. 8 seemed to entrance Degas.Yet just as he was Phillips Collection fascinated by a dancer’s graceful expressiveness, he also respected the difficult drill of 1600 21st St., NW routine and practice, often to the point of For more information, please call (202) 387-2151 exhaustion, that it took to attain that grace. or visit www.phillipscollection.org. And so we see dancers stretching, rehearsing, resting, posing or in flight. Degas explored the milieu of dance itself, not in any strictly accurate sense — even in that famous work, the legs seem odd, slightly disconnected to the body, but the stance itself, the sunset-reddish colors of the wall, the slightly gray flesh tones, and the stunning semiblue tutus give you the essence of the moment, the music of a painting. Duncan Phillips himself said of “Dancers at the Barre,” which he bought in 1944, that it was a masterpiece “in its daring record of instantaneous change at a split second of observation,” whereby Degas “miraculously transformed the incident of

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The Washington Diplomat

PHOTO: NATIONAL GALLERY OF CANADA

A charcoal and pastel on tracing paper of Edgar Degas’s “Dancers at the Barre” circa 1900 demonstrates the process leading up to the artist’s famed painting, which took him 20 years to complete. That masterpiece is the centerpiece of the Phillips Collection exhibit “Degas’s Dancers at the Barre: Point and Counterpoint,” which features 30 other Degas dance-related works, including “Dance Rehearsal,” left, and “Two Dancers Resting,” far left. PHOTO: THE PHILLIPS COLLECTION

swiftly seen shapes in time into a thrilling vision of dynamic forms in space.” It’s an elaborate way of saying that Degas got dance. It’s plainly evident when you look at a work like “The Dance Rehearsal,” which instantly conveys the swell of emotions and enduring appeal of ballet. It’s why people never tire of “Swan Lake,” for instance, or “The Nutcracker,” with its alluring magic. Degas just gets it all, creating a true impression of dance’s beauty, and the cost to achieve it. The portrait is but a snapshot. The dancers are always female, in full perfection, or in training about to be, energized or dormant, relaxed or tense. But you grasp the full spectrum of their world in these 30-plus works that, taken together, portray Degas’s grand passion. You can almost hear the quiet patter of pointed toes hitting the floor, miraculously holding up poised dancers, or their labored breath as they extend their limbs as far as possible. We see the dancers as Degas saw them, in all their artistic agility and the painstaking effort — both on their part and on his — to get there. Gary Tischler is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

November 2011

[ photography ]

Picturing Success With Eye on World, FotoWeek DC Zooms in on Photography’s Reach by Rachael Bade

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ach November, people walking down Pennsylvania Avenue freeze mid-step when they spot blown-up photographs covering the Newseum’s 74-foot-tall First Amendment tablet. Sometimes a starving child, his skin stretched tight over his ribs, peers out from the stone; sometimes the pensive face of former President Bill Clinton appears. Either way, these very big photographs illuminated against an even bigger building are startling for their outsize boldness and avant-garde placement. Washingtonians may have also noticed arresting photos showing debris-covered Haiti draped on the side of the headquarters of the American Red Cross, magnified images of war-torn Afghanistan on the exterior of the nearby Corcoran Gallery of Art, or Native American faces peeking from the stones of Smithsonian’s American Indian Museum. These larger-than-life images are part of an annual citywide photography festival called FotoWeek DC that has also morphed into a yearround celebration of the enduring power of photography — the brainchild of Theo Adamstein, a photographer, well-known architect and the organization’s president. Featuring an international photography competition, dozens of free exhibits at both small and large venues across town (including many embassies), portfolio reviews for artists and lectures for enthusiasts, the festival has exploded in just a few short years to become a major showcase of both professional and amateur photographers — while offering the rest of us a snapshot of the planet strewn throughout Washington, D.C. This year, the fourth installment of FotoWeek DC runs Nov. 5 to 12, and if last year is any indication — with some 40,000 people checking out the offerings — the burgeoning festival is sure to be a picture of success. And that should make Adamstein, a D.C. resident who founded the seasonal festival in 2008, very happy. He originally hoped to highlight some of the most profound but under-recognized works of local photographers because, at the time, no awards program for them existed. “There was no way to apply and be recognized for great work in this city,”Adamstein told The Diplomat in October as he scurried from meeting to meeting in preparation for this year’s FotoWeek DC. In a city known for its magnificent architecture and monuments — a visual history of America that attracts tourists from around the world, and the perfect backdrop for FotoWeek DC great shots — Adamstein found the lack of from Nov. 5 to 12 photo competitions odd.“I thought,‘Wouldn’t it throughout the city be great to come up with a program that Although most events are free, some awards great work in the region?’” require registration. For a complete list, He answered the entrepreneurship calling, please call (202) 337-FOTO and just like that a photo competition — which or visit www.fotoweekdc.org. would eventually flower into a full-time endeavor — was born. Adamstein began pitching his fledgling idea to city vendors and local museums for support and partnerships. Despite the 2008 recession, he found more than enough willing allies, including big-name institutions such as the Corcoran, which traditionally displays the works of contest winners during FotoWeek DC. The National Geographic also signed onto the plan as a sponsor, along with the Newseum, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, as well as a host of smaller galleries. But it wasn’t only the locals who latched onto Adamstein’s ambitious and overdue concept. The first few FotoWeek DC festivals brought in swarms of out-oftown photographers interested in submitting their work, prompting Adamstein to “go international,” as he describes it. So he expanded the Washington-centric com-

November 2011

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PHOTOS: FOTOWEEK DC

The work of Italian photographer Alessandro Belgiojoso, above, won first place in the fine art category of FotoWeek DC’s International Award Competition, while Julie Flygare won in the “Cell Phone Spirit of Washington” category for her photograph “MLK’s Spirit Walking.”

petition to artists from all over the world. The call was answered: Last November, FotoWeek DC received 6,500 applications from 35 nations. In January 2011, Adamstein did one better: He expanded the effort into a yearround project, axing the “week” of FotoWeek DC and renaming his group FotoDC. Now, the organization oversees an array of photo contests and exhibits throughout the year in addition to the signature weeklong festival. FotoDC recently settled into a new Adams Morgan home dubbed FotoSpace at 1838 Columbia Road, a move Adamstein praised as a monumental step for his nonprofit. “FotoSpace is a new concept for FotoDC — a gallery, library, office,” Adamstein explained.“FotoSpace will also be an exciting venue for photographers to present, meet and exchange ideas.” Among its many partners, FotoDC works with a number of embassies, which also regularly hold art exhibits and cultural events throughout the year, so a partnership seemed only natural.The Swedish Embassy hosted an exhibition and afterparty during FotoWeek DC last year.At this year’s festival, the Spanish Embassy will present “Alberto Schommer: Retrospectiva 1952-2009,” an exhibit featuring the work of the iconic Spanish portrait photographer from the 1960s and 1970s. The Embassy of Finland will also feature exhibits and a lecture by Miina Savolainen, a photographer who focuses on children’s education and creator of the bestseller photography book “The Loveliest Girl in the World.” “It’s a very good fit,” Adamstein said of working with embassies, noting that he

See FOTOWEEK DC, page 51 The Washington Diplomat Page 49

[ art ]

Materials and Maids OAS Rethinks Space, Society with ‘Traveling Light,’ ‘Common Place’

by Fresia Rodriguez pace and innovative interpretation are the powerful overarching themes that hold two separate exhibits together at the Art Museum of the Americas at the Organization of American States. “Traveling Light, Five Artists from Chile,” curated by Laura Roulet, presents a diverse series of site-specific installations that center on themes of materials in contemporary art. “Common Place,” conceived by artists Justine Graham and Ruby Rumié, attempts to expose the complexities that oftentimes exist between Latin America housekeepers and their housewife employers. Both exhibits were organized in collaboration with the Embassy of Chile and while drastically different, their setup and presentation is complementary and allows for seamless compatibility and walkthrough. “Traveling Light,” with its airy feel, features five contemporary Chilean artists who installed five dramatically unique site-specific works at the museum that explore the concepts of architectural, historic and illusionist space.The exhibit is named after their mode of travel. Artists “traveled light” because they were “shipped” as opposed to their artwork — that is the artists traveled to the museum by themselves and had to seek out their medium to translate their respective visions.Their materials, ranging from paint, plaster, string and glitter, were all purchased in the Washington area. While in D.C., the artists also worked with a group of students from the Corcoran College of Art + Design who in turn assisted the artists throughout the 10-day installation process. There is also an online extension to the exhibit that mirrors the student PHOTOS: CHRISTOPHER CUNNINGHAM collaboration in the United States. Back in Chile, the five artists collectively Artists Justine Graham and Ruby Rumié created the exhibit “Common Place,” above, to cleverly explore the administer a studio school in the capi- relationship between Latin housekeepers and their housewife employers — an exhibit that shares space at the tal of Santiago. The school, which can Art Museum of the Americas with “Traveling Light, Five Artists from Chile,” which features site-specific installations be found at tallerbloc.wordpress.com, such as Catalina Bauer’s “Frivolité (Tatting),” left. mentors younger artists in the practicbetween rooms, between one work and the other, es of installation art. in what art is and what art is not, minimally invadOne of the most intriguTraveling Light, Five Artists from Chile ing space without saying anything,” explained ing pieces in “Traveling and Common Place Canala. Light” is by Gerardo Pulido. “Common Place,” located on the top floor of the Created with enamel spray through Jan. 22 museum, switches gears from focusing on materials paint a technique that mimi andd egg tempera, the h workk showcases h Organization of American States Art Museum to people, as issues of sociology, class and art ics the appearance of marble and wood.“I emphasize the materialof the Americas merge. The multimedia exhibit, which combines ity of the work with its capacity for illusion, the wall with its trans201 18th St., NW photography, film and surveys of 100 women formation into other surfaces, the simulation with its incompleteFor more information, please call (202) 458-6016 between the ages of 19 and 95, explores an often ness,” explained Pulido.“[I] stress height differences, horizontal and or visit http://museum.oas.org. private element of the female experience in Latin vertical directions, palace walls and graffiti and fine arts versus America. The installation questions perceived socidecorative painting.” Rodrigo Canala’s “Empty Banners,” intertwining PVC vinyl plastic and metallic glitter, etal roles and sheds new light on the dynamic between Latin housekeepers and their combines celebration and invitation in its classic placement at doorways. “With their housewife employers, stripping the veneer of gender, power, class and race expectasmart and zigzagging invisibility, over the head of the spectator, they threaten to disappear tions.

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Homeless in Haiti This fall, the Art Museum of the Americas will examine life in Haiti with two exhibits, “Tent Life: Haiti” and “Young Haitians with Disability.” Photographer Wyatt Gallery visited Haiti following the devastating January 2010 earthquake to chronicle the lives of displaced Haitians in the semi-permanent tent communities that have sprouted in the capital of Portau-Prince. According to the United Nations, some 600,000 people still live in the sprawling tent camps nearly two years after the 7.0-magnitude quake, with many lacking basic services and vulnerable to sexual violence and cholera. Gallery’s resulting photo series shines a light on these uprooted lives, young and old, working independently and creatively to improve their bleak conditions. The images are collected in a book, “Tent Life: Haiti,”

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Wyatt Gallery’s “Girl in White Tent” is part of and offer a visceral the photography book “Tent Life: Haiti,” whose depiction of people proceeds go to post-disaster recovery efforts. facing tremendous challenges with homes. undeterred resilience, Gallery’s work in Haiti offers a vastly different relying on their own perspective. The faces of Haitians stare pointedresourcefulness rather ly but honestly into the photographer’s camera, than outside aid. often surrounded by the blue-tinted hue of their Wyatt Gallery, a makeshift tent homes or the debris-strewn landFulbright fellow and PHOTO: WYATT GALLERY scape outside. Beyond offering a powerful visual former University of essay on what daily life is still like for hundreds of thouPennsylvania professor, has been published in the New York Times, Esquire, Mother Jones, Newsweek and other sands of Haitians, Gallery aims to help them as well. Copies of “Tent Life: Haiti” will be available throughout publications. In 1998, after graduating from the Tisch the run of the exhibition for $40, with 100 percent of the School of the Arts at New York University, Gallery began royalties going to the Haitian charities J/P Haitian Relief traveling the Caribbean photographing spiritual sites Organization, Healing Haiti, and the Global Syndicate. through a Rosenberg grant. He spent two years in The book has so far raised more than $30,000 for Trinidad and Tobago on a Fulbright Fellowship, docuHaitian relief. menting its religious places, landscapes, people and

Also on display is “Young Haitians with Disability,” made up of 28 drawings by young Haitians based on an initiative of the country’s secretary of state for the integration of persons with disabilities. Haitian youth participated in the drawing contest to highlight the importance of building an inclusive society and incorporating the concept of universal accessibility into the country’s rebuilding efforts. The resulting drawings also showcase the talent of Haiti’s youth and their stirring message of finding opportunity in their nation’s post-earthquake odyssey. “Tent Life: Haiti” and “Young Haitians with Disability” run through Dec. 2 at the Organization of American States Art Museum of the Americas, 201 18th St., NW. For more information, please call (202) 458-6016 or visit http://museum.oas.org. — Fresia Rodriguez

November 2011

According to the museum, the exhibit dovetails with the shared interests of the OAS InterAmerican Commission of Women (CIM), whose mission is to link women’s rights with effective public policy. “The housewife and maid [connection] is a really interesting relationship that happens in almost every home in Latin America. These are relationships everyone knows about but no one talks about,” said Adriana Ospina, the museum’s education coordinator. The project explores these women’s sensory and emotional experiences, highlighting what the subjects share and how they differ. “It can very well be a love-hate relationship,” mused Ospina. “The housekeeper can know everything about the housewife, but she needs to respect the boundaries.The exhibit examines the domestic and social dynamic behind the relationship and it opens a can of worms.” In addition to the questionnaires, artists Justine Graham and Ruby Rumié tackle perceptions of hierarchy by having the pairs of women sit together for a portrait. Stereotypes are easily shattered by placing the subjects in white T-shirts with minimal makeup and jewelry, creatively simplifying their appearances to serve as

from page 49

FotoWeek DC expects the collaborations to expand. “Each country is always thrilled to present creative works of its own, in this case photography. So we act as a facilitator — sometimes I call us a matchmaker. We help them put together exhibitions or try to find spaces for them, and they bring in strong shows.” FotoDC has also reached out to human rights organizations and nonprofits to showcase dramatic images from the thicket of global development.This year, for the first time, the organization joined Human Rights Watch and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting to offer a powerful visual documentary on the family scars inflicted by the Lord’s Resistance Army in Central Africa, the scourge of child marriage in developing nations,and other social justice issues in“Speaking to Silence: An Exhibition on Communities Displaced, Dissidents Repressed, and Childhood Betrayed.” The result has been an eye-popping potpourri of imagery under the FotoDC banner, from the serious to the strange and everything in between. Shaved Buddhist monk heads, sleek

PHOTO: CHRISTOPHER CUNNINGHAM

Gerardo Pulido uses enamel spray paint and egg tempera to mimic the appearance of marble and wood in his installation at the Art Museum of the Americas. equalizers and make visitors wonder who the housekeeper is and who her employer is. Fresia Rodriguez is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

architectural marvels, children playing in the slums, and Amish men playing checkers — they’re all peeking out at you from different parts of the city thanks to Adamstein’s vision. This year’s FotoWeek DC will be based downtown at 1800 L St., NW, where the former Borders bookstore stood before shuttering its doors earlier this year. Adamstein dubbed the main space FotoWeek CENTRAL, but events will also occur in satellite locations at FotoSpace, the Corcoran, George Washington University and the Pepco Edison Place Art Gallery. The latter, for instance, features two exhibits — one that zooms in on children’s issues from Bangladesh to Argentina and another that presents award-winning work from the National Geographic image collection. CENTRAL will host 14 photojournalism and fine art photography exhibits as well as this year’s 5,000 non-winning applicants in a thumbnail gallery, which will display miniature versions of all the photos entered into the competition. The dizzying collage of tiny images offer a big-picture look at how FotoWeek DC has turned the lens on photography itself, and given it a brand new venue: the nation’s capital. Rachael Bade is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

DINING COLUMN NOTE Rachel’s Hunt Dining column is on a temporary hiatus but will return in December.

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4 DATA 9 SPEAKS VOLUMES

What does this mean? It means that, as a publication audited by Circulation Verification Council (CVC), we have a clear understanding of our impact, including the number of households we reach, how much we’re read and our influence on purchasing decisions. When it comes to serving readers and advertisers, CVC is the standard.

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The Washington Diplomat Page 51

[ film reviews ]

Shakespearean Scam? ‘Anonymous’ No More: Will the Real Bard Please Stand Up Carl stayed true to his training as a documentary filmmaker, including experience as a veteran of PBS, to helm “The Man Nobody Knew: In Search of My Father, CIA PHOTO: FIRST RUN FEATURES Spymaster William Colby.” In addieerman director Roland Emmerich is best Filmmaker Carl Colby’s biographical documentation, as the title implies, William kknown for his big-budget, explosion-filled had to keep his professional life a ry examines the life of his father, former Director Hollywood flicks, often with a save-theH secret to people outside of work, of Central Intelligence William Colby, above. planet-from-doomsday hero (“2012,” including family members, so he “10,000 BC,” “The Day After Tomorrow,” was just as much of a stranger to his own son as to everyone else. Though rela““Independence Day,” “The Patriot”). So it tively unknown to the general public, especially today, William had a major impact might seem surprising to hear that his latest m on implementing U.S. foreign policy in the 20th century, which Carl does a very movie is “Anonymous,” a British costume m competent job of explaining. drama tackling the heady intellectual issue of true William’s long career in the intelligence community started in World War II, Shakespeare authorship. when he served in the Office of Strategic Services, the predecessor to the Central Don’t forget that in Shakespeare’s time, his plays enterIntelligence Agency (CIA). Post-war, he completed Columbia Law School, was bored tained the masses. Emmerich largely discards CGI techby corporate law, and picked up a stint at the National Labor Relations Board. After nology, but his fans will be happy to hear that“Anonymous” he was recruited by a former colleague to the CIA, his work in the field included is still an entertaining (political) thriller with plenty of countering communists while based in Stockholm, Rome and Saigon. During the action. Art-house fans should not despair, however, as the Vietnam War, William served as CIA station chief. He also led the U.S.-South film is definitely not a dumbed-down Hollywood adaptaVietnamese rural pacification initiative, which included the notorious Phoenix tion. Besides looking fabulous, it succeeds with a wellProgram intended to destroy the “Viet Cong infrastructure.” developed plot and strong acting. In 1971, William returned to Washington as executive director of the CIA, folIndeed, two of the world’s most distinguished lowed by his reign as director from 1973. In the wake of Watergate, he testified Shakespearean actors and directors, Sir Derek Jacobi PHOTO: COLUMBIA TRISTAR MARKETING GROUP, INC. about 30 times in front of Congress (founding member of the Royal National Theatre) and regarding the Phoenix Program’s alleged Mark Rylance (the first artistic director of Shakespeare’s Rafe Spall plays Will, an illiterate Globe actor who The Man Nobody Knew: eavesdropping on U.S. citizens and its use Globe from 1995 to 2005), grace the screen with their steals credit for some of the world’s most iconic of assassinations. His candor led National In Search of My Father, CIA presence. Ryland plays Condell, a common but talented writing, in “Anonymous.” thespian of the Globe Theater (the original, back in Shakespeare’s day). Opening the film, Jacobi Security Advisor Henry Kissinger to recommend that Spymaster William Colby speaks the prologue and epilogue of the Broadway play “Anonymous.” Meanwhile, the gifted President Gerald Ford replace William, leading to his (English; 104 min.) daughter-mother team of Joely Richardson and legend Vanessa Redgrave, who herself became retirement in 1976. Landmark’s E Street Cinema As detailed as “The Man Nobody Knew” is about well known playing Rosalind in the 1961 Royal Shakespeare Company production of “As You Like It,” William’s professional career, its rather strict practice ★★★✩✩ Anonymous convincingly portray a feisty Queen Elizabeth I in her of sticking to the facts leaves a thorough yet still super(English; 130 min.; scope) ficial portrayal of William that doesn’t really reveal anything personal. For example, Carl’s narrayouth and old age. The film vividly brings to life the Oxfordian theory tion is evenhanded but unexciting. Notably, Carl avoids exploring his father’s life after he left the AFI Silver Theatre that posits that Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford CIA and founded a law firm. There’s no mention of William’s divorce of Carl’s mother, Barbara, Landmark’s E Street Cinema (Rhys Ifans), actually wrote Shakespeare’s plays. As a at the end of a four-decade marriage in 1984.Also glossed over is William’s 1994 death in a boatyoung orphan (Jamie Campbell Bower), Oxford is a ing accident under mysterious circumstances, which Carl vaguely alludes to as fate. ★★★★✩ ward of the court, educated by excellent tutors with a big library in the home of William Cecil (David Thewlis). However, William’s Puritan son Robert Cecil (Edward Hogg), Queen Elizabeth I’s calculating adviser, believes literature and the arts to be Crowd-Pleasing ‘3’ With “3,” crowd-pleasing German director Tom Tykwer (“Run Lola Run,” “The International,” blasphemous. Nonetheless, young Queen Bess (Richardson) appreciates Oxford for his work like “Perfume: The Story of a Murderer”) returns to his native German language for the first time “A Midsummer Night’s Dreams” — as well as for his other admirable attributes. As an adult, particularly as his plays’ political satire would offend his powerful peers in court, since 2000 (“The Princess and the Warrior”).“3” successfully premiered at the prestigious Venice Film Festival, and it was well received at home in Germany, winning a slew Oxford needs to keep his identity as a playwright a secret. His of German Film Awards including Best Director as well as a Best Picture attempt to have writer Ben Jonson (Sebastian Armesto) stage his nod. As usual, Tykwer’s stylish direction makes it a pleasure for audiences plays is spurned, so reputedly illiterate Globe actor Will Shakespeare to watch “3,” an intriguing contemporary update of a 1930s screwball (Rafe Spall) is happy to take the credit — and the riches. While comedy. Shakespeare’s career blooms, important historical events develop In Berlin, Hanna (Sophie Rois) and Simon (Sebastian Schipper) have such as the Essex Rebellion against Queen Elizabeth I. lived together for nearly 20 years, during which time their relationship has Back in the real world, Jacobi and Rylance created the Declaration dulled into familiarity, both leading busy lives of their own. Hanna finds of Reasonable Doubt, an online petition aiming to expand serious time outside her successful practice as a physician to host a culture show academic research into Shakespeare authorship by the 400th annion television. Simon manages an art engineering company, which often versary of the Bard’s death in 2016. On Sept. 8, 2007, they presented PHOTO: STRAND RELEASING doesn’t maximize profits due to his fondness for his starving artist clients. it to William Leahy, head of the School of Arts at London’s Brunel At a stem cell conference, Hanna is attracted to a handsome lecturer, University, following the closing matinee of “I Am Shakespeare,” a play Simon (Sebastian Schipper), left, and Hanna written and directed by Rylance, who also starred in the title role. (Sophie Rois) strike up a modern ménage à trios Adam (Devid Striesow), and starts a heady affair with the polymath genetic scientist. Her newfound passion leaves her unable to attend to the emoOther candidates for the true identity of the Bard include Christopher in Berlin in “3.” tional needs of Simon, who discovers he has testicular cancer and underMarlowe, Sir Francis Bacon and Mary Herbert, the Countess of 3 goes emergency surgery. Furthermore, Simon is devastated when his Pembroke. mother also develops cancer, attempts suicide, and dies. (German with subtitles; 119 min.; scope) No worries though, Simon himself ends up in bed with a guy he finds West End Cinema CIA Patriarch by the pool, who coincidentally turns out to be Adam as well. When they all find out about each other, the trio strike up a modern ménage à trios Filmmaker Carl Colby’s biographical film about his father, former ★★★★✩ worthy of 21st-century Berlin. Director of Central Intelligence William Colby, turns out to be quite a balanced portrait, largely free from the personal bias that mars many documentaries in which Ky N. Nguyen is the film reviewer for The Washington Diplomat. the subject is close to the filmmaker.

by Ky N. Nguyen

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November 2011

[ film festivals ]

Arab Range Arabian Sights 2011 Spans Region, from Revolution to Everyday Reality by Ky N. Nguyen

achieve a better future in this powerful, raw drama about life in contemporary Cairo.

he 16th annual Arabian Sights Film Festival • “An Ideal Family” (Egypt, directed by Akram Farid): Within the walls of wisely sets its sights on the foremost an ideal home, in one of the city’s upscale districts, lives a supposedly transformative event on everyone’s minds, the “normal” family that competes to win the title of the “ideal family” on a Arab Spring, with a special focus on Egyptian television show. Needless to say, reality is not the same as TV. cinema that showcases five recent works, •“The Italian” (France, directed by Olivier Baroux:): In this opening night including “18 Days,” the first film about the film, Dino is a top salesman at a Maserati dealership in Nice with a beautiEgyptian Revolution earlier this year. ful girlfriend. But his perfect life is built on a lie. His real name is Mourad Beyond the prism of revolution and upheaval, the Ben Saoud, and this year, unbeknownst to everyone, he must observe festival cuts across genres to capture the full specRamadan to honor a promise he made to his sick father. PHOTO: BORD CADRE FILMS trum of Arab life, from screwball family comedies to • “Man Without A Cell Phone” (Palestine/France/Israel, directed by serious commentaries on sexism. A program of the Renowned Moroccan actor Tarik Bakhari is Washington, DC International Film Festival (Filmfest mistaken for a terrorist in “Operation Casablanca,” Sameh Zoabi): Jawdat, a restless young concrete worker, just wants to have fun with his friends, talk on his cell phone and find love — a near DC), Arabian Sights runs Oct. 27 to Nov. 6 with part of the 16th annual Arabian Sights Film impossible task in a place in his traditional Palestinian village inside Israel. screenings at AMC Mazza Gallerie, the Goethe-Institut, Festival. and La Maison Française at the Embassy of France. •“Microphone” (Egypt, directed by Ahmad Abdalla): Inspired by Alexandria’s “The Arabian Sights Film Festival showcases films that demonstrate the range and new generation of artists, this urban musical drama tells the tale of artists commitment of directors who invariably manage to tell moving stories while exploring who fight to share their work, featuring Egyptian heartthrob Khaled Abol Naga. issues facing their region,” proudly proclaims the press release. • “Operation Casablanca” (Switzerland, directed by Laurent Nègre): Here are some highlights (and don’t forget to vote for your favorite film to win the Renowned Moroccan actor Tarik Bakhari plays a regular guy who happens to Audience Award): be an illegal Arab immigrant — and who is mistaken for a terrorist and sets For more information on out on the most dangerous day of his life. Arabian Sights, please • “18 Days” (Egypt, various directors): This is the American premiere of the first film about •“Rough Hands” (Morocco, directed by Mohamed Asli): American Premiere. call (202) 234-3456 or the 2011 Egyptian Revolution and the 18 days it took for Egyptians to change the course of Mustapha (is Casablanca’s barber to retired high-ranking government officials, history. visit www.filmfestdc.org/ former cabinet ministers and power brokers, using his access to the retired arabiansights. • “6,7,8” (Egypt, directed by Mohamed Diab): Three women from different ends of Cairo’s bigwigs to run an underground business while greasing the wheels of bureaucomplex social hierarchy converge as they each do their part to combat sexual harassment cracy. in the Egyptian capital. • “Sira: Songs of the Crescent Moon” (Switzerland, directed by Sandra Gysi and Ahmed • “Balls” (Sweden, directed by Joseph Fares): This heart-warming comedy about love, Abdel Mohsen): This East Coast premiere documentary follows 80-year-old Egyptian Sayyed friendship and the art of being a man centers on Aziz, a cheerful, carefree guy looking forel-Dawwy, the only surviving interpreter of the Sira, the most important Arabian epic poem. ward to becoming a grandfather.

to learn

• “Cairo Exit” (Egypt, directed by Hesham Issawi): A pair of star-crossed lovers struggle to

Repertory Notes

by Washington Diplomat film reviewer Ky N. Nguyen

Please see International Film Clips on the next page for detailed listings available at press time.

GOETHE-INSTITUT The series “Small Change | Big Changes” (through Nov. 21) addresses issues of globalization and scientific and technological development. It concludes with a bang: the restored print of German auteur Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s classic “World on a Wire” (Part 1: Mon., Nov. 14, 6:30 p.m.; Part 2: Mon., Nov. 21, 6:30 p.m.). (202) 289-1200, www.goethe.de/ins/us/was/kue/flm/enindex.htm

AMERICAN FILM INSTITUTE (AFI) SILVER THEATRE Buy your tickets early for the always-popular AFI European Union Film Showcase (Nov. 3-22), curated by the cultural attachés of EU member embassies in Washington. The opening night selection is “The Woman in the Fifth,” Pawel Pawlikowski’s moody, Paris-set thriller starring Ethan Hawke and Kristin Scott Thomas, while the closing night screening is “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” the highly anticipated screen adaptation of John le Carré’s seminal Cold War thriller, featuring an all-star cast including Gary Oldman, Colin Firth and John Hurt. AFI’s “Ballet in Cinema” series (through Dec. 22) presents a special live simulcast (Sun., Nov. 20, 10 a.m., plus encore on Mon., Nov. 21, 6:30 p.m.) of “The Sleeping Beauty” performed by the Bolshoi Ballet

November 2011

Ky N. Nguyen is the film reviewer for The Washington Diplomat.

of Moscow (composed by Tchaikovsky; choreographed by Yuri Grigorovich in 1973 after Marius Petipa). The “Opera in Cinema” series (through Dec. 11) features Puccini’s “Tosca” at the Royal Opera House (Sat., Nov. 5, 12 p.m. and Sun., Nov. 6, 12 p.m.). The fall 2011 season of Harlan Jacobson’s “Talk Cinema” continues Sun., Nov. 13, at 10 a.m. with a sneak preview of a notable upcoming indie or foreign films, which often includes a special guest. (301) 495-6700, www.afi.com/silver

FREER GALLERY OF ART The National Museum of Korea supports two special film events with live music at the Freer this month. To celebrate the reopening of the Freer’s Korea Gallery, Paul D. Miller, aka DJ Spooky, mixes his new score (comprised of a string duo and turntables) for Han Hyung-mo’s 1956 “Madame Freedom” (Fri., Nov. 4, 7 p.m.), a seminal classic from the golden age of Korean cinema in the 1950s. In Emma Franz’s documentary “Intangible Asset No. 82” (Fri., Nov. 18, 7 p.m.), Australian jazz drummer Simon Barker seeks out a hermit-like Korean shaman musician. After the screening, Franz talks about the film with Barker, who will also perform live with vocalist Bae Il-Dong and drummer Kim Dong-Won, the Korean musicians featured in the film. (202) 357-2700, www.asia.si.edu/events/films.asp

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART With support from Spain’s Ministry of Culture, “Seeking Spain in the Cinema” (Nov. 26, 27) presents three Hollywood representations of Spain, each introduced by Josep Colomer, the Prince of Asturias Chair in Spanish studies at Georgetown University. In contrast, Spanish novelist Antonio Muñoz Molina discusses “El Amor Brujo” (Nov. 27, 4 p.m.), the finale of the flamenco cycle by Spanish dance film specialist Carlos Saura, which is preceded by a flamenco set that features legendary Spanish cantaora Esperanza Fernandez. The series is presented in partnership with Post-Classical Ensemble’s musical theater production of Manuel de Falla’s flamenco-inspired “El Amor Brujo” at Georgetown University. Marking the 45th anniversary of the Florence flood of November 1966, the University of Maryland’s Sheila Waters and Don Etherington discuss a rare screening of Franco Zeffirelli’s only documentary, “For Florence” (Sat., Nov. 5, 3:30 p.m.), which features the catastrophe’s only extant footage accompanied by narration from Richard Burton. Presented with the Embassy of France, “Le Cinéma Fantastique” (through Dec. 31) shows that the uncanny and irrational in cinema “is no respecter of genre and form,” according to the National Gallery. “It finds a way into fairytale, horror, melodrama, even detective films.” (202) 842-6799, www.nga.gov/programs/film

The Washington Diplomat Page 53

[ film ]

CINEMA LISTING

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT

*Unless specific times are listed, please check the theater for times. Theater locations are subject to change.

Arabic 6,7,8 Directed by Mohamed Diab (Egypt, 2010, 100 min.)

Three women from different ends of Cairo’s complex social hierarchy each do their part to combat sexual harassment in the city.

PHOTO: FORTISSIMO FILMS

Women fight sexual harassment in Cairo in “6,7,8,” part of the Arabian Sights Film Festival.

Czech

Dutch

Cairo Exit

Innocence (Nevinnost)

Bullhead (Rundskop)

Directed by Hesham Issawi (Egypt, 2010, 96 min.)

Directed by Jan Hřebejk (Czech Republic, 2011, 98 min.)

Directed by Michaël R. Roskam (Belgium, 2011, 124 min)

A pair of star-crossed lovers struggles to achieve a better future in this powerful, raw drama about life in contemporary Cairo.

A disturbed girl with a fanciful imagination accuses her physical therapist of abuse in this psychological thriller about the sanctity of a young girl’s word. (EU Film Showcase)

A young cattle farmer is approached by an unscrupulous veterinarian to make a shady deal with a notorious beef trader in this tragedy about fate, lost innocence, friendship, crime and punishment, and the irreversibility of a man’s destiny. (Dutch and French; EU Film Showcase)

A supposedly “normal” family competes to win the title of the “ideal family” on a television show, and hilarity ensues during the filming of their daily lives. Goethe-Institut Fri., Nov. 4, 6:30 p.m.

Man Without a Cell Phone (Ish lelo selolari) Directed by Sameh Zoabi (Belgium/Israel/France/Palestine, 2010, 78 min.)

A restless young concrete worker just wants to have fun with his friends, talk on his cell phone and find love in this humorous, sharp take on the social milieu of a Palestinian village inside Israel. (Arabic and Hebrew)

In this futuristic fantasy, a young woman flees from a disastrous “war between the sexes” and finds safe haven in Louis Malle’s strange house. (English and French)

This film focuses on a dozen characters in Pieter Bruegel’s epic painting “The Way To Calvary,” which transplants the story of Christ’s Passion to 1564 Flanders under the brutal Spanish occupation.

National Gallery of Art Sat., Nov. 19, 4 p.m.

Landmark’s E Street Cinema

AFI Silver Theatre

Long Live the Family (Rodina je základ státu) Directed by Robert Sedláček; (Czech Republic, 2011, 106 min.)

A successful banking executive, facing prison after fraud is uncovered at his firm, escapes with his family to the Moravian countryside in this drama about relationships set against the backdrop of the current economic crisis. (EU Film Showcase) AFI Silver Theatre

AFI Silver Theatre

English Anonymous Directed by Roland Emmerich (U.K./Germany, 2011, 130 min.)

Set in the political snake pit of Elizabethan England, this thriller advances the theory that the true author of Shakespeare’s plays was Edward De Vere, Earl of Oxford. (English, French, Italian and ancient Greek)

Walking Too Fast (Pouta)

AFI Silver Theatre Landmark’s E Street Cinema

Directed by Radim Špaček (Czech Republic/Slovakia, 2009, 95 min.)

The Barefoot Contessa

Set in communist Czechoslovakia in the 1980s, a tyrannical member of the secret police, bored with everything, breaks the rules when he tries to win over an unattainable young woman in a purely personal act of rebellion.

Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz (U.S./Italy, 1954, 128 min.)

A Dangerous Method Directed by David Cronenberg (U.K./Germany/Canada/France/Ireland, 2011, 93 min)

Zurich and Vienna on the eve of World War I is the setting for this thriller, drawn from true-life events, that explores the turbulent relationship between psychiatrist Carl Jung, his mentor Sigmund Freud, and the beautiful but disturbed young woman who comes between them. (EU Film Showcase) AFI Silver Theatre

The Deep Blue Sea Directed by Terence Davies (U.K./U.S., 2011, 98 min)

The wife of a distinguished British judge is caught in a self-destructive love affair with a boozy former Royal Air Force pilot in postwar England. (EU Film Showcase) AFI Silver Theatre

The Devil Is a Woman Directed by Josef von Sternberg (U.S., 1935, 80 min.)

Told in flashbacks, the manipulative and remorseless ways of a Spanish temptress are nearly the downfall of an older man (the film’s narrator) during the Spanish Carnival. (English and Spanish)

National Gallery of Art Sat., Nov. 26, 2 p.m.

Freer Gallery of Art Fri., Nov. 18, 7 p.m.

Avé

A Funny Man (Dirch)

Behold a Pale Horse

Like Crazy

Directed by Fred Zinnemann (U.S., 1964, 118 min.)

Directed by Drake Doremus (U.S., 2011, 90 min.)

An ex-Catalan anarchist living in France continues organizing guerrilla raids on Spain years after the Civil War has ended. (Screens with “The Barefoot Contessa”)

When a British college student falls for her American classmate, they embark on a life-changing journey only to be separated when she violates the terms of her visa.

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The Washington Diplomat

Directed by Martin P. Zandvliet (Denmark, 2011)

This biography examines the life of Dirch Passer, one of Denmark’s most prolific actors who’s renowned for his improvisational skills. (EU Film Showcases) AFI Silver Theatre

National Gallery of Art Sat., Nov. 26, 2 p.m.

The Rum Diary Directed by Bruce Robinson (U.S., 2011, 120 min.)

An American journalist takes on a freelance job in Puerto Rico for a local newspaper in the 1950s and struggles to find a balance between island culture and the ex-patriots who live there. (English and Spanish) Theater TBA

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Directed by Tomas Alfredson (U.K./France/Germany, 2011,127 min.)

In this new adaptation of John le Carré’s 1974 Cold War spy novel, espionage veteran George Smiley is forced from semi-retirement to uncover a Soviet agent within MI6’s echelons. (EU Film Showcase) AFI Silver Theatre

The Whale Directed by Suzanne Chisholm and Michael Parfit (Canada, 2011, 89 min.)

This documentary tells the true story of Luna, a young wild killer whale who tries to befriend people on the rugged west coast of Vancouver Island after he gets separated from his family. The Avalon Theatre

In this moody existential thriller, an American academic tries to reconnect with his embittered ex-wife and young daughter in Paris to no avail and winds up meeting a widow and a pretty hotel barmaid, but he doesn’t know either woman as well as he should. (English and French; EU Film Showcase)

Directed by Emma Franz (Australia/Japan, 2008, 90 min.)

Danish

AFI Silver Theatre

Landmark’s E Street Cinema

Intangible Asset No. 82

Bulgarian

Two troubled teens reveal secrets about themselves as they hitchhike across Bulgaria to an uncertain destiny. (Bulgarian and English; EU Film Showcase)

In this true story, a British social worker uncovers one of the most controversial scandals in recent times: the organized deportation of innocent children from the United Kingdom to Australia — and against all odds, manages to reunite thousands of families.

The Woman in the Fifth

The Avalon Theatre Wed., Nov. 9, 8 p.m.

Directed by Konstantin Bojanov (Bulgaria, 2011, 86 min.)

Directed by Jim Loach (U.K./Australia, 2010, 136 min.)

National Gallery of Art Sun., Nov. 27, 2 p.m.

Related in flashback as a rags-to-riches saga, a tragic and untamed Spanish-born gypsy dancer is transformed by American movie moguls into a glamorous star. (English, Spanish and Italian; screens with “Behold a Pale Horse”)

Goethe-Institut Thu., Nov. 3, 6:45 p.m., Sun., Nov. 6, 12:45 p.m.

Oranges and Sunshine

Landmark’s E Street Cinema

Goethe-Institut Sat., Nov. 5, 4 p.m., Sat., Nov. 6, 4:30 p.m.

Directed by Akram Farid (Egypt, 2010, 90 min.)

Directed by Lech Majewski (Sweden/Poland, 2011, 95 min.)

Picking up where “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” left off, director Mateo Gil imagines that the duo managed to escape their standoff with the Bolivian army in 1908 and live into old age, with Sundance returning to the U.S. and Butch staying in Bolivia. (English and Spanish)

Multiple directors (Egypt, 2011, 125 min.)

An Ideal Family

The Mill and the Cross

Directed by Louis Malle (France/West Germany, 1975, 100 min.)

Directed by Mateo Gil (Spain/France/Bolivia/U.S., 2011, 98 min.)

18 Days (Tamantashar yom)

Goethe-Institut Thu., Nov. 3, 8:30 p.m., Fri., Nov. 4, 8:30 p.m.

Black Moon

Blackthorn

Goethe-Institut Sat., Nov. 5, 6:45 p.m., Sun., Nov. 6, 2:30 p.m.

It took 18 days for Egyptians to change the course of history. This documentary showcases 10 short films produced by 10 directors and their crews about the January 25 revolution in Egypt.

November 2011

This documentary follows Australian jazz drummer Simon Barker on his quest to meet a reclusive Korean shaman musician and renew his faith in the power of music. (English and Korean)

Landmark’s E Street Cinema

Directed by Pawel Pawlikowski (Poland/France/U.K., 2011, 83 min.)

AFI Silver Theatre

Finnish Le Havre Directed by Aki Kaurismäki (Finland/France/Germany, 2011, 103 min.)

In France’s port of Le Havre, an artist-cumshoe shiner always looks out for himself, but his outlook changes after his wife falls ill and he meets a young refugee who escaped from a cargo container full of West

November 2011

African stowaways. (Finnish and French; EU Film Showcase)

World on a Wire (Welt am Draht Teil)

AFI Silver Theatre

Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder (West Germany, 1973/2010, 102 min.)

November Film Events

French

After professor Vollmer, the inventor of a radical, state-funded virtual reality simulator, mysteriously dies, his assistant takes his place and almost immediately is subjected to odd incidents relating to the computer and the company he’s working for. (Screens in two parts)

Ali Khamraev Retrospective

The Clink of Ice (Le Bruit des Glaçons) Directed by Bertrand Blier (France, 2010, 87 min.)

A stranger rings the doorbell at the remote country villa of an alcoholic novelist and announces himself as the writer’s cancer, adding that his victim only has a few months to live.

Goethe-Institut Mon., Nov. 14, 6:30 p.m. (Part 1), Mon., Nov. 21, 6:30 p.m. (Part 2)

Letelier Theatre Thu., Nov. 10, 7 p.m.

Greek

Eyes Without a Face (Les Yeux Sans Visage)

Directed by Athina Rachel Tsangari (Greece, 2010, 97 min.)

Directed by Georges Franju (France/Italy, 1960, 88 min.)

In this macabre Parisian fairytale, a surgeon kidnaps pretty young women to perform the perfect facial transplant on his daughter whose face was destroyed in a car accident. National Gallery of Art Sun., Nov. 6, 4 p.m.

Attenberg A solitary young woman growing up with her architect father in a Greek factory town by the sea observes life through songs of suicide, the mammal documentaries of Sir David Attenborough, and the sex education lessons she receives from her only friend Bella. (EU Film Showcase)

Hungarian

Directed by Georges Franju (France/Italy, 1963, 103 min.)

The Turin Horse (A Torinói ló)

National Gallery of Art Sun., Nov. 20, 4 p.m.

Mozart’s Sister (Nannerl, la soeur de Mozart) Directed by René Féret (France, 2010, 120 min.)

This vivacious costume drama depicts the early life of musical prodigy Maria Anna “Nannerl” Mozart, Wolfgang’s older sister, and her struggle for stardom in a man’s world and in her famous brother’s shadow. Landmark’s E Street Cinema Opens Fri., Nov. 4

Directed by Béla Tarr, Ágnes Hranitzky (Hungary/France/Germany/Switzerland/ U.S., 2011, 146 min.)

The bleak daily lives of a horse and its owner are depicted in a drama based on the whipping of that horse in the Italian city of Turin — an act that was rumored to have caused the 1889 mental breakdown of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. (EU Film Showcase) AFI Silver Theatre

Korean Madame Freedom (Jayu buin) Directed by Hyeong-mo Han (South Korea, 1956, 125 min.)

Breathing (Atmen)

This 1950s melodrama about marital infidelity was the first large-scale commercial box office success after the Korean War, and tapped into contemporary tension between modernity and tradition. (Korean and English)

Directed by Karl Markovics (Austria, 2011, 90 min.)

Freer Gallery of Art Fri., Nov. 4, 7 p.m.

A 19-year-old, coming out of prison and trying to build a new life, cannot cope with his guilt. (EU Film Showcase)

Latvian

German

AFI Silver Theatre

Nothing Is Better Than Nothing At All (Nichts ist besser als gar nichts) Directed by Jan Peters (Germany, 2010, 92 min.)

When a filmmaker’s girlfriend accidentally takes his wallet on a trip abroad, he is left standing in the Frankfurt Airport without a penny to his name. So to get some cash, he decides to take travelers into the city on his group card. Goethe-Institut Mon., Nov. 7, 6:30 pm

November 2011

Directed by Ali Khamraev (Uzbekistan, 1971, 96 min.)

White Storks” (Sun., Nov. 13, 4 p.m.). The Freer Gallery of Art showcases four more films in “Uzbek Rhapsody: The Films of Ali Khamraev” (Nov. 11-20). (202) 842-6799, www.nga.gov/ programs/film (202) 357-2700, www.asia.si.edu/ events/films.asp

Alexandria Film Festival The fifth annual Alexandria Film Festival, presented by the Alexandria Commission for the Arts and the Office of the Arts, returns to Old Town Alexandria, Va. (Nov. 3-6), in various shistoric and distinctive venues. (703) 746-559, www.alexandriafilm.org

— Ky N. Nguyen

AFI Silver Theatre

Judex In this fantastical crime drama, Judex and his sidekicks redress the evil perpetrated by the purest of criminals in a nocturnal dream world where black figures climb perpendicular walls and doves appear from nowhere.

“If there is a giant who sits astride the history of Uzbek cinema, it’s Ali Khamraev, one of those rare talents like Welles or Godard or Scorsese whose love for the medium is so intense that his best films burst with criss-crossing energies and insights, like a fireworks display,” proclaims Kent Jones, director of the World Cinema Foundation. Part of the first North American retrospective of Khamraev’s work, the National Gallery of Art’s “Ali Khamraev: Uzbek Triptych” (Nov. 13, 19) includes three films from the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s by the graduate of VGIK, the distinguished Soviet state film school. Khamraev himself will be at the double feature of “Triptych” and “White,

Without Fear (Bez strakha)

Freer Gallery of Art Fri., Nov. 11, 7 p.m.

Silent Silent Sonata (Circus Fantasticus) Directed by Janez Burger (Slovenia/Ireland/Finland/Sweden, 2010, 75 min.)

A man whose wife has just been killed by a grenade in a military battle hunkers down with his children in a half-demolished house fearing a new attack, but instead encounters a wandering circus caravan. (EU Film Showcase) AFI Silver Theatre

Slovak Directed by Saulius Drunga (Lithuania, 2010, 90 min.)

A provincial girl heads to the big city with big ambitions but soon discovers it has an unpredictable dark side. (EU Film Showcase) AFI Silver Theatre

Russian

Set in Uzbekistan during the Basmachi Muslim Revolt following the Russian Civil War, when Muslim forces rose up against Soviet rule in Central Asia, this Russian “Western” pits a local militia leader against his rebel nemesis. Freer Gallery of Art Sun., Nov. 13, 1 p.m.

Gypsy (Cigan) Directed by Martin Sulík (Slovakia/Czech Republic, 2011)

A sweet-natured 14-year-old Romani boy suddenly loses his beloved father in a mysterious accident and is forced into a life of crime by the man who takes his place. (Slovak and Romany; EU Film Showcase)

The Bodyguard (Telokhranitel)

Silent Souls (Ovsyanki)

Directed by Ali Khamraev (Uzbekistan, 1979, 91 min.)

Directed by Aleksei Fedorchenko (Russia, 2010, 75 min.)

Spanish

A grizzled mountain trapper and conscientious revolutionary escorts a prisoner (the brains behind the Basmachi Muslim revolt against Soviet rule) to Bukhara while being pursued by the ruthless new Basmachi leader.

A man takes his best friend on a long road trip to a sacred lake in picturesque, remote Russia to cremate the dead body of his beloved wife.

El Amor Brujo (A Love Bewitched)

The Avalon Theatre

Freer Gallery of Art Sun., Nov. 13, 3 p.m.

Triptych (Triptikh)

The final film in Carlos Saura’s “Flamenco Trilogy” is a tale of tragic gypsy love.

Man Follows Birds (Chelovek ukhodit za ptitsami) Directed by Ali Khamraev (Uzbekistan, 1975, 87 min.)

A young boy gets a brutal education under the open skies of medieval Uzbekistan. Freer Gallery of Art Sun., Nov. 20, 2 p.m.

The Return of Sgt. Lapiņs (Serzanta Lapina atgriesanas)

I Remember You (Ya tebya pomnyu)

Directed by Gatis Šmits (Latvia/Sweden, 2010, 80 min.)

Directed by Ali Khamraev (Uzbekistan, 1985, 92 min.)

Set in Riga, a sergeant returns from an international mission, moves into a remote flat and expects to live a peaceful life, but instead finds himself embroiled in several adventures. (EU Film Showcase)

When a man’s ailing mother asks him to find the grave of his father, he makes a poignant train journey across Uzbekistan and Russia.

Directed by Ali Khamraev (Uzbekistan, 1979, 76 min.)

The lives of three female characters, wrestling with social convention and constraint, intersect in a small town in northern Uzbekistan during the difficult days following World War II. (Screens with “White, White Storks”) National Gallery of Art Sun., Nov. 13, 4 p.m.

Directed by Ali Khamraev (Uzbekistan, 1966, 82 min.)

Lithuanian

The Seventh Bullet (Sedmaya pulya)

Anarchy in Zirmunai (Anarchija Zirmunuose)

Directed by Ali Khamraev (Uzbekistan, 1972, 84 min.)

National Gallery of Art Sun., Nov. 13, 4 p.m.

National Gallery of Art Sat., Nov. 19, 2 p.m.

AFI Silver Theatre

Directed by Carlos Saura (Spain, 1986, 100 min.)

National Gallery of Art Sun., Nov. 27, 4 p.m.

The Skin I Live In (La piel que habito) Directed by Pedro Almodóvar (Spain, 2011, 117 min.)

In this twisted thriller, a brilliant plastic surgeon haunted by past tragedies creates a type of synthetic skin that withstands any kind of damage, and uses a mysterious and volatile patient as his guinea pig. Landmark’s E Street Cinema

White, White Storks (Beliye, beliye aisti) Set in an isolated, traditional Muslim village in Uzbekistan, a smart woman in an unhappy marriage falls hard for a soft-spoken guy who defends local women when their men abuse them. Unfortunately, there’s no possibility for divorce in this town where blood revenge still prevails. (Screens with “Triptych”)

AFI Silver Theatre

An Uzbek Red Army officer in the 1920s, given the task of modernizing his village in Uzbekistan, gives women permission to appear in public without their veils — with tragic consequences.

Swedish Balls (Farsan) Directed by Josef Fares (Sweden, 2010, 98 min.)

In this heart-warming comedy about love, friendship and the art of being a man, a long-widowed, soon-to-be grandfather starts dating again. Goethe-Institut Sat., Nov. 5, 9 p.m.

Sat., Nov. 6, 7 p.m.

The Washington Diplomat Page 55

[ around town ]

EVENTS LISTING **Admission is free unless otherwise noted. All information on event venues can be found on The Washington Diplomat Web site at www.washdiplomat.com. Times and locations are subject to change. Unless listed, please call venue for specific event times and hours of operation.

es with Aboriginal history, elements of her family’s past, government documents and everyday objects to provide a glimpse of how Aboriginal people lived and were perceived in the first half of the 20th century. Embassy of Australia Through Nov. 13

The Loveliest Girl in the World

ART Nov. 6 to April 8

Antico: The Golden Age of Renaissance Bronzes This exhibition is the first in the United States devoted to the Mantuan sculptor and goldsmith Pier Jacopo Alari Bonacolsi (c. 1455– 1528), known as Antico for his expertise in classical antiquity. National Gallery of Art Nov. 7 to Dec. 30

The Solemnity of Shadows: Juan Laurent’s Vision of Spain Nearly two dozen rare albumen photographs and two albums, with a particular focus on Spanish art and architecture, illustrate the skills of Juan Laurent (1816–86), a preeminent figure in the history of Spanish photography. National Gallery of Art Nov. 7 to Feb. 3

New Visions: A Selection of the Latest Acquisitions from the IDB Art Collection, 2008–2011 The Inter-American Development Bank’s art collection comprises 1,722 artworks that include paintings, sculpture, photography, works on paper, ceramics and handcrafted objects. These works showcase the region’s creativity and highlight the achievements of its distinguished artists. Inter-American Development Bank Cultural Center Nov. 9 to Feb. 4

Conversación: Photo Works by Muriel Hasbun and Pablo Ortiz Monasterio In conjunction with FotoWeek DC, this exhibition represents a yearlong collaboration between two artists, one from Mexico and one in D.C., whereby a single photograph was sent by Pablo Ortiz Monasterio as a digital file to Muriel Hasbun, who replied by sending back one of her own. This exchange went on for months, the results of which reveal how photography can probe the possibilities of cultural and visual exchange in a digital age. Mexican Cultural Institute

Miina Savolainen of Finland presents her award-winning photography project featuring 10 girls from a children’s home that tells a story about becoming visible and accepting oneself. Embassy of Finland Through Nov. 16

Traditional and New George Mason University’s School of Art collaborated with the Sichuan Normal University in China on an exchange of student and faculty works from each university that have been selected to be exhibited at both universities. George Mason University Fine Art Gallery Through Dec. 14

Elusive Pioneer of American Documentary Photography This exhibition examines the work Louise Rosskam, an elusive pioneer of American documentary photography in the 1930 and ’40s, including her compelling photographs of Southwest D.C. neighborhoods before their destruction for urban renewal as well as her images of Puerto Rico as it developed from an impoverished U.S. possession to an industrialized commonwealth.

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT sagas of human contact with the animal world, as evidenced by this array of 122 historic objects, artwork, photographs, songs and personal accounts that tells the story of how the return of horses to the Americas by Christopher Columbus changed everything for Indians. National Museum of the American Indian

The Textile Museum

The Invention of Glory: Afonso V and the Pastrana Tapestries The Pastrana Tapestries—among the finest surviving Gothic tapestries—will be on view together for the first time in the U.S. and will showcase the recently restored set of four monumental tapestries that commemorate the conquest of two strategically located cities in Morocco by the king of Portugal, Afonso V (1432–1481).

Urban_Landscapes Art from Europe and the United States imagines urban areas with great potential for diversification and transformation, playing with known architecture and structures and how the ideas behind them are often obscured by the viewer’s angle. Embassy of Austria

DANCE Nov. 2 to 6

Non-Western Traditions in Art

The Great Gatsby

Janetta Rebold Benton, professor of art history at Pace College, spotlights on selected works created by cultures from as far away as Cambodia and Niger and as close as the American Southwest. Tickets are $120; for information, call (202) 633-3030 or visit www.smithsonianassociates.org.

Marking its 400th anniversary this year, the 1611 King James Bible still echoes in books, movies, songs, speeches and sermons today. But who translated it? The Folger Shakespeare Library and University of Oxford draw on their deep resources to uncover the little-known story of one of the most widely read books in the history of the English language. Folger Shakespeare Library Through Jan. 15

National Museum of Women in the Arts Through Jan. 29

Power/Play: China’s Empress Dowager Following China’s disastrous Boxer Rebellion, the Grand Empress Dowager Cixi (18351908) used photographic portraiture to rehabilitate her public image, allowing a young aristocratic photographer to take elaborately staged shots of her and her court. As the only photographic series taken of the supreme leader of China for more than 45 years, these images represents a unique convergence of Qing court pictorial traditions, modern photography and Western standards of artistic portraiture.

On the Lakeshore… and Other Stories

Through Jan. 1

Wedding Belles

Through Feb. 12

Photographer Iris Janke’s work treads a fine line between reflection and intuition, between control and chance, as she records her daily experiences in a visual diary from which she selects the images that have the strongest narrative power.

Four gowns belonging to heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post and those of her mother and daughters, along with bridesmaid dresses, a royal veil, and a stunning Cartier bag carried by Post’s daughter tell the story of 20th-century wedding style through the lens of one of America’s most notable and fashionable families.

30 Americans

Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens

Corcoran Gallery of Art

Through Jan. 7

Through Feb. 12

A Song for the Horse Nation

Weaving Abstraction: Kuba Textiles and the Woven Art of Central Africa

Goethe-Institut Through Nov. 11

Waterline Taking her inspiration from the traditions of the Waanyi culture, Judy Watson, one of Australia’s leading contemporary artists, mixes her poetically abstract stained canvas-

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The Washington Diplomat

The story of the relationship of Native Americans and horses is one of the great

American University Katzen Arts Center Washington DCJCC (Nov. 29)

Manifold Greatness: The Creation and Afterlife of the King James Bible

Arthur M. Sackler Gallery

Nov. 10 to Feb. 3

This international exhibit features more than 148 objects used in a range of ritual contexts, with genres as varied and complex as the vast region of Central Nigeria, that demonstrate how the history of the area can be “unmasked” through the dynamic interrelationships of its peoples and their arts.

Through Jan. 15

“Visions of the Orient” features 125 prints and paintings by four female Western artists exploring Asian cultures between 1900 and 1940, all of whom trained as painters but, while living in Japan, also designed woodblock prints.

Through Dec. 30

Central Nigeria Unmasked: Arts of the Benue River Valley

In conjunction with the exhibit “Re-viewing Documentary: The Photographic Life of Louise Rosskam,” Félix Matos Rodriguez of the City University of New York gives a lecture on Puerto Rico’s social history in the 1940s on Nov. 3. On Nov. 13 and 20, a two-part screening of films from Puerto Rico’s Division of Community Education documents the social and economic issues that were part of the effort to integrate the rural population into the island’s industrialization and urbanization movement of the 1950s. And on Nov. 29, Laura Katzman, author of the book behind the “Re-Viewing Documentary” exhibition, discusses the work of Louise Rosskam (19102003), an elusive pioneer of the “golden age” of American documentary photography. Tickets are $10.

National Museum of African Art

Through Dec. 14

American University Katzen Arts Center

Through March 4

Puerto Rico ‘Re-viewing Documentary’ Programs

National Gallery of Art

Visions of the Orient: Western Women Artists in Asia 1900–1940

New Zealand photographer Wayne Barrar traveled through America, New Zealand, Australia and France seeking the subterranean places in which people live, work, and play — depicting hidden the underground worksites of mines and universities to the surreal domestic world of the subterranean homes in an opal mining town in South Australia.

African textiles distinguished the wealthy and powerful. Woven art from the Kuba kingdom in particular makes playful use of a language of over 200 patterns. “Weaving Abstraction is the most comprehensive exploration of this art form to date in the U.S., with 150 objects ranging from small, exquisite baskets to monumental skirts.

Through Jan. 8

American University Katzen Arts Center

Wayne Barrar: An Expanding Subterra

November 2011

Provocative and confrontational, this exhibition showcases works by many of the most important African American artists of the last three decades, focusing on issues of racial, sexual and historical identity and exploring the powerful influence of artistic legacy across generations.

Ingeniously woven from palm fiber, Central

The jazz-age splendor immortalized in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s story about obsession, wealth and excess in the roaring 20s is brought to life through brilliant choreography by the Washington Ballet’s Septime Webre and Billy Novick’s live jazz ensemble. Tickets are $20 to $125.

Sat., Nov. 5, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

S. Dillon Ripley Center

Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater Wed., Nov. 9, 6 p.m. Sun., Nov. 6, 6:30 p.m.

Italy’s 150 Years of Unification

Ananiashvili-Ratmansky Ballet Gala

Modern Italian history professor John Davis puts the Italian unification into historic context, providing insight into the struggles and challenges that surrounded it. Renato Miracco, cultural attaché, hosts a light reception at the conclusion of the program. Tickets are $35. For information, call (202) 633-3030 or visit www.smithsonianassociates.org.

Nina Ananiashvili, who began her career with the Bolshoi Theatre in 1981 and has since become one of its most acclaimed ballet soloists, returns to America to perform works by the new choreographic sensation, Alexei Ratmansky, with 13 additional dancers and musicians from the Bolshoi Orchestra. Tickets are $35 to $150.

Embassy of Italy

GW Lisner Auditorium Mon., Nov. 14, 6:45 p.m. Nov. 16, 18 and 19

National Acrobats of the People’s Republic of China Drawing on centuries of tradition, the National Acrobats of the People’s Republic of China, a national cultural treasure, is acclaimed for deftly demonstrating gaspinducing flexibility, agility and talent while performing daring physical feats to the accompaniment of traditional Chinese music. Tickets are $32, $40 or $48. George Mason University Hylton Performing Arts Center (Nov. 16) George Mason University Center for the Arts (Nov. 18, 19)

DISCUSSIONS Wed., Nov. 2, 6 p.m.

Prevention on Prescription Drug Misuse Among Youth The alarming trend of prescription drug misuse is discussed by leading prevention scientists who explain how parents, counselors and policymakers can make a difference in stopping this form of drug abuse. Reservations can be made by emailing michaela@mentorfoundation.org.

Tell Jemmeh: Ancient Cultures on the Negev Israeli archeologist David Ben-Shlomo describes the findings that archaeological site Tell Jemmeh continues to yield as part of an ongoing Natural History Museum dig. Tickets are $40. For information, call (202) 633-3030 or visit www.smithsonianassociates.org. S. Dillon Ripley Center Wed., Nov. 16, 9 a.m. to 6:15 p.m.

Monetary Reform in the Wake of Crisis The Cato Institute’s 29th annual monetary conference addresses the fundamental issue of how to prevent another global financial crisis — not by tinkering with the present government discretionary fiat money regime but by fundamental reform — with speakers such as Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and World Bank President Robert Zoellick. To register, visit www.cato.org/monetary/. National Association of Home Builders Thu., Nov. 17, 6:30 p.m.

House of Sweden

Copland’s Mexico and Chavez’s New York: Notes on a Creative Friendship

Thu., Nov. 3, 6:30 p.m., Sun., Nov. 13, 2 p.m., Sun., Nov. 20, 2 p.m., Tue., Nov. 29, 7:30 p.m.

In the late 1920s American composer Aaron Copland and his Mexican counterpart Carlos Chávez met for the first time, striking a friendship that would last a lifetime. This talk by Leonora Saavedra will center upon the

November 2011

first 15 years of their friendship, a time of high aspirations and fruitful exchange of music and ideas. Admission is free but reservations are recommended and can be made at RSVP@instituteofmexicodc.org. Mexican Cultural Institute Sat., Nov. 19, 9:30 a.m. to 4:15 p.m.

Sat., Nov. 5, 7 p.m.

Sun., Nov. 6, 3 p.m.

12th Annual Champagne Gala

Anna Shelest, Pianist

The 2011 Champagne Gala at the French Embassy features exquisite samplings from the finest Champagne houses in France, as well as food from some of D.C.’s favorite restaurants and a luxury silent auction. Tickets are $250.

Acclaimed by critics for playing with “style, passion and poetry,” pianist Anna Shelest has received numerous international competition awards and performed worldwide as a soloist and chamber musician, with recent engagements at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center. This program, hosted by the Washington Group Cultural Fund in cooperation with the Ukrainian Embassy, includes works by Liszt, Wagner, Schumann and Mussorgsky. Suggested donation is $20. For information, call (703) 955-2555.

The Silk Road: Conveying Luxury Goods and Ideas to the World

La Maison Française

Lawrence Butler explores the colorful caravans that for 3,000 years traveled along the “Silk Road,” a network of long-distance trade routes connecting the ancient and medieval cultures of Eurasia, transporting luxury goods and spreading ideas such as Buddhism and Islam far from their homelands. Tickets are $110. For information, call (202) 633-3030 or visit www.smithsonianassociates.org.

Mon., Nov. 7, 5 p.m.

S. Dillon Ripley Center Wed., Nov. 30, 6:45 p.m.

Keeping Endangered Languages Alive Natural History Museum researchers Gabriela Perez Baez, Joshua Bell and Gwyneira Isaac discuss how knowledge is created, spread and lost as part of the Smithsonian Initiative on Recovering Voices, reaching communities in places as far-flung as Mexico and New Guinea. Tickets are $40. For information, call (202) 633-3030 or visit www.smithsonianassociates.org. S. Dillon Ripley Center

FESTIVALS Through Nov. 2

Hyman S. & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival This annual celebration presents the year’s best in Jewish writing by both emerging and established authors from across the world, with author panels, readings, and talks for fans of fiction, history, politics, humor, children’s stories and more. For information, visit www.washingtondcjcc.org/litfest. Washington DCJCC Through Nov. 10

Kids Euro Festival The Kids Euro Festival, the largest performing arts festival of its kind in the United States, once again brings together the European Union embassy community to transform the Washington area into an EU adventure for children and their families, with more than 200 free events around town, from the Kennedy Center and Natural History Museum to the embassies of Austria and Sweden. For information, visit www.kidseurofestival.org Various locations Nov. 17 to Dec. 4

Seventh Annual Flamenco Festival at GALA “Fuego Flamenco VII” is an exploration of the diversity and depth of flamenco and its contemporary expressions; this year’s attractions include a U.S. premiere with the sultry Ana González appearing with José Barrios and Company from Madrid, as well as a world premiere by the Flamenco Aparicio Dance Company from D.C. that features only male flamenco dancers from Spain and the U.S. For information, visit www.galatheatre. org. GALA Hispanic Theatre

GALAS Wed., Nov. 2, 6:30 p.m.

American Islamic Congress 10th Anniversary Gala

2011 Democracy Award Dinner The National Democratic Institute’s annual Democracy Award Dinner features a discussion on the Arab Spring with leaders from North Africa and the Middle East, as well as posthumous honors for Charles Mannatt, Geraldine Ferraro and Richard Holbrooke, with keynote address by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Tickets are $350; for information, visit www.ndi.org/2011dinner. Andrew Mellon Auditorium

MUSIC Tue., Nov. 1, 7 p.m.

Ran Dank, Piano Israeli pianist Ran Dank deploys his skilled technique with interpretive powers that have captivated audiences and garnered critical acclaim. Tickets are $50, including reception. For information, visit www.embassyseries. org. Venue TBA Tue., Nov. 1, 7 p.m.

Hungarian Pianist Gergely Bogányi The Hungarian American Coalition and the Embassy of Hungary present Kossuth Prizewinning Hungarian pianist Gergely Bogányi performing works by Ferenc Liszt and Frederic Chopin. To make reservations, call (202) 362-6730/201 or email: rsvp.was@ mfa.gov.hu.

The Lyceum Wed., Nov. 9, 7:30 p.m., Thu., Nov. 10, 7:30 p.m.

Ádám György, Piano From prodigy to Liszt ambassador to philanthropist, Steinway artist Ádám György continues to enchant audiences worldwide, bringing his skills to the Embassy Series to honor the 200th anniversary of the birth of composer Ferenc (Franz) Liszt. Tickets are $80, including buffet reception. For information, visit www.embassyseries.org. Embassy of Hungary Sat., Nov. 12, 7:30 p.m.

Taiwanese American Charity & Education Association: 2011 Annual Concert The Taiwanese American Charity & Education Association presents pianists Sheng Yuan Kuan and Chih-Long Hu, countertenor Peter Lee, flutist Pao Chieh Tseng, percussionist Candy Chiu, and violinists Keng-Yuen Tseng and Yu-Chia Hsiao in a program of selections from Brahms, Gounod, Tosti, Donizetti, Piazzolla, Ravel, Sousa, and Moszkowski. Tickets are $30 to $45. Kennedy Center Terrace Theater

Embassy of Hungary

Sun., Nov. 13, 5 p.m.

Wed., Nov. 2, 7:30 p.m.

As the resident chamber orchestra at the University of Colorado in Boulder, the Takács Quartet premieres at the Embassy of Hungary with Dvorák’s “American” String Quartet No. 12 on the 170th anniversary of the composer’s birth. Reservations must be made by Nov. 7 by calling (202) 362-6730 ext. 201 or emailing rsvp.was@mfa.gov.hu

European Jazz Motion The European Union National Institutes of Culture and the Austrian Cultural Forum present European Jazz Motion, a collaboration of six talented young musicians from all over the continent performing the newest in European jazz to D.C. audiences. Admission is free but reservations are required and can be made at www.acfdc.org/events-registration or (202) 895–6776.

Takács Quartet

Embassy of Hungary Wed., Nov. 16, 7:30 p.m.

Embassy of Austria

Gerdan-Kaleidoscope of World Music

Thu., Nov. 3, 7:30 p.m.

The musicians of the Gerdan ensemble share their personal experiences of their Eastern European multicultural music from generation to generation. Tickets are $80, including Ukrainian buffet reception. For information, visit www.embassyseries.org.

The Last Romantics: Jewish Composers of Interwar Europe Pro Musica Hebraica presents an extraordinary ensemble of European musicians to explore the lost generation of European Jewish composers who sought to forge a Jewish romantic style of classical music in the 1920s and 1930s. Tickets are $38. Kennedy Center Terrace Theater Nov. 3 to 5

The Ives Project PostClassical Ensemble presents this threeday celebration of one of America’s defining musical geniuses, Charles Ives — including his passionate courtship, his fierce transcendentalism and his cranky politics — in this one-of-a-kind theatrical project featuring a musical repertoire for voice, piano, and chamber orchestra, along with letters and essays. Tickets are $15 to $45; some discussions are free. Music Center at Strathmore Sat., Nov. 5, 2 p.m.

Embassy of Ukraine

OPEN HOUSES Wed., Nov. 2, 1 p.m., Fri., Nov. 18, 9 a.m.

The German School in Washington Open Houses The German School opens its doors for rising 5th and 6th grades to its Upper School to learn more about the core curriculum requirements that make a German education such an important asset in today’s global marketplace. Students excel in math and sciences, graduating with a U.S. high school diploma and a German Abitur, often completing college-level requirements in science and math. On Nov. 18, those interested in preschool and kindergarten/entry level can participate in private tours and information sessions. Appointments are not required. For information, call (301) 365-4400 or visit www.dswashington.org.

The American Islamic Congress commemorates 10 years of work toward interfaith understanding, civil rights and peace, with a special performance by world-renowned oud player Rahim Alhaj and a silent auction of art from around the Muslim world. For ticket information, email gala@aicongress.org.

Washington Performing Arts Society: Marouan Benabdallah Marouan Benabdallah, son of a Hungarian musician mother and Moroccan physicist father, embodies the new emerging generation of Hungarian pianists and the cultural diversity and opening of Morocco. Tickets are $38.

The German School Washington, D.C.

National Museum of Women in the Arts

Kennedy Center Terrace Theater

The Golden Dragon

November 2011

THEATER Nov. 2 to Dec. 11

Five actors cross age, race and gender to play 15 characters in this vicious yet poetic investigation of how intertwined our globalized lives really are, by one of Germany’s most innovative and adventurous writers. Tickets are $35 to $69. The Studio Theatre

Nov. 25 to Dec. 23

Romeo and Juliet Synetic Theater’s “Speak No More” – The Silent Shakespeare Festival concludes with the Bard’s tragic story of love, passion and timelessness, all made stunningly physical through the lyrical choreography and movement of Synetic’s performers. Tickets are $45 to $55.

Nov. 10 to 19

Synetic Theater at Crystal City

The Washington National Opera: Lucia di Lammermoor

Nov. 25 to Jan. 1

In this psychologically gripping opera, Lucia is the sacrificial lamb in her brother’s scheme to regain the family fortune. Forced to abandon the man she loves and marry for money, she succumbs to madness in one of opera’s most tragic and musically dramatic scenes. Tickets are $55 to $300.

Much Ado About Nothing Everyone can see that Benedick and Beatrice are meant for each other except Benedick and Beatrice in one of the Bard’s most romantic comedies ever written. Please call for ticket information. The Shakespeare Theatre

Kennedy Center Opera House Nov. 25 to Jan. 1 Nov. 10 to Jan. 7

Nero

Jersey Boys

As Rome collapses beneath Nero’s outrageous narcissism, a forgotten playwright tries to restore order by trying to convince the world’s most famous debaucher to choose virtue over vice. Please call for ticket details.

This Tony and Grammy Award-winning production is the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, and how a group of blue-collar boys from the wrong side of the tracks became one of the biggest American pop music sensations of all time. Tickets start at $66.50.

Arena Stage Through Nov. 27

Greek

National Theatre Nov. 18 to Dec. 31

A Christmas Carol Join the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future as they lead the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge — played by renowned Washington stage actor Edward Gero — on a journey of transformation and redemption in this music-infused production that captures the magic and joy of Dickens’s Yuletide classic. Ford’s Theatre Nov. 18 to Jan. 1

Equivocation In 1605 London, the worlds of King James and the Gunpowder Plot collide with William Shakespeare and his renowned theatrical troupe as the Bard, commissioned to create a calculated piece of propaganda, must find a way to please the king while avoiding the gallows in this cat-and-mouse game of politics and art. Please call for ticket details.

Set in modern-day London, this twisted yet acclaimed adaptation of Sophocles’s “Oedipus Rex” by Scena Theatre combines Shakespearean grandeur and Cockney rhyming slang to riotous effect. Tickets are $27 to $40. H Street Playhouse Nov. 29 to Dec. 4

Krapp’s Last Tape Alone on his 69th birthday, a man prepares for his own “party” of sorts, surrounded by volume after volume of a life on tape, but what he hears from his 39-year-old self may irrevocably change his future in Samuel Beckett’s haunting play starring John Hurt. Please call for ticket information. The Shakespeare Theatre

For a complete list of events, please visit our Web site at www.washdiplomat.com.

Arena Stage

CULTURE GUIDE English Conversation Classes Learn English in a friendly and supportive environment. Beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels available. Information about American culture is also included during classes. Convenient location for Embassy personnel. Only $40 for a 10 week course. Sponsored by The Global Neighborhood Center. 3855 Massachusetts Avenue, NW (Christ Church) Washington, DC 20016

202-363-4090

Plan Your Entire Weekend.

www.washdiplomat.com

TO ADVERTISE IN THIS SECTION Contact Dave Garber at: email: dgarber@washdiplomat.com phone: (301) 933-3552, ext. 30 fax: (301) 949-0065

The Washington Diplomat Page 57

DIPLOMATIC SPOTLIGHT 43rd Annual Meridian Ball

The Washington Diplomat

November 2011

From left, Ambassador of Ireland Michael Collins, Mrs. and Ambassador of Sweden Jonas Hafström, and Marie Collins sample the international desserts at the Meridian Ball, which gathered 750 guests from public, private, diplomatic and media sectors.

PHOTO: GAIL SCOTT

From left, Gwen Holliday and Meridian International President and CEO Stuart Holliday welcome U.S. Assistant Secretary of South and Central Asian Affairs Robert Blake and his wife Sofia Blake to the 43rd annual Meridian Ball at the Meridian International Center, which for more than 50 years has served as a principal forum for the advancement of America’s public and cultural diplomacy efforts.

PHOTO: THOMAS COLEMAN

From left, former Ambassador of Afghanistan and Mrs. Said Tayeb Jawad join Mrs. and former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff for desserts and dancing at the 43rd annual Meridian Ball.

PHOTO: THOMAS COLEMAN

Former U.S. Ambassador and ball chair Mary Ourisman and her husband, Ourisman Automotive Enterprises Chairman Mandy Ourisman, sample the international desserts at the Meridian Ball that were based on recipes submitted by 12 participating embassies.

PHOTO: GAIL SCOTT

Ambassador of the European Union João Vale de Almeida and his wife Maria Ana Ramos Jara de Carvalho dance at the 43rd annual Meridian Ball.

PHOTO: THOMAS COLEMAN

Ambassador of the Netherlands Renée Jones-Bos and her husband Dr. Richard Huw Jones enter the Meridian Ball, which began with formal dinners hosted by 22 ambassadors at their embassies or residences, as well as a private dinner at Meridian’s White-Meyer House, followed by dessert and dancing at the Meridian House.

Former Meridian President Walter Cutler and his wife Didi Cutler attend the annual black-tie ball at the Meridian Center, which for 50 years has promoted international understanding through American cultural and public diplomacy.

PHOTO: THOMAS COLEMAN

From left, Ambassador of Liechtenstein Claudia Fritsche and her guest Dr. Michael Olding join Mrs. and Ambassador of Denmark Peter Taksoe-Jensen at the 43rd annual Meridian Ball.

PHOTO: GAIL SCOTT

PHOTO: THOMAS COLEMAN

From left, Hugh Grindstaff and THIS for Diplomats President Joan Keston join Mrs. and Ambassador of Indonesia Dino Patti Djalal at the 43rd annual Meridian Ball, which was preceded by dinners at embassies and ambassadorial residences across town.

From left, Ronald Cook, Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Suzan Johnson Cook, and former Fannie Mae Chairman Frank Raines attend the 43rd annual Meridian Ball.

From left, former U.S. Assistant Surgeon General Susan Blumenthal, Ambassador of Singapore Chan Heng Chee, and Mrs. and Ambassador of Ireland Michael Collins attend the 43rd annual Meridian Ball.

Ambassador of Luxembourg Jean-Paul Senninger and his wife Louise Åkerblom pose on the staircase leading into the Meridian International Center.

PHOTO: GAIL SCOTT

From left, wife of the British ambassador Lady Julia Sheinwald joins Ambassador of Mexico and Mrs. Arturo Sarukhan at the 43rd annual Meridian Ball.

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The Washington Diplomat

PHOTO: THOMAS COLEMAN

From left, Ray Mahmoud, U.S. Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy Philip L. Verveer, Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues Melanne Verveer, and Mrs. and Ambassador of Egypt attend the 43rd annual Meridian Ball.

From left, Ambassador of Monaco Gilles Alexandre Noghès, Janet Blanchard, Ellen Noghès, and former Michigan Gov. and Meridian Board Chair James J. Blanchard attend the black-tie Meridian Ball held at the Meridian International Center.

Ambassador of Ukraine Olexander Motsyk and his wife Natalia Terletska join more than 30 other foreign ambassadors at the Meridian Ball, proceeds of which go to Meridian’s mission to strengthen international understanding through the exchange of ideas, people and culture.

November 2011

Washington Revels presents the 29th Annual Christmas Revels