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SIPA NEWS - School of International and Public Affairs - Columbia ...

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SCHOOLWIDEnews<br />

Audiences Enjoy<br />

Speaker Smorgasbord<br />

By Matt Craft<br />

<strong>SIPA</strong> News writer<br />

From former Russian Prime<br />

Minister Victor Chernomyrdin<br />

to author Anna<br />

Quindlen, a steady stream<br />

<strong>of</strong> diplomats, politicians,<br />

academics <strong>and</strong> authors<br />

addressed audiences at <strong>SIPA</strong> this year<br />

on topics as diverse as the speakers<br />

themselves.<br />

AFL-CIO President John<br />

Sweeney urged the linking <strong>of</strong> labor<br />

rights with global trade, Luis Felipe<br />

Bravo, president <strong>of</strong> Mexico’s principal<br />

opposition party, Partido Acción<br />

Nacional, updated students on his<br />

country’s history-making presidential<br />

elections.<br />

Azerbaijan Parliament member<br />

Eldar Namazov surveyed the foreign<br />

policy scene in the Caucasus, while<br />

Tanzanian writer <strong>and</strong> activist Gertrude<br />

Mangella, the secretary general <strong>of</strong> the<br />

Fourth United Nations World Conference<br />

on Women in Beijing, discussed<br />

the role <strong>of</strong> women in conflict resolution<br />

<strong>and</strong> peace negotiation in Africa.<br />

Muhammud Muslih <strong>of</strong> the C.W. Post<br />

Campus <strong>of</strong> Long Isl<strong>and</strong> University<br />

spoke at a conference titled “Peace <strong>and</strong><br />

the Future <strong>of</strong> Syria.”<br />

U.S. <strong>and</strong> Russian economic cooperation<br />

was Chernomyrdin’s topic.<br />

Speaking to an overflow audience in<br />

the Dag Hammarsjkøld Lounge, he<br />

urged the two countries to team up in<br />

a “globalization partnership.” Despite<br />

its grave political <strong>and</strong> economic weaknesses,<br />

Russia will not waver from its<br />

commitment to a market economy, he<br />

said.<br />

Associate Pr<strong>of</strong>essor Muhammud Muslih <strong>of</strong><br />

Long Isl<strong>and</strong> University, former Russian<br />

Prime Minister Victor Chernomyrdin,<br />

Tanzanian activist Gertrude Mangella,<br />

<strong>and</strong> author Pete Hamill.<br />

“This is our fate,” he said, “<strong>and</strong>,<br />

as they say in Russia, you cannot<br />

escape your fate.”<br />

Chernomyrdin’s was one <strong>of</strong> the<br />

many talks that focused on economics.<br />

Claudio Loser, the director <strong>of</strong> the<br />

<strong>International</strong> Monetary Fund’s Western<br />

Hemisphere Department,<br />

explained how the agency plans to shift<br />

“from crisis management to crisis prevention.”<br />

As part <strong>of</strong> the Journal <strong>of</strong><br />

<strong>International</strong> <strong>Affairs</strong>’ conference on<br />

shadow economies, Time magazine’s<br />

Edward Barnes discussed illegal immigration<br />

into the United States.<br />

Journalists tackled an array <strong>of</strong><br />

issues. Pete Hamill, in a speech that<br />

brought tears to the eyes <strong>of</strong> many<br />

audience members, delivered a loving<br />

tribute to Mexico, where he has lived<br />

on <strong>and</strong> <strong>of</strong>f since the 1950s. It was the<br />

keynote address at a symposium,<br />

“Images <strong>of</strong> Mexico in the U.S.<br />

Media.” Hamill urged Americans to<br />

look beyond the clichéd images <strong>of</strong><br />

Mexico as a hotbed <strong>of</strong> corruption <strong>and</strong><br />

drug trafficking.<br />

Humphrey Hawksley, who<br />

reports on Asia for the BBC <strong>and</strong> has<br />

co-written a novel, Dragon Strike,<br />

sketched a scenario in which the<br />

United States finds itself on the brink<br />

<strong>of</strong> war with China. “What would we<br />

do,” he asked the audience, “if pictures<br />

<strong>of</strong> a massacre in Tibet came up on our<br />

television screen?”<br />

Hawksley said his point was not<br />

to alarm. But he wanted people to<br />

consider what might happen if, for<br />

example, an unsuspecting American<br />

entrepreneur moved his toothpaste<br />

factory to China on the eve <strong>of</strong> a war.<br />

“Keep the global perspective in mind,”<br />

he said, “or you’ll wind up with a<br />

warehouse full <strong>of</strong> toothpaste tubes that<br />

will never get sold.”<br />

In a two-day conference—<br />

“Opening the Channels: Television<br />

<strong>and</strong> Society in the Middle East”—<br />

Middle Eastern journalists <strong>and</strong> <strong>Columbia</strong><br />

faculty members looked at the<br />

recent explosion <strong>of</strong> television channels<br />

<strong>and</strong> news shows in the region.<br />

According to participants, shows<br />

beamed by satellite from London <strong>and</strong><br />

elsewhere are challenging the reliance<br />

on government-owned stations, which<br />

have a reputation for tiptoeing around<br />

anything controversial.<br />

“We are seeing a new generation<br />

<strong>of</strong> Arab television journalists,” said<br />

Moataz Demerdahs, an anchor <strong>and</strong><br />

producer for the London-based Middle<br />

East Broadcasting Center. “We are<br />

not here to do a P.R. job for the government.”<br />

<strong>SIPA</strong> journalism Pr<strong>of</strong>essor Donald<br />

“Pete” Johnston gasped when his<br />

friend, Anna Quindlen, the journalist<br />

<strong>and</strong> novelist, told students at the MPA<br />

Practicum, “I hate to write.”<br />

“But I love having written,” she<br />

added, allowing Johnston to exhale.<br />

“And there is no way to have the one<br />

without the other.”<br />

Quindlen told students that they<br />

shouldn’t be intimidated about writing.<br />

“They are just words,” she said.<br />

“But the truth is that words, really, are<br />

everything.”<br />

<strong>SIPA</strong> speakers are remarkable for<br />

the breadth <strong>of</strong> their subject matter.<br />

The Harriman Institute sponsored a<br />

talk titled, “Autobiographers as<br />

Generic Cross-Dressers,” while the<br />

Paul F. Lazarsfeld Center for the Social<br />

Sciences organized a lecture on quantitative<br />

analysis titled, “What Do Animals<br />

Do All Day?” You probably had<br />

to be there.<br />

12 S I P A n e w s <strong>SIPA</strong>

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