Kaplan kicks-off seminar, discusses global conflict by Sara Levin Assistant News Journalist and geopolitical expert Robert Kaplan discussed his vision for the future of US-Middle East relations in his Thursday night lecture in Crowell Hall, which opened the University’s first Shasha Seminar for Human Concerns. Kaplan predicted that, within in a few years, the US will have good relationships with Iran and Iraq. Iran, he said, has a mostly pro-American population because its citizens are already disillusioned by the Islamic revolution. Iraq is different, he said, comparing the current state of the country to Ceausescu’s Romania of the 1970s, which was a regime of terror. Kaplan cited demography and democratization as other important factors that will lead to an upheaval that will allow this change in relations. “Political violence tends to be perpetrated by young males,” he said. “The population of male youths is rising dramatically in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East.” He also said that democracy itself is a major cause of destabilization. “This is tough to talk about with Americans,” he said. “Countries that were recently autocratic can’t move so quickly to being stable democracies.” “We want Yasir Arafat to be a democrat and an autocrat at the same time, but the Palestinian urban society is too developed to be ruled by autocracy and not stable enough to develop a strong democracy,” he said. In regards to the current situation in Iraq, Kaplan said that the US must go through with military action if the Iraqi government violates inspection codes because not to do so would be dangerous. “A couple months ago my answer might have been different,” he said, adding that President Bush cannot back down on his commitment to this issue. If he were to do so, Kaplan said, it would encourage other countries to violate nuclear codes. “I was pretty upset at his response to the question about Iraq,” said Alix Strunk ’05. “He said there’s no going back, assuming that people in the Middle East only listen to force. He’s making it seem like we have a paternalistic relationship with Iraq and we need to discipline them by force because they won’t listen to anything else.” Kaplan also spoke about his theory that the root of violent global struggles of the past five years can be largely attributed to development and urbanization. “Poverty doesn’t usually cause revolution, terrorism or upheaval— development does,” he said. “I’m not giving a talk against aid or anything like that, but if development were easier, recent history would not be so tragic.” Kaplan said that to develop, nations encourage members of rural agricultural societies to migrate to cities. Even though they make more money, individuals become more ambitious and frustrated he said. They tend to lose their fatalistic attitude and gain a political agenda, demanding change that precarious governments can’t handle. Kaplan also said that religion has become very important in many developing countries because it is a way for people to challenge the side effects of urbanization—the break down of traditional family values and customs. Though he drew examples from countries around the world, from China to Mexico, he focused on countries within the Middle East. “In a village, religion is unconscious, a regular part of life. In Afghanistan, women in the country didn’t used to wear veils because they were always among family. When they moved to the city, they are suddenly surrounded by strangers, and the veil came on,” Kaplan said. According to Kaplan, many Americans misunderstand the powerful force religion has become in other countries. “Religion and faith is becoming more and more important to where the world is going today. Many people in the United States, especially in elite institutions, have trouble not looking down on truly religious people,” he said. At the end of the talk, Director of Jewish Studies Jeremy Zwelling thanked Kaplan for enabling him to remind President Bennet of the need for more teaching of religion. Kaplan, a correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly, is the author of nine best-selling books on international affairs, including “Balkan Ghosts” and his most recent “Eastward to Tartary” about the economy and politics of the Balkans, the Middle East, and the Caucasus. James Shasha ’50, who endorsed the event, which is to be an annual occurrence, was unable to attend because he was in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He wrote that his intentions were to create a program of continuing education for people who want to be intellectually stimulated. Prior to the lecture, a dinner and reception was held at Downy House for seminar participants. On Friday and Saturday conferences were held where alumni, faculty and five selected students responded to Kaplan’s views and discussed possible solutions to such conflict at the Water’s Edge Resort in Westbrook, Connecticut. Tickets for the event were $350 per person, but the five students were allowed to attend free of charge. A total of 41 people registered for the conference. Leslie Shasha ’82 attended and read a greeting from her father at the Thursday evening dinner. “It is only fitting that [alumni] remember and come back occasionally to savor the values instilled in us,” Shasha read from her father’s note. “This was my idea in suggesting these yearly seminars to President Bennet. The Seminar for Human Concerns was conceived to be as broad as possible and to permit any subject that may seem important to the organizers. It is also to give opportunities for the alumni and friends to interact and to explore individual experiences.”

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