Source: Something Wicked This Way Comes: Ukrainian Local Elections And Post-Maidan Madness
An American Fulbrighter in Ukraine: Part I
Following a lengthy flight on September 12th from New York City’s JFK airport to Warsaw, Poland, I finally landed in Kiev, Ukraine to begin my nine-month Fulbright program. As one of only two recent college graduates (Bowdoin and Bates!), I am one of the youngest participants in this year’s Fulbright group, and, as I discovered in Washington, D.C., the only one who has not previously been to Ukraine.
As such, I think it is valuable to share with others—friends, family, colleagues, policymakers, journalists, and other bloggers interested in the region—my firsthand accounts of what I experience here. My responsibilities are twofold: While I have an obligation to represent the United States and its values to the Ukrainians I interact with, I also think it necessary to show those at home what Ukrainians and Ukrainian culture are really like. I hope to offer Americans an alternative to the often biased news sources so prevalent in the U.S.
Many of my initial perceptions of what Ukrainian culture would look like have already been shattered. For a country plagued by rampant corruption, poverty, and a devastating war in the east, I have found Ukrainians both young and old to be enormously resilient, generous, and proud.
Even in the bustling city of Kiev, home to roughly 3 million inhabitants, most of the people I have met on the street do not speak much English, and have never met an American before. Needless to say, when I speak to anyone in my rusty conversational Russian, I am often met with wide eyes and an intense curiosity.
For this reason, it is quite humbling knowing I have the chance to make such a significant cultural impact here. Now, possibly more than at any other time, it is important to promote a more genuine mutual understanding between the U.S. and Ukraine.
Formally, I am here to conduct research on how Europe and Ukraine can collaborate to enact policies to prevent human trafficking in the region. I will work alongside officials and specialists at the Diplomatic Academy of Ukraine, the Women’s Rights Center La Strada-Ukraine, and the U.S. Embassy Kiev, among others, to write general interest stories and more formal reports. In my free time I hope to get involved with language clubs, visit museums and cultural landmarks, and play ice hockey with local Ukrainians.
I will try to provide more details in future blog posts at the end or beginning of each week. But for now, enjoy some of the pictures I have taken during my first two weeks here. Two down, 34 more to go.
St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery, next to the Diplomatic Academy of Ukraine and the Intercontinental Hotel Kiev. In the foreground, a recently married couple takes photos next to a fancy car.
Ukraine’s Maidan, located on the city’s glamorous Khreshchatyk Street. The massive 2013 Euromaidan protests as well as the 2004-2005 Orange Revolution took place here.
The Diplomatic Academy of Ukraine, part of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
A man walks his dog near Taras Shevchenko University in central Kiev.
A picture taken during our Fulbright river boat cruise on the Dnipro.
Disclaimer: This blog is not an official Fulbright Program site. The views expressed on this site are entirely my own and do not represent the views of the Fulbright Program, the U.S. Department of State, or any of its partner organizations.
As Diplomacy Lies Dying: Why U.S. Reliance on Hard Power Leaves the 21st Century More Unstable and Less Safe
Promoting global peace and security through aggression—backed by $610 billion in defense expenditures—will ultimately result in a more dangerous 21st century. Rather, the United States should redistribute funds toward programs that will foster enduring peace—particularly through language learning, geography, and international exchange.
Within the past two years, the world has witnessed several momentous geopolitical events. On February 23, 2014, the Russian Federation illegally annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, causing uproar in the West but resulting in only economic sanctions—hardly a slap on the wrist for such a flagrant violation of international law. After more than 50 years, the United States and Cuba last month agreed to fully restore diplomatic relations. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) continues to carve out swaths of territory and spread terror throughout an already war-torn Middle East. And finally, after years of arduous negotiations, the United States and Iran, along with five other nations, have agreed on a historic deal limiting Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
Understanding and appropriately handling these and future global events will require continued leadership from the United States, given its intimate involvement in these affairs and its status in the international community. Unfortunately, the current climate surrounding the discipline and practice of foreign affairs suggests U.S. citizens and lawmakers alike are ill-equipped to provide this leadership. This is a dangerous trend that must be reversed, and fast.
In the most recent issue of Foreign Affairs, Georgetown University Professor Charles King offers a sobering assessment of the sordid state of international studies in the United States today. He maintains, correctly, that the potent ascent of the United States as a global hegemon was aided by generous federal funding geared toward programs promoting regional and global studies. Says King:
The rise of the United States as a global power was the product of more than merely economic and military advantages. Where the country was truly hegemonic was in its unmatched knowledge of the hidden interior of other nations: their languages and cultures, their histories and political systems, their local economies and human geographies.
This is no longer true. Paradoxically, despite the emergence of myriad social media networks and the expansion of news outlets available to anyone with an Internet connection, Americans are becoming increasingly out of touch with the global events unfolding around them. This ignorance induces a more bellicose outlook on foreign policy options.
How Learning Geography Makes the World a Safer Place
Something as seemingly negligible as understanding geography matters to both national and international security. The authors of a recent study on Ukraine state this plainly: “Information, or the absence thereof, can influence Americans’ attitudes about the kind of policies they want their government to carry out and the ability of elites to shape that agenda.”
The study, which surveyed over 2,000 Americans shortly after the Russian annexation of Crimea, asked respondents two things: first, how the United States should respond to the situation in Ukraine; and second, to locate the country on a map. Those who guessed Ukraine was farther from its actual position tended to advocate more forcefully for U.S. military intervention. Overall, only 16 percent of respondents (roughly one in six) correctly guessed the former Soviet state’s location.
Similarly, a recent Politico piece entitled, “Iran? Is That the One We Invaded?”, chronicles the author’s quest to find one person in the state of Indiana who could correctly locate Iran’s elusive location. None could do so, save for an astute cab driver, the last person the author asked. Roughly 75 percent of Americans aged 18–24 who were surveyed were unable to place a finger within Iran’s borders.
This is nothing short of embarrassing: Ukraine is about the size of Texas and Iran is nearly the size of Alaska. And Americans’ terrible knowledge of geography is not exclusive to Iran and Ukraine: similar studies of regions long critical to U.S. foreign policy, such as Afghanistan in South Asia and Iraq in the Middle East, reaffirmed this ignorance-is-close-to-hawkishness trope. More worrisome are the policy repercussions of this geographic cluelessness: a nationwide proclivity for military aggression, not diplomacy.
“Oh, the Places You’ll Go”—But in 2016, Try Riyadh, Not Rome
In his 1869 book, The Innocents Abroad, author Mark Twain proclaims, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”
This quote still rings true in 2015, and is arguably more relevant now than ever before. Spending time abroad learning exotic languages and making friends from various corners of the earth fosters international understanding and promotes peace, but these benefits are greatest when Americans explore countries beyond those found in Western Europe. Plenty of Americans continue to learn languages and travel abroad. Yet, from a national security perspective, they are learning the wrong languages and travelling to the wrong locations.
The number of U.S. students studying abroad annually in foreign countries has risen almost fivefold, up to nearly 290,000 by the most recent estimates from only 62,000 in 1987. As positive as this trend may seem, consider that this still represents less than 1 percent of all U.S. students nationally. Moreover, these students are overwhelmingly travelling to allied countries in Europe that pose little to no threat to the United States. Asurvey from 2014 shows that nearly a third of all U.S. study abroad students went to the United Kingdom (13 percent), Italy (10 percent), or Spain (9 percent). Roughly 60 percent remained in these countries for fewer than eight weeks—hardly enough time for a truly immersive experience.
The number of U.S. students travelling to countries and regions deemed critical to U.S. national security—particularly China, Russia, and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)—was markedly lower. Only 2 percent of U.S. students opted to study in the MENA region and just 5 percent chose to study in China. Additionally, the number of students traveling to China and Russia decreased by more than 3 and 12 percent, respectively, between the 2011–12 and 2012–13 academic years. In short, though a brief, two-month visit to London, Rome, or Madrid may garner the envy of family members and friends, the U.S. national security establishment would much rather see you spend upwards of six months or more in Beijing, Moscow, or Riyadh—but students are not paying attention. They continue to flock to Western Europe.
The dismal figures surrounding language learning in the United States are staggering, and do not bode well for global mutual understanding—and by extension, the promotion of peace and security in the 21st century. For the first time in 20 years, language enrollment in U.S. colleges and universities is on the decline. And unlike their European cousins across the pond, Americans are complacent with knowing only one language.
“Less than 1 percent of American adults today are proficient in a foreign language that they studied in a U.S. classroom,” says Amelia Friedman, executive director of the Student Language Exchange. Furthermore, “only 7 percent of U.S. college students are enrolled in a language course” at all. Of these, 95 percent of course enrollments are in European languages. Growth in Chinese language enrollment has gradually slowed to 2 percent this year. Enrollment in both Arabic and Russian declined 7.5 and 17.9 percent, respectively.
This toxic combination of widespread geographic illiteracy, a Eurocentric perspective on the world, and pervasive apathy toward language learning is a recipe for disaster. China and its 1.4 billion people, for example, must not be relegated to an obscure, misunderstood foe reminiscent of the Cold War, but rather, as a cooperative though independent ally for a new and prosperous 21st century.
Real Versus Perceived Threats to U.S. National Security
Miniscule federal funding for diplomacy and peaceful exchange relative to the U.S. defense budget is partially to blame for this outcome. The U.S. Department of State’s entire fiscal year 2015 budget is less than $50 billion, which makes up just over 8 percent of the U.S. Department of Defense’s prodigious counterpart. Funding for federal exchange programs is approximately $600 million. This includes funding for the Fulbright Program, one of the most respected flagship international exchange programs, which is only $236 million—or, just about as much as the United States spends in 2.5 days on the war in Afghanistan. (Note: This war began in 2001—consider just how many Fulbright and Boren students the United States could have sent abroad in the intervening years.) Congress actually intended to slash the Fulbright program’s budget by $30 million this year, before an impressive lobbying campaign took place, resulting in a meager increase of $1.8 million.
If we combine this ignorance-fueled propensity for aggression with $610 billion in annual defense expenditures, it becomes much easier to imagine how costly and unnecessary violence abroad (e.g., the war in Iraq) can occur. Put in perspective, the United States spends more on defense than the next seven countries combined—China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, France, the United Kingdom, India, and Germany—whose total defense expenditures add up to just over $600 billion. Thus, the United States can, and has, turned to military strength instead of diplomacy. Anything the United States does militarily beyond its borders, from deploying drones to outright invasion, will have lasting and widespread repercussions throughout the world, given the massive defense resources at its disposal.
A closer look at these defense figures highlights just how egregious and mismanaged U.S. national security priorities are. Extensive media coverage of the Islamic State’s brutal beheading videos, for instance, has deceptively alarmed Americans so much that 84 percent now consider the group, and international terrorism generally, the most critical threat to American security. As a result, American taxpayers are paying over $600,000 per hour to fund U.S. military action against ISIS, with questionable results. Yet high-level government officials, from U.S. President Barack Obama and former MI6 chief Sir Richard Dearlove, to prominent think tankers like Daniel Benjamin, have all suggested the true threat of Islamic terrorism is vastly overblown.
Conversely, only 44 percent of Americans believe that tensions between the United States and Russia over Ukraine represent a critical threat to national security. Americans are unaware, for instance, that within the past five years public perception of the United States within Russia has plummeted steadily, from a 57 percent favorability rating in 2010 to only 15 percent in 2015. While the Cold War is over, the prospect of nuclear warfare—arguably the most existential threat to the United States and the rest of the world—is not.
Early last week, for instance, U.S. Air Force General Paul Selva argued that nuclear-armed Russia, not ISIS, is the biggest national security threat to the United States. The most up-to-date nuclear stockpile estimates, conducted by the Ploughshares Fund, show that Russia still has the largest number of nuclear weapons in the world, at 7,500—or 48 percent of the global total. Should Russian President Vladimir Putin play the nuclear card, as he has subtly hinted at within the past few months, media coverage of terrorists roaming throughout Syria and Iraq would disappear rather quickly.
Yet at the moment, most U.S. citizens—lacking an informed understanding of global politics and relying on the media’s ratings-driven interpretations—severely misjudge the gravest threats to U.S. national security. Without more emphasis on education and international exchange, distrust, fear, and misunderstanding will increasingly inform and harm U.S. foreign policy.
Unless and until the United States stops relying on hard power through its bloated defense budget to promote peace and U.S. national interests globally, the world will actually become more unstable. If U.S. lawmakers act now, they may still be able to redistribute funds toward programs that will incentivize students to increase language enrollment in more strategic languages and promote international exchange to more exotic locales.
This post was originally published on Charged Affairs, the official blog of Young Professionals in Foreign Policy.
On Public Speaking and Diplomacy: A Summer in Rome at the U.S. State Department
With my written speech in hand, I proceeded to the podium. I scanned the enormous conference room, verifying that there were indeed roughly 500 high school students and their parents staring at me, waiting for me to begin.
Following a quick introduction in English to the group, I shifted to Italian—a language I learned to read aloud only about a week prior after extensive practice—and discussed at length the benefits of travelling abroad and, ironically, the rewards that can come from operating outside of one’s comfort zone. I struggled to address the group comprised of my Italian peers in a language they obviously knew much better than I did. Yet by the end, the excitement of having taken that risk, and of having realized for those ten minutes I was conducting diplomacy as a representative of the U.S. government, I was overcome with joy.
For a self-ascribed introvert, this was a pivotal moment for me and what I was capable of achieving at the age of 21. Only now, months after the event occurred, can I reflect back with any clarity about how truly terrifying the experience was for me. While I am not the biggest fan of clichés, the old adage, “With great risk comes great reward,” certainly applies here.
As I briefly mentioned in another of my posts on the importance of travel and self-reflection for young adults, I had the opportunity to spend a summer as a Public Affairs Intern with the U.S. Department of State at the U.S Embassy in Rome, Italy. A fellow embassy employee informed me on an early Monday morning of my 12th and final week that the embassy wanted me to draft a five- to ten-minute speech for one of the Foreign Service Officers (FSOs) to deliver at a study abroad conference, run by the organization Intercultura.
The project seemed fun and simple enough. Leading up to that last week I had become increasingly complacent behind my office desk in the Mel Sembler building, which housed the embassy’s Public Affairs Section. On a near daily basis I was engaged in multiple research projects, from perusing databases for articles on food security, to compiling official statements on the Navy’s controversial Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) that had been set up in Sicily.
I had the chance to edit reports, and, on one occasion, to draw up talking points for Ambassador John Phillips’ speech at the annual Fourth of July party, which took place at his enormous residence, Villa Taverna, in Rome. (Interestingly, Villa Taverna is the largest private residence in the entire city, which says something about the strong, enduring ties between the U.S. and the Italian Republic.) Approximately 2,500 diplomatic VIPs, including the other ambassadors from around the world assigned to Italy, would come, dressed to impress, and schmooze with one another, American hamburgers and hotdogs in hand.
Soon, more interesting and substantive projects presented themselves. The other summer interns working at the embassy—most of whom I’m still in touch with—were some of the smartest, kindest, and most impressive students I’ve had the opportunity to meet. On more than one occasion we were able to collaborate on projects that took us on fascinating journeys through the city of Rome and beyond.
Midway through the summer, for instance, Ambassador Phillips’ advisors asked me and the other intern in Public Affairs to gather all the other interns together and write a speech for his Keep Our Students Safe Campaign. At that time, a recent American college student who had been studying abroad in Rome had died tragically, following a rambunctious night out with friends at one of the popular bars in the surrounding area. As undergraduate and graduate students, the thought went, we would be the most capable individuals to convey the most effective message promoting safety while abroad to our own demographic.
We drafted the speech, and were even able to help film and be a part of the accompanying video. As part of the embassy’s campaign, the video will be distributed to the various study abroad organizations throughout Italy, where students will view the films and, hopefully, take more precautions to be safe while in their new foreign environment. Besides the capstone public speaking event—which I will return to shortly—creating this video really allowed me and the other summer interns to see the tangible results of diplomacy in the Foreign Service. Sure, many hours are spent reaching the Italian public through social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook, but face-to-face engagement remains the most effective way to conduct diplomacy on the ground.
When I was asked to write the short speech my last week, I was under the impression that, like during the Keep Our Students Safe Campaign video, I would get the chance to see the Public Affairs Officer recite my written words to the group of students. That would be enough of a reward in and of itself. But that afternoon the same lady who had asked me to write the speech came to my office with a translated version. “What’s this?” I inquired. “An Italian version of your speech,” she replied. “[The Public Affairs Officer] is unable to make the event, and we think that if you made it yourself it would have a bigger impact anyway.”
After a moment of sheer terror at the thought of addressing this group, which at first I had been informed would be relatively small, I graciously accepted, thinking that it would be a nice capstone experience to the summer. It sure was. A couple days before the event I recited the Italian speech over and over again to myself, and eventually, to some of the Italian college interns who also worked at the embassy. If I’m sweating so profusely in front of two of my Italian friends while practicing, I thought, how can I possibly do it standing in front of over 1,000 judgmental eyes tomorrow morning?
In the end, the speech went off without a hitch, and the Italian high school students seemed appreciative that I gave the earnest effort to speak in their own language—even though the pronunciation was likely atrocious. Reflecting back, I am sure that, since they were getting ready to head off to the U.S. the next day for three to six months, the tables would be turned, and they would be in the same situation that I was just in. They’d be the ones struggling with their English in front of all English speakers, most of whom would not be able to communicate in Italian.
I am hoping that many of these students, if they are still in the United States, have taken my words to heart, and have jumped out of their comfort zones and made the most of their time abroad. I know I sure did.
Do you have any interesting internship stories worth sharing? What happened, and what did you learn? I would be more than happy to speak with anyone interested in learning a bit more about the State Department’s excellent semester-long internships, or about the Foreign Service more generally. This experience is a must for anyone who is of college age and remotely interested in foreign affairs or diplomacy.
A Review of David Remnick’s “Watching the Eclipse”
The following blog post is adapted from a previous blog post I submitted for my Post-Communist Politics class at Bowdoin College. I find it particularly worthwhile to share, for a number of reasons. The first is that Remnick’s article is fantastic, overall an excellent and informative read. The second is that these foreign policy issues revolving the U.S. and Russia are extremely important—and this sheds a little light on the contemporary issues that are being faced. Enjoy! Feel free to comment and share your thoughts.
“Watching the Eclipse,” The New Yorker (August 11, 2014)
By David Remnick
The world…is divided between conservative land powers (Russia) and libertine maritime powers (the U.S. and the U.K.)—Eternal Rome and Eternal Carthage. The maritime powers seek to impose their will, and their decadent materialism, on the rest of the world. This struggle is at the heart of history.
This excellent long-form article by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and current New Yorker editor, David Remnick, explores many of the themes we have discussed in our post-communist Russian politics class, from relationships between civil society and the state, to Vladimir Putin’s merciless restoration of the so-called “power vertical.” At its core, however, the article examines how Putin has attempted to induce Russia’s cultural and geopolitical “reawakening” and “restoration” amid post-1991 uncertainty and Western (and particularly, American) resistance.
Without question, the United States and its foreign policy has often come into bitter conflict with Putin and his plans to restructure Russia, both domestically and internationally. Remnick portrays this increasingly volatile relationship through the story of Michael McFaul, the former U.S. ambassador to Russia, who served only two years in office between 2012 and 2014, and who experienced the deterioration in U.S.-Russian relations during the beginning of Putin’s third term. Known as “the democracy man” for all his time spent in “Moscow’s pro-democracy circles” during his college years, McFaul quickly became subject to intense Russian propaganda once appointed ambassador. This is remarkably unsurprising, posits Remnick, stating: “He was determined to help establish liberal values and institutions—civil society, free speech, democratic norms—in a land that, for a thousand years, had known only absolutism, empire, and the knout.”
Certainly, the hostility between the Russian Federation and the United States is not a new phenomenon. During the Cold War, America and the Soviet Union came exceedingly close to nuclear war, and, until 1991, battled for the position of world hegemon. While conflicting perspectives of ideology—that is, capitalism and communism, democracy and authoritarianism—of course have their roots in the Soviet era, the current geopolitical altercation has taken a completely different form. Showing symptoms of what Remnick, and Russians, call phantom-limb syndrome (“the pain of missing Central Asia, the Caucuses, the Baltic states; the pain of diminishment”), Putin’s Russia is, perhaps surprisingly, on the defensive, rather than on equal footing with its hegemonic, “libertine” adversary. An interview with the conservative Russian commentator Stanislav Belkovsky clarifies much of this “offense-as-the-best-defense” sentiment: “We are a Third World kleptocracy hiding behind imperial symbols. There are no resources for a true imperial revival.” “Nevertheless,” Remnick acknowledges, “the voices of neo-imperialism are loud and prominently aired.”
Interestingly, Putin’s first and third terms in office signify both a rejection and acceptance of former Soviet values, respectively. On the one hand, and as has been discussed in class, Putin’s massive and widespread popularity within Russia stemmed initially, in part, from his lack of ideology. In 1999, for instance, Putin admitted, “Communism had been ‘a blind alley, far away from the mainstream of civilization.’” His focus on economic growth and on restoring power to the Kremlin led people to view him as a pragmatist, rather than an ideologue. The future appeared brighter: incomes rose, the middle class grew, and the relationship with the West seemed to be mending. Putin expressed his interest in the prospect of Russia joining the World Trade Organization (which it did in 2012), in working with the United States to collectively fight the War on Terror, and, in eventually working alongside, or even joining, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization—the West’s security apparatus and former adversary of the Warsaw Pact.
Putin’s third term in office, beginning in 2012, marked a 180-degree turnaround from his first-term practicality and cooperation with the West. Whereas Putin once represented the blank-slate pragmatist upon whom Russians of all creeds could instill their values, he now began to promote a newly materialized Kremlin “line”—what we’ve called “moral conservatism,” or “Putin 3.0,” embodied by both resurgence in traditional Orthodox conservatism and an injection of nationalism (and by extension, a xenophobic, specifically anti-Western sentimentalism). Angered by the extensive 2004 enlargement of NATO membership, including the Baltic states—former Soviet republics that now border Russia directly—Putin galvanized support through nationalism against a shared foreign enemy, much like Stalin and Khrushchev did within the Soviet Union against the Germans and Americans during World War II and then during the Cold War. Civil society organizations receiving foreign money were pressured to leave. Protests were suppressed. Large industries were nationalized, and their oligarchs were imprisoned. Georgia was invaded (although in 2008, and as an alleged response to NATO expansion), Crimea was annexed outright, and eastern Ukraine has found itself in a “frozen conflict,” one of many involving the Russian Federation.
This change represents the aptly named “eclipse” in the article’s title. As former Ambassador McFaul began work in Moscow, he witnessed when “the promise of democracy came to Russia—and when it began to fade.” He himself remarked how bad relations had become between the two sides—they had fallen to “the lowest point since the post-Soviet period began, in 1991.” From this, then, there are some questions we can consider as we continue to observe the development of U.S.-Russian relations, and specifically, how Putin will react in the next couple of years. Is moral conservatism here to stay? Will Cold War 2.0 engender? Has it already? Will Putin retain his popularity, even as the value of the ruble begins to drop dramatically as a result of Western sanctions? And finally, is he acting out of strength, or out of terrified weakness?
What does the eclipse mean for the world?
On Travel and Self-Reflection
The opportunity to travel and experience cultures different than one’s own can be truly transformative, especially for a young person. It can enrich the soul, and broaden individuals’ understanding of the planet in all of its complexity. In my firm belief, the younger the person, the more fulfilling and worthwhile the international voyage will ultimately be.
As an impending college graduate, my experiences abroad have had an enormously rewarding impact on who I am as a person, what I believe in, and how I view the world and my proper place in it. It has undoubtedly shaped my choice of study in college, as well as my future career aspirations, all of which are internationally oriented.
While a junior in high school, I was completely naïve, but understandably curious. Besides family vacations to resort locations tailored to tourists, I had never been outside of the United States. Then one day a friend in college from Sierra Leone offered me the chance to work for his non-profit organization, Global Minimum, for part of the summer. Without reservation, and to the astonishment (and likely, horror) of my parents, I accepted. With a bit of financial assistance from my family and high school, I set off to West Africa.
For six weeks I trekked through coastal, central, and eastern Sierra Leone via poda-poda (a small, cramped bus) with a bunch of Sierra Leonean university students. From village to village, we distributed literally thousands of insecticide-treated mosquito nets to villagers, hosted town meetings where we would instruct people on how to properly set them up, and collected data as we moved along.
A typical house in rural Sierra Leone, covered with bed nets.
From the climate to the typical family structure, everything was extremely different from what I was used to back home in rural Vermont. I experienced the formidable sub-Saharan summer blaze, and became accustomed to seeing multiple wives in a household with a single husband. While the widespread poverty and polygamy was striking, I was most surprised by the overwhelming hospitality of the people there. Villagers would consistently offer us both food and shelter, even though they had many mouths to feed and limited space within their houses.
Though the trip lasted only a little more than a month, I returned to the United States humbled and with an insatiable appetite to learn about the outside world and how it operated. I subscribed to the magazine Foreign Policy, and voraciously consumed each article as new issues were published.
I had found some sort of direction, and refined what was becoming important to me.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, in college I took courses in international relations and comparative politics, giving me a more thorough understanding of where I was in West Africa, and why Sierra Leone is the way it is. I wrote papers examining the legacies of British colonialism, which reinforced an interest in returning to the exotic place I had been, knowing that I would appreciate it even more the second time around.
Around the same time, I enrolled in an elementary Russian class on a whim, and fell deeply in love with the language. I complemented my Russian study with politics and literature classes examining Russia and the former Soviet Union.
Having made a little money from our summer internships, my girlfriend and I decided to journey to Central Europe for 13 days to visit Prague (Czech Republic), Vienna (Austria), and Budapest (Hungary). We understood that Central Europe did not represent a typical American visit to Europe—which would generally include travel to places like the UK, France, and Spain—but thought it would be refreshingly unconventional.
Prague Castle at dusk.
And we weren’t wrong. Looking up the hill in the distance at the breathtaking Prague Castle from the Charles Bridge will always be one of my most notable memories. It was as if we were living in a fairytale environment thousands of years into the past. The art scene in Vienna was unparalleled: the city was filled with museums like the Hofburg Palace, which, in its glory days, was the living space for some of the Habsburg Empire’s most powerful elite. Budapest was equally beautiful, but quirky in its own way. Their Gulash, seasoned with paprika, is to die for. The thermal baths are also a must-see in the city, as is the House of Terror, which is a museum dedicated to the history of Budapest under the terror of Nazi Germany and then the Soviet Union.
A horse and carriage outside the Hofburg, in Vienna.
A statue of a man on a bridge, watching over the Hungarian Parliament in Budapest.
And most recently—the icing on the cake—was the opportunity I had to spend an entire summer in magnificent Rome, Italy as a Public Affairs Intern with the U.S. Department of State. On a fellowship from my college, I spent 12 weeks working for diplomats learning how U.S. foreign policy is conducted on the international stage. I met many friends, took unforgettable trips to surrounding places like Sicily, Pisa, and Florence, and learned more than I ever could have imagined about my new home.
A man-made pond in the middle of Villa Borghese, Rome.
People at any age can appreciate an unfamiliar and exotic location, but it can be a particularly formative experience for high school and college students—it certainly was for me. And one need not be wealthy to find these opportunities: while it of course helps, scholarships and fellowships abound for individuals who are willing to put in the time and effort to find out where they want to go and how they can get there.
What kind of inspirational places around the world have you visited? How did you get there? Why did you go? And, most importantly, why was it a formative experience?
On Writing, and Writing Well
Let’s talk about writing for a second.
It’s something we Millennials get to practice each day. In college we draft research papers; after holidays we scribble thank-you notes to grandma and grandpa (bless them); in the mornings, afternoons, and evenings we’ll write Facebook posts for all our 800 friends all over the world; and for prospective employers we’ll create and send out thousands of cover letters.
If we get so much practice, then, why are so many people so bad at it? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been scrolling through Facebook or Tumblr and have seen people confuse “Your” with “You’re,” “Too” with “Two” or “To,” or other indescribable abominations of the English language.
For those of you – and as a disclaimer, I certainly include myself – who are occasional culprits of this, it’s all right, there’s nothing to worry about. Most of you will catch your mistake, and make a conscious effort to avoid doing it in the future. That’s called learning, and I condone learning.
For the rest of you: I’m here to tell you that you need to stop. Each and every time you make such a mistake, without even feeling a bit of remorse for what you’ve done to our beautiful, vibrant language, some Nobel laureate is posthumously sobbing and rolling in her grave. And it’s ugly.
But in all seriousness, learning to write well is perhaps the most important skill you can acquire during your lifetime, and you should start learning how to do it well now, while you’re young. The purpose transcends getting a potential “A” on that paper examining the merits of Ayn Rand’s theory of Objectivism. It goes beyond perfecting the cover letter that will nab you that lucrative job at Goldman Sachs or J.P. Morgan.
Rather, a well-written statement, in any sort of context, can help you express yourself accurately to others to the extent where they’ll know exactly how you’re feeling. Describing in words what you are feeling, seeing, or believing, at any given moment, is powerful and liberating – and honestly, much, much harder to do than you may think.
For instance, consider your favorite book. Have you ever come across a sentence that perfectly illustrates an aspect of the human condition that you’ve never quite been able to put into words? Be sure to appreciate the author of that book, for I am confident that he or she spent hours, days, or even weeks, editing and re-editing that sentence or paragraph so that the most appropriate words were placed correctly — just for your enjoyment.
For this reason, writing is a beautiful art, and it takes a lifetime to perfect.
Beautiful writing can come in varying forms. Here are a few tips that I prefer to keep in mind when writing, for what it’s worth. Feel free to agree or disagree in the comments.
- Vary sentence/paragraph length. There’s nothing more daunting than opening a novel or textbook and seeing blocks of text reminiscent of the Great Wall of China. As you write, constantly refer back to your last paragraph (or couple of paragraphs): does it look too blocky? If so, chop it up. The same goes for sentences. Run-on sentences appall me (that is, they make me physically ill). If you don’t understand what you’re trying to say, how will someone else? Short sentences comprised of three words won’t suggest to the reader that you’re not intelligent; in fact, they often serve as a nice break, especially if you’re reading something dense and academic. Refer to the underlined sentence above.
- Use fancy words sparingly, and don’t overdo it. By all means, use that thesaurus on your computer ( I do it frequently). If you know big words, good for you, seriously. You’ll be all ready to ace that GRE when the time comes. But when you write, generally these words will just serve to confuse the reader. Not because he or she is dumb, but because your text will appear pompous and unclear. You tell me what’s better: “The playwright’s amanuensis fled through the execrable copse beyond the tributary, never to return” or “The playwright’s assistant fled through the dreadful forest toward the creek, never to return”?
- Use parentheses, semicolons, colons, and dashes for vibrancy. These grammatical tools exist for a reason, people. While some may not completely agree with me (for instance, the infamous novelist Kurt Vonnegut thought semicolons pretentious, and never used them), if used correctly, they can make written expression more interesting. Don’t be afraid to experiment – but always remember moderation is key. Like the previous tip, don’t overdo it, and whatever you do, don’t use them incorrectly. Semicolons separate two independent clauses. Don’t use two colons in the same sentence.
- Remember subject-verb agreement. Always. Admittedly, everyone will overlook these mistakes. They’re tricky. An example: “Used to eating apples, my friends and I looked on with hilarity at the two men who were shocked they had put oranges in their mouths.” Remember, my friends and I were not used to eating apples – the men with oranges in their mouths were. A more appropriate correction would read: “My friends and I looked on with hilarity at the two men, used to eating apples, who were shocked they had put oranges in their mouths.”
That about does it for that topic. Moving on!
What annoys you most about bad writing? What tips do you have? Please feel free to comment and voice an opinion.
On Youth and Your Twenties 