Solutions Across Borders

History Reflected in Horror Films

2011-04-05T23:53:00.001-04:00

On April 5, 2011, Professor Wollman, from the Fine and Performing Arts Department, led a discussion about horror movies and its relation to U.S. history. As horror films developed throughout the decades, it corresponded with drastic events that sparked fear in the American people. For example in the 1950s, the idea of conformity and McCarthyism led directors, producers and writers to create movies such as The Blob.

Today’s horror movies are about torture and inflicting wounds on someone’s body. This type of horror could be linked to the United States fighting wars as well as potential terrorists and/or prisoners who are being physically tortured. It is the fear of being in an unknown place and kept barely alive while suffering under the wrath of a torturer. As a result, one of the subliminal messages behind these horror movies is that if anyone does something wrong, he or she will be punished for their mistakes. Therefore, it is best to be cautious and follow the rules of society and not venture out to do something out of the norm. Overall, this was an eye opening experience because it shows how our fear of stepping outside the box can be translated into horror films for mass media.

-Arunna Raj

Multiculturalism and Diversity in New York City Classrooms

2011-04-05T19:39:00.002-04:00

   There is no need to look further than New York State when identifying the effects immigration has on public education and the integral part multicultarism plays in the classroom. It is estimated that nearly one third of the total student poulation of New York City schools are immigratnts, and this proportion is rising. These students enroll in schools with the same hopes of equal access to opportunities and success. However, there are others who do not engage in the school environment with the same enthusiasm. The lack of financial security and English skills are just a few examples acting as stumbling blocks for these immigrant children.

   The lack of English skills makes the transition process very difficult for these students, this also directly effects their performance on comprehension exams. Many children today can afford to enroll in language courses outside of school, but in the late 90's, the poor socio-economic status of these immigrants did not make this possible. Parents were not able to financially support their children, or provide academic assistance at home. Parent involvement in a child's academic process is very important, the lack of involvement due to their helplessness effected the way these children performed in school as well. More educated parents on the other hand are more likely to help their children with their homework or prepare for exams. This aid helps to design a plan for academic success, which is also very helpful and important.

   The results of impoverishment is negative. Similarly, immigrant students in general have higher dropout rates than the native-born. But then again, it is also important to identify the different types of immigrant groups which exist. Newer immigrant children perform differently in school in comparison to acculturated immigrants. Research shows that the offspring of immigrants have the higher dropout rates and the newer immigrant children are highly motivated to attend and succeed in schools instead. A possible reasoning for this may be because newer immigrant children use their good performance in school to serve as a tool in influencing upward mobility.

   The challenge for many public school teachers today has become how to teach immigrant students who are from completely different backgrounds and barely speak any English. This is increasingly becoming the situation inside many schools because school are required to enroll students regardless of their immigration status and are prohibited from even asking about it.

   In today's economic situation and while keeping in mind the changing accepting nature of America as a nation of many worlds, it is important to educate immigrants. Except for the indigenous people, everyone in the United States descended from immigrants, and what America is today is because of immigrants. When keeping this in mind, it becomes increasingly important to encourage tolerance of diversity within the classrooms and welcome those wanting to enter with open arms. The education of immigrant students is a smart investment, and also a way for the U.S. to uphold its image as a nation who has transitioned out of an era of intolerance.

   Multiculturalism and diversity in classrooms has also been increasing at the same rate as immigration. As interdependence among nations is limiting cultural barriers, the movement between countries is also becoming more fluid. Competition for talented global workers is increasing the demand of immigrants to migrate with their families. This mass migration is becoming the reason of largening classrooms with children from all different backgrounds. It is interesting to see the change in the way large companies work today as well. Many companies are noticing the importance of cross cultural training, as it is becoming an integral part of employee training to better equip them with skills that will help in building successful business relationships. Now the bigger question is why wait till a child reaches that level to make them globally aware? If they grow up in diverse classrooms, should it not be the responsibility of teachers and the schools to educate these kids about the multiple different cultures before them?

   Many teachers today are becoming away of the increasingly diverse classrooms, and finding it difficult to reach out to these children who speak little or no English. Changing times and conditions, make it more important than ever to be attentice about how student's family cultures can be very different from the dominant culture which once existed in schools. This is not an easy task, it will in fact take time and effort to learn about unfamiliar cultures. The role of teachers extends outside of the classroom as they have to excel in the realm of creativity in order to adjust to teaching practices to fully include children of different cultures. The only way to approach students who come from these different backgrounds would be to build bridges to non-mainstream cultures and make sure to include teaching technique which include traditions and contributions of all cultures. This will help a child grow both socially and academically, because he or she will be comfortable in this new environment.

   It is also important for teachers as educators to have cultural awarwness of the students' lives and backgrounds to help them connect with their students. Without this awareness, teachers would not be sensitive and have compassion for each child and help them develop. Sometimes understanding anthropological aspects such as elements of child-raising, beliefs, concepts of self and religious rituals help to approach the problem face down. This is a process which on the most part includes the self-reflection of each individual teacher. I think this so called “investigation” may help teachers to realize their core beliefs, hidden biases and religious perspectives. The easiest way to get a better understanding of the best techniques of teaching a diverse student body is to learn about the student's lives outside of the classroom. Yes, this does require an extra step on the teachers part, but this additional step makes the process of educating easier and smooth.

   A student begins to be brainwashed with a very unclear concept, Americanism. Till date I still am unaware of what exactly americanism is, and I have grown up here my whole life. Is standing in the beginning of the school day to say the pledge, being “American?” or is eating hot dogs from the food carts at baseball games a part of the American lifestyle? The answer to these questions most will say is open ended, but the fact of the matter is that children grow up with these ideas being directly associated with being American, American values and American culture. Not for a second do I reject any of these ideas as American, but I do also believe that a part of America are the many other cultures that make up this country and have helped to shape the social makeup of the nation as we know it to be today.

   The increasing amount of diversity in city school's is on the rise, but at the same time it is interesting to come across schools like Stuyvestant High School which is amongst the top city school's and having a constant problem with lack of diversity. Many critics complain that it is the specialized high school admission test that is inadequate, and that this is an unfair means of accepting students for admission. I quote from the New York Times, “the department has tried to increase the number of black and Latino students admitted to the top schools by hosting an intensive test preparation institute, but even the students who participated have shown lackluster results.” Why is it that only the Latino and Black communities are experiencing these problems? Are these programs actually providing these students with adequate aid or is it just a show? These are all questions which only the elites in education have the answers to.

   In order for us to find answers and solutions for ourselves, parents must actively partcipate in their children's educations and invest in the opportunities that will help them in the future. In addition, it is necessary for the government to help students who desire to enroll in these specialized schools receive the aid and preparation in math, verbal and critical thinking in the pre-existing years before the examination.

-Suveen S.

Islam: Victim of Westernization and Secularization?

2011-04-05T19:35:00.001-04:00

   Ayaan Hirsi Ali in her book, Infidel reaches a very controversial conclusion about Islam. She considers the religion as it is currently practiced, incompatible with modernity, democracy and western ideals. In order for Muslims to accept their environments in the west they must radically transform Islam. She describes the freedoms given to the people in the west as a gift to both women and children, and those unwilling to accept the gift are corrupting the land by “elevating cultures full of bigotry and hatred toward women to the stature of respectable alternative ways of life.” Hirsi Ali's sentiments and uneasiness about the way in which many Muslim women were still living in Holland, led to much criticize.

   While Hirsi Ali voice and approach to wanting to change things was loud, many Dutch intellectuals were uneasy about targeting immigrants and enforcing change. Her toleration for the preservation of culture and customs which she saw on the streets of Saudi Arabia deteriorated. She further criticized radical Islam with collaborated on Submission Part 1 with Theo van Gogh. The journey Hirsi Ali takes her readers on is not an easy one, she moves from a world of strong faith in Islam and Allah to a world as she says is of “reason.” Her personal journey strengthens her belief in female equality and criticism for radical customs of the faith being practiced in the west. She believes that the enslavement of women is just one of the many things which lies at the heart of the fanatical/radical interpretation of a religion which preaches backwardness and violations of basic human rights.

   In societies where there are people of different cultures and regions it is not always a big party, in fact, most of the times people fight. In most cases, religion is always the primary cause to any discussion, debate or argument in societies where more than one type of people live. It was mentioned before that tolerance of one another and each others way of living is a possible solution but not always the best and most effective solution. This formula ignores the people who take time to assimilate or become part of the normative culture. Not receiving the same attention, may trigger more and more people to do what it takes to be counted. Westernization and secularization make it harder for communities such as orthodox Muslims to find themselves living comfortably in nations in Europe because religion seems distant from both the government and the people. Religion and God is very much separate from the daily lives of the average citizen. This is something strange and alien to a devoted Muslim, who has accepted Sharia and Islam as the way of life. On the contrary, a country like the United States, was founded on the idea that church is separate from the state but still continues to have more and more people practicing a religion or believing in God. The reasoning offered by the article was because the “American model” promoted work ethic and how to make money. People do not have the time to decide whether to assimilate or not to the native culture because American culture preaches making money is what makes an individual American.

   It is interesting to question whether orthodox Islam and democracy can co-exist. Ayaan being a critic of Islam, would say you can have either or and not both. The incompatibility of both democracy and Islam co-existing would then filter out those people who could not find a balance between their faith and the culture and norms of their land. According to “The Dutch Model,” many people thought of Hirsi Ali to be intolerant of Muslim culture because she was angry and politically incorrect just like almost all other converts. However, her approach was that you can not be nice to your enemy and always make them your friend, she said the problem was within the institution and formation of Islam, for example “ the oppression of women is built into Islam.” If this was truly the case, then would the only solution to the problem be the eradication of all religions? If you were to ask Ayaan, she would probably respond yes. In the specific case of Holland and the dilemma the nation faces in situations where a person like Theo van Gogh is being murdered for expressing his freedoms, does multiculturalism and the “model of tolerance” truly make murder and violence acceptable? If this question was to be answered, Ayaan's view of voluntary assimilation seems to be the only solution. And if a person chooses he or she is not capable of returning the same religious and cultural tolerance given to them, then they should not be able to experience the “freedoms of the west.”

   In an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, she mentions that “all humans are equal but not all cultures are equal.” This is a statement which is very true. Cultures are made by religions and people, and cultures are passed down over time. This means that no one culture ever remains the same, because it is always undergoing constant change. Humans however are the same in the sense that all share the capability to adjust themselves to their environments, even if they may want to or not. This is not the same with cultures, therefore cultural tolerance is always more prone to be under attack. The interviewer mentions clash of civilizations, this translates to all the religions and cultures in the West compared to the rest of the world. It is important to recognize how geographic orientation also matters very much in the way people behave and what they practice.

-Suveen S.

Pizza with President Dr. Mitchel Wallerstein

2011-02-28T21:26:00.000-05:00

Emails were sent to invite students to come and speak with President Wallerstein. On Thursday February 24, 2011 during club hours, about sixteen students showed up to have an informal chat with the president. At first the president asked that we all introduce ourselves and then he introduced himself. He mentioned that CUNY was facing 10% budget cuts. He is hoping to reduce costs so that it would not affect Baruch’s education and faculty. Unfortunately, tuition would have to be increased, but will be increased in increments so that student who are participating in TAP will be covered. Tuition may go up in the near future to compensate for cuts.

Despite this depressing news, there are some exciting changes happening at Baruch.

1) The escalators will be fixed soon! Right now, the contractors are working on the escalators in the basement replacing them with brand new ones. They will make their way up and soon all the escalators in the vertical campus will be working.

2) Renovations will begin shortly to 17 Lex (23^rd building). It will be done in phases so that the whole entire building will be redecorated without disturbing classes.

3) Right now, Baruch students are sharing a residence hall with SVA. President Wallerstein is hoping to that Baruch will have a residential hall in the near future so students who commute from a far are able to stay near the school.

4) Remember last semester when USG sent around a proposal for a student center? Students voted to pay extra so that we can have this center which would be used as club rooms or lounging. President Dr. Mitchel Wallerstein is hoping to raise three times the amount so in three to five years, there could be a student center.

5) The President has a dream that the 25^th street, between the library building and vertical campus could be shut down and turned into a plaza so students and faculty have an outdoor area to relax and enjoy the weather.

After an update of the school’s progress report, President Wallerstein opened the floor for questions and concerns. One of the major concerns was the condition of the bathrooms. The bathrooms have been filthy and sometimes students are unsure whether or not it is being cleaned often. A second one was not enough lockers around the school. Some students are finding it difficult to carry books around all day and would like a place to leave their things. Two students raised the question of classroom space. One commented that even though in the schedule of classes, the section claims that only certain amount of seats are available; in the actual classroom students are unable to find seats at all. This causes many to rush to class early so that they can get a decent seat. Branching off of this idea, the other student asked if more sections could be added, especially the business classes, because the spaces get filled very fast that students who register later are unable to get the classes.

The President promised to look into these issues.

President Dr. Mitchel Wallerstein asked if Baruch should offer a hybrid of online classes with classroom lectures. There was a quite a divide on this issue. Some students felt that it was good for students who work full time, have to travel from afar or have to take care of families. Other students were not in favor because they felt that there would be no student-teacher interaction and it would be hard to contact the professor if there is a question.

Personally, I think this is a rare treat that students should take advantage of. The President, who has a hectic schedule, is actually making time for us, students, to hear our concerns in hopes of improving the college so students can have a worthwhile experience while studying.

-Arunna Raj

Will Israel Attack Iran?

2010-11-10T19:55:00.003-05:00

Please read this article suggested by Professor Waxman for our event on November 23, 2010

The Point of No Return By Jeffrey Goldberg

FOR THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION, THE PROSPECT OF A NUCLEARIZED IRAN IS DISMAL TO CONTEMPLATE— IT WOULD CREATE MAJOR NEW NATIONAL-SECURITY CHALLENGES AND CRUSH THE PRESIDENT’S DREAM OF ENDING NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION. BUT THE VIEW FROM JERUSALEM IS STILL MORE DIRE: A NUCLEARIZED IRAN REPRESENTS, AMONG OTHER THINGS, A THREAT TO ISRAEL’S VERY EXISTENCE. IN THE GAP BETWEEN WASHINGTON’S AND JERUSALEM’S VIEWS OF IRAN LIES THE QUESTION: WHO, IF ANYONE, WILL STOP IRAN BEFORE IT GOES NUCLEAR, AND HOW? AS WASHINGTON AND JERUSALEM STUDY EACH OTHER INTENSELY, HERE’S AN INSIDE LOOK AT THE STRATEGIC CALCULATIONS ON BOTH SIDES—AND AT HOW, IF THINGS REMAIN ON THE CURRENT COURSE, AN ISRAELI AIR STRIKE WILL UNFOLD.

IT IS POSSIBLE that at some point in the next 12 months, the imposition of devastating economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic of Iran will persuade its leaders to cease their pursuit of nuclear weapons. It is also possible that Iran’s reform-minded Green Movement will somehow replace the mullah-led regime, or at least discover the means to temper the regime’s ideological extremism. It is possible, as well, that “foiling operations” conducted by the intelligence agencies of Israel, the United States, Great Britain, and other Western powers—programs designed to subvert the Iranian nuclear effort through sabotage and, on occasion, the carefully engineered disappearances of nuclear scientists—will have hindered Iran’s progress in some significant way. It is also possible that President Obama, who has said on more than a few occasions that he finds the prospect of a nuclear Iran “unacceptable,” will order a military strike against the country’s main weapons and uranium-enrichment facilities.

Read on after the jump...

But none of these things—least of all the notion that Barack Obama, for whom initiating new wars in the Middle East is not a foreign-policy goal, will soon order the American military into action against Iran—seems, at this moment, terribly likely. What is more likely, then, is that one day next spring, the Israeli national-security adviser, Uzi Arad, and the Israeli defense minister, Ehud Barak, will simultaneously telephone their counterparts at the White House and the Pentagon, to inform them that their prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has just ordered roughly one hundred F-15Es, F-16Is, F-16Cs, and other aircraft of the Israeli air force to fly east toward Iran—possibly by crossing Saudi Arabia, possibly by threading the border between Syria and Turkey, and possibly by traveling directly through Iraq’s airspace, though it is crowded with American aircraft. (It’s so crowded, in fact, that the United States Central Command, whose area of responsibility is the greater Middle East, has already asked the Pentagon what to do should Israeli aircraft invade its airspace. According to multiple sources, the answer came back: do not shoot them down.)
In these conversations, which will be fraught, the Israelis will tell their American counterparts that they are taking this drastic step because a nuclear Iran poses the gravest threat since Hitler to the physical survival of the Jewish people. The Israelis will also state that they believe they have a reasonable chance of delaying the Iranian nuclear program for at least three to five years. They will tell their American colleagues that Israel was left with no choice. They will not be asking for permission, because it will be too late to ask for permission.
When the Israelis begin to bomb the uranium-enrichment facility at Natanz, the formerly secret enrichment site at Qom, the nuclear-research center at Esfahan, and possibly even the Bushehr reactor, along with the other main sites of the Iranian nuclear program, a short while after they depart en masse from their bases across Israel—regardless of whether they succeed in destroying Iran’s centrifuges and warhead and missile plants, or whether they fail miserably to even make a dent in Iran’s nuclear program—they stand a good chance of changing the Middle East forever; of sparking lethal reprisals, and even a full-blown regional war that could lead to the deaths of thousands of Israelis and Iranians, and possibly Arabs and Americans as well; of creating a crisis for Barack Obama that will dwarf Afghanistan in significance and complexity; of rupturing relations between Jerusalem and Washington, which is Israel’s only meaningful ally; of inadvertently solidifying the somewhat tenuous rule of the mullahs in Tehran; of causing the price of oil to spike to cataclysmic highs, launching the world economy into a period of turbulence not experienced since the autumn of 2008, or possibly since the oil shock of 1973; of placing communities across the Jewish diaspora in mortal danger, by making them targets of Iranian-sponsored terror attacks, as they have been in the past, in a limited though already lethal way; and of accelerating Israel’s conversion from a once-admired refuge for a persecuted people into a leper among nations.

If a strike does succeed in crippling the Iranian nuclear program, however, Israel, in addition to possibly generating some combination of the various catastrophes outlined above, will have removed from its list of existential worries the immediate specter of nuclear-weaponized, theologically driven, eliminationist anti-Semitism; it may derive for itself the secret thanks (though the public condemnation) of the Middle East’s moderate Arab regimes, all of which fear an Iranian bomb with an intensity that in some instances matches Israel’s; and it will have succeeded in countering, in militant fashion, the spread of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, which is, not irrelevantly, a prime goal of the enthusiastic counter-proliferator who currently occupies the White House.

I AM NOT ENGAGING in a thought exercise, or a one-man war game, when I discuss the plausibility and potential consequences of an Israeli strike on Iran. Israel has twice before successfully attacked and destroyed an enemy’s nuclear program. In 1981, Israeli warplanes bombed the Iraqi reactor at Osirak, halting—forever, as it turned out—Saddam Hussein’s nuclear ambitions; and in 2007, Israeli planes destroyed a North Korean–built reactor in Syria. An attack on Iran, then, would be unprecedented only in scope and complexity.

I have been exploring the possibility that such a strike will eventually occur for more than seven years, since my first visit to Tehran, where I attempted to understand both the Iranian desire for nuclear weapons and the regime’s theologically motivated desire to see the Jewish state purged from the Middle East, and especially since March of 2009, when I had an extended discussion about the Iranian nuclear program with Benjamin Netanyahu, hours before he was sworn in as Israel’s prime minister. In the months since then, I have interviewed roughly 40 current and past Israeli decision makers about a military strike, as well as many American and Arab officials. In most of these interviews, I have asked a simple question: what is the percentage chance that Israel will attack the Iranian nuclear program in the near future? Not everyone would answer this question, but a consensus emerged that there is a better than 50 percent chance that Israel will launch a strike by next July. (Of course, it is in the Israeli interest to let it be known that the country is considering military action, if for no other reason than to concentrate the attention of the Obama administration. But I tested the consensus by speaking to multiple sources both in and out of government, and of different political parties. Citing the extraordinary sensitivity of the subject, most spoke only reluctantly, and on condition of anonymity. They were not part of some public-relations campaign.) The reasoning offered by Israeli decision makers was uncomplicated: Iran is, at most, one to three years away from having a breakout nuclear capability (often understood to be the capacity to assemble more than one missile-ready nuclear device within about three months of deciding to do so). The Iranian regime, by its own statements and actions, has made itself Israel’s most zealous foe; and the most crucial component of Israeli national-security doctrine, a tenet that dates back to the 1960s, when Israel developed its own nuclear capability as a response to the Jewish experience during the Holocaust, is that no regional adversary should be allowed to achieve nuclear parity with the reborn and still-besieged Jewish state.

In our conversation before his swearing-in, Netanyahu would not frame the issue in terms of nuclear parity—the Israeli policy of amimut, or opacity, prohibits acknowledging the existence of the country’s nuclear arsenal, which consists of more than 100 weapons, mainly two-stage thermonuclear devices, capable of being delivered by missile, fighter-bomber, or submarine (two of which are said by intelligence sources to be currently positioned in the Persian Gulf). Instead, he framed the Iranian program as a threat not only to Israel but to all of Western civilization.

“You don’t want a messianic apocalyptic cult controlling atomic bombs,” he said. “When the wide-eyed believer gets hold of the reins of power and the weapons of mass death, then the world should start worrying, and that’s what is happening in Iran.” Israel, Netanyahu told me, is worried about an entire complex of problems, not only that Iran, or one of its proxies, would destroy Tel Aviv; like most Israeli leaders, he believes that if Iran gains possession of a nuclear weapon, it will use its new leverage to buttress its terrorist proxies in their attempts to make life difficult and dangerous; and he fears that Israel’s status as a haven for Jews would be forever undermined, and with it, the entire raison d’être of the 100-year-old Zionist experiment.

IN OUR CONVERSATION, Netanyahu refused to discuss his timetable for action, or even whether he was considering military preemption of the Iranian nuclear program. But others familiar with his thinking helped me understand his worldview. Netanyahu’s belief is that Iran is not Israel’s problem alone; it is the world’s problem, and the world, led by the United States, is duty-bound to grapple with it. But Netanyahu does not place great faith in sanctions—not the relatively weak sanctions against Iran recently passed by the United Nations Security Council, nor the more rigorous ones being put in place by the U.S. and its European allies. Those close to him say that Netanyahu understands, however, that President Obama, with whom he has had a difficult and intermittently frigid—though lately thawing—relationship, believes that stringent sanctions, combined with various enticements to engage with the West, might still provide Iran with what one American administration official described to me as “a dignified off-ramp for Tehran to take.”

But, based on my conversations with Israeli decision-makers, this period of forbearance, in which Netanyahu waits to see if the West’s nonmilitary methods can stop Iran, will come to an end this December. Robert Gates, the American defense secretary, said in June at a meeting of NATO defense ministers that most intelligence estimates predict that Iran is one to three years away from building a nuclear weapon. “In Israel, we heard this as nine months from June—in other words, March of 2011,” one Israeli policy maker told me. “If we assume that nothing changes in these estimates, this means that we will have to begin thinking about our next step beginning at the turn of the year.”

The Netanyahu government is already intensifying its analytic efforts not just on Iran, but on a subject many Israelis have difficulty understanding: President Obama. The Israelis are struggling to answer what is for them the most pressing question: are there any circumstances under which President Obama would deploy force to stop Iran from going nuclear? Everything depends on the answer.

The Israelis argue that Iran demands the urgent attention of the entire international community, and in particular the United States, with its unparalleled ability to project military force. This is the position of many moderate Arab leaders as well. A few weeks ago, in uncommonly direct remarks, the ambassador of the United Arab Emirates to the United States, Yousef al-Otaiba, told me—in a public forum at the Aspen Ideas Festival—that his country would support a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. He also said that if America allowed Iran to cross the nuclear threshold, the small Arab countries of the Gulf would have no choice but to leave the American orbit and ally themselves with Iran, out of self-protection. “There are many countries in the region who, if they lack the assurance the U.S. is willing to confront Iran, they will start running for cover towards Iran,” he said. “Small, rich, vulnerable countries in the region do not want to be the ones who stick their finger in the big bully’s eye, if nobody’s going to come to their support.”

Several Arab leaders have suggested that America’s standing in the Middle East depends on its willingness to confront Iran. They argue self-interestedly that an aerial attack on a handful of Iranian facilities would not be as complicated or as messy as, say, invading Iraq. “This is not a discussion about the invasion of Iran,” one Arab foreign minister told me. “We are hoping for the pinpoint striking of several dangerous facilities. America could do this very easily.”

The Israeli national-security adviser, Uzi Arad, once told me that the prime minister will sometimes, in the course of briefing foreign visitors on the importance of taking action against Iran’s nuclear program, say jokingly: “Let me tell you a secret. The American military is bigger than Israel’s.”

Barack Obama has said any number of times that he would find a nuclear Iran “unacceptable.” His most stalwart comments on the subject have been discounted by some Israeli officials because they were made during his campaign for the presidency, while visiting Sderot, the town in southern Israel that had been the frequent target of rocket attacks by Hamas. “The world must prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” he said. “I will take no options off the table in dealing with this potential Iranian threat. And understand part of my reasoning here. A nuclear Iran would be a game-changing situation, not just in the Middle East, but around the world. Whatever remains of our nuclear nonproliferation framework, I think, would begin to disintegrate. You would have countries in the Middle East who would see the potential need to also obtain nuclear weapons.”

But the Israelis are doubtful that a man who positioned himself as the antithesis of George W. Bush, author of invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq, would launch a preemptive attack on a Muslim nation.
“We all watched his speech in Cairo,” a senior Israeli official told me, referring to the June 2009 speech in which Obama attempted to reset relations with Muslims by stressing American cooperativeness and respect for Islam. “We don’t believe that he is the sort of person who would launch a daring strike on Iran. We are afraid he would see a policy of containing a nuclear Iran rather than attacking it.”

This official noted that even Bush balked at attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities, and discouraged the Israelis from carrying out the attack on their own. (Bush would sometimes mock those aides and commentators who advocated an attack on Iran, even referring to the conservative columnists Charles Krauthammer and William Kristol as “the bomber boys,” according to two people I spoke with who overheard this.)
“Bush was two years ago, but the Iranian program was the same and the intent was the same,” the Israeli official told me. “So I don’t personally expect Obama to be more Bush than Bush.”

If the Israelis reach the firm conclusion that Obama will not, under any circumstances, launch a strike on Iran, then the countdown will begin for a unilateral Israeli attack. “If the choice is between allowing Iran to go nuclear, or trying for ourselves what Obama won’t try, then we probably have to try,” the official told me.
Which brings us to a second question, one having to do with the nature of the man considering military action: would Netanyahu, a prime minister with an acute understanding of the essential role America plays in securing the existence of Israel (Netanyahu is a graduate of both Cheltenham High School, outside Philadelphia, and MIT, and is the most Americanized prime minister in Israel’s history, more so even than the Milwaukee-raised Golda Meir), actually take a chance on permanently alienating American affection in order to make a high-risk attempt at stopping Iran? If Iran retaliates against American troops in Iraq or Afghanistan, the consequences for Israel’s relationship with America’s military leadership could be catastrophic. (Of course, Netanyahu would be risking more than his relationship with the United States: a strike on Iran, Israeli intelligence officials believe, could provoke all-out retaliation by Iran’s Lebanese subsidiary, Hezbollah, which now possesses, by most intelligence estimates, as many as 45,000 rockets—at least three times as many as it had in the summer of 2006, during the last round of fighting between the group and Israel.)

“The only reason Bibi [Netanyahu] would place Israel’s relationship with America in total jeopardy is if he thinks that Iran represents a threat like the Shoah,” an Israeli official who spends considerable time with the prime minister told me. “In World War II, the Jews had no power to stop Hitler from annihilating us. Six million were slaughtered. Today, 6 million Jews live in Israel, and someone is threatening them with annihilation. But now we have the power to stop them. Bibi knows that this is the choice.”

Numerous Israeli commentators and analysts have pointed out to me that Netanyahu is not unique in his understanding of this challenge; several of the prime ministers who preceded him cast Iran’s threat in similarly existential terms. Still, Netanyahu is different. “He has a deep sense of his role in Jewish history,” Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, told me.

To understand why Netanyahu possesses this deep sense—and why his understanding of Jewish history might lead him to attack Iran, even over Obama’s objections—it is necessary to understand Ben-Zion Netanyahu, his 100-year-old father.

BEN-ZION NETANYAHU—his first name means “son of Zion”—is the world’s foremost historian of the Spanish Inquisition and a onetime secretary to Vladimir Jabotinsky, the founder of the intractable, “revisionist” branch of Zionism. He is father to a tragic Israeli hero, Yonatan Netanyahu, who died while freeing the Jewish hostages at Entebbe in 1976; and also father to Benjamin, who strives for greatness in his father’s eyes but has, on occasion, disappointed him, notably when he acquiesced, in his first term as prime minister in the late 1990s, to American pressure and withdrew Israeli forces from much of the West Bank city of Hebron, Judaism’s second-holiest city. Benjamin Netanyahu is not known in most quarters for his pliability on matters concerning Palestinians, though he has been trying lately to meet at least some of Barack Obama’s demands that he move the peace process forward.
“Always in the back of Bibi’s mind is Ben-Zion,” one of the prime minister’s friends told me. “He worries that his father will think he is weak.”

Ben-Zion Netanyahu’s most important work, The Origins of the Inquisition in 15th-Century Spain, upended the scholarly consensus on the roots of that bleak chapter in Jewish history. He argued that Spanish hatred of Jews was spurred by the principle of limpieza de sangre, or the purity of blood; it was proto-Nazi thought, in other words, not mere theology, that motivated the Inquisition. Ben-Zion also argued that the Inquisition corresponds to the axiom that anti-Semitic persecution is preceded, in all cases, by carefully scripted and lengthy dehumanization campaigns meant to ensure the efficient eventual elimination of Jews. To him, the lessons of Jewish history are plain and insistent.

Ben-Zion, by all accounts, was worshipped by his sons in their childhood, and today, the 60-year-old Benjamin, who has been known to act in charmless ways, conspicuously upholds the Fifth Commandment when discussing his father. At a party marking Ben-Zion’s 100th birthday, held this past March at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem, before an assembly that included the president of Israel, Shimon Peres, Benjamin credited his father with forecasting the Shoah and, in the early 1990s, predicting that “Muslim extremists would try to bring down the Twin Towers in New York.” But he also told stories in a warmer and more personal vein, describing a loving father who, though a grim and forbidding figure to outsiders, enjoys cowboy movies and played soccer with his sons.

After a brief debate between Ben-Zion and another prominent academic about competing interpretations of the Inquisition—“It is an unusual 100th-birthday commemoration when a debate about the Inquisition breaks out,” said Menachem Begin’s son, Benny, who is a minister-without-portfolio in Netanyahu’s cabinet—Ben-Zion rose to make valedictory remarks. His speech, unlike his son’s, was succinct, devoid of sentiment, and strikingly unambiguous.

“Our party this evening compels me to speak of recent comments made about the continued existence of the nation of Israel and the new threats by its enemies depicting its upcoming destruction,” Ben-Zion began. “From the Iranian side, we hear pledges that soon—in a matter of days, even—the Zionist movement will be put to an end and there will be no more Zionists in the world. One is supposed to conclude from this that the Jews of the Land of Israel will be annihilated, while the Jews of America, whose leaders refuse to pressure Iran, are being told in a hinted fashion that the annihilation of the Jews will not include them.”

He went on, “The Jewish people are making their position clear and putting faith in their military power. The nation of Israel is showing the world today how a state should behave when it stands before an existential threat: by looking danger in the eye and calmly considering what should be done and what can be done. And to be ready to enter the fray at the moment there is a reasonable chance of success.”

Many people in Likud Party circles have told me that those who discount Ben-Zion’s influence on his son do so at their peril. “This was the father giving his son history’s marching orders,” one of the attendees told me. “I watched Bibi while his father spoke. He was completely absorbed.” (One of Netanyahu’s Knesset allies told me, indelicately, though perhaps not inaccurately, that the chance for movement toward the creation of an independent Palestinian state will come only after Ben-Zion’s death. “Bibi could not withdraw from more of Judea and Samaria”—the biblical names for the West Bank—“and still look into his father’s eyes.”)

On Iran, Benjamin Netanyahu frames the crisis in nearly the same world-historical terms as his father. “Iran has threatened to annihilate a state,” Netanyahu told me. “In historical terms, this is an astounding thing. It’s a monumental outrage that goes effectively unchallenged in the court of public opinion. Sure, there are perfunctory condemnations, but there’s no j’accuse—there’s no shock.” He argued that a crucial lesson of history is that “bad things tend to get worse if they’re not challenged early.” He continued, “Iranian leaders talk about Israel’s destruction or disappearance while simultaneously creating weapons to ensure its disappearance.”

ONE OF THE MORE melancholic aspects of the confrontation between Iran and Israel is that Persian and Jewish civilizations have not forever been adversaries; one of the heroes of the Bible is the Persian king Cyrus, who restored the Jews to the land of Israel from their Babylonian captivity 2,500 years ago. (A few years after Harry Truman granted recognition to the reborn state of Israel in 1948, he declared, “I am Cyrus.”)
Iran is the home of an ancient Jewish community—Jews have lived there since the Babylonian exile, a millennium before Muhammad’s followers carried Islam to Persia. And in the modern era, Iran and Israel maintained close diplomatic ties before the overthrow of the shah in 1979; Israel’s support of the shah obviously angered his enemies, the newly empowered mullahs in Tehran, but this is insufficient to explain the depth of official Iranian hatred of Israel and Jews; something else must explain the sentiment expressed by Mohsen Rezai, the former commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, who said in 1991—14 years before the rise of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian politician most associated in the West with the regime’s flamboyant anti-Semitism—“The day will come when, like Salman Rushdie, the Jews will not find a place to live anywhere in the world.”

The answer might be found in a line of Shia Muslim thinking that views Jews as ritually contaminated, a view derived in part from the Koran’s portrayal of Jews as treasonous foes of the Prophet Muhammad. As Robert Wistrich recounts in his new history of anti-Semitism, A Lethal Obsession, through the 17th and 18th centuries Shia clerics viewed Jews variously as “the leprosy of creation” and “the most unclean of the human race.” I once asked Ali Asghar Soltanieh, a leading Iranian diplomat who is now Iran’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, why the leadership of Iran persistently described Israel not as a mere regional malefactor but as a kind of infectious disease. “Do you disagree?” he asked. “Do you not see that this is true?”

In a speech in June, Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, explained Middle East history this way: “Sixty years ago, by means of an artificial and false pretext, and by fabricating information and inventing stories, they gathered the filthiest, most criminal people, who only appear to be human, from all corners of the world. They organized and armed them, and provided them with media and military backing. Thus, they occupied the Palestinian lands, and displaced the Palestinian people.” The “invented story” is, of course, the Holocaust. Ahmadinejad’s efforts to deny the historical truth of the Holocaust have the endorsement of high officialdom: the Iranian foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, said in 2005, “The words of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the Holocaust and on Israel are not personal opinion, nor isolated statements, but they express the view of the government.”

The Iranian leadership’s own view of nuclear dangers is perhaps best exemplified by a comment made in 2001 by the former Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, who entertained the idea that Israel’s demise could be brought about in a relatively pain-free manner for the Muslim world. “The use of an atomic bomb against Israel would destroy Israel completely while [a nuclear attack] against the Islamic countries would only cause damages,” Rafsanjani said.

It is this line of thinking, which suggests that rational deterrence theory, or the threat of mutual assured destruction, might not apply in the case of Iran, that has the Israeli government on a knife’s edge. And this is not a worry that is confined to Israel’s right. Even the left-wing Meretz Party, which is harsh in its condemnation of Netanyahu’s policies toward the Palestinians, considers Iran’s nuclear program to be an existential threat.

Israeli policy makers do not necessarily believe that Iran, should it acquire a nuclear device, would immediately launch it by missile at Tel Aviv. “On the one hand, they would like to see the Jews wiped out,” one Israeli defense official told me. “On the other hand, they know that Israel has unlimited reprisal capability”—this is an Israeli euphemism for the country’s second-strike nuclear arsenal—“and despite what Rafsanjani and others say, we think they know that they are putting Persian civilization at risk.”

The challenges posed by a nuclear Iran are more subtle than a direct attack, Netanyahu told me. “Several bad results would emanate from this single development. First, Iran’s militant proxies would be able to fire rockets and engage in other terror activities while enjoying a nuclear umbrella. This raises the stakes of any confrontation that they’d force on Israel. Instead of being a local event, however painful, it becomes a global one. Second, this development would embolden Islamic militants far and wide, on many continents, who would believe that this is a providential sign, that this fanaticism is on the ultimate road to triumph.
“You’d create a great sea change in the balance of power in our area,” he went on. An Iran with nuclear weapons would also attempt to persuade Arab countries to avoid making peace with Israel, and it would spark a regional nuclear-arms race. “The Middle East is incendiary enough, but with a nuclear-arms race, it will become a tinderbox,” he said.

Other Israeli leaders believe that the mere threat of a nuclear attack by Iran—combined with the chronic menacing of Israel’s cities by the rocket forces of Hamas and Hezbollah—will progressively undermine the country’s ability to retain its most creative and productive citizens. Ehud Barak, the defense minister, told me that this is his great fear for Israel’s future.

“The real threat to Zionism is the dilution of quality,” he said. “Jews know that they can land on their feet in any corner of the world. The real test for us is to make Israel such an attractive place, such a cutting-edge place in human society, education, culture, science, quality of life, that even American Jewish young people want to come here.” This vision is threatened by Iran and its proxies, Barak said. “Our young people can consciously decide to go other places,” if they dislike living under the threat of nuclear attack. “Our best youngsters could stay out of here by choice.”

Patriotism in Israel runs very high, according to numerous polls, and it seemed unlikely to me that mere fear of Iran could drive Israel’s Jews to seek shelter elsewhere. But one leading proponent of an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, Ephraim Sneh, a former general and former deputy defense minister, is convinced that if Iran crossed the nuclear threshold, the very idea of Israel would be endangered. “These people are good citizens, and brave citizens, but the dynamics of life are such that if someone has a scholarship for two years at an American university and the university offers him a third year, the parents will say, ‘Go ahead, remain there,’” Sneh told me when I met with him in his office outside of Tel Aviv not long ago. “If someone finishes a Ph.D. and they are offered a job in America, they might stay there. It will not be that people are running to the airport, but slowly, slowly, the decision-making on the family level will be in favor of staying abroad. The bottom line is that we would have an accelerated brain drain. And an Israel that is not based on entrepreneurship, that is not based on excellence, will not be the Israel of today.”

Most critically, Sneh said, if Israel is no longer understood by its 6 million Jewish citizens, and by the roughly 7 million Jews who live outside of Israel, to be a “natural safe haven,” then its raison d’être will have been subverted. He directed my attention to a framed photograph on his wall of three Israeli air force F-15s flying over Auschwitz, in Poland. The Israelis had been invited in 2003 by the Polish air force to make this highly symbolic flight. The photograph was not new to me; I had seen it before on a dozen office walls in the Israeli Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv. “You see those planes?” Sneh asked me. “That’s the picture I look at all the time. When someone says that they will wipe out the Jews, we have to deny him the tools. The problem with the photograph is that we were too late.”

To understand why Israelis of different political dispositions see Iran as quite possibly the most crucial challenge they have faced in their 62-year history, one must keep in mind the near-sanctity, in the public’s mind, of Israel’s nuclear monopoly. The Israeli national narrative, in shorthand, begins with shoah, which is Hebrew for “calamity,” and ends with tkumah, “rebirth.” Israel’s nuclear arsenal symbolizes national rebirth, and something else as well: that Jews emerged from World War II having learned at least one lesson, about the price of powerlessness.

In his new book, The Worst-Kept Secret: Israel’s Bargain With the Bomb, Avner Cohen, the preeminent historian of Israel’s nuclear program, writes that David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, was nearly obsessed with developing nuclear weapons as the only guarantor against further slaughter. “What Einstein, Oppenheimer, and Teller, the three of them are Jews, made for the United States, could also be done by scientists in Israel, for their own people,” Ben-Gurion declared. Cohen argues that the umbrella created by Israel’s nuclear monopoly has allowed the Jewish state to recover from the wounds of the Holocaust.
But those wounds do not heal, Sneh says. “The Shoah is not some sort of psychological complex. It is an historic lesson. My grandmother and my grandfather were from Poland. My father fought for the Polish army as an officer and escaped in 1940. My grandparents stayed, and they were killed by the Polish farmer who was supposed to give them shelter, for a lot of money. That’s why I don’t trust the goyim. One time is enough. I don’t put my life in the hands of goyim.”

ONE MONDAY EVENING in early summer, I sat in the office of the decidedly non-goyishe Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, and listened to several National Security Council officials he had gathered at his conference table explain—in so many words—why the Jewish state should trust the non-Jewish president of the United States to stop Iran from crossing the nuclear threshold.

“The expression ‘All options are on the table’ means that all options are on the table,” Emanuel told me before the meeting, in a tone meant to suggest both resolve and irritation at those who believe the president lacks such resolve. The group interview he had arranged was a kind of rolling seminar on the challenges Iran poses; half a dozen officials made variations of the same argument: that President Obama spends more time talking with foreign leaders on Iran than on any other subject.

One of those at the table, Ben Rhodes, a deputy national-security adviser who served as the lead author of the recent “National Security Strategy for the United States” as well as of the president’s conciliatory Cairo speech, suggested that Iran’s nuclear program was a clear threat to American security, and that the Obama administration responds to national-security threats in the manner of other administrations. “We are coordinating a multifaceted strategy to increase pressure on Iran, but that doesn’t mean we’ve removed any option from the table,” Rhodes said. “This president has shown again and again that when he believes it is necessary to use force to protect American national-security interests, he has done so. We’re not going to address hypotheticals about when and if we would use military force, but I think we’ve made it clear that we aren’t removing the option of force from any situation in which our national security is affected.”

There was an intermittently prickly quality to this meeting, and not only because it was hosted by Emanuel, whose default state is exasperation. For more than a year, these White House officials have parried the charge that their president is unwilling to face the potential consequences of a nuclear Iran, and they are frustrated by what they believe to be a caricature of his position. (A former Bush administration official told me that his president faced the opposite problem: Bush, bogged down by two wars and believing that Iran wasn’t that close to crossing the nuclear threshold, opposed the use of force against Iran’s program, and made his view clear, “but no one believed him.”)

At one point, I put forward the idea that for abundantly obvious reasons, few people would believe Barack Obama would open up a third front in the greater Middle East. One of the officials responded heatedly, “What have we done that would allow you to reach the conclusion that we think that a nuclear Iran would represent a tolerable situation?”

It is undeniably true, however, that the administration has appeared on occasion less than stalwart on the issue. The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has criticized Obama as a purveyor of baseless hope. At the UN Security Council last September, Sarkozy said, “I support the extended hand of the Americans, but what good have proposals for dialogue brought the international community? More uranium enrichment and declarations by the leaders of Iran to wipe a UN member state off the map,” he said, referring to Israel.
Obama administration officials, particularly in the Pentagon, have several times signaled unhappiness at the possibility of military preemption. In April, the undersecretary of defense for policy, Michele Flournoy, told reporters that military force against Iran was “off the table in the near term.” She later backtracked, but Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has also criticized the idea of attacking Iran. “Iran getting a nuclear weapon would be incredibly destabilizing. Attacking them would also create the same kind of outcome,” he said in April. “In an area that’s so unstable right now, we just don’t need more of that.”
The gathering in Emanuel’s office was meant to communicate a number of clear messages to me, including one that was more militant than that delivered by Admiral Mullen: President Obama has by no means ruled out counterproliferation by force. The meeting was also meant to communicate that Obama’s outreach to the Iranians was motivated not by naïveté, but by a desire to test Tehran’s intentions in a deliberate fashion; that the president understands that an Iranian bomb would spur a regional arms race that could destroy his antiproliferation program; and that American and Israeli assessments of Iran’s nuclear program are synchronized in ways they were not before. One official at the table, Gary Samore, the National Security Council official who oversees the administration’s counterproliferation agenda, told me that the Israelis agree with American assessments that Iran’s uranium-enrichment program is plagued with problems.

“The most essential measure of nuclear-weapons capability is how quickly they can build weapons-grade material, and from that standpoint we can measure, based on the IAEA reports, that the Iranians are not doing well,” Samore said. “The particular centrifuge machines they’re running are based on an inferior technology. They are running into some technical difficulties, partly because of the work we’ve done to deny them access to foreign components. When they make the parts themselves, they are making parts that don’t have quality control.” (When I mentioned this comment to a senior Israeli official, he said, “We agree with this American assessment, but we also agree with Secretary Gates that Iran is one year away from crossing the nuclear threshold.”)

Dennis Ross, the former Middle East peace negotiator who is currently a senior National Security Council official, said during the meeting that he believes the Israelis now understand that American-instigated measures have slowed Iran’s progress, and that the administration is working to convince the Israelis—and other parties in the region—that the sanctions strategy “has a chance of working.”

“The president has said he hasn’t taken any options off the table, but let’s take a look at why we think this strategy could work,” he said. “We have interesting data points over the past year, about Iran trying to deflect pressure when they thought that pressure was coming, which suggests that their ability to calculate costs and benefits is quite real. Last June, when they hadn’t responded to our bilateral outreach, the president said that we would take stock by September. Two weeks before the G-20”—a meeting of the leaders of the world’s 20 largest economies—“the Iranians said they would talk, after having resisted talking until that point. They didn’t do it because suddenly they saw the light; they did it because pressure was coming. They’re able to think about what matters to them.”

Ross went on to argue that the sanctions Iran now faces may affect the regime’s thinking. “The sanctions are going to cut across the board. They are taking place in the context of Iranian mismanagement—the Iranians are going to have to cut [food and fuel] subsidies; they already have public alienation; they have division in the elites, and between the elites and the rest of the country. They are looking at the costs of trying to maintain control over a disaffected public. They wanted to head off sanctions because they knew that sanctions would be a problem. There is real potential here to affect their calculus. We’re pursuing a path right now that has some potential. It doesn’t mean you don’t think about everything else, but we’re on a path.”

One question no administration official seems eager to answer is this: what will the United States do if sanctions fail? Several Arab officials complained to me that the Obama administration has not communicated its intentions to them, even generally. No Arab officials I spoke with appeared to believe that the administration understands the regional ambitions of their Persian adversary. One Arab foreign minister told me that he believes Iran is taking advantage of Obama’s “reasonableness.”

“Obama’s voters like it when the administration shows that it doesn’t want to fight Iran, but this is not a domestic political issue,” the foreign minister said. “Iran will continue on this reckless path, unless the administration starts to speak unreasonably. The best way to avoid striking Iran is to make Iran think that the U.S. is about to strike Iran. We have to know the president’s intentions on this matter. We are his allies.” (According to two administration sources, this issue caused tension between President Obama and his recently dismissed director of national intelligence, Admiral Dennis Blair. According to these sources, Blair, who was said to put great emphasis on the Iranian threat, told the president that America’s Arab allies needed more reassurance. Obama reportedly did not appreciate the advice.)

In Israel, of course, officials expend enormous amounts of energy to understand President Obama, despite the assurances they have received from Emanuel, Ross, and others. Delegations from Netanyahu’s bureau, from the defense and foreign ministries, and from the Israeli intelligence community have been arriving in Washington lately with great regularity. “We pack our thermometers and go to Washington and take everyone’s temperature,” one Israeli official told me.

The increased tempo of these visits is only one sign of deepening contacts between Israel and America, as Iran moves closer to nuclear breakout: the chief of staff of the Israeli army, Lieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi, is said to speak now with his American counterpart, Admiral Mullen, regularly. Mullen recently made a stop in Israel that had one main purpose, according to an Israeli source: “to make sure we didn’t do anything in Iran before they thought we might do something in Iran.”

Not long ago, the chief of Israeli military intelligence, Major General Amos Yadlin, paid a secret visit to Chicago to meet with Lester Crown, the billionaire whose family owns a significant portion of General Dynamics, the military contractor. Crown is one of Israel’s most prominent backers in the American Jewish community, and was one of Barack Obama’s earliest and most steadfast supporters. According to sources in America and Israel, General Yadlin asked Crown to communicate Israel’s existential worries directly to President Obama. When I reached Crown by phone, he confirmed that he had met with Yadlin, but denied that the general traveled to Chicago to deliver this message. “Maybe he has a cousin in Chicago or something,” Crown said. But he did say that Yadlin discussed with him the “Iranian clock”—the time remaining before Iran reached nuclear capability—and that he agreed with Yadlin that the United States must stop Iran before it goes nuclear. “I share with the Israelis the feeling that we certainly have the military capability and that we have to have the will to use it. The rise of Iran is not in the best interest of the U.S.
“I support the president,” Crown said. “But I wish [administration officials] were a little more outgoing in the way they have talked. I would feel more comfortable if I knew that they had the will to use military force, as a last resort. You cannot threaten someone as a bluff. There has to be a will to do it.”

On my last visit to Israel, I was asked almost a dozen times by senior officials and retired generals if I could explain Barack Obama and his feelings about Israel. Several officials even asked if I considered Obama to be an anti-Semite. I answered this question by quoting Abner Mikva, the former congressman, federal judge, and mentor to Obama, who famously said in 2008, “I think when this is all over, people are going to say that Barack Obama is the first Jewish president.” I explained that Obama has been saturated with the work of Jewish writers, legal scholars, and thinkers, and that a large number of his friends, supporters, and aides are Jewish. But philo-Semitism does not necessarily equal sympathy for Netanyahu’s Likud Party—certainly not among American Jews, who are, like the president they voted for in overwhelming numbers, generally supportive of a two-state solution, and dubious about Jewish settlement of the West Bank.

When I made these points to one senior Israeli official, he said: “This is the problem. If he is a J Street Jew, we are in trouble.” J Street is the liberal pro-Israel organization established to counter the influence of AIPAC and other groups. “We’re worried that he thinks like the liberal American Jews who say, ‘If we remove some settlements, then the extremist problem and the Iran problem go away.’”

Rahm Emanuel suggested that the administration is trying to thread a needle: providing “unshakeable” support for Israel; protecting it from the consequences of an Iranian nuclear bomb; but pushing it toward compromise with the Palestinians. Emanuel, in our meeting, disputed that Israel is incapable of moving forward on the peace process so long as Iran looms as an existential threat. And he drafted the past six Israeli prime ministers—including Netanyahu, who during his first term in the late 1990s, to his father’s chagrin, compromised with the Palestinians—to buttress his case. “Rabin, Peres, Netanyahu, Barak, Sharon, Olmert—every one of them pursued some form of a negotiated settlement, which would have been in Israel’s own strategic interest,” he said. “There have been plenty of other threats while successive Israeli governments have pursued a peace process. There is no doubt that Iran is a major threat, but they didn’t just flip the switch on [the nuclear program] a year ago.”

Emanuel had one more message to deliver: for the most practical of reasons, Israel should consider carefully whether a military strike would be worth the trouble it would unleash. “I’m not sure that given the time line, whatever the time line is, that whatever they did, they wouldn’t stop” the nuclear program, he said. “They would be postponing.”

It was then that I realized that, on some subjects, the Israelis and Americans are still talking past each other. The Americans consider a temporary postponement of Iran’s nuclear program to be of dubious value. The Israelis don’t. “When Menachem Begin bombed Osirak [in Iraq], he had been told that his actions would set back the Iraqis one year,” one cabinet minister told me. “He did it anyway.”

IN MY CONVERSATIONS with former Israeli air-force generals and strategists, the prevalent tone was cautious. Many people I interviewed were ready, on condition of anonymity, to say why an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites would be difficult for Israel. And some Israeli generals, like their American colleagues, questioned the very idea of an attack. “Our time would be better spent lobbying Barack Obama to do this, rather than trying this ourselves,” one general told me. “We are very good at this kind of operation, but it is a big stretch for us. The Americans can do this with a minimum of difficulty, by comparison. This is too big for us.”

Successive Israeli prime ministers have ordered their military tacticians to draw up plans for a strike on Iran, and the Israeli air force has, of course, complied. It is impossible to know for sure how the Israelis might carry out such an operation, but knowledgeable officials in both Washington and Tel Aviv shared certain assumptions with me.

The first is that Israel would get only one try. Israeli planes would fly low over Saudi Arabia, bomb their targets in Iran, and return to Israel by flying again over Saudi territory, possibly even landing in the Saudi desert for refueling—perhaps, if speculation rife in intelligence circles is to be believed, with secret Saudi cooperation. These planes would have to return home quickly, in part because Israeli intelligence believes that Iran would immediately order Hezbollah to fire rockets at Israeli cities, and Israeli air-force resources would be needed to hunt Hezbollah rocket teams.

When I visited Major General Gadi Eisenkot, the general in charge of Israel’s Northern Command, at his headquarters near the Lebanese border, he told me that in the event of a unilateral Israeli strike on Iran, his mission would be to combat Hezbollah rocket forces. Eisenkot said that the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel, which began when Hezbollah fighters crossed the border and attacked an Israeli patrol, was seen by the group’s Iranian sponsors as a strategic mistake. “The Iranians got angry at Hezbollah for jumping ahead like that,” Eisenkot said. American and Israeli intelligence officials agree that the Iranians are now hoping to keep Hezbollah in reserve until Iran can cross the nuclear threshold.

Eisenkot contended that the 2006 war was a setback for Hezbollah. “Hezbollah suffered a lot during this war,” he said. Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, “lost a lot of his men. He knows he made a mistake. That is one reason we have had four years of quiet. What has changed in four years is that Hezbollah has increased its missile capability, but we have increased our capabilities as well.” He concluded by saying, in reference to a potential Israeli strike on Iran, “Our readiness means that Israel has freedom of action.”
Even if Israel’s Northern Command successfully combated Hezbollah rocket attacks in the wake of an Israeli strike, political limitations would not allow Israel to make repeated sorties over Iran. “The Saudis can let us go once,” one general told me. “They’ll turn their radar off when we’re on our way to Iran, and we’ll come back fast. Our problem is not Iranian air defenses, because we have ways of neutralizing that. Our problem is that the Saudis will look very guilty in the eyes of the world if we keep flying over their territory.”
America, too, would look complicit in an Israeli attack, even if it had not been forewarned. The assumption—often, but not always, correct—that Israel acts only with the approval of the United States is a feature of life in the Middle East, and it is one the Israelis say they are taking into account. I spoke with several Israeli officials who are grappling with this question, among others: what if American intelligence learns about Israeli intentions hours before the scheduled launch of an attack? “It is a nightmare for us,” one of these officials told me. “What if President Obama calls up Bibi and says, ‘We know what you’re doing. Stop immediately.’ Do we stop? We might have to. A decision has been made that we can’t lie to the Americans about our plans. We don’t want to inform them beforehand. This is for their sake and for ours. So what do we do? These are the hard questions.” (Two officials suggested that Israel may go on pre-attack alert a number of times before actually striking: “After the fifth or sixth time, maybe no one would believe that we’re really going,” one official said.)

Another question Israeli planners struggle with: how will they know if their attacks have actually destroyed a significant number of centrifuges and other hard-to-replace parts of the clandestine Iranian program? Two strategists told me that Israel will have to dispatch commandos to finish the job, if necessary, and bring back proof of the destruction. The commandos—who, according to intelligence sources, may be launched from the autonomous Kurdish territory in northern Iraq—would be facing a treacherous challenge, but one military planner I spoke with said the army would have no choice but to send them.
“It is very important to be able to tell the Israeli people what we have achieved,” he said. “Many Israelis think the Iranians are building Auschwitz. We have to let them know that we have destroyed Auschwitz, or we have to let them know that we tried and failed.”

There are, of course, Israeli leaders who believe that attacking Iran is too risky. Gabi Ashkenazi, the Israeli army chief of staff, is said by numerous sources to doubt the usefulness of an attack, and other generals I spoke with worry that talk of an “existential threat” is itself a kind of existential threat to the Zionist project, which was meant to preclude such threats against the Jewish people. “We don’t want politicians to put us in a bad position because of the word Shoah,” one general said. “We don’t want our neighbors to think that we are helpless against an Iran with a nuclear bomb, because Iran might have the bomb one day. There is no guarantee that Israel will do this, or that America will do this.”

After staring at the photograph of the Israeli air-force flyover of Auschwitz more than a dozen different times in more than a dozen different offices, I came to see the contradiction at its core. If the Jewish physicists who created Israel’s nuclear arsenal could somehow have ripped a hole in the space-time continuum and sent a squadron of fighters back to 1942, then the problem of Auschwitz would have been solved in 1942. In other words, the creation of a serious Jewish military capability—a nuclear bomb, say, or the Israeli air force—during World War II would have meant a quicker end to the Holocaust. It is fair to say, then, that the existence of the Israeli air force, and of Israel’s nuclear arsenal, means axiomatically that the Iranian nuclear program is not the equivalent of Auschwitz.

I put this formula to Ephraim Sneh, the former general and staunch advocate of an Israeli attack. “We have created a strategic balance in our favor,” he said, “but Iran may launch a ballistic missile with a nuclear bomb, and this F-15 in the picture cannot prevent that.”

This is a devilish problem. And devilish problems have sometimes caused Israel to overreach.
Benjamin Netanyahu feels, for reasons of national security, that if sanctions fail, he will be forced to take action. But an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, successful or not, may cause Iran to redouble its efforts—this time with a measure of international sympathy—to create a nuclear arsenal. And it could cause chaos for America in the Middle East. One of the few people I spoke with in Israel who seemed to be at least somewhat phlegmatic about Iran’s nuclear threat was the country’s president, Shimon Peres, the last member of Israel’s founding generation still in government. Peres sees the Iranian nuclear program as potentially catastrophic, to be sure. But he advocates the imposition of “moral sanctions” followed by economic sanctions, and then the creation of “an envelope around Iran of anti-missile systems so the missiles of Iran will not be able to fly.” When I asked if he believed in a military option, he said, “Why should I declare something like that?” He indicated he was uncomfortable with the idea of unilateral Israeli action and suggested that Israel can afford to recognize its limitations, because he believes, unlike many Israelis, that President Obama will, one way or another, counter the threat of Iran, not on behalf of Israel (though he said he believes Obama would come to Israel’s defense if necessary), but because he understands that on the challenge of Iran, the interests of America and Israel (and the West, and Western-allied Arab states) naturally align.
Based on months of interviews, I have come to believe that the administration knows it is a near-certainty that Israel will act against Iran soon if nothing or no one else stops the nuclear program; and Obama knows—as his aides, and others in the State and Defense departments made clear to me—that a nuclear-armed Iran is a serious threat to the interests of the United States, which include his dream of a world without nuclear weapons. Earlier this year, I agreed with those, including many Israelis, Arabs—and Iranians—who believe there is no chance that Obama would ever resort to force to stop Iran; I still don’t believe there is a great chance he will take military action in the near future—for one thing, the Pentagon is notably unenthusiastic about the idea. But Obama is clearly seized by the issue. And understanding that perhaps the best way to obviate a military strike on Iran is to make the threat of a strike by the Americans seem real, the Obama administration seems to be purposefully raising the stakes. A few weeks ago, Denis McDonough, the chief of staff of the National Security Council, told me, “What you see in Iran is the intersection of a number of leading priorities of the president, who sees a serious threat to the global nonproliferation regime, a threat of cascading nuclear activities in a volatile region, and a threat to a close friend of the United States, Israel. I think you see the several streams coming together, which accounts for why it is so important to us.”
When I asked Peres what he thought of Netanyahu’s effort to make Israel’s case to the Obama administration, he responded, characteristically, with a parable, one that suggested his country should know its place, and that it was up to the American president, and only the American president, to decide in the end how best to safeguard the future of the West. The story was about his mentor, David Ben-Gurion.
“Shortly after John F. Kennedy was elected president, Ben-Gurion met him at the Waldorf-Astoria” in New York, Peres told me. “After the meeting, Kennedy accompanied Ben-Gurion to the elevator and said, ‘Mr. Prime Minister, I want to tell you, I was elected because of your people, so what can I do for you in return?’ Ben-Gurion was insulted by the question. He said, ‘What you can do is be a great president of the United States. You must understand that to have a great president of the United States is a great event.’”
Peres went on to explain what he saw as Israel’s true interest. “We don’t want to win over the president,” he said. “We want the president to win.”

SAB is Cosponsoring with the Hip Hop Club

2010-11-10T08:02:00.002-05:00

The idea behind this event is to expose how hip hop is integrated in many different cultures and religions. It promises to be an amazing experience!!! Please join us!!

Film Screening November 9

2010-11-07T18:26:00.001-05:00

The Cove is a documentary film that describes the annual killing of dolphins in a National Park at Taji, Wakayama, in Japan from an ocean conservationists point of view. It won the U.S. Audience Award at Sundance and the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

Tunnel of Oppression

2010-10-29T12:48:00.000-04:00

Latino Heritage Month 2010

Immigration Nation

Thursday, October 14^th

Tours from 12:30-2:30pm & 6-8pm

Room VC 2-110

Tunnel of Oppression: A Chance to See How Immigrants Feel

It’s one thing to hear something.

It’s one thing to see something.

And it’s one thing to feel something.

The tunnel of oppression, a successful event, gave a chance for Baruch students and faculty to experience the journey of how immigrants feel when they come to the United States of America. A country whose foundation was built by immigrants and run by immigrants gives almost no opportunity to those who want to come to this country for a better life. Arguably, about two-thirds of immigrants are able to come into this country with no problem but there are still some who cannot receive this opportunity.

The experience was both an emotional and educational journey. There were two difference scenes and two videos shown. The first video was about 11 illegal immigrants in 2004 were told to board a train from Mexico to Iowa and they were discovered dead. The train had no ventilation and the immigrants died of dehydration.

The first skit shown was about a professor who was detained because she invited to speak on her thesis which was about Islam. A security guard detained her accusing her of being illegal and trying to promote Islam.

The second monologue was about a man who left his family at his home country and has not seen them in three years. He prays every day that he could see his family and hope and faith in god keeps him driving to provide a better life for his family.

The last video was about Arizona’s new stance on immigration. The senate backed by former Vice President Dick Cheney wanted to tighten border security by 30,000 guards. They feel that immigrants were taken over their jobs and livelihood.

Baruch College hopes to encourage young people to create dialogues amongst the Baruch community about the harsh realities that some immigrants face and hopefully motivate some to take it to the next level. A bigger problem that the United States faces today is whether it is fair to refuse some immigrants but allow safe passage for others.

-Arunna Raj

Interesting Link About The Flood

2010-10-27T18:50:00.000-04:00

Drowning Humanitarian Aid on Foreign Policy.com

Film Shorts and Panel on Child Labor Slavery (Freedom Week)

2010-10-24T12:11:00.001-04:00

On Saturday, October 2, 2010 I went to a event on child labor slavery, hosted by the ACT (Against Child Trafficking) club, from 4 to 7 PM at the NYU Kimmel Center. It was hosted in a small classroom of the Kimmel Center with about 20 students and teachers attending the event. The main speakers for this even are Carmen Russell, the director of Restaveks, and Jean-Robert Cadet, a former restavek turned activist. Basically, the panel consisted of two short films followed by a Q&A discussion with the speakers kind of on this topic. At the beginning of the event, the focus was on child slavery in general, but it seems the true focus of the event by the end was on the restavek system of Haiti.

The first short film was a fictional, yet realistic short indie film called Kavi. This movie was about a small Indian boy who was a domestic slave for a loanshark due to his father unable to payback his loan of 100,000 rupees. Every day, he and his family get up and work with many other people forced into domestic slavery into making new mudhouses for the loanshark. As they work, a group of school children ignorantly pass by this construction site playing an Indian version of baseball. Kavi constantly see these kids everyday and longs to be a normal boy going to school, having friends, and playing ball. When everyone stops working for the day, they are forced to return to their very tiny mudhuts, pretty much prison cells, for the night. These families are barely given enough food for even decent meals everyday and Kavi is forced to watching and taking care of a potted plant as his only entertainment, toy, and friend. Eventually, the audience was shown that the brutality of the punishments and trickery given to Kavi by the loanshark such as convincing him to move a huge pile of bricks all by himself by the end of the day in order to play ball with the loan shark and getting beaten and chained to a wall for failing to follow orders. By the end, the Indian police with a couple of UN workers show up to the site to free the workers from their contracts with the loanshark. However, he had already managed to move everyone except Kavi, who was still chained up at the time, to a different as the police searched the original site for them. Kavi became freed at the end by managing to escape from the chains by squeezing his hand through it and running up to the UN workers.

The second short film was called “Restaveks: Haiti's Child Slaves,” which was created by Carmen Russell, was simply an informational video displaying facts and statistics on the domestic slave system going on in Haiti as well as some interviews with some of these domestics servants and others. In Haiti, domestic slaves are known as Restaveks and are kids who were given away by their poor families to other, richer families, known as host families. Each poor family in Haiti usually have anywhere from 4 to 12 kids and due to Haiti’s weak government and economy, it’s nearly impossible for the parents to support all their kids with clothes, foods, and especially schooling. As a result, a family might give one or more of their kids to another family not only to slightly ease its burden with supporting the other kids and themselves, but also with the hope that the child(ren) can have a better future and eventually grow up, become successful, and help out his/her family in the future. Unfortunately, these kids become nothing more than domestic slaves for the host slaves and are abused for manual labor and chores from day to night everyday, physically abused for doing things “wrong” and are even sexually abused sometimes as well. They are treated badly, given barely to no clothes and food, and are never given a chance to go to school. Once these kids grow to the ages of 15-18, the host family kicks these restaveks from their homes and out onto their street. Without any education or support, these kids usually end up as prostitutes or beggars. Plus, since the true family and host family never remain in contact with each other, the parents never know about what happens to their kids.

After the second short film, we headed straight to the Q&A section of the event with Russell and Cadet. While Russell did answer some people’s questions or added additional comment to Cadet’s statements, Cadet was the one truly leading the entire section answering the most questions with the most details, explanations, and personal stories. Cadet was a former restavek who’s former host happen to move to New York when he was young. Despite moving to the US, his host family continued to use him as a domestic servant until he was 18. At that point, he was kicked out onto the city streets and was forced to become a beggar in the city. By chance, a priest met him and after learning his situation helped Cadet get into Welfare, an apartment, some furniture, and some money. Eventually, Cadet found a job and started a brand new life for himself. Later on, he went to and graduated from college with a bachelor’s degree in communication, got counseling for his issues from growing up as a restavek, and got married. Years later, after his four year old kid embarrassingly asked Cadet where his grandparents, aunts, and uncles were on his side on his fourth birthday, Cadet began to write a letter for his son answering his son’s question by writing about his experiences as a restavek. He continued to write his letter nonstop until it evolved into his first novel, Restavec: Haitian Slave Child to Middle-Class American. Afterwards, he became inspired to help his fellow restaveks as well as find and implement a way to end the system once and for all. He created his own organization called the Restavek Foundation to help promote education in Haiti and help with the relief efforts still going on now in Haiti. Every now and again, he would also visit Haiti with the intent of helping a restavek by improving his/her life through getting an education for him/her, getting the host family to consider the child as part of the family or helping him/her escape the restavek life.

Using a powerpoint presentation, Cadet quickly gave us some additional stats on the restaveks system and showed pictures of restaveks and the culture surrounding them to illustrate the horrors of this system to the people of Haiti in general. He summed up that ultimately this system is still around to this day because Haitians grew up learning that this system was ok and a part of life. Thus, this system is considered part of their culture or norm and become ignorant to the truth of how truly evil it is. As a result, the host family is led to believe that a restavek is not part of the family and is just free labor, nothing more. Does this make the host family evil? No it really doesn’t because the parents in Haitian culture only considered their own kids as truly important. Anyone else living with them is not important. So the reasoning for restaveks not going to school is not because the host parents don’t want them to go, it’s only because they don’t want to pay a lot of money for basically strangers to them.

His solution to getting rid of the system is by trying to inform the current and next generations of the horrors of the system until Haitians no longer consider it part of their culture. One way he plans to do this is by going to Haiti and work with the politicians and schools to create a program that will train teachers to teach the kids that the system is wrong. Thus the new generation will eventually try to fix the problem and even convince their parents to let current restaveks to go to school as well. The second way is to create a yearly national singing contest like American Idol in Haiti on the radio and TV with a $10,000 prize to the winner. In order for the host family to win the prize, they have to have the restavek(s) living with them to write and sing a 2-3 minute song that is either about their personal experiences as a restavek, mocking the system, or making fun of their host families. The prize is a merely a huge incentive to convince host families to participate in the contest since it would help any family in Haiti greatly as well as the fact that Haitians love to gamble. The whole point of this contest though is to try making the people of Haiti in general aware of the horrors of the system. Whether this plan will work or not is up in the air at the moment. But we can always wish the best for Cadet. As for the singing contest, it will begin tentatively on November 25^th with it ending on June 11^th, the National Day of Children’s Rights.

For more info on the Kavi movie: check out @ http://kavithemovie.com

To see Restaveks: Child Slaves of Haiti – check out @ http://pulitzercenter.org/video/restaveks-child-slaves-haiti

To find out more info on the Restavek Foundation: check out @ http://www.jeanrcadet.org/

You can also find Jean R Cadet and friend him on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001022797513 . It has also some pictures of his most recent trips to Haiti as well.

-Gary Cruz

Pakistan and the United States: Mutually Assured Misunderstandings?

2010-10-12T10:57:00.004-04:00

Solutions Across Borders had the opportunity to host Professor Koenig from the Political Science department this past Tuesday. A crowd of twenty students were present to learn more about the erratic U.S.-Pakistani relationship, as well as to discuss the lack of response to the devastating Pakistan flood.

The first part of the discussion was a very welcome insight into what may be an irreconcilable relationship between the two states. Until Pakistan determines what exactly it wants to accomplish along with or against the Taliban and the two states align on their geostrategic goals, we can expect more confusion and misunderstandings in their relationship in the future. Part of the problem stems from the fact that we are not so sure who runs Pakistan. Is it Asif Ali Zardari, an inherited temporary President, the ISI (CIA equivalent) or is it the Taliban which has an extremely strong presence in maintaining life in the outer regions of Pakistan? Who can the United States depend on as the honest actor in this region?

We also discussed the Pakistan flood and the lack of action and coverage by the U.S. government, the media and even Baruch College. Over 21 million people have been left injured or homeless in the natural disaster that Ban Ki-Moon has said 'was the worst [he had] ever seen.' The flood left an area over the size of England flooded under water and received only fifteen articles from the NY Times, only one warranting the front page. Compare this to the 88 Haiti earthquake articles, almost all front page.

What creates this discrepancy? The media may be largely blamed for the failure to communicate, but they have also been plagued by issues that have made their response difficult, the first being the recession. It has become too expensive to have reporters stationed in bureaus abroad- leading to high travel and media costs to go anywhere, and especially as far as Pakistan. The second can be attributed to fear from the Daniel Pearl story. There is great danger for media in going to Pakistan – and those brave and willing to go will need a fixer, bodyguards with AK-47s and a great deal of trust for the people who have their life in their hands. While the danger is understandable, it can also be stated that journalists are lacking the bravery and courage that we have come to expect from them. Another issue is donor fatigue, which began setting in as we grew tired of the Haitian earthquake. The American public has already been captivated by a natural disaster this year, already loosened their tight pockets and watched the news – their sympathy quota is up. Haiti, while receiving immense coverage was still a ratings downer, and the U.S. media is a reflection of its audience. This fatigue set in for Haiti even though it also had a great amount of star power- we watched Wyclef Jean, Anderson Cooper and Sean Penn in Haiti through the television, campaigning and asking us for funds. Not to mention state attention- the Clintons and Bush took a specific interest in this disaster. Where are they now? We cannot discount that there is also large mistrust over where the funds are going. Even the Pakistani expat community has issued warnings not to donate through imams or religious means. How can they be sure where the money goes? Does it go to the government apparatus, to the NGOs, to the mullahs or to the Taliban? There are very few organizations present in Pakistan that have gained the trust of the American people.

Something also to consider is the recent flood of news related to Islamophobia domestically, i.e. the Park51 Mosque and the Pakistani Faisal Shahzad Times Square bomb attempt. It seems that there are domestic concerns to focus on that are also related to Islam and the media and the U.S. community is picking and choosing their battles. But I believe that we are missing an opportunity to counter the Taliban in the battle over the hearts and minds of the Pakistanis. The lack of an effective state structure is what creates the need for the Taliban to begin with. The people of Pakistan will turn to who will help them. Certainly not the U.S. - we go to Pakistan with drones, not donations. Certainly not their state- Zardari has left Pakistan to go on a tour of Europe. Professor Koenig mentioned the success of the Japanese Yakuza in being the first group to respond to the Kobe earthquake, before the state was able to mobilize its resources. These are the types of situations that give power to marginal groups in a society, a fear that Zardari echoes for his people.

We can also look at Baruch College. The Ticker covered a fair amount of the Haiti earthquake, but I failed to find anything significant about Pakistan. The lack of response by USG can be attributed to a new administration that did not yet have the time to organize anything on a large scale. However, that is not to underestimate the admirable efforts that are being made. We are also now seeing a significant response from the Baruch community, something we weren't seeing before. On Wednesday, October 20, a number of student groups including USG and The Ticker are holding 'Pakistan Flood Relief Night' in the multipurpose room, an event to raise awareness and funds for the flood. So things are looking upward, maybe as members of the Baruch community, we can bring attention to this disaster.

- Ankita Suri

* A special thanks to Professor Koenig for leading this discussion and sharing his thoughts

Article for Professor Koenig's Discussion

2010-10-03T19:34:00.001-04:00

August 22, 2010

Pakistanis Say Taliban Arrest Was Meant to Hurt Peace Bid

By DEXTER FILKINS

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — When American and Pakistani agents captured Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban’s operational commander, in the chaotic port city of Karachi last January, both countries hailed the arrest as a breakthrough in their often difficult partnership in fighting terrorism.

Continue reading after the jump...

But the arrest of Mr. Baradar, the second-ranking Taliban leader after Mullah Muhammad Omar, came with a beguiling twist: both American and Pakistani officials claimed that Mr. Baradar’s capture had been a lucky break. It was only days later, the officials said, that they finally figured out who they had.

Now, seven months later, Pakistani officials are telling a very different story. They say they set out to capture Mr. Baradar, and used the C.I.A. to help them do it, because they wanted to shut down secret peace talks that Mr. Baradar had been conducting with the Afghan government that excluded Pakistan, the Taliban’s longtime backer.

In the weeks after Mr. Baradar’s capture, Pakistani security officials detained as many as 23 Taliban leaders, many of whom had been enjoying the protection of the Pakistani government for years. The talks came to an end.

The events surrounding Mr. Baradar’s arrest have been the subject of debate inside military and intelligence circles for months. Some details are still murky — and others vigorously denied by some American intelligence officials in Washington. But the account offered in Islamabad highlights Pakistan’s policy in Afghanistan: retaining decisive influence over the Taliban, thwarting archenemy India, and putting Pakistan in a position to shape Afghanistan’s postwar political order.

“We picked up Baradar and the others because they were trying to make a deal without us,” said a Pakistani security official, who, like numerous people interviewed about the operation, spoke anonymously because of the delicacy of relations between Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United States. “We protect the Taliban. They are dependent on us. We are not going to allow them to make a deal with Karzai and the Indians.”

Some American officials still insist that Pakistan-American cooperation is improving, and deny a central Pakistani role in Mr. Baradar’s arrest. They say the Pakistanis may now be trying to rewrite history to make themselves appear more influential.

“These are self-serving fairy tales,” an American official said. “The people involved in the operation on the ground didn’t know exactly who would be there when they themselves arrived. But it certainly became clear, to Pakistanis and Americans alike, who we’d gotten.”

Other American officials suspect the C.I.A. may have been unwittingly used by the Pakistanis for the larger aims of slowing the pace of any peace talks.

At a minimum, the arrest of Mr. Baradar offers a glimpse of the multilayered challenges the United States faces as it tries to prevail in Afghanistan. It is battling a resilient insurgency, supporting a weak central government and trying to manage Pakistan’s leaders, who simultaneously support the Taliban and accept billions in American aid.

A senior NATO officer in Kabul said that in arresting Mr. Baradar and the other Taliban leaders, the Pakistanis may have been trying to buy time to see if President Obama’s strategy begins to prevail. If it does, the Pakistanis may eventually decide to let the Taliban make a deal. But if the Americans fail — and if they begin to pull out — then the Pakistanis may decide to retain the Taliban as their allies.

“We have been played before,” a senior NATO official said. “That the Pakistanis picked up Baradar to control the tempo of the negotiations is absolutely plausible.”

As for Mr. Baradar, he is now living comfortably in a safe house of Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the Pakistani official said. “He’s relaxing,” the official said.

Many of the other Taliban leaders, after receiving lectures against freelancing peace deals, have been released to fight again.

Exactly why the Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, became so alarmed at the Afghan peace talks is unclear. In retrospect, paranoia seems to have figured as much as national self-interest.

A senior Afghan official said that beginning late last year, his government had reached out to a number of Taliban leaders to explore the prospect of a deal. Among them were Mr. Baradar and another Taliban leader named Tayyib Agha. The Afghan official declined to say who met the Taliban leaders, but reports of such meetings have since surfaced. Ahmed Wali Karzai, the president’s brother, reportedly met Mr. Baradar in January, according to a former Afghan official and a former NATO official. Mr. Karzai’s brother denies it.

In another overture, Engineer Ibrahim, then the deputy chief of the Afghan intelligence service, met with a group of Taliban leaders in Dubai, according to a prominent Afghan with knowledge of the meeting. Mr. Ibrahim, now with the National Security Council, could not be reached for comment on Sunday.

A Pakistani spiritual leader close to the Taliban leadership said that, earlier this year, he had received a message through an intermediary that Mr. Karzai wanted to talk peace. “We rejected it,” he said.

The discussions with Mr. Baradar and the other Taliban were in their early phases, but they seemed promising, the Afghan official said. Their aim was to establish conditions under which formal talks could begin.

“It was the beginning of a negotiation, so both sides staked out extreme positions,” the Afghan official said. “But we sensed a readiness for peace.”

When Pakistani intelligence officials learned of the overtures, they became unnerved by what they saw as an attempt by the Afghans to strike a peace deal without them. In particular, the ISI suspected the Americans were orchestrating the talks.

In January, days before Mr. Baradar’s capture, a senior ISI official told The New York Times that his agency was hunting the Taliban leader because he was in contact with the Americans. The ISI official accused the Americans of disregarding Pakistan’s legitimate security interests.

“We are after Mullah Baradar,” the senior ISI official said. “We strongly believe the Americans are in touch with him.”

A second ISI official confirmed that the Pakistanis had decided to go after Mr. Baradar to shut down what they feared were blossoming peace talks.

“This is a national secret,” he said. “The Americans and the British were going behind our backs, and we couldn’t allow that.” American and British officials denied they were directly involved in talks with the Taliban.

Once the decision was made to detain Mr. Baradar, the Taliban leader was tracked to Karachi, a sprawling, violent city of nearly 20 million people. There, the Pakistani official said, ISI agents waited for him to activate his cellphone. After several days, the alarm went off, and the agency narrowed Mr. Baradar’s whereabouts to a densely populated area of about two square miles.

That was as far as the intelligence agency’s technology would go, the Pakistani official said. To pinpoint Mr. Baradar’s location, ISI agents turned to the C.I.A.

Since 2001, the C.I.A. and the ISI have maintained an uneasy relationship. They have cooperated on hundreds of operations and detained dozens of militants, but they have clashed over the ISI’s support for the Taliban.

Within minutes of Mr. Baradar’s cellphone activation, the C.I.A. sent two unarmed American technicians to join the Pakistani intelligence agency’s team, the Pakistani official said.

Activating a portable tracking device, the C.I.A. team quickly led the ISI to Mr. Baradar’s home. Only four hours after his cellphone went on, Mr. Baradar was in Pakistani custody, the Pakistani official said. According to the Pakistani official, the ISI did not inform the Americans of the identity of the target.

American officials disputed this account, saying the intelligence indicated that the target was related to Mr. Baradar. But they conceded that they did not know the identity of Mr. Baradar until after the arrest.

The Pakistanis refused to allow the C.I.A. to interrogate Mr. Baradar or even to be present when they spoke. Another Pakistani official said Mr. Baradar was taken to a safe house in Islamabad, where he was debriefed. It was only several days later that the C.I.A. learned of his identity and were allowed to question him.

The Pakistani official even joked about the C.I.A.’s naïveté. “They are so innocent,” he said.

Some American officials insist that while the C.I.A. may not have known whom the Pakistanis were capturing, the Pakistanis did not know either. They speculated that once the Pakistanis had Mr. Baradar, they may have decided to hold him to scuttle the peace talks. It was then, some American officials say, that the Pakistanis may have decided to detain the other Taliban leaders.

“We are not convinced that that was why Baradar was picked up,” an American official in the region said, referring to the Afghan talks. “But maybe that was why he was held.”

Yet other American officials said the Pakistani version seemed more credible than the C.I.A.’s. “Baradar is too high-profile for them not to have known who it was,” the senior NATO official said.

Within days of Mr. Baradar’s arrest, Pakistani agents picked up as many as 22 other Taliban leaders across Pakistan, according to an official with the United Nations in Kabul. The detentions included some of the most senior Taliban commanders, including Mullah Qayoom Zakir, Abdul Kabeer and Abdul Rauf Khadem.

“We know where the shadow government is,” the Pakistani security official said.

The official said the detained Taliban leaders were warned against carrying out future negotiations without their permission. A former Western diplomat, with long experience in the region, confirmed that the ISI sent a warning to its Taliban protégés.

“The message from the ISI was: no flirting,” he said.

Afghans close to the Taliban said the arrests of Mr. Baradar and the others illustrated the strained relationship between the Taliban and their benefactors in Pakistani intelligence. The ISI may protect the Taliban’s leaders, they said, but they also limit their freedom. “When we try to act on our own, they stop us,” the Pakistani spiritual leader said.

Since then, many of the Taliban leaders who were detained have been set free, officials said. Principal among them is Mr. Zakir, a Taliban commander who was released from the American prison at Guantánamo Bay in 2006.

Mr. Zakir, who took over for Mr. Baradar, is regarded as more brutal than his predecessor, unconcerned about civilian casualties — and less inclined to do a deal with the Karzai government.

Pir Zubair Shah and Souad Mekhennet contributed reporting from Islamabad, and Mark Mazzetti from Washington.

Event Tuesday, October 5 with Professor Koenig

2010-09-30T23:56:00.001-04:00

Freedom Week

2010-09-30T23:46:00.003-04:00

Hey SABers,
Since we have spent a great deal of time in our club discussing issues of human trafficking and sexual slavery, I thought you might be interested in some Freedom Week events. I went to a few events last year and they were thought provoking as well as good places to make some connections for those of you who are interested in NGO work.

Here is a description of the week in general: Freedom Week is a coalition of abolitionists working to raise awareness about the 27 million people currently enslaved and/or trafficked here in the U.S. and abroad. Our goal is to fight modern-day slavery by inspiring action and providing opportunities for advocacy.
You can see a list of all events at: www.freedomweeknyc.com, but one of particular interest that I might be attending can be seen below. Hope to see you there!
- Ankita Suri

NYU Kimmel Center, 4th Floor Auditorium 4-6pm
60 Washington Square South, Room 914
New York, NY 10012
FREE

New York University's Against Child Trafficking is proud to present two short films on child labor slavery: this year's Oscar-nominated Kavi, a fictional film about a child slave working the brick kilns in India, and Restaveks: Haiti's Child Slaves, a documentary brief focusing on the centuries-old tradition of child trafficking in Haiti and the U.S.
Following the screening will be a Q&A panel with featured speakers: Carmen Russell, the director of Restaveks, and Jean-Robert Cadet, a former restavek turned activist.

The High-Level Conference on Energy At The United Nations [9.17.2010]

2010-09-24T17:38:00.008-04:00

World Energy Forum

The High-Level Conference on Energy At The United Nations

The conference was held on September 17, 2010. Many experts gathered to present their findings and opinions. The first section addressed the issue of energy.

Dr. Kandeh K. Yumkella introduced the topic, explaining how important it is for everyone in the world to have access to energy. He said that in order to help women and take care of health issues among other things, homes and hospitals should have energy access. Moreover, energy is needed to power the economy to make a country successful. Therefore, energy access and efficiency are very important. Dr. Yumkella had two proposals: there should be universal access to energy by the year 2030 and a reduction in global energy intensity by 40% by 2030.

Dr. Nobosja Nakicenovic spoke about how the well developed countries have the most access to energy and therefore use the most. Furthermore, health and climate change are two major problems that can be fixed if energy concerns are addressed.

Mr. Paul Loeffelman discussed more about financing between the public and private sectors. He reasoned that if both of these sectors can work together, the private sector providing energy and the public sector helping to distribute energy, all countries will gain access to energy.

Another session was addressing the Energy Transit Security. The argument was who should have control of energy sources and how should it be distributed to ensure all can receive it.

Professor Albert Bressand addressed four major securities points: physical, commercial, economic and politics. Physical meant that the pipelines and transit should safe and maintained well. But the question that arose was who should pay for the security? In commercial, pipeline owners were making money because they believed that the product that went through the pipelines was their own and therefore were entitled to that profit as well. So the question became was it fair that these companies could choose who received gas and who did not? Economics had to do with pay. Basically who should be involved with transporting energy? And how much should these companies be paid? The last concern was politics. This section was about whether the government should be involved when a pipeline ran through many countries. For example, if a pipeline ran through France and Germany, must France only take care of its own pipelines that ran through the country or should it also care about Germany’s pipelines?

Professor Bressand believed the best solution would be to have an independent contractor or many contractors who were not politically affiliated and were more interested in making sure all the people received energy at a reasonable price. Once this company was established, there would be stakeholders who would help direct the energy to places where it was needed the most.

Ms. Natasha Udensiva-Brenner focused more on the complications of energy today. The fact that only a few countries such as Qatar, Russia and Australia are providing energy to most of the countries gives them an edge in deciding who gets energy and at what price. Amongst these few countries that provide natural gas, there is heavy competition. The idea is to create some sort uniformity so that all sides can benefit.

This was an eye opening experience. If interested in updates or past events of the World Energy Forum please check out this link regularly: http://www.theworldenergy.org/beta/

-Arunna R.

There are more pictures after the jump.

SAB gets recognized

2010-09-03T23:55:00.001-04:00

This past May, Solutions Across Borders was recognized at the USG Awards Gala in the Humanitarian category. This is a pretty exciting achievement as SAB is a pretty small club out of the many Baruch has. Some members attended the ceremony - here are the pics:

Solutions in India!

2010-06-22T00:42:00.001-04:00

Hi everyone!

As some of you may know, Suveen and I (Ankita) are in India for the summer working for an organization called Butterflies New Delhi. This NGO focuses on the rights of street and working children.

Suveen will be updating her experiences on tumblr at www.pinchofspice.tumblr.com and mine can be found at www.ankitas.tumblr.com.

This will be mostly personal but it can give you a good idea of what it's like to throw yourself unprepared into a crazy situation.

Hope you're all enjoying your summer... it's about 110 here every day and we are melting away!

- Ankita

Final SAB Meeting of the Semester

2010-05-12T20:02:00.000-04:00

On 5/11/10, we had the President of MASA come talk about his program, which advocates education for Mexican Americans.

Our V-Day Candy Sale

2010-05-02T20:30:00.000-04:00

We did this back in February. It turned out to be a successful event for SAB!

Can Religion Be Integrated In An Academic Environment?

2010-03-15T20:06:00.001-04:00

Religion in schools goes back as far as the Engel v. Vitale Supreme Court Case. The courts decision denied the official use of prayer in school. Those who supported the decision of the court justified the decision with arguments that prayer in school was a violation of the 1st Amendment. The United States constitution prevents the establishment of religion by government. This is more commonly known as the separation of church and state.

People in the U.S. identify themselves very often with their religious beliefs, whether they recognize themselves as theists, atheists or agnostics. A theist is a person who believes in a God, an atheist is one who does not believe in God and an agnostic is one who believes in a higher force, but believes it is impossible to know whether there is a God. It is actually very interesting to see the change in what was recognized as religion during the time of our four-fathers in comparison to today. Before religion was a way to extend the superiority of the English culture into the America's, and today religion in the U.S yields to concepts such as pluralism and secularism. The colonists engaged in an “educational crusade” to educate the Native American Indian's of not only their culture but also their religious beliefs.

Religious education would help these people learn to read and write, so they can obey laws of God and the nation. The notion that the English culture and the Protestant religion was the ideal path to follow, concepts such as pluralism was unheard or unseen. Today however, secularization in the U.S is in fact increasing the number of people who identify themselves as followers of a specific religion and also believe in God. In addition, in a country where there was resentment and disapproval of so many denominations and religions at one point, the complete opposite exists today. The United States is a pluralistic society, which can very well be identified as a country of “many worlds and religions.”

Today religion is increasingly present in the college curriculum. The status of religion I believe in the college system is best represented by the types of courses which are offered. Baruch College is a great example, in this university students are provided with many choices. This college offers courses such as Philosophy of Religion, Lives of Hinduism, Sociology of Religion, Traditions of Islam and Contemporary Christianity.

I think it is actually great that students have the options of getting well acquainted with so many world religions. I have taken many of the courses offered at Baruch College, and have had a great experience in each and every one of them. However, I think it is important always to teach religion in a specific manner. Religion should be taught in a manner that is factual, comparative and fair minded. If there is no obvious sight of persuasion to subscribe to a specific religious belief system, religion should be allowed to be an integrate part of schools. The way religion courses should be taught is separated by two phrases, “to teach religion and to teach about religion.”

-Suveen Sahni

Obama- "Before and After": Guest Speaker Professor Lewin

2010-03-15T20:04:00.000-04:00

Obama- "Before and After"

Guest Speaker: Professor Lewin

March 9, 2010

Recently Solutions Across Borders invited Professor Lewin from the Black and Hispanic Studies Dept. at Baruch College to lead a discussion on Obama before and after his election into presidency. In 1.5 hours we were able answer a lot of each others questions and touch upon different issues of identity, race and religion which are all issues that are important to the average educated American.

Professor Lewin, started off the discussion with an interesting question that was raised by the media many times, and other times surpressed or toned down by the American Black community. The question was, is Barack Obama white or black? Many of the students who attended the event answered black, others white and the remaining answered both with a giggle. Depending on whom you ask this question to today, you will receive different answers. I am sure this was the case before Obama actually became President of the United States, but did people actually stop to question or think about which one Obama was more of? The reasoning many of the club members came up with was that, Obama was first and foremost a politician and then black, white or both. Before you stop to label this one individual, it is important to define the standards to how a mixed person is supposed to identify themselves in society.

This one discussion of race and color led to many other interesting debates. It was announced by a club member, that Obama was one of the many “icons” which faced this dilemma. Who is Tiger Woods? Yes, many of you will first recognize him as a recognized golf player and then others may slowly identify him by the scandals he is associated with. But how many of you will identify him as part African, part Native American, part Asian and part Dutch? In fact, the truth is people usually most directly refer to him as just African American, but he refers to himself as a “Cablinasian,” this is an abbreviation he formed from Caucasion, Black, American Indian and Asian.

Getting back on track and talking about Obama, what race does he associate himself with? As if that question is not complicated enough, what religion does he find himself practicing. In actuality, Obama's family's religious background is very distinct, his mother was an agnostic and his father was a non-practicing Muslim. Does this religious background influence the Obama we know as a person today? Our President used his diverse background and name as a way of getting votes notably from minority groups and especially the black community as we know, but does this mean Obama recognized himself just as an African American? Does he disregard his Caucasian blood? These are all questions which remain unanswered and are becoming more important today, as we are getting a chance to know our President even more closely than we did before his election into office. There were many other issues that were covered in the short time the club had in discussing this widespread topic, but the issue of culture, religion and race seemed to serve as the cherry on top.

-Suveen Sahni

War On Drugs: Guest Speaker Professor Eitmann

2010-03-15T19:15:00.000-04:00

War On Drugs
Guest Speaker Professor Eitmann

Professor Eitmann gave insightful explanations as to why the drug business is prevalent today. The two hot spots where the “war on drugs” occurs are in Latin American and Afghanistan. Two things that America does are interdiction and eradication. Interdiction is when the drugs are stopped at the borders and eradication is when both the illegal and legitimate crops are killed.
The supply of cocaine reached its pike in the 80s and now has leveled off. People are still desperately in need of cocaine but at the same time, there have not been any new users per se.
In Latin America, the American coast guard and military are involved in trying to stop drugs. There have been a few practices in place as a result. The first one is crop substitution which does not seem to work. People in Latin American prefer to produce narcotics because it is easier to make money. Also inflation has caused legitimate things to be cut out of their national economies. Moreover, the demand for drugs is inelastic thus allowing more income to flow into these “poor” countries.
Some reasons as to why it is hard to eradicate drugs is because it could be a religious practice like smoking opium or because the coco leaves as used for medicine in Latin America for altitude sickness.

-Suveen Sahni and Arunna Raj

Discussion Question: Do you think the War On Drugs is stoppable or is it better to allow countries to produce these drugs?

Jill Bolte Taylor's Stroke of Insight

2010-03-15T19:13:00.000-04:00

An eye opening experience to a new world, Jill Bolte’s talking style transports the listener to a new world; A world that only a few people can and will experience.
Jill Bolte vividly described what she was experiencing while having a stroke. This was a rare opportunity because most people might not able to or are unwilling to talk about their experience. Jill Bolte explained that the right hemisphere and left hemisphere of the brain functions separately. The left brain is where language and rational thinking occurs and the right brain has a more artistic take on things. Jill Bolte was able to analyze what was happening to her because she had studied the brain.

She took the listener through a journey and at the end finally realized that she had reached “nirvana”. Her message to her audience was that the world can be peaceful and together everyone can achieve it. It is up to us, as individuals, to decide where we want to be.

-Arunna Raj

Watch the video at: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html

Crack Economics

2010-02-21T10:57:00.000-05:00

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/steven_levitt_analyzes_crack_economics.html

Steven Levitt Analyzes Crack Economics

-An informative, eye-opening video that explains how drug gangs are financed

Speaker Steven Levitt explains how a drug gang in Chicago follows some business aspects. First, the drug gang has a hierarchy structure similar to McDonald's. Both the McDonald’s workers and “foot soldiers” are paid low wages. McDonald's pays minimum wages but the “foot soldiers” are paid $3.50 per hour. Both the drug gang and McDonald's have franchises and the franchisee has the right to use the name and sell stuff.

The possible reasons as to why people join gangs as Steven Levitt points out are it is a rite of passage, it is a family business and Marketing & Trickery. Many men who join this gang feel it is a way to prove themselves that they are worthy of something. Also, the drug business becomes a family business. The younger generations get sucked into continuing the business of their forefathers. The biggest reason is Marketing & Trickery. The gangs know how to market themselves. They convince new members that they will get rich by selling drugs. The people currently in the business show off their gold chain and new cars. The new recruits never realize until it is too late that all these are rare to come by. The gold chains are not real gold and the new cars are leased because it cannot be afforded. There are more at stake than what is advertised.

Towards the latter part of the speech, Speaker Steven Levitt talks about how some economic theories can be applied to these gangs. The second one Steven Levitt talks about is ‘“Every two-person game has a natural equilibrium”’. Basically this is the game theory principle. But a gang member stated that no one is willing to apply this theory in fear of getting killed.

Steven Levitt fails to express some of the underlying conditions as to why some of these people turn to selling drugs as a means to support themselves instead of pursuing education. As discussed in the group, some possible reasons could be that financially the students are unable to pursue higher education. Also, many doors might be closed because of the student’s location. Sometimes, the students are in pursuit of making money fast and the only way to do that is by selling drugs.

-Arunna Raj

Haiti Teach In

2010-02-08T21:34:00.000-05:00

I attended the Haiti Teach-In last Thursday with other members of the club Solutions Across Borders. The teach-in welcomed many eloquent speakers such as Ned Sublette, Lois Wilcken and Carolyn Rose-Avilla. The event was attended by many students as well as faculty and organized a group of concerned and interested people. The questions and answers session ran short of time, but the few questions addressed got a diaspora of answers.

Frisner Augustin opened the event with a powerful demonstration of Haitian drumming which included the active participation of the audience. All we had to do was clap to a beat, but just that involved us in the vibrant culture and spirituality of the music. It may have been interesting to learn more about the background of this type of Haitian drumming, but the excerpt provided in the memo handed out was a great start. La Troupe Makandal and Frisner Augustin work hand in hand to uphold the spirituality of the repertory derived from Vodou here in the U.S.

This serves as a good place to introduce Lois Wilken, who is the Executive Director at La Troupe Makandal. Her short briefing of Haitian culture and spirituality left me specifically with many questions, but at the same time gave me the incentive to further research things which were unknown. Wilken presented a brief history of the origins of Vodou, which translates into “spirit” and described this spiritual belief as the culture of healing. She made the connections between Haitian music and the power of music to heal. This was an interesting correlation which was supported by information on Haitian dance. In most scenarios, we American label all things unknown to us and our culture as “ceremonies,” however, Wilken urged the fact that natives preferred to use just Vodou dance. Whether there was a special reasoning behind this or not, was something which was left unanswered. Vodou dance takes place throughout the night, anywhere from six to seven hours and entails of a unique dance movement and rhythms. The purpose behind these Vodou dances is the belief in “spirit possessions.” It is believed that when music is heard and dance is seen, a higher power chooses someone through which he speaks to a congregation. This activity may leave an individual unconscious.

Wilken concluded her speech with flashbacks from history and films which encouraged the popularity of the word Vodou. At first it was a way to demonize the people of a free black republic around all black slave states; it was an attempt to identify independent Haiti as a “failed state.” Later on, many zombie films such as “The Magic Island,” inspired many other films. These films focused on the doll which was used to hurt or kill your enemy, but in fact, research provides those needled places as pressure points. This may very possibly be another healing remedy which was misinterpreted.

In situations where the world media is paying attention to the same thing, there is room for shaping the story to make it sell! News-media critic Ned Sublette presented us with a fierce representation of what it means to “package a story.” He started off with the term “looting” which was being replaced by information informing people that individual initiatives to survive were taking place increasingly. In many coverage’s, the white male represented the “American hero” and the “hurt black boy represented tragedy stricken Haiti. What cover stories fail to show the American public is the support and aid Haitians are providing other Haitians with in time of need. Instead, they are labeling the Haitian’s helplessness into “looting.” Haitians have to do whatever it takes to make ends meet because the U.S is focused more on security rather than aid at this time.

It is important to recognize the need of rebuilding Haiti, who will lead these developmental goals? Carolyn Rose-Avila from Plan USA has been working for many years before the earthquake to help impoverished Haiti, but today the aid is needed more than ever. She identified the Aid industry transitioning into a corporate takeover. Whether this is a good thing or bad, can only be diagnosed once decisions and actions are made active. Carolyn sees this disaster as a career step for a lot of people, and will encourage a lot of young leadership in Haiti. The youth will be able to decide where Haiti is going in the future and education must continue even in such poor conditions. “It is better to educate now than later!”

Why is it the way it is? People always pose questions like these, but no one really tries to answer them. Professor Carolle Charles from Baruch College presented her answer. She blamed the unequal and unjust society of Haiti. She emphasized the disparity in terms of color, religion and education within the nation. Her concerns were not so much with the GDP of the nation or the economic stance of the nation, but were the lack of human development. She said this is what makes Haiti a failed state. Professor Charles encouraged the promotion of justice and social change by using the state, like her dear friends did. She recognized her friends to have done “politics differently.” It was necessary to uphold the accomplishments made by the Ministry of Women in Haiti and continue striving to push agendas such as domestic violence against women, sexual perpetrator laws, child labor laws and equal pay.

-Suveen Sahni

Major Earthquake in Haiti!

2010-01-13T10:34:00.001-05:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/13/world/americas/13haiti.html?emc=tnt&tntemail0=y

What are we doing to help?

Major Earthquake in Haiti!

2010-01-13T10:34:00.000-05:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/13/world/americas/13haiti.html?emc=tnt&tntemail0=y

What are we doing to help?

Children of the City

2009-11-13T16:50:00.000-05:00

Volunteer Opportunity!

December 2009: Christmas Project Launched

Source: http://www.childrenofthecity.com/events/christmas2009.html

"Children of the City is a not-for-profit charitable organization that addresses the needs of disadvantaged children in the inner city communities of New York City and serves as a city-wide model for other organizations working with children from similar circumstances. Since 1981 we have been able to channel help to them in the means of educational support, Thanksgiving dinners, Christmas gifts, coats and blankets, back to school supplies, furniture, food distribution locations and much more.

Each month our team of volunteers visit close to 1,000 children in their homes. Each year, as part of our sessions we host a special Christmas Project and collect new, unwrapped toys during November and December, distributing those toys as Christmas gifts to needy children in the communities we serve. Over the years, we have established close relationships with the families we visit, which well qualifies us to identify the needy children in the community and target them in the distribution of the toys. We know these are tough economic times and we are glad for the opportunity to show that we care about the children and families in the communities we serve.

When you donate Christmas toys to at-risk and disadvantaged children, you provide a glimmer of hope and inspiration for children. Most of the families we visit are unable to provide gifts for their children outside of meeting basic family needs, and with today’s economy we are gearing up for what is expected to be a greater number of requests from families for assistance than previous years. We expect to have hundreds of children at our Christmas party on Saturday, December 19, 2009. We would like to invite you to partner with us in donating new, unwrapped Christmas gifts for the needy children of our inner city communities."

If you would like to participate, please call the at (718) 436-0242 ext. 18 or email at christmas@childrenofthecity.org or visit the Facebook page.

AWESOME November events - off-campus

2009-11-09T12:09:00.002-05:00

Bill Gates in Conversation with Matthew Bishop: The Business of Giving

Wednesday, November 11, 2009, 6:30 pm92nd Street Y - Kaufmann Concert Hall, Lexington Avenue at 92nd Street Matthew Bishop will be signing his new book, Philanthrocapitalism: How Giving Can Save the World, after this event. Copies will available for purchase. Bill Gates, Co-Chair and Trustee of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and Chairman of Microsoft appears in a rare one-to-one conversation with Matthew Bishop, the American Business Editor for The Economist and co-author of Philanthrocapitalism: How Giving Can Save the World. This wide-ranging and candid discussion will focus on Gates' pioneering career in business and philanthropy, addressing his extraordinary achievements to date and the challenges for the future.
$10 Student Tickets Available Online: http://www.92y.org/shop/event_detail.asp?productid=T-LC5SE03&ev_ads=billgates+studtix+patronmail&xad=billgates+studtix+patronmail

The Audience and the IssuesThursday, November 12, 6:30 to 8:00 pm
Fordham University, Lincoln Center Campus, 12th Fl Lounge, 113 West 60th St

It's no surprise that technology has changed the ways in which audiences relate to media. Pre-digital delivery systems and the old media model of the "common campfire" are long gone, raising concerns about audience fragmentation, the collapse of print and new media's ability to generate unbiased news and information. Join us as we explore the impact of this revolution. Learn how media will be distributed and analyzed in the future, and what it means in terms of emerging careers. Presented with Fordham University.Bill Baker, Professor, Fordham University; President Emeritus, Channel Thirteen/WNET Gerry Byrne, Senior Vice President, Media & Entertainment, Nielsen Business Media

Water and Health: Global Issues and Our Shared Responsibilities
Friday, November 13, 2009, 1:15-5:30 PM
The New York Academy of Sciences Conference Center7 World Trade Center, 250 Greenwich Street, 40th floor

On November 13, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the New York Academy of Sciences will host a symposium to address the complex issues surrounding water and health. Cited as one of the “grand challenges facing the 21st century” by President Barack Obama, water remains a priority among many public health professionals and is the focus of Water and Health: Global Issues and Our Shared Responsibilities. The conference will examine universal access to clean water, the complex politics of water and the crumbling water infrastructure that experts say poses a significant threat in even the most economically developed nations. Researchers from the Bloomberg School of Public Health have been actively engaged in water science since the early 20th century and will discuss the deteriorating conditions in the U.S. and abroad along with solutions to this growing public health crisis.

Noise Around the World: Film Series

2009-10-28T22:35:00.000-04:00

3 trailers can be accessed here:

Rang De Basanti-November 6
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK28V4FjqMc

La Chinoise-November 20
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFaEY92jGHI

Soy Cuba-December 4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvwLZOpxAFQ

UPCOMING EVENTS & INTERNSHIP OPPORTUNITIES

2009-10-20T13:06:00.000-04:00

1) Book signing event on THURSDAY, 29 OCTOBER at 1:00 PM

Graciana del Castillo will discuss and sign copies of her book “Rebuilding War-Torn States: The Challenge of Post-Conflict Economic Reconstruction.”

This event will take place at the UNITED NATIONS BOOKSHOP, Concourse Level, General Assembly Building GA-32 and is open to the public.

Please call 212 963-7680 for more information.

2) Position Title: CUF POLICY RESEARCH INTERN, FALL 2009
Borough: Manhattan
Organization: Center for an Urban Future
Organization Type(s): Policy/Planning

Job Category(ies): Public Policy

Job Type: Intern
Description: The Center seeks an intern with experience in journalism or public policy research to assist staff in researching a variety of issues impacting New York City, primarily on studies related to economic development and workforce development. Responsibilities include extensive phone interviews, Web research, attending policy meetings and writing. Other duties include coordinating meetings with government officials and assisting on all reports. Intern must be able to commit to at least 20 hours a week. This is an unpaid internship. To apply, send resume and cover letter to intern@nycfuture.org.

3) Gay Marriage vs Traditional Marriage
Where do you stand?

Join us for
Sigma Alpha Delta Honor Society's
Oxford Debate

Join us and a panel of professors, professionals and students as we discuss the heavily touted issue of Gay Marriage vs. Traditional Marriage. It is an issue that has been grabbing a very high level of attention from our nation’s citizens. Have the opportunity to voice your own opinion as well with interactive Q&A and voting sessions specifically tailored to make this event a truly unforgettable one!

Thursday, October 22, 2009
Vertical Campus 14-250
12:30PM - 2:30PM

Refreshments will be served.

Please RSVP to OXFORDDEBATE@SIGMABARUCH.ORG
Seating is Limited.

Work Opportunity from Taking It Global

2009-09-13T10:59:00.001-04:00

"Are you a self-starter? Have you been involved in addressing global issues?
Do you have experience leading teams and managing projects? Do you believe in the power of young people to change the world? If you answered these questions positively, this job opportunity may just be for you!

TakingITGlobal is looking for an Associate Director for its New York City office. We are looking for an innovative person with a deep commitment to helping young people unleash their potential to change the world.

Take a look at the job posting for more information:

http://www.tigurl.org/nycjob

The position has a 6-month trial period with a possible extension based on fundraising results. Salary is $30,000 - 33,000 a year (pro-rated) and health insurance is included.

Only those currently authorized to work in the US will be considered.
Please apply by September 21, 2009 by sending your resume and cover letter to: jobs@takingitglobal.org"

Baruch Debates Diversity & Internationalization

2009-09-10T16:21:00.000-04:00

Fellow SABers,

Here is an event that has been in the works since this Spring and has the backing of some of Baruch's most brilliant faculty and the Dean of the Weissman School, Jeffrey Peck. Jacqueline, Stacey, and I have been involved in various capacities and I think the final product will be the kind of conversation we seek at Solutions every meeting (or atleast try!)

So please please make it your business to attend and bring as many people as possible. Though the workshop lasts the entire afternoon, you may leave early or come late, as your class schedule permits. I am, of course, missing two of my classes to attend the whole thing.

See you there!

Monday, September 14
12:30 - 5:00 p.m.
Newman Conference Center (Library Building), Room 750

Rattan

PRAY THE DEVIL BACK TO HELL - Free Screening

2009-08-12T19:30:00.000-04:00

Free screening of PRAY THE DEVIL BACK TO HELL (HRWIFF London 09)
September 21 at 7pm at School of Visual Arts Theatre

Panel discussion to follow screening with Director Gini Reticker, Producer Abigail Disney, Peace Activist Leymah Gbowee, and Zainab Salbi of Women for Women International

Pray the Devil Back To Hell
A story of the power of women’s solidarity in Liberia in the face of almost impossible odds. With skillful eloquence, PRAY THE DEVIL BACK TO HELL tells the remarkable story of how thousands of women in Liberia helped peacefully end the country’s second bloody civil war. PRAY THE DEVIL BACK TO HELL is a commanding, inspiring, and emotionally stirring documentary about the futility of war and the splendour of peace. Find out more View the trailer Download event flyer

Presented By Fork Films, Global Fund for Women, Social Work in Progress, UNIFEM, CONNECT New York, Women for Women International, and The Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College.

When: September 21 at 7:00PM
Where: School of Visual Arts Theatre, 333 W. 23rd St, Manhattan
How Reserve Your Seat:
Admission is free to this event. To attend you must RSVP by September 15 to:rsvp@praythedevilbacktohell.com

UN Youth ConferenCe Retake

2009-08-10T15:45:00.000-04:00

Last week the United Nations held a three conference for the world's young leaders who are currently contributing to reach the Millenium Development Goals and who intend to have an active role in their fullfillment in the future. Solutions Across Borders was sponsored by the United African Congress.

The content of the first day fell slightly bellow expectation. I was expecting more of "these are the issues" and "how to go about fullfilling them", instead the conference received enpowerment speech adter enpowerment speech. Yet as was pointed out to me by Stacey (our fealess leader): It is importment that the first day be inspiring to the congregation of youth and for the UN to truley instill in their minds that they should enpower themselves, success stories by young people should be shared to raise the moral and the 'yes we can' mentality of youth. I suppose as an American, the message of the last presidential campaign left no need for me to hear it again.

It is not fair to say that there was no content at all the first day. During the special program sessions, we learned about two very important organizations that are benefiting the world, one project at a time. Roots&Shoots and Garmeen Bank . The former was started by world famous primatologist Jane Goodall and has succeeeded in creating sanctuaries for both primates and trees in the face of deforastation in Africa. On September 20th, the international Day of Peace, Roots&Shoots encourages all their chapters and members to create doves and fly them as a symbol of our support for peace. A wonderful project that can be flown off the 8th floor of the Vertical Campus in Baruch!

Garmeen bank was started by Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Prize winning economist from Bangladesh who through his idea is eliviaiting povery through microoans to people without credit or collateral i.e. the population of the world living on less than a dollar a day. Garmeen bank as also more recently opened up a chapter in America and has been loaning money to people in Jackson Heights and other parts of New York City. This is definitately an organization Baruch College students should get involved with!

The second day was MUCH more content loaded and informational. The first speaker of the day that was truly an inspiration was Ravi Karkara. Representing UNICEF, Mr. Karkara was there to teach us about Women Enpowerment and Gender Equality. Before his break out session, a young man came up to him and asked, "What are you, as a man, doing with female enpowerment?" Mr. Karkara used this poignant question to start off his discussion. As a young boy, he answered, I saw a lot of domestic abuse, both physical and psychological, at home. Fathers abusing wives, uncles abusing aunts, and sisters getting sexually harassed. In short, if you love your mother or sister, why wouldn't any man also strive for gender equality. Whatmore, he said, in studies done in developing countries of where a girl felt physically safe, whether at schoo, in the market, or anywhere, the answer was nowhere, not even at home. Ravi Karkara works so that girls and women do not have to live in constant fear. The message is that one does not have to share an X chromosome to fight for this as well.

Young people, boys and girls, ought to be taught each others right and see each other as partners. I believe, however, that even the education of young men and boy will not be enough to stop violence against women. In order to enpower women, one needs to enpower men, as most of the abuse against women is caused by frustration of being powerless themselves.

Mr. Karkara made the room to pledge to read CEDAW and the CRCs. Take a look!

More later about the third day.
-IK

UN Youth Conference, Day 2

2009-08-06T12:51:00.000-04:00

I am coming to you LIVE from the UN building. Jacque and I are about to head to our respective MDG sessions. This morning we went to a great discussion by Ravi Karkara on female rights in developing countries and around the world. Poignantly, a lanky (c.) 18 year old asked him, right before the session started "What are you doing in Women rights being a man?" As a boy growwing up he was exposed to a lot of domestic violence at home and said that his sisters were always experiencing some sort of eave-teasing. In general girls in developing coutries, as statistics state, feel unsafe not just on the streets where they get hit on or verbally harassed by men, but also at school, in the market, and even at home.

More late, our next session is about to start.

Mentorship Opportunity - MexEd

2009-07-15T15:36:00.000-04:00

MexEdNYC – the Mexican Educational Foundation of New York - is looking for mentors to work with Mexican youth in NYC.

Volunteer Opportunity to Mentor Mexican High School Students

MexEd is a non-profit organization that promotes educational attainment and community leadership among Mexican immigrants and their children. Currently, our primary means of achieving this mission is an after-school enrichment program based at Washington Irving High School, located near Union Square. In addition, program participants are matched with a caring, dedicated mentor who serves as an advocate and role model to their “mentee.” For more information about our programs, check out the About Us page.
A mentor can provide his/her mentee with:
* Academic support
* A positive role model
* A stable relationship with a compassionate adult
If you’d like to become a mentor for MexEd, please visit http://mexednyc.org/volunteer.cfm, fill out the application, and send it to Stephen Ruszczyk at stephen@mexednyc.org.

If you're interested in working with another youth population - young African immigrants - check out the posting from July re: Sauti Yetu

July Events

2009-07-15T15:28:00.000-04:00

Wednesday, July 22, 7:00PM
Global Goods Partners (GGP): Craft for a Cause!
Etsy Labs - 325 Gold St, Brooklyn, NY, NY 11201 US
(212) 461-3647
Cost: $20 pre-registration, $25 day of
Join Global Goods Partners (GGP) and Etsy for a craft workshop in support of women artisans in the developing world.
Participants will learn the art of African friendship bracelet weaving from The Yarn Tree's Linda LaBelle, and enjoy a presentation on Fair Trade women's artisan cooperatives in Asia, Africa and the Americas.
Proceeds support artisans in low-resource communities, funding much-needed education, health care, gender equality and income-generation projects.
http://www.evite.com/pages/invite/viewInvite.jsp?inviteId=OFSKOAHASMQRQQCOMXHC&li=iq&src=email&trk=aei6

Thursday July 23, 8:00-11:00am
Manhattan Chamber of Commerce’s 2009 Global Business Country Partner Program: Sri Lanka - “Emerging Peace and Investment Opportunities in Sri Lanka”
Harvard Club, 35 West 44th Street, New York, NY 10036
Cost: Free. Seating is limited. Send email to register to events@manhattancc.org or call 212-473-7805.
AGENDA
8:00 am Registration and Continental Breakfast
8:30am National Anthems of The United States and Sri Lanka
8:35am Welcome Nancy Ploeger, President, Manhattan Chamber of Commerce
8:40am Opening Remarks Hon. Anura Priyadharshana Yapa,
Minister of Enterprise Development, Investment Promotion and Media
8:50 Transatlantic Business Opportunities : Sri Lanka
Mr. Duminda Perea, Executive Director, BOI.
9:20 Questions & Answers
9:45 Speaker from NYC TBA
10:00 Launching of the US-Sri Lankan Chamber of Commerce
10:15 Networking

NYC's Apartment Building Recycling Initiative
Improve recycling in your apartment building by signing up with NYC's Apartment Building Recycling Initiative! Find out more: http://www.nyc.gov/html/nycwasteless/html/recycling/recycling_abri.shtml
Next training sessions:
Thursday, July 16, 10am – 12pm
Wednesday, August 5, 12pm – 2pm
Tuesday, Sept. 15, 12pm – 2pm
Off-site trainings can be scheduled for a minimum of ten participants.

UN YOUTH ASSEMBLY

2009-07-15T13:24:00.000-04:00

We have a wonderful opportunity to participate in the
6th Annual Youth Assembly at the United Nations, August 5-7, 2009. Please let me know if you are attending ASAP - solutionsacrossborders@gmail.com - latest by July 24.

NOTE: YOU DO NOT HAVE TO REGISTER ONLINE OR PAY A FEE IF YOU GO THROUGH SOLUTIONS ACROSS BORDERS

DETAILS
http://www.faf.org/unyouthassembly/applytoday.htm#groups

Youth Leaders Worldwide
Contribute to the success of the Millennium Development Goals

The Youth Assembly is an annual gathering of hundreds of young people from around the world who seek practical ways to contribute to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, global networking and social entrepreneurship skills as well as meeting with and contributing to civil society formally affiliated with the United Nations.

The Youth Assembly is about showing how one person can make a difference by engaging with the challenges of the present and being an educated and active citizen.

The Assembly has grown to become a major gathering of young people as well as specialized, keynote speakers and workshop leaders at the United Nations. Each year, it provides avenues for students and young professionals (18-26 years old) to learn about and become involved with programs that address global and local issues, network among a large international group in attendance, and become engaged and empowered to take leadership roles in their communities.

*

Three days at the U.N. Headquarters in New York
*

Plenary sessions, workshops, networking
*

Captivating speakers and workshop facilitators, youth leaders from around the world
*

Three days of Leadership Training that has been called "Life Changing"
*

A must for anyone interested in U.N. Relations, programs and goals

Volunteer Opportunity to Mentor Young African Immigrants

2009-06-30T15:28:00.001-04:00

Sauti Yetu is recruiting volunteer coaches for its youth program, Girls Empowerment & Leadership Initiative (GELI). They are looking for adult women who can volunteer about an hour per week to mentor, tutor and advocate for an African immigrant girl in the fall. They will provide training and match them with a young woman at the end of the summer. If you are interested or have questions, please contact Macaulay alum Nicole Jean Baptiste at (718) 665-2486 or njeanbaptiste@sautiyetu.org. Position description and application instructions are posted below.

The Academic Enhancement Coach is responsible for serving as a role model to program participants. As a coach, volunteers tutor their student in school subjects for at least one hour per week, assist in the development of an Academic Enhancement Plan (AEP) for their assigned student, track the student's progress on the AEP, attend Academic Enhancement Activities every six weeks, document all activities and submit paperwork to Sauti Yetu Center for African Women, and attend monthly supervision with a GELI Program Manager.

The average expected time commitment per week is 4 hours per week over the academic school year (October- June).

To be eligible you must: Be a woman between the ages of 20-33, a current resident of New York City, have completed at least 2 years of higher education, maintain a minimum 3.0 GPA, and have some experience working with youth. Preference will be given to those candidates with direct experience in Africa and/or with African immigrants.

To apply submit a cover letter (indicating why you would like to become a GELI Coach), a resume or CV, 3 references including names, phone numbers and email addresses (1 academic, 1 professional & one more of either), and a writing sample.

Contact information:
Ramatu Bangura, Program Manager
Sauti Yetu Center for African Women
P.O. Box D, New York, NY 10034
Phone: 718-665-2486
Fax: 718-665-2483
Email: rbangura@sautiyetu.org

SAB Shenanigan

2009-06-19T12:23:00.000-04:00

By Suveen Sahni

HRW Film Festival

2009-06-18T21:30:00.000-04:00

Some seriously awesome movies
http://www.hrw.org/en/iff/new-york

Especially of interest: http://www.hrw.org/en/iff/youth-producing-change-world-premiere
Youth Producing Change!

What are you doing this summer?

2009-06-15T19:08:00.000-04:00

Hey guys!
I know that some SABers went far-far away from NYC, so I decided to make a new post where people can write about their summers. Please feel free to put up some pictures!

Olga

Week of June 15 Events

2009-06-15T19:04:00.001-04:00

Tuesday, June 16, 6:30 PM
Community Board 6 Meeting
Topic: YOUTH & EDUCATION
Community Board Office
866 U.N. Plaza Ste.
308
Conference Room

Wednesday, June 17, 2009, Time: 5:30 - 7:00
Ambassador Fernando M. Valenzuela
Head of the Delegation of the European Commission to the United Nations
The EU, the UN and the US: Some Parting Reflections
Rooms: 9204/9205
Graduate Center, CUNY, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016
***
Reception to Follow
RSVP by June 16, 2009; Tel: 212 817 2053/51; E-mail: eusc@gc.cuny.edu

May 15 Silent Auction - Free and Fun

2009-05-13T14:51:00.001-04:00

A message from our member Manu:

Hey guys!

Have you ever wanted to combine wine with cheese with a cause with a Manu? I know I have! Well on May 15th you can!

International Youth Leadership Institute (www.iyli.org), the nonprofit with which I have volunteered over this semester is holding a silent auction benefiting with the money raised benefiting its fellows.

IYLI helps brings the world to talented high school students by providing them seminars on international issues and very worldly college student and professional mentors. We also help bring students to the world by raising money to take them on a Summer Fellowship Program abroad (this summer iyli fellows are doing ethnographic studies in Brazil and Senegal).

Please come out to the silent auction this Friday evening from 7:30 to 10:00pm to enjoy some wine, some cheese, good company, and a very wholesome cause. ENTRANCE IS FREE!!!!! (and we hope you contribute!!!!!)

ADDRESS:
South Oxford Space
138 South Oxford Street (between Atlantic and Fulton)
Brooklyn, NY 11217

Final Screening :)

2009-05-12T13:54:00.001-04:00

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

Cuba Event Monday - 11:10-12:25 - Room VC 8-150

2009-05-03T16:09:00.000-04:00

This is just a quick Sunday afternoon reminder of tomorrow's event on Cuba funded by Globus.

please share with interested students and faculty.

We will host Dan Erikson of the Inter-American Dialogue, author of the recent book on U.S.-Cuban relations, "The Cuba Wars: Fidel Castro, the United States, and the Next Revolution."

He will speak on his book in VC - Room 8-150.

Monday, May 4, 11:10 a.m. to 12:25 p.m.

Book description:
January 1, 2009, marks a half century for the Cubanregime created and shaped by the powerful will of Fidel Castro. Even with the ailing leader's power transferred to his brother Raul, the myth of Fidel is still at the center of the country's identity. "The Cuba Wars" explores the two crucial questions of the coming era: What does the end of Fidel's leadership mean for the future of Cuba? And what does a changing U.S. policy under the new Obama administration mean for the future of Cuba-U.S. relations?

We will also be going to lunch just after the event so let me know if you think you will be free to join us.

Ted Henken, Ph.D.
Departments of Sociology
and Black and Hispanic Studies

Health Opportunity from Macaulay

2009-04-30T22:29:00.001-04:00

Interested in a Medical or Public Health/Policy Related Project?

This summer, work on a health project with Dr. Tomoaki Kato, Surgical Director of the Division of Abdominal Organ Transplantation at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons. Project plans involve campaigns to raise awareness of and conducting screenings for Hepatitis B epidemic in the Asian American population in New York City, as well as campaigns to recruit organ donors in NYC, which has one of the lowest rates for donation in the nation. If you are interested, please contact him at (212) 305-5101 or tk2366@columbia.edu. For reference, earlier this year, Dr Kato's team performed the impressive auto-transplantation surgery, during which six organs were removed from seven-year-old Heather McNamara, who suffered from a tennis ball sized tumor in her digestive tract.

Exclusive Opportunity - MUST RSVP - May 5

2009-04-28T16:49:00.000-04:00

You must RSVP at http://www.macaulay.cuny.edu/rsvp/?q=node/152

Due to this event, Solutions Across Borders will meet on Thursday May 9 in 11-160!

April 28 - PEACE CORPS VISIT

2009-04-28T11:00:00.000-04:00

Great Opportunity - April 30

2009-04-28T10:59:00.000-04:00

From Ms. Alyce Mayo:

As you know, Ellen Cahill, one of our Executives on Campus, is once again offering her Presentation Skills workshop. This is a wonderful opportunity.....her workshop offers hands on insights about how to present yourself in business and in life.

It will be held in the Lawrence N. Field Center Conference room, B 2-140 during club hours, Thursday April 30th, 12:30 to 2:20 PM.
Delicious Lunch will be served!

Please RSVP to solutionsacrossborders@gmail.com

Earth Day Recommendations from EWG

2009-04-22T13:06:00.000-04:00

Make a personal change:

* Switch to earth-friendly lightbulbs. Start with our Green Lighting Guide to identify which energy-efficient bulbs have the least mercury, where in your home they should go and how to use them safely. http://www.ewg.org/greenlightbulbs

* Eat organic when you can. Put our Shopper's Guide to Pesticides in your wallet or on your iPhone (now!) so you can eat organic without breaking the bank. http://www.foodnews.org/

* Do that dusting. Pets and young children are the most vulnerable to dust-bound pollutants, but cleaning your home is free, easy, and everyone benefits from cleaner indoor air.

Get political:

* Ask the Energy Star program to reduce mercury in compact fluorescent light bulbs. The program requirements lag behind industry advancements; Energy Star should lead, not follow.

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1144/t/1875/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26304

* Tell the EPA to set a truly health-protective safety standard for perchlorate in drinking water. Perchlorate is known to interfere with thyroid hormones essential for brain development, so it poses particular risks to the fetus, infants and young children.

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1144/t/1875/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26980

GRADUATE SCHOOL PANEL DISCUSSION

2009-04-21T13:05:00.001-04:00

Thinking About Graduate School

Thursday, April 23, 2009
12:30 – 2:00 PM
VC 14-267

Panel Moderator: Dean Jeffrey Peck
Weissman School of Arts and Sciences

Panelists:

Professor Elena Martinez,
Department of Modern Languages and Comparative Literature

John C.Jeannopoulos
Starr Career Development Center
Pre-Law Advisor

Professor Kristin Sommer
Department of Psychology
Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Program

Professor Ken Guest
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Baruch Honors Program, Interim Director

Joselyn Muhleisen
Baruch Alumna / Fulbright Scholar

APRIL EVENTS

2009-04-17T16:47:00.000-04:00

TUESDAY April 21
Constructing Identity - A Discussion with Dov Waxman
Where? VC 11-160
When? 12:45 - 2:05
Lunch served!
SEE FLIER BELOW

TUESDAY April 28
Meet the Peace Corps
Where? VC 3-215
When? 12:45 - 2:05
Lunch served!

THURSDAY April 30
Film Screening: The Devil Came on Horseback
Where? TBA
When? Evening TBA
Dinner and popcorn served!

What is a Nation? Four Twenty One

2009-04-17T13:30:00.001-04:00

Institute for Humane Studies Summer Seminars

2009-04-07T14:10:00.000-04:00

APPLICATION DUE TOMORROW (04/08). ALL EXPENSES PAID WEEK-LONG SEMINARS AT COLLEGE CAMPUSES ACROSS THE COUNTRY. APPLY AT:

http://www.theihs.org/SeminarLineup.aspx?id=5474

The seminars are grouped into four categories based on their main area of focus. Check out our newest seminars: Moral Foundations of Capitalism, Scholarship & a Free Society, and Freedom, Tolerance, & Civil Society.

Approaches to Current Challenges
If you are interested in contemporary issues and care passionately about change, consider the following seminars. Examine the current state of affairs and analyze problems through the classical liberal perspective.

Exploring Liberty
A rich exploration of the historical, economic, and philosophical foundations of a free society. Ideal for undergraduates and recent graduates.

June 13 - 19, 2009 Yale University, New Haven, CT

Freedom, Tolerance & Civil Society
A seminar for students interested in civil liberties and personal choice issues.

June 20 - 26, 2009 Simmons College, Boston, MA

Poverty and Prosperity
This seminar will examine globalization and the challenges confronting sustainable economic development through a libertarian framework. For students and recent graduates.

August 1 - 7, 2009 University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA

Social Change Workshop
An interdisciplinary research workshop for graduate students.

June 13 - 19, 2009 Brown University, Providence, RI

Exploring the Ideas in Depth
Go beyond the basic principles of classical liberal thought and examine the implications of libertarian thought on society, academia, the future, and more.

Liberty and Society
An intense, interdisciplinary exploration of classical liberal and libertarian thought for those with some knowledge of these concepts.

May 30 - June 5, 2009 Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC

July 11 - 17, 2009 Loyola University, Chicago, IL

Scholarship and a Free Society
The Scholarship and a Free Society seminar is a unique opportunity for graduate students interested in liberty and the classical liberal tradition.

July 25 - 31, 2009 Bryn Mawr College, Philadelphia, PA

The Tradition of Liberty: Advanced Studies
IHS will not be holding this seminar in Summer 2009. For more details please visit the seminar page.

July 18 - 24, 2009 Bryn Mawr College, Philadelphia, PA

Seminars with a Career Focus
Ideal for students and recent graduates pursuing careers in academia, policy, journalism, or the arts, these seminars combine career advice and practical approaches with a look at the ideas of liberty and their application in related disciplines.

Cinematic & Literary Traditions of Liberty: A Workshop
For aspiring young novelists, filmmakers, artists, musicians, and future scholars of the arts.

June 6 - 12, 2009 Chapman University, Orange, CA

Journalism & the Free Society
Get career advice from experienced journalists, pick up tools of analysis, and explore the foundations of a free press at this free summer workshop. Ideal for Student Journalists.

June 6 - 12, 2009 Bryn Mawr College, Philadelphia, PA

Liberty & Current Issues

For students and young professionals interested in public policy, this seminar offers the chance to learn about innovative analytical tools and use them to evaluate today’s most pressing national and global issues.

July 18 - 24, 2009 Trinity DC, Washington, DC

Social Change Workshop
An interdisciplinary research workshop for graduate students.

June 13 - 19, 2009 Brown University, Providence, RI

Topics in Liberty Seminar
Explore the concepts and applications of classical liberal thought as you examine the role of freedom in various contexts.

Exploring Liberty
A rich exploration of the historical, economic, and philosophical foundations of a free society. Ideal for undergraduates and recent graduates.

June 13 - 19, 2009 Yale University, New Haven, CT

Liberty & Current Issues

For students and young professionals interested in public policy, this seminar offers the chance to learn about innovative analytical tools and use them to evaluate today’s most pressing national and global issues.

July 18 - 24, 2009 Trinity DC, Washington, DC

Moral Foundations of Capitalism
Whether you are attracted to idea of free markets, curious about their role in the future, or a skeptic wanting to find out more, you'll enjoy engaging peers and faculty on these topics.

June 20 - 26, 2009 Clemson University, Clemson, SC

Poverty and Prosperity
This seminar will examine globalization and the challenges confronting sustainable economic development through a libertarian framework. For students and recent graduates.

August 1 - 7, 2009 University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA

Relay for Life

2009-04-06T16:41:00.000-04:00

Hey guys, as you know this past Friday was the Relay for Life. This event was aimed at raising funds for the American Cancer Society. The donations go to fund research for better forms of detection and treatment of malignancies. Proceeds will also fund support groups and other programs offered by the American Cancer Society for both survivors and their families. Stacey did a great job representing Solutions Across borders on Friday.

Though Relay for Life has passed, there is still a wonderful opportunity to contribute to the efforts for conquering cancer. If you are interested in donating to the cause, simply bring whatever you can to the meeting tomorrow. Your donation will be collected and then turned into the American Cancer Society. We may not be able to directly cure cancer ourselves, but we can provide the resources to those that can.

- Manny

SAB featured on Weissman Homepage!

2009-04-06T16:37:00.000-04:00

http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/wsas/SABSpotlight.htm

Clicking on the photo takes you straight to the blog!

-

This Sunday - International Health Opportunity!

2009-03-24T16:26:00.000-04:00

Join Dean Ann Kirschner for brunch and conversation with Jane Aronson, MD '76 (Hunter College), Director, International Health Pediatric Services and Executive Director, Worldwide Orphans Foundation

Dr. Aronson is a board certified pediatrician and pediatric infectious disease specialist with a faculty appointment at Weill Medical College of Cornell University and founder and Executive Medical Director of Worldwide Orphans Foundation.

I will be presenting the speaker - so I encourage you to attend!

Start: Mar 29 2009 - 11:30am
End: Mar 29 2009 - 1:00pm
Where: 35 West 67 Street, New York, NY

To RSVP: http://www.macaulay.cuny.edu/rsvp/?q=node/81

For more info about Worldwide Orphans Foundation: http://www.wwo.org/

- NKorolkova

Sustainability: Our Opportunity? Or Failure?

2009-03-23T14:15:00.001-04:00

In the 1970's the United States had a crucial opportunity to set a new direction for modern civilization. Electric cars were being built, solar panels were being more widely publicized, environmentalism was making grounds and we had faced our first test to the dependency and chaos our addiction to oil causes. Yet, with all of these things in motion we failed to take advantage, and allowed our short-sightedness to prevail. It's March of 2009, two months shy of three years since the "Inconvenient Truth" by Al Gore first hit the world about our climate issues and how we are potentially at fault. I say potentially for as much as it has been proven to be humanities burning of fossil fuels as the main cause of global warming there are still some that believe that our climate issues are of a cyclical process that the Earth takes, coinciding with the Earth's shift in its axis known as the precession cycle which happens every 25,800 years, and other scientific phenomenons happening now and within the next few years.
On Friday March 20th, SAB members and guests attended the film screening, "A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash". The movie seemed to portray our way of life as one which will not be around in the next Thirty or so years. Where our grandchildren may not know what it is like to fly on an airplane. A gloomy prediction of our world and the capabilities of civilization without enough energy and subsequently enough food and other resources. Where wars, famine, disease are inevitable outcomes. However, I am not as cynical, but it is clear that actions must be taken now.
As I look around me I see an increased awareness for the environment. Architects are building and retrofitting structures to conserve and use less energy. Inventions for cars that emit little to no pollution are being created, and have been created. Businesses and Schools such as Baruch College are taking steps to become greener and reduce their carbon footprint as well as encourage their communities and (in Baruch's case) their students to be aware and take action as well. The government in parallel with the current recession is taking the opportunity to put money (about 150 Billion over the next ten years) to create and spur growth in a "Green Economy" with "Green collared jobs". It will be hard but the more we change our psychology as a society and use our innovative and hard working American values, I can't foresee this gloomy prediction of the world as we know it coming to an end.
Sustainability; a greener less pollutant impact-ful society is our opportunity. Our opportunity as a nation to spur job growth, new industry. A motivator that could force our whole system of how we do things to change. Encouraging our student to learn the sciences and mathematics, fields that we rank poorly in as an industrialized nation. A motivator to make the United States become a leader again in the world, making us stronger safer, and potentially more peaceful with our brothers and sisters of the world. Helping them reach new heights in their societies and making our world better , safer and more enjoyable. Sustainability is an opportunity for the world to come together as one for a common purpose, something that has never happened before, where we unite as a species to protect our home and define a new era where inventions, success, wealth is driven not by the desire to conquer and make war, or consume, but by the desire to clean, protect and increase or wealth and prosperity as a whole and to protect even augment our way of life in comfortability and health. We have to leave the short-sighted goals of the past at the door, and embark on a new process of thought, a thought where the more we do for each other and our planet, the better off we all are.
However the failure to do or see this potential, this opportunity, maybe our downfall as a global society. History in hundreds of years may look back at what should have been, what could've been, but what ultimately we failed to become. I don't think we want this legacy.
Participation starts now, whether you're at home or somewhere else. Baruch college has a sustainability task force, found at the following website: http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/sustainability/ . Here the students have an opportunity to contribute in a positive and innovative way to our communities, our peers, our school and our world. March 30th to April 2nd, Solutions Across Borders, The Undergraduate Student Government (USG), Sigma Alpha Delta honor society and Net Impact, will each be participating and aiding the Sustainability effort, an effort that is CUNY and city wide. This first mission is called Green Week. Monday March 30th will have a host of tables for the education of sustainability and some of the leading industries. Tuesday March 31st will consist of a movie and discussion, presenting "Who Killed the Electric Car", and Thursday April 2nd will be a day where panelist from leading companies and organizations will discuss the value and actions of participating, being involved and aware of sustainability efforts and our environment. For more information pay attention to the flyers or contact SAB at SolutionsAcrossBorders@gmail.com.

-Kadri Augustin
SAB Member

The Foundation Center

2009-03-20T21:42:00.000-04:00

To learn more about the many non-profit organizations thriving in the world, SAB took a field trip to the Foundation Center, a US nonprofit service organization, where we were given a tour of the library, computer services and grant writing workshops.

Read on about the mission, vision and values of the Foundation Center.

Our Values
A world enriched by the effective allocation of philanthropic resources, informed public discourse about philanthropy, and broad understanding of the contributions of nonprofit activity to civil society.

Our Mission
The Foundation Center's mission is to strengthen the nonprofit sector by advancing knowledge about U.S. philanthropy.

Our Beliefs

Philanthropy is vital to our democratic society.
Transparency and accountability are key to earning the public trust.
Knowledge about philanthropy starts with accurate information.
Access to accurate information about philanthropy advances responsible and effective use of philanthropic resources.
Grantmaker and nonprofit effectiveness is enhanced by shared information and understanding.

Now may not be the best time for the nonprofit sector as Hannah Kane of idealist.org mentioned on yesterday's panel at Baruch College on Non-Profit Careers. However, the work done by nonprofits reverberates throughout the world and also very close to home. Its important to know about them even if we're not seeking employment in them.

For example: OSI has an initiative to close the gap between Americans who needs treatment for alcohol and drug abuse and those who are getting it. Canada, Norway, Iceland and the US are the 4 greatest contributers to Kiva, a US-born nonprofit.

As students, its important to be aware, and if possible, take part in the philanthropic process which has become a viable force in our democracy. First, to contribute where we can by volunteering while we're still in school. Second, to make philanthropy part of our perspective so that when we have fiscal resources, though perhaps less time, we can still make a contribution (perhaps by helping student organizations with their philanthropic goals). In short, as students we can contribute to creating a philanthropic cycle, a viscious cycle, but in a good way.

Non-Profit Panel - Thursday Co-Sponsorship

2009-03-17T21:54:00.000-04:00

Alternative Summer Break

2009-03-10T02:05:00.000-04:00

Here is some information taken off the Macaulay Honors website for those interested in volunteering this summer. This project will involve you directly with the people you are helping and bring you invaluable exposure to a new country and culture.

Where
Accra, Ghana

What
"Macaulay in Ghana” Alternative Summer Break –June 3-16, 2009

For the third year in a row, Macaulay Honors College will send University Scholars to participate in an international service project. This year, the service team will go to Ghana to assist in installing mosquito nets for students of the L&A Memorial Academy, a K-8th grade school established in 1998. The school serves over 380 students in Mallam, a very poor area on the outskirts of Accra. Most parents are unemployed or minimally employed in trades. NOTE: In Summer 2008, Solutions Across Borders, an international awareness group at Baruch College, made Macaulay Honors College aware of the school and it’s parent foundation.

Check out the website for more information!

An Enlightening Experience

2009-03-09T20:16:00.000-04:00

The Light of Leadership, held on Thursday March 5, 2009, was started off by Professor Ryan. 3 speakers, Ms. Poonam Tandon, Ms. Rene Taylor and Ms. Nalini Mehta led the discussion. Ms. Poonam Tandon started off by telling us that this Women’s Leadership started in India. It has been running for about 8 years and growing strong. Then, Ms. Poonam Tandon led a guided meditation for 15 minutes, which was relaxing. After that, Rene Taylor talked about looking into the inner self to find answers. Lastly, Ms. Nalini Mehta spoke about Ayurveda and how food is important to balance the mind and body. After these speeches, there were wonderful refreshments and a chance to network with any of the speakers.

-Arunna Raj

Tuesday's Discussion: The Diverging Global Economy

2009-03-08T21:40:00.000-04:00

Africa Day

2009-03-05T14:05:00.000-05:00

Last week on Thursday, our club organized an event called Africa Day, in honor of Black History Month and to raise funds for the fight against Malaria. For this event, we collaborated with Japhet Aryiku, founder and president of the Adakum Educational Foundation.

The Adakum Educational Foundation is a New York based non-profit organization which seeks support and funding to acquire and install treated mosquito nets in the homes of school children in Ghana to protect them against Malaria. The organization strives to provide more nets and to better educate the people of Ghana to use the them effectively. Its slogan is "Don't Just Give Them Nets, Hang Them Up". Adakum trains volunteers to teach individuals in Guana instead of providing them with instructions, which many times are in a language they cannot even read. Volunteers can be members of civic, business, professional and religious groups. They could also be high school and college students. Solutions Across Borders has complementary initiative to raise enough money to send 4 of our members to Ghana to help this cause.

Here are some more photos from our event-

Keiko conceived of the idea of a wishing well. This way contributers would interactively help a cause and have fun while doing it.

WBMB came and supported our fundraiser by playing African inspired music.

Top righthand corner- Ada and Olga selling baked goods. After 4 hours, we had a total donation of $351.34!

This week, Shelley (right) gave a follow-up presentation on the dangers, causes and prevention of Malaria.

Bellow, Stacey, our fearless leader.

$351.35 in a box (with the donation of 25 canadian cents).

Stay tuned for our next event!

-IK

CUNY Leadership Academy Training

2009-02-28T11:41:00.000-05:00

For those interested in enhancing their political and social action leadership skills:
The CUNY Leadership Academy hosts CUNY Ambassador Training. At the end of the workshop, the students receive a CUNY Ambassador Training certificate of competition.
TO REGISTER please send your Name, College, Phone Number, Address, and Area of Advocacy Interest to LeadershipAcademy@mail.cuny.edu

WAR

2009-02-19T17:46:00.000-05:00

Whether we realize it or not, we, as a society and country, have never been so far removed from war as we are now in the 21st century. Before the 20th century, war was understood in Platonic terms: two luxurious states fighting for land and resources (ex: France and Germany fighting for Alsace and Lorraine). Civil war was understood as revolution and if a luxurious state was to seek the land and resourced of a (more) humble state, it was called colonization. Every person whom the conflict concerned was involved and knew as much as they could, for it was a matter of survival. Today, we do not see war, unless we seek it out in the news (if we could get past the Rodman steroids scandal). We do not feel it- who can name one dead US soldier fallen in Iraq? We do not taste it- my grandmother knew that war tasted like a bag of bread collected over a week in exchange for supper. We do not hear it and we do not smell it.

And this is wonderful. It is truly a gift to be given the opportunity to be objective.

We do however experience the echo of war in our news, photos, videos, blogs and books. While some of these are produced by private citizens with knowledge and experience to share, their distribution and prevalence cannot be compared to that of the media controlled by the government or other actors with ulterior motives. In either case, we cannot always trust our own discretion.

Therefore, our perception of war is molded by roughly 25% truth and 75% propaganda. Truth being fact in context. Propaganda as fact out of context. Lets take the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.

On Friday, September 29, 2000, a photograph was sent to the Associated Press in Jerusalem showing an Israeli soldier in the background waving a club and a bloodied guy in profile in the foreground. It was published the next day in the New York Times article,"Battle at Jerusalem Holy Site Leaves 4 Dead and 200 Hurt", with the caption: "An Israeli Policeman and a Wounded Palestinian Yesterday".

A letter was later sent to the New York Times by the victim's father identifying him at Tuvia Grossman, a jewish student from Chicago. Tuvia and his friends had been on their way to the Western Wall when their cab was attacked. Tuvia was pulled out, stabbed twice, beaten with rocks but managed to break free and was saved by a Israeli officer. Not only was the identity incorrect but the assumption that the picture was taken at the Temple Mount was also false, as it was taken in Wadi al Hoz.

The photograph marked the start of the fight to ensure that Israel received fair media. Tuvia Grossman was in paid 4,500 euros in reparations by a french newspaper and the Associated Press.

The nature of this mistake lies in the circumstances of that day. It marked the start of the 2nd Intifada at the eve of Rosh Hashana. In response to the riots in the Old City of Jerusalem, Israeli officers were reported to have entered the area to regain order after Muslim Officials' attempts failed. Officers first shot bullets into the air, then at the rioter's feet and then directly at the crowd when previous measures failed. Therefore, even though Tuvia Grossman was not a victim of Israeli aggression, there were many Palestinians hurt that day.

A mistake such as this is easy to understand. It was not done maliciously to discredit Israel but was later taken out of context in both the Egyptian Government website as well as the Palestinian Information Center to forward initiatives against Israel and so remained propaganda.

Something like this is much harder to understand:

Hamas Mickey Mouse

Hamas has been accused of teaching children to aspire to be martyrs for Palestine in the name of Allah and after watching the video, the accusation is impossible to discredit. In the linked video, Palestinian children are told, by a Mickey Mouse look alike (the irony), named Farfour that the Zionist Occupiers are murderers, that Islam is meant to rule the world and that there should be no surrender. In a subsequent episode, Farfour is murdered by an Israeli officer after trying to protect legal documents to his grandfather's land. In later episodes, Hamas introduces the Jew-eating rabbit, Nahool the bee, and Nassur the bear- both Jihadist warriors.

The effect of the video is two-fold. First it acts as propaganda against Israel and Jews, from Hamas to the people it governs. Second, it acts as a propaganda against Hamas for Israel and other Western audiences. The issues presented by these videos go beyond our religious convictions and even beyond our support of Israel or our support of Palestine. What is morally repulsive is not that Hamas is teaching hatred of jews, but that it is teaching hatred and death to children. These videos are facts, but the context is less clear. The question is: what drives a society to such extremes? Specifically, what drives a society to freely elect a fundamentalist government?

Let us consider the conditions in Gaza prior to the election of Hamas. In 2005, after Israel withdrew both troops and settlements from the Gaza strip, it still maintained control of borders and sea and air space around the region. This made it impossible for the region to engage in trade, build capital and thus engage with it's physical and political environment effectively. Most Gazans lived in one of the eight refugee camps established since the '48 war and many lacked proper sewage. Under these conditions, Hamas, which engaged in both social projects, such as building hospitals, schools, as well as military operations, was elected. Consequently, Israel blocked humanitarian aid to Gaza in hopes of stopping militant activities, making living conditions even more dire.

The point here isn't to blame Israel for the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, although the Dec. 27th 2008 attacks have left the region beyond devastated. Nor is it to accuse Hamas of putting political and religious agendas before the welfare of its people, although recent reports show that Hamas has intercepted trucks of food and sold the contents for profit. It is simply to say that it is not religion or backwards culture that drives a mother to let a fuzzy rabbit teach her children to aspire to die and live in hate, but complete and utter despair.

Its not easy to give a context to what we see in the media and impossible to understand war without consulting it. It's a lot to take in: Civil War in Somalia, Genocide in Darfur, Crisis in the Middle East, Iraq War, War on Terror (which is or isn't like the Cold War?), War on Drugs, etc... Its no wonder Lord of the Rings swept the Oscars- its a vision of war in its simplest form, with good and evil clearly defined.

Yet, as Tuvia concludes in his firsthand account: "If truth is to prevail, we can't just "read" the newspaper. Be discerning and become part of the process. Otherwise, you're just a passive object of someone else's agenda."

-IK

Fighting Malaria - Starting with the UN

2009-02-14T13:08:00.001-05:00

One of the incredible things about New York City is its status as a center for the international community. Taking advantage of our location just a few stops from the UN, several Solutions Across Borders members took a trip on the 6 train to the United Nations headquarters to participate in a panel discussion on malaria this past December.

Despite its rank as the number one killer of children in Sub-Saharan Africa, malaria is all too often neglected by the media. Panelists emphasized that because of its prevalence in impoverished countries, its toll extends beyond human life. Pierre-Louis of the World Bank, in particular, stressed that malaria costs Africa an estimated $12 billion in lost GDP each year, through direct costs of treatment and diagnosis, as well as indirect costs resulting from sick workers. It is in effect, not only a disease of poverty, but also a disease that promotes poverty. In truth, malaria and other diseases like AIDS are detrimental not only to areas of health, but also to the development of impoverished countries.

However, SAB hopes to not only learn about the problems in our world, but to educate ourselves about possible solutions, and club members who attended the session also came away with the knowledge that there is hope to eradicate this disease. Panelist Timothy Zeimer, the President’s Malaria program coordinator stated that the US aims to reduce mortality rates by 15 percent in five years, by pairing educational programs with the distribution of anti-malarial medication and mosquito nets.

- Tina Grandinnetti

Looking Back: SAB Visits Global Kids

2009-02-09T18:52:00.001-05:00

In December, Solutions Across Borders had to opportunity to participate in Global Kids after school program created to inform high school students about global issues that face their generation today through a variety of innovative activities. On the particular day SAB visited, the students were engaged in a discussion about the children soldiers of Africa. They learned the story Emmanuel Jal, a former Sudanese child soldier turned rapper who spreads his message of peace, liberation, and power through his lyrics. To get a more hands on experience, the kids were split into teams to create freeze frames depicting images of violence, fear, and devastation- the everyday lives of children of war. The students then moved to the computer lab to begin an online political discussion with the use of their avatars in an alternate virtual reality.

Global Kids provided these high school students with an enthusiastic, intellectual, and enlightening environment that promotes revolution through knowledge and action. As SAB progresses towards its goal of spreading “the know” throughout the Baruch campus, it was encouraging to see even younger motivated individuals ready to change the world through their own inspiration. Along with the help of the Baruch student body, SAB hopes to inspire others to become better global citizens by getting more involved in their community at home and abroad.

Shelley Marshall

Center For Communication -NYU "Election Coverage"

2009-02-08T23:22:00.000-05:00

On October 8th 2008, about a month before the election for the President of the United States, SAB members attended a discussion held by the Center for Communication and hosted by NYU. In attendance were college students, Professors, and other everyday people. The panel (as seen in the photo L. to R.) Rachel Sklar from the Huffington Post, Matt Taibbi from the Rolling Stone and Hendrick Hertzberg senior editor of the New Yorker were present to discuss the presidential candidates, their policies, the media and its coverage as well as other topics in the political bubble that existed during those months. All three were in favor of Barack Obama to become President. Most of the audience in the room seemed to favor Obama as well for President, thus much of the conversation revolved around how he would do, and what he would do if elected to office. Concerns were raised as to whether "middle" America would vote for Barack Obama. All three panelists gave their input as to why Obama would win, ranging from the country wanting to get away from Bush policies, to mentioning 's of a potential shift in many of the
solid groups we are used to seeing in elections; such as republicans and democrats, evangelicals and other solid blocks usually predictable in their voting decisions. Questions were fielded by the audience to the panel which gave an intimate and informed discussion on the possible future for our country. I walked away feeling a bit more assured that we do not live in a society that is politically dumb, or rather uncaring. Ultimately making me wish that more of these type of paneled discussions occurred on a daily or weekly basis amongst the general public.

-Kadri Augustin
SAB Memeber

America and its Perception Abroad

2009-02-08T15:51:00.000-05:00

The way the world views the US has been debated as an issue of national and transnational importance. Why does it matter? Because of the unique status the United States has as a democratic government, as a nation of other nations, and as a commercial and industrial leader.

After World War II, the US emerged as a global leader, a status it maintained throughout the Cold War Era. The Bretton Woods institutions were established, and continued to dominated even in the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union. However, questions about the role of the World Bank and the WTO surfaced, and tensions exploded after the US entered the Iraq War. In the 2000s, the US lost much of its support abroad.

Is this situation different now? Is the new presidency signaling a return for American power? And why does this even matter?

A friend who visited Japan returned with Japaneses Obama pastries, told me that teenagers there were head over heels just to see the president on TV. And I remember that during the campaign, the European host of the MTV Awards pleaded for the American public to elect Barack Obama.

Let me know what you think...

Nastasiya Korolkova
President

Solutions Hosts Generation HS on World AIDS Day

2009-02-02T15:07:00.001-05:00

For the criticisms concerning the downturn in teenage behavior there are always a select few that embodies the qualities to counteract that idea; however, the apparent is not very transparent. That truth occurred to me when listening to the voices of the fifteen and sixteen year old high school students regarding the AIDS crisis. Their comments and concerns ranged from down right facts to myths created for the purpose of scaring. Even though not many expressed fear over the devastation the AIDS virus has caused it was apparent in their inquiries during the question and answer discussions signifying perhaps their curiosity will follow them after they leave our club room. To be able to stir up young minds and the chance to teach our next generation the power of knowledge is one reason why I joined Solutions Across Borders.

Ada Ng, Treasurer

Media and Politics in the Age of Globalization

2009-02-02T15:03:00.000-05:00

On October 30, 2008, Solutions Across Borders hosted its first event of the semester, titled "Media and Politics in the Age of Globalization," targeted at the entire Baruch student body and faculty. The club brought to Baruch a well qualified panel, composed of three experts from the world of mass media - Valerie Block, managing edior of Crain's New York; Zyphus Lebrun from CUNY TV; and Craig Renaud, a prominent documentary filmmaker. The discussion was centered around the then upcoming election, an event that had dominated almost all mass media outlets for the last couple of months. Within the context of the election, issues of race, gender, young voters, and the economy were raised and addressed by the panel.

Rattanamol Singh Johal