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VOL. 9/2 (ISSUE 32) - May 1999
In this issue:
As many of you know, our activities over the years have included collaboration with scholars, students, and NGO activists from all the countries of the Former Yugoslavia. Many have become our very good friends, including several who live and work in Belgrade – old friends like Sonja Licht and Ivan Vejvoda, and new ones like Veran Matic of the independent radio station B-92. Their sane voices have enriched our own understanding of the region, but do not seem to have carried much weight in Washington. Because even the best informed of us now feel confused and sometimes helpless, TCDS has opened up a variety of channels for the exchange of views. When the mass expulsions and the bombing started, our associate Hana Cervinkova began disseminating a weekly e-mail Bulletin on the war in Yugoslavia, a compilation of the many, often distraught, views that were coming above all from many Yugoslav friends. She also led a group of New School students in organizing a remarkable panel of experts at a teach-in for the New School and New York community on April 14th. This issue of the Bulletin is largely devoted to the variety of voices raised in the course of these efforts to make sense of the current crisis. We also include two postscripts to the previous issue that was devoted to the late Galina Starovoitova.
On a more up-beat note, we offer an account of the January launching of our Democracy & Diversity Institute in Cape Town, which was successful beyond all our expectations, and which – while it happened in the calm before the storm – gives us hope for the future of civil society and human rights. TCDS also brought an exceptionally busy and illuminating schedule of open lectures to the Graduate Faculty. Preparations for the Eighth Annual Cracow Institute are in full swing, along with our hopes for a second annual Cape Town Institute next year. And this month our faith in the world’s future gets further reinforcement as we welcome a contingent of 19 scholars from all over the world who are participating in our third annual American Experience Summer Institute on U.S. Society.
- Elzbieta Matynia
This is just a very small sampling of the hundreds of e-mails received by TCDS since the War began.
Belgrade, March 25, 1999
Dear Thomas and Paul,
Last night was the first bombing day and it went “well": the residential areas were not bombed, we had water and electricity, but it was very unpleasant and this is just the beginning. We are expecting stronger and longer strikes.
The knowledge that everything is rapidly changing, never to be the same,
is terrible. Maybe the time has come for us to suffer as people in many
parts of former Yugoslavia have already. There was and is so little we
can do to change the situation. Thank you for your kind thoughts they mean
so much...
The sirens have started wailing again but I think I’ll sit it out in
my apartment. The cellar is so depressing and it’s so degrading to sit
there, but my daughter is so afraid I’m trying to set a brave example.
That is one thing I never wanted to do. Let’s keep in touch. V
New York, March 31, 1999
Dear Hana,
In these days of despair, my heart goes to all of them who suffer, Serbian progressive people included, and especially to precious friends like Sonia Licht, activists like Lepa Mladjenovic and other women’s rights activists from Yugoslavia. But, above all my heart goes to innocent people in Kosova who are slaughtered like animals, not in tens but in thousands, not just guerrilla fighters, but innocent men and women, children and the elderly, peasants and intellectuals, even moderate and young journalists who never asked for independence. And if we got here, Milosevic and the failed Western policies are to be blamed. But everybody shares his/her responsibility. In the darkness of these days and nights when some have to go in hiding fearing bomb attacks and others are being killed and mutilated in front of families, we all might ask ourselves: Where was I in these last 10 years when Milosevic was destroying step by step the hope for a normal life in Kosova? What did I do to stop this? Did I ever speak and fight against human rights violations of Albanians in Kosova? The world will be a better life for us all only if we respond to other people’s concerns and sufferings, not just to the ones falling on the roof of our house. Delina
Prague, April 2, 1999
Dear Hana,
Thank you for the Bulletin. Please send more. Unfortunately, I have to say, that I do support NATO attacks on the Serbia territory. I am aware of the suffering of the citizens, but the figure of Mr. Milosevic operating in the region of the Europe seems to me to be worth to destroy.
I do not blame Serbs in Serbia collectively for the years of aggression in Slovenia (ended quickly), Croatia (despite the fact that Tudjman is also an authoritarian leader), and for help to light a civil war in B&H; but I believe that they are responsible for the type of political leadership they have. I know very well what means to feel not having the voice, what means not be considered as a partner of politicians; but I found myself responsible for being one of the creators of such an atmosphere. I express my sorrows but I think that the politics of appeasement with those who respect only the power and the violence, with those who consider discussions as an expression of weakness; does not have a future.My best regards, Lenka
New York, April 6, 1999
Hana,
Here’s a message I got from a friend in Albania. She’s working with the refugees coming from Kosova. I translated it for you. Delina.
Dear Delina:
For one week now I follow the reporting of the events on all TV channels
and yet the pain that they convey is far from the one you feel when you
meet people. I just came back from the two refugee camps. I don’t feel
like calling them “refugees” because, on one hand, they are here among
there own people. On the other hand, I want to believe that they will be
here temporarily and they will go back to their homes. Otherwise Milosevic
achieved his goal and the sacrifices were in vain. And if I call them “refugees”,
it looks to me like they will be on the road forever. The Palace of Sports
and the swimming pool complex in the Park near the Artificial Lake in Tirana
have been transformed in camps. In the last one the army has build tents.
Try to imagine the people sheltered in these tents, people who have walked
for days, persecuted, massacred, expelled. They are women and children
and there are very very few man among them.
There is a large flow of people in both camps. They come here to meet the refugees, to give them some hope, to bring food and clothing or to take them at their homes. About 2000 families from Tirana have taken people from Kosova in their homes. In Durres and Kukes the same is happening. The solidarity is there, but if you consider the poverty of the families from Tirana, one is not sure that the love being offered is going to be enough. I saw five days old babies needing diapers, women who have not had a shower or changed their clothes for days. The need for clothing and sanitary supplies is urgent. The aid that government and the international organizations are offering is not sufficient and coming very slowly.
So far, the European Community, the Italian, German, Turkish, Greek, Dutch, British and Israeli’s governments have offered to help. They are offering humanitarian aid in kind and money. The TV advertises all the time a bank account where people can deposit contributions in lek or in foreign currency. believe that the current situation with the refugees is extreme and Albanians will help. An Intra-ministerial Commission has been established, and identified priorities for the next three months: mainly shelter, sanitary supplies, food, clothing, house supplies, and medical supplies. In both camps people are in an extreme state of anxiety. It looks like they have not yet realized that they are here. I think we will not forget these images as long as we live and I’m relieved you were spared, because it is much more than one can take.
Yesterday, you told me that people there are sensitive to what is happening and that you are trying to do something. Probably something more could be done, more than just responding to the needs of here. Probably some moral action can be taken so that the humanity that allowed this massacre would be shaken. You know that the voices outside Albania have been heard more than the ones that come from inside. Or, at least, that’s what I think.
I feel better after I writing to you. Let’s be like optimists like Americans, and tell ourselves that probably this is an opportunity to be reborn, but don’t you think we are paying an antihuman price? Love, Valdet
Belgrade, April 13, 1999
Dear Sara,
Thank you and thank you. I was so happy to receive your letter in these awful days. Saraaaa, I never thought all Americans are bad, you are my truth voice. We all make mistakes. It’s very difficult to live on the other side of broken bridge, waiting hours to go cross, thinking about the beautiful moments spent there before war. I am brave, and I have hope for better time. I love you, L.
We are writing to you in these difficult moments of our shared suffering. Convoys of Albanians and other citizens of Kosovo, among whom many of you, were forced to leave their homes. The killings and expulsions, homes destroyed and burnt, bridges, roads and industrial buildings demolished – paint a somber and painful picture of Kosovo, Serbia, and Montenegro, as if indicating that life together is no longer possible. We, however, believe that it is necessary and possible.
The better future of citizens of Kosovo, Serbia, and Montenegro, of
Serbs and Albanian, as citizens of one state or closest neighbors, will
not arrive by itself, or overnight. But it is something we can and must
work on together, as we have many times in the past, not so long ago. We
know that it will now be very difficult, and sometimes very painful. The
example of the German-French postwar reconciliation and cooperation could
serve as a model and stimulus.
For the sake of future life together, the pain of crime has to be revealed,
so that it is, with forgiveness, remembered. This tragedy, yours and ours,
personal and collective, is a result of a long series of erroneous policies
of the most radical forces among us and in the international community.
The continuation of these policies will take both Serbs and Albanians into
an abyss. Also, the road of collective guilt is a road of frustration,
continuation of hatred, and endless vengeance. That is why this road has
to be abandoned. Our first step in distancing ourselves from hatred,
ethnic conflict, and bloody retaliations is a public expression of our
deepest compassion and sincere condemnation of everything that you and
your fellow citizens are experiencing. As citizens of Serbia, we today
suffer destruction and casualties as a result of NATO bombing, armed conflict
in Kosovo, and long-lasting economic and social struggle under the burden
of the dictatorship’s deadly policies.
Ethnic cleansing, NATO bombing, and armed conflict should stop because they are not contributing to the solution of the Kosovo crisis, but are only making it deepen. There should be no more casualties. All refugees should be allowed to return safely to their homes and live in the manner appropriate for free and proud people.
We are convinced that together we will find strength and courage to step on the road of peace, democracy, respect of human rights, mutual reconciliation and respect. Dialogue, political negotiations, and peace process have no alternative.
For all of us, it is the only way out of the war conflict. It is the
safest way to secure the return of refugees to their homes, to renew normal
life and activities, and find a solution to the status of Kosovo.
In order to make this happen, we have to join our efforts to end the
war conflict, revitalize the peace process and reconstruct, economically
and democratically, the development of Kosovo, Serbia, and the entire Balkan
region. We are convinced that by joining forces we can contribute to the
reaching of a just and rational political solution to the status of Kosovo
and build confidence and cooperation between Serbs and Albanians.
In Belgrade, April 30, 1999
On this Holocaust Memorial Day, we are all Kosovar Albanians. As Jews commemorate the six million murdered by the Nazis, the call “Never Again” reverberates with an urgency unparalleled since 1945. Once again, a whole people – the Kosovar Albanians – are targeted by a tyrannical regime, if not for total extinction, then for persecution, expulsion, wanton killing, humiliation and spoliation; those who believed that trains would never again deport people into exile and homelessness were wrong. It has happened again, not to Jews, but to a people few had ever heard of.
The Milosevic regime, nurturing a vicious nationalism, honed its tactics
of creating a racially pure Serbia in Croatia and Bosnia. The democracies
responded with confusion and impotence, as they did in the 1930s.
Now, there is resolve, painfully gained through the realization that
evil can be stopped only by force. If only the West had shown similar resolve
in the 1930s, perhaps World War II and the Holocaust could have been averted.
The use of power is always problematic; it is messy, and innocent people suffer. But this is the lesson of the Holocaust, and the meaning of “Never Again.”
NATO today is a beacon of light and hope for the Kosovar Albanians in a way in which the League of Nations was not for the Jews in the 1930s. The lessons of World War II – and the West’s failure in the early 1990s in Bosnia – have been learned. Today, we are all Kosovar Albanians, because by defending them, humanity is being defended.
Shlomo Avineri, a long time friend of TCDS, is a professor of Political Science, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, and a visiting professor at Cardozo Law School. This article first appeared in The International Herald Tribune on Holocaust Memorial Day, April 13th.
This large turnout tonight, it seems to me, is a symptom of a general public anxiety and worry that what we’re witnessing in Yugoslavia these days is not just an incident but something profound, that we don’t quite understand what’s happening, and that its repercussions are large and still unseen. Mike Kaufman’s been talking about how we got here, but I think what’s worrying most of you is where we actually are and what’s going to come next. There’s a fog of rhetoric swirling around us. That NATO’s actions have prevented Milosevic from de-stabilizing the Balkans seems doubtful. That doesn’t seem to be what’s happened, not at all. Where are we then? I think the common criticism now of Washington’s policy – and the policy of the Europeans too, incidentally, because France, Germany and Britain are backing us up quite ferociously – is that normally in war we’re supposed to be extremely clear about our ends and vague about our means. However, in this case it’s the opposite: we are vague about our ends and crystal clear about our means (how many bombs of a certain type we have left in the inventory and so forth). And it’s not just an accident that it’s the opposite, because this is an action, I believe and I’m sure some of my panelists will disagree, that is motivated by humanitarian concerns; we have taken action to prevent humanitarian catastrophe but we haven’t succeeded. It’s a “we have to do something” war, begun because the West couldn’t stand by and see another Bosnia-style massacre unfold before its eyes; and I think there’s a lot to be said in favor of that moral position. We do have to do something, yes, but this noble desire hasn’t been acted upon in a way that seems to be in accord with the aim of helping the people who are suffering most. The counterfactual that’s being advanced to justify NATO’s actions – an action that has apparently unleashed a humanitarian catastrophe – is that if we hadn’t done it, hadn’t started bombing, everything would have been worse, including the burning, looting, murdering and expelling in Kosovo. Maybe this counterfactual is true, but I think you should all remember that in ‘94 and ‘95 there were 5 or 6 hundred thousand Serbian refugees in Serbia who Milosevic never sent to occupy Kosovo. So Milosevic’s plans for Kosovo, before the bombing started, are not, I think, that self-evident. The problem is not simply, of course, that Kosovo is legally part of Serbia, (who cares about that?) or that NATO is intervening in a sovereign state (is that so important without a UN mandate? is the UN itself really so important?). Those are serious questions, admittedly, but if there is a great humanitarian disaster, we can brush them aside for the sake of saving human lives. The problem is that we in the West have no coherent principle to explain when a humanitarian cause will lead us to support partition and secession. We can’t tell you. We don’t really know. Even though that’s obviously what we’re doing. Why here? Why not elsewhere? There isn’t a coherent principle behind the intervention and that’s de-stabilizing in itself. This incoherence is expressed in the fact that we both say and don’t say that Milosevic is a war criminal. We call him a minor Hitler figure; then we say we’ve got to negotiate with him because we need his partnership. It wasn’t an accident at all – and I think that’s one way to get a grip on the ambiguity of the West toward Milosevic – that we depended on him for years as a linchpin of American policy in the Balkans. It wasn’t just for the sake of Mr. Holbrook’s career advancement that he was going there and having nice dinners in Belgrade. Our policy, Western policy, in this area was aimed at supporting the territorial integrity of Serbia, of Yugoslavia. And the fact is that since we weren’t committed enough to sustain that territorial integrity on our own, we needed a local partner and you know who the local partner was? Who was it on the ground who was supporting the territorial integrity of Serbia? It was Slobodan Milosevic. So that’s the root of the problem. The problem for Western policy toward Yugoslavia is first of all defining our goals and then finding a partner on the ground who is willing to support it. Milosevic was the partner we found. But he was and is an unstable partner, an unreliable partner because of course his real interest is in de-stabilizing the Balkans and he’s done it repeatedly, most dramatically right now. His bombs are more powerful than ours, at least so far. The human bombs, the deportees dumped into Macedonia and Albania, into these very fragile societies, can rip the Balkans to bits. And the repercussions are even wider than this. We may even see a 10% rise in the fascist vote in Italy, if the expected fresh wave of refugees arrives. And of course Milosevic has tried to hand us this wonderful ally, the KLA, which may be a kind of Hamas or IRA. And that is only one of Milosevic’s lesser maneuvers.
One of my Russian students is getting emails telling him to “send us more American flags, we’ve burned all the ones we have!” This is a problem, not because we have to give the Russians therapy for their loss of dignity, but because the Russians can harm us. They can harm us not by aggression but by negligence, just by paying a little less attention to the dangers of proliferation. So this is a very perilous game to play. The war also has unfathomed consequences in Eastern Europe, at least that is what I’ve been hearing from my students from Eastern Europe, particularly the ones, from the countries which just joined NATO. They say, ‘well, we really wanted to be part of the West’, but what that really means is that ‘we wanted to get out from under the Russian boot.’ But you scratch us a little and it turns out that the West is a symbol of our humiliation, our cultural backwardness. And, you know, here is somebody who actually stood up to the West and who is now being humiliated. So, in a region of humiliated nationalisms, Milosevic is secretly admired. Which means that there is a psychological problem in the alliance and in the new members of NATO.
Now, what to do? Obviously this is something for the strategists and practical men of the world. But clearly everybody thinks there has to be some kind of de facto partition within a pseudo federation – that’s the way it used to be, with some arrangements for the Holy places – how to divide it up I don’t know, it’s complicated. The problem with this – there are three points I want to make about it – is that we’re going to have to manage ethnic cleansing. We’re going to have to return displaced peoples to ethnically homogeneous areas – that’s a repulsive thing, perhaps, but that is what we have to do. It’s very unpleasant, it’s against our principles, but we have no choice. Also, homogeneous states are not peaceful places to their neighbors, necessarily, but since Brussels is not going to become the new Ottoman Empire, with the High Commissioner serving as Satrap, running the Balkans, we’re going to have to preside over the creation of ethnically cleansed areas of Kosovo. Second, we’re going to have to try to put a break on pan-Albanianism. That’s not going to be easy. For how are we going to disarm the KLA? How are we going to do that? Are we going to get involved in a guerrilla war, in a counterinsurgency, after we’ve broken down Milosevic’s will to resist? That’s the problem. And maybe it is a problem that is impossible to solve. And third, we’ve got to do something to involve the Russians in the settlement. The Russians have discredited themselves as partners with all of this drunken talk of nuclear weapons and so on, but we have to have them somehow involved, as peace keepers, as brokers and mediators. Perhaps the peace conference should be in Moscow (though Sofia may be better). But right now, there seems to be little appetite in the West for bringing in the Russians; and so I think we have some distance to go before a solution comes into sight.
Stephen Holmes is a professor of Politics at Princeton University, and editor-in-chief of the East European Constitutional Review. This is a transcription of his contribution to the TCDS sponsored panel on the war held April 14th.
John Walkup
The stars of the Southern Hemisphere are just stars. The Coriolis effect is unnoticeable. Light and water, respectively. And then I arrived in Cape Town. “Look at Centaurus!” “Watch the water drain!” The two are simply light and water; the two have simply undergone a Copernican transformation. In many ways, this describes the experiences felt in Cape Town during the Democracy & Diversity Institute held this January by TCDS and the Human Sciences Research Council. Looking back on that marvelous January we all shared, I find myself excited for the future, as I have met some of the people who will undoubtedly make this world a better place in which to live. Looking back, several things come to mind.
To begin with, Cape Town was a wonderful city for the Institute. Its geography is incomparable, but its economic, political, and cultural histories make it even more unique. Staying near the ocean in an area known as the Waterfront complex, our housing, classrooms, and cafeteria were separate buildings belonging to one campus known as the Breakwater Lodge. Once a prison complex, it has been enlarged and renovated, and is now home to the University of Cape Town’s Business School. From our accommodations, we had a terrific view of downtown and its monolithic backdrop, Table Mountain.
I arrived ready to study democracy, globalization, and governance, but I soon learned that each of these issues meant far more than any one definition could imply. I had been weaned on some of the finest and most up-to-date theories regarding democracy and the rule of law, but I discovered that the real test of academia is putting faces and names and human energy behind such theories. This is where the institute succeeded far beyond anyone’s expectations; for three weeks, it bridged the gap between theory and life. Assumptions were tested, and many failed. Possibilities were examined, some provided hope. We were all challenged, effectively. As my new friend Wale from Nigeria wrote:
Perhaps the greatest lesson I learned in Cape Town is the rich insight and discourse which provocative questions engender. As these questions were raised and encountered in class, I had the opportunity of reflecting on them and seeking to come into better understanding of the issues concerned. What came out of this process was further confirmation of my belief in the very tentative (not fully graspable) nature of knowledge. Knowledge seems to me a mirage, but a special kind of mirage, which, as one approaches it, ennobles, enables, and enriches. This is the backdrop against which I reflected on our various lectures, talks, and workshops.
Wednesday field trips to places such as Robben Island and the townships cemented our experiences and highlighted the challenge that putting theories into practice presents. While walking down District Six’s Buitenkant St., strolling through the gentrifying Bo-Kaap, or passing the armored personnel carrier at the end of our road, we were all able to see that the issues we were discussing and debating were urgent everywhere, from South Africa to Slovakia to Mexico to Nigeria.
We also hosted a number of guest lecturers in the evening, with well-known public figures, who drew on their personal stories, showing us all that change was possible. Classes were of special significance. Not only was student spirit high, but the team-teaching technique insured that professors would engage other professors as they both engaged the students. This intense comparative and dialogical atmosphere led to greater depth of understanding in critical issues. When combined with the social geography and its significance, the courses came alive in a whole new way.
However, academics were only part of the picture. The remaining majority of the picture was made up of collegial, intellectual interaction. Through meeting and talking with each other, we were able not only to make friends, and receive helpful feedback, but also able to see the other sides of policy issues. A new friend from Mozambique, Obed, who felt isolated in his country, said:
The Cape Town Institute successfully brought together young academics and civil society activists from Southern Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya, as well as Central and North America, and Central and Western Europe. It offered a singular and vibrant momentum for debate, on the one hand, and initiated reflections and relations that are usually, in my view, missing. In other words, my expectation of and strong interest in meeting and exchanging ideas with people from Africa and other parts of the world with interest in the processes of constituting democracy was fully realized.
Another colleague, Maria Jose, from Mexico, wrote that she, too, felt newly connected to others in Third World countries:
In class, I found that I was the only Latin American student, and I was not surprised: we are far from Africa and we both belong to Third World countries. Therefore, we do not have the resources to encounter each other. The only information Africans knew about my country were names of famous football players and Mexican “soap operas” which my country proudly exports. I soon realized how crossed we are by the media’s information and the distorted images of ourselves received via the First World. Thus, I was eager to communicate directly, South to South, with no intermediaries.
Communication was the core of our experience. Without it, the Institute would not exist. Although our communication began in the academic realm, it quickly and easily grew beyond that, into the personal, the human. For instance, before Cape Town, I knew little to nothing of the intricacies of cricket. Yet one afternoon in the loud company of Institute cricket fans, changed that. School and sports; the in-between of culture.
The experience went further still into the depths of human interaction and communication, as, for instance, a day trip to the Cape of Good Hope demonstrated. Five of us piled into a tiny rental car, and we drove the coastal highway south towards the Cape. Such beauty! All from different parts of the world, we together marveled at the natural beauty that is the end of Africa. Despite warning signs not to, we stopped and got out of the car to try to take pictures of the free ranging baboons. Then suddenly, through an open door, one was in the car. Then another. They rummaged through our bags in search of food, emptying the contents on the seats hastily. There we were, five budding academics standing outside a car containing two baboons, and none of us knew how to get them out. Truly a new problem of theory and praxis. We looked at each other. Though silent, our looks of desperation informed the others as to what we were thinking. Jacek, our Polish contingent that day, closed his door. I did the same. The baboons barked and flashed their impressive fangs, howling for a less threatening environment. Someone opened the driver’s door and the two baboons hopped out and ambled back to their troop. We silently let the adrenaline rush die down, before getting back inside the car and adjusting to a new, baboon inclusive, reality. Later we joked about the scene and wondered if our episode was some sort of weird modernist parable. Events like this became communicative currencies, which could be swapped for other narrative currencies in an economy of friendship. I noticed we had much more in common than we thought, as human reactions are amusingly similar.
In Cape Town, we came to feel that we were able to turn ideas into tools: the present into a realizable future. In the words of our Canadian colleague, Daniel:
This type of collaborative learning environment, which brings together such richness of lived experience, helps us all to break down biases that are formed through ignorance and allows us to hear first hand how people struggle and succeed in emerging democracies throughout the world and how often- times the ways in which we experience the world are so similar.
For three weeks, we were able to unite theory with life. For three weeks, we were friends without borders. For three weeks, we were in Cape Town.
John Walkup is just finishing his MA in Liberal Studies at the New School. He is also an associate at TCDS.
Funerals
Wale Abebanwi
I.
Sing me no more melodies
of consonantal silences
of collapsing metaphors
of tearful hallelujahs
of unwanted details of violent mourners
Ceramics are build like walls
in my throat
like rocks in my ears
like obituaries in my groins
And laughter collapses in my mouth
like cards in packs
once I start to sing again
with tears making in-roads
into my happiness like neighbors friendly
They say walls have ears
do they know
do they know that
ears have walls...
and I omo oba
starts to plead:
do not sing a dirge at my funereal
do not sing a dirge...do not sing...do not...do...
Who ever heard of a joyful chorus in a graveyard?
darkness is the only light in this void.
II.
If I must sing
must I continue to sing dirge
seven volumes cannot speak
volumes for my values
and I start to wonder
do generals grow stars on farms
do they pick starts from plantations
Dirges rule the waves on coupsday
dirges do the same on doomsday
vultures fly away with cowries
cowries that shape my laughter
cowries that shape my sorrow
cowries that shape my living
cowries that shape my death
and vultures scorn professors
and professors scorn confessors
I keep waxing stronger
in the most unusual places
Wale Abebanwi, who participated in the Cape Town Summer Institute, is a poet and scholar from Nigeria.
University in Exile Award to Galina Starovoitova
This is the citation read by President Jonathan F. Fanton in conferring
the University’s first University in Exile Award upon the late Galina Starovoitova.Cultural
anthropologist, disciplined intellectual, courageous democrat. You embodied
the best of perestroika’s first wave, those who identified with Andrei
Sakharov, placed their faith in conscience, and relished building new and
open political institutions. Naturally warm, considerate and down to earth,
you emboldened others with a simple principle: truth. As a scholar, you
illuminated the systematic repression of Russia’s national minorities.
Your most important book, Ethnic Groups in the Modern Soviet City, was
published on the eve of the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Because
of your extraordinary peace mission to that troubled region, grateful Armenians
elected you – a woman and a Russian – to represent them in the USSR parliament,
an apparatchik male preserve. Embracing Gorbachev’s reforms, you focused
attention on the plans for a new constitution and the new Russian Federation.
Sought out by Boris Yeltsin to be spokesperson for his campaign for presidency
of the Federation, you were President Yeltsin’s key advisor on the interethnic
issues until resigning in protest over his catastrophic policy in Chechnya.
Twice elected by the people of St. Petersburg to the new Duma, you inspire
and energize the political reform party, Democratic Russia. Radiating commitment
to a peaceful and democratic Russia, generously cooperating with the new
nations emerging as its neighbors, you boldly challenge the resurgent evil
of ethnic bigotry. Your service to humankind is passionate and principled,
true to your vibrant democratic vision, and true to yourself. The New School
takes pride in conferring upon you the University in Exile Award.
A Letter from Olga Starovoitova
We are grateful for the great honor given to us by your university, in giving Galina Starovoitova that honored title. We want to thank everyone who was involved in the decision-making, and also those who helped to deliver the materials to Russia so quickly.
On May 14, an exposition in the museum of political history in St. Petersburg will be an opening. This exposition will be dedicated to the 10th Anniversary of free elections in our country. One of the exposition halls, around forty square meters, will be dedicated to Galina. We’ve collected many documents and pictures for it. One of the central places of the exposition will feature the materials you’ve sent us, accompanied by information about your university.
Registration of a foundation in the memory of Galina Starovoitova – Starovoitova Research & Education Institute for Democracy Development – is in the final stage. The central office of the foundation will be in Moscow, with a branch in St. Petersburg. Additionally, to accelerate our work, we have registered a non-profit organization in St. Petersburg, “Museum of Galina Starovoitova.” The main goals of this NGO are similar with the mission of the future fund. The first event we’re working on is the exposition I mention above. It will be open, as of May 14, for three months. We’re planning to invite US Councillor in St. Petersburg Mr. Thomas Linch to attend its opening.
Our fund is also preparing several publications; one of them the book Galina wrote and published in the US in 1997, National Self-Determination: Approaches and Case Studies. This book has now been translated into Russian and is ready to be published. The second publication in progress is a selection of Galina’s 17-18 articles, with a preface – Galina’s biography, written by her mother. Third planned publication is a photo album, comprising of 100 photos and 10 short interviews, written by Russian well-known figures, like Prof. Likhachev, Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Gaidar, Sobchak and others.
We will be keeping you informed about our future events and programs.
Olga Starovoitova
Olga Starovoitova is Galina’s sister. She lives and works in St Petersburg.
We are pleased to announce the TCDS Fellowship: New Social Science Training Project. Twelve Fellowships in all will be awarded for the Fall of 1999, six to students in the Graduate Faculty (GF) of the New School, and six to international students. The students selected will have begun their Ph.D. course work. The Fellowship provides a $3,000 tuition or research grant. The aim of the awards is to support the work of students whose research is concerned with illuminating the relationships between transregional processes of democratization, and to foster communication within the internal discussions and practices that are taking place within different countries and within the broader regions.
The TCDS Fellowship hopes to help build an environment for new kinds of research, while focusing on common issues faced by societies undergoing systemic transitions. In particular, TCDS believes this kind of research will be fruitfully informed by bringing together scholars whose expertise in their respective cultural and political contexts will contribute to a deeper understanding of the processes taking place both globally and locally.
GF students awarded a TCDS Fellowship will work closely in small teams with young scholars who bring different but complementary perspectives – two students from Africa, two from Latin America, and two from Eastern Europe.
Each of the small teams will conduct their work within the rubric of one of four Themes & Subjects: Public Sphere and Political Culture; Nationality – Ethnicity – Gender; Civil Society and Social Change; Democratization, Political Justice, and Economic Equity.
Each recipient of a TCDS Fellowship will be enrolled in a course, which addresses the subject area of their research, and will work closely with the instructor on his or her specific project within the small team. They will also participate fully in the Fall 1999 TCDS Work-in-Progress Workshop presenting their work to the university community. Final versions of papers will be presented at a New School University–TCDS Conference at the end of December and will be published as part of the TCDS working paper series.
• Thurs., February 25: Slavoj Zizek, Philosopher from the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, spoke on: The Obscene Tolerance of the Superego: Postcommunist Fantasies.
• Thurs., March 4: Fron Nazi, Senior Editor for the Institute fo War and Peace Reporting, and Fred Abrahams of Human Rights Watch gave a remarkable talk on the current situation in the Balkans, particularly addressing the topic: Albanian Question in the Balkans.
• March 18, 19, & April 1: Kai Erikson, Professor of Sociology and American Studies at Yale University gave three talks broadly titled Reflections on the Collapse of Yugoslavia: A Sociological View.
• Mon., April 5: Srilatha Batliwala, founder of Mahila Samkhya Karmataka, Bombay, and currently program officer in Governance, Civil Society, Peace and Social Justice at the Ford Foundation, gave an engaging and informative talk titled Breaking Stereotypes: Organizing Poor Urban Women in Bombay.
• Wed., April 14: Panel discussion on the situation in Kosovo and Serbia, featuring several distinguished panelists: Fred Abrahams (Human Rights Watch), Delina Fico (NSU), David Golove (Cardozo Law School), William Hartung (World Policy Institute), Stephen Holmes (Princeton University), Michael Kaufman (The New York Times), Violeta Krasnic (Autonomous Women’s Center Against Sexual Violence, Belgrade), Avni Mustafaj (National American-Albanian Council), Aristide Zolberg (NSU).
• Tues., April 27: Reinhard Bettzuge, Minister Plenipotentiary, Deputy Permanent Representatives of the Federal Republic of Germany to the NATO spoke on: A New NATO for the 21st Century: Current Challenges vis-a-vis Russia and the Balkans.
• Thurs., May 6: Iveta Radicova, Associate Prof. of Sociology at Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia, Fullbright Fellow at the Graduate Faculty, NSUand Expert for the European Union spoke on The Desire and Design of European Identity.
• Thurs., May 6: Jonathan Schell (journalist and Harold Willens Peace Fellow), Arundhati Roy (The God of Small Things), Merav Datan (American-Israeli lawyer and activist) with Ian Williams (UN correspondent for The Nation) as moderator, were engaged in A Conversation in the Second Nuclear Age.
• The second semester of TCDS’s 1998/99 Work-in-Progress Workshop featured several excellent papers and presentations including: Tomasz Kitlinski (Fulbright scholar) on Theories of Subjectivity; Jean Hoenninger (Anthropology) on Topography of Tyranny: Nazi Execution Sites in Poland; and Vesna Kesic (MacArthur Fellow, Liberal Studies student) on Sexism and War: The Construction of Gender and the Origins of War Violence in Former Yugoslavia.
Anyone interested in obtaining copies of the papers, or with inquiries about the 1999/2000 Work-in-Progress Workshop should contact Hana Cervinkova, cervih01@newschool.edu.
• The Eighth Democracy & Diversity Summer Institute in Cracow, Poland will take place this year from July 11-31, 1999. Each year the institute welcomes more than 50 junior scholars from around the world for a three week intensive curriculum in society, politics and culture. This year the Institute will host a forum on the State of the Ten year-old Democracies in the region and on the War in Yugoslavia.
For more information please contact Ina Breuer at TCDS, BreuerI@newschool.edu
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