After the Blue Wave: How Will the Democrats' New Clout Affect U.S. Asia Policy
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The "blue wave" of Democratic Party victories on November 7th has altered the dynamics inside Congress and between the legislative and executive branches. U.S. policy toward Asia will be significantly affected. We can expect new and different pressures on relations with regional actors including China and the Koreas, on Asian regionalism, and on trade and economic issues. Indonesia is likely to come in for particular scrutiny. Join us for a timely discussion of the changed domestic politics of U.S. Asia policy now and in the final two years of the Bush administration.
The U.S.-Indonesia Society (USINDO) is an independent NGO specializing in policy issues relating to Indonesia and Southeast Asia. Alphonse La Porta assumed the presidency of USINDO in 2004 after a 38-year career in the U.S. Foreign Service. In the latter capacity he served as ambassador to Mongolia and held diplomatic positions in Indonesia, Malaysia, Turkey, and New Zealand. A former president of the American Foreign Service Association, Ambassador La Porta is a graduate of the National War College, Georgetown University, and New York University.
Daniel and Nancy Okimoto Conference Room
Alphonse F. La Porta
President
Speaker
United States-Indonesia Society, Washington, D.C.
Seminars
Martyr Narratives of the Spanish Civil War
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Cosponsored with the Iberian Studies Program, the Mediterranean Studies Forum, and the Department of History.
Noël Valis is a Professor of Spanish at Yale University. She previously taught at Johns Hopkins University, the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, and the University of Georgia. Her areas of interest include nineteenth- and twentieth-century Spanish literature and culture, comparative literature, and interdisciplinary approaches to modern Spanish culture.
She has published 19 books and numerous articles in PMLA, Novel, Romanic Review, Hispanic Review, Modern Age, MLN, Comparative Literature Studies, Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, and other journals and essay collections. In May 2004 she was elected President of the Twentieth-Century Spanish Association of America. She is the recipient of both an NEH (National Endowment for the Humanities) Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship for 2006-07, for the book project, Body Sacraments: Catholicism and the Imagination in Modern Spanish Narrative.
She received her B.A. from Douglass College and her Ph.D. in Spanish and French from Bryn Mawr College.
Encina Ground Floor Conference Room
Noël Valis
Professor of Spanish at Yale University
Speaker
Lectures
Divided Memories and Reconciliation
There are two obstacles to understanding how historical memory about the wartime period has been formed in Northeast Asia. The first is the existence of persistent national myths about war memory—myths created within those nations and perceptions formed from the outside, and entrenched through the media and popular culture. The second obstacle is the lack of comparative context. The study of historical memory has, until recently, been focused almost entirely on Japan, without comparison to other principle actors in Asia such as China and Korea, or to the United States.
Cross Currents: Regionalism and Nationalism in Northeast Asia
This conference examines the cross currents of growing regional integration and rising nationalism in Northeast Asia. This strategic region is standing at a turning point in its history, marked by the end of the Cold War and by the emergence of China as a major power. With the major economies of China, Japan and South Korea growing increasingly interdependent, the movement toward regionalism is gaining momentum. Yet interdependency, often set in a global context, also encourages growing nationalism in all three countries and beyond. The historic rivalry between Japan and China for leadership in Northeast Asia has re-emerged.
This conference posed a set of vital questions to understand how regionalism and nationalism interact in Northeast Asia and potential future trends. What are the competing visions of regional integration now being considered and what are their prospects for realization? How do national tensions, including the Sino-Japanese rivalry, stunt the movement toward regionalism? What is the American relationship to Northeast Asian regionalism? Does the system of Cold War alliances built by the United States still have a role in Northeast Asia?
Bechtel Conference Center
Conferences
Shorenstein APARC's Southeast Asia Forum co-hosts the visit and public lecture by Malaysia's former deputy prime minister
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The increasing sectarian conflict in Iraq and the rise of Islamist parties like Hamas and Hezbollah have put American efforts to democratize the Middle East on hold and raised doubts among experts and policy makers about whether democracy is compatible with the Muslim faith. But in a campus appearance yesterday afternoon, former Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim offered an ardent defense of democracy in the Muslim world, telling a standing-room-only crowd in Bechtel Conference Center that "men and women are born free, even in the Islamic construct."
Alternating between serious and sporting through his two-hour speech, Ibrahim broached many of the issues aggravating relations between Islam and the West, including gender relations, American foreign policy, cultural assimilation in Europe and Pope Benedict XVI's recent comments about Islam. However, he was most outspoken regarding his home country - he was a political prisoner in Malaysia for over four years - and rejected the race - and religious-based affirmative action policies that benefit the Malay majority there.
Returning repeatedly to the topic of Muslim democracy, Ibrahim drew from historical references and personal experiences, citing the democratic regimes of Indonesia and Iran of 1950s.
"There was no debate then whether democracy was compatible with Islam," he said. "Fifty years later, we have our leaders in the Muslim world telling us we're not ready."
The fundamental nature of democracy and human rights is universal, Ibrahim emphasized, adding that problems begin with cultural miscommunication.
"We have to debunk and reject the notion, held by Muslims and non-Muslims alike, that to support democracy and freedom is to support America, "he said. "And it is important for Americans to realize democracy is a value cherished as much by Muslims as it is by Americans."
"Misperceptions are unfortunate," he added, elaborating on his impressions of American culture. "This is a country full of contradictions. The level of sophistication and intellectual flavor is unparalleled. So why must people be so prejudiced? Why is misunderstanding so pervasive? To say that Muslims are entirely anti-America is wrong."
Ibrahim offered scathing criticism of his fellow Muslims for violent reactions to both the publication of caricatures of Mohammad in a Danish newspaper in 2005 and to the more recent comment by Pope Benedict XVI referring to elements of Islam as "evil and inhuman." The cartoon spawned riots killing 139 in Nigeria, Libya, Pakistan and Afghanistan, while the Pope's remarks fueled a maelstrom of controversy, including the firebombing of Catholic churches throughout the Middle East and the shooting death of a nun in Somalia.
"There is a right to disagree but no one has the right to cause destruction or destroy life," he said. "No one has the right to call for the banning of newspapers."
Acknowledging that his comments were not necessarily indicative of Islamic public opinion, he said, "This view may not be shared by all Muslims, but I am prepared to confront them."
Ibrahim's penchant for speaking his mind and sticking to his principles has dogged the leader through a career of controversy. As a young Malaysian activist in the 1970s, he was arrested during a student protest and spent 20 months in a detention camp. Following a meteoric political ascent, he was named Deputy Prime Minister in 1993, and many expected that he was Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohammad's chosen successor.
But their relationship turned sour, and in Sept. 1998 Ibrahim was stripped of party membership and incarcerated under charges of corruption and sodomy. The charges were eventually overturned and he was released in Sept. 2004.
Regarding Malaysian politics today, Ibrahim expressed distaste toward his nation's system of bumiputera - a system of economic and social policies designed to favor ethnic Malays.
"I reject affirmative action based on race," he said. "Our policies should benefit the poor and the marginalized."
Finally, he described the need for engagement between the Islamic world and the West, criticizing the "extreme" foreign policy of the United States and its refusal to negotiate with regimes like Hamas.
"That policy is flawed," he said, adding that "to refuse to engage is a recipe for disaster."
Patrick K. Fitzgerald, Editor-in-Chief
Fitzgerald, a Stanford undergraduate, visited Malaysia in September 2006 as a member of the SEAF-supported Stanford Overseas Seminar in Singapore.
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Anwar Ibrahim (L), Don Emmerson (R)
Alvin Chow/The Stanford Daily.
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