December 2016

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VOLUME 23, NUMBER 12

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— EXCLUSIVE —

U.S. AND CUBA: WHAT’S NEXT? Trump, GOP Take Aim at Dismantling Obama’s Legacy As the 44th president packs up his belongings to start a new life, Barack Obama is not only leaving behind the cushy confines of the White House, he’s also leaving behind a historic — yet highly vulnerable — legacy. The big question now is: How much of it will Donald Trump undo?

In this comprehensive special report, we examine the signature achievements Obama has pushed through, from the Iran nuclear deal to Obamacare to the Asia pivot, and how much of them will fall prey to his Republican successor and a GOPcontrolled Congress. / PAGE 4

Unorthodox Icelander Has First U.S. Survey Prolific Icelandic performance artist Ragnar Kjartansson is enjoying the first U.S. survey of his unconventional work at the Hirshhorn. / PAGE 28

‘Diplomacy by Design’

Design Event Showcases Power of Fashion “Fashion is everywhere,” said U.S. Protocol Chief Peter Selfridge, whose office co-hosted a first-ever “Diplomacy by Design” event with Elle magazine to showcase the universal power of fashion to transcend borders and politics. / PAGE 17

SPECIAL REPORT

Culture

DECEMBER 2016

Diplomatic Spouses

Is the honeymoon between Havana and Washington over?

Cuban Ambassador José Ramón Cabañas Rodríguez, in his first-ever exclusive interview with any U.S. media outlet, talks about President Obama’s historic détente with America’s former Cold War adversary — and whether Donald Trump will put a chill on warming bilateral relations. / PAGE 11

Ghana Wife Serves by Volunteering Douha Smith, wife of a longtime military officer who is now Ghana’s ambassador to the U.S., has spent her life volunteering for various organizations, most recently serving as the re-elected president of the D.C.-based Spouses of African Ambassadors Association. / PAGE 29

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December 2016

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ON THE COVER Ambassador José Ramón Cabañas Rodríguez stands against the backdrop of Cuban leaders Fidel Castro and Raúl Castro at the Cuban Embassy in a photo by Lawrence Ruggeri of RuggeriPhoto.com.

Contents

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | December 2016

11 10 14

29 31

19

Photo: Christophe Meneboeuf - Own Work: http://www.pixinn.net / Wikimedia Commons via CC BY-SA 4.0

NEWS 4

Can-Undo Attitude As Donald Trump takes office, Barack Obama’s legacy is in serious jeopardy.

8

Suing Saudi Arabia Officials fear the larger ramifications of allowing 9/11 families to sue Saudi Arabia.

10 Dismantling the Iran Deal

17

Bold Fashion Statement

African American narratives intersect in two compelling shows at the Phillips Collection.

LUXURY LIVING

32

19

2016 Gift Guide Because we could all use a little extra retail therapy to relax this year.

CULTURE

11

Cover Profile: Cuba Cuba has basked in renewed ties with the U.S., but will the romance last?

28 Ragnar on Repeat Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson finds joy in sorrow and enlightenment in repetition.

14

29

16

30

Lame-Duck Checklist Averting a government shutdown is at the top of Congress’s short to-do list.

Moving History

“Diplomacy by Design” reflects on what the clothes we wear say about us.

Trump’s penchant for flip-flopping has left many wondering what he’ll do to the Iran nuclear deal.

Poland’s Draconian Law A controversial abortion law has tested the limits of Poland’s conservative fervor.

31

diplomatic Spouses The wife of a former Ghanaian military commander takes service to heart.

Indian Immersion ‘“Notes from the Desert” gets up close and personal with marginalized women from India.

Ephemeral Borders “Delimitations” documents the ever-changing boundaries between the U.S. and Mexico.

33

Dutch Groundwork

Drawings reveal the preparation behind Dutch masterworks in “The Age of Rembrandt.”

34

Dining Pop-ups give diners and chefs a chance to experiment and experience something new.

REGULARS 36 Cinema Listing 38 Events Listing 40 Diplomatic Spotlight 45 World Holidays 46 Classifieds 47 Real Estate Classifieds

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | December 2016 | 3

WD | United States | SPECIAL REPORT

Can-Undo Attitude As Trump Takes Office, Obama’s Legacy is on Chopping Block

by Anna Gawel

D

onald Trump is in. Barack Obama is out. And the hope of a woman leading the U.S. is gone, for now at least. Whatever consternation and handwringing this election has brought on (and it’s brought on a lot), the American presidency is a done deal for the next four years.

Obama is now prepping the billionaire real estate magnate/reality star to hold the highest office in the land. As the 44th president packs up his belongings to start a new life, Obama is not only leaving behind the cushy confines of the White House, he’s also leaving behind a historic — yet highly vulnerable — legacy.

The big question now is: How much of it will Trump undo?

The answer — despite reams of analysis and relentless speculation — is that no one knows for sure.

Tough Talk Trump has said all kinds of things on the campaign trail. Much of it has been inflammatory and controversial. A lot has been erratic and contradictory.

Some of it has been untrue or outright ridiculous. But most of it has also been blunt, bold and resonated with legions of white working-class Americans who feel disenfranchised by globalization and angry with the Washington elite.

Trump rode to office on a populist, nativist platform by promising to “put America first,” sparking fears among foreigners that he’ll turn the country inward and usher in a new era of American isolationism.

Experts and pundits have parsed his words for clues as to how Trump would govern, but he’s given them little to go on, though the few pronouncements he has made sent shockwaves around the world.

Trump famously said he’d build a wall with Mexico and have Mexico pay for the pleasure. He threatened to ban Muslims from entering the country and tear up landmark trade agreements like NAFTA and the now-defunct TransPacific Partnership. He pledged to toss out Obamacare along with the Iranian nuclear agreement. He called climate change a hoax perpetrated by China.

He vowed to come at Beijing “from a position of strength” and slap a 45 percent tariff on Chinese imports to curb its currency manipulation. He warned that Japan and South Korea may no longer fall under America’s protection umbrella, prompting concerns that they might develop their own nukes to counter a belligerent North Korea. He suggested bringing back torture to inter4 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | December 2016

“

Credit: Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

As the 44th president packs up his belongings to start a new life, Obama is not only leaving behind the cushy confines of the White House, he’s also leaving behind a historic — yet highly vulnerable — legacy. The big question now is: How much of it will Trump undo?

rogate terrorists and locking them up in Guantanamo Bay. He derided the U.S.backed battle to retake the Iraqi city of Mosul from the Islamic State as a “total” failure even when the military offensive had barely begun. He denounced NATO as obsolete and warned that Washington wouldn’t come to European allies’ rescue unless they forked over their fair share of dues. He’s fawned over Russian President Vladimir Putin and floated the idea of working with him to resolve the civil war in Syria. He pledged to beef up U.S. military resources but “abandon the failed policy of nation-building and regime change that Hillary Clinton pushed in Iraq, Libya, Egypt and Syria.”

Anyone’s Guess Other than dramatic sound-bites geared more toward Twitter than the Situation Room, however, Trump hasn’t fleshed out how he would implement any of these proposals. Unlike Clinton, a policy wonk who cranked out detailed white papers and employed a Rolodex of established Beltway insiders, Trump

”

has never governed before and has assembled a bare-bones, shifting team around him whose transition has been chaotic at best.

So despite his solid victory, Trump remains a mystery, leaving everyone from the Pentagon brass to European diplomats anxious over his next moves.

“After Brexit and this election, everything is now possible,” French Ambassador Gérard Araud wrote on Twitter. “A world is collapsing before our eyes.”

Thomas Wright, director of the Project on International Order and Strategy for the Brookings Institution, echoed Araud’s dire predictions. He said he’s often asked whether Trump will moderate his views once he assumes office. “My response has always been that we should not expect a 70-year-old man who has held these beliefs for three decades to abandon them at the moment he feels completely vindicated and acquires awesome levels of power,” Wright wrote in a Brookings brief shortly after the election.

“The United States could withdraw from its role as the leader of a liberal

President Barack Obama walks through the Cross Hall of the White House before delivering a statement on the Supreme Court’s 2012 ruling on his health care overhaul, the Affordable Care Act. Obamacare is one of the signature initiatives now under threat by a Donald Trump presidency.

international order. The order would then collapse and other countries would scramble to respond,” he warned. “Some would take advantage. Others would try to protect themselves. Others still would submit to their larger neighbors. We have no idea where it would end but these are the conditions, maybe the only conditions, where a major war is possible.”

Others say apoplectic predictions of the world’s demise are a tad premature.

Max Boot of the Council on Foreign Relations, writing in Foreign Policy, said it’s possible “that the worst won’t happen and that Trump will exceed the low-low expectations that greet his ascension.

In truth, although I have been warning — along with many others — of the catastrophic consequences of a Trump presidency, I have no idea what he will actually do. Nobody does, probably including Trump himself.”

Indeed, Trump has yet to even take office. Obama and Clinton have urged their supporters to give him a chance.

After largely shunning him during the campaign, world leaders have rushed to congratulate Trump and pledged to work with the new president. Already, the president-elect has met with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and has invited British Prime Minister Theresa May for a visit. Trump also struck a conciliatory tone during his acceptance speech and tamped down talk of jailing

SPECIAL REPORT | United States | WD his opponent over her use of a private email server as secretary of state.

Moreover, despite the powers that the executive branch wields, American institutions are slowmoving bureaucracies with checks and balances that are largely resistant to seismic change, which can be a detriment but also an attribute (there is no actual nuclear “button” that would trigger Armageddon by the way). And political rhetoric on the campaign trail is often just that — rhetoric — and doesn’t say much about what candidates will do once they start the messy task of governing.

Trump may have been vague on what he would do to “make America great again,” but one thing is certain, he’ll have plenty to undo. While Obama leaves office with some of the highest approval ratings of his tenure, Hillary Clinton’s trouncing at the ballot box was in part a repudiation of Obama’s legacy. Americans were surprisingly loud about their views on immigration, overseas entanglements and domestic regulations. Voters who supported Trump now expect him to target Obama’s record, which, barring a major crisis, is likely what the Republican-led Congress will want to focus on during his first 100 days in office. Trump has already indicated that immigration, health care and jobs will be

among his top priorities.

So here are a few of Obama’s signature achievements that could be on the chopping block:

individuals, and estimated that if proposed reforms do not replace the law’s financing mechanisms, “they would increase the federal deficit by $0.5 billion to $41 billion.”

Obamacare on Life Support The first casualty of a Trump presidency may be Obamacare.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA), which mandated insurance coverage for all Americans and sought to reduce health care costs, is pretty much dead, if not on life support.

Despised when Democrats rammed it through Congress in 2010, Republicans have spent years trying to repeal the legislation. Now that the GOP controls both the House and Senate, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Congress would roll back key parts of the law, if not trash it altogether.

Obamacare expanded health insurance to about 20 million Americans and set up marketplace exchanges where people could buy affordable coverage. But Republicans balked at creating individual marketplaces and expanding Medicaid in states they controlled, often forcing poorer families to turn to federal exchanges. As insurance companies had to absorb more sick people, their profit margins were reduced and premiums rose dramati-

Blowing Up Iran Nuclear Deal

Photo: U.S. State Department

A meeting table in the Blue Salon of the Palais Coburg Hotel in Vienna, Austria, awaits U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif before their Jan. 16, 2016, meeting on the Iran nuclear deal.

cally.

Federal subsidies have helped many consumers offset these costs, but as McConnell argued in a CNN op-ed, subsidies are “just a nicer way to say ‘middle-class taxpayers will pay for it.’”

Republicans will now have to craft an alternative to Obamacare or strip 20 million people of health insurance coverage.

As with all things Trump, his position on the issue has been malleable.

In a Nov. 11 interview with the Wall Street Journal, Trump hedged on his

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vow to repeal Obamacare altogether, saying he’d like to preserve popular provisions of the law — namely that insurance companies can’t deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions. But the industry has said it can’t afford to keep those goodies unless all Americans are required to buy insurance, a central tenet of Obamacare.

Rand Corp. estimated that Trump’s plans to rework Obamacare would “increase the number of uninsured individuals by 16 million to 25 million,” primarily lower-income

Many Republicans are eager to dismantle Obama’s landmark nuclear deal with Iran, which has been hugely unpopular with Congress since its inception.

The Senate is gearing up to vote on a 10-year reauthorization of the Iran Sanctions Act after the House overwhelmingly voted to renew the act, which expires Dec. 31. It imposes sanctions on energy, banking, defense and other sectors over Iran’s nuclear and missile program and support of terrorism, although it allows a president to waive sanctions on a case-by-case basis. Obama has said the bill isn’t necessary because the president can “snap back” sanctions if Iran violates the nuclear deal.

Lawmakers counter that the bill offers critical economic leverage to ensure Iranian compliance. (Some of the sanctions are also unrelated to the nuclear accord.)

But the administration worries that Congress will use the legislaSee obama • page 6

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THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | December 2016 | 5

WD | United States | SPECIAL REPORT

Obama Continued • page 5

tion as a vehicle to impose additional penalties (or poison pills) in an effort to undermine the broader nuclear agreement.

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) between Iran and the P5+1 countries (U.S., U.K., China, France, Russia plus Germany) was finalized in July 2015.

It offers Tehran energy and financial sanctions relief in exchange for constraining its ability to produce a nuclear weapon.

Iran has largely stuck to the framework, allowing in international inspectors, relinquishing 98 percent of its nuclear material and mothballing thousands of centrifuges. In return, Iran has resumed selling its oil on the global market, had tens of billions of dollars in assets unfrozen and began inking business deals with international companies (even Boeing recently signed a lucrative $25 billion deal to sell planes to Tehran).

But the nuclear accord did not herald a new era in U.S.-Iran relations. Tehran says the U.S. has been slow to lift sanctions that continue to cripple and isolate its economy.

Washington cites Iran’s increased ballistic missile testing and its support of militias in Syria and Iraq as proof that the regime can’t be trusted (though those issues weren’t part of the nuclear agreement).

To clinch the deal, Obama had to win over skeptics in his own party.

Last year, he mustered enough Democratic support to block a Republican-led resolution that would’ve scuttled the deal, achieving a political victory but exacerbating partisan animosity.

Now that Republicans control the government, the nuclear deal is on shaky ground. Trump has called it “the worst deal I think I’ve ever seen negotiated” and suggested ripping it up.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani warned that the nuclear agreement was forged with a coalition of countries, “not as an agreement with one government.” Indeed, Trump will have a hard time convincing other nations to walk away from a historic agreement that they credit with extending the length of time it will take Tehran to develop a nuke and averting another conflict in the Middle East.

To avoid alienating allies, Trump may focus on rigorously enforcing the letter of the agreement, target Iran for non-nuclear-related disputes such as its ballistic missile program and discourage U.S. companies from doing business with Tehran.

Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and a strident critic of the deal, told USA Today’s Oren Dorell that Trump probably won’t tear up the agreement, but sig-

nal that he’s going to aggressively enforce it and “not tolerate any Iranian cheating or challenging of the deal.”

Still, experts fear that any reneging on Washington’s part may lead Iran to restart its nuclear program and empower hard-liners ahead of the country’s 2017 elections. That in turn could trigger an arms race in the region and put Trump at odds with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a staunch Iran ally. At the same time, it would undoubtedly please the Saudis, who see Washington’s overtures to their Shiite rival as a threat to their own interests.

Russian Reset Take Two Perhaps no other foreign head of state was more buoyed by Trump’s electoral success than Russian President Putin.

Early in his administration, Obama tried to forge a new relationship with Russia. Then-Secretary of State Clinton famously gave Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov a red button with a botched translation of the word “reset” to symbolize a new era in relations.

But Putin’s authoritarian tendencies, support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and provocations in Ukraine quickly put the kibosh on that rapprochement. Clinton was widely expected to take a tougher line with Putin if elected, and many U.S. officials accused the Kremlin of meddling in the U.S. election by leaking emails belonging to Clinton and the Democratic Party.

Trump has denied any connection to the hacked emails, although he hasn’t been shy about his proRussia bent. His repeated praise of Putin — coupled with the businessman’s disdain for NATO members shirking their financial responsibilities — has been music to the ears of the Russian leader.

It’s also spread panic among traditional European allies that the U.S. will abandon them at a time of stepped-up Russian aggression. For example, Trump hasn’t indicated whether he supports U.S. plans to dispatch a 4,000-strong NATO contingent to the Baltics and Eastern Europe. He’s said he would “look at” whether the U.S. might recognize Putin’s annexation of Crimea and whether Washington will continue to support sanctions against Moscow for stoking tensions in Ukraine.

That has left countries from Germany to Estonia fearing that the new president will unravel the NATO architecture that has underpinned European security since the end of World War II. But Moscow sees that military alliance in a vastly different light.

“From the Kremlin’s point of view, this security order is intolerable,” Edward Lucas, a senior editor at the Economist, wrote last month for CNN. “The rules of the game were written when Russia was weak, following the Soviet collapse. It treats the largest country in the world by landmass — and the biggest in Eu-

6 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | December 2016

Credit: DoD photo by Staff Sgt. Brett Miller, U.S. Army National Guard

Above, a British soldier surveys the battlefield during a training exercise in Latvia on June 12, 2014. At left, President Obama talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin after a lunch to commemorate the 70th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, France, in 2014. Donald Trump has indicated a willingness to work with Russia that has unnerved America’s Eastern European allies.

Credit: Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

rope by population — as if it were just another player.”

Putin has long complained that NATO is encroaching on Russia’s sphere of influence by courting nations in its backyard, such as Georgia and Ukraine. For his part, Trump has lamented that NATO members need to shoulder more of the burden for their own defense.

On the upside, Trump has suggested he could work with Putin to break the bloody stalemate in Syria’s six-year civil war. Both men want to focus their energies on defeating the Islamic State (although Trump hasn’t clarified what he would do differently than Obama on that front). At the same time, aligning with Moscow in Syria’s convoluted proxy war — and, by extension, siding with Bashar al-Assad, Iran and Hezbollah — would come at the cost of the Syrian rebel groups that Obama tentatively backed.

While Trump has at times been effusive in his admiration for Putin, the Russian leader was lukewarm in his congratulatory message to the Manhattan billionaire. A wily political operative, Putin has seen two previous presidents — Obama and George W. Bush — try to improve ties, only for them to take a nosedive. Bush famously said he had looked into Putin’s eyes and gotten “a sense of his soul.” Whether Trump has more luck gleaning any insights into the murky former KGB officer remains to be seen.

The real estate mogul’s tough talk on immigration propelled him to the national limelight, striking a raw nerve with white blue-collar voters who are angry by what they perceive as an influx of foreigners stealing jobs, committing crimes and endangering American values.

Much of their vitriol was directed at Mexicans, whom Trump labeled as rapists and drug-runners. While Republicans in Congress haven’t commented on the feasibility of building Trump’s “big, beautiful” wall with Mexico, they have hinted that they would strengthen border control (through additional fencing and federal agents).

Meanwhile, Mexico is closely watching to see how aggressively Trump will act to deport the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants already in the United States. After Republicans in Congress blocked passage of comprehensive immigration reform, Obama turned to executive orders to shield millions of immigrants from deportation, namely Dreamers (those brought to the U.S. as children) and parents of U.S. citizens.

Many of these initiatives remain in legal limbo, and it’s expected that Trump will ramp up deportations

and enforcement operations. He told “60 Minutes” that he’d immediately deport 2 to 3 million undocumented immigrants (though experts warn such mass deportations could cost hundreds of billions of dollars and require thousands of additional agents). Trump’s pledge to focus on criminals also exactly mirrors Obama’s strategy of targeting violent offenders.

On that note, Trump occasionally praised Obama’s record on immigration, which is decidedly mixed.

On the one hand, Obama strongly supported a legal pathway to citizenship for certain immigrants. On the other, he deported more illegal immigrants than any U.S. president in history.

And while no other issue seemed to rile up Trump supporters more than Mexican immigrants, the numbers don’t necessarily bear out their fears. Migration from Mexico has been flat or on the wane since the 2008 recession, with more Mexicans leaving the U.S. over the last five years than entering it.

New Direction for Asia Pivot On the one hand, Trump’s protectionist stance worries China, America’s number-two trading partner.

On the other, his strident opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade pact that notably excludes China, is a boon to the communist politburo.

The TPP has been the cornerstone of Obama’s so-called pivot of military and economic resources to Asia, the fastest-growing region in the world.

The sweeping trade deal took years of painstaking negotiations among 12 Pacific-Rim nations that together represent 40 percent of the global economy and a third of world trade.

But Congress was already reluctant to pass the little-understood accord, and Trump’s election is likely the nail in the TPP coffin (it also imperils a separate trade agreement with the European Union).

“Once in office, Trump has the executive power to pull out of trade agreements, restart the Keystone pipeline, and bring trade cases against China,” wrote Robert Kahn of the Council on Foreign Relations in a CFR post, though he cautioned

Wall of Resentment While Moscow greeted Trump’s victory with glee, Mexico wasn’t as thrilled.

Credit: Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

President Obama tours the Great Wall during his 2009 visit to China.

SPECIAL REPORT | United States | WD that Trump would still need congressional cooperation to do so.

In recent years, China has flexed its muscles in the region, laying claim to disputed territory in the South and East China Seas. Its assertive behavior alienated smaller Asian nations, giving Obama an opening to strengthen America’s presence in the Pacific.

Trump may reverse Obama’s Asia pivot — which Beijing criticized as a thinly veiled attempt to contain its ambitions — or at least steer it in a new direction. The Philippines had been a linchpin in Obama’s strategy, but with Manila’s brash new president, Rodrigo Duterte, cozying up to Beijing despite the two countries’ territorial disputes, the pendulum may swing back in China’s favor.

“Countries like Vietnam, Myanmar, and the Philippines, uncertain about who to back in the contest for power in the Pacific, will swing massively China’s way, preferring a country that keeps its promises to one that can turn on the pull of an electoral lever,” wrote James Palmer in a Nov. 9 Foreign Policy article. “The strongest U.S. allies, Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan, no longer confident in the U.S. nuclear umbrella, will begin seriously considering other alternatives — like acquiring their own nuclear deterrent, prompting new tensions with China,” he added.

Palmer speculated that this realignment will embolden China; others say Beijing doesn’t want a U.S. retrenchment that could fuel regional instability by sparking a nuclear arms race.

Isaac Stone, a senior fellow with the Asia Society, said Trump’s win is a double-edged sword for China. “Trump’s denigration of the U.S. alliance structure in Northeast Asia would greatly improve Beijing’s military position with regards to Japan, one of its biggest rivals,” he said. “And Trump’s reluctance to criticize China’s human rights abuses delights Beijing, as well as his inexperience in governance.

“And yet, the political elite in Beijing grudgingly preferred a Clinton presidency — for the simple fact that she would have brought stability, and for the ruling Chinese Communist Party, stability is paramount.”

Either way, both China and Russia may engage in a period of gloating over the dangers of democracy. They’ll cite the chaotic U.S. election, which produced an untested president and a deeply divided country, as proof that their authoritarian models offer more stability than Western-style democracy.

CUBA OPENING SLAMMED SHUT? Only Congress can lift the decades-old U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, but by using his executive powers, Obama significantly eased travel and commercial restrictions on the communist island. Because these changes were done via executive action, however, the re-establishment of diplomatic ties between Washington and Havana can be easily undone

by Obama’s successor.

Trump has waffled on whether he would jettison Obama’s historic détente with Cuba.

In September 2015, he said the outreach to America’s former Cold War adversary was “fine” and even should have been stronger.

But at a Miami rally in September, Trump said he would reverse Obama’s rapprochement unless Havana meets U.S. demands for greater religious freedom and the release of political prisoners.

Perhaps anticipating a chill in the relationship, the Cuban government launched five days of military exercises shortly after the U.S. election, though it said the drills weren’t aimed at Trump.

NOTE:

PHOTO: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT

President Obama sits with Cuban President Raúl Castro as members of a U.S. delegation attend an exhibition game between the Cuban National Baseball Team and the Tampa Bay Rays on March 22, 2016, during Obama’s historic visit to the communist island.

FREEZING CLIMATE INITIATIVES The president’s ambitious plans to fight climate change — like many of his policies enacted using executive authority — are at risk under a Trump presidency.

Just four days before the election, the landmark Paris Agreement to curb climate change formally went into effect. Nearly 100 countries, accounting for just over two-thirds of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, have officially joined the accord, which seeks to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) to stave off the worst effects of climate change.

A total of 195 countries made various commitments to scale back the greenhouse gas emissions that scientists say are wreaking havoc on the planet’s weather patterns. Yet even if every nation upholds its Paris promises — which are not legally binding — it still won’t be enough to keep the planet from warming to dangerous levels.

Nevertheless, the deal, hammered out last December, creates a system to monitor nations’ progress toward their goals; seeks to help them transition to cleaner, renewable energy sources like wind and solar; and marks the first time that developing countries such as China agreed to rein in their emissions.

Obama, who pledged to cut U.S. emissions by up to 28 percent by 2025 compared to 2005 levels, was instrumental in getting Chinese President Xi Jinping on board with the agreement.

Key to Obama’s Paris commitments is the Clean Power Plan, a set of Environmental Protection Agency regulations that aim to slash greenhouse gas emissions from power plants by 2030. The controversial plan is still mired in court battles and likely to wind up in the Supreme Court.

Now, Obama’s two signature climate initiatives are in serious jeopardy. Trump has vowed to scrap Obama’s environmental regulations; pull out of the Paris accord; stop all government funding of clean energy projects; increase coal mining; and open up federal lands to oil and gas exploration.

Nathan Hultman, a senior fellow with Brookings, argues that there are limits to what Trump can do (for example, the U.S. cannot legally withdraw from the Paris Agreement for at least four years).

“Most policies enacted by the Obama administration over the past eight years have been regulatory actions and not simple executive orders. This is an important distinction — regulatory actions take years to de-

velop, revise, and finalize,” he wrote in a Nov. 9 Brookings brief, noting that any changes to those policies would invite additional lawsuits. “In addition, barring a change in managerial style, it seems unlikely that Trump’s administration would quickly become a well-oiled machine focused on climate priorities.”

Nevertheless, Trump can severely weaken Obama’s climate policies. By not honoring the pledges the U.S. made in Paris, for instance, he could tamp down enthusiasm among other

nations to comply with the agreement. He could also refuse to defend the Clean Power Plan in court. Trump has tapped Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a leading climate skeptic, to gut EPA regulations that Ebell has long argued are overzealous and strangle economic growth. Both men have repeatedly called climate change a hoax.

Dejected environmentalists are pinning their hopes on the fact that climate change won’t go away. “Donald Trump now has the unflattering distinction of being the only head of state in the entire world to reject the scientific consensus that mankind is driving climate change,” Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, said in a statement.

“Regardless … there are some things Trump can’t change. He can’t change the fact that the world is heating up and we are reaching a tipping point.…The markets and the American people are moving this nation beyond dirty fuels to clean energy, and Donald Trump can’t reverse that tide.”

THE INTANGIBLE CREDIBILITY GAP Obama rode to office on a wave of worldwide adulation after America’s reputation abroad was severely damaged by eight years of a George W. Bush presidency that saw the disastrous Iraq War and a global recession.

In Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere, Obama was revered as America’s first black SEE OBAMA • PAGE 44

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WD | United States

Verdict Still Out U.S. Officials Fear Ramifications of Law That Opens Saudi Arabia to 9/11 Lawsuits

by Brendan L. Smith

I

n the realm of good intentions versus unintended consequences, the controversial law allowing lawsuits against Saudi Arabia by families of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks may rank near the top, with dire predictions of potentially worldwide ramifications for U.S. interests overseas.

In an election year, the emotional appeals of 9/11 families demanding justice for their loved ones on the 15th anniversary of the attacks, coupled with Saudi Arabia’s waning influence on Capitol Hill, resonated with lawmakers. Democrats and Republicans alike overwhelmingly supported the law, which paves the way for nations to be sued in federal court if they’re found to have played a role in terrorist attacks that killed Americans on U.S. soil.

While politically popular, the legislation has been called short-sighted by security officials such as CIA Director John Brennan. Critics say it erodes a hallmark of diplomacy — that foreign governments enjoy immunity from U.S. lawsuits — and could lead to retaliatory measures that open U.S. officials and troops to similar lawsuits abroad.

Some of those concerns may be overblown, while others have yet to materialize since Congress overrode a veto from President Barack Obama for the first time to pass the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), said Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin and an expert on the role of federal courts in the war on terrorism.

“There are certainly countries that would be happy to invoke JASTA to make inroads on U.S. sovereign immunity,” he told The Diplomat. “The harder question is not if there are going to be specific acts of retaliation but whether this is going to be a race to the bottom as far as sovereign immunity protection.

I think that’s too hard to tell now. That’s going to have to play itself out.”

Within hours of JASTA’s passage in September, some senators were already expressing misgivings about their part in the lopsided 97-1 vote, where Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) was the lone voice against the bill. In a CNN town hall interview, Obama said it was “basically a political vote” during an election year, and some members of Congress didn’t even know what was in the bill, which was fast-tracked with little debate. “[S]ometimes you have to do what’s hard, and frankly I wish Congress here had done what’s hard,” Obama said. “If you’re perceived as voting against 9/11 families right before an election, not surprisingly that’s a hard vote for people to take, but it would have been the right thing to do.”

The White House and some members of Congress have floated the idea of tweaking JASTA in a lameduck session, especially if there is international blowback. One possibility would be to craft a narrower version that only permits lawsuits related to the 9/11 attacks. Other lawmakers, however, dismissed the idea of diluting the law, arguing that apoplectic warnings of its repercussions are speculative at this point.

Finding consensus on the issue will also be difficult given congressional frustrations with Saudi Arabia over its recent bombing campaign in Yemen and longstanding accusations that the kingdom helped spread a virulent interpretation of Islam that fueled

8 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | December 2016

Photo: Master Sgt. Adrian Cadiz

A wreath that was placed by President Obama sits at the entrance of the Pentagon Memorial during a 9/11 observance ceremony on Sept. 11, 2014.

the rise of extremist groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (also known as ISIS).

The Saudis’ diminished stature on Capitol Hill was laid bare when lawmakers pushed ahead with the bill despite an intense lobbying campaign by Riyadh. The Saudi government has vigorously denied any wrongdoing in the Sept. 11 attacks and warned that JASTA will further strain bilateral relations. It has also threatened to sell off hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. holdings if U.S. courts try to seize its assets, although such a move would invariably hurt the Saudi economy.

While the Saudi government hasn’t yet taken any retaliatory action, it has warned of “serious unintended consequences that may ensue” because “the erosion of sovereign immunity will have a negative impact on all nations, including the United States.”

The law isn’t specific to the Sept. 11 attacks or to Saudi Arabia, and it potentially could be used to undermine the sovereign immunity of other countries with lawsuits filed in the United States, said Curtis Bradley, a Duke University law professor and member of the State Department’s Advisory Committee on International Law. “Even our closest allies consider it extremely strange and problematic, and they don’t understand why Congress did it,” Bradley told The Diplomat. “It will lead to years and years of court review and allegations of what other countries have done. We don’t usually let lawyers decide our foreign policy.”

The law may not be specifically tailored to the Sept. 11 attacks, but its requirements are narrow in scope as far as terrorist acts on U.S. soil, said Vladeck, who believes the diplomatic fallout from JASTA will be less severe. “It may not be limited to 9/11 in name, but it may be limited to 9/11 in practice,” he said.

While the spirit of the law may be to give 9/11

“

It will lead to years and years of court review and allegations of what other countries have done.

We don’t usually let lawyers decide our foreign policy.

Curtis Bradley

”

professor of law and public policy studies at Duke University

families their day in court, critics say the letter of the law is written too broadly and could invite a titfor-tat escalation abroad. Some countries may view JASTA as an opening to pursue lawsuits in their own courts against American soldiers or diplomats over controversial U.S. policies such as drone strikes in Afghanistan and Pakistan or military funding for Israel, which has been accused of war crimes in the Gaza Strip. “It makes it harder for us to push back when other countries see grounds for weakening sovereign immunity,” Bradley said.

However, the U.S. has few assets in some of the countries that may be most likely to retaliate, such as Syria, Yemen or Libya, so there may be little threat from lawsuits being filed there, Vladeck pointed out.

“There are obviously some countries we don’t care about that might do that anyway,” he said. “It’s trickier where there are countries we do care about.”

For instance, if major partners such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia decide to enact their own versions of JASTA, they could potentially target billions of dollars in U.S. assets.

Some U.S. allies already have raised concerns about the law, with the European Union opposing

JASTA before the veto override. In a leaked cable to President Obama, the bloc stated that JASTA “would be in conflict with fundamental principles of international law and in particular the principle of State sovereign immunity.” If the bill became law, the EU asked that the Obama administration stay any lawsuits under an amendment included in JASTA. In a Sept. 28 New York Times article, Vladeck noted that the little-noticed provision was added to preserve the executive branch’s purview over foreign policy. “[It] allows the attorney general to intervene in the lawsuits and get a judge to stay any settlement as long as there are continuing discussions with the Saudis about a possible resolution,” the article said. But such a move would likely face opposition from 9/11 families and the Saudis themselves, who may view any negotiation as a tacit acknowledgement of guilt.

One lawsuit against Saudi Arabia was filed just two days after the passage of JASTA by a woman whose husband was killed in the Pentagon plane crash, and a lawsuit by hundreds of victims’ families will be reworked after it had been stymied by protections for Saudi Arabia under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which the U.S. enacted in 1976 to grant countries broad immunity from lawsuits.

JASTA amends that act. Now, victims of a terrorist attack on U.S. soil by a designated terrorist organization may sue a foreign country if that country’s officials or agents played a role in the attack while acting in their official capacity. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers in the Sept. 11 attacks were Saudi nationals, but a 2004 report by the 9/11 commission “found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded” al-Qaeda.

Legal experts say it may be very difficult or

Credit: U.S. Navy Photo by Photographer’s Mate 2nd Class Jim Watson

A fireman stands amid the rubble of Ground Zero in New York following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

impossible for the plaintiffs to prove otherwise or uncover the role of any junior Saudi officials in the attacks. While some Saudi charities and wealthy citizens have been accused of funneling money to al-Qaeda, the Saudi government as a whole most likely wouldn’t be liable for their actions under JASTA. Many 9/11 families have argued for the release of 28 classified pages of a preliminary congressional inquiry into the terrorist attacks, believing the Saudi government would

be implicated. But Riyadh also has long argued for the release of those records, saying it would be vindicated. Under pressure, the Obama administration declassified the document in July, which listed possible contacts and funding from Saudi officials to some of the Sept. 11 hijackers, although there was no clear-cut evidence of wrongdoing. The Obama administration said it stood by the findings of the 9/11 commission that the Saudi government and high-level officials weren’t involved in the plot.

Experts such Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) say that while Saudi Arabia is a problematic ally, it is an indispensable one nonetheless. “It is easier to focus on the fact it is an Islamic state at a time when extremist threats like ISIS, al-Qaida and the Taliban are at top of mind, than to focus on the complicated security issues in the Gulf region and the fact the U.S. is critically dependent on Saudi Arabia both in dealing with Iran and in fighting terrorism in the region from which it draws most of its strength,” Cordesman wrote in a recent CSIS brief.

Regardless, JASTA may end up being a hollow victory for 9/11 families who already have spent more than a decade lobbying for the legislation. Even if the plaintiffs win a verdict against Saudi Arabia, Congress passed a revised version of the bill that “makes it impossible for them to collect any damages, because no provision in JASTA allows a federal court to compel a foreign sovereign to turn over assets to satisfy the judgment,” Vladeck explained in an interview with the Council on Foreign Relations.

Since Saudi assets can’t be seized, the Saudi government may not feel compelled to defend itself in court, especially if there are extensive

requests for documents and depositions of Saudi officials, Vladeck told us.

He argues that because Congress watered down the original version of the bill, the final result is a largely symbolic gesture to 9/11 families that needlessly provokes a key U.S. ally. “A bill that was designed to do something controversial but meaningful is instead just going to do something controversial and toothless,” he said.

While some members of Congress have talked about revisiting JASTA after the election, there may be little appetite to reignite the controversy, and the damage has already been done to U.S.-Saudi relations, Bradley said.

“I think Congress has already crossed that bridge. They don’t mind creating a more fraught relationship with Saudi Arabia,” he said.

While Riyadh fumes, Washington worries and 9/11 families navigate unchartered legal terrain, the only winners of the drawnout battles ahead may be the trial lawyers. “[JASTA] is great for lawyers,” Bradley said.

“It invites a lot of litigation and discovery and fighting over it in court, but normally we don’t try to deal with countries in that litigationoriented way.” WD Brendan L. Smith (www.brendanlsmith.com) is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

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WD | Middle East

Nuclear Limbo What Will Trump Do to Historic Accord with Iran?

by Larry Luxner

D

uring his vitriolic campaign for president, Donald Trump threatened to build a “huge” wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and make Mexico pay for it. Now that he won, Trump — in typical vague, vacillating fashion — concedes that “certain” parts of his widely hyped 2,000-mile barrier might not actually be an imposing wall, but a mere fence.

Likewise, Trump advocated deporting all 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States.

But with his inauguration less than two months away, now he says he’ll target only those with criminal records (the same strategy President Obama has employed for years).

And in a similar vein, the same man who promised to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act on his first day in office has since backed off — indicating he’ll keep several of Obamacare’s most popular features.

It makes one wonder what fate has in store for Obama’s biggest foreign policy achievement of all: a nuclear agreement with Iran that Trump scorned as “disastrous” and “the worst deal ever negotiated in the history of the United States.”

The accord, finalized in July 2015, relaxes U.S. and European sanctions against Iran in exchange for reductions in Iran’s nuclear arsenal along with verifiable pledges that its nuclear activities are for peaceful purposes only. Among other things, the highly technical Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) freed up hundreds of millions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets, allowed Iran to resume selling its oil on the global market and lifted banking sanctions. In return, Tehran had to relinquish 98 percent of its nuclear material, dismantle thousands of centrifuges, deactivate a major plutonium reactor and allow international inspections of its nuclear facilities.

While Iran has largely complied with the terms of the deal, detractors in Washington complain that the regime continues to step up its ballistic missile testing and military support for Hezbollah and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Meanwhile, critics in Tehran say the U.S. has been slow to lift sanctions and the agreement hasn’t produced tangible economic gains. Supporters of the landmark agreement, however, point out that it was never going to be a magic bullet for Iran’s economic woes, nor would it cover all areas of disagreement between Iran and the West. They say JCPOA has largely done what it set out to do: significantly prolong the time it would take Iran to build a nuclear weapon.

Speaking at a Nov. 14 news conference, Obama expressed hope that Trump would stay the course and not fix something that essentially ain’t broke.

“My suspicion is that when the president-elect comes into office, he will look at the facts,” Obama told reporters, noting that abandoning the deal now would unleash Iran’s nuclear capabilities while forcing Washington to sanction European allies that continue honoring the accord. “When you are not responsible for it, you can call it a terrible deal. When you are responsible … you are more likely to look at the facts.”

With expert opinions not held in high regard as of late — especially after an election outcome that almost no pollster predicted — The Washington Diplomat consulted several foreign policy experts anyway to try to gauge where this particular battle is headed.

“It’s really hard to have a detailed discussion about this,” said one such scholar, Aaron David Miller. “The idea of coming to grips months before Mr. Trump’s inauguration based on a series of campaign statements

10 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | December 2016

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry straightens a stack of papers at the Palais Coburg Hotel in Vienna, Austria, on Jan. 16, 2016, after signing certificates and waivers to lift sanctions against Iran as part of the landmark deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action aimed at curbing Tehran’s nuclear program.

“

Photo: U.S. State Department

Those of us who fought very hard to get this agreement through Congress last year will fight very hard to persuade Trump and Congress that the nuclear deal is working, and that it should not be jeopardized. This agreement will stave off the prospect of Iran having a nuclear weapon for at least 15 years.

Barbara Slavin

”

acting director of the Atlantic Council’s Future of Iran Initiative

about what he intends to do or not do in the Middle East is at best a very fraught enterprise.”

Miller, vice president of new initiatives at the Wilson Center, spent 24 years at the State Department and served six secretaries of state as an advisor on ArabIsraeli peace talks. He suggests that nothing earth-shattering is likely to happen on Jan. 20, 2017.

“As much as Trump has called it a disaster and criticized Obama, [Secretary of State John] Kerry and anyone else who seems foolish enough to have embraced this approach, there is no reliable indicator that he intends to fundamentally and dramatically alter the U.S.Iranian relationship, or the accord itself,” Miller told us in a phone interview.

On Nov. 16, barely a week after Trump’s shocking victory over Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton, the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) issued a report, “Maximizing the Opening with Iran: How President Trump Can Secure American Interests in the Middle East.”

The NIAC study — endorsed by 75 national security experts — offers policy recommendations on Iran policy, including the fight against the Islamic State, the bilateral relationship with Iran, the rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia, the stabilization of Iraq and Afghanistan, supporting human rights in Iran and ensuring effective sanctions relief.

NIAC President Trita Parsi says the agreement, painstakingly negotiated by the Obama administration along with the United Kingdom, France, China, Russia and Germany in an arrangement known as P5+1, is now under severe threat.

“The Iran deal was already on fragile ground, and frankly, even a Hillary Clinton victory would have increased its vulnerability,” Parsi wrote Nov. 11 in Foreign Policy. “But with Trump, its fate is arguably more complicated than it would have been with a victory by Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz — two Republican senators who, unlike Trump, promised to tear the deal apart on their first day on the job.”

The incoming 45th president has “only” promised to renegotiate the deal — which Parsi calls “a completely unrealistic option.” Yet even if he intends to sabotage it, according to the NIAC chief, his options to do so directly are limited because of the involvement of the other four countries who continue to praise the accord and Iran’s compliance with it.

More specifically, he says, Washington cannot unilaterally void or amend the agreement without violating international law. Even if it could, he argues, any effort to kill or even renegotiate the accord would isolate not Iran but the United States itself.

“Trump’s far more likely path to unravel the deal would be to add political risk to any Western companies contemplating entry into the Iranian market,” he said — a market that businesses already hesitate to deal with.

“By instilling doubt about the durability of the deal, businesses will tend to avoid entering Iran in order to evade the cost and embarrassment of having their deals sabotaged by new potential sanctions,” Parsi wrote.

“In such a scenario, Iran would not be able to reap any economic benefits from a nuclear deal that was technically still in effect. Disappointment in the agreement is See ir an • page 46

EXCLUSIVE | Cover Profile | WD

Cuba Romance on Ice Havana Basks in Renewed Ties with Washington, But Will Honeymoon Last?

by Larry Luxner

T

his month marks two years since President Obama and his Cuban counterpart, Raúl Castro, surprised the world with their announcement — at noon on Dec. 17, 2014 — that Washington and Havana would restore full diplomatic ties after over 50 years of enmity.

But the budding friendship between these two former Cold War adversaries could come to a screeching halt if Donald Trump gets his way.

Just as he has threatened to gut Obamacare, pull the United States out of NAFTA, rip up the multilateral Iran nuclear agreement and end all U.S. efforts to combat climate change (see related stories on pages 4 and 10), the president-elect has also vowed to reverse his predecessor’s rapprochement with Cuba and stop Americans from traveling there — as they’ve begun to do in large numbers since the relaxation of arcane U.S. laws dating from the early 1960s.

In September, Trump, at a campaign stop in Miami, outlined his Cuba policy, promising to roll back one of the president’s signature foreign policy achievements.

“All of the concessions Barack Obama has granted the Castro regime were done through executive order, which means the next president can reverse them, and that I will do unless the Castro regime meets our demands,” he told an adoring crowd of hardline Cuban exiles. “Not my demands. Our demands,” he added, referring to longstanding U.S. calls for Cuba to release political prisoners and ensure religious freedom.

Would the billionaire real estate developer actually follow up on those threats?

We put that question to José Ramón Cabañas Rodríguez, who arrived in Washington in 2012 as chief of the Cuban Interests Section but officially became Cuba’s “embajador” on Sept.

17, 2015, once relations had been upgraded.

“Technically speaking, any president, whoever it is, can reverse any executive action taken by the previous president,” said Cabañas. “If we take one subject, let’s say travel, companies are involved now that weren’t involved before. Remember that a few years ago, when tourism arrivals were not even comparable, a few politicians from South Florida essentially tried to reverse the advances, but politically speaking, they couldn’t deliver because the majority of South Florida’s population now supports travel to Cuba.”

Pushed further about what President Trump might do or not do come Jan.

Photo: Lawrence Ruggeri

“

Some people think we’re moving too slow, others think we’re too fast. But for me, the core issue is the way we have been able to talk with respect.

José Ramón Cabañas Rodríguez ambassador of Cuba to the United States

20, 2017, Cabañas declined to say.

“We are not in the business of speculating what could happen,” he told The Washington Diplomat in our meeting, which took place barely a week after one of the most divisive, bitter presidential campaigns in U.S. history. “We’ve been through this process 12 times. We’re used to it.”

Curiously, not once in our hour-long conversation did Cabañas utter Donald Trump’s name. It’s clear that Cuba’s ambassador to the United States didn’t get where he is by speaking off the cuff or getting himself in trouble.

What’s also clear is that Cabañas, in his first-ever exclusive interview with any U.S. media outlet, relishes his role as Cuba’s envoy to the United States at a pivotal time in bilateral history. After all, the 55-year-old diplomat was born in 1961 — only two years after Fidel Castro’s rise to power and the same year as the Bay of Pigs fiasco — so in some sense, Cabañas has waited his entire professional life for this moment.

“It was Dec. 17, 2014, when both President Obama and President Raúl

”

Castro made the announcement at 12 noon. They surprised everybody,” he said. “We were a little bit surprised too, as we were not involved in the secret negotiations.”

Those delicate talks, in which the Vatican played a key role, culminated in the release of Alan Gross — a Maryland resident and subcontractor for the U.S. government who had been imprisoned in Cuba for five years on subversion charges — in exchange for the return of three convicted Cuban spies serving long sentences in U.S. jails.

That paved the way to begin the long process of repairing relations between the two countries, which are separated in the Florida Strait by only 90 miles of ocean.

On May 29, 2015, the State Department finally took Cuba off its list of state sponsors of terrorism where it had been for 33 years, and on July 20 that year, Cabañas and his staff triumphantly raised the Cuban flag over their stately mission on 16th Street, which up until that point had officially been an annex of the Swiss Embassy.

Less than a month later, the Stars and Stripes went up over the six-story U.S. mission along Havana’s Malecón waterfront at an emotional ceremony led by Secretary of State John Kerry.

Historic Rapprochement Since then, there’s been a flurry of developments, including Obama’s historic trip to Havana — the first by a sitting president since Calvin Coolidge visited Cuba in 1928 — and a loosening of restrictions on commerce, trade and travel with the communist island. For example, the changes now allow Americans to use U.S.-issued credit and debit cards on the island and companies to invest in certain small businesses in Cuba and even ship building materials to private Cuban companies.

No longer are Cuban diplomats prevented from traveling more than 25 miles from Washington, D.C. (a similar restriction also applied to U.S. diplomats in Havana). Cabañas may now travel wherever he wants and meet anyone he wishes to meet.

“At the personal level, the most important change in the last two years is that we have been able to talk to the United States with respect and reciprocity,” the ambassador said. “Before that, we were talking only with the State Department. Now we talk with the departments of energy, education, transportation, you name it. There were See c u ba • page 12 THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | December 2016 | 11

bañas noted. an expression of the belief And that’s not all, accord- that the embargo is a failed ing to the ambassador. policy,” said Cabañas, cit“We will sign an MOU on ing Cuban government estiContinued • page 11 law enforcement. It’s a con- mates that the “blockade,” as versation that encompasses it’s known in Cuba, has cost 12 U.S. agencies and several the island’s economy more also restrictions on our move- Cuban institutions,” he said. than $750 billion since its ment. We had to not only no- “There are now three con- inception. “We believe that tify the State Department of tracts for management of the executive power has the our travel plans but also ask Cuban hotels, and we’re now capacity to make changes, for permission. And in my waiting for a fourth license. but some fundamental limits case, that permission was There’s also an MOU on have to be removed by Connot always given. And dur- health care. What we can do gress.” ing the Bush administration, in health is endless.

Indeed, despite the hispermissions were not even “Other countries have toric détente that Obama has requested; our diplomats taken several years [to do] orchestrated, the trade emstayed inside the Beltway all what we have done in a bargo remains firmly in place the time.” few months,” Cabañas said. and, thanks to the HelmsCabañas also noted the “Some people think we’re Burton Act of 1996, can only signing of 13 memoranda moving too slow, others be repealed by Congress. of understanding, includ- think we’re too fast. But for America’s decades-old ing the establishment of di- me, the core issue is the way policy of economically isorect flights between the two we have been able to talk lating the island has failed to countries (also see “Cuba with respect.” oust the communist regime NOTE: Although effort is made of power mistakes Opens Itself toevery American from and in hasspelling been a and On to thatassure front,your the ad U.S.is free it isWon’t ultimately upatosymbolically the customer to make the final proof.

Travelers,content But Change source of worldwide deritook imporCome Overnight” in the Oc- tant step Oct. 26 when — for sion. A growing number of 2016faxed issue).changes will be Americanssubsequent has also begun themade first time years it advertiser, The tober first two at in no25 cost to— the changes In billed fact, U.S. to are question the usefulness abstained in the U.N.Signed Gen- ads will be at travel a ratetoofCuba $75 per faxed alteration. considered approved. is up 80 percent this year eral Assembly’s annual ritual of what many consider to be an outdated relicad. of the compared to 2015.

Thethis ease adcondemning U.S. trade Please check carefully.theMark any changes to your with which average Ameri- embargo, instead of cast- Cold War. But Congress is cans can now go online and ing its traditional “no” vote. unlikely to lift the embargo Photo: Larry Luxner If the ad is correct sign and fax to: (301) 949-0065 needs changes book $99 flights via JetBlue, Previous votes had always any time soon. A core group Santiago Martínez, owner of the Hostal La Caridad guest house in downFrontier and American from delivered lopsided victories of Republicans and Demo- town Santa Clara, is one of a growing number of Cuban entrepreneurs The Washington Diplomat South Florida to nearly a (301) for the933-3552 Cuban side, with only crats, backed by influential who have entered the private sector since President Rául Castro began dozen Cuban cities is a far a few countries — generally anti-Castro voters in Florida, introducing economic reforms in 2009. cry from just a few years ago, Israel and a handful of Pa- still strongly back the emApproved __________________________________________________________ when such travel was un- cific microstates — siding bargo and refuse to reward a open the state-run economy, diplomats in Washington, Changes ___________________________________________________________ thinkable and prohibitively with the United States on the regime that they say deprives Cuba’s one-party system and that the U.S. have a pres___________________________________________________________________ Cuba’s 11 million people of continues to dictate many ence in Havana. End that issue. expensive. aspects of life on the island. and relations will only get “This exercise takes place democracy and freedom.

“And by the beginning of Political opposition is stifled worse.”

While there has been December, we will have di- year after year. The fact the Eaton told us that even rect flights to Havana,” Ca- U.S. abstained this time is tepid progress in prying or jailed. Independent media is muzzled, as is access under the Obama administo the internet. And despite tration, the federal governhigh-quality universal health ment — mainly through care and education, Cubans USAID — spends millions of struggle to get by on mea- taxpayer dollars each year to ger salaries, state-run enter- support the island’s internal prises are woefully inefficient political opposition, adding and staples like milk are still tension to the bilateral relationship. rationed.

“Donald Trump is an Yet Cabañas blasted what he called the hypocrisy of unknown quantity when it successive U.S. presidents for comes to Cuba. Maybe he’ll punishing Cuba while enjoy- get that elusive better deal, ing close relations with mon- one that both improves diparchies and authoritarian lomatic relations and forces governments — he wouldn’t Cuba to improve human single any out by name — rights,” Eaton said. “Or maythat have far worse human be it will be a disaster and Trump will usher in a new rights records than his own.

LEARN MORE “For years, the United era of hostility.”

States maintained perfectly good ties with many coun- Fraught History tries that don’t have elecFor Cabañas, the presitions, with countries lacking dent-elect is only the latest human rights. Some of these U.S. politician to appear on countries not only don’t have the world stage since Fidel freedom of the press, they Castro, now 90, took power MIDDLE SCHOOL don’t have press at all, and back in 1959 in the name of you’re not concerned about the Cuban revolution. Before HIGH SCHOOL • COLLEGE that. When you talk about then, Cuba spent much of foreign policy, you have to the early 20th century as a be consistent.” “neo-colony” of the United Tracey Eaton is a promi- States under a series of dicnent Cuba expert who for tators, culminating with the years served as Havana bu- corrupt Batista regime in the reau chief for the Dallas 1950s.

Morning News.

The armed rebellion led “If the U.S. and Cuba ever by Fidel and his brother Raúl want to resolve their differ- along with Ernesto “Che” ences, they’ve got to com- Guevara and other revolumunicate. They’ve got to get tionary heroes managed to to know each other and try overthrow Batista on Jan. 1, to understand their differ- 1959 — just two and a half ences,” he said. “That’s why years before Cabañas was it’s important that Cuba have born in the coastal city of

Cuba

I N T E R NAT I O NA L LEADERSHIP

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12 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | December 2016

Matanzas, about 100 kilometers east of Havana.

A 1983 graduate of Havana’s Raúl Roa García Higher Institute of International Relations, Cabañas joined Cuba’s Foreign Service the following year and was eventually posted to Canada.

After running the Foreign Ministry’s Division of Cuban Residents Abroad and Consular Affairs for eight years, he was named Cuba’s ambassador to Austria, with accreditation to Croatia, Slovenia and the international organizations in Vienna.

Cabañas returned to Havana in 2005 as director of the Foreign Ministry’s Division for Document Management, and in 2009 he received a doctorate in political sciences from the University of Havana. That same year, he was named deputy minister of foreign affairs — a post he held until his transfer to Washington in 2012.

As a student of history, Cabañas has a deep sense of the complex relationship between Cuba and the United States — one with a painful history despite the two countries’ shared love of baseball and other cultural affinities.

“For all those years, we were not exactly a partner of the United States,” he said.

“Our market was open to any product coming from the U.S., but we never had the capacity to play as an equal.

In fact, our revolution wasn’t against the United States, but only to change the status quo in Cuba. Politicians talk a lot about human rights and communism, but even before Fidel visited the United States in April 1959 to explain the situation, people here were already plotting against him to defeat the revolution.

“Back in 1959, you never found anyone talking about human rights. Even civil rights was a bad word at that time. It was simply because the Cuban revolutionary government was talking with its own voice, and not following commands coming from Washington,” Cabañas said.

“At some point, I have promised to publish a book about all the arguments for not having better relations with Cuba,” he told us. “In the early ’60s, we couldn’t have better relations because of our links with the Soviet Union. In the ’70s, it was the Cuban presence in Africa.

We were put on the State Department terrorist list in 1982 without any evidence that we supported terrorism; it was simply because Ronald Reagan was paying back the CANF [Cuban American National Foundation] for the votes they had provided.”

In the ’80s, according to Cabañas, the U.S. government came up with new excuses why it could not have diplomatic ties with his

country.

“Yes, Cuba supported the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, but today they’re in power. Cuba supported the FMLN in El Salvador, and they’re the ruling party today.”

Even after the Soviet Union collapsed, Cuba remained a communist bastion on America’s doorstep — and a thorn in Washington’s side. Fidel Castro, in fact, took great pride thumbing his nose at the Yankee government that he says tried and failed to assassinate him multiple times.

shifting attituDes Today, however, times have changed in both Cuba and the U.S. (though Fidel, despite constant reports of his imminent death, is still kicking at age 90).

As home to the world’s largest Cuban exile community, South Florida was once the epicenter of violent opposition to the Castro regime. The 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion was hatched from Miami, as was the bombing of a Cuban jetliner off the coast of Barbados in 1976 that left 73 people dead.

Yet just as images of vintage American cars parked in front of Havana’s elegant Hotel Nacional don’t reflect the real Cuba, scenes of old men in guayaberas playing dominoes in Maximo Gomez Park or plotting the next revolution at the nearby Versailles Restaurant in Little Havana don’t reflect today’s Miami, says Cabañas, who’s been there several times.

“Miami is different than it was in the ’60s and ’70s. As head of the consular services, I visited Miami the same way I visited Madrid, and I’ve witnessed how Miami has changed,” he said. “I have many friends there from those years.”

Part of the reason for the change is that a new generation of Cuban-Americans, who were never exposed to Castro’s takeover of Cuba, are less averse to engagement with the

great friends? It’s hard to have a friendship without understanding history, values and customs. There’s nothing like culture to help each country walk in the other’s shoes.”

cuba at a Glance National Day: Jan. 1, 1959 (Liberation Day)

GDP growth 1.3 percent (2014 estimate)

Location Caribbean, island between the Caribbean sea and the north atlantic ocean, 150 km south of key west, fla.

Unemployment 2.4 percent (2015 estimate)

PraCtiCaL reLationshiP

Population below poverty line n/a

Cuba and the United States are unlikely to become the best of friends any time soon.

Nevertheless, Cabañas said there are plenty of areas of practical cooperation that would benefit both sides.

He said ending the embargo would enable both nations to cooperate far more closely on issues like environmental protection, predicting hurricanes, avoiding oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico, even fighting terrorism.

And of course, U.S. multinationals are chomping at the bit to get into a market that’s essentially been closed off to them for 55 years.

“American companies feel they’re missing out. All ports in the southeastern U.S. are looking to Mariel as an opportunity,” said Cabañas, referring to the billion-dollar container terminal and industrial-free zone just west of Havana. “Mariel is not a dream; in roughly three years, we went from a plan to a reality. The Panamanians finished the expansion of their canal and now post-Panamax ships call at U.S. ports. All of them are eager to do business with Mariel and to invest in the economic zone surrounding Mariel. How would you explain to all those people that they cannot do business with us?”

Another industry that would thrive in a post-embargo Cuba is biotechnology.

Roswell Park Cancer Institute, based in Buffalo, N.Y., is partnering with Cuba’s Center of Molecular Immunology to develop a therapeutic lung cancer vaccine. Roswell Park is now awaiting FDA approval to conduct an

Capital havana Population 11.1 million (July 2016 estimate) Ethnic groups white 64.1 percent, mestizo 26.6 percent, black 9.3 percent (2012 estimate)

Industries Petroleum, nickel, cobalt, pharmaceuticals, tobacco, construction, steel, cement, agricultural machinery, sugar National flag of Cuba

GDP (purchasing power parity) $128.5 billion (2014 estimate)

GDP per-capita (PPP) $10,200 (2010 estimate) sourCe: Cia worLD faCtbook

regime than their elders are. Another reason is that people-to-people interactions are on the rise.

Some 300,000 Cuban-Americans visit the island annually, and roughly 70,000 Cubans have visited the United States.

“We have so much back and forth now, with cultural exchanges, university exchanges and people-to-people travel. Many CubanAmericans are now legal advisors for companies trying to do business in Cuba,” Cabañas said. “We have to go by statistics. You have seen how Cuban-Americans vote, and what they think about the embargo and bilateral ties with Cuba. They’re pretty similar to what average Americans think. And among those 35 and younger, the numbers are even more pronounced. So if that’s what the majority thinks, why don’t politicians go along?”

One reason is that opposition to the Castro regime was traditionally a bipartisan cause, with Democrats such as Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey joining their GOP col-

leagues — notably Florida Republicans like Sen. Marco Rubio, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart — to block any relaxation of the travel ban or the embargo itself.

But even among top-level U.S. officials, there’s been a marked turnaround in recent years.

Cuban-born Carlos Gutierrez, who as secretary of commerce during the Bush era was a proponent of tough sanctions against Cuba, did an about-face after Obama’s surprise announcement in 2014 and now advocates ending the embargo immediately and forging business ties with the same regime he once condemned.

“Many of us have been involved in trying to take U.S. businesses to Cuba,” said Gutierrez, chairman of the Meridian International Center Board of Trustees. “But now we need to lift our expectations and have not just a transactional relationship where we sit down and negotiate. Why don’t we shoot for being

see c u ba • Page 44

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WD | Europe

Black Day for Women Controversial Abortion Law Tests Limits of Poland’s Conservative Government

by Karin Zeitvogel

Polish women don black during an Oct. 3 demonstration in Warsaw, boycotting jobs and classes as part of a nationwide strike to protest a legislative proposal that would have virtually banned all abortions in Poland.

I

n October, tens of thousands of Polish women donned black outfits and took to the streets of Warsaw and other cities to protest a draft law initially supported by the rightwing government that would have banned virtually all abortions in the country.

Their passionate public display of solidarity worked. The parliament, along with the ruling Law and Justice Party (PiS), backed away from the controversial proposal, which would’ve made all abortions illegal unless the mother’s life was at risk.

The bill was submitted to the Sejm (parliament) by a conservative Roman Catholic civic group, Stop Abortion, in an effort to make Poland’s already tough anti-abortion laws even more stringent. If the bill had become law, it would’ve been illegal to terminate a pregnancy caused by rape or incest.

Not only that, but the law called for doctors who facilitate an illegal abortion and women who seek one to be jailed for up to five years. Even the Catholic Church, a powerful voice in the religiously conservative nation, said it could not support locking women up for having an abortion.

The about-face by the ruling party was “a humiliating climbdown,” according to the Guardian’s Christian Davies.

“PiS members who had referred the legislation to the committee less than two weeks ago threw it out,” he wrote.

Photo: Cinematographer / Shutterstock.com

Poland Catches Nationalist Fever PiS swept into power in 2015 on a wave of nationalist sentiment that mirrored the populist debates raging across the continent (and here in the U.S.).

The former Soviet republic had been a poster-child of success for the European Union since joining the bloc in 2004. Poland enjoyed sound fiscal management and impressive economic growth despite an EU-wide slowdown.

Poles championed EU enlargement and, in turn, the bloc lavished them with infrastructure funds and other assistance.

This progress, however, wasn’t enough to sway many older, rural voters who feared a liberal erosion of traditional Polish values and complained of being left behind by globalization. A fervent backlash against migrants and refugees, diktats from Brussels and culture wars over issues such as gay rights helped propel PiS to an ironclad majority in parliament.

But in trying to push through its conservative agenda, PiS has come under fire for gutting constitutional checks and balances, trying to muzzle

the media, needlessly expanding surveillance powers and pulling away from EU democratic norms.

EU officials were closely watching to see how far Poland’s abortion law would go. Even PiS officials were forced to admit they may have gone too far. Jarosław Gowin, the minister of science and higher education, said that the protests “caused us to think and taught us humility,” the AP reported.

Hollow Victory?

Despite the victory for women’s rights advocates, the current abortion law is not much better. For the past 23 years, women in Poland have only been able to terminate a pregnancy — legally — if a serious birth defect was detected in the baby, if they had been raped, if the baby was conceived in an incestuous relationship or if the mother’s life was in danger by giving birth. And even then they could still only terminate within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.

“This proposed law was an affront to all women, but it especially hurt poor women,” Polish academic Justyna Wlodarczyk told The Washington

14 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | December 2016

Diplomat. “If you work and are reasonably well off, it’s fairly easy to get good health care, contraception, even abortion services like the morning-after pill in Poland. Or, for about 500 euros, you can get a bus trip to Slovakia or somewhere else, have an abortion in a clinic and come home. But poor women can’t afford abortion tourism.

They also don’t have good health care, including prenatal examinations during pregnancy. So they might not find out that there’s a problem with their baby until it’s too late. It’s not easy in Poland to raise a disabled or very sick child. The benefits are very low and there’s no care infrastructure or support to fall back on.”

At the same time that the antiabortion law was brought before lawmakers, a different law, proposed by another civic group, was submitted.

That law sought to liberalize abortion in Poland, but it was quickly shelved

by PiS, while the draconian law, proposed by Stop Abortion, sailed through to the next phase.

“All of this happened within days, and just as quickly, when women got wind of what was going on in the Sejm, a movement arose and, driven

by social media, grew to huge proportions,” said Wlodarczyk, who is currently in the United States on a Fulbright scholarship.

A news report on EUobserver.com said the spark that lit the flame under the mass protests was a social media post by actress Krystyna Janda — one of late Polish film director Andrzej Wajda’s muses. Janda recalled the demonstrations staged by women in Iceland in 1975 to protest wage discrimination. Nine in 10 Icelandic women boycotted work, refused to cook and left their children with husbands, uncles or brothers for a day.

The impact of their protest was huge.

“Iceland’s men were barely coping,” Annadis Rúdólfsdóttir wrote in the Guardian, 30 years after the strike. “It was a moment of truth for many fathers who were exhausted at the end of the day.”

Poland took a page from Iceland’s handbook. The symbol of the “czarny” (black) protest was a uterus with one of its fallopian tubes pointing upward, giving the finger. The women held clever, eye-catching placards that read “PiS Off ” and “No Women, No Kraj” — pronounced “cry” but literally translated to “no women, no country” — as they thronged the streets of Warsaw on a rainy Monday.

They threatened to withdraw all their savings from banks. They said they would block the streets of major cities.

Within hours, the bill was dead in the Sejm. The women won, but whether their triumph will usher in long-term gains in the deeply religious nation remains to be seen.

“

Change won’t happen until we get a new government, and that won’t be for at least another three years…. A large proportion of the population supports some restrictions on abortion — just not throwing people in jail.

”

Justyna Wlodarczyk

assistant professor at the University of Warsaw Institute of English Studies

Trump Parallels Polls have shown that three-quarters of Poles back the current, strict abor-

tion laws, which have been around since 1993. In fact, the current rules closely resemble what U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said about abortion while he was on the campaign trail. “I am pro-life. I support that position with exceptions allowed for rape, incest or the life of the mother being at risk,” he said in an op-ed for the Washington Examiner in January 2016.

Trump has since vowed to nominate anti-abortion justices to the Supreme Court to possibly overturn “Roe v. Wade”; sign into law a bill ending “painful late-term abortions”; defund Planned Parenthood “as long as they continue to perform abortions”; support some form of punishment on women if abortion is outlawed (before quickly backtracking on that statement); and make the Hyde Amendment, which bars the use of certain federal funds to pay for abortion, permanent law.

Dr. Willie Parker said he was troubled by Trump’s rhetoric. Parker wrote on the website of Physicians for Reproductive Health, where he is board chair, that, “A Trump presidency will mean that attacks on access to abortion and all other reproductive health services will continue at the federal level and in states all across this country.”

In a Nov. 9 blog post, Polish actress Janda was more dramatic: “The winner is Donald Trump, a man who despises women. Lord, give us strength.”

At the same time, Trump has praised Planned Parenthood for helping millions of women, and he’s been attacked by pro-life groups for not condemning abortion forcefully enough.

Down but not out Meanwhile, Poland’s harsh abortion law may have been shelved, but the debate is far from settled. PiS party leader Jarosław Kaczyński said the initial abortion law was badly formulated and the party needed

time to craft separate, new legislation.

The party’s so-called pro-life law would aim to ensure that “even in pregnancies which are very difficult, when a child is sure to die or be born with severe deformities, women will still give birth so that the child can be baptized, buried and have a name,” Kaczynski explained in an interview in October.

The plan also authorizes a one-time payment of around 1,000 euros to parents of children who are born with a disability or life-threatening illness. The payment is supposed to help further cut the number of abortions in Poland, which, according to the official count, is very low already — fewer than 2,000 in 2014, according to a government tally.

“They’ve missed the point. It’s not about money, and a one-time payment of 1,000 euros won’t go very far at all, anyway. Anyone who’s had a baby knows that that’s a few months’ worth of diapers. And who’s going to define what’s a qualifying disability and what’s not?” Wlodarczyk said.

There were no protests over the new law, and much like the Icelandic women who are still not reaping the wage benefits of their massive work stoppage more than 40 years ago, Polish women are not expecting their abortion laws to be liberalized or changed any time soon.

“Change won’t happen until we get a new government, and that won’t be for at least another three years,” Wlodarczyk said. “And remember, the czarny protest was against an anti-abortion law. I would be surprised to see as much support for liberalizing Poland’s abortion laws. A large proportion of the population supports some restrictions on abortion — just not throwing people in jail.” WD Karin Zeitvogel (@Zeitvogel) is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

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WD | United States

Lame Duck Checklist Congress Has Two Weeks to Wrap Up Agenda Before Trump Takes Over

by James Cullum

J

ust two weeks of legislating remain this year as Republicans prepare to take control of the presidency and both chambers of Congress. What national business will be accomplished during the lame-duck session?

Preventing a government shutdown, imposing sanctions on companies that make deals with Iran and approving $9 billion worth of drugs and medical services for biomedical research are at the top of the short list to finish off the 114th Congress.

Political gridlock has hampered passage of 11 of the last 12 annual spending bills, forcing a series of stopgap measures to keep the government running. The government is currently funded by a continuing resolution that expires Dec. 9, and Republican leaders are eyeing another short-term extension through March 31 to avoid a final budget clash with President Obama.

Initially, some Republicans wanted to pass a massive omnibus bill to lock down spending for a full fiscal year before Hillary Clinton became president. Now that Donald Trump has won, however, they’ll likely punt the debate over $1 trillion in spending proposals into early next year so they can work with the new president to push through GOP budget priorities — among them, ramping up defense spending and cutting domestic programs.

“I think it’s safe to say that most folks did not expect the election to turn out the way it did, especially on the Hill, so people are playing a bit of catchup to account for the new balance of power that will be coming in January,” Molly Reynolds, a fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, told The Washington Diplomat. “Funding the government until March will allow Congress to revisit spending provisions with a Republican president in the White House, so they would have a big chunk of the fiscal year, presumably, funded at lower levels of spending. President Trump would sign that, while President Obama would’ve vetoed it.”

The Defense Department’s must-pass $602 billion Defense Authorization Bill made it through the Senate earlier this year, but the House is currently at an impasse over a provision that Democrats say would allow federal contractors to discriminate against employees for their gender or sexual identity. Obama hasn’t indicated whether he would veto the bill, and as the Associated Press pointed out in a Nov. 14 article, “Now that Trump has been elected, Republicans could beat a temporary retreat, knowing the issue could be revisited next year.”

Also on the spending docket: $220 million to help Flint, Mich., and other cities poisoned by lead-contaminated water systems. In September, Democrats went along with the continuing resolution because Republicans pledged to revisit the issue of Flint in a separate waterprojects bill. Now, Democrats will be pressuring Republicans to keep those promises.

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) also said 16 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | December 2016

At the top of the agenda for the lame-duck Congress will be passing a continuing resolution to keep the government funded after the current CR expires Dec. 9.

Photo: Robert Jones / Pixabay

“

Beyond the Defense Authorization and the continuing resolution, advocates on the right are urging that Congress defer all other action to ‘honor the will of the people’ — leaving any consequential decisions to the new Congress.

Steven Billet

”

Master’s in Legislative Affairs director at the George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management

he wants Congress to vote on the bipartisan 21st Century Cures Act, which would provide $9 billion toward biomedical research and streamline federal approval of drugs and medical devices, as well as the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act, which would provide grants for law enforcement training and increase the number of hospital beds for psychiatric patients.

Ryan was unanimously nominated for a second term as House speaker in mid-November and is expected to win the position despite some grumbling by tea party conservatives (House leadership on both sides of the aisle also remained unchanged). Ryan, who received a visit from President-elect Donald Trump shortly after the real estate mogul’s surprise victory, asked House colleagues in an email to

“hit the ground running as we join forces with the new Trump administration.”

Off the lame-duck agenda: President Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court.

“We still have an open seat, and I expect one of the first things we can expect in January is a new pick for that seat,” Reynolds said.

The sweeping Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact that had been a cornerstone of Obama’s Asia pivot will also be abandoned.

Asia may be sidelined in the lame-duck session, but Iran will be front and center. Congress is likely to renew an expiring bill that would impose economic sanctions on companies that do business with Iran. Hardest hit by the Iran Sanctions Act would be Boeing’s recent $25 billion deal to build airliners for Iran’s national airline.

But overall, a Republican-controlled government will mean a light lame-duck session, according to Steven Billet, director of the Master’s in Legislative Affairs program at the George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management.

“Beyond the Defense Authorization and the continuing resolution, advocates on the right are urging that Congress defer all other action to ‘honor the will of the people’ — leaving any consequential decisions to the new Congress,” Billet said. “As Republican leadership embraces the giddy prospect of one-party rule, the party’s congressional leadership appreciates that their position creates enormous expectations. They have to get this right because there’s nobody to blame after Jan. 20, and President-elect Trump’s positions are either uncertain or at variance with the orthodoxy of congressional leadership.”

Congress is in session until Dec. 16. WD James Cullum is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

United States | WD

Fashion Statement State Department’s ‘Diplomacy By Design’ Examines What Clothes Say About Us

by Anna Gawel

W

hen first lady Michelle Obama bared her toned shoulders in a series of sleeveless dresses, fashionistas around the world took notice. Former first lady Hillary Clinton’s style has evolved from dowdy and dated attire to elegant but understated pantsuits — a seemingly calculated decision to keep the focus on politics and off her wardrobe (though it didn’t do much to help her at the polls). Now all eyes are on incoming first lady Melania Trump, a former model who’s no stranger to designer labels, though her high-priced wardrobe may clash with her husband’s populist message.

While men don’t have to endure the same unremitting scrutiny as women do over their appearance, a president’s choice of tie or an executive’s decision to forgo one altogether conveys distinct messages as well.

“Fashion is everywhere,” said U.S. Protocol Chief Peter Selfridge. “Fashion transcends languages and borders. It speaks volumes without saying a word and is perhaps the single best way to understand a country’s identity and heritage.”

To honor fashion’s sometimes-underappreciated role in what Selfridge called “building bridges,” the State Department’s Protocol Office partnered with Elle magazine for the first-ever “Diplomacy by Design” on Oct. 21. The event featured a panel discussion with fashion industry experts at the Hay-Adams hotel followed by a reception at Blair House that showcased American and international designs. Sponsors included Brooks Brothers and CityCenterDC, whose highend stores include Carolina Herrera, Longchamp and Moncler.

Fashion is increasingly used as a public diplomacy tool. Over the years, various D.C. embassies have hosted fashion or jewelry shows to promote their native designers — among them Estonia, Lebanon, the Philippines and Canada. Diplomats from over 80 countries participated in the State Department event, including a few ambassador wives but also a large number of male envoys. Among them were ambassadors from Belgium, Bulgaria, Cabo Verde, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Mauritius, Mongolia, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Serbia, Somalia, Timor-Leste and Sri Lanka (who donned a striking traditional ensemble from his homeland).

In a video message to the well-dressed audience, Secretary of State John Kerry extolled the virtues of fashion and other cultural traditions to bind people together.

“The clothes we create, the food we eat, the sports we play and the traditions that we honor are all part of a nation’s identity and therefore an integral part of how countries relate to one another,” he said.

“We know that America’s standing in the world isn’t determined solely by political and security policies,” he added. “On many occasions, cultural diplomacy can achieve what traditional diplomacy cannot because it speaks a universal language.”

Kerry said fashion supports a range of lofty goals, from women’s empowerment and environmental sustainability to inclusive economic growth and “the rights of people to be able to earn a decent living.”

In fact, the fashion industry is a global economic engine, generating $1.9 trillion, including $380 billion in the U.S. alone.

Beyond business and building bridges, however, clothes are a practical necessity. After all, we’d be naked

Photo: Daniel Swartz

From left, Elle magazine managing editor Robbie Myers; fashion designer Derek Lam; the Washington Post fashion critic Robin Givhan; and President and CEO of the Council of Fashion Designers of America Steven Kolb lead a panel discussion on fashion at the Hay-Adams hotel as part of the State Department’s “Diplomacy by Design” event.

Photo: Daniel Swartz

U.S. Protocol Chief Peter Selfridge and Elle magazine managing editor Robbie Myers address the “Diplomacy by Design” audience at Blair House, the U.S. president’s guest house complex that contains over 120 rooms and over 60,000 square feet.

without them. Sometimes, though, even when we’re not trying to make a fashion statement, we do.

Apparently, even the humble hat can make waves.

Selfridge recalled the furor that Benjamin Franklin sparked when he presented his credentials to King Louis XVI to become America’s first ambassador to France in 1776.

“Instead of wearing a typical suit bedazzled in medals and jewelry, he wore an ordinary brown suit and a plain brown fur hat — the same one he had on the boat to cross the Atlantic to keep warm,” the protocol chief said. “Turns out he did wear that hat to protect his bald head, but in the worldly court of Marie Antoinette, it endeared him to the French because they were on the cusp of a transition themselves to escape the gilded luxuries and excess of the period.

“The French loved the hat so much in fact that many people started to copy the look on the streets of Paris.

Who knew Benjamin Franklin was our first fashion icon?” Selfridge quipped.

“How we dress is essentially tribal,” said Robbie Myers, editor in chief of Elle, who led the panel discussion. “Fashion is a conversation about women, men, power, sexual mores and cultural values.”

Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs Ann Stock, left, and former U.S. Protocol Chief Capricia Marshall were also both former White House social secretaries.

Myers had just wrapped up Fashion Week in New York. She noted that while the fashion world is still concentrated in four cities — New York, Paris, London and Milan — other cities are catching up (Shanghai and Mumbai, for example, host their own fashion weeks).

Panelist Steven Kolb, president and CEO of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, said designers are expanding into other markets, including Latin America, Asia and Russia.

Fellow panelist Robin Givhan, the Washington Post’s fashion critic, predicted that just as the United States evolved from a country of fashion consumers to one of creators, large-scale clothing manufacturing hubs such as China will eventually make that transition as well.

Designer Derek Lam observed that fashion speaks to a country’s personality. “American fashion correlates to American values,” he said, citing independence, individuality and a lack of pretention.

But American style has also been described as boring by many foreigners. The panelists noted that See Fas hion • page 18 THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | December 2016 | 17

Fashion Continued • page 17

Ambassador of Papua New Guinea Rupa Mulina and his wife Numa Mulina.

Ambassador of Bulgaria Tihomir Stoytchev, left, and Ambassador of Serbia Djerdj Matkovic.

women in particular walk a fine line between looking sophisticated without being overtly sexual, especially in a conservative city such as Washington, D.C Myers recalled attending a conference in France where one of the female panelists wore a low-cut blouse and no bra, while she herself wore a “bullet-proof jacket.”

Afterward, Myers asked several men how they viewed American women. “You girls are so uptight,” one of them told her.

Givhan agreed that American women tend to sacrifice style for respect. “There often seems to be a sublimation of the pleasure and delight in fashion in exchange for being perceived as authoritative and powerful.”

Lam added that “for most Americans, the idea is expressing their brain, expressing their

Designs from 20 nations around the world are showcased at Blair House as part of the State Department’s “Diplomacy by Design” event.

Photo: Daniel Swartz

knowledge and letting that be the calling card for conversation.”

The California-born designer, whose clothing strikes a balance between sleek and smart, called Michelle Obama a “Godsend for promoting fashion.”

He praised the first lady (who wore one of his outfits during a trip to China) for dressing with a “depth of knowledge and appreciation for the occasion,” blending the intellectual with the beautiful.

Talk of Obama naturally led to comments about Hillary Clinton’s wardrobe. Clinton, who in the 1990s was often disparaged for her bulky style, largely sidestepped the issue while running for president by adopting a more modern, tailored look.

Lam said Clinton the candidate “almost found the perfect anonymous quality in which to dress so that policy was really at the forefront of her campaign.”

Vanessa Friedman, writing in a July 2016 piece in the New York Times, said that high-level women often tone down style in favor of substance and “that for a woman to wield power in what was historically a man’s world, she had to pretty much dress like a man — but brighter!”

That trend may be changing, she wrote, pointing to British Prime Minister Theresa May, who openly embraces more daring, feminine fashion choices — including leopard-print kitten heels.

Of course, first ladies and female heads of state aren’t the only ones who worry about what to wear.

Today’s young girls are under tremendous pressure to conform to idealized, often-unattainable physical ideals.

Kosovar Ambassador Vlora Çi-

taku, who wore a stunning blackand-white dress designed by one of her countrymen, asked the panelists about the pressure to look perfect in today’s society.

Lam admitted that he suffers a “crisis of confidence” during his runway shows, where models as young as 17 are dolled up to appear much older. “What am I saying to women? That you have to be 17, 18 or 19 to look good?” Lam mused, conceding that the industry still has a long way to go to accept women of all shapes, sizes, ages and ethnicities.

Of course, women aren’t the only ones under the microscope.

Men are judged on their looks as well. Myers asked what message Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg sends when he shows up to a shareholder’s meeting wearing a hoodie, and whether the tech phenomenon is heralding a shift in how professional men dress.

“It is about comfort but I also think it is about being a disruptor,” Givhan said of Silicon Valley innovators. At the same time, a K Street lawyer “is not looking to disrupt but rather get ahead in the system, so there’s always going to be a place for a suit because of all that it implies,” she said, noting that the traditional suit and tie convey respect and serve “as the language of diplomacy.”

In fact, that suit — along with a bevy of dresses, coats, jewels and accessories — were on display at Blair House, where the U.S. president’s official guest house was transformed into a runway of sorts. Guests even got a glimpse of America’s first “diplomatic uniform.” The colonial-inspired black waistcoat over white pants was designed in the mid-1850s for U.S.

Minister to France John Y. Mason as a compromise between the “simple dress of an American citizen” and the more elaborate uniforms worn by foreign diplomats.

Also spread across the Blair House complex were intricately crafted gowns by designers from Afghanistan, Ecuador, Georgia, Kenya, Singapore, Yemen and various other nations. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s dazzling pin collection was also showcased, as were coats worn by past U.S. presidents, courtesy of Brooks Brothers, which has dressed 39 out of the 44 American presidents.

That included a replica of the overcoat and red cashmere scarf that Barack Obama wore during his 2009 inauguration. Visually, the bulky black coat isn’t much to look at, although it served its purpose when the 44th president had to brave below-freezing temperatures during his swearing-in.

Indeed, the history of Brooks Brothers is as much practical as it is illustrious. In 1861 during the American Civil War, Quartermaster Gen. Chester A. Arthur ordered the company to change the color of the Union Army’s uniform from gray to blue. Why? To distinguish between Confederate soldiers, who also often wore gray, leading to obvious confusion on the battlefield.

Today, fashion may no longer be a matter of life and death, but as Secretary of State Kerry said, it continues to “change our view of the world and the world’s view of us.” WD Anna Gawel (@diplomatnews) is the managing editor of The Washington Diplomat.

At left, models showcase clothes from retailers at CityCenterDC. Photo: Daniel Swartz

Below, ambassador of Sri Lanka Prasad Kariyawasam dons traditional attire.

Ambassador of Kosovo Vlora Çitaku and Embassy of Kosovo counselor Lendita Haxhitasim.

Photo: Daniel Swartz

Above, ambassadors and diplomats from over 80 countries participated in “Diplomacy by Design.”

Wife of the German ambassador Huberta von Voss-Wittig, left, and jewelry designer Joan Hornig.

Photo: Daniel Swartz

Wilson Center President and CEO Jane Harman, left, talks with Elle magazine managing editor Robbie Myers.

From left, Ambassador of Nicaragua Francisco Obadiah Campbell Hooker, his wife Miriam Hooker and Ambassador of Guatemala Marithza Ruiz de Vielman.

18 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | December 2016

Restaurateur Maria Trabocchi, left, and Kerri Larkin of Saks Fifth Avenue.

From left, Ingrid Adomaitis of Carolina Herrera, Ambassador of Cabo Verde José Luis Rocha and his wife Yamile Luque Tamayo Saco Rocha.

Luxury Living A Special Section of The Washington Diplomat

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December 2016

cutline

PHOTO: MELPOMENE/ SHUTTERSTOCK

Retail Therapy

BY STEPHANIE KANOWITZ

From Priceless to Practical, 2016 Gift Guide Offers Stocking Stuffers for Everyone

W

ith a particularly acrimonious election season behind us, we could all use a little extra retail therapy this holiday season. As in years past, we searched the D.C. metro area for some of the most exotic and most useful gifts at various price points.

Need a bottle opener that can fit in a wallet?

Look no further. How about a designer watch that costs more than most cars? Head to the

region’s newest uber luxury location CityCenterDC to get the Cartier timepiece we highlight.

Whatever your preferences for gift giving and receiving, we’ve got you covered.

Happy shopping — and a happy, healthy 2017 from The Diplomat family to yours.

2016 Holiday Gift Guid e

SEE GIFT GUIDE • PAGE 20

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | DECEMBER 2016 | 19

WD | Luxury Living | Gift Guide

Amelee Stud Earrings, $750 Kendra Scott kendrascott.com/amelee-stud-earrings-in-14k-white-gold.html

Bling in the New Year

This jewelry designer is popping up in department and other stores all over town.

These elongated six-sided stud earrings come in 14-karat white, rose or yellow gold.

The middle is filled with conflict-free pave diamonds weighing 0.265 carats.

Cartier Ballon Bleu de Cartier Moonphase Watch $45,000

Marco Bicego Ring $2,220

Liljenquist & Beckstead

Tiny Jewel Box

Tysons Galleria, McLean, Va.

1155 Connecticut Ave., NW

liljenquistbeckstead.com

tinyjewelbox.com/marco-bicego.html Simple and stackable are popular looks for jewelry right now, and this ring nails both. Made with hand-coiled 18-karat yellow-and-white gold, the three bands, which are melded together, create a sandwich effect.

Yellow gold bands on the top and bottom surround a white gold band with pave diamonds weighing 0.13 carats.

This 37-millimeter, 18-karat rose gold watch with two rows of pave bezel diamonds is a classic beauty that’s also trendy because of its rosy hue. It’s perfect for anyone who can pull off timelessness with a modern twist.

Shinola Coin/Card Pouch, $95 1631 14th St., NW shinola.com/coin-card-pouch.html Available in five colors — including this season’s hot reddish purple — the pouch is made of Essex leather with hand-painted edges and a zipper closure. An exterior zipper pocket adds storage space. The pouches are made in Shinola’s Detroit Leather Factory.

Delsey Bastille Lite Carry-on $149



https://shop.delsey.com/ collections/bastille-lite The 70-year-old French luggage maker released its latest hard-side, lightweight luggage in August. Made of Delsey’s exclusive lightweight, durable material, the carry-on case weighs six pounds and features double spinner wheels for extra maneuverability. It includes a split book opening and the main compartment expands.

It’s available in blue, black or pearl gray with silver, gun metal or rose gold finish.

For the Travele r

Tumi Harlow Backpack, $495 Tumi Store at CityCenterDC 1051 H St., NW tumi.com Founded in 1975 by a former Peace Corps volunteer and importer of leather bags from South America, this company has grown from a seller of nylon travel bags to a maker of collections in many materials and for many purposes. One trendy yet functional piece is the Harlow Backpack in metallic camo. Weighing 1.65 pounds and made of textured coated canvas, the bag has a padded zip pocket, media pockets, a jewelry pocket, two pen loops on the inside, a laptop compartment, a zipped main compartment and two additional compartments on the outside.

SEE GIFT GUIDE • PAGE 22

20 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | DECEMBER 2016

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THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | DECEMBER 2016 | 21

WD | Luxury Living | Gift Guide

UA Storm Undeniable II MD Duffle, $44.99



Under Armour Brand House

For the Gym Rat

7977 Tysons Corner, McLean, Va.; 7101 Democracy Blvd., Bethesda, Md. underarmour.com This Under Armour bag is tough. It’s water-resistant with an abrasion-resistant bottom and side panels. There’s a vented pocket for laundry or shoes plus a large zippered pocket and a mesh pocket inside. The increasingly popular UA logo graces the front.

SoulCycle Bike $2,200

CorePower Yoga Black Tag Membership

soul-cycle.com

$155 per month at most locations

Love to spin but can’t always make it to one of the five area SoulCycle locations? Stash one at home — or travel with it like singer Demi Lovato did. Made of coated carbon steel and finished with SoulCycle’s signature yellow hue, you can be sure to burn off all those pumpkin spice lattes you’ve been sipping all season.

CorePower Yoga 10 area locations www.corepoweryoga.com/content/black-tag-membership Whether you’re looking to get started in yoga or to rev up your practice, these studios, which are popping up all over the area, have something for every level. A particularly challenging class is Yoga Sculpt, which combines the use of handheld weights with yoga poses for a muscle-screaming workout.

Mendocino Pool Table $6,995 Great Gatherings Five area locations

Neighborhood Candles, $34 Hudson & Crane

greatgatherings.com/pool-tables/all-pooltables/mendocino-pool-table

1781 Florida Ave., NW

Made by American Heritage Billiards, this 88-inch-long table is made of ornately carved maple and other hardwoods with a coffee finish, 21 ounces of pool table cloth, and matching loop and tassel leather pockets. Game on.

These soy-based candles feature the names of D.C. neighborhoods and burn for about 60 hours. Call or stop in to find out which neighborhoods are available.

hudsonandcrane.com/thelittlethings

For the Host an d Hostess

Ekibo Basket, $49 Room & Board 1840 14th St., NW roomandboard.com/catalog/accessories/vases-and-decorative/ekibo-basket This basket is hand-woven in Uganda as part of the Blessing Basket Project, through which artisans receive a “prosperity wage” that is at least two and a half times the fair trade wage. Made from raffia palms and banana leaf stalks, the artists use a coil technique to make graphic patterns. It takes about two days to make one basket, which are available in three colors.

22 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | DECEMBER 2016

Gift Guide | Luxury Living | WD

Loft Unicorn Sweater $89.50

For the in Woman fe Your Li

loft.com/unicorn-sweater/420660

Jo Malone London Orange Bitters Cologne, $135 for 100 milliliters Jo Malone Boutique 996 I St., NW

This navy sweater embroidered with a light-blue unicorn outline in the center is fun and stylish. Made of cotton, viscose, nylon and wool, it’s a light-hearted way to stay warm during the winter months.

jomalone.com The company, which opened a D.C. boutique at the glamorous CityCenterDC this year, calls this cologne “a winter’s cocktail” (that can be given to either women or men). Made with sweet orange and fresh mandarin plus bitter orange, the citrus scents are accented by prune and a base of sandalwood and amber.

Nina McLemore Jacket $975

Longchamp Paris Premier Handbag $1,950

Neiman Marcus at The Shops at Wisconsin Place 5310 Western Ave., Chevy Chase, Md.

Longchamp at CityCenterDC

neimanmarcus.com

990 I St., NW

This American designer targets senior professional and executive women with simple, colorful designs made of fabrics that travel well. The scarlet silk dupioni floral embroidered jacket offers a splash of brightness during the winter, but it can also be worn the rest of the year.

us.longchamp.com This brand-new collection from the Parisian design company is sleek and simple. Made of calfskin and available in black, natural and red, this tote bag can be carried by hand or slung over the shoulder. Inside, it has two compartments with magnetic closures.

SEE GIFT GUIDE • PAGE 24

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WD | Luxury Living | Gift Guide

La Tasca Sangria Making Class and Dinner, $75 La Tasca Sangria 722 7th St., NW; 141 Gibbs St., Rockville, Md.

For the Foodie

latascausa.com/site/sangria-making Learn to make the sweet, fruity drink while enjoying appetizers and a full tapas and paella buffet. There’s also an open sangria bar and a gift to take home. The event is offered Dec. 3 at the D.C. La Tasca location and Dec. 17 and Jan. 14 in Rockville.

Culinary Cuba



Michelin Guide-Rated Restaurants

$4,950 per person (double), additional $550 for single

Long recognized as an increasingly foodie destination, this year the Michelin Guide agreed that D.C. dining has come into its own. In October, 12 restaurants earned Michelin ratings, regarded as the highest honor. The Inn at Little Washington (theinnatlittlewashington.com), Minibar by José Andrés (minibarbyjoseandres.com) and Pineapple and Pearls (pineappleandpearls.com) topped the list with two stars apiece. Be sure to make reservations well in advance.

culturalcontrast.org/upcoming-cuba-trips/

The Inn at Little Washington is a two-star Michelin-rated restaurant in Virginia.

Spend next March 15 to 20 eating your way around Havana under the leadership of chef Guillermo Pernot, who opened D.C.’s Cuba Libre Restaurant and Rum Bar. The cost includes five breakfasts, four lunches and five dinners; roundtrip Miami-Havana airfare; hotel accommodations; gratuities; ground transportation in Cuba; entrance fees to Cuban sites; medical insurance while in Cuba; a visa; and U.S. Treasury licensing.

Greatest Shave Ever Kit, $72 Grooming Lounge

For the Man in Your Li fe

1745 L St., NW; Tysons Galleria, McLean, Va. groominglounge.com/grooming-lounge-the-greatest-shave-ever-kit.html This locally based company, with plans to open a shop in Dubai next year, tests and develops all its products in its D.C. barbershop — the same shop that uses the products in this kit. The nifty kit includes full sizes of Mug Cleaner Face Wash, Beard Master Shave Oil, Beard Destroyer Shave Cream, Best for Last Aftershave and the Signature Dopp Kit for travel.

Paul Stuart 18-Karat Gold, Diamond and Enamel Stud Cufflinks, $7,687 Paul Stuart at CityCenterDC 906 I St., NW paulstuart.com/men-s/cufflinks/18kt-gold-diamondenamel-stud-set.html These elegant double-sided cufflinks and wingback studs feature a crisscross bar design with diamonds punctuating black enamel.

Canali Gray and Sage Silk Cashmere Reversible Scarf, $450



Canali Boutique at CityCenterDC 978 I St., NW canali.com Solid-colored on one side with a houndstooth motif on the other and a subtle fringe on the end, this scarf is available in camel-and-gray or gray-and-sage color combinations. It is 51 percent silk and 49 percent cashmere for a soft, cozy feel and classic look.

SEE GIFT GUIDE • PAGE 26

24 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | DECEMBER 2016

CREATOR OF LUGGAGE SINCE 1946

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | DECEMBER 2016 | 25

WD | Luxury Living | Gift Guide

ICE! Featuring Christmas Around the World Play All Day Pass, $59.45 Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center 201 Waterfront St., National Harbor, Md.

For the Kiddos

ChristmasOnThePotomac.com

Bucketfeet Slip-on Shoes, $35 each

The annual “ICE!” show adopts an international theme this year, showcasing 2 million pounds of ice hand-carved into characters and two-story slides, all kept in a room that is a frigid 9 degrees. The pass buys access to happenings at the hotel, too, including a new event called Cookies with Mrs. Claus, during which children can have a treat and hear a Christmas story with Santa’s wife. Kids can also go on carousel and teacup rides; design a gingerbread house, sleigh or ugly sweater in the Gingerbread Decorating Corner; embark on the Elf on the Shelf Scavenger Hunt; or enjoy a cup of hot cocoa. For an extra fee, there’s also the new Build-A-Bear Workshop, where kids can make a warm, fuzzy winter friend.

1924 8th St., NW

Curated Collection of 36 Caldecott Medal-Winning Children’s Books, $100,000 Neiman Marcus

bucketfeet.com This American retailer sells artistdesigned footwear, paying each artist up front for their designs in addition to royalties from each pair sold. So far, the company has paid $500,000 to the artist community since the company started in 2011. Check out the “Breakfast for Two” design with bacon and eggs on a blue background or the “Hookin Brookies” fishing-inspired design.

neimanmarcus.com This collection of first-edition or early printings includes 36 books that span 80 years and many recognizable characters including Beekle, Madeline and Rapunzel. The Caldecott Medal is awarded annually to “the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children.” The books include “Where the Wild Things Are,” “The Snowy Day” and “Mei Li.”

The Willard InterContinental’s Holiday Lobbying Choral Concerts, free 1401 Pennsylvania Ave., NW washington.intercontinental.com For the 15th year running, the hotel will feature choral and vocal ensembles from around the D.C. metro area. Performances take place between 5:30 and 7:30 p.m. from Dec. 1 to 23. Slated to sing are the Arlington Children’s Chorus on Dec. 5, the Grammy Award-winning Washington Chorus on Dec. 13 and Sound Advice, a barbershop quartet from the Vienna-Falls Chorus of Sweet Adelines International, on Dec. 23.

Personalized Credit Card Bottle Opener

Guinea Feather Bowtie, $185

$20

973 Palmer Alley, NW

Tuckernuck

great-republic.com/products/brackish-guinea-feather-bow-tie

1053 Wisconsin Ave., NW

Handmade from black-and-white patterned guinea fowl feathers that are placed layer by layer, this bowtie is sure to turn heads.

tnuck.com/products/ personalized-credit-cardbottle-opener Founded in 2012, this was an online-only retailer until it opened up shop in Georgetown a couple months ago. It sells a range of items, including men and women’s clothing, jewelry, home décor items and more. One especially fun find is a bottle opener in the shape of a credit card that can be carried around in your wallet or purse. Made of stainless steel, it measures 3.25 inches by 2.25 inches and can be personalized with two lines each containing up to 20 characters.

26 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | DECEMBER 2016

For Someth Unexpe ing cted

The Great Republic at CityCenterDC

Augmented Paper by Montblanc, $680 Tysons Galleria, McLean, Va. montblanc.com/en-us/discover/specials/augmented-paper.html Released in September, Augmented Paper lets users transfer written notes and sketches to a tablet or other mobile device with the push of a button.

Once there, it can be edited, shared and translated into digital text. It comes in a black leather envelope and with a StarWalker writing instrument, notebook, USB cable, three ballpoint pens and tweezers to exchange refills.

Culture arts & entertainment art

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diplomatic spouses

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theater

DIPLOMATIC SPOUSES

Wife Unites Africans Douha Smith, wife of Ghana’s ambassador and a longtime volunteer, is on her second term as president of the Spouses of African Ambassadors Association, where she hopes to learn more about the diverse nations that make up the continent. / PAGE 29

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photography

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music

The Washington Diplomat

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history

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dining

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December 2016

film

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events

ART

MELANCHOLY

INSIGHTS

PHOTOGRAPHY

Firsthand ‘Notes’ The starkly beautiful blackand-white prints featured in “Notes from the Desert: Photographs by Gauri Gill” seek to challenge viewers into rethinking ideas about traditional documentary photography, India and how women appear in both contexts. / PAGE 30

ART

History on the Move The timely topic of African American history and identity, along with the larger issue of migration, overlap in two compelling, contemplative exhibitions: “People on the Move: Beauty and Struggle in Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series” and “Kin Series and Related Works.” / PAGE 31

In Ragnar Kjartansson’s video performance “God,” he sings three words over and over again: “Sorrow conquers happiness.”

CREDIT: COURTESY OF THE ARTIST, LUHRING AUGUSTINE, NY AND I8 GALLERY REYKJAVIK / PHOTO: RAFAEL PINHO

The constant pursuit of happiness sounds exhausting to Icelandic performance artist Ragnar Kjartansson.“Being aware of sorrow makes life much easier to bear, to bear the melancholy with joy,” he told us. The prolific artist, known for work that encompasses music, theater, video installation, painting and photography, has staged exhibitions across the world and is now enjoying his first U.S. surveyy at the Hirshhorn Museum. / PAGE 28

DINING

EVENTS

DIPLOMATIC SPOTLIGHT

Pop-ups are popping up all around town, giving Washingtonians a taste of experimentation. / PAGE 34

Art / Dance / Festivals Music / Theater / PAGE 38

Meridian Ball / Swedish Gala Hungarian Freedom / PAGE 40 THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | DECEMBER 2016 | 27

WD | Culture | Art

Ragnar on Repeat Melancholy Merges with Happiness in Hirshhorn Survey of Icelandic Artist •

BY BRENDAN L. SMITH

Ragnar Kjartansson THROUGH JAN. 8 HIRSHHORN MUSEUM AND SCULPTURE GARDEN 700 INDEPENDENCE AVE., SW

(202) 633-1000 | WWW.HIRSHHORN.SI.EDU

T

he constant pursuit of happiness sounds exhausting to Icelandic performance artist Ragnar Kjartansson.

“If you have to be happy all the time, that is so depressing. That is really dark stuff,” he told The Diplomat. “Being aware of sorrow makes life much easier to bear, to bear the melancholy with joy.”

The prolific artist, known for work that encompasses music, theater, video installation, painting, photography, repetition and a melancholy sense of humor, has staged exhibitions across the world and represented Iceland at the Venice Biennale in 2009. The first U.S. survey of his work is on view now at the Hirshhorn Museum until Jan 8. The exhibition includes live performances by local female guitarists who take turns standing on a rotating golden pedestal while endlessly strumming a solitary E chord for hours. Kjartansson CREDIT: COURTESY OF THE ARTIST, LUHRING AUGUSTINE, NY AND I8 GALLERY REYKJAVIK / PHOTO: RAFAEL PINHO said the feminist art movement has greatly The Hirshhorn is home to the first U.S. survey of Icelandic artist influenced his own work, and “Woman in Ragnar Kjartansson, whose work encompasses live endurance E” subverts the traditional objectification of performance, large-scale video installations, drawings, women. photography and painting — as seen in pieces such as, “It’s that repetition and endurance part that from top, “The End – Venezia,”“Woman in E” and “The Visitors.” makes her be like a monumental sculpture,” Kjartansson said at the Hirshhorn while the ing for some time, the words start to lose their single chord reverberated in the background. meaning, becoming a mantra that blurs togeth“It’s super limiting as a musician, but it’s er with the lush music. The piece conjures feelweirdly like the essence of meditation. You ings of melancholy but also of stillness, casting forget yourself to be soaked in one chord.” an anchor into the psyche that holds fast despite As a viewer, the work has a slightly unthe repetitive nature of the performance. comfortable voyeuristic quality, watching Kjartansson varied his use of repetition in a woman in a sparkling gold dress reminis“The End – Venezia,” his piece for the 2009 Bicent of beauty pageant contestants while she ennale. He spent six months creating a series stares passively past your gaze, with no reacof 144 paintings — one for each day — of a CREDIT: COURTESY OF THE ARTIST, LUHRING AUGUSTINE, NY AND I8 GALLERY, REYKJAVÍK / PHOTO: CATHY CARVER tion other than a subtle swing of the arm to Speedo-clad artist lackadaisically drinking and strike the next chord. The woman becomes a prop smoking against the resplendent backdrop of an Italian stripped of her personality, a golden-hued wedding palace. Done at the height of a global economic crisis, the cake topper minus the groom. Some might view it endless parade of paintings seems to mock the search for as dismissive or sexist, but Kjartansson doesn’t care artistic inspiration in the face of real-world hardship. if people understand or even misinterpret his work.

In “Me and My Mother,” Kjartansson, who hails from Despite the temptation, he doesn’t stroll through his a family of Icelandic actors, enlists his own mother to reown exhibitions to overhear visitors’ comments. peatedly spit in his face in a series of videos filmed over “I think it’s a little rude. I want people to be able five years. The result blurs reality and fiction in a cringeto bitch about me,” he said. “The work is there and worthy yet absurdly humorous commentary on family you can take it like you want to.” and the passage of time.

In the first room of the exhibition, Kjartansson But the most powerful and captivating work by far is plays an unconvincing Grim Reaper in “Death and “The Visitors,” a series of nine life-size projections of muCREDIT: COURTESY OF THE ARTIST, LUHRING AUGUSTINE, NY AND I8 GALLERY, REYKJAVIK / PHOTO: ELISABET DAVIDS the Children.” In a cemetery, a group of schoolchilsicians, including Kjartansson playing guitar in a bathtub, dren laugh at him and his unconvincing fake scythe made from a wood stick and who perform together but apart in different rooms of the Rokeby Farm in upstate paper. “You are just an elf with a stick!” one child shouts, while another says Kjar- New York. The musicians, who wear headphones so they can hear each other, tansson is small and ugly. After being followed by the children, Kjartansson disap- play a haunting melody with just one refrain: “Once again, I fall into my feminine pears into a crypt. The humorous work explores conflicting desires, the innocence ways.” of youth, the universal fear of death and the uncertainty of what lies beyond.

The performance surrounds you with the sound of the musicians’ voices and Kjartansson, who previously was a member of rock bands in Reykjavik, often instruments emerging from their own projections, with the sounds shifting as you blends music into his performances, even though he doesn’t think he is a good move around the room. The setting is a stately home that has seen better days with musician. “I was really just a poseur. I wasn’t good. It didn’t come natural to me ornate but heavily worn furniture, peeling paint and a pervasive sense of decay. At in a way as visual art,” he said of his rock band days. “When it’s visual art, it feels the end of the hour-long performance, the musicians walk across a field toward much more effortless. It’s this total freedom. There’s no other profession in the distant mountains shrouded in fog. Like much of Kjartansson’s work, the perforworld that is as much about individual freedom.” mance blends music with art, melancholy with joy and a sense of history with the In another video performance titled “God,” Kjartansson assumes the role of a immediacy of the present. WD classic 1950s Las Vegas crooner leading an 11-person band performing in front of gaudy pink curtains. Wearing a black tuxedo with slicked-back hair, Kjartansson Brendan L. Smith is a freelance journalist and mixed-media sings three words over and over again: “Sorrow conquers happiness.” After listen- artist in Washington, D.C.

28 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | DECEMBER 2016

Diplomatic Spouses | Culture | WD

Commanding Presence Ex-Military Wife from Ghana Takes Service, Volunteering to Heart •

BY GAIL SCOTT

A

Douha Smith, wife of the Ghanaian amfrica is often described in bassador and president of the Spouses of monolithic terms, when in African Ambassadors Association, right, fact the continent is a taptalks with Elizabeth Klass, president of estry of nations, ethnicities THIS for Diplomats, a nonprofit that supand religions. Sometimes its diversity ports local diplomats and their families. surprises even Africans themselves.

“There are 54 countries in Africa,” that welcomes and assists diplomats said Douha Smith, the cheerful wife of and their families during their stays retired Lt. Gen. Joseph Henry Smith, in Washington, D.C. now Ghana’s ambassador in Wash“Thirty years ago when my husington. “Someone was talking about band was defense attaché at the emLesotho and I said, ‘Where the heck bassy here, I was a THIS advisory is Lesotho?’ I thought, ‘I need to buy board member,” Smith recalled. Now, myself a map and read about all these she is again introducing THIS memother countries.’ I knew that would sobers to Ghana and the Spouses of Aflidify the esprit de corps.” rican Ambassadors Association.

Douha Smith is not only trying to “When I went home after that first learn more about the continent she time in Washington, my husband calls home, but also come together was made commander of the Southwith fellow Africans to network and ern Command. I had to organize learn how to better promote their rethe women. It was expected in the spective nations in Washington.

Armed Forces Wives Association.

Smith is now on her second term Many of the young ladies were docserving as president of the Spouses tors, lawyers and teachers and didn’t of African Ambassadors Association have too much time to volunteer.

(SAAA). She joked that her D.C.“The Americans I have met have based group “sounds like an insurance been very, very nice,” she added. company,” but said it does important “They say, ‘I want to know more work. about your country.’ For me, it is a “SAAA’s purpose is to get to know pride and an honor to promote my other spouses, their ambassadors and country to the rest of the world.” their countries. We want to expose But the nomadic life of a diplomat ourselves to Americans and have a has taken its toll on this mother of cultural exchange each month among two grown sons. “When we first arourselves. The first exchange was to rived in October 2014, I realized I introduce each of our countries, the was getting depressed,” confessed second one was a discussion of the Smith, who had been president of different marriage traditions and the the United Way Ghana before comthird was a ‘Taste of Africa, where we ing to Washington.

PHOTO: THIS FOR DIPLOMATS each brought and talked about a spe“I love to sew and I realized I had cial dish that is served for festive occano sewing machine. At home, I’m sions in our countries.” in the business of sewing machines,” she said, noting that Now, with a big map of Africa on her wall at since 2001, she has been the sole agent for Bernina Sewing home so she can pinpoint each country on the conMachines in Ghana and West Africa. When she returns tinent, Smith is revving up to make this a banner to Ghana, Smith said she’d like to start her own charity or year for SAAA. With roughly 15 to 20 members, even a dressmaking factory. she would like the group to attract more wives. She “I make my own clothes and I love G Street Fabrics. is also proud that three members are men since If the boys’ shirts didn’t fit, I ended up tailoring them. I their wives are the female ambassadors of Niger, sewed almost all their clothes until they became teenagers Rwanda and Uganda. and fussy.”

She wants the group to be inclusive in terms of Smith said it was important to instill in her sons the gender, nationality, ethnicity and religion. “Many understanding that they would not receive any special of our countries have Christians,” noted Smith, treatment because of their father’s status. “We wanted who is Muslim herself. “Ghana has 25 percent them treated like all the other kids. We did not want them DOUHA SMITH Muslims and many traditionalists, not pagans.” saying, ‘My father is the lieutenant general or the ambaswife of Ghanaian Ambassador Joseph Henry Smith The multicultural West African nation of 25 sador.’” million was once known as the Gold Coast when Today, Helel is 30 and received his bachelor’s degree it was a British colony until it became the first subin psychology from Washington College in Chestertown, Sahara African nation to declare independence from European colonization in Md., and a master’s in disaster trauma from the University of Denver. He is back in 1957. After several decades of coups and political turmoil, today Ghana enjoys Ghana with a film production company he created. “It’s a headache for me,” Smith relative stability and a growing free-market economy. joked, “because I don’t know yet what he is really going to do. He came to see us for “We now have a direct flight from Dulles on South African Airlines that takes two months this summer.” nine hours. We leave at night and arrive the next morning. It used to take us two Abdallah is 26 and studied political science at Clark University before receiving days,” said Smith, who speaks English, Twi (a dialect of the Niger-Congo languag- his master’s in Sweden. “He could only get away for two weeks this past summer,” es) and Arabic.

Smith noted sadly.

Throughout her husband’s military career and now in diplomacy, Smith has al“I do miss the weather at home. It’s hot and humid but the sun shines every day,” ways been an avid volunteer. Her resume is three pages long. “Being a military wife she said. “I miss so many members of my family and friends. I am a family person. in Ghana, they train you to be in leadership positions. As your husband moves up, And I’ve had some of the same friends from 35 years ago. I also miss just being a you fall into the next position. You already know what to do,” she explained. ‘normal’ person.”

With her husband now officially retired from the country’s military, she has Smith said she prefers the simpler life and doing ordinary things with her hus“graduated” to the Retired Officers’ Wives Association and is involved in that band. group when she’s back home. Here in the U.S., she enjoys working with THIS for “Here, I go out on my own. I do my own shopping and I drive. Some ambassadors Diplomats, a nonprofit volunteer organization housed in the Meridian International Center (and formerly known as the Hospitality and Information Service) SEE DIPLOMATIC SPOUSES • PAGE 35

“

Being a military wife in Ghana, they train you to be in leadership positions.

As your husband moves up, you fall into the next position. You already know what to do.

”

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | DECEMBER 2016 | 29

WD | Culture | Photography

Indian Immersion ‘Notes from Desert’ Gets Close and Personal with Women from Marginalized Community •

BY MACKENZIE WEINGER

Notes from the Desert: Photographs by Gauri Gill THROUGH FEB. 12, 2017 ARTHUR M. SACKLER GALLERY 1050 INDEPENDENCE AVE., SW

(202) 633-1000 | WWW.ASIA.SI.EDU

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he starkly beautiful black-and-white prints featured in “Notes from the Desert: Photographs by Gauri Gill” seek to challenge viewers into rethinking ideas about traditional documentary photography, India and how women appear in both contexts.

This exhibition, the latest in a series at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery focused on contemporary photography from Asia, comes from Gill’s extensive archive of photographs from her time visiting and working in rural communities in western Rajasthan.

“This is an extensive archive that Gauri revisits repeatedly,” Carol Huh, the Freer|Sackler’s associate curator of contemporary Asian art, told The Washington Diplomat. “She lets the material sit. She takes her time PHOTOS: ARTHUR M. SACKLER GALLERY with the images.”

So should visitors. “Notes from the Since the late 1990s, Gauri Gill has been photographing marginalized communities in western Rajasthan, India, as seen in works such as, from Desert,” on display through February, top, “Izmat” from the “Notes from the Desert” series; “Untitled” from the offers a window into an often-unseen “Jannat” series; and “Raami” from the “Balika Mela” series. world. Anchored with thoughtful anecdotes from Gill, the exhibition highlights images from her extensive time capturand that “speaks in considerable contrast to the way historical ing marginalized communities in the ruimages have typically portrayed marginalized communities in ral desert areas she has regularly visited India, and especially women,” Huh said. since the late 1990s.

Gill’s preference for black-and-white photography is also The most striking part of the show notable, Huh pointed out. comes from a series of 52 photographs “This is intentional on her part because she is sensitive to and letters — “one for each week of the the notion of kind of the saturated colors of India in photograyear, essentially,” Huh notes — that alphy,” Huh said. “She wants to not focus on that, and really try PHOTO: COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND THOMAS ERBAN GALLERY, NY lows viewers to drop in and out at any to focus in on the relationships, on the subjects, and on the inpoint in the story of one of the key figures in Gill’s work, dividuals and how they relate to their environment, and not be distracted a woman named Izmat. This collection, which highlights by the color that is so typically associated with the country.” the lives of Izmat and her two daughters, is not meant to Although the photographer favors black and white, the exhibition revels be viewed chronologically, but is instead presented as a in the medium’s variety. “Just in this one relatively small exhibition, we circular narrative. have a range of portraiture and approaches to portraiture and different As Gill recalls in the exhibition, she was lost in Rajastechnical formats,” Huh said, noting that Gill shoots in film. than when she first met Izmat, who was with a group of The opening series of portraits from Balika Mela, a village fair for girls, women “fully covered in large dark ajrak shawls standare done with a larger-format camera and are posed scenarios in a studio ing around the corpse of a little girl.” environment, for instance. Gill invited young women into her makeshift “They looked intimidating, but when I ventured to photo tent to portray themselves or to invent new personas for the camera. ask for directions to the school, I was interrupted by one According to the Sackler, each life-size image portrays “the girls’ fortitude of the women, Izmat, who grasped me by the hands and and sense of freedom through their purposeful poses.” told me what was wrong with her life. With great convicWith portraits of Izmat as well as Izmat’s daughter Jannat, who died in tion she impressed upon me that on my return to Delhi, 2007 at the age of 23, the photographer has left the studio and is out in the I should tell people of the troubles of people in Barmer,” landscape.

Gill wrote. “Izmat asked me for my address and, in subThe “Izmat” portrait is a remarkable vision and the show’s clear standsequent letters that she dictated to literate acquaintances out. and posted to me, urged me to return. I did.”

“This is a portrait of a woman, and she’s honoring her strengths as a Huh said the images associated with Izmat present visitors with the chance to woman and as a single mother,” Huh said. “She is not on the ground playing, for explore the “intimate glimpses of a life.” instance, she is up in a tree, in black and white. She emerges from the foliage and “Something that Gauri emphasizes repeatedly is that together the series is really she looks down at the viewer — she’s challenging you to see her. It’s not an easily not so much a documentary of a particular individual or family’s life, but more her captured subject.” experience of the kind of love that was felt in this family relationship. She says it’s a And with her shots of daily life for Izmat and her daughters, Gill uses a small story of love, fundamentally,” Huh said.

35mm camera to offer glimpses of her subjects.

That’s not the only broad story being told in this show through such personal im“You start to realize that her priority is not to capture the shot — her priority is to ages. Gill’s photographs challenge the history of photography and women in India, develop her relationships, to understand her subjects, and then along the way she’ll Huh noted, but “it doesn’t hit you over the head.” take photographs unobtrusively,” Huh said. WD Instead of the notion of “photographing types” or simply “shooting conditions of life” in the region, Gill puts her emphasis on the subject and her relationship with Mackenzie Weinger (@mweinger) is a contributing writer that person. The exhibition highlights Gill’s familiarity with the people she shoots, for The Washington Diplomat.

30 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | DECEMBER 2016

Art | Culture | WD

Moving Story African American Narratives Intersect in Lawrence’s ‘Migration’ and Lovell’s ‘Kin Series’ •

BY GARY TISCHLER

People on the Move: Beauty and Struggle in Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series AND

Kin Series and Related Works THROUGH JAN. 8 PHILLIPS COLLECTION 1600 21ST ST., NW

(202) 387-2125 | WWW.PHILLIPSCOLLECTION.ORG

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he timely topic of African American history and identity, along with the larger issue of migration, overlap in two compelling, contemplative exhibitions at the Phillips Collection: “People on the Move: Beauty and Struggle in Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series” and Whitfield Lovell’s “Kin Series and Related Works.”

Lawrence’s “Migration Series” is a justifiably famous and epic narrative of panels that document the historic movement of millions of African Americans from the rural South to the urban North that began during PHOTOS: THE PHILLIPS COLLECTION, D.C. / © THE JACOB AND GWENDOLYN KNIGHT LAWRENCE FOUNDATION, SEATTLE / ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NY World War I. The show unites 30 panels owned by the Phillips with the other 30 on loan Jacob Lawrence used simple text to accompany his vivid panels for “The from the Museum of Modern Art. Migration Series,” with descriptions such as, from top, “During World War I Together, the complete series is a there was a great migration north by southern African Americans”; “Their kinetic journey that conveys pure, children were forced to work in the fields. They could not go to school”; powerful emotional effect — akin and “They found discrimination in the North. It was a different kind.” to the paintings of Winslow Homer, stripped of details.

Lovell’s “Kin Series” comes at at railroad stations with the fabled names America’s collective past from a difof Chicago, New York and St. Louis as desferent perspective but with echoes tinations. of Lawrence’s legacy. Lovell maThe text is simple and sparse — “Food nipulates found objects and drawn has doubled in price because of the war” figures to explore questions of and “Their children were forced to work in identity and memory, portraying the fields. They could not go to school” — African Americans from the time offering a perfect complement to the draof Emancipation to the Civil Rights matic imagery that hints at a hugely conseera and indirectly intersecting with quential era in U.S. history. We see northern Lawrence’s narrative. cities swelling with African Americans; PHOTO: THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, NY / © THE JACOB AND GWENDOLYN KNIGHT LAWRENCE FOUNDATION, SEATTLE / ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NY Lovell’s signature style of conlong-time residents who resented the newnecting drawings of faces to everyday objects — shoes, comers; people carrying cotton baskets in the South; crowdsuitcases, brooches and clocks — lends an evocative, ed working conditions in the North that led to diseases like sometimes heartbreaking, effect to his work. It’s as if he tuberculosis; children standing almost defiantly in front of lifted some of the barebones figures from Lawrence’s panblackboards in schools; and African Americans voting in els and filled out the details of their faces and lives. northern cities.

By the 1930s, Lawrence had developed a distinct style The narrative that chronicles this rocky journey is as jagged for assaying narrative series that were notable for their and jarring as the deeply colored images: “There were lynchsimplicity and abstraction. He described style as “dyings”; “There had always been discrimination”; “They were namic cubism,” though he was also heavily influenced very poor”; “They found discrimination in the North. It was a by the vivid shapes and colors of Harlem. He had already different kind”; “The migrants arrived in great numbers.” attracted notice for a series of pictures depicting the lives Together, Lawrence uses deceptively simple methods to tell of 19th-century abolitionists Harriet Tubman and Freda complex saga with universal resonance that stretches across erick Douglass when he received a grant from the Julius time and borders.

Rosenwald Fund in 1940 to create a 60-panel work called “In panel 60 of ‘The Migration Series,’ Lawrence leaves us “The Migration of the Negro,” otherwise known simwith the message, ‘And the migrants kept coming,’” said curaply as “The Migration Series.” The series was exhibited tor Elsa Smithgall. “During a time when record numbers of at Edith Halpert’s Downtown Gallery to great acclaim; migrants are uprooting themselves in search of a better life, Lawrence was only 23 years old at the time. In the ensuLawrence’s timeless tale and its universal themes of struggle ing years, the series took on iconic aspects as Lawrence continued to work continue to strike a chord not only in our American experience, but also in the until his death in 2000. international experience of migration around the world.”

Lawrence’s masterpiece is both stark and highly charged, with a palpable Lovell, who was born in the Bronx in 1959, over 40 years after Lawrence, energy that ebbs and flows like a river — or, in this case, the mass movement doesn’t focus on the Great Migration per se, though his people are also specific of people. The accompanying writing describes this exodus of humanity to a certain time, place and race. But his artistic and storytelling techniques in matter-of-fact fashion, beginning with the first panel — “During World are very different.

War I, there was a great migration north by southern African Americans” — which is paired with scenes of people milling around and forming lines SEE PHILLIPS • PAGE 39 THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | DECEMBER 2016 | 31

WD | Culture | Photography

Ephemeral Borders ‘Delimitations’ Documents Shifting Boundaries Between U.S., Mexico •

BY KATE OCZYPOK AND ANNA GAWEL

Delimitations THROUGH JAN. 28 MEXICAN CULTURAL INSTITUTE 2829 16TH ST., NW

(202) 462-7241 WWW.INSTITUTEOFMEXICODC.ORG

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orders: They can seem like impenetrable walls for those trying to escape or break through them — physical obstacles to a new life. Yet the borders that separate countries are often illusory and transitory, manmade barriers that evolve over time. On the one hand, they maintain law and order; on the other they often spark conflict and resentment.

As the topic of borders takes a dark turn in this U.S. presidential race, the Embassy of Mexico hopes to shine a more positive light on the shifting boundaries between the U.S. and Mexico in “Delimitations,” which documents a 2,400-mile-long, sitespecific installation by artists Marco Ramírez Erre and David Taylor. The installation outlines the border between the U.S. and Mexico in 1821, when a newly independent Mexico controlled most of the American Southwest, along with parts of modern-day Texas and California.

The boundary was never surveyed and the only record of its brief existence can be found in antique maps and documents.

By 1948, after nearly two years of war, Mexico would lose Texas and large chunks of territory to the rapidly expanding American nation.

According to the embassy, the exhibit “questions the immutability and permanence of borders at a time when territorial claims are disputed throughout the world.” But the goal is not to contest the border, but rather to highlight the fact that the two neighbors “have a shared history and common interests.”

“We wanted to showcase something about the border and the U.S.Mexico relationship … and the relations between their border cities,” said Alberto Fierro, executive director of the Mexican Cultural Institute. “[The exhibit] reflects how borders are never forever; it’s interesting to show at this time,” he added.

The artists recreated this historic boundary with a series of 47 obelisks that mimicked markers installed along the present-day border.

In July 2014, Erre and Taylor finished their project across a landscape that stretches from the Pacific Coast near Brookings, Oregon, all the way down to Port Arthur, Texas. The project crisscrosses much of the American West and Midwest, encompassing some 2.1 million square kilometers of territory ceded to the U.S. under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo following the Mexican-American War in the 1840s.

“I’m a historian, so I always think that history is very important to understand the present and be prepared for the future,” Fierro said. “So I think that yes, this exhibit allows American people to know something

32 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | DECEMBER 2016

PHOTOS: MEXICAN CULTURAL INSTITUTE

“Delimitations” is a 2,400-mile-long, site-specific installation by artists Marco Ramírez Erre and David Taylor that outlines the border between the U.S. and Mexico in 1821, when a newly independent Mexico controlled most of the American Southwest, along with parts of modernday Texas and California.

that is not told much here in the U.S. — the Mexican American War.” Fierro hopes those who visit reflect on the question of “what if history had been different?”

The fact that a Mexican artist and American artist collaborated on the installation also symbolizes the inextricable ties between the two nations.

“It’s a joint venture between American and Mexican artists,” Fierro said. “They thought of doing this journey, rented a van and just did research and created art, photography and this installation jointly…. I think it’s fun to see how artists have fun researching, intervening and creating.”

Fierro encourages those who see the exhibit to think about states like California, which are melting pots of enduring Spanish and Latin influences. “It does tell you how connected we’ve been always. We’ve been neighbors and will continue to be, with a lot of collaboration and mutual interests,” he said.

“Delimitations” is itself a collaboration with the German GoetheInstitut as part of its exhibit “2,000 Miles: Divided Land, Common Humanity,” in which two German artists, Daniel Schwarz and Stefan Falke, examine the geography and cultural and social commonalities on the two sides of the U.S.-Mexican border.

The goal of both shows is to spotlight and, in a sense, tear down the physical and metaphysical barriers that people have built throughout history — as well as the walls being erected during this heated election season. WD Kate Oczypok (@OczyKate) is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat. Anna Gawel is the managing editor.

Art | Culture | WD

Dutch Groundwork Preparatory Drawings Complement Paintings in ‘Age of Rembrandt’ •

BY GARY TISCHLER

Drawings for Paintings in the Age of Rembrandt THROUGH JAN. 2 NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART ON THE NATIONAL MALL BETWEEN 3RD AND 9TH STREETS AT CONSTITUTION AVENUE, NW

(202) 737-4215 | WWW.NGA.GOV

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he National Gallery of Art exhibition “Drawings for Paintings in the Age of Rembrandt” takes viewers beyond and beneath the canvas to reveal the prep work involved in creating masterworks of the Dutch golden age. Nearly 100 drawings, many paired with related paintings, offer a window into the artist’s mind before their paintbrush ever touched the canvas.

Not surprisingly, paintings by 17th-century luminaries such as Rembrandt van Rijn, Aelbert Cuyp and Jacob van Ruisdael — renowned for their realism and detail — weren’t done on the fly. The artists laid plenty of groundwork. The drawings on display here include sheets from sketchbooks, rapidly done compositional dePHOTO: NATIONAL GALLERIES OF SCOTLAND signs, intricate figure studies and meticulously “Drawings for Paintings in the Age of Rembrandt” reveals the prep rendered construction drawings made with the aid of a work behind Dutch golden age masterworks, such as Salomon de ruler and compass.

Bray’s “The Twins Clara and Albert de Bray,” above, and Rembrandt’s The expansive show is a delight for art students or his“Joseph Telling His Dreams.” torians with a critical eye for digging into artistic execution and process. But the exhibit — while replete with traits, but also his dramatic biblical and mythological scenes. the underpinnings of painting — also attracts the casual According to the National Gallery, Rembrandt made figure eye. That is not to equate casual with careless; rather, it is studies to resolve specific poses or groupings in his biblical to say that the show will appeal to the discerning and appaintings. His 1631 drawing “Old Man Seated” is a hauntpreciative visitor who may not have technical expertise, ingly sad, swirling vision of age and frailty that made its way but who is passionate about the beauty of art. into a later painting, “Joseph Telling His Dreams.” Painters There is a lot to take in, from the various preparatory often used single figures — herds men, nudes, public ofdrawings to the wide range of subjects and genres, inficials — as genre drawings to be incorporated into later cluding depictions of everyday life, landscapes, archipaintings. Rembrandt often did this, populating his famous tectural studies, portraits, still lifes, historical scenes and “St. John the Baptist Preaching” with people from earlier biblical portrayals. sketches and studies.

The exhibition debunks the theory that many 17thSomething similar happens in Dirck van Bergen’s beautiPHOTO: RIJKSMUSEUM, AMSTERDAM century Dutch works were believed to have been paintfully placid and almost idyllic “Landscape with Herdsmen ed from real life, when in fact most artists based their paintings on preliminary and Cattle Near a Tomb,” which features a panoply of farm animals, including drawings and sketches done in the studio. lambs, sheep, cattle and horse, tended by two women and a young man. One of The drawings that are paired with their eventual paintings present a guide- the women makes a reappearance in a large drawing called “Kneeling Woman,” post of process, as in Jan Anthonisz van Ravesteyn’s depictions of a lively group where she comes wondrously alive. of Hague magistrates from 1618, which offers the chance to compare and conIn fact, the drawings often stand on their own merit. Isaac van Ostade’s 1649 trast the early idea with the finished product and appreciate both works. Here, “Group of Houses with a Church Tower in the Background,” for instance, is a for instance, the somber but highly detailed painting completes the vibrancy of singular creation. the drawings, whose kinetic qualities settle into the gathered men in black and The fusion of drawing and painting, however, lends vibrancy to the subject white in the final result. matter. Willem van de Velde the Elder and Willem van de Velde Young both This happens throughout the exhibition. There’s not only a dialogue between used drawings and sketches as the basis for their marine works, in which fathe paintings and drawings, but there’s also a richness that allows for stand- ther and son specialized to apparently great profit. They executed thousands of alone glory. drawings in their lifetimes. In this exhibition, we see their extensive paintings We are, of course, drawn to the show’s namesake — Rembrandt — but there and drawings of the Royal Prince battleship in action during the Four Days’ are numerous others who present what is the true gift of this exhibition, which Battle of the Second Anglo-Dutch War in 1666. The historical works have a is a varied, intricate and energetic survey of Dutch life in the 17th century, with modern-day feel as they bring the fighting on the high seas to dramatic life. all of its attendant nuances — from its curved shoes, pipes and sculpted trianOne of the most striking pairings in the exhibition is Adriaen van Ostade’s gular beards to its architectural façades and lush country sides. The resulting drawing of dancing figures with the painting “Peasants Dancing in a Tavern” realism captures moments in time, and the drawings, as much as the paintings, — forming a lively album of relatives who tell the same story but in a different have the power to elicit emotions and admiration, even at their sketchiest. way.

Consider, for instance, Abraham Bloemaert’s 1629 painting of a rundown “Drawings for Paintings” revisits and revels in a glorious age of creativity, house whose structures and people seem to be in disrepair, a theme that re- paying homage not only to the paint that brought the era to life, but also to its emerges in his detailed drawings of a woman supporting herself with a stick. equally important companions of pen, ink, charcoal, pencil, sketchbook and They speak to the harsher underbelly of a time often glorified as a pinnacle of chalk. WD trade, prosperity and cultural achievement.

Rembrandt infused this type of humanistic realism not only into his por- Gary Tischler is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | DECEMBER 2016 | 33

WD | Culture | Dining

Fleeting Taste Pop-Ups Give Washingtonians Chance to Sample Culinary Experimentation •

BY MICHAEL COLEMAN

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ashington’s once-predictable dining scene has become a cuttingedge culinary laboratory, as bold, creative young chefs and restaurateurs adopt a range of dining trends from the use of hyper-local ingredients to artisanal butchery, offbeat ice creams and more.

Naturally, the city has also embraced one of the hottest dining concepts in recent years: the pop-up restaurant. When it comes to pop-ups, the rules are that there aren’t many rules.

Originally started as supper clubs back in the 1960s, pop-up restaurants have seen a resurgence across the U.S. in the past few years. Just as their name implies, pop-ups materialize in unexpected places — established restaurants, warehouses, private homes — for a limited time.

In Washington, these temporary restaurants tend to serve as trial runs for chefs and investors to determine if their concept will work in a more permanent setting. They can also provide an opportunity for chefs, such as Washington uberchefs José Andrés and Mike Isabella, to indulge a whim and go outside their comfort zones.

Pop-ups are fun and inventive, and they can give diners a chance to taste the talents of some of the city’s top chefs for prices that are lower than those in permanent spots. But they also can have downsides, including little to no ambience, spotty and uninformed service and dishes that by their very nature aren’t quite ready for primetime.

We recently tried two pop-ups in the District: Tchoup’s Market, a homey spot in a previous Thai pop-up space known as Alfie’s in Park View (near Columbia Heights) that serves authentic Cajun food, and the French Exit pop-up at Big Chief, a hip, industrial-feeling bar in the up-and-coming Ivy City neighborhood off New York Avenue, NE. At Tchoup’s (www.tchoupsmarket.com), Alex McCoy — one of the city’s most innovative and celebrated chefs — is currently paying homage to his hometown of New Orleans, a legendary culinary landmark in the United States. Tchoup’s 40-seat dining room takes reservations, but walk-ins are welcome. When we visited on a Monday night, the cozy, laid-back space was buzzing. The 14-seat bar was filled with happy, chatty young people having dinner as a television overhead flickered with Monday Night Football, with the sound thankfully turned off. Most tables were full but a couple of them remained open. Bob Marley sang a soft serenade on the restaurant’s sound system.

Tchoup’s — short for Tchoupitoulas Street in New Orleans — serves a variety of Cajun fare, from gumbo and muffulettas to red beans and rice and po’ boy sandwiches. McCoy also mixes it up fusion-style sometimes, as evidenced by the andouille sausage carbonara he whipped up on a whim in early November. But po’ boys are the main attraction here.

If you’re not familiar, po’ boys are a staple of Louisiana cuisine. The traditional versions of the sandwich are served either hot or cold and include fried shrimp and oysters. Soft-shell crab, catfish, crawfish, Louisiana hot sausage, fried chicken breast, roast beef and French fries are other common variations. The last two are served with gravy.

Tchoup’s does them all.

Ask any po’ boy aficionado and they’ll tell you that the bread — typically a big, crusty French baguette sliced in half — is as important as what’s inside.

That’s why McCoy flies his bread in daily from the renowned Leidenheimer Baking Co. in New Orleans. That may also be why these meat and bread specialties average a hefty $16 to $18.

That might sound like an expensive sandwich, but trust us when we say it’s worth it. We went classic and tried the shrimp, oyster and catfish po’ boys. All three were generously apportioned and piping hot, but we got the sandwiches

34 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | DECEMBER 2016

PHOTO: ALEX MCCOY / TCHOUP’S MARKET

Alex McCoy’s pop-up Tchoup’s Market specializes in Cajun fare, from gumbo and muffulettas to red beans and rice and po’ boy sandwiches. Bottom photo, diners enjoy Matt Baker’s pop-up French Exit at Big Chief, an industrial-size bar and music venue in the Ivy City neighborhood that temporarily housed the pop-up.

“dressed” with lettuce and tomato, which helped cool things off a bit. Both the oyster and shrimp po’ boys were outstanding. The bread was crusty and fresh, and both the shrimp and oysters were plentiful and perfectly battered. Each bite held an initial crunch into the fried batter, followed by the soft and flavorful seafood inside. The fried catfish version was fine, but nothing to rave about. The fish tasted a bit, well, fishy and reminded us of the old adage to be careful what you wish for. But the meat was well-prepared.

A tangy remoulade dressing gave all three po’ boys a nice, sharp contrast, while a few splashes of Crystal Louisiana hot sauce added a piquant finish. Each sandwich comes with a side of almost-too-sweet but pleasantly crunchy and flavorful coleslaw.

We also tried a salad and a bowl of red beans and rice, another Louisiana staple. The salad was homey and tasty with plenty of crisp iceberg lettuce and long, thick slices of fresh carrots. The house-made green goddess dressing was creamy and gave the vegetables a nice zing.

The beans and rice were both perfectly cooked, with the rice fluffy and granular and the small red beans (not the typically larger red variety you’ll often find with this dish) soft but not mushy. The legumes held their texture well.

While the meal was good, service was iffy. That’s probably the result of understaffing on this particular night instead of the server’s ambivalence, but everyone knows it’s annoying to have to ask for things twice and wait more than 10 minutes for the check, so it’s worth noting.

But overall, if you’re a fan of Cajun cooking, we’d put Tchoup’s in the top tier of D.C. restaurants that do that cuisine. Veteran standout Acadiana does an excellent version of Cajun food in a fine-dining atmosphere, but if you want to dress down and relax over an Abita beer and home-style cooking, Tchoup’s is the spot to do it — at least while it lasts. McCoy said he expects to keep the Cajun kitchen open for another two to three months.

Meanwhile, chef Matt Baker, another chef on the PHOTO: MATT BAKER / FRENCH EXIT rise in our hyper-competitive restaurant landscape, is planning to open Gravitas, a fine-dining establishment in the Ivy City neighborhood, after the New Year. In the meantime, he’s been busy elevating the everyday sandwich at pop-ups around town. He’s cleverly named his temporary pop-up French Exit, similar to the “Irish goodbye,” which means leaving a party or gathering without notifying anyone or saying your farewells.

Flatly stated, Baker’s sandwiches are some of the best we’ve had in recent memory. They also aren’t cheap at $12 to $14 a pop, but they’re not ridiculously priced and you definitely get what you pay for. We caught up with Baker at Big Chief, the industrial-size bar and music venue in Ivy City that housed French SEE DINING • PAGE 35

Dining

Spouses

CONTINUED • PAGE 34

CONTINUED • PAGE 29

Exit. In mid-November, he’d moved his pop-up to Sauf Haus Biergarten on 18th Street, NW. You’ll want to Google “French Exit” and “Matt Baker” to determine where he’s landed next by the time this article is published.

Wherever the ambitious and inventive chef lands, it’s worth seeking these sandwiches out. Part of the fun was watching Baker and his “sous chefs” cooking these fancy sandwiches up on electric skillets next to the bar.

We tried the fried chicken with pimento cheese, green goddess aioli, pickles and lettuce on a brioche bun, and it was fantastic. The chicken was plump and perfectly cooked — not a dry bite in the entire thing. The pimento cheese and green goddess aioli combined to create a sweet and tangy effect that had us eagerly anticipating the next bite. The roll was soft and fresh. This concoction didn’t last long at our table.

But the braised short rib grilled cheese sandwich was somehow even better. The toasted ciabatta bread was pleasantly crunchy, but yielded to some of the softest, gooiest deliciousness we’ve ever experienced between two pieces of baked yeast and flour. The beef was slightly smoky and incredibly tender, while red onion marmalade and white cheddar cheese gave the dish a surprising sharp and sweet complexity. This is sandwich-making as high art.

have a driver, a cook, a gardener and house help. We only have a cook and my husband’s personal assistant. On the weekends, my husband and I have a day out together — no driver, just us.”

Her husband has plenty of experience chauffeuring her around — in fact, it’s how they met. Over 30 years ago back in Ghana, Smith was trying to hail a cab after work when “this welldressed man drove up and offered me a ride home. Of course I said no. He recognized me but I didn’t recognize him. And then he asked again and said, ‘I know your uncle and where you live.’”

Smith’s father had passed away at a young age and her uncle had become a father figure in her life. She relented after the man repeatedly told her details about her family and finally accepted the ride.

Later that night, her uncle explained that he did in fact know the man, who was rising through the army ranks, and that she had actually met him once before when she was much younger. “He showed up the next day at work and drove me home. I knew right away that I would marry him. In the car, magic happened. After that, he had a habit of picking

PHOTO: MATT BAKER / FRENCH EXIT

Matt Baker elevates the everyday sandwich at his pop-up French Exit.

You must also try the kettle-fried potato chips. Even at $4, they’re darn near perfect. Crispy without being dry and served with a light dusting of sea salt, we almost opted for another order but somehow restrained ourselves.

There wasn’t much in the way of ambience at Big Chief, a cavernous bar that was nearly empty when we went save for some employees nodding their heads to the underground hip hop pumping at reasonable levels throughout the space.

But as we mentioned, ambience isn’t the point when it comes to pop-ups.

These restaurants aren’t for fussy or pretentious diners, but for those willing to take a chance, they provide a great way to sample the next trends in D.C. dining. WD Michael Coleman (@michaelcoleman) is the dining reviewer for The Washington Diplomat.

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Douha Smith is pictured with her husband, Ambassador of Ghana Joseph Henry Smith, and their two sons Helel and Abdallah.

me up every day. We also would sneak out and get away from my uncle.”

Smith did eventually marry the young man, who went on to have a distinguished 39-year career in the military, including serving as commander of Ghana’s Army from 1996 to 2001, during which time he worked to build a modern corps with a focus on civil and academic education for his officers.

While discipline was the hallmark of Joseph Smith’s military career, Douha Smith is jovial and good-natured with a sly sense of humor about being married to a military man, who sometimes needs to be put in his place, she quipped.

“My husband is a well-disci-

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plined gentleman who takes his work very seriously. He works long hours [and] cares about people, not about himself. But when we came back to a new house in Ghana after being here [in D.C. in the late 1980s and early ’90s], he started to give me orders at home. I told him that I was the only civilian in the house and he has to take orders from me. I tried to let him know that the house was mine,” she recalled, laughing. “One time when I knew he was coming home, I locked the gate. When he couldn’t get in I said, ‘That’s where your command ends and mine begins.’” WD Gail Scott is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

D

Inaugural Gala DATE: Tuesday, January 17, 2017 LOCATION: Organization of American States Washington, DC INFORMATION: http://sistercities.org/inauguralgala In advance of Inauguration Day, join Sister Cities International for an exciting gathering of diplomats, members of Congress, municipal officials, and community leaders in celebration of the inauguration of our Honorary Chairperson, the President of the United States

@SisterCitiesInt #SCIinaugural THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | DECEMBER 2016 | 35

WD | Culture | Film

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

fighter Marianne Beausejour (Marion Cotillard) on a deadly mission behind enemy lines. Reunited in London, their relationship is threatened by the extreme pressures of the war.

Angelika Pop-Up Atlantic Plumbing Cinema

When Lucille and Joe move to the beautiful Maltese island of Gozo hoping to escape the past, their new life proves too good to be true.

AFI Silver Theatre Mon., Dec. 5, 5 p.m., Tue., Dec. 6, 9:45 p.m.

Bulgarian Rhapsody

Handsome Devil

Directed by Ivan Nichev (Bulgaria/Israel, 2014, 108 min.)

In 1943, the Jews of Greater Bulgaria are forced to adhere to Germany’s rule.

The friendship of teenagers Moni (a Jewish kid from Sofia) and Giogio (the son of the Commissar for Jewish Affairs’ chauffeur) is tested when they both fall in love with Shelly, a beautiful 17-year-old Jewish girl from Greece (Bulgarian, German and Ladino).

Washington DCJCC Tue., Dec. 13, 7:30 p.m.

Directed by Bertrand Bonello and John Butler (Ireland, 2016, 95 min.)

Irish novelist-turned-director John Butler’s sweet and hilarious coming-of-age comedy follows a rebellious music-loving outcast forced to share a room with mysterious star athlete.

AFI Silver Theatre Mon., Dec. 12, 7 p.m., Fri., Dec. 16, 7:10 p.m.

Croatian

Certain Women

On the Other Side (S One Strane)

Directed by Kelly Reichardt (U.S., 2016, 107 min.)

The lives of three women intersect in small-town America, where each is imperfectly blazing a trail.

West End Cinema

Directed by Ken Loach (U.K./France/Belgium, 2016, 100 min.)

An aging Newcastle carpenter is denied benefits formerly afforded to him and subjected to the nightmarish, Kafkaesque bureaucracy of the British welfare system.

AFI Silver Theatre Sat., Dec. 10, 5:20 p.m., Wed., Dec. 14, 7 p.m.

Bulgarian Glory (Slava) Directed by Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov (Bulgaria/Greece, 2016, 101 min.)

When a reclusive railway worker stumbles upon a pile of cash on the tracks, he turns it over to the police and is hailed as a model citizen by the propaganda-hungry Ministry of Transport, rewarded with a new wristwatch and promptly thrust into the national spotlight.

AFI Silver Theatre Tue., Dec. 6, 5 p.m., Thu., Dec. 8, 9:45 p.m.

Directed by Zrinko Ogresta (Croatia/Serbia, 2016, color, 85 min.)

After 20 years’ estrangement, a Zagreb nurse receives a phone call out of the blue from her war-criminal husband in Belgrade, saying that he wants to see her and the kids again after all these years.

AFI Silver Theatre Sun., Dec. 4, 12:30 p.m., Wed., Dec. 7, 5:15 p.m., Thu., Dec. 8, 5:15 p.m.

Danish Land of Mine (Under Sandet) Directed by Martin Zandvliet (Denmark/Germany, 2016, 101 min.)

Spring 1945: After five years of Nazi occupation, Denmark is now liberated.

A group of German POWS — recent conscripts from a desperate country, barely teenagers — are given a dangerous assignment by their Danish overseers: comb a local beach and remove the 45,000 mines planted by the Germans (Danish and German).

AFI Silver Theatre Sat., Dec. 10, 2 p.m.

Dutch Cafard Directed by Jan Bultheel (Belgium/France/Netherlands, 2015, 92 min.)

Belgium 1914: When world champion boxer Jean Mordant returns from a tournament to discover his daughter has been brutally assaulted by German soldiers, he signs up for the war effort in a bid to fight back against his daughter’s aggressors.

AFI Silver Theatre Sun., Dec. 11, 2:30 p.m.

English Allied Directed by Robert Zemeckis (U.S., 2016, 124 min.)

“Allied” is the story of intelligence officer Max Vatan (Brad Pitt), who in 1942 North Africa encounters French Resistance

The Eyes of My Mother Directed by Nicolas Pesce (U.S., 2016, 76 min.)

This bizarre and disturbing story begins peacefully enough: In their secluded farmhouse, a mother, formerly a surgeon in Portugal, teaches her daughter Francisca to understand anatomy and be unfazed by death. One afternoon, a mysterious visitor horrifyingly shatters the idyll of Francisca’s family life, deeply traumatizing the young girl, but also awakening some unique curiosities (English and Portuguese).

West End Cinema Opens Fri., Dec. 2

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them Directed by David Yates (133 min.)

In this all-new adventure returning us to the wizarding world created by J.K. Rowling (the “Harry Potter” series), Newt Scamander has just completed a global excursion to find and document an extraordinary array of magical creatures and finds himself in 1926 New York, where some of Newt’s fantastic beasts have escaped.

Angelica Mosaic Atlantic Plumbing Cinema

Germans & Jews Directed by Janina Quint and Tal Recanati (U.S., 2016, 76 min.)

Through personal stories, “Germans & Jews” explores Germany’s transformation as a society, from silence about the Holocaust to facing it head on.

Washington DCJCC Tue., Dec. 6, 6:30 p.m. (reception; screening at 7:30 p.m.)

Gozo Directed by Miranda Bowen (U.K./Malta, 2015, 84 min.)

36 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | December 2016

I, Daniel Blake

Jackie

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | December 2016 a small-town, Elsa is a quietly resentful woman taking care of her adult son after a shooting leaves him comatose. No one, including the bumbling village policeman, knows who the assailant might be, or why the son withdrew a large sum of money before the attack.

AFI Silver Theatre Sat., Dec. 10, 12 p.m., Thu., Dec. 15, 9:10 p.m.

Finnish The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki Directed by Juho Kuosmanen (Finland/Sweden/Germany, 2016, 92 min.)

Finnish boxer Olli Mäki earns a title fight with American featherweight champ Davey Moore in the summer of 1962. The first world title fight held in Helsinki, the event is the subject of relentless hype, but Olli’s heart is consumed by a girl from his hometown.

AFI Silver Theatre Sat., Dec. 10, 1:15 p.m., Mon., Dec. 12, 7:20 p.m.

Flemish The Ardennes (D’Ardennen)

Directed by Pablo Larraín (U.S./Chile/France, 2016, 99 min.)

Following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, first lady Jacqueline Kennedy fights through grief and trauma to regain her faith, console her children and define her husband’s historic legacy.

AFI Silver Theatre Angelika Mosaic Landmark’s Cinema Opens Fri., Dec. 9

Directed by Robin Pront (Belgium, 2015, 93 min.)

When a home invasion goes wrong, Kenny is left behind to take the rap, while his accomplices — his girlfriend and his brother — escape. Four years later, Kenny gets out of prison to find that his former partners-in-crime have gone straight (Flemish and French).

AFI Silver Theatre Tue., Dec. 6, 7:15 p.m., Wed., Dec. 7, 9:45 p.m.

Lion

French

Directed by Garth Davis (Australia, 2016, 120 min.)

A 5-year-old Indian boy gets lost on the streets of Calcutta, thousands of miles from home. He survives many challenges before being adopted by a couple in Australia; 25 years later, he sets out to find his lost family (English, Bengali and Hindi).

Angelika Mosaic Opens Fri., Dec. 9

A Street Cat Named Bob Directed by Roger Spottiswoode (U.K., 2016, 103 min.)

When a recovering drug addict found an injured, ginger street cat curled up in the hallway of his sheltered accommodation, he had no idea just how much his life was about to change. Christening him Bob, he slowly nursed the cat back to health and then sent him on his way, imagining he would never see him again. But Bob had other ideas.

West End Cinema

Estonian Mother (Ema) Directed by Kadri Kõusaar (Estonia, 2016, 89 min.)

In this pitch-black crime comedy set in

After Love (L’Économie du Couple) Directed by Joachim Lafosse (Belgium/France, 2016, 100 min.)

Belgian auteur Joachim Lafosse takes an intimate and absorbing look at the dismantling of a 15-year marriage over the course of several months.

AFI Silver Theatre Sat., Dec. 10, 3:15 p.m., Sun., Dec. 11, 7 p.m.

The Brand New Testament Directed by Jaco Van Dormael (Belgium/France/Luxembourg, 2015, 112 min.)

God lives in human form as a cynical writer with his young opinionated daughter in present-day Brussels, Belgium. She concludes that her dad is doing a terrible job and decides to rewrite the world, which leaves God angry, powerless and adamant to get his power back.

Landmark’s Cinema Opens Fri., Dec. 16

Elle Directed by Paul Verhoeven (France/Germany/Belgium, 2016, 131 min.)

A rich and powerful woman, who is the

head of her own successful video game company that specializes in violent erotic games, brings the same ruthless attitude to her love life as to business. But she is forced to face her own powerlessness when she is attacked in her home by an unknown assailant, changing her life forever.

AFI Silver Theatre Angelika Mosaic Landmark’s Bethesda Row Cinema Landmark’s E Street Cinema

Frantz Directed by François Ozon (France/Germany, 2016, 113 min.)

French veteran Adrien visits the grave of a German soldier killed in the war. The fallen man’s parents and former fiancée assume Adrien must be a friend from the soldier’s days studying music in Paris, a misconception that the fragile-nerved Adrien allows them to believe (French and German).

AFI Silver Theatre Sat., Dec. 10, 7:30 p.m.

Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles Directed by Chantal Akerman (Belgium/France, 1976, 201 min.)

Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman’s early tour de force — an examination of a woman’s ritualized behavior inside her bourgeois Brussels flat, recorded as a sequence of domestic tableaux in real time — gradually reaches the point of pure tragedy.

National Gallery of Art Sat., Dec. 24, 1 p.m.

Louise by the Shore (Louise en Hiver) Directed by Jean-François Laguionie (France/Canada, 2016, 75 min.)

Both sweet and melancholy, the story revolves around Louise, an unassuming old lady who becomes stranded alone in a seaside town during winter, and decides to stay put and make do until summer rolls around.

AFI Silver Theatre Thu., Dec. 15, 5:30 p.m., Sun., Dec. 18, 4:10 p.m.

Seasons Directed by Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud (France/Germany, 2016, 97 min.)

Four years in the making, “Seasons” presents some of the most amazing, breathtaking and gorgeous widescreen nature footage ever seen, so close that you feel part of the action. Filmmakers Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud traveled to the lush green forests that emerged across Europe following the last Ice Age to chronicle the history of the seasons for human and animal.

Landmark’s E Street Cinema

Things to Come (L’Avenir) Directed by Mia Hansen-Løve (France/Germany, 2016, 100 min.)

What happens when the life you’ve worked so hard to build falls apart all at once? A philosophy teacher soldiers through the death of her mother, getting fired from her job and dealing with a husband who is leaving her for another

woman (French, English and German).

AFI Silver Theatre Sat., Dec. 3, 2 p.m., Sun., Dec. 4, 3:30 p.m.

Landmark’s Cinema Opens Fri., Dec. 9

Upstream (En Amont du Fleuve) Directed by Marion Hänsel (Belgium/Netherlands/Croatia, 2016, 90 min.)

The death of a father brings two half-brothers together in this intimate adventure film through the Croatian countryside.

AFI Silver Theatre Sun., Dec. 11, 12:30 p.m., Tue., Dec. 13, 5 p.m.

German Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe Directed by Maria Schrader (Austria/Germany/France, 2016, 106 min.)

German author Stefan Zweig’s story of exile and despair following Hitler’s rise to power is told through five discrete vignettes ranging from the Brazilian countryside to Buenos Aires to New York City (multiple languages).

AFI Silver Theatre Sun., Dec. 11, 9:05 p.m., Wed., Dec. 14, 7:15 p.m.

Greek Beloved Days Directed by Constantinos Patsalides (Cyprus/Italy/U.K., 2015, 75 min.)

In 1970, a Cypriot village participated in its first film shooting, “The Beloved” starring movie icon Raquel Welch, and became a film destination — a future that was terminated abruptly by the Turkish invasion of 1974 and the changes that followed (Greek, English and Italian).

AFI Silver Theatre Tue., Dec. 13, 7:15 p.m.

Chevalier Directed by Athina Rachel Tsangari (Greece, 2015, 105 min.)

Six middle-aged men venture out to sea on a luxury yacht, an annual tradition where they compete in an Olympiad of bizarre games of ridiculous one-upmanship.

AFI Silver Theatre Thu., Dec. 8, 7 p.m.

Italian Bella e perduta (Lost and Beautiful) Directed by Pietro Marcello (Italy/France, 2015, 87 min.)

The foolish servant Pulcinella is sent from the depths of Mt. Vesuvius to present-day Campania to honor the last wishes of the poor shepherd Tommaso: his mission is to save a young buffalo called Sarchiapone.

National Gallery of Art Sun., Dec. 11, 4:30 p.m.

Fire at Sea (Fuocoammare) Directed by Gianfranco Rosi

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(Italy/France, 2016, 108 min.)

This atmospheric exploration documents the island of Lampedusa, home to a small population of fishing families, an overworked coast guard station and thousands of newly arrived immigrants from Africa and the Middle East.

AFI Silver Theatre Fri., Dec. 2, 2:45 p.m., Wed., Dec. 7, 7:15 p.m.

Io, Arlecchino Directed by Giorgio Pasotti and Matteo Bini (Italy, 2015, 90 min.)

When Paolo, a well-known TV host in Rome, returns to his hometown near Bergamo to visit his ailing father (an actor who plays an enigmatic character Harlequin in the local theater troupe), he manages to rekindle his own love for the theater and the pleasant rituals of his past.

National Gallery of Art Sat., Dec. 10, 3:30 p.m.

L’Avventure Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni (Italy/France, 1961, 143 min.)

Though ostensibly a mystery involving a missing woman, the film is more a psychological play that builds tension through impressions of space and time, and particularly landscape — from the Tyrrhenian Sea and Aeolian Islands to the Sicilian port town of Milazzo (Italian, English and Greek; followed by “Stagecoach”).

National Gallery of Art Wed., Dec. 28, 12:30 p.m.

Like Crazy (La Pazza Gioia) Directed by Paolo Virzì (Italy/France, 2016, 118 min.)

Beatrice is a strong-willed though undeniably delusional mental patient at a facility in Tuscany, where she tells herself that she’s just there for a rest and treats the staff and fellow patients as if they are servants (opening night of the European Union Film Showcase).

AFI Silver Theatre Thu., Dec. 1, 7:30 p.m. (with reception) Thu., Dec. 8, 7:15 p.m.

Pericle (Pericle il Nero) Directed by Stefano Mordini (Italy/Belgium/France, 2015, 104 min.)

Pericle has served his low-level Belgian mob boss faithfully for years, beginning in his youth as a luckless orphan in the Belgian Neapolitan community. When Pericle causes the accidental death of a member of a rival clan, he flees to France where, ironically, he discovers a truer sense of his own identity (Italian and French).

AFI Silver Theatre Tue., Dec. 13, 9:15 p.m., Fri., Dec. 16, 9:20 p.m.

Sweet Dreams (Fai Bei Sogni) Directed by Marco Bellocchio (Italy, 2016, 134 min.)

Journalist Massimo writes a high-profile advice column, though ironically, this

301.933.3552 perennial moper would seem a good candidate for professional help himself, having never gotten over the loss of his beloved mother at a young age.

AFI Silver Theatre Sun., Dec. 11, 4:20 p.m., Mon., Dec. 12, 2:45 p.m.

Japanese The Face of Another Directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara (Japan, 1966, 124 min.)

In this “staggering work of existential science fiction” (Criterion Collection), the great Tatsuya Nakadai plays a disfigured man who agrees to undergo a radical procedure: a face transplant.

But his new identity brings with it the temptation to give in to his darkest impulses.

Smithsonian American Art Museum Sat., Dec. 10, 4 p.m.

Kazakh The Eagle Huntress Directed by Otto Bell (U.K./Mongolia/U.S., 2016, 87 min.)

This spellbinding documentary follows Aisholpan, a 13-year-old nomadic Mongolian girl who is fighting to become the first female eagle hunter in twelve generations of her Kazakh family.

Landmark’s Bethesda Row Cinema Landmark’s E Street Cinema

Korean The Handmaiden (Ah-ga-ssi) Directed by Chan-wook Park (South Korea, 2016, 144 min.)

In this gripping and sensual tale of two women, a young Japanese lady living on a secluded estate, and a Korean woman who is hired to serve as her new handmaiden, but is secretly plotting with a conman to defraud her of a large inheritance (Korean and Japanese).

West End Cinema

Latvian Dawn (Ausma) Directed by Laila Pakalniņa and Szabolcs Hajdu (Latvia/Estonia/Poland, 2015, 96 min.)

In a collective farm in Latvia, a young hero named Janis reports his brutish father’s anti-Soviet leanings to the farm’s leadership.

AFI Silver Theatre Wed., Dec. 14, 5:15 p.m., Fri., Dec. 16, 5:05 p.m.

Polish United States of Love (Zjednoczone Stany Milosci) Directed by Tomasz Wasilewski

(Poland/Sweden, 2016, 106 min.)

Set in a nondescript Polish town in 1990, just as the Communist bloc has begun to crumble, this film explores the intertwined love lives of four women residing in a housing complex.

AFI Silver Theatre Wed., Dec. 14, 9:05 p.m., Sat., Dec. 17, 1:45 p.m.

this story on the larger ramifications of corruption.

AFI Silver Theatre Sun., Dec. 4, 5:45 p.m., Mon., Dec. 5, 6:45 p.m.

Romanian

Directed by Jan Hřebejk (Slovakia/Czech Republic, 2016, 102 min.)

In this sharp and funny takedown of totalitarianism, the arrival of a new teacher at a Bratislava school in 1983 sparks a moral dilemma.

AFI Silver Theatre Fri., Dec. 9, 5:05 p.m., Sat., Dec. 17, 7:30 p.m.

Dogs (Caini) Directed by Bogdan Mirică (Romania/France/Bulgaria/Qatar, 2016, 104 min.)

City boy Roman (Dragoș Bucur) inherits a large piece of undeveloped land from his grandfather. Beginning with the discovery on the property of a severed foot still in its shoe, and followed by various hints dropped by the local police chief, the criminal past of Roman’s grandfather comes to light.

AFI Silver Theatre Sat., Dec. 10, 9:45 p.m., Thu., Dec. 15, 9:30 p.m.

Graduation (Bacalaureat) Directed by Cristian Mungiu (Romania/France/Belgium, 2016, 128 min.)

Following a random street crime that left his daughter somewhat shaken, a doctor becomes concerned that she might not perform well on her upcoming finals in

Slovak The Teacher (Ucitelka)

Swedish A Serious Game (Den Allvarsamma Leken) Directed by Pernilla August (Sweden, 2016, 115 min.)

When an aspiring artist meets a budding journalist, the attraction is immediate, but the penniless and ambitious pair both move on to more lucrative matches.

Years later, time has not dimmed their passion and they embark on an affair that threatens to destroy the lives of everyone it touches.

AFI Silver Theater Thu., Dec. 15, 3:15 p.m., Sun., Dec. 18, 1:45 p.m.

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | December 2016 | 37

WD | Culture | Events

Events Listings *Unless specific times are listed, please check the venue for times. Venue locations are subject to change.

ART Through Dec. 2

Expressions: Photographs

by Natalia Terry Natalia Terry freezes fleeting moments — fading sunsets, unrepeatable trips, things “dancing” in the wind — to reveal the essence of people and places in a beautiful game that transforms movement, landscapes, smiles and acrobatics into timeless images (part of FotoWeekDC).

Embassy of Argentina Through Dec. 11

Gender Equality: We’ve come a long way - haven’t we?

Sweden’s achievements in gender equality are hailed as inspiring examples. Focusing on four sub-goals of gender equality set up by the Swedish government — equal division of power and influence; economic equality; equal distribution of unpaid housework and provision of care; and men’s violence against women — this exhibition aims to inspire and reflect as well as discuss the changes that have been made and to initiate the changes still needed.

House of Sweden Through Dec. 11

Spirit of the Wild: Through the Eyes of Mattias Klum All life on earth is interconnected. Cities, societies and nations depend on healthy natural ecosystems to survive and prosper. Mattias Klum, one of the most important natural history photographer of our time, shares the stories of his journeys; from deep in the Artic to wild places like the Borneo rainforest, to the savannahs of Tanzania and the life under the sea.

House of Sweden Through Dec. 11

Sweden’s Freedom of the Press Unfolded The freedom to express oneself in speech and writing is one of the basic human rights according to the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights from 1948. Sweden’s Freedom of the Press Act was passed almost 200 years earlier, in 1766. This unique timeline exhibition reveals how Sweden’s freedom of the press came about and focuses on some of the advances and setbacks that have shaped it.

House of Sweden Through Dec. 11

Viktigt by Ingegerd Raman With love of craftsmanship and simplicity at the heart of it all, Viktigt pieces do their job in silence.

Ingegerd Råman, the House of Sweden’s own designer, explores the craftsmanship behind her IKEA collection of glass, ceramic, bamboo and natural fibers.

House of Sweden

Through Dec. 11

Wingårdhs The House of Sweden turns 10 years this fall. The architects behind the beautiful building tell us what motivated the design of this stunning example of contemporary Scandinavian architecture.

House of Sweden Through Dec. 11

Woodland Sweden Nature is prevalent everywhere in Sweden and there is a long tradition of using nature’s raw materials in the country’s built environment.

Wooden architecture and design, in fact, are becoming a new Swedish export item. This exhibition shows the rapid development of Swedish innovative contemporary architecture and examines different aspects of construction work with wood.

House of Sweden Through Dec. 16

Skopje. Most of this renewal consisted of large monuments of “historic figures” and new, quasi-classical facades over old buildings. This year, these monuments and buildings came under attack by various groups of citizens of this multi-ethnic country who rose together in street protests. This exhibition of photographs tells the story of the “Colorful Revolution” through the work of photographers Robert Atanasovski, Kire Galevski and Vancho Dzambaski.

American University Museum Through Dec. 18

Martha Wilson & Franklin Furnace “Martha Wilson & Franklin Furnace” highlights Wilson’s four decades creating innovative photographic and video works that explore her female subjectivity through role-playing, costume transformations and invasions of other people’s personae.

American University Museum

A Myriad of Voices

Through Dec. 31

SPAIN arts & culture presents “A Myriad of Voices,” showcasing a small sample of the work done by former winners of the prestigious Revelation Award by PHotoEspaña, Madrid’s international photography and visual arts festival. The body of work presented in this exhibition reflects the incredible richness, diversity and creativity in modern photography as part of FotoWeekDC 2016.

Former Residence of the Spanish Ambassador

Deco Japan: Shaping Art and Culture, 1920-1945

Through Dec. 18

Alex Katz: Black and White This exhibit showcases renowned American realist artist Alex Katz’s lifelong interest in stripping color out of his prints and replacing sensual pleasure with intellectual design. Design versus color is an artistic debate that goes back to the Renaissance.

American University Museum Through Dec. 18

Challenging Adversity – IberoAmerica Copes with Climate Change This exhibition examines how populations of Ibero-American countries have managed to face the vicissitudes caused by climate change through small ventures with varying degrees of technological influence. The resulting images not only focus on the aesthetic aspects of photography itself, but also aim to show how imagination, hope and sustainable projects have emerged as a means of survival.

Hillyer Art Space

The style that came to be known as art deco, which flourished from the 1920s to 1940s, was a vivid reflection of the modern era and the vitality of the machine age. Between the wars, as normalcy returned to politics, jazz music blossomed and the flapper redefined the modern woman, art deco left its mark on every form of visual art. This exhibit explores how the Japanese interpreted the style and transformed it through their own rich art and craft traditions.

Hillwood Museum, Estate and Gardens Through January 2017

National Museum of Women in the Arts

Through Jan. 2

Senses of Time: Video and Film-Based Works of Africa

Light from the Other Side: Shadowgraphs by Tim Otto Roth

This exhibition features six internationally recognized African artists and examines how time is experienced and produced by the body. Bodies stand, climb, dance and dissolve in seven works of video and film art by Sammy Baloji, Theo Eshetu, Moataz Nasr, Berni Searle, Yinka Shonibare and Sue Williamson, all of whom repeat, resist and reverse the expectation that time must move relentlessly forward.

National Museum of African Art

Shadows underscore the beauty of nature and escape the captivity of their surfaces in the shadowgraphs created by German conceptual artist Tim Otto Roth.

Usually referred to as photograms, these highly differentiated shadow records on light-sensitive surfaces are created in a process similar to an X-ray, with Roth dedicating 15 years of research and development into this medium.

Goethe-Institut

Through Jan. 5

Through Jan. 27

North Is Freedom

Sertão Cerrado by José Diniz

This photographic essay celebrates the descendants of freedom-seekers who escaped slavery in the United States by fleeing to Canada. In the years before the American Civil War, approximately 30,000 fugitive slaves followed the “North Star” to freedom, using a network of clandestine routes that became known as the “Underground Railroad.” Some 150 years later, Canadian photographer Yuri Dojc explores the northern end of the “Underground Railroad” and presents a series of 24 portraits of descendants. This exhibit honors the contributions of once-enslaved African Americans and their descendants to Canada and celebrates the opening of the newest Smithsonian museum, the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Embassy of Canada Art Gallery

Sertão refers to backland region located inside Brazil, far from the coast, while Cerrado occupies much of the interior. In addition to providing water that feeds aquifers and basins to major cities, the region is home to a cycle of fire and water, after periods of drought and fire, that gives birth to lush flowers rising from the ashes — an elemental process of earth, water, fire and air documented by Brazilian photographer José Diniz.

Art Museum of the Americas

Through Jan. 7

Resilience is defined as the human ability to cope with difficult times and bounce back from personal trauma. The Inter-American Development Bank, with support from the Smithsonian Latino Center and the Embassy of the Dominican Republic, examine how artists create a space for society’s healing and growth.

Today, the Dominican Republic is one of the most dynamic economies in the Caribbean. Nevertheless, the advances in reducing poverty and inequality have not kept pace with GDP growth. Looking toward the future, the country needs to improve the quality of education, health care infrastructure and services, diversify exports and boost productivity, while also adapting to climate change and promoting innovation.

IDB Cultural Center

“The Overflow of Productivity Logic,” with works by artists Cristina Lucas, Irving Penn, Abraham Cruzvillegas and more, features a selection of pieces that, through gestures, evocations or representations, displace the conceptual pillars of the prevailing economic model. Through three thematic axes, the exhibit calls into question production processes and economic exchange, reflects on the role that the economy plays in the constitution of an individual and challenges the logic of “productivity” within the capitalistic economic model.

Mexican Cultural Institute

Through Jan. 2

The High Stakes of Macedonia’s ‘Colorful Revolution’

Recent Acquisitions of Dutch and Flemish Drawings

38 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | December 2016

and Flemish draftsmanship and its stylistic evolution.

National Gallery of Art

Resilience: Reclaiming History and the Dominican Diaspora

Through Dec. 18

Several years ago, the Macedonian government embarked on a highly controversial and hugely expensive “urban renewal” of the capital city,

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | December 2016

“Recent Acquisitions of Dutch and Flemish Drawings” encompasses landscapes, seascapes, portraits, still lifes and history subjects that demonstrate the originality of Dutch

The Overflow of Productivity Logic

Through Jan. 8

NO MAN’S LAND: Women Artists from the Rubell Family Collection Born in 16 countries across five continents, 37 contemporary artists use their aesthetically diverse work to address varied political and intellectual themes. This exhibition centers on the process of making as well as on images of the female body — both topics that extend from the feminist art movement of the 1970s.

Through Jan. 13

Through Jan. 29

Turquoise Mountain: Artists Transforming Afghanistan Decades of civil unrest nearly destroyed Afghanistan’s vital artistic heritage. Over the past decade, Turquoise Mountain, an organization founded in 2006 at the request of the prince of Wales and the president of Afghanistan, has transformed the Murad Khani district of Old Kabul from slum conditions into a vibrant cultural and economic center.

Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Through Jan. 30

Bingata! Only in Okinawa The first major American exhibition of Okinawa’s textile treasures — brightly colored fabrics known as bingata — introduces U.S. audiences to the history and culture of Japan’s southernmost administrative district through dozens of bingata textiles, ranging from 18th- and 19th-century court robes to contemporary works

by Okinawan artists and fashion designers.

The George Washington University Museum / Textile Museum Through Feb. 7

No Boundaries: Aboriginal Australian Contemporary Abstract Painting “No Boundaries” showcases the work of nine Aboriginal artists from remote northwest Australia, revered as community leaders and the custodians of ceremonial knowledge. They took up painting late in their lives, but quickly established themselves at the

forefront of Australian contemporary art. The paintings of these nine men cannot be understood outside of the rich cultural traditions that inform them. At the same time, these artists are innovators of the highest order.

Embassy of Australia Art Gallery Through Feb. 20

The Art of the Qur’an: Treasures from the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts In recognition of one of the world’s extraordinary collections of Qur’ans, the Freer|Sackler is hosting a landmark exhibition, the first of its kind in the United States, featuring some 50 of the most sumptuous manuscripts from Herat to Istanbul. Celebrated for their superb calligraphy and lavish illumination, these manuscripts — which range in date from the early 8th to the 17th century — are critical to the history of the arts of the book. They were once the prized possessions of Ottoman sultans and the ruling elite, who donated their Qur’ans to various institutions to express their personal piety and secure political power.

Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Through Feb. 26

Evolving Elections; Comparing the 1916 and 2016 Presidential Campaigns “Evolving Elections” attempts to make sense of presidential politics then and now, exploring the political campaign season of 100 years ago vs. the current election. The modern day complaints about primary fights, the importance of party unity, a bitterly divided party, the grueling length of campaigns and outsiders seeking nomination would have been familiar to the voter during the contentious election of 1916. More contentious than 2016? You decide.

Woodrow Wilson House Through March 5

Photography Reinvented: The Collection of Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker The collection of Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker brings together works of critically important artists who have changed the course of photography through their experimentation and conceptual scope.

Especially rich in holdings of work by photographers of the famed Düsseldorf School, among them Struth, Candida Höfer, Andreas Gursky and Thomas Ruff, the collection also includes examples by photographers exploring the nature of the medium itself, such as Demand, Cindy Sherman and Vik Muniz.

National Gallery of Art Through March 5

Stuart Davis: In Full Swing As one of the most important American modernists, Stuart Davis (1892–1964) blurred distinctions between text and image, high and low art, and abstraction and figuration,

Events | Culture | WD crafting a distinct style that continues to influence art being made today.

National Gallery of Art Through March 26

The Great Swindle: Works by Santiago Montoya Colombian artist Santiago Montoya uses paper currency as the base for his work, re-contextualizing one of our most basic and intimate relationships: the relationship with money.

Comprised of works that Montoya has made over the last 10 years, “The Great Swindle” represents a sustained examination of the complicated, fluid relationships we have with financial systems, as well as a journey through the artist’s forays into the materiality of paper bills — raising questions and taking positions on our place within the financial system.

OAS Art Museum of the Americas Through Aug. 6, 2017

José Gómez-Sicre’s Eye A half-century ago, Cuban-born curator José Gómez-Sicre took the reins of the OAS’s art program, thrusting himself into the rapidly expanding Latin American art world and bringing young, emerging talent to the OAS’s budding exhibition space.

Impassioned by the arts, Gómez-Sicre planted the seeds of what is today considered among world’s finest collections of modern and contemporary Latin American and Caribbean art.

The OAS will be celebrating the centennial of Gómez-Sicre’s birth throughout 2016, honoring his contribution to the legacy of the hemisphere’s art.

OAS Art Museum of the Americas

DanCE Dec. 1 to 24

The Nutcracker This perennial favorite returns as the Washington Ballet’s celebrated production brings to life the classic tale with a twist, transplanting it to historic Georgetown with George Washington and King George III among other historical figures, all set to the iconic score by Tchaikovsky.

Special events include a behind-thescenes family day (Dec. 4), military appreciation night (Dec. 6) and post-performance tea party (Dec. 11).

Please call for ticket information.

Warner Theatre Tue., Dec. 13 and 20, 6:30 p.m.

along with vendors selling a variety of Christmas favorites and other unique crafts, delectable treats and drinks. Tickets are $20; for information, visit gahmuse.org.

German-American Heritage Museum

traditions, with haunting melodies, breathtaking dance, epic folk legends and joyful carols get you into the holiday spirit. Please call for ticket information.

GW Lisner Auditorium

Dec. 6 to 8

National Symphony Orchestra: Handel’s ‘Messiah’

Dec. 15 to 18

Borges, Eternal Fictions from Argentina The Argentine Embassy brings together artists and intellectuals to pay tribute to a great 20th century author Jorge Luis Borges. Events include a film screening of “The Books and the Night,” followed by an expert discussion and wine reception (Dec. 6); a conversation with María Kodama (Dec. 7 at the Library of Congress); and performances by Argentine actress Muriel Santa Ana and Hugo Medrano of GALA Hispanic Theatre following by tango music and dancing (Dec. 8). For more information or to RSVP, email events@embassyofargentina.us.

Embassy of Argentina

musiC Thu., Dec. 1, 6:30 p.m.

Itamar Zorman, Violin Amy Lang, Piano Violinist Itamar Zorman, joint winner of the 2011 International Tchaikovsky Competition, is joined by pianist Amy Lang for a program of Ben-Haim, Granados, Schubert and Ravel, co-sponsored by the Israeli Embassy.

Tickets are $75, including wine reception; for information, visit www.embassyseries.org.

Venue TBA Tue., Dec. 6, 7:30 p.m.

Christian Gerhaher, Baritone Gerold Huber, Piano Vocal Arts DC is delighted to welcome back to D.C. the formidable team of baritone Christian Gerhaher and pianist Gerold Huber, whose long and close cooperation, be it in music of the classical or romantic periods or in contemporary music, has enabled them to achieve a superlative level of interaction, giving their music penetrating interpretations and meaning. Tickets are $50.

University of the District of Columbia Theatre of the Arts Thu., Dec. 8, 7 p.m.

FEstivals Sat., Dec. 3, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Dec. 10 to 18

Christmas Market

The Christmas Revels

The German-American Heritage Foundation of the USA invites guests to its first annual Christmas Market featuring music by the Alpine Singers

The Washington Revels’s flagship production is an annual festive celebration of the winter solstice and the wonders of Nordic winter

The Embassy of Argentina invites you to an immersion in the world of tango dance in four lessons for beginners taught by Argentine instructor Jorge Pereyra. Admission is free; register before Dec. 9 at eventos@ embassyofargentina.us.

Embassy of Argentina

Dec. 11, 17, 20, 21 and 22

The Washington Chorus: Candlelight Christmas Each year, the Washington Chorus delights D.C. audiences with its Candlelight Christmas concerts — resplendent affairs comprising a candlelight processional, brass, organ and audience sing-alongs. This year’s concerts will feature star tenor and D.C. native Carl Tanner as soloist, along with guest conductor Andrew Clark, director of choral activities at Harvard University, and the Northwest High School Chamber Singers and the H-B Woodlawn Chamber Singers as part of the Side-by-Side program, a 24-year-old program that supports music programs in area high schools. Tickets are $18 to $72.

Kennedy Center Concert Hall Music Center at Strathmore (Dec. 19) Sun., Dec. 18, 4 p.m.

Dec. 9 to 31

The Second City’s ‘Twist Your Dickens’

Through Dec. 3

A View from the Bridge Internationally renowned Belgian director Ivo van Hove presents a limited engagement of Arthur Miller’s masterwork, winner of two 2016 Tony Awards including Best Director and Best Revival of a Play. Join tragic protagonist Eddie Carbone in this dark and passionate tale of family, love and duplicity. Tickets are $45 to $149.

Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater Dec. 6 to Jan. 8

Into the Woods Venture into the woods with the acclaimed Fiasco Theater’s production that became New York’s surprise hit of the season. This witty and wildly theatrical re-invention of Sondheim’s Tony Award-winning musical classic is staged like you’ve never seen it before. Tickets are $45 to $175.

Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater Dec. 7 to 18

Goyescas by Enrique Granados This year marks the centennial of the 1916 war-time world premiere of Enrique Granados’s opera “Goyescas” in New York. To mark the occasion, the In Series presents a new framing of this renowned Spanish classic — inspired by the dramatic paintings of Francisco de Goya and infused with Spanish dance — which explores the tensions of romantic betrayal, the omnipresent class system and the reflections of a composer torn between New York and his beloved Spain back in war-torn Europe. Tickets are $46; in Spanish in surtitles.

GALA Hispanic Theatre

Vienna Boys Choir: Christmas in Vienna

Dec. 7 to Jan. 8

Celebrate the holidays with these extraordinarily talented young Austrian choristers in concert as they perform sacred hymns, holiday pop favorites and Christmas carols. Tickets are $33 to $55.

George Mason University Center for the Arts

Synetic’s award-winning ensemble takes on the classic tale of a princess, an evil sorceress and a centurieslong sleeping curse in this darkly elegant, wordless adaptation of one of the Grimm Brothers’ most beloved stories. Tickets start at $35.

Synetic Theater

Sleeping Beauty

The Second City parodies Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol” for an interactive experience that Scrooge will never forget as the legendary comedy troupe brings its improvisational skills and sketch comedy mastery to “the night before Christmas.” Tickets are $39 to $79.

Kennedy Center Theater Lab Dec. 14 to Jan. 8

Wicked Back by popular demand: From its first electrifying note to the final breathtaking moment, “Wicked” — the untold true story of the Witches of Oz — transfixes audiences with its wildly inventive story that USA Today cheers is “a complete triumph!”

Tickets are $99 to $359.

Kennedy Center Opera House Through Dec. 21

The Second Shepherds’ Play This magical retelling of the Nativity story combines beautiful music and a moving story for the holiday season, featuring the Folger Consort, the award-winning early music ensemble in residence at the Folger Shakespeare Library, performing festive medieval English tunes against the backdrop of this engaging mystery play. Tickets are $40 to $60.

Folger Shakespeare Library Through Dec. 24 Named the best musical of the 20th century by Time magazine, “Carousel” follows Billy Bigelow and Julie Jordan through their journey of love, loss and redemption and soars with unforgettable songs including “If I Loved You,”“June Is Bustin’ Out All Over” and “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” Tickets are $50 to $99.

Arena Stage Through Dec. 24

Moby Dick Set sail on an epic adventure this holiday season with a dramatically

Phillips CONTINUED • PAGE 31

Lovell combines individualized charcoal faces drawn using Conté crayons with personal objects such as clothes and jewelry to compose highly personal, poetic portraits with multilayered meanings.

According to the Phillips, “Through the potency of their juxtapositions and the symbolism of his visual language, Lovell’s ‘Kin’ allow the viewer to contemplate the ‘markings that the past has made — and continues to make — on who we are.’”

In “Strange Fruit,” for example, we see a male figure with a red bouquet of silk flowers, echoing something from eponymous song (recorded by Billie Holliday, among others) that

PhOTO: GREEnVILLE COUnTY MUSEUM OF ART / © WhITFIELD LOVELL AnD DC MOORE GALLERY, nY

Whitfield Lovell’s “north” is part of the “Kin Series” exhibit.

meditates on racism and lynching.

Another odd juxtaposition is a female figure with boxing gloves dangling

reimagined production of “Moby Dick,” which uses bold trapeze and acrobatic work to bring to life Captain Ahab’s harrowing quest for the legendary great while whale. Tickets are $40 to $90.

Arena Stage Through Dec. 31

A Christmas Carol Join the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future as they lead Ebenezer Scrooge on a journey of transformation and redemption in this production that captures the magic and joy of Charles Dickens’s Yuletide classic with abundant caroling, spooky stage tricks and cheerful dancing for the holiday season.

Please call for ticket information.

Ford’s Theatre Through Dec. 31

The Secret Garden

When 10-year-old Mary Lennox loses her parents to a cholera epidemic in the British Raj of India, she travels to England to stay with her remote and morose uncle, still grieving the death of his wife 10 years ago. Terrified of every nook and cranny of the haunted Craven Manor on the Yorkshire Moors, Mary seeks refuge in her late aunt’s mysterious walled garden, where she discovers amazing secrets. Please call for ticket information.

Shakespeare Theatre Company Harman Hall Through Jan. 1

Carousel

Virgil Boutellis-Taft, Violin Angela Draghicescu, Piano Violinist Virgil Boutellis-Taft’s concerts as a soloist and chamber musician have led him through Europe and the United States, while pianist Angela Draghicescu, a native of Romania, has toured globally as a duo and chamber music pianist in venues such as Carnegie Hall and Mahidon Auditorium in Thailand. Tickets are $95, including buffet reception; for information, visit www.embassyseries.org.

Embassy of Romania

Tango Lessons

Get in the holiday spirit with Handel’s epic masterpiece, performed each year with a fresh perspective by the National Symphony Orchestra.

This year, Laurence Cummings conducts four gifted singers and the University of Maryland Concert Choir in this NSO tradition. Tickets are $15 to $89.

Kennedy Center Concert Hall

thEatEr

The Second City’s Black Side of the Moon The Second City renews its long-running, hugely-successful partnership with Woolly Mammoth by shining the light of satire on a nation eclipsed by its own divisiveness. In “Black Side of the Moon,” a cast of Chicago’s funniest and most audacious African American sketch and stand-up artists deconstructs and reconstructs blackness through comedy, illuminating the challenges of the past and promises of the future. Tickets start at $20.

Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company

around her neck.

Some of the works are on wood with sepia overtones that evoke a distant time, such as “North,” which shows a man in a large brimmed hat with a worn, old-fashioned suitcase below his profile.

Like “The Migration Series,” there is a literary component to Lovell’s art, which references poets such as William Wordsworth and Maya Angelou.

It’s a haunting amalgam that reflects on the past and transports viewers in the vein of Lawrence’s seminal “Migration Series.” On the one hand, time stands still in both artists’ snapshots of American history; on the other, it continually moves forward. But as current events such as the recent U.S. election and European migration crisis have shown us, the past is always with us, in one guise or another. WD Gary Tischler is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | DEcEMbEr 2016 | 39

WD | Culture | Spotlight

Diplomatic Spotlight

December 2016

Meridian Ball Over 800 Washingtonians came out for the 48th annual Meridian Ball on Oct. 14 at the Meridian International Center, a global leadership nonprofit established 55 years ago to prepare U.S. and international leaders to meet global challenges and opportunities. Following dinners at 22 embassies and ambassadorial residences around town, guests came to the Meridian International Center for dessert and dancing. This year’s chairs included UAE Ambassador Youself Al Otaiba and Ambassador of Panama Emanuel Gonzalez-Revilla and their wives.

Edelia Gutierrez; former Commerce Secretary and Meridian Board of Trustees Chair Carlos Gutierrez; Meridian Ball co-chair Luciana Gonzalez-Revilla; co-chair and Ambassador of Panama Emanuel Gonzalez-Revilla; co-chair Abeer Al Otaiba; co-chair and Ambassador of the United Arab Emirates Yousef Al Otaiba; Gwen Holliday of the Advisory Board Company; and President and CEO of the Meridian International Center Stuart Holliday attend the 48th annual Meridian Ball.

Photo: Joyce Boghosian James Blanchard of DLA Piper; Ambassador of Oman Hunaina Sultan Ahmed Al-Mughairy; Janet Blanchard, Shamim Jawad of the Ayenda Foundation, former Ambassador of Afghanistan Said Tayeb Jawad, Ambassador of Afghanistan Hamdullah Mohib and Lael Mohib.

Ambassador of Denmark Lars Gert Lose and his wife Ulla Rønberg.

Photo: Joyce Boghosian

Ambassador of Portugal Domingos Fezas Vital and his wife Isabel Fezas Vital.

Photo: Joyce Boghosian

Cardiologist Rob Marshall; former U.S. Protocol Chief Capricia Marshall; Aviva Rosenthal of the Smithsonian Office of International Relations and Global Programs; Dan Rosenthal of the Albright Stonebridge Group; Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken; and Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs Evan Ryan.

Photo: Joyce Boghosian

Tony Podesta, founder and chairman of the Podesta Group, and Executive Vice Chair of the Atlantic Council Adrienne Arsht.

Ryan Jones, White House social secretary Deesha Dyer, government relations consultant Joi Sheffield and Vice President of the National Press Club Jeffrey Ballou.

Sen. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and Debbie Meadows.

Founder and CEO of Home Health Connection Inc. Shahin Mafi, Ambassador of Hungary Réka Szemerkényi and her husband Szabolcs Ferencz, senior vice president of corporate affairs for the Hungarian oil and gas company MOL Group.

MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart and partner Nick Schmit of the State Department.

Ambassador of Tunisia Fayçal Gouia and Ray Mahmood.

Photo: Joyce Boghosian

Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), April Delaney, Executive Director of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities Megan Beyer and Sen. John Delaney (D-Md.).

Jemuel Phillips-Spencer; Ann-Marie Padgett, international advocacy manager for Caterpillar Inc.; Joanne Phillips-Spencer; Ambassador of Trinidad and Tobago Anthony W.J. Phillips-Spencer; Kate Irvin of the Coca-Cola Co.; and Vice President of Communications at the Meridian International Center Monique McSween.

U.S. Chief of Protocol Peter Selfridge, Missy Owens of the CocaCola Co. and Rod O’Connor of the Messina Group.

Britt Biles of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Lacey Biles of the NRA, Steven Kupka of Husch Blackwell and Ambassador of Panama Emanuel Gonzalez-Revilla.

The Live Band performs.

Photo: Joyce Boghosian

Tracy Weiss, Heike Schuster and Embassy of Luxembourg social secretary Elisabeth Herndler.

40 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | December 2016

Former Ambassador of Barbados John Beale, now with the OAS, Leila Beale of Hollywood Real Estate Services and managing editor of The Washington Diplomat Anna Gawel.

Spotlight | Culture | WD

House of Sweden’s 10th Anniversary Location, location, location. Sweden took that real estate mantra to heart when it built its sleek, singular embassy along the Georgetown Waterfront, far from the diplomatic confines of Embassy Row. A decade later, the Swedish Embassy (i.e. House of Sweden) celebrated its 10th anniversary with a lavish Oct. 20 gala that featured an array of food; musical performances; talks with the architects, designers and builders behind the embassy; as well as 10 stations set up to reflect issues the embassy has focused on over the last decade, such as “water and environment” and “cars and transportation.”

Ambassador of Iceland Geir H. Haarde and his wife Inga Jona Thordardottir attend the 10th anniversary celebration for the House of Sweden, also home to the Icelandic Embassy.

Taiwanese National Day

Photo: Embassy of Sweden

Swedish Embassy Deputy Chief of Mission Göran Lithell, House of Sweden architects Tomas Hansen and Gert Wingårdh and Swedish Ambassador Björn Lyrvall.

Swedish Embassy public diplomacy, press and communications counselor Monica Enqvist, center, talks with Kate Novak and her husband Alan Novak, a local real estate developer who owned the land on which the House of Sweden was built. Photo: Embassy of Sweden

Photo: Embassy of Sweden

Elaborate arrangements of food were spread throughout the House of Sweden.

Representative of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) Stanley Kao, third from left, leads a toast to celebrate Taiwan’s 105th National Day at Twin Oaks Estate. He’s joined by Taiwanese pitcher Wei-yin Chen of the Miami Marlins, left, and former U.S. Ambassador and current American Institute in Taiwan Chairman James F. Moriarty, center.

Photo: Embassy of Sweden

U.S. Protocol Chief Peter Selfridge, Kathryn Minor, Alexandra Adams and Swedish Embassy Deputy Chief of Mission Göran Lithell.

Johannes Vieweg of Nova Southeastern University, TECRO Deputy Representative Anne Hung and TECRO Deputy Representative James Lee.

Guests listen to the architects and designers behind the House of Photo: Embassy of Sweden Sweden.

Photo: Embassy of Sweden

A garden of macaroons.

Lithuanian Minister-Counselor Lyra Puisyte Bostroem and Ambassador of Lithuania Rolandas Krisciunas.

Ambassador of Nicaragua Francisco Obadiah Campbell Hooker, his wife Mariam Hooker and Mark Oh of the Christian Embassy multiPhotos: TECRO denominational ministry.

‘Confidence Code’ at Japan

House of Sweden designer Ingegerd Råman joins Johan Marcus, executive director of the Swedish-American Chambers of Commerce, and Helena Marcus.

Photo: Embassy of Sweden

Swedish big band Cotton Club performs.

Photo: Embassy of Sweden

A display on cars and transportation.

Fuad Sahouri and Taweel Tawil of Sahouri Insurance.

Photo: Embassy of Sweden

Photo: Embassy of Sweden

In late September, Danish Crown Prince Frederik and his wife Crown Princess Mary visited the U.S. for an “Innovating Through Business Partnerships” trade delegation. The visit kicked off at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and consisted of 30 separate events and roundtables in both D.C. and Boston. In addition, Danish Ambassador Lars Gert Lose hosted the opening of the “Art in Embassies” program at his residence. A few weeks later, Lose welcomed members of the Danish Dance Theatre to their Whitehaven Street residence on Oct. 17 to celebrate the contemporary dance company’s performance of “Black Diamond” at the Kennedy Center.

Ultra Violet Tribute

Photo: Embassy of Sweden

Danish Visits

Photo: Embassy of Japan

Journalist and author Claire Shipman, wife of the Japanese ambassador Nobuko Sasae and Irish ambassador Anne Anderson discuss Shipman’s book, “The Confidence Code,” at a forum hosted by Sasae at the Japanese Residence.

Ambassador of Denmark Lars Gert Lose and his wife Ulla Rønberg join members of the Danish Dance Theatre.

Danish Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary are greeted by well-wishers.

Danish Crown Prince Frederik, Crown Princess Mary and Ambassador of Denmark Lars Gert Lose.

Photos: Embassy of Denmark

Photo: Embassy of France

Andrew Oros of Washington College, Vincenzo Mingoia, Laurence Cohen, French photographer and artist Pascal Blondeau and Steve Clemons of the Atlantic attend a performance by Blondeau at the Phillips Collection. Blondeau paid tribute to his friend Ultra Violet, a French-American artist, actress and author who was a striking figure on the New York art scene for more than 50 years.

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | December 2016 | 41

WD | Culture | Spotlight

Diplomatic Spotlight

December 2016

Points of Light at Germany The German ambassador’s residence was aglow Oct. 20 in recognition of four women and their volunteer efforts. Mariela Shaker, a violinist who fled from Aleppo, Syria, entertained a full house for the Points of Light 2016 Tribute Dinner dedicated to the work of Eden DuncanSmith, Kimberly Holder and Haley Kilpatrick Dozier. Points of Light, the largest international nonprofit dedicated to volunteerism, was founded by former President George H.W. Bush in 1990. Sixteen-yearold Duncan-Smith, the youngest to be honored, was recognized for her organizing efforts in the “Bring Back Our Girls” initiative. Holder has volunteered on nearly 150 projects through New York Cares, a Points of Light affiliate, and Dozier is the founder of Girl Talk Inc., an international mentorship nonprofit to boost the self-esteem of young girls.

Neil Bush, son of former President George H.W. Bush and chairman of the Points of Light Board of Directors; Ambassador of Germany Peter Wittig; and Jean Becker, former chief of staff to George H.W. Bush.

Points of Light Chief Executive Officer Tracy Hoover.

Robert M. Kimmitt, the former deputy secretary of the Treasury under President George W. Bush; journalist Huberta von Voss-Wittig, wife of the German ambassador; and Leona Hiraoka.

Syrian violinist Mariela Shaker.

Honoree Haley Kilpatrick Dozier.

Honoree Kimberly Holder.

Maria and Neil Bush.

Honoree Eden Duncan-Smith and Neil Bush.

Syrian violinist Mariela Shaker and Huberta von Voss-Wittig, wife of the German ambassador.

Mariela Shaker, 26, a virtuoso violinist who fled Aleppo, Syria, was the evening’s entertainment at the Points of Light 2016 Tribute Dinner at the German Ambassador’s residence.

Hungarian Freedom Fight To mark the 60th anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution against Soviet control, the embassy in D.C. hosted a variety of events, including a black-tie commemorative gala dinner at Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium on Oct. 16, which featured master of ceremonies Ari Fleischer and other prominent Hungarian-Americans. “The Revolution of 1956 was the expression of the Hungarian people’s desire for freedom and democracy,” said Hungarian Ambassador Réka Szemerkényi. “Freedom and democracy are the central pillars of the U.S. and of the Hungarian-American relations rebuilt after 1990, which we deeply treasure.”

Lala Abdurahimova and her husband, Ambassador of Azerbaijan Elin Suleymanov.

Photo: Gail Scott

Neil Bush, the chair of the Points of Light board of directors, speaks at the Points of Light 2016 Tribute Dinner at the German Ambassador’s residence.

Photos: James Cullum

Victoria Metzner, Paul Horvath, Cecilie Horvath, David Metzner and Fred Bush.

U.S. Ambassador to Hungary Colleen Bell, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and Ambassador of Hungary Réka Szemerkényi.

Sara Rafferty of Winning Strategies of Washington; Marie Royce, wife of Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.); and Prosser Stirling, senior director of global development in government affairs for Oracle.

Photo: Embassy of Hungary

Photo: Gail Scott

Former New York Gov. George Pataki, a HungarianAmerican.

Photo: Gail Scott Photo: Gail Scott Photo: Embassy of Hungary

Ambassador of the Slovak Republic Peter Kmec.

42 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | December 2016

Ambassador of Hungary Réka Szemerkényi, Gilan Tocco and Mary Mochary, former mayor of Montclair, N.J.

Spotlight | Culture | WD

Noche Iberoamericana The Ibero-American Cultural Attachés Association (AACIA) presented the third annual Noche Iberoamericana on Oct. 5, a night of food, music, art and more at the Mexican Cultural Institute. Attendees tasted cuisine from Paraguay, Mexico, El Salvador and Venezuela while sipping on Argentinian and Chilean wine, Costa Rican beer, Dominican rum mojitos and Peruvian pisco. The program also included music from Spain by the Pavel Urkiza duet with percussion by Rigel Pérez; dancing from Panama by Grufolpawa; and music from Colombia by Verny Varela. The evening was capped off with Portuguese natas, Ecuadorean chocolate and Guatemalan coffee.

Claudia Casovas, pictured with Carolina Kronwald of LATAM Airlines, won two roundtrip business-class tickets to Lima, Peru, during the raffle.

Various diplomats attended Noche Iberoamericana, including, from top row left to bottom: Gretchen Pockles of the Dominican Republic; Maria Eugenia Álvarez of Guatemala; Carolina Kitras of Panama; Tatiana de Germán Ribón of Colombia; Vilma Herrera of El Salvador; Bernardo Toscano of Cuba; Carla Portalanza of Ecuador; Gustavo Morales Cirión of the Mexican Cultural Institute; Barbara De Giorgis of Chile; and Maria Laura Reos of Spain.

The Embassy of Cuba participates in a cigar giveaway raffle.

Dancers from the Embassy of Panama.

Guests explore the Mexican Cultural Institute.

Electric Motorcycle Takes D.C. by Storm The Storm Eindhoven electric motorcycle was taken for a spin around D.C. on Oct. 24 during a special event hosted by the Dutch Embassy. The world’s first longdistance electric motorcycle, the Storm Eindhoven was built by students at the Technical University of Eindhoven in the Netherlands, in cooperation with various industrial partners, institutes and government agencies. The motorcycle can reach speeds of up to 100 miles per hour and travel more than 230 miles per charge on its replaceable, modular battery packs.

The Storm Eindhoven electric motorcycle whips past the White House.

Dutch Embassy Deputy Chief of Mission Joanneke Balfoort welcomes guests.

Ambassador of Tajikistan Farhod Salim introduces William E. Todd, principal deputy assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs.

The Embassy of Tajikistan celebrated the 29th anniversary of the former Soviet republic’s independence on Sept. 6 at the Carnegie Library in D.C. Photos: Embassy of Tajikistan

Giulia Cocuccioni was the winner of Cuban cigars from A to Z Duty Free LLC.

Guests enjoy authentic dance performances.

Colombian band Verny Varela performs.

Meridian Global Leadership Summit

Driver Bram van Diggelen; Dutch Embassy Counselor for Infrastructure and the Environment Bart de Jong; Driver Bram van Diggelen, right, talks with Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology at the Photos: Royal Netherlands Embassy Gregory D. Winfree, assistant secretary for U.S. Department of Transportation Gregory D. Winfree; research and technology at the U.S. Depart- Peter van Deventer of Coast to Coast e-Mobility; and The Storm Eindhoven teams explains the Jos van Bree, vice mayor of the Dutch city of Helmond. electric motorcycle. ment of Transportation.

Tajik Independence

From top left, Ricardo Ballet, William Gomez, Tania Rodriguez, Valencia Williams, Lourdes Murphy, Valeria Gonzalez and Juan Peralta pose by a cover poster for The Washington Diplomat, a media sponsor of Noche Iberoamericana.

The Meridian International Center’s fifth annual Global Leadership Summit at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center examined the timely issue of “Restoring Confidence in Leaders and Institutions” on the eve of the U.S. election. The Oct. 14 event featured a presentation of a Gallup report which found that although 61 Former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy percent of Americans disapprove of Sherman, now a senior fellow at Harvard, and Meridian their own country’s leadership, the International Center CEO and President Stuart Holliday. world continues to give the United States — under President Obama — the highest approval rating among major world powers today.

Ambassador of Afghanistan Hamdullah Mohib.

Worldwide Chair and CEO of Burson Marsteller Don Baer, Executive Director of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities Megan Beyer and Ambassador of Afghanistan Hamdullah Mohib.

U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Paul Zukunft; President and Chairman of the U.S. Export-Import Bank Fred P. Hochberg; former U.S. Ambassador Tom. C. Korologos; and Meridian International Center President and CEO Stuart Holliday.

Ambassador of Panama Emanuel Gonzalez-Revilla.

Joie de Vivre Memorial Celebration

Ambassador of Tajikistan Farhod Salim and Ambassador of Russia Sergey Kislyak.

Marhabo Bilolova and Ambassador of Tajikistan Farhod Salim greet former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan and the U.N. Zalmay Khalilzad.

Acclaimed chefs Daniel Boulud, José Andrés and Ashok Bajaj attend a tribute at the French Embassy to honor Michel Richard, the pioneering French chef behind D.C.’s Central Michel Richard and Citronelle — one of the first east coast restaurants to feature an open kitchen — who died Aug. 13 at the age of 68.

“In his own way, Michel Richard was an ambassador of France,” said embassy first counselor Patrick Lachaussée.

Photo: Embassy of France THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | December 2016 | 43

WD | United States | SPECIAL REPORT

Obama COnTInUED • PAGE 7

president and a symbol of the country’s enlightened democracy.

Obama’s lofty promises to turn a new tide with the Arab world, however, did not pan out, as the turmoil of the Arab Spring upended regional dynamics and devastated nations such as Syria and Yemen. Obama’s charisma and worldly upbringing weren’t enough to overcome the historical grievances and geopolitical jockeying between Sunnis and Shiites. He also couldn’t prevent a bellicose Russia, rising China or reckless North Korea from antagonizing their neighbors.

But the 44th president did mend fences with U.S. allies estranged by Bush’s unilateral policies. His close ties with EU nations helped cobble together a coalition that slapped sanctions on Moscow, paved the way for a historic nuclear agreement with Iran and steady a faltering global economy.

The question now is: How much international goodwill does Trump need to realize his foreign policy vision? The Republican president-elect dismissed or outright insulted a multitude of leaders, many of whom only begrudgingly accepted his victory. Will their bitterness linger, or will bygones be bygones once Trump enters the White House?

Vanda Felbab-Brown of Brookings says it may be difficult to patch up the differences.

“During his campaign, he denigrated allies and questioned the usefulness of NATO … rejoiced in humiliating neighbors like Mexico, repeatedly lashed out against China, suggested policies for the Middle East that ranged from uninformed (such as his promise to abort the U.S.-Iran nuclear deal), erratic, un-implementable (taking oil away from the Islamic State) to utterly unspecified (such as how to fight the Islamic State or what to do with Syria or Egypt),” she wrote.

“This is heavy baggage that Trump brings to the Oval Office. The credibility of the United States as a country committed to pluralism, multiculturalism, inclusiveness, opportunities for all and human rights — in other words, U.S. soft power — has already suffered a serious blow. Recovering that reputation for enlightened leadership will be hard for President Trump, given the xenophobia of his rhetoric on the way to the White House,” she concluded.

Others say Trump’s everyman appeal will resonate in far-flung corners of the globe struggling with inequality and globalization.

“While much of what he says doesn’t make sense and he can easily contradict himself several times in one sentence, Trump talks in way that everyone with a reasonable command of English can understand. There is no need to get out a dictionary or try to follow complicated sentence structures. And because people comprehend what he is saying, they feel connected and taken seriously,” wrote German journalist Ines Pohl for Deutsche Welle.

Some even interpret his inconsistency as a sign of honesty, she argued. “At first glance this doesn’t seem to make sense. But precisely because Trump contradicts himself constantly and offers diverging views on one and the same topic, many people feel that he is simply being honest. In a campaign in which many statements are geared toward very specific voter groups, many people deem authenticity more important than sophisticated electoral concepts that often seem generic and starchy.”

CREDIT: OFFICIAL WhITE hOUSE PhOTO BY PETE SOUZA

President Obama signs an executive order, “Improving the Security of Consumer Financial Transactions,” at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Oct. 17, 2014.

ROLLInG BACK REGULATIOnS, TAXES In the wake of steadfast GOP opposition to most of his initiatives, Obama turned to his executive authority to enact a raft of economic regulations in his second term. As Binyamin Appelbaum and Michael D. Shear of the New York Times noted, the Obama administration in its first seven years finalized 560 major regulations — nearly 50 percent more than the George W. Bush administration did during the same period.

“An army of lawyers working under Mr. Obama’s authority has sought to restructure the nation’s health care and financial industries, limit pollution, bolster workplace protections and extend equal rights to minorities,” they wrote Aug. 13, noting that little-known rules now allow women to buy emergency contraceptive pills without prescriptions, for example, and military veterans to design their own headstones. “Under Mr. Obama, the government has literally placed a higher value on human life.”

At the same time, they wrote, “It has imposed billions of dollars in new costs on businesses and consumers” — while circumventing the legislative process.

The other flip side of relying on executive orders is that they can be overturned with the stroke of a pen.

“Anything enacted by executive order can be rescinded by executive order,” Zachary Goldman, a former U.S. Treasury official now at New York University, told Reuters.

Trump has vowed to erase Obama-era regulations such as Dodd-Frank financial rules that ban banks from engaging in their own in-house trading for profits. He also has the full backing of a Republican-controlled Congress. Not only are lawmakers itching to overturn hundreds of regulations that they say stifle economic growth and innovation, they also hope to fulfill their long-sought dream of overhauling the tax code.

Obama touts an economic record that includes creating 15 million new privatesector jobs since 2010, saving the auto industry and cutting the unemployment rate to a historic low of 4.9 percent. But the national debt also doubled under his watch, corporate profits soared and a stubborn

44 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | DEcEMbEr 2016

inequality gap helped propel Trump to victory. With many Americans clamoring for change, they may be receptive to the type of sweeping tax cuts George W. Bush enacted during his presidency.

Trump has proposed condensing the current seven tax brackets into three and lowering the rate for the nation’s highest earners to 33 percent. He also wants to eliminate the estate tax for wealthy families and cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent.

While Trump is correct that America has the highest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world, he omits the fact that thanks to loopholes, the average rate for many large

corporations is more like 13 percent.

According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, by 2025, about 51 percent of the benefits of Trump’s tax plan would go to the wealthiest percentile of taxpayers, who would save $317,000 on average each year, boosting their incomes by more than 14 percent. Meanwhile, a typical family would save nearly $1,100 a year in taxes — an increase of 1.5 percent in income.

Paying for these tax cuts is another matter entirely. It’s simple math: Either the national debt would have to go up or federal spending would have to slashed. As Max Ehrenfreund of the Washington Post pointed out, “If the government borrowed all of the money to pay for Trump’s tax plan, the deficits and the cost of interest would increase the national debt by $7.2 trillion.”

So despite the GOP majority in Congress, Trump (who famously refused to disclose his own tax returns as candidate and may have dodged taxes for nearly two decades) is likely to face blowback once the debate over tax reform begins in earnest.

It’s also important to remember that even though Trump handily won the presidency with 290 electoral college votes, Clinton still garnered half the popular vote. In fact, as of press time, 1.7 million more Americans voted for her than for Trump (sparking a separate debate on the merits of the Electoral College). So while Trump holds an electoral mandate, it is far from an ironclad one. He must now contend with a deeply polarized nation that is split in two, with one side opposing Obama’s legacy and the other opposing efforts to relegate it to the dustbin of history. WD Anna Gawel (@diplomatnews) is the managing editor of The Washington Diplomat.

Cuba COnTInUED • PAGE 13

early-stage clinical trial for patients with advanced lung cancer.

“After a diagnosis in Cuba, such patients live 10 to 12 years with a good quality of life. In the U.S., it’s only five years. We are also trying to reach a deal with the U.S. to sell a product called Heberprot-P to fight diabetes,” said Cabañas. “You have 100,000 amputations a year because of diabetes, but in Cuba, we have stopped 73 percent of those amputations.

What politician would tell 100,000 patients that he wants to reverse this progress? How would he explain that to the families?”

Cabañas didn’t mention Trump by name, but he didn’t have to; it was obvious the ambassador was talking about the nation’s 45th president and his threats to not only prevent

PhOTO: LARRY LUXnER

A tourist buys cigars at the duty-free shop of Santa Clara’s Abel Santamaria International Airport. Under new rules, Americans may bring back unlimited quantities of Cuban rum and cigars, though the incoming Trump administration may reimpose the ban on such products, which had existed for more than 50 years under the U.S. trade embargo.

Congress from lifting the embargo but to undo all the progress achieved by the Obama administration in the last eight years.

“We are born optimists, even under the toughest circumstances,” he said.

“During an early 1990s visit to the U.S., an economics professor told me we were going downhill, that we had no future. My response to that respected professor was this: How do you measure Cuban pride,

or the way our young people smile or the way we dance? If we didn’t have the embargo in place, imagine all the things we’d be able to do.” WD Larry Luxner, news editor of The Washington Diplomat, was editor and publisher of the monthly CubaNews from 2002 to 2013 and a frequent visitor to the island. He went back to Cuba this past September for the first time in 12 years.

December 2016 | WD

around the world world holidays ALBANIA

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DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

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Dec. 25: Christmas Day Dec. 25: Christmas Day

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Iran COnTInUED • PAGE 10

already quite extensive in Iran, as many Iranians expected economic conditions to improve quicker after it went into effect.”

Wendy Sherman, former undersecretary of state for political affairs, led the U.S. delegation in talks that resulted in the Iran nuclear agreement. Asked about its viability, she said Trump’s victory isn’t the only wild card here; Iran also has presidential elections coming up in 2017.

“The truth is, agreements are only sustainable if they are in the national security interests of the countries that have negotiated them and are going to implement them. It isn’t a sure bet for anyone,” said Sherman, speaking at the Meridian International Center’s recent 2016 Global Leadership Summit.

“If a president wanted to rip it up on day one, there are certainly things he could do, but it would be hard

because we have partners in this endeavor,” she explained. “Likewise, if [Iranian President Hassan] Rouhani loses and the ‘hard hardliners’ get control of Iran, they may choose to back away from the agreement as well. So nothing is forever.”

Critics of the accord — and there are many in Congress on both sides of the aisle — complain that Kerry and his team could have been far more aggressive with Iran, particularly with regard to its financing of violent extremist groups ranging from Lebanon’s Hezbollah to the Houthis in Yemen. These critics say the sudden influx of cash unleashed by the deal amounted to a $150 billion windfall, which may have been used to finance terror attacks around the world.

Administration officials aren’t buying that argument. For one thing, no one has disclosed how much of Iran’s frozen assets has actually been released (experts say it may be far lower than the $150 billion tally).

For another thing, fixing everything that’s broken in the dysfunctional U.S.-Iran relationship was never on the table.

46 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | DEcEMbEr 2016

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“We have seen that this agreement has done what we said it was going to do, which is limit Iran from obtaining a nuclear [weapon],” State Department spokesman Mark Toner told the Los Angeles Times. “It wasn’t focused on changing Iran’s behavior at large. It was focused on preventing it from obtaining a nuclear weapon.”

And in that regard the deal is largely succeeding, Miller told us, because it has pre-empted Iran’s breakout capacity and delayed its nuclear ambitions.

“I don’t think Israel will pressure the U.S. to scrap the accord,” he ventured. “The deal doesn’t eliminate the problem and Iran has to be carefully monitored, but they don’t want the accord scrapped — even though it may not be politically correct to admit it.”

Barbara Slavin, acting director of the Atlantic Council’s Future of Iran Initiative, says the president-elect frightens her — as does a GOP-controlled Congress — when it comes to the nuclear deal.

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gress last year will fight very hard to persuade Trump and Congress that the nuclear deal is working, and that it should not be jeopardized. This agreement will stave off the prospect of Iran having a nuclear weapon for at least 15 years.”

Another advantage, according to Slavin: The deal not only bolsters those in Iran who advocate reform, but also provides “tens of thousands of high-paying jobs to Americans” through the sale of commercial jet aircraft by Boeing and Airbus. (The loss of that lucrative deal may be a bitter pill to swallow for Trump, a billionaire business tycoon.)

“If Trump tries to get rid of the agreement, those jobs will be at stake,” she pointed out. “He’d be directly hurting American businesses — which is exactly the opposite of what he says he wants to do.”

Slavin agrees with Miller that pressure to kill the deal isn’t coming from the Jewish state or its prime minister, Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, even though Israel vociferously opposed any kind of rapprochement with Iran for years. Rather, the pressure is coming from “right-wingers

on Capitol Hill” who were against the deal to begin with.

“I hope the Israelis will talk some sense to Trump,” she said. “Bibi did his best to stop it, but he carried on the way he did to put pressure on the United States and the EU to negotiate a really good deal. But once it went into effect, Bibi shut up.”

Slavin said Trump could begin preparing to negotiate a follow-up deal that would extend the current agreement beyond 10 or 15 years — offering more sanctions relief in return for further restraints on Iran’s missile program.

In any case, it would make no sense to kill an agreement after the United States has already footed the bill for its implementation.

“Trump complained that Iran had gotten $150 billion, but this was Iran’s own money frozen in foreign banks. These funds are now available to them,” she said. “How dumb would it be to rip up a deal that’s in our interests and that we’ve already paid for?” WD Larry Luxner is news editor of The Washington Diplomat.

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(301) 933-3552

real Estate Classifieds

NOTE: Although every effort is made to assure your ad is free of mistakes in spelling and ct sign and fax to: (301) 949-0065 needs changes Approved __________________________________________________________ content it is ultimately up to the customer to make the final proof.

Changes ___________________________________________________________ Diplomat (301) 933-3552 The first two faxed changes will be made at no cost to the advertiser, subsequent changes ___________________________________________________________________ will be billed at a rate of $75 per faxed alteration. Signed ads are considered approved. _____________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________ To place an ad in the classfieds section, please Mark call any 301.933.3552 email Please check this ad carefully. changes to yourorad. _____________________________________________________

If the ad is correct sign and fax to: (301) 949-0065

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Approved __________________________________________________________ COMMERCIAL OFFICE SALES/LEASING — Changes ___________________________________________________________ Embassy Chancery Commercial Office Sales/Leasing ___________________________________________________________________

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toni a. ghazi

Over the past 30 years we have specialized in working with Embassies to find suitable ChanceryNOTE: Although Realtor in Dc, to mD, & Va)your ad is free of mistakes in spelling and every(Licensed effort is made assure and office properties to buy or lease. content it is ultimately up to the customer to make the final proof.

For more than a decade, Toni has helped international clients find their new home, (202) 415-7800 or (202) 682-6261 The first two faxed changes will be made at no cost to the advertiser, subsequent changes invest realper estate, in alteration. the will be billedsell at aorrate of in $75 faxed Signed ads are considered approved.

SUMMIT Commercial Real Estate, LLC Washington DC area. If you are searching Please check this ad carefully. for a passionate and globally mindedMark agentany changes to your ad.

Place your real estate ad - 301.933.3552 working for you—call Toni now!

If the ad is correct sign and fax to: (301) 949-0065 needs changes For salE SpeakS : Arabic, French, Spanish The WashingtonEnglish, Diplomat (301) 933-3552 Mandarin Chinese soon WASHINGTON Timeless Elegance in Close-In Potomac Please call Guy d’Amecourt for consultation.

EMbASSy OffICE bUILdIng WIth PARkIng fOR SALE

ALL COMMERCIAL USES email: Jconnelly@summitcRe.com Tours by appT: 202 491 5300 kalorama 2310 tracy place, nw washington, dc

Place your real estate ad - 301.933.3552

EMBASSY ROW AREA — Embassy Office Space – DC/ NYC Chancery Buildings / Residential Buildings and Land Development Sites. Leases and Lease Renegotiation Services. Embassy Row Area Mansions with parking. Ideal for embassies, law firms, foundations, etc. Lease or Sale. SCR (202) 491-5300.

James Connelly – The Diplomats Agent Agent has numerous other properties to show!

F I N E P RO P E RT I E S , L L C

This exceptional residence with contemporary feel offers 7500 sq.f.+ light-filled living space.

The home features a spectacular heated Indoor Pool and is ideally suited for both elegant entertaining and casual family living. Situated on 2 acres+, it is within walking distance to Potomac and a 20 minute drive to DC and Virginia. For more info please go to:

Approved __________________________________________________________ Changes ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________

Asmeret Demeter-Medhane Direct: 301.266.6612 MBA, MSc, CIPS Office: 240.497.1700 Email: ADM@LNF.com Web: Admglobalrealestate.com

with Long & Foster Real Estate

Results-Beyond Barriers-Beyond Expectations

E: to n i @ to n i g h az i.co m • m: 571.216.1075 Compass is a licensed real estate brokerage that abides by Equal Housing Opportunity laws. All material presented herein is intended for informational purposes only. Information is compiled from sources deemed reliable but is subject to errors, omissions, changes in price, condition, sale, or withdraw without notice. All measurements and square footages are approximate. This is not intended to solicit property already listed. Compass is licensed as Compass Real Estate in DC and as Compass in Virginia and Maryland. 202.386.6330 | 301.298.1001 | 202.545.6900|202.448.9002

E : to n i @ to n i g h az i.co m m : 571.216.1075

Asmeret’s reputation and global network make her the go-to resource for her clients’ real estate needs — locally and internationally.

Her outstAnding record for delivering results is due to Her: E Keen ability to identify her clients’ needs and professionally

manage the details of complex transactions

E Excellent reputation as a highly skilled negotiator

and creative solution finder E Wide network of professional resources i.e.

international tax accountants, attorneys E Relentless commitment to delivering results

beyond expectations Asmeret speaks English, German, French, Farsi, Amharic, Italian and Hungarian.

Asmeret Demeter-Medhane Direct: 301.266.6612 MBA, MSc, CIPS Office: 240.497.1700 Web: Admglobalrealestate.com Email: ADM@LNF.com

with Long & Foster Real Estate

Results - Beyond Barriers – Beyond Expectations THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | DEcEMbEr 2016 | 47

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