MAY 11, 2012
The Jewish Voice
NEW YORK
PAGE 9
Albright Discusses New Book at the 92nd St. Y By Joseph Kadoch ormer S ecretary of Stat e M adeleine Albright paid a visit t o the 92 nd St. Y last Thursday t o discuss her lat est book , Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948. Christiane Amanpour, of ABC New s and CNN, led the conversation with Albright, and asked the r enowned politician and scholar about t opical, personal , and hist orical sub jects. Widely att ended and simultaneously broadcasted to populations in other locales , the dialogue ga ve view ers and att endees the opportunity to hear and learn fr om one
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Albright (Center), with current Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu (Left) and former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat (Right) in 1998.
Madeleine Albright spoke about learning of her Jewish lineage at the 92Y last Thursday.
of the most successful woman in the U.S. political arena in recent history. Sworn in during 1997, Albright became the first female secretary of state to ever serve in the U.S. After initial intr oductions were made t o plaudits in the 92Y’s Kaufmann Concert Hall, Amanpour star ted the c onversation b y enquiring Albright on a number of tr oubling current U .S. polic y issues . Ha ving ser ved in various Washington capacities for more than three decades, Albright has emer ged in r ecent years as a leading scholar and decisionmaker in dealing with questions of domestic and international political significance. Right out of the gate, Albright was asked
about what is curr ently tak ing place in China. Chen Guangcheng, a blind human rights activist who has earned headlines r ecently for his dissent with Chinese polic y, was the first subject Amanpour brought to the table. Would the United States grant refuge to the man who vehemently protested the Chinese enforcement of a one-child policy and broke free of Chinese arr est? Ho w w ould such a move affect Chinese-American relations? Albright dealt with these inquiries b y explaining the Chinese political modus . She said the Chen case was rif e with symbolism in the sense that it clashed with the int ernal, domestic equanimit y the Chinese ha ve
striven t o pr eserve o ver the y ears. M edia suppression failed t o push back Chen ’s efforts, as protestors helped him evade house arrest and reach the U.S. embassy in Beijing. Albright was c onfident the U .S. w ould g ive Chen and his family asylum in the near future. She said this, along with economic and political matt ers, w ould be jointly settled among U.S. and Chinese dignitaries. Amanpour used the subjec t of China as a springboar d f or discussing the theme of dissent. How should dissenters go about dissenting in the fac e of potentially harsh punishment? What are some of the qualities and situational charac teristics needed in plac e to bring about r evolution under r epressive regimes? Being foolhardy, brave, and generating a support system are among the requisites, answered Albright. The subjec t of oppr essive rule quick ly turned to the topic of Albright’s latest book, which chronicles the experiences of her family in P rague, L ondon, and Belg rade during World War II. Born t o a Cz ech diplomat and democrat, Josef Korbel, who later found asylum and educational opportunity in the U.S., Albright recounted her family ’s experiences during the war y ears. Forcibly depar ting t o London f ollowing the Munich A greement in March 1938, Albright ’s family r eturned to Czechoslovakia after the war, and eventually emigrated from Prague to America when the Communist Party took over the Cz ech government in 1948. I n November of that y ear, Korbel’s family—and elev en-year-old M adeline— arrived in New York City. See Albright in NYC, page 38