By: KELSEY HAMILTON

NANJING – Halloween came early this Saturday at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center with a night-long celebration for the students and staff. The event featured music, a live band and a gift card raffle. Costumes were mandatory for attendance and did not disappoint. Highlights included a full-piece Winnie the Pooh costume, Daenerys Targaryen, and Rorschach from Watchmen.

Attendees voted on awards such as “scariest costume” and “funniest costume” for a Center-wide costume contest. Winning “most creative” were Sun Yi and Anneliese Gegenheimer for their pairing of Frozen’s Anna and Elsa. Gegenheimer explains, “Sun Yi had never done Halloween before and wanted to dress up. I wanted something where we were sisters because we’re roommates, and was trying to think of something she’d know that’s also famous in China. I said Frozen, and it just worked.”

The Hopkins-Nanjing student band took the stage at 9 p.m. The set-list featured seven songs, including Halloween classics like “Monster Mash” and “Thriller,” as well as some non-holiday hits like “Toxic.” To prepare, the band practiced twice a week for about a month and every day in the week leading up to the party. Bassist Joel Forsstrom’s favorite song to play was “Uptown Funk” because the band’s version had solos for the drums, guitar and bass. The song ended with a three-minute extended jam session. “Thriller” was a hit among the American students, including Brian Hart. “I always love Thriller, because that’s the most Halloween-y song ever,” he says.

The Hopkins-Nanjing Center ‘banwei’ committee (a student council consisting of elected international and Chinese students) organized the night’s festivities. The committee spent the majority of Friday and Saturday putting up $200 worth of decorations, including a spider-web wall where party-goers could take pictures.  

The Halloween celebration was relatively unique as the holiday is not widely celebrated in China, though it is becoming more popular according to Certificate student Mao Tingting. Gao Yaqian, a master’s student, notes the growing popularity of Halloween, Christmas and Valentine’s Day in Chinese culture, since “businessmen have a great opportunity to sell things, and people like to have fun and go to parties.”

BY UTPALA MENON

A few years ago, Irene Khan was invited by Amnesty Spain to visit a cemetery in Tenerife. She was asked to visit the graves that were stacked on top of each other, a common burial practice in the region. However, what was particularly haunting about that sight was the fact that they were nameless.

Khan, the former head of Amnesty International, spoke with SAIS Bologna students last week as a part of the International Migration series for the Bologna Institute for Policy Research. She started the conversation with that anecdote, illustrating to the gathered students the gravity and anonymity facing migrants in the midst of crisis.

Irene Khan has had a long and impressive career. She began her time with the United Nations at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), where she spent nearly two decades. She was then appointed to serve as the Secretary General of Amnesty International, where she was known for her extensive work in human rights. She currently works as the Director General for the International Development Law Organization.

Khan’s biggest worry about the state of migration today is the failure of legal institutions to protect human rights over the course of migration, particularly in the case of the current Syrian migrant crisis.

At SAIS, Khan introduced this concern by clarifying the concept of rule of law to the students. She defines it as a legal system backed by effective, transparent and accountable institutions. Rule of law, Khan added, rests on the foundation of human rights ideals.

The problem, however, lies in the fact that many countries who accept the legal system may not necessarily embrace the human rights ideals at the core of the law. A big part of this discussion examined how states react to the situation and pressure other states to factor human rights into their legal conversations.

After the event, first-year MA student Eleanor Dickens said, “I really appreciated how Ms. Khan discussed the ways we can influence states to improve their human rights policies without imposing on their sovereignty.”

“A moment that particularly stuck out to me was when she discussed migrants who die on the high seas of the Mediterranean,” she continued. “She said that whether those migrants come from Burkina Faso or Syria – are refugees or migrant workers – they could all still die in the same unsafe conditions in which they migrate. So she advocated establishing safe and legal means of migrating and highlighted the importance of legal procedure”.

In addition to the procedural issues, a common thread of concern was of the transgressions against the migrant communities during their integration into receiving societies, particularly in the context of the far-right movements in Europe. Khan believes that a culture of fear is driving politics today and this trend can endanger migrant integration. She believes that migrant rights should be complemented by fearless leadership to counter these transgressions and set a welcoming tone for migrants, especially those who contribute to receiving economies.

Second-year MAIA student Sofia Cornali commented on this topic of integration: “I thoroughly enjoyed the attention Ms. Khan gave to the issue of the vulnerability of migrants, refugees or not, in their new surroundings. Looking back on my work at the Portuguese Council of Refugees, I can now remember how asylum seekers felt especially protected when they had a legal team constantly reminding them of their rights and obligations.”

While the students reflected on their past work in migration and asked Khan related questions, the emerging theme was a lack of legal framework in the international community. Unfortunately, according to Khan, the migration crisis often fails to grab the attention it deserves when it comes to rule of law.

Ultimately, Khan’s concern is a fundamental one – how can we restore legal state protection for these migrants? Khan ended her conversation by stating that this is only possible if the international community looks at the migration issue as a crucial one, which begins with asking the right questions.

BY PATRICK KELLEY

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi implored SAIS students to advance political dialogue in the face of rising global populism during his speech Wednesday morning at SAIS’s Washington, D.C. campus. The speech came as part of his official state visit, including what was likely President Obama’s final state dinner.

During his hour-long visit, Renzi called on students to “help us to surpass the politics of 140 characters,” and warned of the dangers of nationalism and isolationism driving populist movements in America and Europe, and leading to what he described as “verbal violence.”

Renzi’s visit to SAIS came weeks ahead of Italy’s Dec. 4th constitutional referendum, when Italians will vote on whether to shrink the size of the senate with the aim of reducing political gridlock in Rome. Renzi has tied his premiership to the vote, saying he will step down as Prime Minister should the country vote against the plebiscite.

While Renzi has vowed publicly to leave office should the referendum fail, President Obama said yesterday that he would like Renzi to “hang around for a while no matter what.”

As part of Renzi’s push for a “yes” vote, the 41-year-old Prime Minister enlisted the services of former Obama adviser Jim Messina, paying him around €400,000 to advance the “yes” campaign. Messina, who also advised David Cameron on Brexit, will look to the referendum for his first victory in European plebiscite advising.

Recent polls have the “no” camp leading, with Renzi’s greatest challenges coming from populist political parties like The Northern League and the 5Star Movement, which won Rome’s mayoral race in June.

The referendum has also pulled former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi from political hibernation to rally his party, Forza Italia, against the referendum. Berlusconi, who was barred from office after being convicted of tax fraud, claims that the referendum is merely a distraction from “the economic failures of [Renzi’s] government.”

Renzi — who is advised on economic matters by SAIS professor Filippo Taddei — emphasized that fledgling economies drive populism even more than the deadly terrorism that has ravaged the European continent in recent months.

In the face of political opposition and uncertainty, Renzi spoke hopefully of the future, quoting John F. Kennedy toward the end of his speech: “Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.”

Renzi will end his state visit at Kennedy’s grave in Arlington National Cemetery.

BY UTPALA MENON

On Monday, October 10, Ratna Kapur joined SAIS students for a conversation on her area of expertise: the role of culture and tradition in law. The event was a part of the speaker series with the Bologna Institute of Policy Research (BIPR) and specifically addressed Indian Constitutional Law from a faith perspective. Titled “Secularism, Religion and Hindu Majoritarianism in Indian Constitutional Law,” the conversation explored the role of Hindutva in shaping the judgments passed by modern Indian Constitutional Law.

Kapur has been a visiting professor at a number of international law schools including NYU School of Law, Georgetown University Law Centre and the United Nations Peace University. She has also been a visiting fellow at Harvard Law School and Senior Advisor to the United Nations Mission in Nepal. Her most recent  book discusses the concept of freedom from illiberal perspectives. This topic was reflected in Monday’s event, during which she walked the audience through secularism, religion and the role they play in the Indian Constitution.

According to Kapur, Indian religious pluralism, often marketed as ‘Incredible India’, reflects some deep societal inconsistencies. Kapur posits that recent decades have been marked by a disintegration of real Indian pluralism, despite the many religious communities within its borders. Hindutva, a form of Hindu nationalism, is a major part of right wing politics in India and is evident from the principles of dominant political parties.

While politics have always had religious aspects in India, what concerns Kapur and others is Hindutva’s strong influence on the legal judgments made by Indian courts during many cases involving religious minorities. Kapur asserts that a larger part of the problem deals with the misreading of secularism as a concept of Indian Constitutional Law and the politicization of the Hindu Ideology to dominate non-Hindu and minority rights.

Hindutva nationalists argue for secularism to be the equal treatment of all religious communities. However, Kapur believes that they tactfully use this stance to assert that various minority rights such as access to education are in violation of the constitutional mandate to treat all citizens equally. This irony makes the phenomenon of Hindutva politics a scary prospect in the constitutional law of Indian democracy.

While the talk made some interesting points about secularism specifically in India, Kapur also impacted the international perspectives of various students. first-year MA student Phil Kamper reflected on the topic of religion, secularism and the separation of church and state in Europe. “It was an exceptional talk,” said Kamper, “and underlined the need for a broad public debate on equality and freedom of religion while maintaining human rights and fighting bigotry. We can see that the rise of the far-righting populism challenges this convention. Victor Orban and Marine Le Pen readily invoke Christianity as a defining European feature, ignoring the secular tradition of pluralism and humanism within European society.”

Additionally, other students found the topic particularly relevant to other social considerations such as the treatment of women in Indian society.

The President of the Global Women in Leadership club, Chelsea Sommer, said, “I thought it was incredibly interesting when she described how the Bharatiya Janata Parta (BJP) in India also claims to be saving Hindu women from Islam, particularly because during the time I spent living in India, I saw first-hand how regressive the BJP’s stance is towards women.”

“It was especially alarming,” Sommer continued, “that the judicial system, depending on their definition of secularism, can actually dictate how religious meanings are practiced and interpreted, and may actually be severely damaging to plurality and equality”.

The talk ends on a note suggesting the desperate need for change in order to combat the transgressions against minorities by Hindu majoritarianism. While Kapur dismisses any potential security threat from Hindutva, she suggests that it has normalized and neutralized what was once a pluralistic society.  

By WILLIAM YALE

WASHINGTON–Last month on March 9, former U.S. National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley arrived at SAIS for a wide-ranging discussion on the Middle East, moderated by SAIS Foreign Policy Institute Senior Fellow, Ambassador Shirin Tahir-Kheli. Much of the conversation focused on the long-term, second- and third-order effects emanating from current crises in the Middle East, particularly the Islamic State’s violent attempt to establish a Caliphate and the potential of a diplomatic deal regarding Iran’s nuclear capability.

Both Hadley and Ambassador Tahir-Kheli agreed that most policy discussions regarding the Islamic State focus on narrow tactical questions, such as whether to increase or scale back bombing of the Islamic State or whether to embed troops in Iraq. But the real challenge for both the U.S. government and for the policy community, Hadley said, is to construct a long-term political and economic development plan for a post-Islamic State Iraq and Syria. In this sense, Hadley endorsed a return to nation-building in the Middle East to maintain stability once it has been won. Hadley insisted that this would not be a futile exercise, asserting that by 2008, the U.S. had achieved what it wanted to achieve in Iraq; namely, an inclusive political structure, decreasing sectarian violence, and hopeful economic indicators. In addition, he gave Afghanistan a 50/50 chance of maintaining political stability and economic growth under that country’s new president, Ashraf Ghani.

At the same time, Hadley worried about impediments to stable, liberal governments in the Middle East, quoting former Jordanian Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Marwan al-Muasher as saying that neither of the twin political traditions in the Middle East, Arab nationalism and political Islam, have any tradition of tolerance and inclusion. Hadley noted that not only does the Israeli-Palestinian conflict continue to serve as an excuse for Arab countries not to liberalize, but autocratic leaders (such as President Mubarak of Egypt) also commonly eliminate moderate democrats so as to present a rigidly-defined choice between the existing regimes and variants of political Islam such as the Muslim Brotherhood. In addition, sectarianism continues to be exploited by all sides, including the Islamic State and Iran.

Hadley also channeled the views of Sunni-majority allied states in the region, saying that while they are active in both participating in the U.S.-led military campaign against the Islamic State and challenging its ideology, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States question U.S. commitment. They believe, Hadley said, that the U.S. was too slow to respond to Syria and that the current strategy is a failure; they worry intensely about a potential nuclear deal with Iran (there is a pernicious theory, Hadley said, that any deal would signal a reversion to Iran as the principal ally in the Middle East); and they are worried that given the U.S. failure to enforce red lines in Syria, Iran will be granted impunity as long as it does not develop nuclear weapons.

In Hadley’s view, any nuclear agreement with Iran will be in “the eye of the beholder.” Under the current plan of action, some enrichment capability will remain. Key questions to be answered include: How much nuclear infrastructure will Iran be allowed to keep? And how long will the agreement last? Hadley iterated that if an agreement is made, the U.S. must be able to sell it to allies in the region by including provisions for the contingency that Iran reneges on the deal, such as snapback sanctions, a pre-authorization of military force, and a general push back against Iran’s influence in the region. Ultimately, Hadley noted, Arab states (particularly the Saudis) worry that if sanctions are lifted on Iran as part of the deal, billions of dollars in oil revenue will be put in the hands of people like Qassem Suleimani, the commander of the Quds Force (the elite Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps unit), who is currently on the ground in Iraq, helping to push the Islamic State out of Tikrit.

At heart, Hadley’s belief in nation-building and strong opposition to autocracy in the Middle East is rooted in both his personal experiences and moral convictions. Hadley recounted that the many failed attempts to deal with Bashar al-Assad during the Bush administration led him to be jaded about cooperating with autocrats, and stated it would be a moral affront to negotiate with a leader who had killed 300,000 of his own people, asking, “What lesson is that to the tyrants of the world? If you’re brutal enough, the international community will allow you to keep power….Do we want to live in a world of Assads and Saddam Husseins?”