Legacies are often viewed as static, etched in stone monuments or preserved in history books. But in reality, legacies are perpetually contested and rewritten. Weaponized by autocrats and co-opted by political movements, in the wrong hands, legacies can perpetuate systems of oppression. However, legacies can also be sources of inspiration motivating us to consider how our actions impact future generations. Colonialism’s legacy continues to stain our modern world. In “Finders, Keepers?” Ava Rahman indicts the British Museum as an example of a modern institution still tainted by its colonial history. The Museum’s current practices in dealing with artifacts looted during colonization such as lending them to other institutions fall short. To address imperial legacies, Rahman argues that Parliament must allow the repatriation of looted artifacts currently held by the British Museum.
Should the legacy of a political movement depend on its success? Sara Amir offers an answer in “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” by revisiting the Azerbaijan National Liberation Movement of the late 1980s a movement that, despite having the makings of a revolution, has failed to be remembered as one. Amir explores the historical and current political factors that contribute to Azerbaijanis’ collective misunderstanding of their independence struggles, impelling us to expand our understanding of what it means to be revolutionary.
The legacy of the Space Race is framed as a geopolitical triumph, but often obscured from this narrative is a subtler but no less important legacy: the commercial technological advancements it fueled. From digital photography and memory foam to LED lights, space exploration has shaped modern life. NASA’s funding has steadily declined since landing on the Moon. In “One Small Step, One Giant Setback,” Asher Patel argues that NASA must emphasize how space explorations spurs innovation and helps the American taxpayer. By rediscovering the forgotten legacy of the Space Race its profound impact
on commercial technology NASA can make the case for sustained funding for Artemis.
While dictatorships often leave lasting scars, the legacies of dictatorial policies can, in some cases, benefit a nation’s current democracy. In “Equal Votes, Unequal Representation,” Aman Vora points to former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s “Mini-Constitution” as a rare example. The “Mini-Constitution,” which consolidated Gandhi’s dictatorial power, froze the reapportionment of seats in India’s Lok Sabha, resulting in the South’s overrepresentation in India’s legislature a legacy that remains to this day. Although this inequality may seem undemocratic, the South’s overrepresentation has curtailed the power of the nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) a safeguard that will disappear when the BJP reapportions seats in 2026.
Legacy is not just what we celebrate it is also what we inherit. In “Told You So,” Leah Freedman explores the prophetic warnings of George Mason, a Founding Father who refused to sign the Constitution. Mason believed that the US political system was susceptible to oligarchy and autocracy warnings that Freedman argues are starting to manifest under the second Trump administration. As we reckon with the history of our nation’s founding, this piece challenges us to reconsider whether the democracy we uphold today is the one the Founders intended or the one Mason feared.
At a moment of rapid political, economic, and scientific change, we hope this Special Feature will challenge you to look into the past and the future. While legacies can be painful or joyous, they also serve as blueprints reminders of what has been built and what remains unfinished. They are not just static inheritances but active forces that shape the present and demand our engagement. We invite you to reflect on how the past has shaped the present and what legacy you hope to leave behind.
Amina and Elliot
EXECUTIVE BOARD
EDITORS IN CHIEF
Amina Fayaz
Elliot Smith
CHIEFS OF STAFF
Jordan Lac
Grace Leclerc
CHIEF OPERATING OFFICERS
John Lee
Manav Musunuru
MANAGING EDITORS
Ashton Higgins
Mitsuki Jiang
Sofie Zeruto
CHIEF COPY EDITORS
Tiffany Eddy
Renee Kuo
INTERVIEWS DIRECTORS
Ariella Reynolds
Benjamin Stern
DATA DIRECTORS
Nikhil Das
Amy Qiao
CREATIVE DIRECTORS
Thomas Dimayuga
Grace Liu
MULTIMEDIA DIRECTOR
Solomon (Solly)
Goloboff-Schragger
WEB DIRECTOR
Armaan Patankar
Akshay Mehta
DIVERSITY OFFICER
Michael Shui
BOARD OF ADVISORS
Zander Blitzer
Alexandros Diplas
Allison Meakem
Gabriel Merkel
Tiffany Pai
Hannah Severyns
Mathilda Silbiger
INTERVIEWS BOARD
INTERVIEWS DIRECTORS
Ariella Reynolds
Benjamin Stern
DEPUTY INTERVIEWS
DIRECTORS
Eiffel Sunga
Ellia Sweeney
INTERVIEWS ASSOCIATES
Michael Citarella
Chloe Christy
Theodore (Teddy) Fisher
Amish Jindal
Matthew Kotcher
Michael Lau
Ciara Leonard
Christina Li
Gabriella Miranda
Maria Mooraj
Oscar Noxon
Neve O’Neil
Charlotte Peterson
Raghav Ramgopal
Arjun Ray
Samdol Lhamo Sichoe
Riyana Srihari
Joshua Stearns
Avital Strauss
Michele Togbe
Simon Wordofa
Charles Wortman
Isabella Xu
DATA BOARD
DATA DIRECTORS
Nikhil Das
Amy Qiao
DATA ASSOCIATES
Sarya Baran Kiliç
Caleb Ellenberg
Chai Harsha
Wesley Horn
Chloe Jazzy Lau
Gloria Kuzmenko-Latimer
Na Nguyen
Cerulean Ozarow
Tiziano Pardo
Arjun Ray
Emily Schreiber
Romilly Thomson
Breanna Villarreal
Shane Walsh
Jiayi Wu
William Yu
Amber Zhao
DATA DESIGNERS
Carys Lam
Angel Rivas
WEB BOARD
WEB DIRECTORS
Akshay Mehta
Armaan Patankar
WEB DEVELOPERS
Brianna Cheng
Matthew DaSilva
Joanne Ding
Shafiul Haque
Jaideep Naik
Ariel Shifrin
Nitin Sudarsanam
Hao Wen
Jerry Zhou
WEB DESIGNERS
Casey Gao
Hyelim Lee
Zairan Liu
COPY EDIT BOARD
CHIEF COPY
EDITORS
Tiffany Eddy
Renee Kuo
MANAGING COPY
EDITORS
Vivian Chute
Nicholas Clampitt
COPY EDITORS
Lillian Castrillon
Leah Freedman
Jason Hwang
Shant Ispendjian
Davis Kelly
Christina Li
Rachel Loeb
Matthew MacKay
Tanvi Mittal
Charlotte Peterson
Shiela Phoha
Francisco Ramirez
Daniel Shin
Vanessa Tao
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MULTIMEDIA DIRECTOR
Solomon (Solly)
Goloboff-Schragger
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Ayana Ahuja
Lynn Nguyen
Devendra Peyrat
Leonardo Quispe
VIDEO PRODUCERS
Phoebe Grace Azcuna Aseoche
Sarya Baran Kiliç
Abraham Carrillo-Galindo
Clara Baisinger-Rosen
Chris Donnelly
Francis Gonzalez
Ange Yeung
PODCAST DIRECTOR
Amber Zhao
PODCAST PRODUCERS
Romi Bhatia
Caroline Cordts
Chompoonek (Chicha)
Nimitpornsuko
Erin Ozyurek
Gui Sequeira
Becky Montes
Romilly Thomson
PHOTOJOURNALISM DIRECTORS
Danielle Deculus
Ena Hsieh
PHOTOJOURNALISTS
Ari Birnbaum
Pavani Durbhakula
Thomas Faries
Josué Morales
Allan Wang
Leyad Zavriyev
DIVERSITY TEAM
DIVERSITY OFFICER
Michael Shui
DIVERSITY ASSOCIATE Jiayi Wu
Masthead
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MANAGING EDITORS
Ashton Higgins
Mitsuki Jiang
Sofie Zeruto
SENIOR EDITORS
Hayden Deffarges
Keyes Sumner
Evan Tao Aman Vora
EDITORS
Tianran (Alice) Cheng
Fabiana Conway
Emily Feil
Kenneth Kalu
Julia Kostin
Faith Li
Brynn Manke
Julianna Muzyczynyn
Tess Naquet-Radiguet
Nicolaas Schmid
Meruka Vyas
Zoe Yu
HIGH SCHOOL PROGRAM LEAD
Evan Tao
STAFF WRITERS
Sara Amir
Phil Avilov
Ophir Berrin
Meredith Chang
Madeleine Connery
Jacqueline Dean
Neve Diaz-Carr
Chris Donnelly
Yael Ranel Filus
Andrea Fuentes
Chiupong Huang
Cecilia Hult
Napintakorn (Pin) Kasemsri
Noah Kim
Lev Kotler-Berkowitz
Lauren Kozmor
Adora Limani
Mia Madden
Satoki Minami
Mateo Navarro
Asher Patel
Emma Phan
Sonya Rashkovan
Gui Sequeira
Samdol Lhamo Sichoe
Riya Singh
Nainika Sompallie
Joshua Stearns
Will Thomas
Allan Wang
Annabel Williams
Isabella Xu
CREATIVE BOARD
CREATIVE DIRECTORS
Thomas Dimayuga
Grace Liu
DESIGN DIRECTORS
Natalie Ho
Hannah Jeong
Hyunmin Kim
GRAPHIC DESIGNERS
Punch Kulphisanrat
Ashley Lee
Jay Moon
Ryan Scott
Marie You
Renee Zhu
SOCIAL MEDIA DIRECTOR
Fah Prayottavekit
SOCIAL MEDIA DESIGNERS
Nina Jeffries-El
Shiyan Zhu
ART DIRECTORS
Anna Fischler
Haimeng Ge
Bath Hernández
Margaryta Winkler
Jiabao Wu
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BUSINESS DIRECTORS
John Lee
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BUSINESS ASSOCIATES
Aditi Bhattacharjya
Elina Coutlakis-Hixson
Lizzie Duong
Brynn Manke
Becky Montes
Neve O’Neil
COVER ARTIST
Anna Fischler
ILLUSTRATORS
Oli Bartsch
Ruobing Chang
Lily Engblom-Stryker
Isabela Guillen
Manuela Guzmán
Kexin Huang
Amelia Jeoung
Larisa Kachko
Sadie Levine
LuJia Liao
Jiwon Lim
Paul Li
Carmina Lopez
Ranran Ma
Haley Maka
Anum Naseer
Ruby Nemeroff
Shay Salmon
Sofia Schreiber
Haley Sheridan
Angelina So
Yanning Sun
Sam Takeda
Yimiao Wang
Maggie Weng
Rokia Whitehouse
Catherine Witherwax
Zimo Yang
Naomi Zaro
Dreams Deferred
The US visa system fails Syrian students
by Desi Silverman-Joseph ’27
, a History concentrator
illustrations by Haley Maka ’26, an Illustration major at RISD and Illustrator for BPR
On December 17, 2022, Julia (pseudonym) received an admission offer from Stanford University with full financial aid. “I was overwhelmed with joy,” she told me. “My parents don’t have to pay for my education!”
Julia lives in Syria, a country that has faced mass poverty, economic recession, and currency depreciation since the Syrian Civil War erupted in 2011. Although rebels recently ousted the repressive Assad regime, the country remains impoverished and unstable. In 2019, the average Syrian salary was $143 per year, far short of covering even basic living expenditures. A scholarship to a top-tier US university would be life-changing for Julia and her family.
Julia faced one last hurdle before she could enroll: obtaining a US student visa (known officially as an F-1). For students from countries that, like Syria, the United States designates as “State Sponsors of Terrorism,” this process is fraught with bureaucratic obstacles. As leaders in higher education and believers in opportunity for all, it is the duty of the United States to eradicate these barriers.
On June 29, 2023, Julia traveled from her hometown of Jableh to the American Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, for an in-person interview the last step of her F-1 application. The US Embassy in Damascus has been closed since 2012 following the outbreak of war, so US-bound Syrians must find embassies elsewhere. Julia’s interviewer asked her the standard questions: “Which university are you headed to?” “How are you paying for your education?” “What major are you pursuing?” Then, he asked about her parents’ professions.
“My mother is a housewife,” Julia replied. “And my father works as a Syrian customs agent.” Suddenly, the interviewer began bombarding Julia with questions about her parents’ politics.
Julia explained that her parents do not engage in politics perhaps because to be political under Assad is to risk your safety. “They don’t like politics, and so I’ve never had an interest in it,” she said to me.
As a customs agent, Julia’s father was far removed from the actions of the Assad regime, but to the embassy, the mere fact that he worked for the government warranted suspicion. The
“While the government frames these clearances as essential safeguards against terrorism, in practice, they place hardworking students escaping poverty in a sort of bureaucratic purgatory.”
“Through the logic of ‘reciprocity,’ Washington justifies its restrictive visa policy as merely a reaction to the antagonism of other nations.”
interviewer asked Julia for a letter of employment from her father. The salary statement she brought would not suffice, he said. She would need to send the letter of employment to the embassy office when she got home. He then put her file on “administrative processing.”
For most visa applicants, a decision is made at the conclusion of the interview. As such, the term “administrative processing” refers to special cases where an immediate verdict cannot be reached by the consular office. Factors that can trigger the designation include an applicant’s field of study (STEM disciplines are most suspicious), prior visa denials, criminal record, or perceived threat to national security. The United States designates Syria, along with Cuba, North Korea, and Iran, as State Sponsors of Terrorism. Students from these countries face additional security clearances that almost always result in administrative processing holdups. While the government frames these clearances as essential safeguards against terrorism, in practice, they place hardworking students escaping poverty in a sort of bureaucratic purgatory. The US government insists that “there are only two possible outcomes for complete and executed US visa applications:” issuance or refusal. In Julia’s case, however, the file has been in limbo for 21 months, and she remains stuck in Syria.
Some Syrians, like Brown student Adam (pseudonym), do manage to get out. His file was in administrative processing for nine months before approval. Although Adam made it to Providence after a year of deferred enrollment, he is unable to leave the country not even to see his family in Syria. Other international student visas have lifespans that extend for many years, allowing for multiple reentries into the United States. But the US Embassy attaches extremely
short lifespans to Syrian F-1 visas; Adam’s visa was issued on June 26, 2023 and expired only two and a half months later on September 14, 2023. While Adam can leave the country, he cannot legally reenter the United States without applying for a new visa and risking administrative processing or rejection.
According to the government, the lifespan of an American F-1 visa is based on reciprocity agreements with the country in question. This means that the two countries agree to adopt the same visa stipulations (such as the number of background checks, application fees, and validity periods). Countries with amicable relations share lenient visa policies, while clashing countries have stricter ones. Through the logic of “reciprocity,” Washington justifies its restrictive visa policy as merely a reaction to the antagonism of other nations. It is a way to say “they started it” without assuming any responsibility for discriminating against students on the basis of nationality.
Trying to understand why the United States sets different visa standards for different countries pains Adam. “Technically, if I graduated from Brown with X degree,” Adam tells me, “and I’m literate and I know a lot of things, I’m still worth two months of visa […] It feels like all that you work hard for is for nothing.”
Compared to Julia, though, Adam is lucky. Once Julia returned from her interview, she sent a translated version of her father’s letter of employment to the embassy. Her case has not been updated since then. Over the past year and a half, Julia sent over 10 emails to the embassy regarding her status, and Stanford made three congressional inquiries on Julia’s behalf, compelling the local representative to contact the embassy about her case. Each time,
the Department of State responded months later, claiming that there was nothing that could be done to hasten Julia’s visa process.
Because her scholarship to Stanford will expire if she does not enroll within two years of admission, Julia will have to give up on college in the United States if her visa status remains unaddressed by the summer of 2025. In a desperate last attempt, Julia is reapplying for her student visa at another US Embassy in Jordan, which she hopes will be friendlier. Now in her second gap year, Julia spends her time helping other Syrian students apply to US colleges. Some of her mentees have already started their freshman years as Julia remains in Syria, watching from afar as the people she guided live the life that she, too, deserves.
To remedy the injustice of the current visa system, the Department of State must make three changes: First, reopen the embassy in Damascus; second, standardize F-1 visa expiration dates to graduation so that students may visit family; and third, increase transparency about what exactly occurs during “administrative processing” and set caps on the time that files can remain pending. Short of these reforms, US universities will miss out on talent, and students like Julia will continue to face bleak, uncertain futures.
approach by noting that those in greatest need deserve priority. Aquinas argues that Christians should help those “who have greater want” rather than those “more closely united to us,” contradicting Vance’s “concentric circles” approach. Admittedly, Aquinas also says, “we ought to be most beneficent towards those who are most closely connected with us,” but his introduction of “want” frames ordo amoris as a more nuanced balancing act rather than the rigid delimitation that Vance proposes.
The Trump administration’s stop-work order of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is particularly concerning. Credited with saving over 25 million lives since the George W. Bush administration, PEPFAR represents a relatively low-cost yet highly impactful program. While international aid helps bolster US soft power, President Bush also saw it as the moral responsibility of a great nation to provide aid to those most vulnerable to HIV around the world. The cuts to PEPFAR shut down clinics and data systems across Africa as part of an unprecedented dismantling of the US foreign aid system,
including lifesaving aid for mothers, food assistance, HIV medication, and refugee services. While Vance touts Christianity as a rationale for his insularity, the wholesale abandonment of this moral obligation in favor of a more localized, isolationist ethos contradicts the words of the Pope, the story of the Good Samaritan, and the teachings of Aquinas.
“What is needed … is stability, order, continuity, and a sense of gratitude for the past and obligation toward the future. … What is needed, in short, is regime change the peaceful but vigorous overthrow of a corrupt and corrupting liberal ruling class and the creation of a postliberal order.”
Patrick Deneen
Vance’s use of Christianity to advocate for a “concentric circles” approach to moral obligations also contradicts liberalism’s emphasis on universal values. In The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith argues that “all those inferior interests should be sacrificed to the greater interests of the universe, to the interests of that great society of all sensible and intelligent beings, of which God himself is the immediate administrator and director.” Similarly, John Locke claimed that “[everyone] as he is bound to preserve himself... ought as much as he can preserve the rest of mankind.” This interest in “the rest of mankind” and the “great interests of the universe” emphasizes a global, collective concern for rights and freedoms a hallmark of liberalism that Christian nationalism decidedly rejects.
Vance’s use of ordo amoris reflects a broader critique of liberal universalism, renouncing the idea that moral responsibility should extend beyond national borders. Liberalism both religious and secular has long defended the universal conception of human dignity. Influenced by conservative academics like Patrick Deneen, Vance has seemingly embraced the ascended argument for a more “rooted” politics focused on local ties and individual responsibility. Stronger community ties are a welcome change it is odd, however, that Vance’s critique of liberalism focuses on the need to ration love rather than stemming from more legitimate concerns about failed government policies.
Ultimately, Vance’s selective invocation of Christianity to justify an insular moral framework shrinks the moral horizon of the United States at a time when global crises demand leadership. Contrary to his notion of “concentric circles,” Christian theology has a long tradition of interpreting ordo amoris to include a broader embrace of mercy and justice, as articulated by Pope Francis and Aquinas. The administration must offer policies that address the needs of local communities and prioritize US national interests, including the perceived failure of liberalism, but it should not lose sight of the moral leadership global programs like PEPFAR demonstrate.
Equal Pay for Equal Work
An Interview with Midge Purce
Margaret “Midge” Purce is a professional soccer player for NJ/NY Gotham FC with 30 caps for the US Women’s National Team (USWNT), as well as an outspoken advocate for gender equality, equal pay, and equal opportunity for women and girls in sport and beyond. In 2022, she was a driving force in achieving the Equal Pay for Equal Work Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) with the United States Soccer Federation, ensuring a slew of improvements in pay and benefits for the USWNT. Additionally, Purce is a co-founder of the Black Women’s Player Collective (BWPC), a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization committed to advancing opportunities for Black girls both on and off the field through community development, mentorship, and education. Currently, she is executive producing The Offseason, a reality-style TV show following the lives of 11 stars of the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL). Not to mention, she’s the reigning NWSL Final MVP after her incredible two-assist performance in the 2023 championship match.
Benjamin Stern: Could you describe an experience or story that inspired you to get involved in the fight for gender equality?
Midge Purce: That’s a harder question than you think because a lot of the motivation for me to care about gender equality is the fact that I am a woman, so I have felt gender inequality affect my life in ways where it just becomes a natural priority. Beyond that, the very obvious way is that I have experienced pay inequality, or unequal pay for the same work. I work very hard, and I take a lot of pride in doing good work, so compensation has been really important to me as well.
BS: You’ve been a key part in the fight to win equal pay and equal treatment for athletes regardless of gender. What would you say have been your biggest accomplishments so far?
MP: The CBA with the USWNT was a historic deal which absolutely garnered pay equality, but not just through equal compensation with the men’s national team. We were also given equal playing fields, equal environments, equal medical team requirements, and even equal hotels when traveling. The CBA was really huge because the spirit of equality was captured. It wasn’t just pay but also environment and standards all across the board.
BS: How did the Black Women’s Player Collective come to be, and what are some of the initiatives you’re most proud of or that you think are having the biggest impacts in the community today?
MP: The Black Women’s Player Collective started in 2020 during a time when the whole world was in disarray. There was Covid-19, of course, but there were also a lot of social injustices on people’s minds at the time, like with Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. It was during a time where most, if not all, of the Black players in the league felt like some
type of action needed to be taken, and we felt like there was a part that we could play in helping to resolve some of the issues with the reality that we all experienced. We’re not trying to convince anyone of what we believe or what we think the nature of the country is. Rather, we all have this shared experience because of race, and we’re all aligned in the belief that there’s something we can do to make sure that other people don’t have the same experience we’ve had. We can make it better for the next generation. I would say that our most impressive initiative would probably be our mini pitches, which we’re building all across the country, holding clinics and trying to improve access to sport for the next generation of Black girls. It’s a really cool opportunity for younger players and girls who aren’t players to meet professional athletes and see this road that you can take in sport and just be around someone who has used sport in a way that is really inspirational.
BS: Was there a lot of discussion with other Black players around the league before you established the BWPC in trying to figure out what it was going to look like and how you were going to make it the most impactful it could be?
MP: There were so many endless conversations about structure and how you actually start something like this. It’s a nonprofit, but it was the first business structure I’ve ever been a part of from a foundational perspective. I remember someone told me, “You know, this is going to be a lot more work than you expect,” and I remember thinking that it was going to be fine. Then all of a sudden, it was so much work. That being said, I’m so proud of it, and I’m proud of the work that it does. I think we’re all just really proud of being able to put it together.
BS: How international do you think this movement for equal pay and equal treatment in women’s sports really is? Do you think it’s mostly an American movement, or
Interview by Benjamin Stern ’27
Illustration by Yanning Sun ’25
have you seen and experienced players around the world fighting for the same goals you are?
MP: I think the movement in the United States has been an ideal for the rest of the world it has served as a prototype of what could be established. It is global, though. Australia and the Netherlands have had some really powerful movements in their respective fights for gender equality. It’s women around the world who are united.
BS: Do you think Lalas being a white male athlete contributes to his stance? I know you mentioned that being a woman in sport inherently implicates you as a political actor, so is the flip-side therefore that lacking that identity can lead to misunderstandings of those experiences? MP: Absolutely, yeah. Identity is where those experiences and understandings come from.
BS: In my opinion, one of the coolest photos in sports over the last year or so was your now pretty famous one, taken just after your 2023 NWSL championship victory, holding the championship and the final MVP trophies in each hand with a cigar in your mouth and gold confetti in the background. I know you’ve received some backlash in the media for that cigar, so could you describe a little bit about what that media attention looked like and how it affected you, if at all?
MP: I’m so blessed with my small circle of family. I remember I was at the championship after the game with my dad, my brother, and my boyfriend, and all of them were like, “Let me light you up!” The people I’m surrounded with, and specifically the men in my life, are so supportive, but they are also people who would criticize me when it’s warranted, so with things like the cigar, I don’t even really give it a second thought. Most of the criticism comes from this understanding that everything I do should be for the inspiration of a little girl, and I think that’s not a reasonable way to look at athletes or role models in general. I love when I can inspire someone, and I love that there are young girls who do look at me as an example. And further, I would argue that I’ve done a lot of things that would make me a pretty good person to look at in terms of how you might want to navigate the world later in life. But it’s unhelpful and unreasonable to expect me or anyone to act solely as a role model to kids, especially when zeroing in on female athletes.
BS: With a second Trump administration coming to the White House in January, how do you expect your work to change, if at all?
MP: That’s a really good question. I think it’s interesting because I always look at it from the lens of an athlete, and I sincerely have no idea to what degree new policies could affect me in that respect. That said, I can anticipate changes simply from being a woman and, more specifically, a woman of color. I think there will be changes that have real effects, but it is hard to predict the extent to which those new policies will change our lives.
BS: Where to next? What are some of your goals for the coming months, years, and so on, whether on or off the pitch?
MP: That’s actually a really easy question. I have my eye on that next World Cup. If you ask me what I’m thinking about right now, I’m thinking about the 2027 World Cup, and that’s really it.
BS: As a soccer fan, I have to ask, what would it mean to you to be part of a World Cup squad, and then, of course, what would it mean to win it?
MP: When you play for the US Women’s National Team, you have the opportunity to be the best in the world at something, and I think that’s a really rare and almost sacred thing to be able to accomplish. To me, it just means everything. I’m excited for the whole process.
BS: What do you think is left to do for the movement in women’s sports, whether through policy, social and cultural attitude shifts, or something else entirely? What are the most important projects moving forward?
“I think the movement in the United States has been an ideal for the rest of the world it has served as a prototype of what could be established.”
MP: I think everything’s left to do. We accomplished equal pay with the US Women’s National Team, but I still play in a league in the United States where our salaries aren’t even close to the same as the men. And of course we don’t play in Major League Soccer, but in terms of growing the game and growing the sport, we have so much to do on the women’s side. In the same way, attitudes and societal perspectives on women in sport are so skewed, and there’s so much that needs changing. I put up The Offseason, and I can’t tell you how many comments there are questioning women playing soccer in the first place, saying things like, “Ew, no, never!” For as much progress as we have made, there’s not really a finish line. We’ll never be done.
BS: Who’s your favorite soccer/football player of all time?
MP: It’s so hard to pick a favorite, but I’ve always been a Lionel Messi fan. I saw him play at Red Bull Arena last year, and I just thought, “I can’t believe I’m seeing Messi play in person in my lifetime.” Then he scored, and I was like, “I’ve seen Messi score a goal. This is crazy.”
BS: Have you ever had a moment where you met a player and were completely starstruck?
MP: No. But that being said, I haven’t met Messi. If there was someone who could do it, it’s Messi for sure.
BS: Your first assist in the NWSL final last year was unreal to watch, but how did it feel to make such a huge impact in scoring the opening goal in a game with so much weight?
MP: I don’t think I’ve ever looked at it like that. I think there was something really special about that team, and I get chills when I think about it because it’s one of the best groups of women I’ve ever been a part of. We all just wanted it so bad and were willing to do everything we possibly could to win. That whole game, you just saw everyone giving their absolute best, putting forth all they had to offer. That may sound easy, but it’s actually really hard to accomplish in practice. I guess that assist was just my best. That was all I had to offer.
funds increased. In 2003, to provide HIV/AIDS initiatives around the world with the funding necessary, President George W. Bush created the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Since its creation, PEPFAR has invested over $110 billion in the global HIV/AIDS response and has saved up to 26 million lives through its own initiatives and through funding various local groups around the world. For instance, after Uganda passed a law criminalizing samesex intercourse and categorizing same-sex relations while having HIV as punishable by death, nonprofit organizations focused on protecting queer rights have depended on foreign funding to continue their operations. One such organization, the Uganda Key Populations Consortium, used an $8 million grant from PEPFAR to house and employ those most vulnerable to HIV/AIDS in the country. However, under the Trump administration, these lifesaving initiatives have been gutted. Despite Uganda currently being home to approximately 1.5 million AIDS patients, the Uganda Key Populations Consortium was forced to shut down in compliance with Trump’s January 20, 2025, Executive Order against diversity, equity, and inclusion. The story is the same for NGOs across the Global South.
The foreign aid freeze also halted the government-funded distribution of pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, specifically to members of the LGBTQ+ community. This antiretroviral drug prevents the transmission of HIV and has been distributed through PEPFAR to over 20
million people in 2024 alone, including 2.5 million new PrEP users. With this pause, the Trump administration has endangered the lives of every one of these users. In the first week since the administration’s aid freeze, 3,000 new cases of HIV have already been reported worldwide. On February 6, the State Department issued a waiver allowing PEPFAR-funded PrEP to again be given to pregnant and breastfeeding women glaringly restricting the LGBTQ+ community, who are most at risk of HIV/AIDS, from lifesaving care. This exclusivity in distribution is direct evidence of the continued prejudice against queer people enforced by the governmental response to AIDS.
As was apparent during the Reagan administration over 40 years ago, prejudice and stigma continue to infect the public health sphere. Elected officials continue to prioritize a grasp of their conservative electorates over the safety of those who are most vulnerable. Government negligence, fueled by a resurgence of anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment, threatens the lives of millions of people who, until now, were protected by both NGOs and the government. So much progress has been made since AIDS first arose as a public health threat: Nonprofit organizations have created community-oriented programs on local levels, four consecutive presidencies (both Democratic and Republican) have supported PEPFAR, and highly effective medications have been developed to prevent the transmission of HIV. With Trump in office, the world risks reversing decades of bipartisan progress.
Since the start of the AIDS epidemic in 1981, only four decades ago, over 40 million people have lost their lives to HIV-related causes. In 2023, another 40 million people continued to live with this fatal illness. Unless the Trump administration reverses course, these numbers will only continue to rise.
“Elected officials continue to prioritize a grasp of their conservative electorates over the safety of those who are most vulnerable.”
The AI boom needs clean energy without the political baggage Power Play
by Annabel Williams ’26, an International and Political Affairs and Visual Arts concentrator and Staff Writer for BPR
illustration by Shay Salmon ’27, an Illustration major at RISD and Illustrator for BPR
“We need double the energy we currently have in the United States can you imagine? For AI to really be as big as we want to have it,”
President Donald Trump proclaimed at the World Economic Forum in January 2025. In his first action fulfilling his promises for AI, Trump announced $500 billion for a new joint venture, Project Stargate, in partnership with OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank. This initiative seeks to expand AI infrastructure, including the energy resources that power it.
Data centers have enormous energy demands to power AI. They strain existing electric grids in the United States, consuming 147 terawatt-hours (TWh) of power in 2023 (3.7 percent of total US power demand). While McKinsey projects data center power demand will reach 606 TWh by 2030
(11.7 percent of total US power demand), global demand could reach 1,000 TWh by 2026 the current electric consumption of Japan. Growing electricity demand from data centers could warrant fossil fuel expansion, as President Trump suggests, or it could harness newly developed and available renewable resources.
Wind and solar-generated power combined with Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) offer a reliable solution for new data centers with infrastructure that is more readily available and reliable than ever before. While tech and energy industries, in addition to several Republican lawmakers, are beginning to embrace clean energy as a reliable and readily scalable source of power, the Trump administration may realize that it should too, if it wants to achieve its ambitious AI goals.
“Like clean energy executives and a growing number of Republican lawmakers, many AI and technology executives do not want clean energy to have a political color, and possibly neither does the new Trump administration.”
wind.” New renewable resources are now accessible thanks to the work of the Biden administration over the past few years to give grants, loans, and completed permits to industry developers of solar, wind, geothermal, and BESS technology. The readiness of these options makes them more efficient and economical for new centers rather than building new fossil fuel plants.
The private sector is already warming up to clean energy sources. Data center developers, including big fish like Amazon and Microsoft, are procuring renewable energy through Power Purchase Agreements with local utilities. Google and Microsoft have both pledged to transition their data centers to 100 percent renewable energy, with Google writing, “data centers are a key part of Google’s journey toward net-zero carbon,” noting the company’s goal to “run on 24/7 carbon-free energy on every grid where we operate.”
President Trump’s fossil fuel favoritism and anti-clean energy stance conflicts with the practicality of expanding AI and his urgent aspiration to establish the United States as a global leader in AI in light of China’s competitive edge with the groundbreaking launch of DeepSeek. However, Trump’s second administration may be more inclined not to let the historically politicized nature of clean energy jeopardize his more urgent goals to expand AI and establish energy dominance.
what are the right resources for us to move forward with… 90 percent of everything that you can add over the next four years that are ready to go happen to be clean.”
Likewise, there is a shift in the rhetoric around clean energy among Republican lawmakers, interpreting the Trumpian term “energy dominance” to promote both renewable and non-renewable domestic energy production. In January, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) strongly criticized Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency for heavy-handed regulations while also urging Trump to embrace clean energy: “If we want to restore our energy dominance, we have to start saying ‘yes’ to American energy. ‘Yes’ to an all-of-the-above energy strategy that includes everything from oil and gas to hydropower and biofuels everything. We need all of it.” Republican states are also home to the most LPO grant recipients and have seen the economic benefits of Biden-era investments in clean energy technology.
Paul Bledsoe, climate advisor under former President Bill Clinton, said in February, “Republican members know clean energy is a huge success story and the question is whether they will fall in line and repeal incentives because of this culture war. That is the crux of it and it’s unclear what will happen.”
A few days before retaking office, Trump declared a “national energy emergency” to enlarge domestic fossil fuel and critical mineral production, suggesting the United States needs to build more coal and natural gas-burning power plants to fuel the growing number of AI data centers. However, new infrastructure will only be ready to connect to the grid by 2026 at the earliest; meanwhile, in 2024, 94 percent of new US power plants were carbon-free. Jigar Shah, the former director of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Loan Programs Office (LPO) under the Biden administration, which grants billions of dollars in government loans to private companies, spoke about the rise in power demands for data centers and other facilities: “Every one of them needs power, and guess what’s getting connected right now? Batteries, solar,
When entering office for his second term, Trump made it clear that he would advance fossil fuel energy. However, the new administration’s actions and rhetoric toward clean energy have been contradictory thus far. The president issued a memo calling for a federal funding freeze in late January. The freeze, soon overruled by a judge, explicitly revoked funding from projects aligned with the aims of the ‘Green New Deal’ and halted DOE loans. As the Washington Post writes, “Trump took office and vowed to cut back clean energy projects.” Two weeks later, though, he signed approval for one of the loans promised under Biden’s DOE to Montana Renewables for developing sustainable aviation. Of the DOE’s LPO awards announced under the Biden administration, there are still $47 billion in conditionally promised loans that have not been distributed. One week Trump illegally attempted to withhold all of the loans; he soon after approved a $782 million loan to Montana Renewables. In his “energy emergency” executive order, one line reads, “We need a reliable, diversified, and affordable supply of energy” experts regard the term “diversified” as being inclusive of clean energy technologies.
Shah thinks the DOE under Trump-appointed Chris Wright will come around to clean energy, including for AI projects: “Folks are going to do their planning, and they’re going to figure out
Similar to the language Republicans are using to endorse clean energy, the industry is strongly levying the “energy dominance” narrative and moving away from politically inflammatory phrases. Solar executives have been lobbying the Trump administration with the American energy dominance angle and are rhetorically shifting away from climate impacts. Montana Renewables CEO Bruce Fleming made a statement after Trump signed the loan in which he “downplayed the project’s connection to climate change,” instead discussing its benefit to farmers, the Washington Post writes, as “many clean energy executives in the Trump era” are doing. In his statement, Flemming said, “This is not the Green New Deal.”
Like clean energy executives and a growing number of Republican lawmakers, many AI and technology executives do not want clean energy to have a political color, and possibly neither does the new Trump administration. About the term ‘clean energy,’ Shah says, “If that’s a boogeyman word these days then that’s what it is. But those are the projects that are ready to go.” Perhaps as clean energy becomes integral to the future of US energy, regardless of the party in the Executive Office, it is becoming a “boogeyman word” of the past. For ‘green’ energy to progress, providing a practical option to power proliferating data centers and helping decarbonize industries, clean energy needs to de-emphasize the ‘green’ and become further politically neutralized.
2 0
2 4 LEGACY A FAMILY AFFAIR Sara Amir Data Board Ava Rahman THE REVOLUTION WENT UNTELEVISED FINDERS, KEEPERS?
2 6
3 0 EQUAL VOTES, UNEQUAL REPRESENTATION
2 8
“TOLD YOU SO”
3 2 ONE SMALL STEP, ONE GIANT SETBACK Aman Vora Asher Patel Leah Freedman
“But for the museum to reckon with the vestiges of its imperial past, Parliament must allow the repatriation of looted artifacts.”
The British Museum is run by a board of trustees meant to operate at arm’s length from the government. Their autonomy is part of a legislative framework designed to insulate the museum from the winds of politics, preventing valuable artifacts from being sold as bargaining chips in diplomatic negotiations or becoming debt collateral in times of financial crisis. On March 30, 2022, when Parliament discussed returning the tabots to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay the Under-Secretary for the State Department of Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) returned to this principle. “My Lords,” he began, “the British Museum operates independently [from the] government, meaning that decisions relating to the care and management of its collections, are a matter for its trustees.”
However, because of the British Museum Act, the separation of museum and state is futile. Trustees do not have control over museum collections because Parliament must micromanage legislation around repatriation. Under scrutiny from the Boris Johnson administration, museums were told to maintain contested artifacts. Fellow Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak maintained a similar position when he canceled a meeting with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, turning the Elgin Marbles loan negotiations into a sensationalized squabble.
To bypass the Act, the museum stated its intent to loan the tabots to an Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Great Britain. This proposal aligns with the vision of Nick Cullinan, the new director of the British Museum, who seeks
“The dilemma of this internationalist philosophy is that physical property ‘belonging to common humanity’ cannot be accessible to ‘all of humanity’ at the same time.”
further collaboration with international museums to make the museum a “lending library” to the world. While loans offer an alternative to repatriation, they do not fully address the dilemma of cultural ownership. Britain has publicly expressed its interest in lending the Elgin Marbles, but Greece will take nothing less than permanent acquisition, arguing that anything else simply reaffirms the museum’s colonial understanding of “rightful” ownership. This dispute has locked the two countries in a standstill battle since Greece gained independence in 1835. Similarly, returning the tabots on loan seems particularly insensitive given their profound importance to Ethiopians and their relative unimportance to the British. As it stands, the status of these negotiations, as well as the 2019 request for the tabots’ return to Ethiopia by the country’s cultural minister, remains unclear. In response to these controversies, the museum asserts the claim that cultural artifacts transcend national interests and must be protected for the sake of common humanity. The dilemma of this internationalist philosophy is that physical property “belonging to common humanity” cannot be accessible to “all of humanity” at the same time. As a result, preservation becomes the priority. This stance originates from the 1954 Hague Convention. With the memory of World War II’s destruction, the first international treaty upholding the universal value of cultural heritage was drafted with the assumption that “damage to cultural property belonging to any people whatsoever means damage to the cultural heritage of all mankind.” In contrast, nationalists believe that cultural heirlooms belong to their country of origin, surpassing the importance of preservation or
The Revolution Went Untelevised
Azerbaijan’s push for independence should be remembered as a revolution
by Sara Amir ’28, International and Public Affairs and History concentrator and Staff Writer for BPR illustration by Rokia Whitehouse ’27, an Illustration major at RISD and Illustrator for BPR
More often than not, things fall apart to make way for better things. Landmark revolutions in history reach heights of social upheaval that render a return to the old order impossible. But what happens when a revolution becomes entangled with other major crises? When that entanglement disrupts the straightforward sequence of cause, uprising, and change? When a revolution falls short of its original ambitions, it is often forgotten. Yet, in the capital city of Baku, Azerbaijan, where I was born and raised, the memory of one such movement lingers sometimes vivid, sometimes faint, but never fully gone.
Amid the serial collapse of communist regimes and democratic transitions in the Eastern Bloc during the late 1980s a period often celebrated in the West as an extraordinary era of progress Azerbaijan’s independence movement stands out. Marked by overlapping internal and external crises, it resists fitting neatly into the common Western framework of a revolution. This sentiment is reflected in Azerbaijan itself. From what I have witnessed, Azerbaijanis regard the period, at most, as a ‘national liberation’ the word revolution seldom enters the conversation.
As Mikhail Gorbachev’s democratization efforts failed to preserve unity in the Soviet Union, central authority weakened. As a result, tensions in Azerbaijan’s Karabakh region, driven by a long-standing territorial dispute with Armenia, spiraled out of Soviet control. At the core of the dispute was the desire of the ethnic Armenian population in Karabakh to unify with Armenia, which later grew into a separatist cause to establish an autonomous republic. The political dispute soon escalated into brutality, resulting in the deaths of at least 40 civilians in the Armenian districts of Baku in 1990. Similar outbreaks occurred in other large cities like Sumqayit and various Armenian-populated villages throughout Karabakh.
Alongside the encroaching separatist surge in Karabakh, which was opposed by ethnic Azerbaijanis, there was a growing push for the country’s independence from the Soviet Union. As a result, Azerbaijanis found themselves facing two fronts of resistance: one aimed at preserving Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity and another against Soviet imperialism. These causes fueled a unified Azerbaijani nationalist movement, erupting into mass protests in late 1988 and culminating on November 17, now commemorated in Azerbaijan as National Revival Day. Bakuvians painted slogans on government buildings condemning Gorbachev while holding signs with messages like, “Where are you, Democracy?” alluding to Gorbachev’s hypocritical championing of democratization on the world stage while tightening his grip on dissent at home, ultimately resorting to violence.
Under the pretext of suppressing inter-ethnic violence, on January 20, 1990 in a day now referred to as Black January Soviet leadership carried out a violent military crackdown in Baku. Over 200 civilians died at Soviet hands. To prevent news from circulating within the country or reaching abroad, Soviet authorities severed telephone lines, censored local media, restricted access to foreign journalists, and destroyed Baku’s broadcast transmitters hours before the tanks rolled in. It is almost as if the revolution was both literally and figuratively silenced, its story deliberately contained, never intended to reach or resonate with the wider world. If the purpose of the Soviet troop action was to halt violence and restore order, why was a state of emergency not declared beforehand to protect civilians? Why was a supposedly rightful intervention shrouded in secrecy? Why was Baku attacked as though it were an enemy fortress?
Far from quelling the independence movement, the intervention failed to achieve its purported aims. Twenty months later, Azerbaijan declared independence as the Soviet Union dissolved; an independence that, though long sought by the Azerbaijani people, was not the immediate fruit of their collective mobilization but rather an almost inevitable consequence of the empire’s collapse. The newly independent Azerbaijan then plunged into a full-scale war with Armenia one far more destructive than the unrest the Soviet intervention had allegedly sought to contain. This immediate
“It is one thing for a revolution to go unnoticed. It stings even more for the injustices and the oppressors to be glorified by the international community.”
subsequent war, coupled with the fact that Azerbaijan’s independence was more a byproduct of Soviet collapse than a result of a successful revolution, led the movement to go unrecognized as a revolution both domestically and internationally.
Just nine months after Black January, to the fury of Azerbaijanis, Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The global recognition of a figure who, at his core, mirrored the imperialist and authoritarian record of previous Soviet rulers remains a stark and painful contradiction. It is one thing for a revolution to go unnoticed. It stings even more for the injustices and the oppressors to be glorified by the international community.
Current geopolitical realities further obscure the revolutionary essence of Azerbaijan’s independence movement in the 1990s. Even today, many Azerbaijanis dismiss it as inconsequential and view it as little more than a series of repeated failures and losses of life. This view is underscored by the fact that, despite its political breakaway from Russia, Azerbaijan remains a prisoner of its own geography, bound by historical and geopolitical constraints, as well as Russia’s continued interest in access to the resource-rich country. Thus, 30 years later, Azerbaijan remains within Russia’s sphere of influence despite its efforts to adopt a balanced foreign policy and shift toward neutrality after gaining independence. This cautious approach is hardly surprising considering Russia’s history of hostility in attempts to keep the South Caucasus away from alignment with the West most notably exemplified by Russia’s military intervention in Georgia in 2008. Despite Russia having been less involved in the region’s affairs in the last five years due to its ongoing war in Ukraine, the nearing conclusion of that conflict prompts speculation about Russia’s renewed focus on its neighbors in the South Caucasus. The impending threat of Russian interference rings particularly true in light of rising tensions: civil unrest in Georgia against its pro-Russian government, Armenia’s growing political and military ties with France as it turns away from Russia, and the recent surge in anti-Russian sentiment in Azerbaijan following an airplane disaster, for which Russia has been widely blamed. These ongoing political constraints make it difficult for Azerbaijanis to view the 1990s as a revolutionary struggle, instead associating it with a traumatic loss of life and hardship rather than the victories typically associated with revolutions.
The significance of a revolution should not be defined solely by the immediate attainment of its goals; often, its true impact lies in the socio-political shifts it sets in motion, even if they take time to manifest in clear ways. By that measure, Azerbaijan’s 1990s independence movement was undeniably a revolution a fierce rebellion that shattered a century and a half of Russian imperial rule and sparked a renewed sense of national identity. Revolutions in postcolonial autocratic contexts rarely follow a clean arc of victory, but their force lies in the structures they weaken and the new realities they create. These overlooked movements remind us that transformative change can take many forms, some unnamed but no less revolutionary. Decades later, the silence of the annual commemoration of Black January, with Azerbaijanis laying red carnations at the Alley of Martyrs, remains the closest we have come to a label that speaks volumes.
with legacy status (percentages add up to greater than 100 percent because students were allowed to select multiple races). The inclusion of legacy admissions permits a favorable variable to white students over minority groups, making the process less equitable as students are not admitted based upon their merit or advantageous lived-experience perspective.
The graph above compares the admissions rate of applicants with similar SAT scores to Ivy+ colleges (including Ivy League schools, Stanford, the University of Chicago, and Duke). Applicants across income brackets enjoy a 226 percent bump in admission rates to their parent’s alma mater. When applying to other Ivy+ colleges, those same applicants only have a 37.6 percent advantage in admissions over non-legacies. This means that most of the acceptance rate boost comes directly from legacy admissions policies, not from legacy students being more qualified for Ivy+ institutions.
Disparities in Ivy+ admissions invariably translate into disparities in the workforce and broader society. Data on student outcomes shows that attending an Ivy+ institution has tremendous influence after graduation such as potential to earn in the top 1 percent of income, admission to elite graduate schools, and employment in prestigious firms. In each of those three metrics, Ivy+ graduates have 60.3 percent, 88 percent, and 206 percent advantages, respectively, over those who attended flagship state colleges.
Legacy admissions are not just racially biased; they are heavily weighted toward wealthier students, who are already overrepresented at Brown. A Brown Daily Herald poll of 738 incoming students in the class of 2028 found large disparities in the economic backgrounds of legacy and non-legacy students. Among children of Brown alumni who were aware of their parents’ income, nearly half (46.8 percent) had a household income of over $400,000 per year, versus 20.8 percent of students overall. There are virtually no low-income legacy students; none of the legacy students polled had parents making less than $60,000, and only 4.7 percent of children of Brown alums had parents making between $60,001 and $120,000, while 36.1 percent of all students had parents making $120,000 or less.
Several studies have shown that eliminating legacy admissions at selective universities would increase the socioeconomic diversity of their student bodies. An Opportunity Insights’ study by Raj Chetty, David J. Deming, and Brown Professor of Economics John N. Friedman found that students with parents in the top 1 percent (making more than $611,000 per year) were 58 percent more likely to be admitted to Ivy+ colleges than middle class students with comparable test scores, and 46 percent of this advantage
could be attributed to legacy admissions. By eliminating legacy admissions, the team projected that the percentage of students at Ivy+ colleges with parents in the top 1 percent would decrease from 15.8 percent to 13.7 percent. This, in turn, could leave space for more low-income students, as was found in a real-life case study: Johns Hopkins University eliminated legacy admissions gradually between 2009 and 2019 and saw its percentage of Pell Grant-eligible incoming students increase from 9 percent to more than 19 percent, while Brown saw its percentage of such students decrease from 2010 to 2017, the closest time period with available data.
The consideration of legacy status in the admissions process contributes to an inequitable system for selecting students to attend prestigious institutions like Brown. Applicants with legacy status have a significant advantage in the admissions process, as seen by their higher rates of admission compared to students without familial connections. Legacy status disproportionately favors students who come from a white and wealthy background. As a result, students from minority backgrounds and lower-income communities are disadvantaged in the college admissions process because they lack a familial connection to Brown. The types of students who are admitted matters because the Ivy League can be a springboard for mobility: Individuals who attend Ivy League institutions earn, on average, 1.75 to 2 times more money 10 years after graduation than graduates from other US universities.
Brown should strive to foster a diverse community of students that promotes a wide variety of perspectives and lived experiences. Legacy admissions stand against both this mission and students’ beliefs, as a majority of Brown students oppose legacy consideration in admissions (58.4 percent of 1,177 surveyed undergraduate students compared to only 11.9 percent of students in favor). Student organizations have voiced opposition to Brown’s continued practice of legacy admissions, such as Students for Educational Equity (SEE), which recently helped introduce House Bill 5487 to prohibit all Rhode Island universities from considering legacy during the admissions process. Brown has noticed the student opposition and recently hosted an online forum for students to voice their concerns; however, a shift in the admissions process similar to Johns Hopkins’ remains a distant possibility for Brown. Additionally, these findings are limited in scope due to the lack of transparency from elite institutions about demographic information of their admitted students. Brown should fulfill its value of “making processes transparent” by publishing demographic information to foster open debate about its practices rather than hiding behind the admissions portal.
IEqual Votes, Unequal Representation
The BJP’s move to distribute voting rights will erode true democracy in India
by Aman Vora ’27, an Applied Math-Economics and Computational Biology concentrator and Senior Editor for BPR illustration by Oli Bartsch ’26, an Illustration major at RISD and Illustrator for BPR
ndia: the world’s biggest democracy. To most political scientists, India’s transformation from a movement of peaceful protest against British colonial forces to a 600-million-strong electoral body is beyond astounding. Even more shocking, however, is that critical aspects of India’s modern democratic order were shaped under dictatorship. Between 1975 and 1977, Indians inhabited a country where free speech was curtailed, due process was abolished, and elections were suspended; in essence, representative democracy was over. During this period, then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi introduced the 42nd Amendment, known today as the 1976 “Mini-Constitution.” The document’s sweeping provisions eliminated judicial review, redefined the nation as a “socialist secular democratic republic,” and froze the census-based apportionment of seats.
To understand why this anti-democratic measure was introduced, extended, and never rescinded over the past half-century, look no further than another one of Gandhi’s legacies: sterilization. Gandhi appointed her son, the groomed heir to the ruling Congress Party, to lead a campaign to reduce India’s total fertility rate (TFR). He set up thousands of “sterilization camps” for men and women nationwide. Village leaders were given quotas and financial incentives to reduce their TFRs, leading to numerous reports of forced sterilization as leaders sought to line their own pockets at the expense of impoverished or marginalized groups.
In order to assuage concerns that controlling their fertility rates would weaken states’ representative power, the population-based reapportionment of seats was halted for 25 years and then extended for 25 more; thus, states that fared better at controlling their population would not lose
political relevance. In essence, it is precisely because of, not despite, the 130 percent population growth nationwide and extensive variation in state populations that India’s national representative allocation has remained fixed. And by all metrics, in the last 50 years, India’s commitment to reducing its fertility rates has proven successful: In the southern state of Kerala, the TFR fell from 4 to 1.5, while the northern state of Uttar Pradesh saw a drop from 6.5 to 2.4.
In 2026, however, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government will begin the process of reapportioning India’s seats. On paper, with 31 out of 36 states reaching their fertility targets of 2.1 births per woman, India is long overdue for a redistribution of seats to match current national demographic distributions a Keralan minister represents 1.75 million individuals, while a Bihari member represents 3.35 million. It is clear that the poorer northern states of Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Madhya Pradesh (known as BIMARU) suffer from a lack of representation, while wealthier, more educated southern states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka hold outsized power federally.
This redistribution will undeniably bring about more equal representation on a per capita basis. But it comes at a cost: It will exacerbate the stark divide between North and South India. Southern states foster religious ecumenicism and speak Dravidian languages, compared to the Hindu-first, Hindi-speaking regions of the North. Economically, too, the South is increasingly pulling away; two states in particular Karnataka and Tamil Nadu are poised to be the next big tech centers of the world, contributing far more in tax revenue than they receive in federal spending. The starkest difference is politically: In 2019, Modi’s coalition won just 30
“T“Told You So”
George Mason’s forgotten warning rings true in Trump’s America
by Leah Freedman ’27, an International and Public Affairs and Economics concentrator and Copy Editor for BPR illustrations by Ranran Ma ’25, an Illustration master’s student at RISD and Illustrator for BPR
his government will set out a moderate aristocracy: it is at present impossible to foresee whether it will, in its operation, produce a monarchy, or a corrupt, tyrannical aristocracy.” This passage was “Forgotten Father”
George Mason’s justification for refusing to sign the US Constitution, pulled from his memorandum titled “Objections to the Constitution of Government Formed by the Convention.” Mason published his critique in September 1787, a year before the ratification of the Constitution. Still, his objections eerily reflect the present state of the American government.
Mason begins by commenting on the structure of Congress, writing, “In the House of Representatives there is not the substance, but the shadow only of representation.” Mason maintains that there are not enough representatives to understand and authentically advocate for the interests of their constituents. In other words, Mason worried that the American population was too large and heterogeneous to function as a true republic. Compared to the Thirteen Colonies of Mason’s time, the modern-day United States is a behemoth; Mason’s writings raise a relevant question about how Congresspeople can represent the complexities within and between different American states and regions.
Professor of Sociology Neil Gross published a New York Times opinion piece asking, “Is the United States Too Big to Govern?” Quoting Montesquieu, Gross contends that “in a large republic [...] the common good is sacrificed to a thousand considerations.” A Pew Research study corroborates Gross’ argument: Americans generally have very negative views of their elected officials, with just 36 percent of US adults believing that Congresspeople do a good job of advancing public interest. When 435 representatives govern a population of over 340 million people, Congresspeople must make compromises to keep the machine of government running, which Mason believed alienated many constituents.
“In other words, Mason worried that the American population was too large and heterogenous to function as a true republic.”
Mason also argues against the power of the presidential pardon: “The unrestrained power of granting pardons for treason, which may be sometimes exercised to screen from punishment those whom he had secretly instigated to commit the crime, and thereby prevent a discovery of his own guilt.” Mason’s criticism is like a forecast of the January 6 insurrection. In December 2022, the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the US Capitol released an 814-page report detailing its findings; Committee Chairman Representative Bennie Thompson (D-MS) stated that “Donald Trump lit that fire.” The report found that President Trump or his inner circle partook in “at least 200 apparent acts of public or private outreach, pressure or condemnation, targeting either State legislators or State or local election administrators, to overturn State election results.” One of the committee’s recommendations was to bar Trump from holding future office. However, Trump’s affluence, fundraising prowess, and popular support helped him ascend to the US presidency for a second term in 2024. On his first day in office, President Trump issued a blanket pardon to all those convicted of partaking in the Capitol insurrection that he instigated, just as Mason feared.
One Small Step, One Giant Setback § §
The forgotten legacy of the Space Race
by Asher Patel ’28,
an International and Public
Affairs and Applied Math-Economics concentrator and Staff Writer for BPR
by Angel Rivas ’28, an Anthropology concentrator and Data Designer for BPR
he Soviet Union’s triumphant launch of the Sputnik satellite in 1957 started the Space Race, an era of intense geopolitical and scientific competition that ended with the American victory on July 20, 1969 when Neil Armstrong took the first steps on the Moon. The Moon landing was an incredible technological achievement that signaled American victory in the ultimate scientific competition. Ironically, no historical moment was as detrimental to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) funding as the Moon landing. With “the fundamental purpose of Project Apollo” achieved, the public widely lost interest in supporting further NASA development. Unfortunately, framing the Space Race around a competition with a clear start and finish led the public to undervalue a key externality of NASA research and exploration: massive, accessible technological innovations that improve our everyday lives.
“T
Within the larger Cold War context, space became an American priority, epitomized by President Kennedy’s 1962 Rice University Address calling for “every scientist, every engineer, every serviceman, every technician, contractor, and civil servant [to give] his personal pledge that this nation will move forward, with the full speed of freedom, in the exciting adventure of space.” These mobilization efforts were not merely performative. Over the course of the Space Race, NASA’s budget increased from around $5 billion in 1958 to over $67 billion in 1965, adjusted for inflation. However, public uncertainty about the cost of the Vietnam War and disdain for the 1967 Apollo 1 disaster made the public lose interest in supporting further NASA development, driving the budget down to $41 billion in 1969. After the United States won the Space Race, waning public interest meant that by 1972, NASA’s budget fell to $28.5 billion, a trend reflected in the 2025 proposed budget, which is even lower at $25.4 billion.
“Ironically, no historical moment was as detrimental to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) funding as the Moon landing.”
NASA’s space program led to technological improvements that have helped the average person. Digital photography technology arose from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s attempts to design image sensors for deep space, and the Shuttle Portable Onboard Computer of the 1980s laid the groundwork for everyday laptops. These products did not need to be NASA’s sole focus because scientific and technological advancements tend to transcend categorical boundaries, giving rise to consumer products like memory foam, LEDs, and portable wireless vacuums, as well as less quotidian products like water filtration, firefighting equipment, and home insulation. The list does not end here a catalog of over 2,000 additional “spinoff” commercial products shows NASA’s impact in nearly every sector of life.
This understanding of NASA’s real legacy provides a sobering perspective on the ongoing post-1969 budget cuts. With less funding, NASA has mostly been limited to Low Earth Orbit projects. Without proper means to pursue loftier goals, the capacity for further scientific advancement at NASA has decreased. Of course, society has continued to advance since 1969;
however, the critical question is not if we advance, but on what scale. One must wonder: Without these cuts, how much more could we have innovated?
Imagine, for example, that lunar habitation was aggressively sought after. Could lunar life support systems strengthen healthcare technologies? What if developing a rover capable of building habitats before our lunar arrival improved prefabricated home construction to address the housing crisis?
One critical challenge is that many Space Race-attributed products only became relevant to consumers decades after the Space Race. Despite the magnitude of this missed opportunity, it is difficult to fault previous leaders because foreseeing the level of technological growth that would eventually impact the average citizen was likely impossible. Today, such grace is less excusable, with significant advancements from space research clearly shaping our modern world.
After decades of disinterest-fueled funding cuts, NASA has failed to adequately retail its marketing approach to attract better investment especially concerning its new Artemis project. The Artemis website states that the project’s goals include scientific exploration, economic development, and a greater understanding of our solar system in pursuit of “long-term presence on the Moon.” However, NASA fails to explain how this renewed space research will benefit everyday taxpayers. Even at a time of about 69 percent support for the United States to lead further space exploration, by solely promoting moon habitation, NASA invites more funding cuts once the goal reaches completion. NASA must explain how its scientific mission creates concrete benefits for the American taxpayer. For example, how many Americans know about the recently discovered microbe found in space research that could improve sunscreen?
Private space companies like Blue Origin already broadcast the inherent values of space exploration. The mission statement on their website highlights some benefits of space resources, such as how “lunar dust [can] ultimately produce solar power systems, power transmission cables, and oxygen for propellants and human consumption.” While companies have a head start on this marketing as space has become increasingly commercialized, all hope for NASA is not lost. If it acts quickly, NASA can utilize its substantial comparative advantage as a public institution: It has a
“One must wonder: Without these cuts, how much more could we have innovated?”
congressional mandate to support the American people and humanity by “[disseminating] its innovations as widely [as] possible.” Profit-maximizing firms can dazzle the media with space-based achievements like SpaceX’s rocket catches, but these companies have no incentive to share technological advances that could benefit everyday citizens if those inventions do not yield profit incentives. With a commitment to “[ensuring] that innovations developed for exploration and discovery are broadly available to the public,” NASA guarantees that its work will benefit all.
NASA’s aspirations for space exploration and technological advancement are not over, and it is pursuing plans for a long-term Moon base through the Artemis program. While space-focused goals can attract significant attention, citizens quickly lose interest after the supposed final hurdle is crossed. Thus, it is imperative that NASA continuously ensures the average citizen of their constant utility. Projects like “Spinoff” which details all the spinoff creations that have arisen from NASA research exist, but they are promoted in a vacuum, separate from specific initiatives like Artemis. By making the connection between space exploration and the diffusion of everyday technological advancements more visible, NASA can inspire both continued public interest and sustained funding, ensuring that the benefits of space research extend far beyond the launch pad and into the homes and lives of every person.
Lost in Transformation
Bangkok’s stripped limbs lie between past and progress, global and local
by Napintakorn Kasemsri ’28, an Economics and International and Public Affairs concentrator and Staff Writer for BPR
A stroll through Bangkok’s historic district reveals a city amidst an identity crisis. Start at the charming Song Wat Road, a slum-turnedlaidback hotspot housing specialty cafés and mom-and-pop shops. The road’s storied charm draws curious tourists to uncover its hidden gems, all laid out at the periphery of Rattanakosin Bangkok’s old town. In the alleys of Talat Noi, the historic site of Bangkok’s first port, jaded townhouses await demolition as investors circle, hoping to make room for commercial real estate. Minutes away, Yaowarat, one of the world’s largest Chinatowns, basks in a heritage revival, while other quarters of the city sprout glistening, new high-rises daily. Yet, beneath this resurgence, non-affluent residents face a more complicated reality of exclusion and displacement. Bangkok’s gentrification is undeniable, but its trajectory is distinct: Compared to other cities in the Global South, much of Bangkok’s recent development is fueled by foreign cash, not local demand.
Ranked the top tourism city in 2024 by visitor numbers, Bangkok’s touristified neighborhoods are only the surface of a problematic mass tourism model predicated on maximizing profit and growth from a luxury experience marketed as “cheap” for tourists. Areas like Bangkok’s old town once bustling with local businesses are now dotted with boutique hotels and coworking spaces catering to digital nomads who earn foreign wages but benefit from Thailand’s lower cost of living. These premium offerings, from
gentrified accommodations to imported foods, are often out of reach for locals. Merchants exacerbate this local exclusion by raising prices to scam gullible foreigners who are accustomed to paying even more back home.
This catering to tourists has fostered a dynamic of subtle reverse xenophobia in the service industry: Foreigners are preferentially treated while locals are sidelined. Westerners, especially white tourists, have long been perceived as high-status individuals due to global legacies of colonization, and many Thais continue to equate whiteness with wealth. These racial and economic hierarchies persist, internalized into selective urbanization policies that subordinate local identity for external validation.
The famous hospitality of the “Land of Smiles” seems reserved for foreigners, as fellow Thais are met with indifference. At one point, metered-cab drivers refused to pick up Thais,
knowing that they could not upcharge them or expect lucrative tips. For Bangkok’s residents who earn nearly six times less than their American counterparts ($13,793 in the Bangkok metropolitan area compared to $80,610 US real median household income) competing with the strong purchasing power of affluent tourists only deepens the economic fault lines already left by the domestic upper class.
Some communities have leveraged tourism to reclaim a degree of agency, seizing the opportunity to define their own revitalization. Take Talat Noi: Embellished with Chinese and Portuguese diasporic influences, the neighborhood has been home to generations of immigrants. However, in recent years, there has been increasing pressure to monetize the land from global investors and the Thai government. In response, the neighborhood touristified its spaces on its own terms. With state support, Talat Noi revived local trade and shophouses. Today, the neighborhood is experiencing a serene renaissance, flourishing with evolving businesses that have breathed new
illustration by Lu Jia Liao ’26, an Illustration major at RISD and Illustrator for BPR
life into the area. This revitalized commercial zone, while partly catering to tourists, preserves historic architecture and reintroduces its legacy to a younger generation of Thais.
Unfortunately, Talat Noi’s success story is rare among the countless gentrification processes unfolding throughout the city. South of Talat Noi lies Charoenkrung, Thailand’s first creative district. Led by the Thailand Creative and Design Center, the project intended to include locals in the planning process. However, clouded by an agenda of economic viability, the project has turned to implementing policies used in revitalization projects in artsy neighborhoods in the Global North in hopes of attracting the same tourists that flock to the hip meccas of Berlin or Brooklyn. Instead of harnessing the untapped creative wealth that the district’s unique culture and history already offered, the focus was placed on the marketability of these assets, reinforcing the rhetoric of commodification that prioritized aesthetics for the convenience of tourists. The result of these creative exercises feels like a staged performance an attempt to look like a Western boho quarter without the soul of its local evolutions.
Profit-driven touristification has taken a dramatic toll on the sense of belonging and worth of Bangkok’s lower and middle classes.
As excessively uniform shopping malls and condominiums multiply, spaces that feel “Thai” get erased. Losing spaces that reflect their culture, Bangkok’s middle class has turned their gaze outward romanticizing notions of rural life. This longing for simplicity reflects the sense of loss caused by the shift from traditional Thai culture to consumer-driven lifestyles fueled by the tourism industry. As Bangkok turns its gaze to new, glitzy foreigners, its own residents feel dejected, left questioning whether they still belong and yearning for a nostalgic, rural, and domestic past. Interviews with residents of urban low-income communities reveal a related trend amongst the lower class: Many internalize a sense of guilt for obstructing the city’s progress due to their financial status. Thai cultural norms, emphasizing morality and sacrifice, have amplified this blame for the lower class, who often view their informal settlements as standing in the way of change.
Both middle and low-income Thais lack an identity grounded in the city’s built environment, as Bangkok trades its physical signifiers of cultural uniqueness in exchange for a globalized facade. As more resources are diverted toward tourism, inequality is exacerbated, eroding the very heritage it markets. The city should be careful not to discard local culture in favor of
modernization or compromise its social fabric by pushing out its low and middle-income residents just because tourism remains the primary economic model. Locals are not pushed but priced out displaced through rising costs and shifting priorities of overvaluing Westerners. If this trajectory continues, Bangkok could become a city that only serves global interests, severing its own residents from a sense of home.
Looking forward, the city must consider its intentions and face these challenges head-on. Perhaps more community-based tourism policies should be implemented, especially under the bio-circular green economy model the nation is moving toward. Under this model, value is not derived from mass influxes of international visitors; instead, it is found in the sustainability of the unique attractiveness of quality sites and services. This means rethinking tourism’s purpose: not as the driver of mass growth susceptible to bursting but as a mindful contributor to the city’s long-term resilience. From the ground up, efforts must be made to foster a lasting reciprocal relationship for its people caring for locals as much as foreign guests in order to pull the city together.
At the edge of Talat Noi is the Chao Phraya River, flowing throughout the capital. The tides are shifting, blurring heritage and modernity. Now, standing at the pier, Bangkok must choose again to drift further from itself or anchor onto something real.
“As more resources are diverted toward tourism, inequality is exacerbated, eroding the very heritage it markets.”
Mullahs to Markets
Islamist political movements are embracing neoliberalism
A few months ago, Asaad al-Shaibani was a jihadist. Now, he is Syria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and a fierce champion of the free market. “We need the help of the international community to support us in this new experiment,” al-Shaibani told the World Economic Forum in Switzerland this February. After ousting the brutal 53-year Assad regime on December 8, 2024, al-Shaibani’s party, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) seized power. Now in command, the Islamist group once linked to al-Qaeda and ISIS has turned from insurgency to investment, placing an open economy at the top of their agenda.
Al-Shaibani’s shift toward the international community is not surprising. For decades, Islamist movements defined themselves by their opposition to Western imperialism rejecting not only military and political intervention but also the economic systems that sustain Western dominance. Yet today, many of the Muslim world’s most prominent Islamist politicians are turning toward the free market, courting Western investment and accepting International Monetary Fund (IMF) backed reforms. Although this embrace of neoliberal economic policy may seem like a betrayal of Islamist core values, the shift is pragmatic. In a world where the free market has few challengers, even anti-capitalist movements must engage with the international economy to maintain relevance. Rather than abandoning their ideological foundations, Islamist movements are attempting to craft hybrid political models that reconcile Islamic principles with market-driven strategies.
Political Islam begins with the story of Muhammad. Born in Mecca in 570 CE, Muhammad was not only a prophet, but a merchant and a political leader roles that distinguish him from history’s other religious founders. When he died in 632 CE, he left behind his religious teachings and the principles that governed his state, known today as Sharia law. Today, the concept of Islamic theological governance is referred to as Islamism, and the first Islamic state the Rashidun Caliphate, founded by Muhammad has been the blueprint for centuries of Islamist governments and movements. Implementations of Islamism from the Ottomans to the Muslim Brotherhood to al-Qaeda have been radically divergent, reflecting their disparate understandings of how to establish a government based on Muhammad’s example.
These varied interpretations of Islam lead groups to prioritize different values in their political agendas ranging from positive concepts like social welfare, to but also to serious human rights violations, such as suppressing LGBTQ+ and women’s rights. Historically, major ideological principles that many of these groups derived from Islam were economic. The Quran condemns selfishness, materialism, and greed, while emphasizing themes of equality, social justice, moderation, and mutual responsibility. Sharia law prohibits the charging of interest (riba) and the accumulation of wealth through exploitative practices like monopolies, and mandates that believers redistribute a portion of their wealth through zakat
During Cold War-era decolonization, Islamist movements framed their political struggles as resistance to the West theologically supported by interpreting Islamic economic systems as in direct opposition to Western capitalism. As Muhammad Qutb, a prominent Muslim Brotherhood scholar, put it, “Capitalism cannot prosper or grow without usury and monopoly both of which were prohibited by Islam about one thousand years before the existence of
capitalism.” Consequently, the century’s most powerful Islamist-inspired movements, such as the Islamic Republic of Iran, governed with anti-Western economic principles: pursuing protectionist trade policies and nationalizing industries.
Yet, as economies across the world further intertwine and Cold War challenges to capitalism fade in influence, political Islam has had to adapt to a world where neoliberalism dominates. Take, for instance, Malaysia’s Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS). Founded in 1951 with the goal of gradually establishing a Sharia-based Islamic state, PAS initially opposed Western influence and advocated for leftist economic policies. However, in recent years, the party has softened its stance. In 2020, PAS joined the ruling Perikatan Nasional (PN) coalition, which has made supporting the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) a landmark Asia-Pacific free trade agreement that promotes regional economic cooperation, tariff reductions, and trade liberalization among member states a key legislative priority. By aligning with the PN coalition backing RCEP PAS demonstrates its willingness to engage with the broader global economic order and free market practices. The story is similar across the Muslim World. The region’s most powerful and conservative Islamist parties, from Pakistan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) to Jordan’s Islamic Action Front (IAF), are embracing what they once most detested capitalism.
Of course, none of these parties’ transformations were as drastic as that of Syria’s HTS. President Ahmed al-Shaara has been traveling the globe, pitching Syria’s economy to foreign investors: “Syria has a huge opportunity for investment [...] The KSA and Qatar are countries that love Syria very much, and they hurried to support the Syrian people [...] We are discussing with them having big investment projects that build infrastructure, create jobs, and bring returns.” For now, Gulf states like Saudi Arabia have been the most willing
by Amina Fayaz ’26, an International and Public Affairs and English concentrator and Editor in Chief of BPR
illustration by Amelia Jeoung ’26, an Illustration major at RISD and Illustrator for BPR
investors, but al-Shaara who fought against the United States in Iraq just years ago is clear that his ultimate goal is warming his nation to the West. “It is a top priority to lift the sanctions,” he said. “The United States of America does not have any interest in maintaining the suffering of the Syrian people.”
The practical reasons behind this shift are evident. Although HTS has been a political force in Syria since 2017, it has never held major roles in its government. The party inherits a nation ravaged by 13 years of civil war, which has plunged 90 percent of Syrians into poverty. Inflation has skyrocketed and thousands of homes have been destroyed. The realities of ruling a nation in crisis have prompted HTS to temper their Islamism in favor of stabilization. Promising to play by the West’s rules including market-driven policies means HTS can attract crucial foreign aid and investment, stabilizing their position on the world stage, which is integral to rebuilding Syria.
Yet, despite these pragmatic shifts, HTS asserts that it has not abandoned its vision of an Islamic-inspired government. Instead, the party has attempted to reconcile its beliefs with capitalism. Before it took control of Syria, HTS ruled over a small province, Idlib. By the time the Assad regime fell, HTS had transformed Idlib from one of the nation’s most desolate provinces into one of its most prosperous. This transformation was achieved through an economic regime of ‘Islamic capitalism.’ Private enterprise and local businesses were encouraged, while taxes on production were rebranded
as zakat facilitating a degree of economic freedom in the region while utilizing Islamic rhetoric. Now, as it governs the entire nation, HTS seeks to scale up its ‘Idlib model.’ The party’s prompt privatization of Syria’s many state-controlled businesses, slashing of the civil service, and its embrace of international trade while still maintaining that they will govern with Islamic principles indicates ‘Islamic Capitalism’ will be pivotal in its expansion strategy.
Whether HTS will be able to successfully replicate its marriage of Political Islam and capitalism on a national level appeasing both their Islamist supporters and the international community while balancing their nation’s recovery remains to be seen. But it is not alone in attempting to justify this approach. As Islamists across the globe embrace capitalism, they are not hiding their shift, but actively arguing that it is supported by Islam. Rachid Ghannouchi, leader of Tunisia’s Islamist Ennahda movement, which ascended to power in 2013, summed up this position: “The economic system we outline encourages private entrepreneurship and initiative, and provides incentives for investment […] We do not believe in the inevitability of ideological polarisation or the so-called religious-secular clash.” Rhetoric similar to Ghannouchi’s echoes throughout the Muslim World. Politicians are not only adopting free market policies but also arguing that said policies reflect their core Islamic values. A particular interpretation of scripture may support this contemporary argument. Muhammad, after all,
was a merchant, and Muslims are encouraged to follow the Sunnah, or Muhammad’s example. As such, commerce and entrepreneurship are not only permissible, but Sunnah. Some Islamic scholars even argue that the concepts underlying Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” are reminiscent of Muhammad’s teachings: “Only God controls the prices.” Financial innovations, such as sukuk bonds which, unlike traditional interest-based bonds, represent an ownership stake in an asset give traditional capitalist instruments a Sharia-style makeover, allowing Islamic governments to participate in the global economy while claiming adherence to ideological principles. HSBC, Barclays, J.P. Morgan, and Citibank all now offer Sukuk bonds as a part of their financial portfolios, and Islamist-dominated countries like Tunisia, Malaysia, and Pakistan heavily conduct business in them.
While Islam may not wholly oppose free-market principles, it is hard to harmonize Islamic economic values with the West’s specific version of capitalism increasingly defined by exploitation and extreme inequality. Reshaped capitalistic practices can only be reconciled with purported goals of creating Islamicallysanctioned, economically just societies if they curb inequality. Islamist parties’ embrace of neoliberalism may currently be a pragmatic choice, but they also reveal the malleability with which these groups use religion to justify their political actions. If ‘Islamic Capitalism’ fails to create economically just societies, these groups will expose their religious claims as hollow.
Two Terms In
An Interview with Tammy Duckworth
US Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) was elected as the junior senator from Illinois on November 8, 2016. A former US Army helicopter pilot, she lost both legs and partial use of her right arm while leading a combat mission during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Following her recovery, she became a vocal advocate for veterans’ rights and later served as Assistant Secretary of the US Department of Veterans Affairs during the Obama administration. After being elected to the US House of Representatives in 2016, she championed legislation to improve the quality of life and care for our nation’s veterans. She recently spoke with BPR about the 2024 election results and what comes next.
Matthew Kotcher: I want to start by going back to the night of November 8, 2016, when Donald Trump was elected to his first term, which was also the night that you were first elected to represent Illinois in the US Senate. Can you talk about the difference for you between this moment after the 2024 election and that night in 2016?
Tammy Duckworth: I was blindsided that night in 2016. I sort of saw some signs in Wisconsin that maybe there were some issues, especially with Russ Feingold, who was running to be elected that year as well, but we were all pretty sure that Hillary Clinton was going to win. My race was called pretty early. I went up joyous to give my acceptance
Interview by Matthew Kotcher ’27
Illustration by Yanning Sun ’27
“Don’t give up. You’ve got to field a team. You can’t forfeit the game. You can’t leave your side undefended. You’ve got to show up, and you have to work twice as hard and learn from the mistakes we made.”
speech, but by the time I came off the stage 15 minutes later, we knew that she wasn’t going to win, and it was just devastating. I spent the next day saying thank you to people in train stations and the like, and there were actually people coming up to me and weeping on my shoulders. Person after person after person. This time, I knew we were in trouble. I was out there campaigning nonstop, but there were a lot of signs, and I was deeply concerned. To me, it was 50-50, but I didn’t think that he would win by as much as he did this time I thought he might win through the Electoral College but not that he would win the popular vote, so it was quite surprising that he did win the popular vote this time.
MK: Many saw these election results as a worst-case scenario for Democrats — in addition to President Trump winning all seven battleground states and the popular vote, Republicans took back the Senate and maintained control of the House. Is there anything in your view that the Democratic Party could have and should have done differently?
TD: There’s been a lot of discussion about outreach to minorities, and I spoke with the party at length about outreach to, in particular, Asian Americans. One thing that I think we made a mistake on and I’ve talked to leadership about this is that we thought that having ballot initiatives on reproductive choice in red states was going to help turn out pro-choice voters or that suburban Republican women would vote for the pro-choice side of those ballot initiatives like they did in Kansas, and that would mean they would also vote for Kamala Harris. I think what happened with those initiatives on the ballot was that they allowed Republicans to vote for Trump and then “cure” themselves by voting pro-choice on the ballot initiative. I think those ballot initiatives actually hurt us in the long run. Many people within the Democratic Party thought that if they could get these initiatives on the ballot, it would translate to a higher turnout of pro-choice voters and that those prochoice voters would vote for Kamala. In reality, that’s not what happened. I think it gave an excuse to a lot of people to vote against the abortion bans but also continue to vote Republican.
MK: Switching to the president’s cabinet selections, can you share your insights about the new Secretary of Defense, former Fox News weekend show host Pete Hegseth? While he did serve in the Army, what is your read on the criticisms of his lack of readiness to run the Pentagon? As a woman who has served in combat, what do you make of his comments that women shouldn’t serve in combat roles?
TD: Bottom line, he’s not qualified. He has never run an organization larger than a platoon, and an infantry platoon is between 40 and 50 people. That’s it. That’s the last time he successfully ran any organization. The next two organizations he tried to run were two different veterans’ organizations, and they both asked him to leave because he was incompetent. He’s never run an organization larger, not even the size of a small business, and yet they have nominated him to run basically the largest department in the US government. It’s three million people, both civilian and military. It’s got a budget of over $925 billion. I wouldn’t
nominate him to run a medium-sized business, let alone the Department of Defense. His statements about women in combat further show his being unfit to run. Our military simply cannot go to war without the 225,000 women in uniform, so to say that women should not serve in combat basically means that our military will no longer be able to defend America on foreign soil. Hegseth’s statements just speak to his lack of understanding and experience for running the Department of Defense. And then, of course, you’ve got the sexual abuse allegations. I don’t know that I would accept somebody who has admitted to paying off a woman who accused him of rape to be a babysitter for my two girls, let alone the Secretary of Defense. There are so many issues, but at the most basic level, he has no experience. He can’t run an organization of that size.
MK: What do you see as a path toward bipartisanship, and how does the need for bipartisanship square with the need to call out mistruths, lies, and disinformation?
TD: I think you can call out the lies and disinformation, but you have to remain true to the job that you have. When I talk about Mr. Hegseth, I am focusing on his lack of experience and his lack of qualifications to run an organization as big as the Department of Defense. It’s important to not get into the reality TV show that Donald Trump is trying to create with these nominations, so I’m not going to go there. I’m not going to go on TV and get into a tit-for-tat. I’m going to talk about the fact that he’s never run any budget larger than a few million dollars. How is he going to run a $900 billion organization? That’s how you make sure that your constituents understand that you’re being straight with them and that you’re being bipartisan you’re just focused on the American people and our country and keeping us safe. Donald Trump is basically trying to bait everybody into participating in a reality TV show, and we just can’t fall for that.
MK: What do you say to the many Americans who worked so hard for a different outcome, who at this point have thrown up their hands? What advice do you have for the many Americans who are scared right now and feel like giving up?
TD: Don’t give up. You’ve got to field a team. You can’t forfeit the game. You can’t leave your side undefended. You’ve got to show up, and you have to work twice as hard and learn from the mistakes we made. We have a chance to win back the House and the Senate in two years. We have the opportunity to get checks and balances back into our government, and that’s what we have to focus on
Edited for length and clarity.
Caught in the Currents
The Cook Islands’ fight for autonomy amid geopoltical rivalry
by
Ashton Higgins ’26 an Anthropology concentrator and Managing Magazine Editor for BPR illustrations by Angelina So ’27, an Illustration major at RISD and Illustrator for BPR
The Cook Islands, located in the South Pacific, are known for their lush volcanic peaks, tropical beaches, and vast emerald waters. The 15 islands boast a total land area slightly larger than Washington DC with around 17,000 inhabitants, yet they are strewn across a maritime territory thrice the size of Texas. The surrounding ocean contains diverse coral reefs and vast mineral deposits, but behind this idyllic picture, trouble is beginning to brew in paradise as the Cook Islands confront the dilemma of choosing between different forms of paternalism.
The Cook Islands are a nation, but they are not independent. Since 1965, the islands have occupied a liminal space between colony and sovereign state under a Free Association agreement with New Zealand, their former colonizer. Nebulously upheld through successive partnership deals every few decades, this agreement was chosen over independence or full integration with New Zealand. While the Parliament in Avarua, the Islands’ capital, conducts their own domestic and foreign affairs, Wellington steps in for budget support, disaster relief, and defense.
Free Association grants Cook Islanders Kiwi citizenship, differentiated only by a special passport stamp recording their non-mainland heritage. To celebrate 60 years of Free
Association this year, Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown proposed the creation of a symbolic Cook Islands passport alongside continued use of Kiwi ones. New Zealand rejected the idea, claiming that passports (and citizenship) are only available to fully independent states. A spokesperson from the New Zealand government said that a second passport would call into question the fundamental relationship between the two ‘freely-associated’ states. Kiwi politicians even suggested creating legislation forbidding people from holding both Kiwi and Cook Islands passports, despite existing laws permitting dual citizenship.
The New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that if the Islands truly want independence, “that’s a conversation we are ready for them to initiate.” When PM Brown backtracked the proposal, he reiterated it was never meant to replace the New Zealand passport and was instead meant to celebrate cultural identity and honor their bond to New Zealand on the anniversary of Free Association.
Then, Brown announced he would travel to China and sign multiple agreements, including a comprehensive strategic partnership deal, prioritizing the Islands’ economic and infrastructural development. This deal falls within a broader
“Shedding the yoke of a former colonizer should not come at the expense of adopting a neocolonial one.”
Left Turn, Hard Right
Europe's leftist parties are taking a nationalist turn
by Adora Limani ’28, an International and Public Affairs Concentrator and Staff Writer for BPR
illustration by Haley Sheridan ’25, an Illustration major at RISD and Illustrator for BPR
“We will shoot you all” (“Site ke ve strelame”), tweeted politician Dimitar Apasiev after his party, Levica, a far-left nationalist political party in North Macedonia, secured its first two seats in the National Assembly during the 2020 parliamentary elections. Since then, Levica has made significant gains, securing six seats in the National Assembly during the 2024 parliamentary elections, despite North Macedonia electing a new right-wing government. Levica was formed in 2015 through a merger of various leftist movements, including the Communist Party of Macedonia. According to one of the party’s founders, Levica’s initial goal was to offer a Marxist platform where workers could unite. It was formed as a multiethnic party aiming to address the demands of the 2011–2014 protest movements directed at police brutality, rising electricity prices, and the mistreatment of refugees. However, in 2019, intraparty tensions led to a coup against the coalition’s ethnic minority members orchestrated by current leader Apasiev and his followers signaling Levica’s transformation into a leftist ethno-nationalist party.
Levica is not an anomaly. Across Europe, a new form of nationalism is emerging. Populist leftist parties are embracing nativist rhetoric and advocating for a traditionally right-wing form of nationalism using “leftist” justifications. Even though these parties promote leftwing policies and support workers’ rights, they simultaneously advocate for economic protectionism, national sovereignty, EU skepticism, and restrictive immigration policies driven by anti-NATO and antiglobalist ideas. While most left-wing populists have found limited success in the polls, the emergence of a nationalist left
signals a concerning turn to nativism across Europe even in traditionally progressive spaces known to safeguard the rights of minorities and immigrants.
Former members of Levica have revealed that the coup in North Macedonia stemmed from Apasiev’s growing support for right-wing initiatives, culminating in a proposal to back a rightwing presidential candidate in the 2019 election. Under Apasiev’s leadership, Levica transformed from a party representing exploited workers from all ethnic groups in North Macedonia to one intent on Macedonian nationalism. Apasiev spearheaded partisan promises to revoke legislation that empowered ethnic minority groups, such as the Law on Languages, a bill passed in 2018 that integrated the use of minority languages in government institutions. Levica’s advocacy against the 2018 Prespa Agreement, which changed the country’s name to North Macedonia after a decades-long name dispute with Greece, particularly appealed to those who felt humiliated by foreign “threats” to national identity. Apasiev’s most extreme social media posts have called for the exclusion of ethnic Albanians from the state’s vision of ‘the people.’ Such ostracization is grounded in far-right pseudoscientific narratives in North Macedonia that claim Albanians’ origins lie outside of Europe and that they are “culturally and civilisationally” incompatible with the Macedonian state.
Apasiev and Levica take inspiration from other left-wing populist leaders like Jean-Luc Mélenchon in France, who similarly advocates for economic nationalism. Unlike Mélenchon’s party, La France Insoumise, which avoids explicitly dividing people based on ethnic identity,
“The new nationalist left is turning national pride into a progressive value, adopting nativism in their leftist agendas that claim to center the common man.”
Levica actively promotes exclusionary and chauvinistic rhetoric. Nevertheless, even if they are not outwardly xenophobic, the economic policies promoted by leftist populist parties often entail the ostracization of groups that do not fit an ethno-nationalist conception of the ‘nation.’ For instance, a prominent reason behind their skepticism of the EU is the refugee crisis in Europe, which is portrayed as a threat to both the national economy and native cultural preservation. Since 2016, 13.2 million refugees fleeing conflicts from places like Syria, Afghanistan, and Ukraine have sought asylum in Europe, putting a strain on EU governments that have agreed to manage migration. This has only exacerbated public outrage and proliferated nationalist sentiments.
In Southern Europe, movements like Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain emerged in opposition to EU-imposed austerity measures aimed at reducing government debt. Following the 2008 financial crisis, austerity measures led to cuts in public spending and, consequently, a deterioration of healthcare and other social
services. They also reduced wages and pensions, which directly impacted the quality of life of working-class people. Spurred by general economic discontent, parties like the Bulgarian Socialist Party, Zivi Zid in Croatia, and Ne Da(vi) mo Beograd in Serbia have emerged across the region, framing their economic struggles as a matter of national sovereignty and blaming foreign financial institutions for job losses and wage cuts. Under the guise of tackling Western imperialism and preserving native cultures, these parties often advocate for cutting ties with the EU and forging closer relationships with Russia and China.
In Western Europe, the rationale behind leftwing populism is slightly different. Opposition to free trade and protectionist economic policies are seen as addressing “the needs of the common man.” This resistance to trade openness is shared by leftist parties like the Socialistische Partij (SP) in the Netherlands and Die Linke in Germany, as well as right-wing populist parties like France’s Front National and the Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV) in the Netherlands all of whom
are critical of trade agreements such as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Die Linke frames its skepticism toward the EU open border policy as a sovereignty issue, arguing that EU bureaucracy serves corporate interests by driving down wages and straining public services meant for native citizens. This sentiment is echoed by Italy’s Movimento 5 Stelle, which emphasizes Italian national identity in its anti-EU and anti-NATO stances. In line with these economic measures, restrictive immigration policies are not explicitly advocated for on an ethnic basis but are understood as a method of “protecting workers” or preserving social welfare systems. Nationalism is seen as the only way of safeguarding the rights of domestic workers, often resulting in xenophobic rhetoric targeting immigrants who are “undeserving” of jobs and welfare benefits.
The new nationalist left is turning national pride into a progressive value, adopting nativism in their leftist agendas that claim to center the common man. What underlies their protectionist economic policies and critiques of globalization, however, is the idea of an exclusionary European welfare state that shields native citizens from “harmful” foreign economic and cultural influences. These parties offer a completely new flavor of nationalism that justifies destructive and often ethno-nationalist policies with a leftist rationale, ultimately diluting and manipulating progressivism for their own populist gains. Their emphasis on constructing a homogeneous national identity that must be protected from minority groups and refugees reveals a broader shift toward chauvinism in Europe that should be closely observed in the coming years.
“Under the guise of tackling Western imperialism and preserving native cultures, these parties often advocate for cutting ties with the EU and forging closer relationships with Russia and China.”
Free Dog Meat? When Satire Meets Science
An Interview with Dr. Faraz Harsini
Dr. Faraz Harsini is the founder and CEO of Allied Scholars for Animal Protection (ASAP), a nonprofit organization working with students to promote animal rights and plantbased diets on college campuses. ASAP has chapters at 19 college campuses, including Brown University. They generate awareness for their cause through on-campus movie nights, medical guest lectures, pop-up booths with student representatives, and posters and fliers, most notably the satirical “Free Dog Meat” or “HuMilk” campaigns. Through various informational methods, Harsini hopes to increase awareness of the ability of the food system to have global environmental, health-driven, and moral change.
Eiffel Sunga: Could you tell me a bit about your background, where you went to school and what you do now?
Faraz Harsini: I’m originally from Tehran, Iran. I did my undergrad in University of Tehran, and my bachelor’s was in chemical engineering. I became involved in social justice movements in my home country and participated in a lot of protests. I almost got killed in one of the protests when we were fighting for human rights. I had a guy with a machete running after me. That was sort of my introduction to standing up for injustice. Because of my undergrad degree, I was also really concerned about global and environmental issues. Later on, I started volunteering in hospitals, playing music for children suffering from cancer. When I saw their suffering again, I asked myself, “What’s the best thing I can do with my life?” And so I decided to pursue biomedical sciences. I came to Texas for my master’s and doctorate, and spent time looking at cancer and a couple of other diseases. After my doctorate, I had a postdoc offer from MIT, but I decided to join biopharma because I wanted to really bring biomedical research to people as soon as possible. Throughout my time in graduate school, I also became vegan. I opened my eyes to a lot of suffering that I never really thought about animal suffering and exploitation. As I focused on human rights issues, environmental issues, and biomedical science issues, I was also thinking about animal rights. At the same time, I also learned that many other problems in the world that I cared about, such as climate, antibiotic resistance, Covid-19 and influenza themselves, cancer, and (the top cause of death) heart disease, are connected with the food system. That’s why I quit my high-paying job in biopharma and joined nonprofits. I never realized that in many of these issues that we all care about, the biggest missing part is the food system.
ES: From reading the website and from what you’ve told me, your work has shifted from a focus in medicine to
Interview by Eiffel Sunga ’27
Illustration by Yanning Sun ’27
more of a focus on veganism. What caused your interests to shift?
FH: I wouldn’t say it shifted. Just a couple of weeks ago, we had Dr. Kim Williams, the former President of American College of Cardiology, give a lecture at Brown. We had Dr. Klaper, who was a former NASA nutrition advisor, again to give a talk. I am still absolutely interested in saving humans as well, and I think a big part of it is our diet. 40 percent of cancers could be prevented if we actually focus on our diet. The question for me became, “If I really want to help people, wouldn’t it make sense to focus on something that no one else is talking about, and where education is missing?”
That’s why I’m so passionate about this. It’s a solution not only to help humans but also to help animals. I know my time is limited on this earth, and I want to do the most good that I can. So I try to ask, “What is the largest source of suffering, pain, and misery on this earth?”
ES: It’s clear that there’s a link between our food systems and how they negatively affect human health, but I also want to get into people’s reactions to your message at ASAP. The flyers that I’ve seen seem satirical, even silly. They’re about dog meat or human breast milk — and that definitely catches people’s attention. Is that the intention behind it? How do you use that to start a conversation?
FH: We know that in order to bring attention to this cause, we need to use different tactics. And no tactic works on everybody. For instance, we have medical lectures you’ve probably seen those flyers. But it’s not silly; it’s not satire. It’s very scientifically oriented and advertised as such. So that’s one way to do it. The other thing is there is such a big cognitive dissonance in the way that we look at some animals as commodities. In order to cut through it, you have to do something shocking. I was guilty of that too. I grew up eating meat. I didn’t become vegan because I stopped liking the taste of meat. I opened my eyes to the amount of pain and suffering that we are causing to these animals. At Brown’s campus, I’ve seen students sit down and pet a dog on a walk. But then we go to this dining hall and we shove animal products in our mouths, and we never question, “What happened to these animals? What were their last moments like? How did it feel to be in a slaughterhouse?” If that was happening to cats and dogs, there would be riots everywhere. I can say, “Hey guys, let’s not consume dairy. It’s bad for animals.” No one is going to stop to talk to me about it. But when you say, “Come get your human milk,” then people ask what is happening. So of course there’s going to be pushback, but that’s okay. Somebody has to cut through this cognitive dissonance. Some people stop and have conversations with us, and every time we do that, some people change.
ES: In your opinion, why is this kind of cultural approach to helping solve health issues more worth your time than being in a lab and doing research?
FH: That’s very easy for me to answer. When I quit my job in biopharma, they just hired another person. But how often do you hear somebody talking about veganism or even educated medical professionals talking about diet? Through years of doing biomedical research, no one ever taught me about diet. I did cancer research in one of the
best cancer centers in the world in Texas, and no one ever mentioned the association between red meat consumption and cancer. So I thought if I was in a lab, at best, if I came up with a cure that cured maybe 0.1 percent of cancers, I would get a Nobel Prize. That’s how impactful it is. But here, we have 40 percent of cancers that are preventable. Here, cardiovascular diseases can be prevented with diet and lifestyle and no one is talking about it. I just want to bring that awareness to the students, because otherwise they have zero exposure to any of this. The long term goal is to incorporate some of this into the curriculum of medical education. With everything that I have in my power, I want to make that happen.
ES: How do you bridge the gap between the people who just see the sign and laugh it off and the people who see the sign and actually do more research on it? How do you convince people to look more into it?
“I just want students to start questioning, and I think college is the best place to start questioning societal norms.”
FH: First of all, the people who laugh are probably exposed to other things that they don’t even know are from us. They could come and accidentally sit in one of our lectures about the benefits of a plant-based diet. They might accidentally come to one of our movie screenings at Brown. We gave people free food at a movie screening, and everyone enjoyed the food, and no one thought it was silly. So even if they laugh at one poster, that’s okay. They can be exposed to other things that they may take seriously. We are talking about something that is not the norm in society. Some people will complain, some people will resist, some people will listen, some people will change. Just because people laugh, it doesn’t mean that they’re not going to change. There is a quote that reads, “At first they laugh at you, then they fight back, then they change.” I just want students to start questioning, and I think college is the best place to start questioning societal norms.
ES: It sounds like all of this is a process. It takes time to reach people and get people to understand your message. What motivates you to continue with ASAP’s message, even though it’s been received in different ways?
FH: It’s the fact that every single student is exposed and is encouraged to think about these questions. Whether they laugh, whether they pause and think about it, or whether they change, they have to think about it, compared to a world where they go about their lives and never think about it. The fact that at Brown University, every single undergraduate student has an opportunity to attend medical lectures to learn about the benefits of plant-based diets, watch documentaries about benefits of health, etc… That education is what gives me hope. Everybody says they love animals. Everyone says they care about the environment. Everyone says they care about themselves and their loved ones. The missing part of this puzzle is the food system and animal rights. There is this misalignment between our actions and values. So I want to bring that to the spotlight, and you can’t expect people to know if they’ve never been exposed to this message.
Edited for length and clarity.
Name Games
China’s attempt to rename Tibet showcases the power of renaming on the international stage
by Mitsuki Jiang ’27, an International and Public Affairs and Applied Math concentrator and Managing Web Editor for BPR
illustration by Jiwon Lim ’26, an Illustration major at RISD and Illustrator for BPR
Names are more than just labels they are steeped in histories and tangled in identities. When a name changes, where does its history go? Does it disappear in the shadow of its past, buried in the grave of its former identity? Or does it stay, trailing behind the present as an enduring memory? Sometimes, we rename to bury: American schools, monuments, and military bases named after Confederate leaders have been renamed to start a new chapter in history. Other times, as in the case of Tibet, erasing a name is synonymous with erasing an entire culture.
For millennia, Tibet, an autonomous region of southwestern China, has maintained relative sovereignty and cultural independence atop its plateau. However, in 1950, China invaded Tibet; the newly empowered Chinese Communist Party (CCP) sought to take advantage of Tibet’s natural resources and strategic border with India. China still occupies Tibet today, claiming that its ownership dates back approximately 800 years. While Tibet has attempted to preserve its own national flag, Tibetan language, Tibetan Buddhist religion, and political system under the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) and the Dalai Lama, activists and UN experts have accused the Chinese government of erasing Tibetan culture.
China enforces compulsory Chinese language learning for Tibetan children, and since 2021, the
Chinese government has started to replace the name “Tibet” with its Mandarin counterpart, “Xizang (西藏),” which roughly translates to “western treasure house” in official documents. Within China’s borders, the Tibetan Autonomous Region effectively no longer exists instead, there is a Xizang Autonomous Region in its place. While Tibet is the English translation of the local name for the region and originates from the indigenous language, “Xizang” first appeared much later, in the Qing dynasty, potentially as a mistransliteration. Tibetans strongly oppose this change because it falsely conflates Tibet with China when the two are historically separate. By renaming Tibet, China is weaponizing the power of a name to subvert the region’s unique historical narrative and assert control over its identity on the global stage.
While Tibet may be widely recognized on the global stage, “Xizang ” remains largely unknown to China’s advantage. The name “Tibet” is often mentioned in calls against human rights abuses and depictions of struggles for autonomy, whereas “Xizang ” offers a comparatively blank slate upon which China can craft a new narrative. Tibet is also often imagined as an entity separate from China, while Xizang sinicizes the name and makes perceptions of the region’s ownership ambiguous. To further promote the global adoption of this name
“By renaming Tibet, China is weaponizing the power of a name to subvert the region’s unique historical narrative and assert control over its identity on the global stage.”
change and normalize the term “Xizang,” China is weaponizing its aid programs in weaker countries to pressure their governments into accepting the new name, and Chinese media outlets have started exclusively using “Xizang ” in their English-language news articles.
China’s attempted renaming of Tibet is not an isolated case. After People’s Liberation Army (PLA) troops took over the East Turkestan Republic in 1949, the Chinese government renamed the area the “Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.” The term “Xinjiang (新疆)” literally translates to “new frontier.” Today, the use of the term “East Turkestan” is largely obsolete around the world, despite strong Uyghur objections to the sinicized “Xinjiang ” term. Since 1949, Beijing has continued removing linguistic references to non-Chinese identity: Between 2009 and 2023, China changed the names of hundreds of villages in “Xinjiang ” that referenced the religion, history, or culture of Uyghurs.
Journalists, academic institutions, foreign governments, and global organizations face a question: Will they silently accept this name change, or will they push back against Beijing’s erasure of minority identities? Some Western institutions have already acquiesced. In 2024, the British Museum used the phrase “Tibet or Xizang Autonomous Region” to describe Tibetan artifacts, prompting uproar from Tibetan activists. Similarly, a French museum had replaced “Tibet” with “Xizang ” in its exhibits but reversed the change following a public backlash. Even if China can quickly replace a name, activists demonstrate that cultural memory cannot be easily erased. Language is not just trivial terminology it is a way for populations to preserve their cultural identities in the face of existential threats.
The power of language lies in its repetition, the power of a name in its recognition. Names carry with them the weight of their histories in their syllables, shaping how we understand places and their populations over time. Tibet is a name that reverberates around the world, echoing calls for human rights and amplifying its distinct cultural and spiritual identity. If “Xizang ” successfully replaces Tibet everywhere, future generations may forget Tibet’s struggles for autonomy and accept China’s imposed narrative as fact. As the mainstream media increasingly adopts the name Xizang, the rest of the world must become the protector of Tibet’s ongoing story.
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