The New Global Architecture - Where Europe Fits In
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Ambassador Sheinwald discusses how he envisages international relations will form in the near and far future. He places particular emphasis on the growing importance of the US-China relationship. At the same time, Ambassador Sheinwald explores the EU as a key global power and its necessary cooperation with the US.
Synopsis
Ambassador Sheinwald clearly feels that the international stage is moving. In fact, for him, the change in the international order is accelerating due to the global financial crisis. In this sense, Ambassador Sheinwald explains that the UK has long supported expanding decision-making international institutions such as the UN Security Council. However, the UK still sees the value in intimate, power-focused bodies such as the G8. Ambassador Sheinwald discusses the fact that there is increasingly a sense that a ‘G2’ is developing between the US and China. To Ambassador Sheinwald, this model would not literally work as he argues China needs, at this stage in its development, a multilateral setting to grow into the active and cooperative power we would all like to see it become. At the same time, Ambassador Sheinwald believes that the partnership between the US and China is important in paving a solution to the current economic state and shaping the future global economy. In fact, the UK and the EU welcome this new cooperation between the two powers. Ambassador Sheinwald feels the US and the EU can harness China’s shared global interest on issues such as climate change, in which the EU has played a front role, to develop at stable global relationship. Moreover, he believes that if the US and EU can cooperate to form low carbon economies, it could incentivize China and India to act similarly. However, Ambassador Sheinwald stresses that for non-economic issues the US and China’s relationship is still important but slow moving, and he expresses the belief that it will take decades for any real ‘G2’ to emerge.
In the meantime, Ambassador Sheinwald argues that while the US looks round the world for support on key issues, it will find that the EU shares the most values and has the capacity to promote them. He cites the enormous investments between the two in comparison to the US and China to show the scale of the US and the EU’s relationship. Ambassador Sheinwald argues that financially the US and EU need regulatory cooperation, using a scientific basis, to set global standards. He stresses as well that the EU is a major global power on its own. It is increasingly seen as an honest, multilateral broker and plays a crucial in global economic recovery. Moreover, it has strong interest in fighting world terrorism. In comparison to other partners, the US can find similar values, intelligence, and capacity in the EU. In addition, the US can see more stability in Europe’s own backyard than perhaps 20 years ago. Looking to the future, Ambassador Sheinwald hopes that the Lisbon Treaty would help the EU organize itself further. Further stressing the importance of the US-EU partnership, Ambassador Sheinwald explains “nothing is more likely to be as dependable a foundation.”
In taking the time to answer questions, Ambassador Sheinwald discusses a number of issues. One partiuclar area of focus much emphasized was Europe's role in the conflict in Afghanistan. In addition, he addresses the issue of Britain and the US's relationship with China. Moreover, he also explains that he hopes that as developed countries deal with increasing security threats, their resolve in keeping their borders open will remain strong. Finally, Ambassador Sheinwald stresses the need to employ methods of sustainable, intelligent, and low carbon growth.
About the Speaker
Nigel Sheinwald joined the British Diplomatic Service in 1976 and has served in Washington (twice), Brussels (twice) and Moscow and in a wide range of policy jobs in London.
He took up his position as British Ambassador to the United States in October 2007. In that role he leads the Embassy in Washington and nine Consulates-General around the United States. He had an earlier posting to Washington in 1983-87 as First Secretary (Political) in the Embassy.
Before becoming Ambassador in Washington, Sir Nigel served as Foreign Policy and Defence Adviser to the Prime Minister from 2003-2007.
Sir Nigel was the UK Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the European Union in Brussels from 2000-2003. Before that he was Europe Director in the FCO (1998-2000). He had an earlier posting in the UK Representation in 1993-95 as Head of its Political and Institutional Section. He began his career in EU work as Deputy Head of the FCO's European Union Department in 1989-92.
Sir Nigel's first foreign posting was in Moscow in 1978-79. He was also Head of the Foreign Office's Anglo-Soviet Section in 1981-83.
Sir Nigel has had a wide variety of other appointments in the FCO in London. From 1995-98, he was the FCO Press Secretary and Head of News Department. He was Deputy Head of the Foreign Office's Policy Planning Staff in 1987-1989, responsible for transatlantic relations and other issues. He also worked in London on the Japan Desk (1976-77) and on Zimbabwe (1979-81), including the Lancaster House Conference.
Sir Nigel was born in 1953 and educated at Harrow County Grammar School and Balliol College, Oxford. He is married with three sons.
This event is jointly sponsored by the Office for International Visitors at the Bechtel International Center, the Forum on Contemporary Europe, and the British Consulate General in San Francisco.
CISAC Conference Room
Sir Nigel Sheinwald
British Ambassador to the United States
Speaker
Seminars
Language Policy in Ukraine: What People Want the State to Do
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Kulyk’s talk at Stanford will focus on popular preferences regarding language policy of the Ukrainian state as revealed by a comprehensive survey conducted in December 2006, the first such survey ever conducted in Ukraine. He will analyze the respondents’ views of actual and desirable language use in different practices, legal statuses of languages, and evolution of the language situation in the country, both on the aggregate level and broken down by ethnic, linguistic, regional, generational and other categories. He will thus demonstrate both diversity and ambivalence of popular attitudes and discuss how they influenced the state policy by constraining a compromise between the adherents of opposing political courses and, at the same time, enabling the government and major parties to alternate between emphasizing and downplaying the language issue in their political rhetoric and practice.
Volodymyr Kulyk is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Political and Ethnic Studies, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, in Kyiv, from which he received his Ph.D. in 1999. Currently, he is a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. His research fields include politics of language and ethnicity in contemporary Ukraine and other multilingual societies, language ideologies, and media discourse. Kulyk is the author of two published books and numerous articles and book chapters on these topics in Ukrainian, English and other languages. His last published text is “Language Policies and Language Attitudes in Post-Orange Ukraine”, in Juliane Besters-Dilger (ed.), Language policy and language situation in Ukraine. Analysis and recommendations (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2008). His new book, Dyskurs ukraïns’kykh medii: Identychnosti, ideolohiï, vladni stosunky (Ukrainian Media Discourse: Identities, Ideologies, Power Relations) will be published in Kyiv later this year. He guest-edited a special issue of the International Journal of the Sociology of Language on “Languages and Language Ideologies in Ukraine”, to appear in early 2010. As a Wilson Center Fellow, Kulyk works on a project titled “Language, Identity and Democracy in Post-Soviet Ukraine”, which will result in an English-language book.
Jointly sponsored by the Forum on Contemporary Europe and the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies.
Encina Ground Floor Conference Room
Volodymyr Kulyk
Woodrow Wilson Center Fellow
Speaker
Seminars
Former U.N. Special Envoy to Darfur Jan Eliasson addresses global crisis management
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Under the aegis of the Forum on Contemporary Europe, Ambassador Jan Eliasson, former U.N. Special Envoy to Darfur, visited Stanford and FSI to offer a new model for global crisis management of a wide range of issues, from piracy to global poverty. As the former president of the U.N. General Assembly, Eliasson called for concerted action by NATO, the European Union, the U.N., and other actors on pressing security and humanitarian issues. Arguing that current security and humanitarian challenges are greater than at any time in recent memory, Eliasson urged that world powers, along with international institutions, seek new leadership from the Obama administration grounded in recognition of the global impact of regional crises.
To make his case for seeing the global in the regional, Eliasson raised the specter of the escalating sea piracy off the coast of Somalia. Pirates in that region launch from the shores of a failed state – a polity that has degenerated into rival war-lord militias after combined forces of U.N. and Western powers lost their appetite for engagement, and turned their attention elsewhere. While much of the world is refocused on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, multinational corporations are increasingly subject to and pay out multi-million dollar ransoms for the release of ship crews and cargoes that include the world’s commercial arms shipments. The piracy has grown beyond instances of local plunder, into crime that threatens one of the most heavily trafficked shipping lanes between western and emerging markets. Merchant marine as well as naval fleets have been forced to change course, altering global transportation and security routes. Most recently, Eliasson’s call for international leadership would seem to have been heeded by nations attending the international summit in Brussels on the piracy crisis. At the summit, the E.U. foreign policy chief, the U.N. Secretary General, and U.S. officials joined with more than sixty countries – including Iraq – to pledge over $200 million in aid to the Somali government for security and development. This international cooperation, and attention to root causes, would seem to be the first sign of the kind of vision that Ambassador Eliasson urges for new and more comprehensive response.
Ambassador Eliasson completed his depiction of the most effective international policy responses with a focus on the world problem of poverty. Drawing on his years of experience in the international and Swedish diplomatic corps, Eliasson explained that in the most impoverished areas of the world, the most effective investment in international aid is that which funds the education of girls and young women. Teach a girl essential education, and she herself, along with her family, and her community, benefits in manifold ways. Raising his glass, Eliasson noted that great numbers of peoples still do not have access to cheap and clean water – an essential provision for health and development. Water, and access to its diminishing supply, must be understood by the world’s new leaders as the high stake behind multiple border wars.
The Forum hosted Ambassador Eliasson at FSI and Stanford for two days of talks to reach multiple audiences. At a Stanford Speakers Bureau event, Ambassador Eliasson addressed an overflow crowd of students and offered insights into the crisis in Darfur. The Forum welcomed the opportunity to bring Ambassador Eliasson, so recently from his mission in Darfur, to spur student interest in the role of international (U.N.) and regional (European Union and African Union) peace keeping operations. During the same visit to Stanford, the Forum on Contemporary Europe hosted Kerstin Eliasson, Board Member of the European Commission Joint Research Center, and former Assistant Undersecretary of the Swedish Ministry of Education and Science, to speak on research reforms in the European higher education system. Kerstin Eliasson’s public address was co-hosted with the Forum by the faculty seminar series of the Stanford Institute for Higher Education Research. The visit by Ambassador Eliasson, and Kerstin Eliasson, was a highlight of spring 2009 research and public dissemination of the Program on Sweden, Scandinavia, and the Baltic Region at the Forum on Contemporary Europe.
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Religion and Secularization in Europe?
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AGENDA
| 9:30AM | Welcome |
| 10:00AM - 12:00PM |
Morning Session
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| 2:00PM - 4:00PM |
First Afternoon Session
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| 4:30PM - 6:30PM |
Second Afternoon Session
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| 6:30PM - 7:00PM | Concluding Discussion |
Co-sponsored by the Stanford Department of Religious Studies, the Taube Center for Jewish Studies, the Mediterranean Studies Forum, the Department of History, the Stanford Humanities Center,and the Forum on Contemporary Europe.
Stanford Humanities Center
424 Santa Teresa Street
Stanford University
Symposiums
Mediterranean Film Series: "Inch'Allah Dimanche"
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Three internationally recognized films will be screened at Stanford University in April and May 2009. The screenings begin at 7:00 pm in Cubberley Auditorium located at the School of Education Building. Co-sponsored by the Mediterranean Studies Forum, the Forum on Contemporary Forum and the Department of Iberian and Latin American Cultures, the screenings are free and open to the public.
The three films, Gitmek: My Marlon and Brando (2008, Turkey/Iraq/Iran), Carol's Journey (2002, Spain/US), and Inch' allah Dimanche (2001,
Algeria/France), address the issues of love and friendship across
national borders. Each makes use of diverse cinematographic techniques
and multiple languages in providing a critical reflection on different
cultures, societies and political systems located in the Mediterranean
Basin.
Inch' allah Dimanche will be screened on Wednesday, May 27th
2009. The film tells the passionate story of an Algerian immigrant
woman struggling against old world traditions. Zouina leaves her
homeland with her three children to join her husband in France, where
he has been living for the past 10 years. In a land and culture foreign
to her, she struggles against her mother-in-law's tyrannical hand and
her husband's distrustful bitterness. The film received awards from
Marrakech, Toronto, Bordeaux, and Amiens International Film Festival.
For a printable film schedule, visit: http://www.stanford.edu/group/mediterranean/film%20series%2009.pdf
Jointly sponsored by the Forum on Contemporary Europe, Mediterranean Studies Forum, and Department of Iberian and Latin American Cultures.
Cubberley Auditorium
Stanford University
Conferences
Mediterranean Film Series: "Carol's Journey"
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Three internationally recognized films will be screened at Stanford University in April and May 2009. The screenings begin at 7:00 pm in Cubberley Auditorium located at the School of Education Building. Co-sponsored by the Mediterranean Studies Forum, the Forum on Contemporary Forum and the Department of Iberian and Latin American Cultures, the screenings are free and open to the public.
The three films, Gitmek: My Marlon and Brando (2008, Turkey/Iraq/Iran), Carol's Journey (2002, Spain/US), and Inch' allah Dimanche (2001,
Algeria/France), address the issues of love and friendship across
national borders. Each makes use of diverse cinematographic techniques
and multiple languages in providing a critical reflection on different
cultures, societies and political systems located in the Mediterranean
Basin.
Carol's Journey will be screened on May 6th 2009. The film
describes the Spanish Civil War through the eyes of a 12-year-old.
Uprooted from her home in New York, Carol travels to her mother's
native village in Spain. Separated from her adored father, she
struggles to adjust to her new life. Through her relationships with her
grandfather, a teacher and a local boy, she gains a perspective on her
situation in a nation divided. The film won the special mention at
Berlin International Film Festival.
For a printable film schedule, visit: http://www.stanford.edu/group/mediterranean/film%20series%2009.pdf
Jointly sponsored by the Forum on Contemporary Europe, Mediterranean Studies Forum, and Department of Iberian and Latin American Cultures.
Cubberley Auditorium
Stanford University
Campus Map: http://campus-map.stanford.edu/
Conferences
Mediterranean Film Series: "Gitmek: My Marlon and Brando"
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Three internationally recognized films will be screened at Stanford University in April and May 2009. The screenings begin at 7:00 pm in Cubberley Auditorium located at the School of Education Building. Co-sponsored by the Mediterranean Studies Forum, the Forum on Contemporary Forum and the Department of Iberian and Latin American Cultures, the screenings are free and open to the public.
The three films, Gitmek: My Marlon and Brando (2008, Turkey/Iraq/Iran), Carol's Journey (2002, Spain/US), and Inch' allah Dimanche (2001, Algeria/France), address the issues of love and friendship across national borders. Each makes use of diverse cinematographic techniques and multiple languages in providing a critical reflection on different cultures, societies and political systems located in the Mediterranean Basin.
Gitmek will be screened on Wednesday, April 29th 2009. It narrates the love story between Ayca, a Turkish actress, and Hama Ali, an Iraqi Kurdish actor, at the onset of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Ayca travels from Istanbul to the Iraqi border via Iran so that she can re-unite with her beloved. The journey takes her through breathtaking landscapes, strange encounters and terrifying times. The film received recognition and awards from Tribeca, Tokyo Sarajevo, Istanbul, Kerala, Jerusalem and Yerevan International Film Festival.
For a printable film schedule, visit: http://www.stanford.edu/group/mediterranean/film%20series%2009.pdf
Jointly sponsored by the Forum on Contemporary Europe, Mediterranean Studies Forum, and Department of Iberian and Latin American Cultures.
Cubberley Auditorium
Stanford University
Conferences
From Hegemony to Demise: The Politics of Lustration and the Crisis of the Church in Post-Communist Poland
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Professor Mikolaj Kunicki will present an overview of church-state relations in contemporary Poland. By focusing on the lustration of the Catholic clergy, he will discuss the decline of the political power of the church and its impact on the renegotiation of nationalist-religious identity.
Mikolaj Kunicki joined the department of history at Notre Dame in 2006. He earned his Ph.D. at Stanford University (2004). He also holds M.A. degrees from the University of London (1996), Central European University in Budapest (1994), and Warsaw University (1993). He taught at Stanford University and UC Berkeley and was a Junior Research Fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna in 2005-2006.
Kunicki is a historian of twentieth century Poland
and Eastern Europe. His work focuses primarily
on the role of nationalism in Polish and Eastern European history and analyzes
the complex entanglement of fascism, communism, and Catholicism. He is
particularly interested in exploring nationalist-communist affinities as well
as the ideological kinship between the radical right and the extreme left. By
doing so, he reevaluates and challenges the way a history of communist Poland and Eastern Europe
has been understood and presented. He is also interested in Eastern European
film, and devoted especially to examining cinematic representations of the
national past and the status of film vis-à-vis communist regimes. Kunicki
published in East European Politics and
Societies, European Review of History,
Transit, and Canadian Slavonic Revue.
Jointly sponsored by the Forum on Contemporary Europe and the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies at Stanford University.
Encina Ground Floor Conference Room
Mikolaj Kunicki
Assistant Professor, History, University of Notre Dame
Speaker
Seminars
Politics of Memory - reconstruction of a crime: xy-ungelost, container, Srebrenica
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This lecture deals with the strategies of reconstructing the suppressed memory of traumatic events in Kosova, Afghanistan, and Bosnia and Herzegovina at the end of the 20th century. In this period of transitions and changes, history has become a key conflict arena in which identity and memory are being waged. Milica Tomic's work addresses these issues in an unconventional way that challenges traditional ‘representation’ (or lack of thereof) of the past events. By combining three of her exhibited projects xy-üngelost, container and Srebrenica – this talk attempts to investigate the ways in which we can engage with the past to confront the drives to forget. Thus re-constructed material and social network of events critically investigate the politics of rights to narrate traumatic events from the past. Proceeding from the fact that what we cannot remember tells us about that which we cannot forget, Milica Tomic interprets the syntagm “politics of memory” as a demand for a renewal of politics. Stated in the negative form, it goes: There is no memory without politics!/There is no oblivion without politics!
Milica Tomic works and lives in Belgrade as a visual artist, primarily video, film, photography, performance, action, light and sound installation, web projects, discussions etc. Tomic's work centers on issues of political violence, nationality and identity, with particular attention to the tensions between personal experience and media constructed images. Milica Tomic's has exhibited globally since 1998 and participated in numerous exhibitions including Venice Biennale in 2001 and 2003, Sao Paulo Biennale in1998, Istanbul Biennale in 2003 and Sidney Biennale in 2006, Prague Biennale in 2007, Gyumri Biennale in 2008. Tomic's work was exhibited in a wide international context including the Museum voor Moderne Kunst, Arnhem, Holland, Kunsthalle Wien, Austria, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden, MUMOK- Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Vienna, Austria, Fundacio Joan Miro, Barcelona, Spain, Ludwig Museum Budapest, Hungary, Malmo Konsthall, Malmo, Sweden, Palazzo Della Triennale Milano, Milan, Italy, Museum of Contamporary Art Belgrade, Serbia, GfZK- Galerie fur Zeitgenussische Kunst, Leipzig, Germany, State Museum of Contemporary Art Thessaloniki, Greece, Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center, Copenhagen, Denmark, Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York, USA, Freud Museum, London, UK, KIASMA Nykytaiteen Museo, Helsinki, Finland, Nasjonalmuseet for Kunst, Arkitektur og Design, Oslo, Norway, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Holland etc.
A founder and member of the Monument
Group, Tomic is a organizer of numerous international
art projects and workshops, as well as lecturer at international institutions
of contemporary art, such as: NIFCA (Nordic Institute for Contemporary Art),
Kuvataideakatemia / Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki, Finland, Piet Zwart
Institut, Rotterdam, Holland, Akademie der bildenden Künste, Vienna, Austria
and others.
Jointly sponsored by the Forum on Contemporary Europe, Archaeology Center, Department of Art and Art History, and Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies.
Building 500, Archaeology Center
488 Escondido Mall
Seminar Room
Stanford University
Milica Tomic
Visual Artist, Belgrade
Speaker
Seminars