Summer 2010 - St Antony's College - University of Oxford

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St Antony’s Looks at the World
Saturday May 8th 2010 saw the College’s
second and now annual St Antony’s
Looks at The World event. A lecture
theatre packed with St Antony’s Fellows,
students and honoured guests were
deeply engaged in a day of insight and
discussion with Timothy Garton Ash,
Tariq Ramadan, Thomas Friedman,
Sir Adam Roberts, Jenny Corbett
and Vernon Bogdanor – each one an
Antonian. It may appear that we were
lucky that the event took place in the
shadow of a hung parliament in the UK
and an acute political and economic crisis
in the European Union, but perhaps that
simply reflects just how intensely relevant
discourse is in our College – it was, as
the Warden announced, “St Antony’s
showing off ”.
The first session was led by Governing
Body Fellows Professor Tariq Ramadan
and Professor Jenny Corbett, with
Sir Adam Roberts (President of the
British Academy) on “Britain and The
World of 2010”. Jenny Corbett offered
a perspective on East Asia with Tariq
Ramadan concentrating on Muslims
in the World and Sir Adam Roberts
covering the International System.
Professors Jenny Corbett, Tariq Ramadan and Sir Adam Roberts
In a day that elsewhere concentrated
on Europe, America and then the UK
it was a session with real international
depth – the speakers could barely get to
tea and coffee afterwards, as they were
inundated with continuing questions
from a fascinated audience.
Timothy Garton Ash spoke, in the second
session, on “Europe: from VE Day to
irrelevance?” He started in an optimistic
tone reflecting that where 60m people
had died from state-sponsored violence
in the first half of the twentieth century,
fewer than 1m had suffered that fate
in the second half. Full liberation only
came, he reminded us all, for those in
the East 45 years after the end of WWII.
This gradual increase of liberation and
union in Europe led him through his talk
to the troubled economic circumstances
in which the EU now finds itself.
When pressed by the audience to give
a prediction, he expressed his fear that
the Greek crisis was likely to create a
major divide in the euro with a northern
European euro perhaps emerging to
satisfy France and Germany.
Professor Vernon Bogdanor
Tom Friedman, Pulitzer Prize Winning
author and St Antony’s Honorary Fellow,
spoke after lunch on “Obama’s World”.
For the first half he answered questions
from two students, Henning Tamm and
Sophia Mann of STAIR (St Antony’s
International Review) covering a wide
range of themes, including US policies
concerning China, the Middle East, and
climate change.
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Thomas Friedman
Professor Timothy Garton Ash