Stanford University

Immigration and Integration Project

Two premises motivate the “Immigration and Integration” project that is able to get off the ground with seed money from the FSI Policy Implementation Lab. First, there is compelling evidence of systematic discrimination, integration failure, and growing hostility towards immigrants throughout Western Europe. Second, while there is a range of innovative policies developed across Europe in the past decade to address this compelling public concern, existing research falls short in providing rigorous evidence on the success or failure of these policies.

Ukraine: A Roundtable Discussion (note time change)

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Mark von Hagen teaches the history of Eastern Europe and Russia, with a focus on Ukrainian-Russian relations, at Arizona State University, after teaching 24 years at Columbia University, where he also chaired the history department and directed the Harriman Institute.  At the Harriman Institute, he developed Ukrainian studies in the humanities and social sciences.  He was elected President of the International Association for Ukrainian Studies in 2002 and presided over the Congress in Donetsk in 2005.  He also served as President of the Association for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies (2009).  During his New York years, he was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and remains a member of the Advisory Board for Europe and Asia at Human Rights Watch.  He has worked with historians, archivists, and educators in independent Ukraine and with diaspora institutions.  He has served on the advisory board of the European University in Minsk (in exile in Vilnius, Lithuania), to the Open Society Institute; on the Board of Directors of the National Council for Eurasian and East European Research, and the International Fellowship Committee of the Social Science Research Council.
 

Ambassador Vlad Lupan has been the Ambassador, Permanent Representative of the Republic of Moldova to the United Nations, in New York, since January 2012, where he is focusing on development issues, rule of law and human rights, and conflict resolution. He has held a variety of diplomatic posts since 1996 till 2008, last one being Head of Political-Military Cooperation Department and was a negotiator on Transnistrian conflict settlement. He also worked with OSCE field Missions in in Georgia, Albania and Croatia. In 2008 Mr. Lupan joined the civil society, and became a member of the advisory board to the Ministry of Defense. During this time he was also the host of the “Euro-Atlantic Dictionary” radio talk show. In 2010 he became the Foreign Policy Advisor to the Acting President of the Republic of Moldova, and was later elected as a Member of the Parliament. 

Educated at the State University of Moldova and at the National School of Political Science and Public Administration in Bucharest, Romania, Ambassador Lupan earned his international relations degree, and later a master’s degree in journalism and public communications from the Free Independent Moldovan University in Chisinau.  Ambassador Lupan has published mainly in Romanian, though he also published in Russian or English, on foreign and domestic politics issues, including international security matters, Security Sector Reform, Transnistrian conflict settlement and European Union Eastern Partnership.
 

Dr. Yaroslav Prytula is an Associate Professor at the Department of International Economic Analysis and Finance at Lviv Ivan Franko National University (LIFNU) and a Professor at the Lviv Business School of the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, Ukraine. Previously he served as an Academic Secretary of LIFNU and a Vice-Dean of the Faculty of International Relations at LIFNU. He is a member of the Supervisory Board of Lviv Ivan Franko National University. His scholarly interests are in macroeconomic modelling, quantitative methods in social science and higher education in transitional societies. His current research is related to socio-economic regional development in Ukraine. During 2001 he spent a semester in The George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs under William and Helen Petrach scholarship and continued his research during 2003-04 in The George Washington University Research Program in Social and Organizational Learning under the U.S. Department of State funded Junior Faculty Development Program. During 2004-07 he was a fellow of the Open Society Institute Academic Fellowship Program. During 2007-09 Yaroslav was a fellow of the Global Policy Fellowship Program of the Institute for Higher Education Policy (Washington, DC). In 2011 Dr. Prytula was a visiting scholar at the George Mason University under the University Administration Support Program funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and administered by the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX). Currently Dr. Prytula is a Fulbright Research Scholar at the George Washington University School of Business. Dr. Prytula was awarded his PhD in Mathematical Analysis from LIFNU in 2000. He graduated from the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of LIFNU.  Yaroslav Prytula has received numerous awards and scholarships.

 

Presented by the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, and co-sponsored by The Europe Center and the Stanford Humanities Center.

Levinthal Hall

Mark von Hagen Professor of History Speaker Arizona State University
Ambassador Vlad Lupan Permanent Representative of the Republic of Moldova to the UN Speaker
Yaroslav Prytula Associate Professor Speaker Lviv Ivan Franko National University
Robert Crews Associate Professor of History Moderator Stanford University
Panel Discussions

The Future of European Security & Defence

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This seminar is part of the "European Governance" program series.

After decades of ambiguity towards European integration, the United States is pushing for Europe to become a genuine actor in security and foreign policy. As Vice President Biden put it at the 2013 Munich Security Conference, “a strong and capable Europe is profoundly in America’s interest, and I might add, presumptuously, the world’s interest.”

In principle, Europeans have accepted that closer defense cooperation is essential in order to maintain, and hopefully expand, existing military capabilities, and in order to reinforce mutual trust and contribute to a convergence in common goals and strategic cultures. But the sad reality is that decision-makers have not yet been willing to take the necessary decisions and disagree about what that means. In matters of European security and defense, the gap between rhetoric and policy is wider than in every other area of the European agenda, despite ever-shrinking defense budgets, declining capabilities, and the US “pivot.”

The European Council in December of 2013, focusing on defense and security issues for the first time in many years, will have to deliver ambitious projects - and member states will have to deliver when it comes to their implementation. The European Security Strategy from 2003 is in dire need of an update. And the EU’s new High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, who will assume office in 2014, will have the difficult task of developing a genuine "one voice approach", a common European foreign and security policy.

A number of fundamental issues will need to be addressed: European security policy priorities, the EU level of ambition and, even larger, the purpose and influence of the EU in a world in which we will increasingly struggle to make ourselves heard. Are EU countries ready and willing to truly join forces and pool resources?

The talk will address current efforts to enhance European security and defense policy, the political feasibility of further steps, Germany’s responsibility to push the agenda forward, and what these efforts in European defense and security policy mean for the United States.

 

Wolfgang Ischinger was the Federal Republic of Germany's Ambassador to London from 2006-2008. Prior to this assignment, he was the German Ambassador to the United States of America from 2001 to 2006. In 2007, he also represented the European Union in the Troika negotiations on the future of Kosovo.

Wolfgang Ischinger studied law at the universities of Bonn and Geneva and obtained his law degree in 1972.  He did graduate and postgraduate work at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and at Harvard Law School, Cambridge/USA (M. A., Fletcher School, 1973).

Ambassador Ischinger has published widely on foreign policy, security, and arms control policy as well as on European and transatlantic issues. He is a member of the Trilateral Commission, of the European Council on Foreign Relations, and of the Governing Board of SIPRI, Stockholm. He is Co-Chair of the Euro-Atlantic Security Initiative (Carnegie Endowment) and a member of the Global Zero Commission. He also serves on the Boards of the Atlantic Council of the U. S., of the American Institute of Contemporary German Studies (AICGS), of the American Academy, Berlin and of SWP, Berlin. He is an adjunct professor at the University of Tübingen.

CISAC Conference Room

Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger Career diplomat; Chairman of the Munich Security Conference; Global head of Government Relations at Allianz SE; member of the Supervisory Board of Allianz Deutschland AG, and of the European Advisory Board of Investcorp, London Speaker
Seminars
European Governance
European Governance Seminar Series

Barbara Tornquist-Plewa

Encina Hall
616 Serra Street
Stanford, CA 94305

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Professor of Central and Eastern European Studies and Director of the Centre for European Studies at Lund University, Sweden and Anna Lindh Fellow at The Europe Center

Barbara Törnquist-Plewa is professor of Central and Eastern European Studies and director of the Centre for European Studies at Lund University, Lund, Sweden.  Her research interest include nationalism, collective memory, myth and symbols in Central and Eastern Europe (with focus on Poland, Belarus and Ukraine) as well cultural integration in Europe.  She has been involved in and coordinated a number of research projects on these issues.  Currently she leads a large international research network called “In Search for Transcultural Memory in Europe” financed by the EU (COST-programme) and the research project “Remembering Ethnic Cleansing and Lost Cultural Diversity in Eastern European Cities”.  She is also Lund University’s coordinator for International Research Training Group (Greifswald – Lund – Tartu) “Baltic Borderlands”, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).

Professor Törnquist-Plewa's publications include monographs The Wheel of Polish Fortune : Myths in Polish Collective Consciousness during the First Years of Solidarity, (1992) and Belarus: Language and Nationalism in Borderlands (in Swedish), (2001) and a number of articles and book chapters, the most recent one "Coming to Terms with anti-Semitism in Poland", European Cultural Memory Post-89, 2013 inv.30 in European Studies Series, Amsterdam: Rodopi. She contributed to and edited 14 collections of essays, the recent entitled Cultural Transformations after Communism. Central and Eastern Europe in Focus (2011) and Painful Pasts and Useful Memories. Remembering and Forgetting in Europe, (2012).

Five foreign policy questions for Obama and Romney

News Type
Q&As
Date
Paragraphs

President Obama and Mitt Romney meet for their third debate to discuss foreign policy on Monday, when moderator Bob Schieffer is sure to ask them about last month's terrorist attack in Libya and the nuclear capabilities of Iran.

In anticipation of the final match between the presidential candidates, researchers from five centers at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies ask the additional questions they want answered and explain what voters should keep in mind.

What can we learn from the Arab Spring about how to balance our values and our interests when people in authoritarian regimes rise up to demand freedom?  

What to listen for: First, the candidates should address whether they believe the U.S. has a moral obligation to support other peoples’ aspirations for freedom and democracy. Second, they need to say how we should respond when longtime allies like Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak confront movements for democratic change.

And that leads to more specific questions pertaining to Arab states that the candidates need to answer: What price have we paid in terms of our moral standing in the region by tacitly accepting the savage repression by the monarchy in Bahrain of that country's movement for democracy and human rights?  How much would they risk in terms of our strategic relationship with Bahrain and Saudi Arabia by denouncing and seeking to restrain this repression? What human rights and humanitarian obligations do we have in the Syrian crisis?  And do we have a national interest in taking more concrete steps to assist the Syrian resistance?  On the other hand, how can we assist the resistance in a way that does not empower Islamist extremists or draw us into another regional war?  

Look for how the candidates will wrestle with difficult trade-offs, and whether either will rise above the partisan debate to recognize the enduring bipartisan commitment in the Congress to supporting democratic development abroad.  And watch for some sign of where they stand on the spectrum between “idealism” and “realism” in American foreign policy.  Will they see that pressing Arab states to move in the direction of democracy, and supporting other efforts around the world to build and sustain democracy, is positioning the United States on “the right side of history”?

~Larry Diamond, director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law

What do you consider to be the greatest threats our country faces, and how would you address them in an environment of profound partisan divisions and tightly constrained budgets? 

What to listen for: History teaches that some of the most effective presidential administrations understand America's external challenges but also recognize the interdependence between America's place in the world and its domestic situation.

Accordingly, Americans should expect their president to be deeply knowledgeable about the United States and its larger global context, but also possessed of the vision and determination to build the country's domestic strength.

The president should understand the threats posed by nuclear proliferation and terrorist organizations. The president should be ready to lead in managing the complex risks Americans face from potential pandemics, global warming, possible cyber attacks on a vulnerable infrastructure, and failing states.

Just as important, the president needs to be capable of leading an often-polarized legislative process and effectively addressing fiscal challenges such as the looming sequestration of budgets for the Department of Defense and other key agencies. The president needs to recognize that America's place in the world is at risk when the vast bulk of middle class students are performing at levels comparable to students in Estonia, Latvia and Bulgaria, and needs to be capable of engaging American citizens fully in addressing these shared domestic and international challenges.

~Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation

Should our government help American farmers cope with climate impacts on food production, and should this assistance be extended to other countries – particularly poor countries – whose food production is also threatened by climate variability and climate change?

What to listen for: Most representatives in Congress would like to eliminate government handouts, and many would also like to turn away from any discussion of climate change. Yet this year, U.S. taxpayers are set to pay up to $20 billion to farmers for crop insurance after extreme drought and heat conditions damaged yields in the Midwest.

With the 2012 farm bill stalled in Congress, the candidates need to be clear about whether they support government subsidized crop insurance for American farmers. They should also articulate their views on climate threats to food production in the U.S. and abroad.

Without a substantial crop insurance program, American farmers will face serious risks of income losses and loan defaults. And without foreign assistance for climate adaptation, the number of people going hungry could well exceed 15 percent of the world's population. 

~Rosamond L. Naylor, director of the Center on Food Security and the Environment

What is your vision for the United States’ future relationship with Europe? 

What to listen for: Between the end of World War II and the end of the Cold War, it was the United States and Europe that ensured world peace. But in recent years, it seems that “Europe” and “European” have become pejoratives in American political discourse. There’s been an uneasiness over whether we’re still friends and whether we still need each other. But of course we do.

Europe and the European Union share with the United States of America the most fundamental values, such as individual freedom, freedom of speech, freedom to live and work where you choose. There’s a shared respect of basic human rights. There are big differences with the Chinese, and big differences with the Russians. When you look around, it’s really the U.S. and Europe together with robust democracies such as Canada and Australia that have the strongest sense of shared values.

So the candidates should talk about what they would do as president to make sure those values are preserved and protected and how they would make the cooperation between the U.S. and Europe more effective and substantive as the world is confronting so many challenges like international terrorism, cyber security threats, human rights abuses, underdevelopment and bad governance.

~Amir Eshel, director of The Europe Center

Historical and territorial issues are bedeviling relations in East Asia, particularly among Japan, China, South Korea, and Southeast Asian countries. What should the United States do to try to reduce tensions and resolve these issues?

What to listen for: Far from easing as time passes, unresolved historical, territorial, and maritime issues in East Asia have worsened over the past few years. There have been naval clashes, major demonstrations, assaults on individuals, economic boycotts, and harsh diplomatic exchanges. If the present trend continues, military clashes – possibly involving American allies – are possible.

All of the issues are rooted in history. Many stem from Imperial Japan’s aggression a century ago, and some derive from China’s more assertive behavior toward its neighbors as it continues its dramatic economic and military growth. But almost all of problems are related in some way or another to decisions that the United States took—or did not take—in its leadership of the postwar settlement with Japan.

The United States’ response to the worsening situation so far has been to declare a strategic “rebalancing” toward East Asia, aimed largely at maintaining its military presence in the region during a time of increasing fiscal constraint at home. Meanwhile, the historic roots of the controversies go unaddressed.

The United States should no longer assume that the regional tensions will ease by themselves and rely on its military presence to manage the situation. It should conduct a major policy review, aimed at using its influence creatively and to the maximum to resolve the historical issues that threaten peace in the present day.

~David Straub, associate director of the Korea Studies Program at the Walter H. Shorentein Asia-Pacific Research Center

 

Compiled by Adam Gorlick.

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Romanian Film Festival at Stanford: "Performing Identities in Romanian Cinema"

The third edition of the Romanian Film Festival at Stanford.  The theme “Performing Identities” inspires this year’s selection of films celebrating established filmmakers while also introducing new artists.  The audience will have the opportunity to view and experience the multifaceted aspects of Romanian cinema as showcased by films directed by Radu Gabrea (Goldfaden’s Legacy, Rumenye-Rumenye, and The Red Gloves),  Mona Nicora (Our School), Lucian Pintilie (Carnival Scenes), Marian Crisan (Morgen), Claudiu Mitcu (Two of Us) and student films directed by Cristian Mungiu (2007 Palme d'Or)  and Corneliu Porumboiu (Fipresci Prize and the Jury Prize at the 2009).

Throughout the festival, there will be Q&A sessions and panel discussions with special guest directors and academics from Stanford and San Francisco State University. 

For the full schedule of films, Q&As and panel discussions and the list of special guests, please visit the festival website.

Bechtel International Center

Conferences

European Involvement in Serbia: From Intervention to Integration?

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In this lecture, Professor Radeljic will discuss the collapse of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, discuss the post-Milosevic era in Serbia and examine the challenges Serbia faces on its way toward EU membership.

Branislav Radeljic is a Senior Lecturer in International Politics. His main research interests focus on the study of European Union politics and Eastern Europe. Accordingly, his forthcoming book will look at European Community involvement in the Yugoslav state crisis and the role of non-state actors. In addition to these, Professor Radeljic is interested in and has written about the presence of Islam in the EU and its impact on future EU policy-making.

Co-sponsored by The Europe Center and the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies (CREEES)

Download pdf

CISAC Conference Room

Branislav Radeljic Senior Lecturer Speaker School of Law and Social Sciences, University of East London
Seminars

What is in A Coffee Cup? Turkey and the European Union

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5:00 pm: Reception
6:00 PM: Screening of “Coffee Futures” (2009, 22 minutes), followed by a discussion with:

  • Zeynep Gursel
    (Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan- Ann Arbor; Director & Co-producer of “Coffee Futures”)
  • Hakan Tekin
    (Consul General of the Republic of Turkey in Los Angeles)
  • Cihan Tugal
    (Department of Sociology, University of California- Berkeley)

Panelists will focus on political, historical and cultural issues surrounding Turkey’s accession to the European Union.

Coffee Futures (2009, 22 minutes) weaves together the Turkish custom of coffee fortune-telling with Turkey’s attempt to join the European Union since 1959, revealing the textures of a society whose fate has long been nationally and internationally debated often in relation to Europeanness. It aims to encourage a dialogue born from openness, and explores what kind of a place one wants Europe to be in the future.  Coffee Futures received 2009 Special Jury Award for Originality from EurActiv Fondation. In 2010,  it received Best Documentary Short Award in MiradasDoc Festival, Audience Award in !f Istanbul International Independent Film Festival, and Audience Award in Ann Arbor Film Festival. For more information, please visit http://www.neysehalimfilm.com/

Zeynep Gursel is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan- Ann Arbor, and director & co-producer of “Coffee Futures.” She received her Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of California-Berkeley. Her research focuses on how things become imagineable both for individuals and groups, and how forms in which the past and today are narrated are shaped by, and in turn shape, expectations of the future. She was introduced to the documentary world when she worked on Damming the Euphrates(Paxton Winters, 2001) in Southeast Turkey. She is currently completing a book manuscript, Image Brokers,  on the culture of the international photojournalism industry. 
 
Hakan Tekin is Consul General of the Republic of Turkey in Los Angeles. He received his B.A.in International Relations from Ankara University in 1989 and joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Turkey in 1990. He served in Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates) and Sofia (Bulgaria), attended the NATO Defense College Senior Course in Rome, and worked at the Permanent Mission of Turkey to the United Nations in New York. He assumed his post in Los Angeles as Consul General in April 2007.

Cihan Tugal is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of California- Berkeley. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Michigan- Ann Arbor. His research focuses on the role of religion in political projects and how the interaction between religion and politics shapes everyday life, urban space, class relations, and national identity. His book Passive Revolution: Absorbing the Islamic Challenge to Capitalism was published in 2009 by Stanford University Press. His works also appeared in Economy and Society, Theory and Society, Sociological Theory, the New Left Review, the Sociological Quarterly, and edited volumes.

Co-sponsored by the Mediterranean Studies Forum, The Europe Center, The Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies, Turkish Student Association,  Ford Dorsey Program in International Policy Studies.

Paul Brest Hall East
Munger Graduate Residence
Building 4
555 Salvatierra Walk

Zeynep Gursel Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan- Ann Arbor; Director & Co-producer of “Coffee Futures” Speaker
Hakan Tekin Consul General of the Republic of Turkey in Los Angeles Speaker
Cihan Tugal Speaker Department of Sociology, University of California- Berkeley
Conferences

Film screening: "If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle"

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5 mm film screening (94 mins) followed by a Q&A session with the film director Florin Serban, and moderated by Steve Kovacs, Professor, Cinema Department at San Francisco State University.

Film Synopsis:
Silviu has only 5 days left before his release from the juvenile detention centre. But 5 days becomes an eternity when his mother returns from a long absence to take his younger brother away - a brother whom he raised like a son. Moreover, he has fallen in love with a beautiful social worker. With time running out and his emotions boiling over, Silviu closes his eyes... freedom, the wind, the road, his first kiss. Anything can happen to him now...

About the Director:
Florin Serban was born born in Resita, Romania in 1975. He studied philosophy at Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca earning a Master’s degree in Philosophy of Culture & Hermeneutics. He was accepted in the Film Program at the National University of Theatre and Film Arts in Bucharest where he studied film directing. In parallel, he also worked as producer/director for ProTv Bucharest and wrote, directed and acted in several short films. Florin continued his studies on a full scholarship at Colombia University in New York City and graduated five years later with a MFA in film directing. Upon his graduation, Serban returned to Romania and directed his first feature lengh film titled If I Want To Whistle, I Whistle, which premiered at the 2010 Berlin Film Festival, winning the Silver Bear and the Alfred Bauer Prize for innovation in filmmaking. Recently Florin Serban founded an acting school for people from different social and economic backgrounds including youth who have been through the correctional or penitenciary systems in Romania.

Co-sponsored by the Billie Achilles Fund; Bechtel International Center, Graduate Student Council, Romanian Student Association, Special Language Program, Drama Department, and The Europe Center, Stanford; ISEEES, UC Berkeley; IRC Bucharest, Romania; Romanian Honorary Consulate, San Francisco; Casa Romana, Hayward; Blue Collar Films, San Francisco; Coupa Cafe, Palo Alto

Cubberley Auditorium

Conferences

Josef Joffe: The Wall and the end of history

Authors
Josef Joffe
News Type
Commentary
Date
Paragraphs
"November 9, 1989, deserves a towering monument in every European capital - a marker of something completely new under the European sun," writes FSI Senior Fellow Josef Joffe in Newsweek. "Unlike in 1789, the promise of peace and liberty was truly delivered. Unlike in 1919 ... 1989 brought an end to the worst part of European history."

Twenty years ago, a few months before the Berlin Wall fell, the American political scientist Francis Fukuyama predicted "not just the end of the Cold War … but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government."

He was wrong, of course, as were all the "end of" prophets of the past. Liberal democracy is hardly what inspires current forces like Iranian Khomeinism, global jihadism, the caudillismo of Latin America, or the neo-tsarism of Russia. But what about Europe?

The collapse of the 3.7-meter-tall monster in Berlin on Nov. 9, 1989, did bring about—or, more accurately, complete—a momentous transformation of the Old Continent. For the past 2,000 years, Europe had been the source of the best and the worst in human history. It invented practically everything that matters: from Greek philosophy to Roman law, from the Renaissance to the fax machine, from Brunelleschi to Bauhaus. But this was also where the world's deadliest wars erupted, killing tens of millions. It was in Europe that the most murderous ideologies were invented: communism, fascism, and Nazism, complete with the Gulag, the Gestapo, and Auschwitz.

That history truly ended with the Berlin Wall. Gone are the million soldiers who once manned a line running from the Baltic to the Black Sea, and so are thousands of nuclear weapons. The French and Germans no longer fight over Alsace-Lorraine, and it's impossible to imagine another partition of Poland, or mass murder in the name of the Lord, or a flood of refugees like the tens of millions who crisscrossed Europe in the 20th century. Yes, we recently saw ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, but that was a cottage industry compared with what Hitler and Stalin wrought, and it was quickly bankrupted by the U.S. Air Force.

Post-wall Europe, meanwhile, has come to mean peace, social democracy, and the EU Commission, which has made Karl Marx's prediction come true at last: after the final class struggle, "power over men" would yield to the "administration of things." So it has: regulation has replaced revolution, and the welfare state has trumped the warfare state. Marx got only the timing wrong; it would take 140 years from the Communist Manifesto to the fall of the wall.

But the wait was worth it. The wall fell without bloodshed; the Soviet Union was the first empire that died in bed, so to speak, with barely a shot being fired. The Velvet Revolutions that made Europe whole again truly ended European history as we knew it. Traditional revolutions beget counterrevolutions and new rounds of repression and revolt. That cycle was broken in 1989, a miraculous first that bodes so well for the future. Yes, conflict continues in Europe, but not the kind that sets fire to history. Today the clashes are over taxes and spending, zoning and shop-closing hours, the sway of Brussels and the reserve rights of national capitals, abortion and same-sex marriage. Politics hasn't been abolished, but the really touchy items have been safely outsourced to the courts—far from the streets and even from parliaments.

The fall of the wall did not create this brave new world; it sped it up and ratified it. But as a revolution without victims (except for the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, who was shot, and a few other leaders who served short prison terms), Nov. 9, 1989, deserves a towering monument in every European capital—a marker of something completely new under the European sun. Unlike in 1789, the promise of peace and liberty was truly delivered. Unlike in 1919, when the continent erupted in revolutions that spawned totalitarian counterrevolutions, 1989 brought an end to the worst part of European history. That's not bad when you consider the origins: a flustered East German functionary looking into the TV cameras and announcing, well, yes, as far as he knew, East Berliners could freely cross into the West—right now.

Elsewhere in the world, history continues in its bloody fashion. But if you want to know how to end it nice and smoothly, check out what Europe managed 20 years ago.

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