Anyway, there’s been a good deal of talk for a while now about what’s going to happen next in the game of brinksman ship being played between Israel, Iran and the US. Rami Khoury, the editor emeritus of the Daily Star, recently published an op-ed saying that though the desire is strong for an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, such a move lacks the long term strategic cost-benefit ratio needed to put the no doubt complex and detailed military plans into motion.
Rami Khoury’s article can be found here.

I fall into this camp. It seems like madness for Israel or the US to attack Iran given the widespread influence it has in the region, and the complexity of alliances and motivations in the middle east make it impossible for even the most complete team of foreign policy experts and military strategists to accurately predict the repercussions and the outcome. That doesn’t mean that certain actors haven’t made their plans and their predictions. It also doesn’t mean that it won’t happen. Some are of the opinion that the hawks in the US and Israel believe that a daring move on Iran is the only way to prevent US influence in the middle-east from dying a slow, painful death. These are people who believed in the war in Iraq and still believe in it, and who are up for a winner take all gigantic long term tussle. A friend of mine has written a piece along these lines. As soon as it is published I will post the link here.

Though there are many people in high places who want to go this route, I think there are enough counterbalancing forces that will prevent it from happening. G Bush’s recent public statement announcing that the US does not support a military solution against Iran’s nuclear ambitions is a clear sign, to me, that the move is a no go for now, and that the US is a little bit worried that Israel will make the first move on its own and pull the US into the fight.

One thing is for certain: a move like that will take tensions in the region up a few notches, and will no doubt send a number of peace talks flying off the tracks. The Israeli-Palestinian solution will be the major casualty, but also the situation in Iraq will go to shit and matters in Afghanistan already are, where there have been more deaths of soldiers registered than in Iraq for the last two months running. US soldiers in Iraq will find themselves between two forces who fought to the death for nine years, and there will be no need to worry about Iranian proxy involvement in Iraq- they will gladly come in person.

Lebanon is a small issue at best for those who are pulling the strings for such an operation, though the repercussions for this tiny country would be huge. The already slow moving and some would say impotent negotiations to form a new government here would come to a dead stop as the various factions in the country would have to decide how to play in this new game. I don’t think a few prisoner swaps between Hizbullah and Israel are going to prevent a serious backlash from the Iranian aligned group, and many in Lebanon will start rolling out the bomb laden welcome mats in anticipation of another Israeli incursion into the country. Lebanon could see another civil war as the politicians/warlords take their bickering from the palaces back out into the streets and figure out how to use this new conflict to their political/military advantage. Lebanon might even get another visit from Syria, who has been slowly moving, at least on the surface, to improve its relations with the west.

Like all things related to politics in the region, there are experts who believe it will happen and experts who don’t. The only certainty is that nobody really knows. There are too many ways to start a conflict here; the spark can come from a number of different places and if there is enough wind to blow it towards the powder keg, nobody will be able to put it out in time.

I’m sitting in my favorite cafe in west Beirut, sipping on a delicious strawberry milkshake graciously given to me by the barman at no charge. Outside, the smoke from sheesha pipes wanders aimlessly through the streets. I wonder what kind of smoke will be floating through the streets in a few months time.

Our delegation, organized by two incredible Lebanese students at Harvard, Yalda Aoukar and Sara El-Yafi, arrived here the same night as the leaders who were returning triumphantly from Doha. We arrived to see the opposition dismantle its tents and remove the last of the roadblocks, to see life filling the downtown and patrons packing the restaurants, bars and nightclubs. The ugliness and brutality of Beirut was quickly put away as we flew towards the reopened airport. All signs of conflict were hidden like someone stuffing all of the dirty clothes into the closet before his mother bursts in to inspect the room. Forty students from 18 different countries were treated to the beautiful version of Beirut, all the eyesores having been quickly removed and stowed away.

But we were not fooled. We had spent months studying Lebanon’s history, its colonization by the French, its rich history of bloodbaths and political assassinations courtesy of not only internal power struggles, but also the long hand of the Syrians and the Israelis. So as we listened to Samir Geagea talk about the cedars and the mass protests that forced the Syrian’s out, we did not forget that he is also known as one of the most notorious aggressors of the civil war. As Amin Gemayel spoke of national unity and looking forward instead of back, we kept in mind that the Phalange are widely believed to have taken part in the massacre at Sabra and Shatila. As Hizbullah representatives waxed poetic about their valiant resistance against the Israeli occupation and the two massacres at Qa’na, we did not forget about their lightning military occupation of Beirut just two weeks earlier to remind the government who was really in charge. In Damascus, when Bashar Assad spoke to us about a more open, more progressive Syria and his desire for formal diplomatic relations with Lebanon, we did not forget that many journalists sit in Syrian jails today, or that Assad’s father presided over the complete obliteration of Hama.

Every political party we met did their best to show us their dedication to Lebanon and national unity, while subtly reminding us why they were right while the others were wrong. Every group spoke of wanting to move beyond the sectarian identities of the past but at every meeting we came out feeling like they had not yet sipped the kool aid that they had so readily offered to us. Forty Harvard students can create a political public relations windfall for any group, and they all tried to make the best of it with their cameramen, journalists, and best orators ready. And Syria was not to be left out. It seems that the day after our meeting with President Assad, we were on the front page of every newspaper in Damascus.

So yes, we were transported by the wonderful beauty of Beirut and the rest of Lebanon. Yes, we were shocked and star-struck to receive an audience with almost every major leader in the country. But we were not fooled into thinking that the earth beneath our feet was not rich with the blood of the Lebanese, or that anybody we spoke to was just a victim, or that national unity was the only item on everyone’s agenda.

But despite the many different agendas, we wanted to believe that at the end of the day, all of these parties really do desire unity. We want to believe that despite Beirut’s reputation, this beautiful, vibrant city will not once again give way to the tragedies of the past. We want to believe that Doha is the beginning of a long-lasting peace, that national unity will triumph over sectarianism, that Syria, Israel and Lebanon will settle the issue of the Golan Heights and Shebba Farms, that Hezbollah’s recent exchange with Israel signals the start of a process that will lead to a peace between these two historical enemies, that a two state solution will finally be reached to provide the Palestinians a true homeland and to create the foundation needed for stability in the greater middle east.

As the members of my delegation go back to their home countries, I know they will tell the story of these 12 days in Lebanon over and over again. They will not sing praises for any one party, leader, or group, but they will sing praises about the view from Mt. Lebanon, about the incredible hummus, lahma, babaganoush, and desserts of every meal, about the evenings of smoking sheesha in the picturesque downtown, about the compression of so much politics into such a small space. They will sing about the perseverance of the Lebanese people in a place that is sometimes peaceful, sometimes mad, and unwaveringly complex.

They will tell everyone their many stories about Lebanon, and of the hope of the people that this country will finally achieve its potential. They will speak of the need for the world to pay greater attention and for the international community to step up its efforts to help ensure the success of the many simultaneous reconciliation efforts that are currently ongoing. And they will tell people how pretty the country is, that it is a great place to live, to work, and to invest. Everything they say will be true, as long as there is peace.

The next day I thought about the car and went back to take another look in the daylight. It is in relatively good shape except the back window is completely smashed. The front windshield has a bullet hole near the top. I imagined I was a crime scene specialist on CSI and after closer inspection, determined that a bullet had come in through the back and exited through the front windshield. It came in through the back because the glass from the back window was mostly inside the car, indicating the force came from the outside and in through the back. This was a pretty rudimentary analysis, but I was happy with it. I was more interested in the story behind this car. Why was it still sitting here? What did it mean?

The car seemed to me an appropriate analogy for Lebanon. The front windshield is intact but it is fragile at best, similar to the peace that exists in lebanon today. The glass is a patchwork of different ideologies, and if they move too much in opposite directions, or push too hard at each other, the stress will be too great- the glass is bound to shatter.

Perhaps it would be more appropriate an analogy if the windshield was full of cracks, slowly spidering away from the bullet hole. Though many would walk past and pretend not to see it, from time to time someone might come along once in a while and patch up some of the cracks, perhaps even cover up the bullet hole. But the hole will still be there, just as the cracks will still be beneath the fix, and eventually they’ll start working their way outward again.

As I stare off into space, I can see that the people of Lebanon are packed into this car, all 3 and some million of them- the civilians, the politicians, the journalists, the United Nations, and the aid workers- and they’re all looking out through this windshield, watching the cracks inch across the glass, all hoping that it doesn’t give way. Some are optimistic that it will hold, many are not. The latter are wearing jackets, gloves, hats, goggles, bracing for the violent wind that will greet them when the shield finally gives. Some have their hands on the door handles, ready to jump out if it does.

I have a Greek friend doing research at AUB. He was in the supermarket a block from his apartment in Hamra, very close to Saad Hariri’s residence, when a woman ran in screaming. Fighting had erupted outside as Hizbullah gunmen confronted Hariri’s Future party army, the mustaqbal, and everyone in the market ran to the back, laid on the ground and began waiting. Though he was scared, my friend said the most unnerving part was listening to the women. Some were saying ‘oh my god, I have children to feed, what am I going to do?’. Some were saying ‘I don’t want to die. Please god don’t let me die.’ And some were saying ‘That’s it. I’ve had enough. I’m leaving this place. I swear to god I’m leaving this time.’

That’s what happened to the owner of the car I think. When that bullet came through, he said, ‘that’s it, I’ve had enough. I’m not waiting around for it to get worse.’ Why else would someone leave a perfectly good Hyundai on the street for two months?

The truth is that there are a number of cars in Beirut that have been left behind as my friends have pointed out to me over the last few days. Perhaps some look at them as reminders of the conflict that once again left scores dead and the country submerged in uncertainty.

This little red Hyundai sits untouched, one of the few indications of a person or family who used to live here, who decided that it would be better to become part of the constantly expanding and contracting Lebanese diaspora than to stay here.

But perhaps it has been left there, gathering dust on the street instead of in some car lot or junk yard, in the hope that whoever ran away will decide to come back and reclaim their dusty, beaten, bullet ridden car. After all, this is the only Lebanon they’ll ever have.

Sharad Venkat blogs about his experience living and working in Lebanon this summer. (Photo Credit: Sharad Venkat)

Rafik Hariri was the former Prime Minister of Lebanon. He served from 1992 to 1998 and again from 2000 until 2004. Hariri was loved by many and hated by many, which is a sure sign of political success here in Lebanon. Hariri was hated by the Syrians and by the pro-Hizbullah contingent, and he openly demanded the withdrawal of the Syrian presence. He was also incredibly rich, amassing billions of dollars thru business ventures, most prominently in Lebanon and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. During his tenure Hariri’s accomplishments were a mixed bag, but he was praised for his role in reconstructing Beirut after the long and destructive civil war of the 1970’s and 80’s.

Here in Lebanon there is the pro-government coalition, called March 14, and the opposition, called March 8- both derive their names from the events that transpired after the assassination of Hariri. On March 14, 2005, one month after the assassination, which was widely believed to have been plotted by the Syrians, there was a massive show of solidarity in downtown Beirut. More than 1 million Lebanese showed up to mourn Hariri and peacefully protest the Syrian occupation of Lebanon. One month later Syrian president Bashar Assad put an end to the occupation by recalling the roughly 14,000 Syrian intelligence officers and troops that had been stationed in Lebanon since 1976. These events also led to the disbanding of the government and the removal of pro-Syrian president Emile Lahoud. The pro-government coalition thus took its name from this day of mass protest, the ‘cedar revolution, as it was coined by U.S. Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs Paula J. Dobriansky, more commonly known to the Lebanese as the Intifada-al-Istiqlal, or Independence Uprising. The opposition, the March 8th coalition, took its name from a Hizbollah rally held on March 8, 2005 to show solidarity for the Syrian occupation in Lebanon. The events of March 14th were a direct response to those of March 8th.

Outside the tent, there are large posters that depict the events surrounding Hariri’s death. I walked down the road looking at each poster- some show the March 14 gathering, people dressed in red and white, screaming and waving Lebanese flags, some have Hariri’s smiling face superimposed over the crowd as if he is looking down at them with pride. One shows policemen and inspectors standing in the crater left by the explosion. It looked to be more than four times the size of my hotel room.

Inside, pictures of Hariri are everywhere. His tomb is covered with flowers and in another room, the tombs of his seven bodyguards are arranged in a row. Photos of each one surround their tombs, and atop each one are flowers and prayer beads. My eyes are drawn immediately to one of them. He looks much younger than the rest- only in his early or mid-twenties.

According to the guide at the memorial, the bomb was the equivalent of about 1,700 kg of TNT. It exploded as his motorcade drove past on February 14, 2005, killing him instantly, along with a prominent minister, his seven bodyguards, and a number of joggers running nearby. What can 1,700kg of TNT do? The crater itself is telling. This was no grenade or rpg, it was an incredible force, a cataclysmic event that left no room for doubt, and no chance for its intended victims. Even now you can see the damage. The buildings around the blast site are wrecked. Their facades are completely gone and the stages are sagging and pockmarked as if still suffering from the shrapnel wounds. I asked the guard about the force of the bomb and he pointed at the picture of the crater, ‘you can see for yourself. I live 3 km from the site and when it went off my building shook. The glass of every window of Hamra street (1-2 miles away) exploded’.

I had asked others about the blast too. The American University of Beirut (AUB) is about a mile away from the site of the explosion. Everyone who was there when it happened say the same thing: ‘my building shook from side to side, windows exploded and glass was everywhere’. One Lebanese woman told me that in her class, they thought that it was a science experiment gone bad that had blown up the science lab. It was a science experiment of sorts, one that aimed to see how big a bomb you needed to ensure the death of a moving target.

The Lebanese are no strangers to sudden explosions, and their familiarity sometimes borders on the absurd. Another person who lives a little under a mile from the site said she heard the blast and ran home. Inside there was shattered glass and furniture strewn everywhere. Her father sat on a chair in the living room, surround by a heap of upended furniture and broken glass. He was talking on the telephone and laughing. ‘Dad’ she cried, ‘the windows are all shattered and the furniture is everywhere. There was a bomb!’. Her father looked at her, looked at the destruction around him, turned back to her and said ‘yes, I guess it is’. Then he went back to his phone conversation.

Just across the street from the Hariri memorial is Martyr’s Square, named for the nationalists who were hanged by the Ottoman’s during World War I. There is a large monument at the center of the Square depicting the bravery of the martyrs. The significance of the martyrdom statues is continually renewed, as they are martyred over and over again even in effigy. On close inspection you can see the figures riddled with bullet holes from the civil war and more recent conflicts, the arm of one is completely blown off.

Sadly there is no lack of martyrs in Lebanon, and often times a politician can do more in death than in life. The killing of Hariri resulted in the end of the Syrian occupation one month later, something the Lebanese couldn’t do in the 15 years since the end of the civil war. But it also hardened the opposition forces, hastened the return of Lebanese Forces leader and war criminal Samir Geagea from an indefinite imprisonment, and left the country once again without a working government.

Every event here seems to creates both a positive and a negative force, so varied and polarized is the landscape. The assassination of Bashir Gemayel in 1982 saw the Israelis lose the influence they had worked so hard for militarily, but it again left the Lebanese fighting each other to fill the power void. If Hizbullah had not taken West Beirut, which hastened external intervention and the convening of the Leaders in Doha, Lebanon today would still most likely not have a president. With so many forces at play there are very few right answer. There is perhaps only one sequence of events among millions that could lead to a lasting solution, a sequence determined not only by a government composed of a group of leaders who have fought each other for almost half a century, but also by states that have vied for control over Lebanon for much longer.

The pictures at the Hariri memorial remind me of the forces that exist everywhere in Lebanon, the invisible discord that pulls constantly at the Lebanese national fabric . It is an unpleasant reminder that the beautiful architecture and beaches and the crowded energy of the streets came at a price, and that something ugly is hiding beneath all this beauty.

It is no surprise that many of the older generation of Lebanese here, those old enough to have witnessed the civil war and the many political assassinations that followed, are not optimistic about peace treaties or Lebanese unity. As I looked at that picture of the gaping bomb crater just a few hundred meters from the sea, I could understand why they believe that the only certainty here in Lebanon is the certainty that the next war has already been conceived. Many believe that today and always, Lebanon sits at the brink of a volcano. When they stand at its edge and look down into its silent depths, they don’t feel relief- they hear only the quiet gurgling of the next eruption, the coming conflict kicking gently from within the womb.

This is no big deal- I’ve had my bag searched a number of times on the street by soldiers. I’m watching this guy and quietly appreciating how meticulous he is. Usually they’ll look in one or two pockets and call it a day. But this one went through every pocket, looked in every corner, took out and examined every object. I have a little squeeze blower that I use to clean my camera. He stared at it and then asked me what it was, so I squeezed it for him and he was satisfied.

Then he asked for my passport. I felt in my pocket and knew it wasn’t there…it was sitting in my desk drawer in the hotel room. I explained this to him. Then I did what I did once before at a checkpoint- I handed him my visa atm card. He looked over it, bending it, turning it, just like the soldier had done at the other checkpoint. But instead of laughing and giving it back, he laughed and said something in Arabic that I interpreted to be ‘do you really think you’re getting off with this?’

At this point I handed him a Daily Star business card to show where I worked. Now I’m in uncharted waters and frankly I’m getting a little bit annoyed. In retrospect I was not approaching this with the right attitude, but I doubt the result would have been any different. One of the other soldiers snapped something in Arabic and my soldier went into the guard shack and got his gun, which apparently he’d left there and wasn’t supposed to.

I watched as he tried to get the gun strap around his head and shoulder. It was obviously too short and needed some slack, but he wriggled it around in what was sort of an absurd sight: him staring me down, trying to be intimidating while sheepishly trying to figure out how to put his gun on. I took a step back, afraid he was accidentally going to let off a round in all the frenetic wrigging. Then he then took me back down the block to an earlier checkpoint, which I’d successfully walked past without any trouble just a few minutes earlier. There I went through another meticulous bag search, more questions about my passport… ‘where is your passport, where is your passport?’. I put on my best American accent as I repeated over and over again, ‘Its in my hotel room, I left it in my hotel room. I live in Hamra.’

Then this guard takes me and we head to the first checkpoint I’d passed. At this point I’m thinking ‘this is really fucking ridiculous.’ At the first checkpoint the routine is repeated…bag search, questions about my passport. The guards are alternating between laughing between themselves and giving me stern looks so I don’t really understand what is going on except that I’m moving slowly up the chain of command. Then the soldier who initially stopped me waves me to follow him down a side street.

Here’s where I decide enough is enough. When I worked in Sudan aid workers and foreigners were often harassed by government troops. One of the most effective techniques was to act upset and offended- the solider usually backed off a little bit and showed you a little more respect. So when this guy wants me to follow him down this empty, darkish street without explanation, I stand my ground and raise my voice…’what is this?! Where are you taking me?! What do you want?! I told you I left my passport in my hotel room! We can go get it if you want!’

Bad idea. The guy is surprised and looks at me sternly. He rubs his gun and waves me over again. The other soldiers standing around me also gently nudge me to follow him. It’s clear that the best course of action is to go along with it but in my mind, I’m starting to imagine unsavory scenarios. As I walk down this street with the soldier, who is still holding my atm and business card and using it like a leash, knowing that I’m going to follow after it, I start imagining worst case scenarios and begin to look for civilians - in my mind, witnesses to anything that might happen.

The soldier stops and looks to the right. There is an abandoned lot with lots of rubble and no people. I decide right then and there, there’s no fucking way I’m going in there. Thankfully he then continues down the road as I take note of the open shops and any civilians I see. I look at their faces to see if I can discern any fear, to see if there might be any clue to what is going to happen. The few people around do not look frightened and that reassures me a little bit.

I continue behind the solder and we get to another checkpoint. There the routine is repeated by an older and obviously more senior person. The questions are the same and I answer them in a clear, friendly, measured tone. I admit to myself that I am scared, and I notice myself becoming more compliant, more willing to tell them whatever they want, the longer I am there. I remembered a documentary I watched in which a prison interrogator in iraq said that generally people who are rounded up are very talkative and willing to answer questions in the first hour or two after being brought in, out of panic and fear brought on by the confusion and uncertainty of being ripped from their comfort zones.

At this point, more people are brought in behind me and we’re made to stand in a line on the sidewalk. An old man comes out of a building across the street and examines each person’s ID cards. He takes their phones and looks at them. I’m not sure why they didn’t take mine.

Standing next to me is a man who, from what he is saying, is from Iraq. He also doesn’t have his passport and says he was walking around. He shows his Iraqi ID and his hotel keycard. It read ‘Palm Beach Hotel’, the same place I was staying a few weeks earlier. The Iraqi man switches from English to speaking Arabic with the soldier, his tone is also becoming less insubordinate and more friendly, more passive. I look at him for a second and wonder if he’s telling the truth. Why wouldn’t he be? What could he possibly be doing? One of a hundred different things I guess, probably not all of them legit.

I can feel the soldiers spending more and more time on him and I’m slowly being ignored, though still standing there sweating, hot, a little bit shaky. They’re not happy with his story. Then they search him and find a camera… look through a few of his pictures (I can’t see them) and they start asking him about them. He raises his hands in frustration and indicates that they’re innocent pictures. A few of the soldiers gather around and look through them again. My guess is that he was a victim of bad composition- he probably caught some part of a government building, maybe a soldier or two or a tank on the street, in a few of his pictures. The two highest ranking soldiers there tell him to follow them into an building across the street. He doesn’t want to but he is well past the point of trying to argue.

The guard that first brought me in tries to take me by the arm and lead me in too but his superior looks at me and waves me off, setting me free. The guard argues for a second but to no avail. I stand there without moving just to make sure. He waves me off again. I pick up my bag and begin walking away, turning back to see them take the Iraqi man into the building. Poor guy…but then maybe he did do something. I guess the point is that you never know, especially here - I think paranoia runs high.

I’m glad it was the army and not one of the various faction’s militias that stopped me. I was a little bit rattled but in the end they didn’t touch me. I’m also glad that I didn’t have my camera and video camera in my bag. I had taken them both out a few days earlier. Things would have been much more complicated if I had been carrying either one. I’m sure I also have a number of ‘badly composed’ pictures. As I passed by the first checkpoint at the main road, the same soldiers who had stared me down and pushed me down the street laughed and called me over. One of them said ‘they just asked you questions right?’, slapping me on the back. ‘So what do you think about Lebanon? What do you think about our women?’

One colleague of mine, a long-serving military man, has the following credo:

It’s only a lot of reading if you do it all.

On that topic, this recent article from the Citizen is well worth reading.

Or former five star general and US President Dwight Eisenhower, who attended the Army’s Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in the 1920s. A biography by Geoffrey Perret records Ike’s view of his course:

Everyone who stayed with the course, in fact, graduated. It was like being at Harvard – people dropped out, but nobody flunked out.

And then there’s this personal favorite, stated by a professor in class just a couple of weeks ago:

I read the abstract [of the article] and if I don’t like it, I don’t keep reading.

If only I’d known that last September …

Or you could always do what another colleague did earlier this year when she found herself in a class with me by mistake. Rather than switching to the one she meant to, she stayed and later said that she enjoyed the ‘accidental’ class!

When you cross the river from KSG or HKS - or whatever we’re called - to HBS (Hyatt, sorry, I mean ‘Harvard Business School’), it’s like trading up from backpacking and living at a youth hostel to staying at the Peninsula Hong Kong, where the cheapest room is approx $US 500 a night.

Where we HKS proles attend seminars just to get a free lunch, HBS students have a magnificently appointed cafeteria (more like a restaurant), an excellent library and classrooms and, from what I’ve seen, generally top-notch facilities. When I visited a colleague of mine there, he said: “I find the lounge by the fireplace quite agreeable” and so we retired to the genteel hush of the lounge for discussions. As I left the campus, a student was practicing his golf swing on the lawn …

Robert Mugabe is one of Zimbabwe and Africa’s heroes. He fought against colonial powers for the liberation of Zimbabweans and is a passionate smart and tough man. Few Africans can boast of the impressive resume the Mugabe has. Not only was he a freedom fighter, he has five bachelor’s degrees, two masters degrees and fourteen honorary degrees including from universities like the University of Massachusetts. Yet despite his intellectual superiority and longing for a free Zimbabwe, Mugabe seems to have lost sight of his purpose and has instead become the instigator of suffering and political oppression in Zimbabwe.

In the elections held in March 2008, the most notable result could perhaps be that Mugabe was able to garner about half of the popular vote. Even taking into consideration that Tsvangirai, Mugabe’s main rival, is claimed to have won 50.3% of the vote, Mugabe has still retained 49.7% of his nation’s support. Do we find it strange that despite the suffering his policies have brought on, nearly half the population still want Mugabe as their president?

 I can think of at least two reasons as to why this is not strange. Firstly for many Africans who still smart from scars of change in leadership from colonial times, the sentiment is more ‘better the devil you know’ than anything else. Secondly, in the face of the great economic divide between whites and blacks, many black Zimbabweans may prefer to be ‘white-free’ than to continue to watch this divide grow. Mugabe may still be fighting for his people, where the framework of ‘people’ in his mind does not include white Zimbabweans.

Why, several decades after independence, does Mugabe still seem to be fighting against the white minority? Perhaps it was in Ghana where he lived and studied in 1951 that he came to associate freedom from oppression with the removal of white presence. Perhaps it was the need for a heavy-hand in a sharply divided nation in 1980, that the idea of supreme control became central to Mugabe’s regime. Indeed Mugabe, a former cattle herder raised by a single mother, seems to have lost touch with the common Zimbabwean and has come to be ranked currently as one in the top ten of the world’s worst dictators.

Mugabe’s rule was not always as out of touch as it is now reported to be. In the early years of his presidency, Mugabe instituted many social programs including rural health centers, primary schools and improved access to roads for those in the rural areas. Quite progressively, early on he introduced laws giving women rights equal to those of men – something uncommon in the world at the time. He also worked with his staunchest rivals to come up with cooperative solutions to Zimbabwe’s problems most notably to promote racial equality amongst white and black Zimbabweans. But these were the early years. 

In 2005, Mugabe gave a directive to appropriate white-owned farms and redistribute them to his political allies. It was then that Zimbabwe started making global headlines when the decline of these farms, which were operating at only 20% of their capacity under the new and inexperienced management, drove the economy into hyperinflation. Homelessness and poverty became the new context of Zimbabwe. Average life expectancy was halved within a decade, four million people now face famine and unemployment soars at 70%.

Even though, given these statistics, one would think that the average Zimbabwean is quite certain that their beloved hero Mugabe, has lost touch with their reality, many still cling to him tightly. It is this lesson that a new administration, should there be one, must take into account. Mugabe has for a long time represented, no matter how extreme, justice and equality for his people. This representation falls out of the realm of tangible economic benefits and takes more of a philosophical, emotional place in the hearts and minds of many Zimbabweans. Alongside economic recovery, a new administration must not take the easy path to meet this need this by disenfranchising the white minority, but must take the much harder path of formulating creative and cooperative policy that addresses the unique context of Zimbabwe. A new administration must formulate a policy that embodies Mugabe inasmuch as he responds to a need in half of the population in Zimbabwe.

This of course is easier said than done, but given the current situation in Zimbabwe, new policy to address justice for the average Zimbabwean must be the nation’s new freedom fighter.

You probably don’t like Gund Hall either, which houses the Graduate School of Design. So much concrete! So angular!

I’m putting words into your mouth now, but you might not even like the Carpenter Center, that bizarre concrete building next to the Fogg. It’s unclear whether it helps or hurts to know that the center is the only building in the U.S. designed by Le Corbusier - the architect and theorist who popularized the flawed idea that societies could design their way out of problems.

With Harvard and MIT both accumulating centuries worth of great architecture, Cambridge is a designers’ heaven. At Harvard, this architecture often gets lumped into two broad categories: “Great!” - exemplified by the best of the Georgian and Federalist buildings in the Yard; and “Fugly,” such as Gund Hall, which is usally attached to buildings of poured concrete built after WWII.

I love some of those fugly buildings. Poured concrete is not inherently ugly, just as brick cannot make a building attractive by itself (See exhibit A: Taubman Center; or exhibits B through Z: all of HBS). In fact, poured concrete can be gorgeous. It picks up the detail of the plywood forms in which it was poured, individually texturing every square inch and making each a testament to the process of its construction. It responds to weather, changing color with the rain and the sun. Finally, its planar surfaces and neutral color emphasize the surrounding landscaping and provide a stage for shadows from nearby trees (and other buildings) to dance across through the course of the day. Concrete buildings often assert themselves through their size, but their surfaces invite visual interaction from their neighboring trees and buildings.

Here follow, then, some reasons to appreciate three very classic buildings built by our humble University. I limit the discussion to their exteriors, which we can all see. All are concrete, and are often accused of being ugly or inhuman, characterizations I hope to refute. If I can increase your appreciation of these buildings even a little bit, then - hey! - your life will be a little happier every time you walk by them.

Peabody Terrace

Graduate student housing complex. Architect of record (year completed): Josep Lluis Sert (1964)

Peabody Terrace. Credit: Patrick Thrasher

Gund Hall

Graduate School of Design (GSD). Architect of Record (year completed): John Andrews (1972)

Gund Hall. Credit: Patrick Thrasher

The Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts

Architect of Record (year completed): Le Corbusier (1963)

Carpenter Center. Credit: Patrick Thrasher

The scene was orchestrated by the Armed Forces Club (AFC), an HKS student organization that organized a day-trip to the Academy for twenty students, allowing them to catch a glimpse of military culture that is otherwise invisible to civilian eyes.

The trip was part of a more comprehensive effort to strengthen civilian and military relations at the Kennedy School, which is more considerably active this year than in the past.

It started last November when Jim Lee, a National Security Fellow, initiated a study group that meets weekly and features fellows presenting defense-related topics.

“Students and faculty get to learn who the fellows are,” Lee said. “When they leave, the students now have established contacts with senior Department of Defense officials.”

Kent Park (MPP2), who served with the Army as a company commander in Iraq and now heads the AFC, believes there is a greater need beyond networking that applies directly to the changing role of the military.

“We are being told to do governance, economic development and humanitarian assistance that is not part of our core competency,” Park said. “We realize our shortcomings. We can’t do this on our own.”

Park has taken the responsibility of promoting dialogue upon himself. In addition to the West Point trip, the Armed Forces Club conducted a seminar series entitled “Military 101 and 102″ and created a new position of “Civ-Mil Liason” within the AFC, representing a fixed means of communicating with the civilian community.
Even if increasing civilian-military relations on campus is considered helpful in theory, in practice it poses significant challenges. Despite efforts aimed at educating both sides, preconceived opinions and hardened perspectives can sometimes make learning difficult.

One student on the West Point trip, Olivia Armenta (MPP2), said her mostly Latino community lacks trust in the military because of its Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (formerly the School of the Americas), which has trained soldiers and officers operating in Central and South America.

“If known human rights violators from military institutions in Latin America are trained in [U.S. military] facilities, it’s difficult to ask human rights organizations to understand military culture,” Armenta said.

J.C. Mikits, (MPP, 2007) currently serving as teacher at West Point, acknowledged the barrier.

“The military can do a better job of sitting down with people who are anti-military and finding out why,” Mikits said. “It should be trying to convey that maybe there’s a perception problem there.”

Such inherent differences may represent challenges that a handful of campus events cannot overcome, raising the question of what more should be done.

Vincent Smith (MPA/MC), who worked with the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping in Somalia and Haiti and often felt civilian-military tensions, suggests that stronger academic requirements should be put in place to address the issue.

“[The Administration] should look at every course and make sure that people from one side are forced to look at the other side,” he said. “People with my background should have to take international security classes.”

Cadets lining up outside the dining room at West Point. Credit: Naseem Khuri

While courses taught by Professors Sarah Sewall, John White and Richard Clarke raise issues of civilian-military cooperation, Park believes one course specifically devoted to the topic is necessary. “It amazes me that there is not a formal class on the civilian-military relationship,” he said.

As the military does more outreach to the humanitarian community at HKS, some students have questioned if the learning is going in both directions.

Emilian Papadopolous (MPP2), who has focused on international security during his time at HKS, recognizes the need for such a two-way exchange.

“As a civilian, it’s clear the military has done a great job of advancing outreach,” Papadopoulous said. “We need to step up our efforts even more. It has to be a truly joint venture.”

Evan Maher (MPP1), the AFC Civ-Mil Liason who worked with the Department of Justice in Iraq before coming to the Kennedy School, takes a different perspective.

“The military lives civilian lives most of the time,” Maher said. “So they have a much better understanding of us than we have of them.”

It is unclear whether the marked increase in such events, largely attributed to individuals like Kent Park and Jim Lee, will continue next year.

“I would love to think that someone else will step up,” said Park, who will graduate this spring. “It is a lot of work, and I readily admit it is personality driven.”

Lee’s study group will continue next year with the support of the Institute of Politics (IOP) and the Belfer Center.

Maher, who plans on working with Park to adopt a model started at Tufts University, aims to cultivate relationships with the IOP and the Carr Center for Human Rights to institutionalize the Armed Forces Club’s civilian-military efforts.

“We want to plant seeds now for those will be leaders down the road,” Maher said. “It’s a long term project.”