Duke Political Review Fall 2014 Vol. 2 Issue 1

Duke Political Review

Same-Sex Marriage: A Fundamental Right

By Shobana Subramanian

Crowdsourcing Iceland’s Constitution

Lessons from Sweden’s Feminist Political Party

By Kari Barclay

By Connor Phillips

Re-examining the legacies of Lyndon B. Johnson and Martin Luther King, Jr.

THE REAL STORY OF CIVIL RIGHTS LEADERSHIP

BY ANDREW KRAGIE

FALL 2014 / VOLUME II / ISSUE I DUKEPOLITICALREVIEW.ORG

FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK

Duke Political Review Editors-in-Chief Ray Li and Jacob Zionce Senior Online Managing Editor Jeff Daye Chief-of-Staff Sam Skinner

Dear Reader, When we started the Duke Political Review last year we had nothing more than an idea. But with a little luck, some hard work, and a lot of help, DPR has grown by leaps and bounds. Today, our organization boasts over 70 staff members and offers a host of political offerings. On top of the fantastic print publication you are about to read, we also have up-to-date political analysis and interviews on our website, dukepoliticalreview.org. Meanwhile, our Business, Marketing, and Production team continues to organize on fantastic political events, and our ’60 Seconds’ email listserv sends out the latest political news to 500 subscribed Duke students, faculty members, and staff every Monday morning.

With that in mind, we’d like to dedicate this edition of DPR to all of the great idea-makers that have gotten us to this point. If you turn the page of this publication, you’ll see some of the greatest story ideas DPR has to offer, and we thank everyone who was involved in the print edition. We would also be remiss, however, if we did not thank our senior staff, a group of DPR members who constantly bring forth new ideas and dedicate untold hours to make our organization better as a whole. Beyond our senior staff, however, we also need to acknowledge all of our staff members who strive every day to make DPR what it is. From writing and editing to setting up interviews and organizing events, you really are the reason this organization exists, and the reason it has become what it is today.

When we started DPR last year, this organization was nothing more than one crazy idea. Today, though, it has become the go-to place for all political ideas. It’s the type of place where we see first-years explore their political philosophies, where we see upper-classmen create new and innovative media platforms, and where we see Duke’s political scene come together to create something incredible. And that’s more than we could have ever asked for when we founded this organization.

As always, thank you for reading,

60 Seconds Managing Editor Natalie Ritchie Business, Marketing, and Programming Director Russell Crock Multimedia Managing Editor Zach Gorwitz Interviews Managing Editor Megan Steinkirchner Art and Layout Director Natasia Leung Web Director Rajan Patel Associate Online Managing Editors Adam Beyer, Anna Kaul, Anna Lamb, Jay Sullivan Editors-at-Large Kari Barclay, Steven Brenner, Daniel Dorchuck, Gautam Hathi, Vignesh Krishnaswamy, Anand Raghuraman, Jay Ruckelshaus, Matthew Pun Columnists Maya Durvasula, Emily Feng, Maxime FischerZernin, Beatriz Gorostiaga, Andrew Kragie, Jack Minchew, Terrence Neal, Connor Phillips, Eric Ramoutar, Dana Raphael, Matthew Rock, Alena Sadiq, Colleen Sharp, Shobana Subramanian 60 Seconds Associate Editor Steven Brenner 60 Seconds Staff Writers Connor Gunderson, Aakash Jain, Julian Keeley, Michael Kiffel, Charlie Miller, Henry Miller Interviews Associate Managing Editor Charlotte Hall Interviews Associates Liz Brown, James Ferencsik, Tanner Lockhead Layout Editors Adam Beyer and Sarah Jacobs Multimedia Designers Lisa Guraya, Izzy Jensen, Aditya Joshi, Kyra Noonan, Ashlyn Nuckols, Sydney Smith, Wendy Zeng Business, Communications, and Marketing Director Momin Ghaffar

Ray Li Editor-in-Chief

Jacob Zionce Editor-in-Chief

Business Marketing Associates Whitney Hazard, Alexa Lazarus, Emilie Padgett, Amy Wang Programming Director Brigitte Alanis Programming Associates Natasha Parekh and David Soled On the cover: Johnson and King meet in the Oval Office eleven days after Kennedy’s assassination. Photo by Yoichi Okamoto. / Opposite page, clockwise from top: Photo by Yoichi Okamoto; Photo by Shankar S.; Photo by Magnus Fröderberg; Photo by David Shankbone.

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Contents

UNITED STATES

DISPATCHES

Fall 2014 / Volume II / Issue I

18

4 WALKING 273 MILES FOR A HOSPITAL 5 OPPORTUNITIES AS GOOD AS BLACK GOLD 7 WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE? WOMEN IN THE ISIL CRISIS

By Maya Durvasula

By Matthew Rock

By Dana Raphael

18 LBJ THE DREAMER & MLK THE STRATEGIST The Real Story of Civil Rights Leadership

By Andrew Kragie

36 GONE WITH THE WINDSOR

The Jurisprudence of Marriage Equality

By Shobana Subramanian

45 THE HEROES DETROIT DESERVES

How Mike Ilitch and Dan Gilbert are leading Detroit’s Resurrection

By Shaker Samman

9 A CLASH OF RESURGENT EMPIRES

China, India, and the Cold War on the Roof of the World

By Gautam Hathi

13 F! THE PATRIARCHY

9 28

WORLD

36

Lessons from Sweden’s Feminist Political Party

By Kari Barclay

23 INDIA AND SOLAR ENERGY Turning the Market Inward

By Alexa Lazarus

28 POTS, PANS AND PARLIAMENTS Iceland’s Experiment in Direct Democracy

By Connor Phillips

33 THE POLITICS OF EBOLA

Why the US will never see an Ebola crisis

By Tara Bansal

40 THE GLOBAL THREAT OF ISIL’S FOREIGN FIGHTERS The Risk of Western ISIL Fighters Returning From the Front

By Maxime Fischer-Zernin

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Dispatches

Dispatches Highlights from dukepoliticalreview.org

Walking 273 Miles for a Hospital Partisans and professors alike denounce North Carolina’s failure to expand Medicaid as illogical, devastating public policy.

By Maya Durvasula

A

dam O’Neal, mayor of 2.1 square-mile Belhaven, North Carolina, spent the month of July marching the 273 miles from Belhaven to Washington D.C. in protest of the state’s failure to expand Medicaid.

With the blessing of North Carolina NAACP President Rev. Dr. William Barber, O’Neal set off with the intention of informing President Obama and Congressional leaders about the crisis threatening his coastal community: the creation of a medical desert.

On July 1, non-profit Vidant Health closed the Vidant Pungo Hospital, which served nearly 25,000 individuals in two of the state’s poorest counties, Beaufort and Hyde. Although the hospital was set to be replaced with a 24/7 urgent care clinic, such a facility treats only non-life-threatening injuries and minor illnesses. For all other treatment, including care for all complex and serious cases, nearly 1,500 Belhaven residents, along with other residents of Beaufort County, must travel 30 miles to the nearest hospital. For individuals who

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live in the eastern part of Hyde County, the nearest hospital is now 80 miles away.

According to a 2014 report by the North Carolina Task Force on Rural Health, the 2.2 million people who live in the state’s 60 rural counties face a greater risk of illness, coupled with shorter lifespans, than people who live in the state’s urban areas. The closure of rural hospitals only exacerbates the disparity in health outcomes.

The Belhaven scenario is playing out in dozens of rural communities in America.

According to the National Rural Health Association, in 2013 alone, 14 rural hospitals shut down across the country, creating “medical deserts” in which populations were left without accessible acute medical care.

While there is considerable debate about the causes of rural hospital closure throughout the country, North Carolina’s rural healthcare crisis continues to escalate, in large part, due to the state’s refusal to expand Medicaid. According to a statement issued by Vidant in response to the Vidant-Pungo Hospital closure, North Carolina’s failure to accept federal Medicaid ex-

pansion funds made it untenable for them to continue operating a facility that already ran a $1.8 million deficit in 2013.

O’Neal deviated from traditional Republican talking points on Medicaid expansion and called out his own party’s failure to act in the public interest on this key issue.

When outlining what he hoped to address during his march and while in Washington, O’Neal wrote, “I will be pushing for Medicaid expansion. Our state’s refusal to accept expansion is taking 2 billion dollars a year out of our state’s healthcare system.”

Health policy analysts across the country have denounced North Carolina’s decision on Medicaid as illogical and tragic public policy. The Urban Institute reports that refusing these funds will cost North Carolina $40 billion over the next decade, while hospitals will lose $11.3 billion, in addition to job losses in the thousands. According to UNC School of Law Professor Gene Nichol, the Belhaven hospital closure is just one of many that we can expect.

On top of lost funds, jobs, and providers, the state is still obligated to foot part of the bill for Medicaid expansions in other states.

Dispatches According to an analysis performed by McDuke’s medical center, it is easy to forget teriorating community health.

Clatchy, North Carolina will end up spendthat this politicking over healthcare is being Back in Belhaven, O’Neal and the coming more than $10,000 to cover the costs of actualized on the ground somewhere. munity have made strides toward bringing healthcare for low-income people in other It won’t be long, however, before the rest healthcare access back to their region, folstates. of the state starts finding itself in equally lowing talks with Vidant about re-opening The closure of Vidant-Pungo Hospital close proximity to these issues. According a hospital that would be run by the town. and O’Neal’s impassioned march to Washto a Harvard Medical School and City Uni“I’m 100 percent sure we’re gonna get it reington illustrate the degree to opened. It’s just a matter of time,” which a single community can be O’Neal said during a Sept. 9 intermoved by the loss of healthcare acview on MSNBC. FOR THE REST OF NORTH CAROLINA, cess.

For the rest of North Carolina, O’Neal’s crusade for Medicaid exhowever, the state’s current refusHOWEVER, THE STATE’S CURRENT REFUSAL pansion is a prime example of the al to accept Medicaid expansion breakdown of party ideology that funding is making rural healthcare TO ACCEPT MEDICAID EXPANSION FUNDING stems from sheer proximity to an a casualty of partisan allegiance.

IS MAKING RURAL HEALTHCARE A CASUALTY issue. As UNC’s Nichol put it, “The Although community mobilization federal government has offered has prompted progress in Belhaven, OF PARTISAN ALLEGIANCE. to pay almost the entirety of the the Tar Heel State would be far bethealth care tab for about a half-milter served by re-evaluating Mediclion impoverished Tar Heels. We’ve aid expansion proposals from Gov. said no thanks. We don’t like the donor.” versity of New York study, Medicaid expanMcCrory and his allies in the General AsWhile policymakers in Raleigh, ension in North Carolina would have meant sembly. When it comes to healthcare access sconced in the protective walls of the State 455 to 1,145 fewer people dying annually; and availability of life-saving medical treatLegislative Building, and Governor Pat Mc27,044 more diabetics using diabetes medment, public well-being ought to trump the Crory may somehow be able to justify this ications; and 14,776 fewer individuals with Republican Party’s distaste for the federal decision, those arguments fall apart when catastrophic medical expenditures. Over government. people like O’Neal are confronted with realthe next few years, we can expect to see acity. Here on campus, shielded from the rest cess to quality healthcare declining across Maya Durvasula is a Trinity freshman. She of North Carolina by the behemoth that is the state, as well as the consequences of deis a columnist for DPR.

Opportunities as Good as Black Gold Falling oil prices have given the U.S. an edge in foreign policy. It should take advantage of it.

By Matthew Rock

“J

esus!” exclaimed one Durham, North Carolina, resident on Sunday. “$3.01 for a gallon of regular unleaded. Unbelievable…” Lee Jones says he remembered a few years ago when gas prices teetered toward $5 a gallon.

These low gas prices, the lowest in nearly four years, result from a simultaneous U.S.-led wave of crude oil, made possible by the fracking revolution and weak global demand for oil. On Tuesday, the global benchmark for oil prices slid 4.5% to $81.84

a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, which left the price of a barrel 20% down since the start of June.

Most American citizens view the fall in oil and gasoline prices as a positive development, since it decreases their energy spending and leaves them additional income. According to one estimate by Brett Ryan, a Deutsche Bank economist, every one-cent decrease in the price of gas leads to a $1 billion annual fall in energy spending in the U.S. economy. According to Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst for gasbuddy.com, “[The fall in oil prices is] a positive for U.S.

corporates and makers of goods and services.” He explains the decline leaves the average American family an additional $50 of discretionary income per month, free to be spent on consumer products. However, because America is the largest producer as well as the largest importer of oil, a falling oil price produces mixed results for the American economy. According to Michael Cohen of Barclays Bank, a 20% drop in world oil prices cuts American producers’ profits by a matching 20%. In addition, Stephen Brown of UNLV reckons the decreasing importance of oil imports in the FALL 2014

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Dispatches U.S. means every 1% drop in the price of oil boosts GDP by only .01%, compared to an estimated growth effect of .04% in the early 1980s. In all, according to The Economist, cheaper oil and lower interest rates should contribute .1% to the 2015 growth rate, although this is likely to be negated by a stronger dollar, weakening global demand for exports, and fickle stock markets.

Although the fall in oil prices has dealt the U.S. economy a more or less neutral hand, it has given U.S. foreign policymakers a far more intriguing set of cards. In particular, the recent slide in crude oil price has left Venezuela, Iran, and Russia, three of the world’s largest exporters of oil and America’s most vitriolic critics, highly vulnerable to economic strain and political instability. The Obama administration should take advantage of this rare opportunity to pursue its foreign policy agenda.

The end of high oil prices signals a new dawn for U.S. foreign policy.

Photo by Matthew Brown/AP.

CHALLENGE VENEZUELA IN THE CARIBBEAN Take Venezuela. As The Economist reports, its government needs oil at $120 a barrel to finance its spending plans, an impossible rise in price given the current market conditions. To compound the Venezuelan public’s concern, a debt service payment in early October pushed reserves below $20 billion for the first time in a decade, and last year’s fiscal deficit stood at 17% of GDP. Official inflation measures top 60%, and Standard and Poor’s, a ratings agency, downgraded Venezuela’s debt to CCC+ in September.

America’s opportunity for foreign policy action lies in Venezuela’s connection to the Caribbean economy. Venezuela runs PetroCaribe, a program in which it provides Caribbean countries cheap financing to buy Venezuelan oil. Because Venezuela’s present economic state means it likely will cut back on this $2.3 billion per year program, the heavily oil-import-dependent nations of Haiti, Jamaica, Nicaragua, and Guyana fear the imminent economic shockwaves.

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In order to promote the stability of the region and to dilute Venezuela’s influence there, the U.S. should declare it in its national interest to export shale-extracted natural gas to the Caribbean region, as has been suggested by some higher-ups in the Obama administration. This should not be too hard, since Caribbean governments have already begun to entertain the possibility of a switch from a dependence on Venezuelan oil to American ethane and propane.

In addition to this effort, America should look to expand renewable energy installation and research in the region, which would set in place a long-term partnership between them and the U.S. and steer the Caribbean toward West. In September, Jamaica’s Public Service signed purchase agreements with two wind farms and a solar-power scheme, which points to interest in renewable energy in the region and enhances the plausibility of a U.S.-led program.

FORCE IRAN INTO A NUCLEAR DEAL Iran is in an even worse position than Venezuela. According to The Economist,

Its government needs oil at $136 dollars a barrel to finance its spending plans, and in 2013 it spent $100 billion, 25 % of GDP, on consumer subsidies To make matters even more unsustainable, sanctions prevent it from borrowing to continue its spending, which suggests an instantaneous decrease in the standard of living for Iranian citizens when the bill comes due.

Because the citizens elected current president Hassan Rouhani on the platform of improving living standards, lower oil prices are likely to force further reforms and to increase pressure for Iran to broker a deal with America over Iran’s nuclear program. Currently, Iran and the U.S. (plus five other world powers) are wrapped in deadlocked negotiations, the deadline of which is in late November. Rather than close talks and miss the opportunity for a deal, the U.S. should allow an extension on the negotiations and maintain the current level of sanctions to let Iran feel the effects of a falling oil price over the next couple of months. As its economic state worsens and President Rouhani comes under increasing public pressure, a deal in which Iran agrees to dismantle its nuclear capacity for a lifting

Dispatches of sanctions becomes far likelier than it has been in the past era of high oil profits.

DOUBLE-DOWN AGAINST RUSSIA Finally, look to Russia. On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin admitted that the national budget is “stressed” due to oil’s fall, as reported in The Wall Street Journal. Half of Russia’s federal receipts come from oil and gas exports. According to Evgeny Nadorshin, chief economist at AFK Sistema, if oil prices remain below $90 a barrel, Russia’s economy could begin to contract. Inflation is at 8%, setting the stage for stagflation. Furthermore, the slide in the rouble, the Russian currency, has made imports more expensive and threatens to decrease the standard of living.

All of this bodes ill for Russian largesse in Eastern Europe and makes Russia more

vulnerable to sanctions. To this date, Russia has yet to recognize its well-documented role in the provision of weapons and personnel to the Russian separatist rebel movement in eastern Ukraine, which has resulted in billions of dollars of damage to Ukraine, thousands of lives lost, and the downing of a commercial Malaysian Airlines flight. Furthermore, it makes no apology for its illegal annexation of the Ukrainian region of Crimea.

Rather than loosen sanctions to alleviate a possible Russian economic downturn, the U.S. and the rest of the West ought to enhance financial and export sanctions. They must pressure Putin to cut all ties to the Russian separatists in Ukraine and to discourage his pivot toward Soviet-era tactics.

In particular, the EU should now reduce its import of Russian gas, since the low global

price would cushion the blow of decreased oil flow from the east. Although some may argue Putin will use Western sanctioning as a way to drum up nationalistic support for his regime, a tough stance is far more likely to discourage future belligerence on the part of Russia and other nationalistic nations than appeasement would.

Seldom does one economic development give the U.S. three simultaneous opportunities to make global affairs closer to their ideal. In the cases of the Caribbean energy scheme, the Iranian nuclear negotiations, and Russian sanctioning, it is far better for the U.S. to act strongly and swiftly now than to wait on the sidelines. After all, opportunities, like oil, have a tendency to dry up.

Matthew Rock is a Trinity freshman. He is a columnist for DPR.

Where is the Outrage?

Women in the ISIL Crisis Why we should be concerned about the media’s nonexistent coverage of terrorist group ISIL’s abhorrent treatment of women.

By Dana Raphael

I

sis was perhaps the most revered goddess in Ancient Egyptian theology as a guardian of women. Now, ISIS is attacking women in the Middle East. Oh, the irony. ISIS, more accurately known as ISIL, is a terrorist group bent on establishing an Islamic caliphate in Iraq and the Levante, and their recent surge of violence is horrifying. News outlets provide constant updates of ISIL atrocities, including the beheadings of two American journalists. And yet, reports of ISIL’s brutal treatment of women have been virtually nonexistent.

Haleh Esfandiari, the director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, most simply outlines the plight of women under ISIL control: “To the men of ISIL, women

are an inferior species, to be enjoyed for sex and be discarded, or to be sold off as slaves.”

Reports of ISIL fighters leaving behind raped naked women bound to trees, selling women in mass slave auctions, initiating forced marriages (many involving children), and practicing genital mutilation are slowly beginning to surface. These actions are generally excluded from mainstream coverage of ISIL terror attacks. When articles do cover ISIL atrocities against women in mainstream news media, they are rarely taken seriously. Ms. Esfandiari’s article, recently published in The Wall Street Journal, concludes with the wonderfully comforting phrase, “The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author.”

Ms. Esfandiari is perhaps the only scholar to address the ISIL threat in terms of wom-

en, which presents undeniable problems for survivors of ISIL’s sexual violence. Islamic fundamentalists see unmarried, non-virgin women as “soiled goods,” even in the case of rape by ISIL fighters. These women, as Ms. Esfandiari expounds, often become targets of honor killings in their families and communities. Ms. Esfandiari charges that the Iraqi and Syrian governments, as well as Western countries, have done nothing to protect these discarded women, perhaps due to lack of international outrage and media coverage.

While Ms. Esfandiari does a stellar job of bringing ISIL’s abhorrent treatment of women to light, she fails to ask some important questions. Why is the media choosing to ignore half of the population? Why are reports of ISIL violence against women FALL 2014

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Dispatches lost in reports of beheadings?

The answer is startlingly simple: we have normalized violence against women. ISIL is simply another extension of gender violence. The world human trafficking industry grosses about $32 billion a year in the trade of over 21 million women. One in three women worldwide have been sexually assaulted and/or faced relationship violence. One in three women will marry before the age of 18. One in nine will marry before the age of 15. So the plight of thousands of women ISIL leaves behind in its wake of destruction is the same plight that

ISIL. Here is why you should care about ISIL’s treatment of women: 1. ISIL needs women to build their caliphate.

Though ISIL treats women with utter disregard, ISIL fighters need women as a means of growing their desired caliphate.

ISIL militants force captured women into marriage partly to reproduce and grow their terrorist organization. In this sense, women represent capital we should seek to prevent ISIL from utilizing.

Marines talk with women in Saqlawiyah, a town sieged by ISIL in 2014. Photo by Lance Cpl. Joseph A. Lambach.

millions of women already face.

As consumers in the digital age where knowledge is a click away, we are no longer shocked or fazed when confronted with stories of violence against women.

Though many expressed initial outrage over the Boko Haram kidnappings, or the Malala Yousafzai shooting, 200 Nigerian schoolgirls are still missing and Pakistani extremists still threaten education-seeking women. Reports of violence against women in the news are short-lived and quickly forgotten. Mass executions and beheadings are shinier topics, and easier to use as a means of invoking collective rage and hatred of

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2.

Women will play a critical part in rebuilding stability in Syria and Iraq.

Some reports estimate it will take Syria more than 30 years to rebuild its economy to pre-civil war levels. In the coming decades, women will play a crucial part in rebuilding Iraqi and Syrian communities plagued by ISIL, shaping future political, social, and economic systems.

3. We have a unique opportunity to advance women’s rights in the region.

When al-Qaeda denounces an organization as too extreme, you know you have a problem. Virtually the entire spectrum

of Muslims in the Middle East, from fundamentalists to youths and their #BurnISISFlagChallange, have condemned ISIL’s actions. One of the major factors in honor killings – the community murder of a woman for sexual activity, even in cases of rape – is victim blaming: that somehow the woman encouraged the man’s advances. With such polarization, hatred, and exposure to ISIL’s treatment of women, however, more people would likely reevaluate treatment of female survivors, hopefully sparking government reform that would provide women more legal protections.

As succinctly delineated by Chile’s President, Michelle Bachelet, “One of the factors a country’s economy depends on is human capital. If you don’t provide women with adequate access to healthcare, education and employment, you lose at least half of your potential. So, gender equality and women’s empowerment bring huge economic benefits.” The more economic development, the more opportunities for American economic ventures.

Once the guardian of women in Ancient Egypt, ISIS has now become a killer of women.

There is however, hope. According to myth, Set, the Ancient Egyptian god of disorder and violence, murdered Isis’s husband, Osiris, in his quest for power. Isis gathered Osiris’s body and resurrected him. Together they conceived their son Horus, who defeated Set and took back the Egyptian throne, thus returning Egypt to order. The power of women and its incarnation in Isis eventually brought order back to Ancient Egypt. In the current conflict, force and violence will not be enough to stop ISIL. Real order will not be established without the involvement of women.

Dana Raphael is a Trinity freshman. She is a columnist for DPR.

A CLASH OF India and China have been fighting over their border for more than fifty years. There may be signs that things are changing, but is either country willing to find an agreement, and could things really be getting worse?

By Gautam Hathi

The vast desolation of Aksai Chin. Photo by Valaia.

RESURGENT EMPIRES

H

igh in the Himalayas, at 20,000 feet above sea level, the thickness of the tension makes up for the lack of oxygen. Here, on India’s northern border, two would-be superpowers fight over a cold, desolate, windswept area the size of Switzerland. To a casual observer, there isn’t much to be fighting for – just 40,000 square kilometers of high altitude desert with mountain peaks that tower over almost everything else in the world. Yet somehow, the history and political gamesmanship wrapped up in this isolated vastness have managed to create a deep divide between India and China, the world’s two most populous countries.

World

What could have been an era of cooperation and mutual growth instead turned into decades of suspicion and conflict. Now, however, there may be change blowing through the thin mountain air. But will it be enough to overcome decades of tension and mistrust?

The region that has caused all of this trouble is Aksai Chin, a collection of mountains, desert, and salt lakes in the far north of India. While India’s border conflict with Pakistan is more widely known and more often discussed, India has also been locked in a half-century long struggle over the definition of its northern border with China. The two countries disagree about the location of their border in Aksai Chin as well as the location of their northeastern border separating the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh from the Tibet Autonomous Region in China.

T

his dispute, like many others across the world, has its roots in the British penchant for drawing lines on maps.

At the end of the nineteenth century, India was controlled by the British Empire at the height of its powers. The Chinese Empire, on the other hand, was on the verge of collapse. The British were eager to push the boundaries of their domain as far as they could, and so they drew maps that incorporated the territory that would become Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh into India.

Although the exact borders claimed by the British sometimes shifted and were not always clear, they were more expansive than those accepted by the Chinese government.

However, in the waning days of the Qing Dynasty and after its collapse, China was in no position to argue.

But the British Empire would not last forever, and China would not always be willing to concede so easily. After the end of World War II, India became an independent nation and China was swept up by the Communist Revolution. Both new nations were seeking to establish themselves in the postwar era and to reclaim the sovereignty they had thus far been denied. Although India and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) professed mutual friendship in the 1950s, disagreements built up. India declared its borders to be the most expansive limits of

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British claims, both in the far north and in the northeast. The Chinese, meanwhile, began placing a larger emphasis on the Indian border after the annexation of Tibet in 1950. The PRC established frontier posts and built a road through Aksai Chin to connect Xinjiang and Tibet. India added insult to injury when it gave refuge to the Dalai Lama and his Tibetan government-in-exile.

Rounds of negotiations attempted to resolve issues between the two countries, but no progress was made. After a tense visit to India in 1960, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai reportedly concluded that no peaceful solution to the dispute was possible.

Events came to a head in the early 1960s.

Chinese forces began patrolling areas controlled by India, and in response India established its own frontier posts to counter the incursions. A rash of skirmishes and other incidents broke out along the border in 1962. In October of that year, while the

United States was busy dealing with the Cuban Missile Crisis, China made its move, launching invasions (or as China’s Politburo termed them, “self-defensive counter-attacks”) of the disputed territories. India was caught completely unprepared, believing that the Chinese were still willing to negotiate. Within a month, China had achieved its objectives, taking Aksai Chin and almost all of what would become Arunachal Pradesh.

However, that November, China declared a unilateral ceasefire and withdrew its troops from much of the contested regions.

The 1962 Sino-Indian war was an astounding humiliation for India. It was said that the defeat was so shocking that it even affected Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s health, causing him to slip into a decline that led to his death in 1964.

After the 1962 conflict, Sino-Indian relations went into a deep freeze, as India saw China’s invasions as an almost irreparable

Map by Planemad.

World breach of trust (although perhaps in hindsight the war was not so unexpected). China felt that it had established a position where it did not have to make concessions to India and indeed could have taken more if it had liked.

Over the next 30 years, India and China remained locked in bitter border disputes.

Tensions ebbed and flowed, but generally the picture was grim. Several more skirmishes occurred in the 1970s and 1980s, and attempts at de-escalation were abortive. The Cold War also contributed to tensions, as India aligned itself with the Soviet Union and China eventually opened up to the United States in the 1970s. When India fought a war with Pakistan in 1971, both the United States and China supported Pakistan. Negotiations between the two parties continued on and off into the 1980s, but virtually nothing was achieved.

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he only force that has proven powerful enough to ease such deep-seated tensions, at least in part, is economics. In the early 1990s, both India and China were liberalizing their economies and looking for opportunities to integrate themselves into the world economy. Each was an appealing market to the other, and border issues were set aside in favor of cooperation on economic and other fronts. Bilateral trade growth quickly followed. A report from IMT Ghaziabad shows that trade between the two nations increased tenfold between 1990 and 1994 and then jumped to ten times the 1994 level by 2004. This economic interdependence led to a stabilization of the situation along the India-China border, and provocative incidents became much less frequent. Recently, official visits between the two countries have become at least somewhat common, and each visit brings another round of gushing rhetoric about cooperation.

In addition, strategic considerations have also moved India and China closer together in recent years. Each state sees itself as a rising world power and is afraid of having its influence circumscribed by hostile neighbors. China in particular has attempted to improve relations with its neighbors as much as it can to counter increasing hostil-

ity from the United States and Japan in the east. India is a critical piece of China’s strategic puzzle, since it would much prefer to avoid dealing with hostile neighbors in both the east and the west. China is also wary of creating conflicts along its western border when it is already dealing with unrest in Tibet and Xinjiang. India has also always preferred to focus on its rivalry with Pakistan than worry about China. Of course, both nations see each other as potential rivals, but right now each has more pressing geopolitical concerns that they would like to deal with.

Although economic and strategic ties between India and China continued to increase into the 2000s, underlying issues still remain. Border definitions along a few sections of the frontier (in Sikkim) have been agreed upon by the two countries, but many of the territorial issues present in 1962 still remain today. There are even signs that the situation is worsening.

Military posturing by both countries, usually involving troop movements towards the border, has raised worries of a broader confrontation. In recent months, both sides have built up their presence along the border, leading to fears that a skirmish could spiral out of control.

A 2010 article in The Economist quotes a poll showing that 47% of Chinese viewed India negatively and 38% of Indians viewed China negatively. Each nation serves as a convenient straw man for the other. To top it all off, China is still angered by India’s protection of Tibetans, especially as it grows more worried about unrest in its western regions.

All of these dynamics played out during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s recent visit to India. There was much talk of economic cooperation and trade deals, and India agreed to join the China-backed Asian In-

frastructure Investment Bank, which will bring much needed foreign investment to India. However, the visit was overshadowed by a series of provocative Chinese moves in Aksai Chin. While Xi was in India, Chinese soldiers moved into Indian controlled territory, which abruptly limited the scope of ongoing trade talks and created an incredibly awkward situation when the leaders of the two nations met face to face. India’s new Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, reportedly told Xi that a resolution of border issues was a non-negotiable precursor to a broader bilateral investment deal.

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ndeed, it would seem like a resolution of the issues along the Sino-Indian frontier is a precursor to almost any type of broader cooperation between India and China. It is very hard for two countries to do business when they have thousands of troops massed on their border and when each occasionally engages in what the other sees as an incursion. Each border incident acts as a minor reset of the progress that has been made. There is a clear pathway to a solution for the dispute, in which both sides would generally accept the current effective frontier lines with perhaps a few minor changes. All it would take to bring about a permanent resolution is the willingness to accept whatever details the diplomats can hammer out.

A permanent fix to the issues that have plagued Sino-Indian relations could have broad implications for the region as whole.

Economically, a deal has the potential to open up the massive Indian market to China and to bring hundreds of billions of foreign investment dollars into India. Strategically, a resolution to the conflict has the potential to bring about a closer alignment between India and China over time. This could give both countries much more leverage against

Both countries would go from being surrounded by enemies to being backed by friends.

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their other hostile neighbors. China would greatly appreciate Indian support (either implicit or explicit) in its disputes with the United States, and India would be in a much stronger position vis-Ă -vis Pakistan if it did not have to worry about China. Both countries would go from being surrounded by enemies to being backed by friends.

This potential strategic transformation could significantly alter the balance of power in South and East Asia. U.S. influence in the region would be under serious threat if China had the support of its largest neighbor, and many countries might find Indian-backed Chinese power to be irresistible.

A resolution of border tensions would certainly facilitate an expanded Chinese sphere of influence. India, on the other hand, currently has little influence beyond its own borders, mainly because it has had to focus on defending those borders almost since

the time it became independent. Relieving pressure on the Chinese border would allow India to have larger strategic aims that could include gaining influence in Afghanistan or Southeast Asia. Of course, these broader strategic aims might once again bring India into competition with China, but that competition would presumably be less direct than the current standoff.

After their one-on-one meeting in September, Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping held a press conference in which their body language summed up the state of Sino-Indian relations. Both leaders made statement after statement about the importance of cooperation and announced a series of minor agreements on a range of issues, from trade to cultural exchange. But they spoke with almost no excitement, glancing at each other barely once or twice throughout the entire event. For the most part, they just looked

past each other toward the translators.

Perhaps this reflects the fact that India and China realize the potential of a closer alignment, but the trust to make that happen has not been established. Both countries have often been reluctant to acknowledge the bigger picture in the midst their not-so-infrequent squabbles. When one side has made concessions, the other has not matched them. An improved relationship between India and China could benefit each country greatly, but that will not happen while there is a cold war along the border. However, if India and China can resolve their differences and work together, South Asia, and indeed the world, may find itself with a new set of great powers to contend with.

Gautam Hathi is a Trinity sophomore.

An imposing Chinese presence along the border. Photo by Preston Rhea.

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F! THE PATRIARCHY Lessons from Sweden’s Feminist Political Party

BY KARI BARCLAY

World

AS GENDER-BASED DISCRIMINATION CONVERSATIONS IN AMERICAN POP CULTURE BECOME MORE EMPHATIC, SWEDEN’S FEMINISTS HAVE RECENTLY STIRRED CONVERSATIONS IN THE POLITICAL ARENA

BY FORMING THEIR OWN POLITICAL PARTY. WHAT CAN FEMINIST POLITICAL ORGANIZERS IN AMERICAN LEARN FROM SWEDEN’S F! PARTY’S SUCCESSES AND FAILURES?

Graphic used in Feminist Initiative campaign materials. Illustration by Emma Ingrid Karolina.

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s more and more celebrities have “come out” as feminists, feminism has attracted increased attention in America. At this year’s General Assembly at the United Nations, Emma Watson gave a speech on men’s inclusion in feminism that quickly went viral and garnered praise and criticism from different camps. In Beyoncé’s most recent performance at the Video Music Awards, the star stood onstage with the word “FEMINIST” projected in bold letters across the backdrop. As celebrities do the work of glamorizing feminism in popular culture, it is easy to miss those doing the less glamorous work of promoting feminist policies. While cultural change may encourage American society to address gender-based oppression, law has the power to solidify measures to combat this oppression. Right now, the United States remains one of the only developed nations that does not require employers to offer paid maternity leave. Law enforcement is inadequate at protecting women from sexual assault and harassment. Policy change is necessarily if law is to protect women’s interests. When we look for feminist role models making tangible policy change, we may find them in a surprising source – the Feminist Initiative, a Swedish political party devoted to ending gender-based discrimination.

The Feminist Initiative, also known as F!, formed in 2005 with goals including equal pay for women, increased women’s reproductive rights, greater representation of women in government, and equal parental leave for men and women. So far, the party has been unsuccessful at getting its candidates elected to the Swedish parliament, but in May 2014, one of its candidates was elected to the European Parliament. In the process, F! has raised the visibility of politicized feminism. The party’s campaigns have attracted international media attention and gained support from an array of celebrities including Jane Fonda, Pharrell Williams, and members of ABBA. The party’s main achievements are bringing feminism to the forefront of election debates and encouraging other political parties to campaign on platforms that include legislation curbing gender-based discrimination. In party platforms for the 2014 Swedish Parliamentary election, the Liberal Party promised to increase incentives for corporations to offer equal parental leave, the Social Democrats proposed a ban on sexualized advertising, the Green Party offered free contraceptives for women under 26, and the Moderate Party rolled out an economic plan for ensuring equal pay. Moreover, in the Feminist Initiative’s first election in 2006, although F! did not receive enough votes to elect a single representative, representation of women in Swedish parliament increased by two percent to a total of 47 percent. In this way, F! encouraged other political parties to address feminist concerns and to increase the representation of women in politics.

Could a similar political movement surface in the U.S.? It would

likely encounter obstacles including the two-party system, financing its campaigns, and collective action failure. Nevertheless, if a feminist political party did emerge in the U.S., it could potentially achieve some of the same victories as F! – increased representation of women in politics and promises of feminist legislation from other political parties. Whether or not a feminist political party develops in the U.S., individuals are already working to advance policies that benefit women. Some lessons that American feminists in politics can glean from the Feminist Initiative are learning to focus on legislation more than representation, mixing grassroots work with high media visibility, allying feminism with other anti-discrimination movements, and understanding that fragmentation in the feminist movement is likely.

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hile increased representation of women in politics is part of the Feminist Initiative’s platform, it was never the primary focus of the campaign. In fact, in 2014, 15 percent of the party’s parliamentary candidates were men. Overall, the party seemed to focus on the representation of feminists more than the representation of women. Underrepresentation of women in politics is a serious issue, but increased representation of women can be difficult to sell. As political theorist Anne Phillips points out in her book The Politics of Presence, appeals for increased representation of women often find themselves in a bind. If a feminist argues that women and men are the inherently equal, how can he or she also argue that a woman in government is different from a man in government? On the other hand, if a feminist argues that men and women are different, he or she risks overemphasizing gender differences and providing fodder for antifeminists to say that women do not belong in politics.

A strength of F! seems to be in showing the broad scope of gender-based discrimination; F! argued for more than the representation of women in politics and trusted that increased representation would follow. Phillips draws a distinction between a Politics of Ideas and a Politics of Presence. The former states that legislation matters more than the identity of one’s representatives, and the latter states that the identity of one’s representatives matter more than legislation. The Feminist Initiative folded the Politics of Presence into its Politics of Ideas. The movement built itself around the ideologically appealing goal of ending gender-based discrimination and saw the increased representation of women as merely a part of this goal. This technique seems to have been effective. In the 2006 election, F! raised policy demands, and other parties responded with increased representation of women.

These other parties increased their proportion of women candidates, and the proportion of women in parliament increased by two percent.

“F! raised policy demands, and other parties responded with increased representation of women.”

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eminist political movements can also learn from F!’s tactics. The Feminist Initiative mixed grassroots political organizing with high-visibility events aimed at drawing media attention. On the grassroots front, F! encouraged supporters to host “home parties” in which they could invite friends over for dinner to discuss the Feminist Initiative and its merits. F!’s charismatic leader, Gudrun Schyman, attended over 250 of these home parties to recruit supporters for the party. The use of the home as a location for political organizing is also a symbolic gesture. The home has typically been a depoliticized space (in liberal political theory, it is often the private realm juxtaposed with Gudrun Schyman, the Feminist the political realm); home Initiative’s founder, speaks before parties politicize this space potential supporters at a home

teractions. Schyman’s act made visible what could otherwise go unnoticed. Feminism has historically used performance art as a tool, and feminist political movements like F! should view performance as a resource to garner media attention. The international news media seized on to the story of the Feminist Initiative, which has increased its global profile.

and provide a fascinating model for grassroots organizing.

The movement has also masterfully captured media attention.

To draw attention to the income gap in Sweden, Gudrun Schyman burned 100,000 kronor (approximately $13,000). The party claimed that this was the total amount that Swedish women lose each minute as a result of the wage gap. Such a daring stunt drew media attention and provided a captivating image for news reports. To those who have not been made conscious of it, gender-based discrimination can seem invisible. It often takes the form of microaggressions, flash judgments, and interpersonal in-

ne limitation of feminist party politics is that it could divide feminists or falsely claim to represent all feminists. There are so many streams of feminism that it is hard to imagine a political party that could unite them all. A political party operating in the name of feminism might mute the diversity within the feminist movement or alienate feminists that did not agree with the party’s platform. Even in the relatively homogenous Swedish population, the Feminist Initiative could not gain the support of all feminists.

F!’s leftist stances on issues like immigration, education, and en-

party. Photo by Jonatan Kipowsky.

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he Feminist Initiative has also allied itself with other non-discrimination movements. The party’s platform calls attention to discrimination based on race, immigration status, LGBTQ identity, ability, and age, along with gender. Certain types of feminism have rightly been accused of whitewashing feminism and ignoring racial minorities.

In contrast, F! states a goal of building a “broad and inclusive anti-racist feminism.” Moreover, the party sets itself up in opposition to the “fascism and nationalism” in Europe that has been accompanied by xenophobia and racism. The platform concludes with the slogan, “Out with the racists – in with the feminists!” Whether or not this rhetoric is politically effective is hard to say, but if a movement works against gender-based discrimination, it should work against other forms of arbitrary discrimination as well. On the note of inclusiveness, the Feminist Initiative has successfully attracted some men to its ranks.

Men make up 17 percent of the party’s membership.

Although feminism should not need to cater to men (men should respond to gender-based discrimination without having to be persuaded!), feminist political movements will benefit from men’s inclusion.

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vironmentalism may have estranged conservative feminists. In fact, the Swedish Liberal Party’s slogan in the most recent election, “feminism without socialism,” speaks to its desire to sweep up feminist voters disenchanted with F!’s leftism. In an interview with Al Jazeera, feminist activist Helene Bergman argues that F! is creating rifts in Sweden’s feminist movement because of its political stances. “As soon as feminism becomes party-political,” says Bergman, “it’s becoming divisive, not unifying, and you fight instead of unite.”

This division might be the price to pay if one wants to create a feminist political movement. As soon as one articulates a concrete stance on policy issues, one is likely to encounter those who disagree with those stances. If feminists are ever going to ensure women’s reproductive rights, they will have to separate themselves from pro-life feminists who do not want to expand those reproductive rights. As soon as one aims to regulate corporate environmental impacts in the name of eco-feminism, one might alienate working class feminists who fear that these regulations could cost them their jobs. The more specific a party is with its policies, the harder it will be to appeal to everyone. While celebrities’ avowal of feminism may impact a more general audience, and glamorized feminism may have wide appeal, the only way to advance women’s legal status will be to make concrete policy changes.

The Riksdag, Sweden’s parliament. Photo by Janwikifoto.

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he chance of a feminist political party like F! emerging in the United States seems relatively slim. But around the U.S., feminists are working for policy change that will put an end to gender-based discrimination. Organizations like the National Women’s Law Center, Center for Reproductive Rights, and National Partnership for Women and Families advocate for policies that will benefit women. The feminists working with these organizations may not be as visible as Emma Watson, Beyoncé, Joseph Gordon Levitt, and other celebrities who have claimed the label of “feminist,” but their work is just as, if not more important than the cultural work of these public figures. The feminists working for policy change in the U.S. share many goals with F! even if they are not technically a part of a cohesive movement like the Feminist Initiative. Hopefully, with effort, a movement like F! could materialize in our nation. In the meantime, feminist policy advocates can learn from the successes and failures of the Feminist Initiative as they continue their meaningful work in the shadow of glitzy celebrity feminism.

Kari Barclay is a Trinity junior. He is an editor-at-large for DPR.

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LBJ

&

THE DREAMER History remembers Lyndon Johnson as the consummate politician—the ‘master of the Senate’—and Martin Luther King, Jr. as an orator whose words inspired the nation. But the truth is more complex, and more interesting.

MLK

THE STRATEGIST

By Andrew Kragie

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President Johnson greets Dr. King at the signing ceremony for the Voting Rights Act on August 6, 1965. Photo by Yoichi Okamoto.

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ou won’t find many inspirational posters of Lyndon Johnson in elementary school classrooms. But it’s not hard to find a poster of Martin Luther King, Jr., usually with the words of his 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech accompanying his picture. Conventional history of the American civil rights era—the story we learn in textbooks and teach to children—casts both King and Johnson in starring roles. Those roles are clearly defined: the preacher was an inspirational moral leader, and the president was a shrewd political tactician. These roles are not incorrect, but they miss the nuances that make both men much more interesting—and that made history.

STRATEGIC CHOICES IN BIRMINGHAM King was a field marshal in the 1963 Birmingham, Alabama, campaign that stirred the nation’s conscience. Blacks in the city had a long tradition of challenging Jim Crow and were often met with fierce opposition: the city was known as “Bombingham” because of its white terrorism. The black community organized again in 1963 to protest segregation and hiring discrimination by downtown businesses. Local leaders brought in King, whose strategic decisions brought national attention to the local protests.

Both the location and timing were strategic. MLK’s organization had organized a similar protest movement in Albany, Georgia, the previous year—to little effect. The city’s police responded calmly

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and its businessmen sounded reasonable without actually allowing any changes; the national media moved on. King knew he needed a villain who would epitomize the cruelty of Jim Crow. He found his man in Commissioner of Public Safety Eugene “Bull” Connor, who would later unleash police dogs, clubs, and fire hoses in his ferocious effort to end King’s marches. But the preacher was sensitive to electoral politics; he knew that the campaign would increase support for reactionary white politicians. Marches were scheduled for early March, but the city mayoral election went into a run-off, pitting Connor against a moderate white candidate whom blacks wanted to win. King delayed the campaign until after the April 2 election. The marches, sit-ins, and boycotts began on April 3.

After several weeks of mass marches—and mass arrests—the campaign was losing steam. Leaders had nearly exhausted the pool of adults willing to be jailed, and bail money was running out. King accepted the recommendation of one of his “wild men,” James Bevel, to organize children to march downtown. The radical move was designed to refocus national attention and garner significant media coverage of police brutality and the violence of Jim Crow; it succeeded. The pictures of dogs biting young marchers and children huddled against the President Johnson meets force of fire hoses spurred a national with Dr. King and other change of opinion on civil rights. civil rights leaders in the White House’s Cabinet Room on March 18, 1966.

Photo by Yoichi Okamoto.

United States

JOHNSON TAKES A STAND Though LBJ had no reputation as a civil rights supporter before becoming vice president in 1961, he soon embraced the issue. In a White House dominated by Northern intellectuals, Johnson felt insecure—he grew up in a poor, rural area and attended a state teacher’s college rather than a prestigious university. Like many other men in the vice presidency, he also felt ignored and useless; in all of 1963, Johnson spent only one hour and fifty-three minutes alone with JFK. Accustomed to wielding power and influence as the “master of the Senate,” he turned to civil rights partly to feel once again like a leader. He brought energetic leadership to the President’s Committee for Equal Employment Opportunity, which Kennedy had established as a symbolic rather than substantive effort.

He spoke out on Memorial Day of 1963, less than three weeks after the images from Birmingham shocked the nation. LBJ, the southerner who had voted against civil rights bills for his first twenty years in Congress, spoke eloquently about the racial crisis to which the country was finally awakening. Speaking at the Gettysburg battlefield where Lincoln delivered his famous address, Johnson boldly sided with civil rights activist, invoking slavery and the Emancipation Proclamation:

fought so long.” Johnson had no political pressure to advocate for civil rights, and certainly not to make it his top priority in the wake of the assassination. Yet he did.

The new president’s focus was not motivated primarily by political gain; in fact, LBJ (rightly) worried that pushing civil rights would hurt Democrats in the long run. Biographer Robert Dallek writes that “[t]he evening Johnson signed the bill, [press secretary] Bill Moyers visited him in his bedroom, where he found Johnson seated on his bed with several newspapers headlining the civil rights act spread around him. Johnson seemed deflated. Sensing his mood, Moyers asked why he was so glum. “Because, Bill,” he replied, “I think we just delivered the South to the Republican Party for a long time to come.”

JOHNSON –

One hundred years ago, the slave was freed. One hundred years later, the Negro remains in bondage to the color of his skin. The Negro today asks justice…. Until justice is blind to color, until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men’s skins, emancipation will be a proclamation but not a fact.

/

Civil rights was not a pure political win. Johnson knew it would cost him and his party southern whites, and would maybe even

“I think we just delivered the South to the Republican Party for a long time to come.”

These words may sound unremarkable today, but they must have been shocking at the time. Civil rights leaders had expected little of the vice president, who was mainly selected as a running mate because he could bring Southern electoral votes. They had been disappointed by Kennedy, who had seemed so idealistic and promising.

Yet it was Johnson who spoke out on civil rights; he pre-empted the president with a speech so unexpected that it made the front page of the Washington Post (inset). It would be nearly two weeks before President Kennedy gave a nationally televised address from the Oval Office to outline a new civil rights bill.

When Kennedy was killed in November 1963, Johnson used his first speech to Congress to push for the civil rights law. He praised JFK for pushing America towards space travel, establishing the Peace Corps, and “above all, [advancing] the dream of equal rights for all Americans, whatever their race or color.” The new president praised a man who in reality was weak on civil rights—but it was not by accident. In a moment of national mourning, LBJ saw an opening: the bill might pass if the public saw it as a tribute to the slain president. So Johnson said that “no memorial oration or eulogy could more eloquently honor President Kennedy’s memory than the earliest possible passage of the civil rights bill for which he

“It would be this coalition of the Negro vote and the moderate white vote that will really make the new South.”

– KING

change the political landscape for generations. But he took a strong stand even though it posed a political liability, because he believed in the moral justness of the cause.

“CO-CONSPIRATORS” King didn’t shy away from electoral politics. When the president called him on January 15, 1965, the reverend had the 1964 election results in mind. Johnson had won all but five states—but the South promised to be a problem for Democrats in the future. King, who had returned the previous month from accepting the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize, didn’t mince words: [I]t’s very interesting, Mr. President, to notice that the only states that you didn’t carry in the South, the five Southern states, have less than 40 percent of the Negroes registered to vote….

[I]t demonstrates that it’s so important to get Negroes registered to vote in large numbers in the South. And it would be this coalition of the Negro vote and the moderate white vote that will really make the new South.

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United States victories. But his response to King’s analysis doesn’t sound like someone obsessed with electoral votes: That’s exactly right. I think it’s very important that we not say that we’re doing this, and we not do it just because it’s Negroes or whites. But we take the position that every person born in this country and when they reach a certain age, that he have a right to vote, just like he has a right to fight. And that we just extend it whether it’s a Negro or whether it’s a Mexican or who it is.

Rights Act of 1964. King’s brilliant tactics and powerful use of the media created an opening for LBJ to goad Congress. He framed the issue in moral terms for elected officials. “Every American citizen must have an equal right to vote,” he said. “There is no reason which can excuse the denial of that right. There is no duty which weighs more heavily on us than the duty we have to ensure that right.”

Johnson also showed a remarkable empathy and shared sense of outrage when he described barriers to voting: The Negro citizen may go to register only to be told that the day is wrong, or the hour is late, or the official in charge is absent. And if he persists, and if he manages to present himself to the registrar, he may be disqualified because he did not spell out his middle name or because he abbreviated a word on the application. And if he manages to fill out an application he is given a test. The registrar is the sole judge of whether he passes this test.

He may be asked to recite the entire Constitution, or explain the most complex provisions of State law. And even a college degree cannot be used to prove that he can read and write.

For the fact is that the only way to pass these barriers is to show a white skin.

President Johnson meets with Dr. King and other civil rights leaders in the Oval Office on January 18, 1964--ten days after his first State of the Union address, and less than two months after President Kennedy’s assassination. Photo by Yoichi Okamoto.

And King didn’t stop at prognosticating; he could bargain with the best of them.

He first stroked the president’s renowned ego, complimenting his recent State of the Union speech as “a marvelous presentation.” Once the president let King get in a word—LBJ was famous for dominating conversation—the preacher quickly got to the point and asked for “a Negro in the Cabinet.” He supported his request with an argument that is not at all moral or idealistic, but entirely political: a black Cabinet secretary would help “our international image.” King was quite right; segregation and police brutality in the South gave the Soviet Union a major propaganda tool for the Third World.

“WE SHALL OVERCOME” Though King is remembered for his soaring speeches, Johnson occasionally had his moments. On March 15, 1965, he addressed a joint session of Congress and exhorted them to pass a voting rights bill, only months after he had pushed through the divisive Civil

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LBJ again evoked the Emancipation Proclamation when he said that, even after one hundred years, “emancipation is a proclamation and not a fact.” Johnson was not known as a gifted orator, but this night his voice echoed powerfully in the chamber: “Their cause must be our cause too. Because it is not just Negroes, but really it’s all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice.” Then, borrowing the language of the great civil rights hymn, he said, “And we shall overcome.” The full apparatus of the American government, gathered in one room, rose for a standing ovation. Representatives, senators, diplomats, generals, admirals—and even much of the normally stoic Supreme Court—stood to clap and cheer.

The reaction went far beyond the House of Representatives, according to historian Nick Kotz. King, watching the speech on television in Montgomery, “wiped tears from his eyes.” The preacher called the president that night with congratulations. “It is ironic, Mr. President,” King told Johnson, “that after a century, a southern white president would help lead the way toward the salvation of the Negro.” In a rare moment of modesty, LBJ told King, “You’re the leader who is making it all possible. I’m just following along trying to do what’s right.” The president pushed the bill through Congress, riding a wave of support for civil rights after Selma and his speech.

LBJ signed the bill on August 6, and turned to shake MLK’s hand.

The president handed the preacher one of the signing pens, recognizing him as one of the act’s true authors.

Andrew Kragie is a Trinity senior. He is a columnist for DPR.

INDIA AND SOLAR ENERGY Turning the Market Inward

BY ALEXA LAZARUS

World

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ith about 300 annual days of sun, India against the Indian subsidy invoked in the National Solar Mission is predisposed to environmental circumand should continue to push for increased trade liberalization in stances favorable to an explosive solar enthe solar energy sector with India. It is evident that the National ergy market. Its high solar insolation and Solar Mission discriminates against U.S. imports and threatens dense population make the country a prime American solar industry, calling for the just elimination of Indian candidate for solar power utilization, espebarriers preventing trade liberalization. cially in light of recent conditions: declining prices of foreign PV panels coinciding THE JAWAHARLAL NEHRU NATIONAL SOLAR MISSION with the rising costs of Indian grid power, government support In its quest to address its energy challenges and promote eco(namely lucrative tax savings to incentivize solar power utilizalogically sustainable growth, India has pushed the Jawaharlal tion), vast resource development, and a severe electricity deficit Nehru National Solar Mission as a means of establishing the that drops between 10% and 13% of daily needs. In 2010, the country as a solar energy leader on the global stage and creIndian government announced a major solar initiative known ate political means by which the country can move past a rural as the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission. The initiative, economy and towards decentralized industrialization. Launched with its intent to establish India as a global leader in solar energy in 2010 by Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, the initiative and reduce its dependence on fossil fuels in lieu of renewable enaims to diffuse solar energy across India as quickly as possible ergy sources, contains provisions that discriminate against U.S. by meeting four objectives: long term policy, large scale deployimports and result in adverse consequences, including forced ment goals, aggressive research and development, and domestic layoffs in the US solar sector and production of critical raw mateprecedent, which hinders future rials, components, and products. trade liberalization between the The initiative consists of three two countries. The debate regardphases–the first having ended last ing the operation stems from a year, the second expected to move WITH THE CONDITIONAL SUBSIDY, generous subsidy granted by the in to 2017, and the third expected Ministry of New and Renewable to end by 2022. Under the conINDIAN SOLAR MANUFACTURERS HAVE Energy that comes conditionaltrol of the Ministry of New and GREATER INCENTIVE TO PURCHASE ly with a domestic solar module Renewable Energy, the Nationsourcing requirement. The local al Solar Mission is one of many DOMESTIC SOLAR RESOURCES, sourcing requirement was exinitiatives affiliated with India’s PUTTING THE U.S. SOLAR INDUSTRY panded in 2014 to include thin National Action Plan on Climate AT A DISADVANTAGE AND POSITING A film technology, a resource acChange. Under Phase 1, various counting for the vast majority of domestic solar power projects THREAT TO NEARLY 10,000 U.S. JOBS. U.S. solar exports to India. The were selected through a reverse National Solar Mission explicitly bidding process to be put into violates four distinct multilateral effect by Indian solar power comagreements prohibiting discrimpanies. The companies were given inatory protectionist subsidies in a 30% subsidy by the Ministry of addition to various clauses in the framework of the 1947 General New and Renewable Energy under the condition that developAgreement on Tariffs and Trade and precedents established in ers of solar photovoltaic (“PV”) projects using crystalline silicon its 8th Uruguay Round. The implications of the specific subsidy technology use solar modules manufactured in India. The Phase granted to Indian manufacturers by the Ministry are detrimenII domestic content requirement was also expanded to include tal to U.S. exports and solar employment barricading the U.S. thin film technology, which constitutes the majority of US sofrom India’s solar market and discriminates against solar exports lar exports to India. India has claimed that the “increased use in general to India. With the conditional subsidy, Indian solar of solar energy is a central component of [our] strategy to bring manufacturers have greater incentive to purchase domestic soabout a strategic shift from [our] current reliance on fossil fuels lar resources, putting the U.S. solar industry at a disadvantage to a pattern of sustainable growth based on renewable and clean and positing a threat to nearly 10,000 U.S. jobs. The Obama adsources of energy.” Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, in his ministration and The USTR filed a complaint against India in inaugural address, stated, “The importance of this Mission is not February of 2013 at the WTO, requesting formal consultations just limited to providing large-scale grid connected power. It has with India over Phase I of the National Solar Mission in hopes the potential to provide significant multipliers in our efforts for that Phase II would take in to account the interests of Ameritransformation of India’s rural economy. The objective of the Soca’s solar industry. Formal consultations at the WTO on April 4th, lar Mission is to create conditions, through rapid scale-up of ca2014 resulted in failure to reach agreement. The U.S., backed by pacity and technological innovation to drive down costs towards WTO agreements and fair trade principles is justified in its claim grid parity.”

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AN ENCROACHMENT ON MULTILATERAL AGREEMENTS

already seen a significant decline in sales and poses to lose even The major aspects of the Nagreater further trade liberalizational Solar Policy undoubtedtion with India. India has rely violate a core four of India’s futed U.S. allegations, claiming obligations as a member under that the sourcing requirement is WTO agreements. Article III of derived from an attempt to grow the 1994 GATT regarding nalocal potential and to augment tional treatment on internal taxIndia’s self-sustenance. India has ation and regulation prohibits also contested that the initiative sanctions or measures discrimwill contribute to “national as inatory in favor of domestically well as global efforts to combat produced goods versus imports. climate change.” However, as adThe solar initiative’s local condressed by a formal oversight of tent requirement and subsidy the mission itself, it has proven offerings to producers using doto be overly ambitious, failing to mestic resources rather than im“adequately provide for sufficient ports discriminates against U.S. infrastructure to be installed if solar imports and restricts the the [Mission] is to meet its goal.”

U.S.’s access to India’s market.

The looming infrastructure and Thin film technology accounts technology that has yet to be for the majority of the U.S.’s solar installed must be accounted for exports to India, due to the U.S.’s in capital by Indian manufacturcompetitive advantage globally ers–creating great uncertainty in the field. With India’s new soas to whether the 30% subsidy lar policies turning inward, the would even be passed on to conA thermal depiction of the country’s annual radiation.

U.S. is posed to lose a large porsumers.

Image by SolarGIS. tion of its export activity and is In the USTR complaint filed clearly given less favorable treatagainst India in February 2013, ment than are domestic Indian one of the stipulations considproducers. The solar initiative also violates GATT’s Article II and ered to be in violation by the Solar Mission was Article VI SecArticle III of the WTO Agreement on Subsidies and Countertion III(a) of the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing vailing Measures, prohibiting conditioning a subsidy on the use Measures of the Uruguay Round. US solar panel exports to India of domestic goods over imports, is also violated by the initiative before the start of the domestic content requirements were worth and the 30% subsidy granted to Indian solar companies using $119 million. According to USTR attorneys, exports have “fallen domestically manufactured solar modules, silicon solar cells, and off precipitously since then,” running the risk of “close to 10,000 thin film. The most prominent adverse effect involves the 30% American jobs…at stake in the solar industry sector if India carsubsidy rewarding the use of locally produced resources–largeries through with the local content.” Basic laws of labor supply ly barring U.S. solar companies from access to Indian markets, and demand dictate that lost sales in U.S. the solar export market putting nearly 10,000 American jobs in the solar industry at risk, will force the loss of employment— a decrease in sales to Indian according to US Trade Representative Mike Froman. India has solar manufacturers will result in a decrease in American solar argued against allegations, claiming that under the WTO Agreeindustry employment. This decrease in American solar industry ment on Government Procurement, it is enabled to exclude ceremployment will serve to work against the global energy goals tain projects from non-discrimination obligations. It has, howevthat India itself has claimed in invoking the National Solar Miser, failed to provide specific evidence of how the National Solar sion. If U.S. solar industry employment experiences a significant Mission in particular is exempt from import discrimination redecline, the message pushing the pursuit of global renewable quirements under WTO agreements. Froman holds that “‘These energy to the forefront of international issues will indubitably types of ‘localization’ measures not only are an unfair barrier to suffer. The U.S. is a leading force in influencing global matters U.S. exports, but also raise the cost of solar energy, hindering deconcerning new technology and green energy. If solar manufacployment of solar energy around the world, including in India.’” turing is hurt in the United States, India’s ambition to “contribThe U.S. solar industry is a specific victim of Phase II’s domestic ute to national as well as global efforts to combat climate change” thin film sourcing requirement, thin film constituting the mais undermined and limits the further development of renewable jority of U.S. solar exports. With Indian manufacturers buying energy trade liberalization around the globe. thin film technology from domestic producers, U.S. industry has The Mission is abundant in far more complications than ad-

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A recently installed solar power plant in Rajashtan, India. Photo by Bkwcreator.

dressed by the Indian government and the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy. While the lofty goal of the National Solar Mission is to eventually reduce the cost of renewable solar energy and to transform India’s rural economy in to that of an industrial one, barring U.S. solar imports is neither the most cost-efficient nor politically or diplomatically ethical way to go about doing so. The economic harms of protectionism to consumers are implicit. When less costly imported goods are barred from domestic markets, consumers pay more to line the pockets of certain industries and workers. The 30% subsidy that Indian solar manufacturers will receive upon using domestic resources is not guaranteed to be passed on to consumers in the form of lower prices for solar energy products. There is no framework within the legislation providing for a price reduction on the solar energy goods that Indian consumers will purchase. A more realistic danger, rather, is a financing model that is “flawed, creating an environment where unscrupulous investors can manipulate project reports to generate undue profits.” Moreover, it is not certain that if the subsidy theoretically were to be passed on to consumers through lowered prices, it would compensate for the lower costs that consumers hitherto received when U.S. imports were allowed to freely enter the Indian market. With the U.S.

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holding more advanced technology and machinery to produce solar modules and thin film, it stands to reason that the prices Indian consumers receive from U.S. solar imports are far more desirable than those received under Indian solar manufacturers, who must set aside extra capital for technology start-ups and machine development that does not currently exist in the country.

Indeed, in the “Lessons from Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission Phase I” report issued by the Indian government, public funding for technology capital is said to be “not linked to output and hence does not create a positive bias for performance.” It was also declared to possess “risk of compromises in Operation and Maintenance and asset replacement” and is “dependent over a substantive period on government funding.” Should energy rise in cost due to the import discrimination put in place by Mission, the purchasing power of individual consumers will decrease, doing little to transform India’s economy from one of rurality to one of industrialization. Decreased purchase power translates to decreased investment in technological start-ups and industrial businesses. By pure free market reasoning, moreover, India’s protectionism also undermines voluntary exchange, interrupting the fundamental that trade ought to be between people and not countries. If India is serious about expanding its industrial econ-

World omy, barring trade liberalization with the United States is not the solution. Not only are prices unguaranteed to be more competitive due to the 30% subsidy (and realistically, are more likely to be determined through investment manipulation and specific political agendas), but also diplomatic relations are increasingly strained, limiting future opportunities for global technological development. The National Solar Mission’s subsidization policy strains diplomacy and paves the way for moral and economic harms inflicted upon Indian consumers–a losing situation for both the U.S. and India.

violates GATT principles prohibiting sanctions or measures discriminatory in favor of domestically produced goods versus imports and provokes prohibited trade-related investment by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy that is inconsistent with GATT’s Article III. In addition to also violating principles listed in subsidy and countervailing measure agreements under the WTO, the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission also creates perverse effects for both the United States and the country of India itself. With a daunting barrier to access India’s market, the U.S. is posed to lose nearly 10,000 jobs in its solar industry and suffer economically from export declines. With its major A NON-PUNITIVE REMEDY solar exports, namely thin film technology, negatively targeted Should India continue to invoke policy that discriminates

by Phase II of the National Solar Mission, the U.S. is specifically against U.S. imports and clearly provides unfair benefit for Indiharmed by the import discrimination India imposes. Decreased an solar resource producers, the U.S. may choose to impose counU.S. employment in renewable solar power industries limits the tervailing duties upon India in retaliation against the domestic global scope of influence it has in pushing forth green energy as subsidies given for using domestic sourcing. Anti-subsidy rules, a pressing issue, undermining India’s aim to contribute to the according to the WTO, are intended to encourage international global solar energy movement. India itself suffers from unforetrade liberalization by supplying mechanisms, reasonable disciseen consequences as a result of the mission. The operation fails plines, or dispute settlement means. Countervailing duties, othto take in to account the need for capital to develop the techerwise known as anti-subsidy duties, are implemented under the nology necessary to provide the groundwork for such a lofty and WTO in order to neutralize and counambitious objective. It fails to provide teract the effects of an unfair subsidy. for costs associated with the infraThey are non-punitive, intended only structure needed to develop the U.S. to remedy the amount of damage technology and machinery that India done by exact value. The duties, ad lacks in order to efficiently produce THE U.S. MAY CHOOSE TO IMPOSE valorem, are considered when counsolar modules and thin film and reCOUNTERVAILING DUTIES UPON tries have received either specific or lies heavily on public support and INDIA IN RETALIATION AGAINST prohibited subsidies by a government subsidization. The first phase of the or public body that confer a benefit mission has already proven to run THE DOMESTIC SUBSIDIES GIVEN to the recipient. In India’s case, the into complications with public fundFOR USING DOMESTIC SOURCING. subsidy is specific rather than prohibing for start-up capital, as detailed in ited. It demonstrates adverse effects the report issued by the government to the U.S., who suffers from barriers following the first year of implemento Indian markets, and may be posed tation. The 30% subsidy, therefore, to lose thousands of jobs in the solar is not guaranteed to be passed on to industry. In order to impose countervailing duties, the U.S. must Indian consumers, but on the contrary, is subject to either be go through a panel process at the WTO involving consultations, used as capital for technology and machinery development or dispute panel, implementation, and possible compliance profor any other uses deemed beneficial to investors and the Minceedings should India refuse to comply with WTO mandate (reistry of New and Renewable Energy. With no guarantee of lower sultant in suspension of concessions–retaliation by exact amount prices of renewable energy sources for Indian consumers, it is of damage done). Through imposing a non-punitive, remedial nearly impossible to claim that there are economic benefits for duty on imported goods from India, the U.S. can offset the subconsumers and increased purchasing power that could aid India sidization received by Indian solar companies should India conin transforming from a rural economy to one of industry. Emtinue to pursue its protectionist agenda and further implement ploying subsidization as a means of protectionism will do little subsidization. to grow India’s economy and further means of protectionism will The Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission is an unjustiinevitably result in more unforeseen, perverse consequences. fied, unmitigated operation that discriminates harmfully against With its existing violation of WTO agreements and ailing diploU.S. solar imports and creates unforeseen adverse effects upon matic relations, it is in India’s best interest to remove the subsidy U.S. employment and Indian citizens themselves. The 30% conthat serves as a barrier to U.S. imports and to pursue other means ditional subsidy encouraging Indian solar manufacturers to acof solar power expansion rather than barring trade liberalization. knowledge a domestic sourcing requirement is a barrier to U.S. entry into India’s market and specifically violates WTO agreeAlexa Lazarus is a Trinity sophomore. She is a Business ments that members are obligated to respect. The subsidization Marketing Associate for DPR.

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After the 2008 financial crisis, the people of Iceland wanted to overhaul the system. Photo by Oddur Benediktsson.

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In 2008, Iceland’s economy imploded, and its citizens took to the streets demanding a new constitution. But they weren’t going to let the politicians draft it for them—this time, the people would write their own social contract.

Pots, Pans, and Parliaments Iceland’s Experiment in Direct Democracy

By Connor Phillips

O

n January 20, 2009, over a million people gathered on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. to watch as Barack Obama became the first African-American president of the United States. That very same day, almost three thousand miles away, another gathering was taking place in another national capital. However, the mood here was not one of celebration but one of anger. The economy of Iceland was among those hardest-hit by the Great Recession. As a result, the calls for change resounded louder there than they did across the Atlantic. As the Althingi, the oldest parliamentary assembly in the world, held its first meeting of the year in Reykjavik, a crowd of protesters outside swelled into the largest mass rally Iceland had experienced in nearly six decades. Clanging pots and pans together, honking horns, and pelting the Althingi building with snowballs and yogurt, they demanded not only the resignation of the government but the writing of a new constitution—a comprehensive overhaul of Iceland’s political system.

The attention of the world was fixed on Washington, D.C. that day, but it was the hundreds assembled in Reykjavik who were about to embark on one of the most unique and radical journeys of the twenty-first century, the attempt to reform an entire society from the bottom up. This is the story of Iceland over the past six years—the story of an intricate dance between elites seeking to maintain the system and a coalition of politicians and citizens striving to remake it, the story of great expectations and dashed hopes, and perhaps the story of what the future holds for democracy itself.

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World stitutional Assembly, comprised of the 25 individuals tasked with revising the current Understanding why the economic crisis constitution in line with the suggestions of (or kreppa, as it is known in Iceland) had the National Forum. Current politicians such a massive impact requires an undercould not compete for these seats and a tostanding of how the preceding boom aftal of 522 citizens registered to run. What fected the island nation of 327,000 people. followed was a sort of anti-campaign: many For much of the two decades leading up candidates kept a deliberately low profile, to the crisis, the center-right Progressive posting a few articles on the Internet and party and the centrist Independence Parparticipating in brief interviews on state raty governed Iceland. This free-market codio. Combined with citizen skepticism that alition presided over the deregulation of the process could not bring about genuine Iceland’s economy and the privatization of change, this lack of media coverage kept its banking sector, attracting internationvoter turnout down to 37%, dealing a blow al money. What previously was a nation of to the reform effort. farmers and fishers developed into an elite Two months after the election came anclass of super-rich bankers and business other setback: Iceland’s Supreme Court, leaders, fostering a culture of consumption most of whom had been appointed by Inand acquisition that percolated dependence and Progressive throughout Icelandic society. In governments, declared the electhe wake of deregulation, both tion null and void on the basis of BUT MANY ICELANDERS DID PITCH household and banking debts minor technicalities. Although it IN, OFFERING SUGGESTIONS THAT ballooned—in 2007 the three conceded that there was no evilargest banks made loans that todence these violations impacted SHAPED THE TEXT OF THE EMERGING taled to 125 billion euros, almost the election, the Court still arnine times the size of Iceland’s gued they were enough to invalCONSTITUTION, IN A PROCESS OF entire economy. idate the results. Scrambling to UNPRECEDENTED OPENNESS AND This level of spending was obresuscitate the process, Sigurdarviously unsustainable, and when dottir’s government hit on the TRANSPARENCY. world credit markets froze in idea of appointing the 25 citizens reaction to the 2008 Lehman who had won the elections to a Brothers bankruptcy in the Unit“Constitutional Council” with ed States, Iceland’s banks found the same mission as the Conthemselves without the funding stitutional Assembly. This step to finance their massive debts. further strained the Council’s alWhat followed was the largest banking 2010. This would be no ordinary reform ready dubious claim to a popular mandate, collapse relative to the size of a country’s process—from the beginning, the Icelandic but it kept the process alive. economy in financial history. Incensed at people, and not their representatives, would The Council quickly threw out its mission the politicians and bankers who had placed be at the forefront of the effort. Taking a to revise the Constitution, instead electing their country on the path to financial colcue from events held by Icelandic civil soto produce a new national charter in only lapse and left citizens holding the bag, Iceciety groups, the first step was to convene four months—just as the American Conlanders began protesting almost immedia National Forum of 950 people chosen at stitutional Convention had done centuries ately. The Independence-led government random from the national registry. When before. In all other respects, however, the was forced to resign in disgrace. Elections the Forum met in Reykjavik, its members two gatherings could not have been more held in April gave power to a new coaliagreed on a vision based on moral values, different. The fifty-five men who assembled tion of the left-wing Social Democratic and justice, and human rights. Not merely a in Philadelphia in 1787 represented their Left-Green parties. framework for a system of government, this country’s political elite, whereas the 25 IceAt the head of the new administration was document would be a constitution in the landers who met in Reykjavik in 2011, ten Johanna Sigurdardottir, the longest-serving truest sense, a comprehensive social conof whom were women, ranged from public member of the Althingi and one of the most tract laying out the core principles of the figures to unknowns. Many were profestrusted figures in Icelandic politics. Despite Icelandic state and society. sors, students, and lawyers, but the Counher longevity, her election was very much a cil also included a pastor, a farmer, and a departure from politics-as-usual: not only comedian. The most crucial difference was was Sigurdardottir the first female prime The People’s Council that the Founding Fathers who met in Indeminister of Iceland, but she was also the Despite this promising start, the road to pendence Hall kept their debates secret. In first openly gay person elected head of a reform would prove difficult. The next step contrast, not only were the deliberations of government anywhere in the world. in the process was the election of the ConIceland’s Council publicized through tran-

Shock to the System

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Sigurdardottir came to office at an opportune moment. For much of her career, she spoke of the need to reform the constitution, adopted on a provisional basis in 1944 when Iceland severed ties with Nazi-occupied Denmark. Now that goal had been taken up on a mass level. Disillusionment with the consumerism that had sprung up over the past decade led to discontent with the entire system itself, and the ousting of the previous government—already being referred to as the Búsáhaldabyltingin, or “Kitchenware Revolution”—fed the perception that real societal change was actually possible.

Accordingly, Sigurdardottir’s government heeded the call for change by passing the Act on a Constitutional Assembly in

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World scripts, videotapes, and Council members’ Facebook and Twitter feeds, but the draft constitution was posted online in an effort to solicit comments and suggestions from the people of Iceland and the world.

This step earned the document the sobriquet of “the crowdsourced constitution”.

It may not be a precisely accurate description—the members of the Council were still responsible for translating the input they received into actual constitutional language and certainly not all Icelanders actively involved themselves in the process. But many Icelanders did pitch in, offering suggestions that shaped the text of the emerging constitution, in a process of unprecedented openness and transparency.

Revenge of the Politicians After unanimous approval by the Council, the completed constitution went to the

Althingi, where it had to be ratified before and after the next election to become the law of the land. It quickly became clear that Independence and the Progressives were maneuvering against such an outcome.

They particularly distrusted two key pillars of the constitution—public ownership of natural resources and the democratic principle of “one person, one vote.” The former provision threatened fishing vessel owners, who had supported Independence ever since it distributed lucrative fishing licenses to them while in charge. Furthermore, the latter principle would do away with the current system of voting constituencies, which renders the vote of a citizen in the capital less than the vote of one in the rural areas of Iceland. This step threatened the political power of the farmer’s lobby, a key backer of the Progressives.

But Sigurdardottir had one more card to play - turning to the people and asking them to endorse the constitution in a referendum.

Faced with massive popular support, so she reasoned, the opposition would be forced to capitulate. The new constitution won twothirds approval but Independence and the Progressives managed to filibuster and delay the process. In the end, Sigurdardottir’s term ran out with the draft constitution still not up for a vote and the voters promptly tossed the Social Democrat-Left-Green coalition out of office. A mere four years after running Iceland’s economy into the ground, Independence was back in office.

Ironically, the elections focused not on the constitution, but on popular discontent with the belt-tightening of the previous four years and Sigurdardottir’s controversial bid to join the EU. The election spelled doom for the prospect of passing the constitution.

The lion’s share of the blame obviously rests at the feet of the Progressive and Independence parties. Practically from the beginning of the constitutional reform process, they worked to undermine it in an

Massive popular protests created momentum for constitutional change. Photo by Oddur Benediktsson.

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Sigurdardottir declared the constitution’s failure the greatest disappointment of her thirty-five years in Parliament. Photo by Magnus Fröderberg.

effort to protect their own privileges and those of their powerful friends. Still, the left-wing government bears its own portion of responsibility for the failure. The absence of a clear strategy for enacting the new constitution once it was written made many citizens skeptical about the process.

While the Constitutional Council was a forward-thinking idea, its implementation was a mess. Finally, the government’s failure to engage the media and the academic community, not to mention the political opposition, compromised its ability to sell the reforms to the public from the start.

A Dream Deferred Of course, these flaws do not in any way delegitimize the constitution. Just because it was composed by a questionably elected body does not diminish the fact that its core principles were repeatedly and emphatically endorsed by the people - first in the National Forum, then through the online review process, and finally in the national referendum. Without a guarantee that the

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constitution would be enacted, many were uninterested in the process of making it.

Thus people failed to contribute, whether in the Constitutional Assembly elections or in the “crowdsourcing” process. This apathy gave the people less of a stake in the document. And by 2013, Icelanders were tired of four years of upheaval and austerity and were eager to return to normalcy. The window of opportunity for genuine reform had closed.

Nevertheless, what is most astonishing about the constitutional reform process is not what went wrong but rather what went right. A deliberative assembly of nearly a thousand ordinary people produced a concrete and coherent blueprint for a social contract. Citizens sitting at their computer screens were able to have a tangible impact on the writing of their nation’s charter. And a group of 25 individuals with little political experience and modest legal backgrounds managed to draft a constitution that was not only one of the most inclusive and democratic in world history but also hailed by experts as sound and workable. The only

flaws in the process were technical and procedural and can easily be remedied by the next nation to take up the cause of truly democratic constitutional reform.

And there will be such a nation. Whether spurred on by an economic crisis such as in Iceland, or by frustration with a corrupt and oppressive regime like in Tunisia, or by the desire for true self-rule as in Hong Kong, the people of the world have spent much of the last six years demonstrating that when the system fails them, they can and will take matters into their own hands.

Once the world is aware that citizens are capable of not just overthrowing the old order but also establishing a new one by themselves, someone will eventually act on that knowledge. Sooner or later, the torch lit by Iceland will pass to the hands of another people, to try the experiment over again.

It may take many attempts, but someday success will come. And so the democratic dream lives on.

Connor Phillips is a Trinity sophomore.

World

The Ebola epidemic of 2014 has been the most deadly yet, but the full force of the epidemic has been concentrated in just two countries: Sierra Leone and Liberia.

The reasons why might surprise you.

The Politics of

Ebola

By Tara Bansal

T

he spread of the West African Ebola outbreak has stirred widespread panic in the United States. US airports and hospitals are insisting on increased screenings while news outlets dramatically announce the chance of epidemic infection, which, despite a handful of recent incidences, remains quite low in the Western hemisphere. However, Americans would be illinformed to believe that they are likely to see such a disastrous epidemic take root on this side of the Atlantic, not just because the heart of the disease lies thousands of miles away, but also because of the infrastructural and political differences that protect and shield Americans.

It is no coincidence that the two greatest areas of Ebola infection are Sierra Leone and Liberia—two of the most war-torn countries in the world that are still rebuilding fragile democracies. The Sierra

Leone Civil War, partially the result of overseas embezzlement of the diamond trade, lasted almost eleven years and left behind a tattered nation of child soldiers and broken nationalism. To this day, citizens remain suspicious of foreign involvement.

Liberia saw the Second Liberian Civil War just a decade ago, when violent fighting between rebel groups necessitated the eventual deployment of UN peacekeeping forces. The democratic Liberian government has been plagued with accusations of theft and corruption ever since.

As with most developing nations, these countries lack the medical infrastructure necessary to deal with the crisis. Not only are deadly diseases more likely to proliferate under these conditions, but the government is also unable to rally citizens to follow health protocols. Lingering animosity in the community and suspicion of the government have further promoted distrust and panic.

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No Treatment for Old Men It has cost millions of dollars to treat the four cases of Ebola in the US. In comparison, the entire budget of the Health Ministry in Liberia, a country with almost 7000 incidences of Ebola, was roughly $10 million for 2006-2007.

When treated in the US, the individual is taken to a fairly large hospital—probably one of fifty or so in the country equipped for this type of crisis. The patient would arrive at a special isolation unit fitted with a waste-disposal and air pressure system.

Doctors would perform thousands of dollars worth of tests on blood, urine, and hair samples. Body monitoring would be constant and teams of doctors would be fitted in full infection-prevention gear, entering through a specifically built anteroom. Then, the hospital would attempt to fly in as many therapies and drugs as possible, regardless of cost.

Meanwhile, a case of Ebola in West Africa could progress quite differently. Most patients may not have the financial means to pay for a diagnosis or treatment, but those who can often travel several hours away to local hospitals with few beds and even fewer medical professionals. If a patient is lucky and transferred to a larger hospital, they may be given only basic antibiotics, a

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treatment that is wholly ineffective against Ebola.

Medical workers either unaware of how Ebola spreads or simply working with limited resources reuse needles, bedpans, and equipment, spreading the disease throughout the hospital. Hospitals may have to turn away Ebola patients out of desperation, and the dead are often disposed of quickly, and sometimes carelessly.

While many developing nations lack wellrun medical systems, these problems are exacerbated in post-conflict nations. For example, infection rates in Sierra Leone are far higher than those in Nigeria or Senegal.

In countries with recent violence, there are fewer established schools and medical centers, and those that exist are often underfunded due to less institutional stability.

Moreover, doctors and educators are less likely to travel to war-torn countries to train new professionals, which further decreases the number of effective medical leaders.

These nations can also face international sanctions due to political violence or corruption, and in turn, the lack of equipment and medications hurts the sick.

Trust Thy Neighbor On Wednesday August 27th, police forces in Liberia fired rounds and released tear

gas into a mob as they tried to break out of their quarantined neighborhood. After being placed under curfew and surrounded with barbed wire, citizens of West Point in Monrovia, Liberia were not only livid at being fired upon by their own police, but were also scared of the possibility to being stuck in quarantine forever. This fundamental problem—the lack of trust between citizens and their governments—has proven devastating during the Ebola crisis.

Conspiracy theories rage rampant. It has long been suspected by sick patients that many of the diseases affecting them have been created and released by foreign governments to stagnate African economies or worse, released by local governments to gain sympathy and money from other nations. This results in the utter inability of local governments to police or help their people. Curfews and barriers created to reduce the spread of Ebola in at-risk Liberian villages have ignited riots, panic, and further movement away and to city centers.

Foreign exploitation has also bred an environment in which citizens are doubly unlikely to accept the help of aid organizations. During many violent political uprisings, aid organizations ranging from the UN to the Red Cross to Doctors without Borders have been scapegoated for prob-

World lems arising in the conflict, whether that be the spread of disease, mass famine, or by providing food, medicine, and shelter to the wrong survivors, thereby strengthening a violent force. Some of this stigma is undeserved, rooted in mass suspicion of foreigners, exacerbated by the language barrier and a misunderstanding of intent.

Yet other criticisms are undoubtedly justified. Well-intentioned groups have mismanaged resources, resulting in aid abuse by radical groups. Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary-General, claimed in 2013, “African loses twice as much in illicit financial outflows as it receives in international aid.”

Many war-torn nations remain burned by foreign exploitation.

Lastly, war-torn nations often see partitions created between different groups of the population often based on class, sect, or age. Despite eventual conflict resolution in many once-violent regions, animosity often lingers between groups, making it all the more difficult to create a sense of trust amongst the populous. In late August, Liberian citizens beat a man to death because they suspected he had come from a nearby village to poison communal wells and increase the Ebola death tolls. The mob then threw rocks at police that attempted to intervene, and a follow-up investigation yielded no evidence to support the contamination rumors. Many citizens who are told by medical professionals to temporarily move are unable or unwilling to do so for fear of entering territory belonging to a different community, resulting in higher rates of infection in certain areas. Moreover, this further feeds false suspicions that certain ethnic groups are being “targeted” by a disease when these groups show higher rates of infection.

New Goals for 2030 Even if Ebola were to spread more widely to Europe and the US, epidemics on the same scale as those in Sierra Leone and Liberia are incredibly unlikely due to the political systems and infrastructures that exist to deal with an outbreak. Decades of technological innovation and investment coupled with a high GDP have allowed developed nations absurd advantages in healthcare. Moreover, political transparency and general respect for authority in the Western world has reinforced a culture of tacit acceptance of health protocols.

Fifteen years ago, the United Nations governments devoid of mass corruption. drafted Millennium Development Goals, In recovering nations, this would require eight goals to achieve by 2015 with the help a long-term peacekeeping force responsiof all of the members of the UN and 23 inble for assessing the political zeitgeist and ternational organizations. These goals inconducting comprehensive analyses of the cluded aims at achieving universal primary new government. The force would primareducation and reducing the number of unily certify that money and resources are bedernourished people by half. Many of these ing properly allocated to create long-term goals were intentionally optimistic but have institutional progress, but would also work resulted in broken promises. As the world to foster greater trust between citizens and reconsiders and refocuses on new goals, it political structures. Further, aid organizais critical to establish a set of realistic and tions must create new policies for greater achievable recommendations specific to transparency and provide better explanapost-conflict nations. tions of their missions to citizens in underFirst, the number of nations affected by standable terms to establish trust. violence or political conflict has significantIt is necessary to increase the number of ly increased since 2000. Over eighty conlong-term establishments of education and flicts having occurred since 1990, around healthcare in war-torn nations. While aid a dozen of which are ongoing. Recovering organizations often do a thorough job of from these conflicts is a long and arduous providing resources to nations while conprocess. In most low-income nations, aid flicts are occurring—for example, UNAID organizations have been able to formulaicalcreated “pop-up schools” in moving tents ly address obvious and common problems for Sudanese children during the Second such as stagnation of priUnless structural weaknesses mary sector are addressed and corrected, economies or individual treatment will be lack of basic retime-consuming at best and sources. Howcompletely ineffective at worst. ever, countries ravaged by violence have much more nebulous and volatile harms. Extremist Sudanese Civil War—they often leave once political views, gang corruption, and sect the conflict is over, assuming the governfighting are just a few of the many unforement will then resume responsibility for seen causes of structural instability that healthcare and education. However, the require specific and ongoing intervention. fragile governments that emerge out of Second, many aid organizations are unprethese conflicts often lack the oversight and pared for work in post-war environments ability to do so. Therefore, it is increasingly and thus lend themselves to manipulation important for international organizations and aid abuse. For instance, in Darfur, gang to oversee and assist in the transition to enrebel groups often hoarded World Food sure long-lasting programs. Perhaps setting Programme supplies, and a 2010 UN Seindividual goals for national governments curity Council report concluded that up to would be an effective measure of post-conhalf of WFP money in Somalia was diverted flict aid intervention. from citizens to militants.

Once realistic goals are established and Understanding that specific development nations begin to implement gradual but goals are necessary is only half of the chalconsistent development, the world can be lenge—the other half is determining what sure that global health epidemics never these goals ought to be. First and foremost, reach the level of infection and chaos that unless structural weaknesses are addressed we have seen during the Ebola outbreak. and corrected, individual treatment will Perhaps we will learn that mass epidemics be time-consuming at best and completely are not caused by chance but by our own ineffective at worst. Rather, groups, such actions. as the UN, should simultaneously focus time and effort on rebuilding democratic Tara Bansal is a Trinity sophomore.

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GONE

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WITH THE

The Jurisprudence of Marriage Equality

By Shobana Subramanian

Protesters gather in front of the California State Capitol, demanding the repeal of Proposition 8. Photo by Mark James Miller.

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WINDSOR

United States

A year ago, United States v. Windsor revitalized the court battles over gay marriage. Now, lawyers and judges alike have one goal: to craft a legal argument that succeeds in all fifty states, settling the question of same-sex marriage once and for all.

O

n October 6th, the Supreme Court proved just how devastating silence can be. By refusing to hear the same-sex marriage cases involving the Fourth, Seventh, and Tenth Circuit Courts, the Justices cemented those decisions as precedent for the lower courts. In the days following, laws and amendments banning same-sex marriage were overruled in nine states, the immediate result being that gay marriage is now legal in more than half of the United States.

Politically, this may be a victory for some, but legally, the Court’s refusal is only a piece of a much more complex puzzle. After all, a dismissal does not equal an affirmation—while the district courts’ decisions are binding, the legal rationale behind them is still up for debate.

The story begins with United States v. Windsor (2013), in which the Court struck down § 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which refused to recognize same-sex marriages for the purpose of the federal government. Windsor declared that the federal government had violated the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment by denying samesex couples the marital status they had been granted by the state of the New York. While the majority believed that the Fifth Amendment prevents the government from differentiating between homosexual and heterosexual marriages without any rational purpose, it also explicitly stated that the states have the power to define and regulate marriage.

And so the conflict was created. Since due process applies to the states via the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, there is nothing stopping Windsor from being applied to the states as well. On the other hand, Windsor reaffirmed

the states’ right to define marriage within their borders. Thus, the main tension at the heart of the post-Windsor cases is between individual liberty and states’ rights. The ambivalence of Windsor coupled with the Supreme Court’s denial of certiorari leaves it entirely up to the lower courts to establish the correct jurisprudence for same-sex marriage. As with any case, certain arguments are more compelling than others. The strongest invokes fundamental rights theory; less convincing is the argument for suspect classification of homosexuals. Under strict scrutiny, the states are bound to lose. And yet there are arguments circulating that do not even rely on strict scrutiny—they are equally potent, and infinitely more damning to the states.

Marriage as a Fundamental Right The doctrine of substantive due process, derived from the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, allows the federal court system to define certain fundamental rights that cannot be infringed upon by the federal or state governments in the absence of a compelling state interest. Substantive due process has a complicated history. In Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), Justice Scalia wrote that the original precedent for substantive due process was Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), which later went on to influence the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v.

Wade (1973). In Dred Scott, the Court ruled that the federal government could not violate a slaveholder’s right to property. Although the right to property is not explicitly stated in the Bill of Rights, it is nevertheless a fundamental right. More controversial was the right to privacy established by Roe, whose constitutional origins remain difficult to ascertain.

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United States argue that there is a fundamental right to marriage. In Loving v. as a means of reducing the number of children born to unmarried Virginia (1967), the Court unanimously struck down Virginia’s anparents, and creating the ideal child-rearing environment. For the ti-miscegenation law, calling the right to marriage “fundamental to sake of argument, one may assume that all of these interests are our very existence and survival.” Lawrence v. Texas (2003) upheld compelling. One may even assume that the states’ approach is the the fundamental right to engage in consensual sexual intercourse, least restrictive means of achieving those interests. Even then, the homosexual or otherwise. The Lawrence Court foresaw the current marriage laws show no evidence whatsoever of being narrowly taipredicament: Writing for the majority, Justice Kennedy argued that lored, on which grounds they fail strict scrutiny. the Constitution protects a large umbrella of rights associated with The states claim that same-sex couples do not need marriage marriage, including procreation, contraception, and child-rearing. because they cannot “accidentally” procreate; therefore, the state In her concurrence, Justice O’Connor went so far as to say that the has no vested interest in their marriage. Even if one accepts this government could justify a law banning same-sex marriage as a deargument as reasonable if not rational, it fails to account for the fense of the “traditional institute of marriage,” so long as the case elderly, infertile, and individuals who do not want to have chilwas judged under rational basis. dren, all of whom are allowed to marry. Clearly, procreative ability Supporters of traditional marriage dismiss Loving as inapplicaor desire is not a requirement for marriage. The states’ counterarble to cases involving same-sex couples. The mixed-race couple in gument is that while same-sex couples are easily distinguished as Loving, they argue, was heterosexual, and therefore fit the tradiinfertile, there is no way of knowing if a heterosexual couple can tional definition of marriage as between a have children without invading its right to man and a woman. A fundamental right privacy. In addition, they claim, individuis one that is “objectively, deeply rooted in als thought to be infertile can experience a this Nation’s history and tradition” (Washchange in medical condition, or they could ington v. Glucksberg, 1997). Citing Glucksundergo modern fertility treatments and berg, the state of Oklahoma argues that the have children. This rationale is flawed befundamental right to marry cannot include cause it does not relate to the states’ purThese interests same-sex marriage, since, until recently, ported fear of accidental births. Couples disguise an uglier such a practice could not have been conreceiving fertility treatments are obviousintent: to discriminate ceived of, much less entertained. ly making a conscious decision to have a But the right to marriage has never child. In addition, none of these arguments against homosexuals been defined in terms of the individuals account for elderly couples being allowed by classifying their who exercise it. For example, in Zablocki to marry. The states’ only defense is that relationships and v. Redhail (1978), the Court struck down those couples can serve as role models of families as substandard, a Wisconsin law that prevented noncusheterosexual marriage, which is still not undesirable, and even todial parents from obtaining a marriage directly related to procreation. license until they were up to date on their The states define the ideal child-rearimmoral. child support payments. In Turner v. Safing environment as a mother, a father, and ley (1987), the Court ruled that prisoners their biological children. Because same-sex could not be deprived of their fundamental couples do not provide or promote this enright to marry. The Fourth Circuit cited these cases in its decision, vironment, they are not allowed to marry. This model of child-reararguing that they “speak of a broad right to marry that is not ciring is at least partially incorrect, since many children are better off cumscribed based on the characteristics of the individuals seeking with their adoptive parents than they would have been with their to exercise that right.” This is crucial. The state cannot restrict the biological ones. Indeed, all five of the states involved in the Circuit right of homosexuals to marry a person of their choosing—an asCourt decisions allow joint adoption by gay couples. If gay marriage pect of marriage implicit in its very definition—simply because they violates the ideal child-rearing environment, then gay adoption are homosexual. Rights are broad and amorphous, and powerful should, too. The Seventh Circuit exposes this lapse in logic, arguing due to their particular centrality in American political theory. They that if marriage provides comfort and stability for biological chilare the individual’s greatest protection against the occasional evil of dren, then it must do the same for adoptive children. It is evident democracy. Thus, marriage as a fundamental right emerges as the that the marriage laws have not been specifically tailored to address plaintiffs’ best weapon against an overbearing state. state interests. Rather, these interests disguise an uglier intent: to discriminate against homosexuals by classifying their relationships Surviving Strict Scrutiny and families as substandard, undesirable, and even immoral.

Fundamental rights are considered absolute and inalienable, necessary for dignified existence in a free society. Therefore, they Homosexuals as a Suspect Class merit a heightened level of judicial review called strict scrutiny. UnThe question of whether sexual orientation merits suspect classider strict scrutiny, the law must: (1) be born of a compelling state fication is a subject of heated debate in the lower courts. A suspect interest, such as national security; (2) be narrowly tailored to that class is a group of individuals that, due to some innate, immutable interest; and (3) be the least restrictive means of achieving that incharacteristic, have historically been the victims of discrimination. terest. The states have cited several interests, the most rational of This distinguishing characteristic must have no effect on the inwhich are maintaining traditional marriage, incentivizing marriage dividuals’ ability to participate or contribute to society. Currently,

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United States

Same-sex marriage legal Same-sex marriage performed elsewhere recognized Same-sex marriage legalization pending No prohibition or recognition of same-sex marriage Judicial ruling(s) overturning the samesex marriage ban stayed indefinitely pending appeal Judicial ruling(s) overturning the ban on recognizing same-sex marriage performed elsewhere stayed indefinitely pending appeal Same-sex marriage banned contrary to federal appellate court precedent Same-sex marriage banned

Same sex marriage in the United States as of October 2014. Image by Lokal_Profil.

race, national origin, religion, and immigrant status have been identified as suspect classes. Discrimination against a suspect class is judged under strict scrutiny. The government has only won two such cases: Korematsu v. United States (1944), in which Japanese internment during World War II was ruled constitutional, and Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), which upheld affirmative action based on race.

Suspect classification affords enduring protection from the government. There has been some hope that homosexuals would become a suspect class. In Romer v. Evans (1996), the Court applied the rational basis test, the lowest level of scrutiny, and determined that Colorado’s amendment banning special treatment of homosexuals was unconstitutional because it was not tied to any legitimate governmental interest. Six years later, the Court’s decision in Lawrence made no reference to heightened scrutiny. The Second Circuit applied strict scrutiny in its Windsor decision, but upon appeal, the Supreme Court affirmed that court’s conclusion but not its rationale—the ruling did not explicitly mention strict scrutiny, although other courts have since adopted it.

Although once controversial, the states do not dispute that homosexuality is an immutable, innate characteristic that some individuals possess. They do, however, argue that homosexuals are not a politically powerless group, a requirement of suspect classification. Recent polls show that over half of all Americans support gay marriage. This is not a regional bias: The deviation across parts of the United States is only about 12%. On the other hand, in 1958, only 4% of Americans approved of interracial marriage. In 1968, the year Loving was decided, this figure rose to 20%—in 2011, it hovered at 86%. Homosexuals enjoy much more political power than the Lovings did. And since homosexuality, unlike race, is easily disguised, homosexuals have not experienced nearly as much discrimination, on a historical scale, as African Americans or various immigrant groups.

The distinguishing feature of homosexuality is that it cannot pro-

duce children. This is a biological fact. While there is no scientific difference between African Americans and other races, there is a salient difference between homosexuals and heterosexuals that cannot be ignored. And it does affect their ability to contribute to society: Heterosexuals can produce natural children, while homosexuals cannot. Whether that difference matters is beside the point.

It exists, and that is enough to deny homosexuals suspect classification.

On the bright side, it appears that homosexuals do not need suspect classification. In Lawrence, Justice O’Connor overestimated the states’ ability to defend discriminatory statutes. The truth is that they have no rational interest in discriminating against homosexuals. With the fall of DOMA, defense of traditional marriage is no longer a legitimate interest. The states’ interest in preserving the democratic process is null because marriage is a fundamental right that cannot be subjected to the whims of the populace. A fear of the consequences of gay marriage is not a legitimate interest since it begins with the assumption that gay marriage is inherently negative rather than neutral. Although courts have traditionally deferred to the legislature when predicting the effects of a law, a defense cannot consist solely of hypotheticals.

Right now, the lower courts are arranged like an elaborate stack of dominoes. Just weeks after a federal district judge ruled that Louisiana’s same-sex marriage ban was constitutional, a state judge came to the opposite conclusion. These cases will work their way up to the appellate level, where the judges must face the growing pressure to align themselves with the emerging jurisprudence.

Marriage equality is gaining momentum, and when it is instituted across the country, it will have been without a single word from the Justices of the Supreme Court.

Shobana Subramanian is a Trinity sophomore. She is a columnist for DPR. FALL 2014

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Two U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle aircraft fly above Iraq on their way to ISIL targets in Northern Syria. Photo by U.S. Department of Defense.

THE GLOBAL THREAT OF ISIL’S FOREIGN FIGHTERS

As the United States continues to escalate its military involvement in the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, it can not afford to ignore the threat of American terrorist fighters returning from the front lines to wage jihad at home.

By Maxime Fischer-Zernin

World

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n the last recorded moments of his life, with tears building in his eyes, Mohammad Abusalha said goodbye to his family. “Mother,” he began, “I love you, Mom. Stay strong for Allah.”

The video released by the New York Times closes with images of his explosives-laden garbage truck and the distant cloud of smoke and fire as it was detonated in a Syrian neighborhood.

“I lived in America; I know how it is,” he said. “You think you’re happy? You’re not happy. You’re never happy. I was never happy. I was always sad and depressed.”

Mr. Abusalha, a 22-year-old native of Florida, conducted a suicide bomb attack in the Idlib Province on Syria this past May under the banner of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Since as early as 2004, ISIL has aimed to establish a hardline Sunni Islamic state. However, only after it ended ties to al-Qaeda in February 2014 was ISIL able to direct its resourcISIL occupies a significant territory in the Sunni-majority areas of northern Iraq and Syria. Image by Karl-Ludwig Poggemann.

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es away from al-Qaeda’s global jihad and towards the establishment of a Caliphate.

Today, ISIL has had moderate success and holds territory roughly the size of Belgium across Iraq and Syria.

Part of ISIL’s success is the recruitment of individuals such as Mr. Abusalha, a class of terrorists referred to as foreign terrorist fighters (FTFs). There is no universally accepted definition for an FTF, but most resemble the Global Counterterrorism Forum’s characterization: “individuals who leave their home countries to participate in conflicts abroad, acquiring skills and an ideological commitment that could be used in acts of terrorism in their home countries or elsewhere.” Thomas Hegghammer, an academic specialist in violent Islamism, explains that FTFs are a growing breed of fighter, an “intermediate… category lost between local rebels… and international terrorists.” Abusalha is only one of the more than 100 American FTFs fighting in Iraq and Syria.

In October, as 19-year-old Mohammad Hamzah Khan passed through security at Chicago O’Hare International Airport, federal agents simultaneously entered his Bolingbrook, Ill. home. The agents recov-

ered a letter written by Khan to his parents that echoed Mohammad Abusalha’s last words to his mother. “Western societies are getting more immoral day by day,” Khan wrote. “I do not want my kids being exposed to filth like this.”

According to a New York Times report, Khan was apprehended at the airport and has been charged with attempting to provide material support to ISIL, a crime carrying a sentence of 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Khan is the 10th American resident to be prosecuted under this law, which is gaining prominence as a legal tool for the Justice Department to diminish the growing threat of FTFs.

A Global Threat Foreign Terrorist Fighters in the ranks of ISIL and the Al-Nusra Front, a second al-Qaeda splinter group in Syria, pose a serious threat to national securities upon their return home, having gained military experience and validation of their extremist philosophies abroad. In their home countries, FTFs may become catalysts for Islamic radicalization or conduct attacks as part of the global jihad. While it is likely that few have domestic terrorist ambitions, only a

World handful of terrorists are required to launch an attack.

In all, the United Nations reports that over 13,000 FTFs from approximately 80 countries have travelled to Iraq and Syria to fight alongside Al-Nusra and ISIL. Most of the foreign fighters come from the Arab world; about 4,500 have come from Libya, Tunisia, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. In addition, more than 2,500 have come from Western countries, raising red flags across Europe.

The estimate of 500 French foreign fighters prompted French Prime Minister Manuel Valls to declare the threat of returning jihadists “the greatest danger that we must face in the coming year.”

Notably, France has already suffered at the hands of FTFs. Mehdi Nemmouche, a French citizen who had fought with ISIL, is accused of shooting four people in the Jewish Museum of Brussels in May. Peter Wittig, Germany’s ambassador to the United States and former ambassador to the U.N., has called the “reports of European citizens fighting alongside with jihadists in Syria a cause for great concern,” and in the Netherlands, Dick Schoof, the National Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism, warned that “one of the most salient potential threats to the Netherlands is posed by jihadist[s] travelling to Syria and their potential return to the Netherlands. The threat level in the Netherlands remains ‘substantial’, which means that the chance of an attack is real.”

The FTF threat has also mobilized the Russian and Chinese governments. The Chief of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), Alexander Bortnikov, said returning fighters “will naturally pose a particular threat to their native countries.” In China, officials reported that in July 2013, Uyghur militants fighting in Syria returned to Xinjiang to carry out “violent attacks” in China.

From Suburb to Syria Throughout Arab and Western countries, authorities have identified local recruitment networks, most prominently in Belgium, that recruit FTFs and organize their travel to the war front. These networks rely in large part on messages from Salafist-jihadist clerics to recruit fighters in their

Mosques and on social media to reach a wider audience and incite action from foreigners upset by the Syrian Civil War. ISIL has shown itself to be quite adept at using social media for propaganda purposes, providing a powerful tool for mobilization. Studies of ISIL’s use of social media show a high degree of sharing, direct responses, and other engagement with posts.

Both Salafist-jihadist clerics and social media recruiters rely on a variety of motivational fighters in their recruitment. Fight-

there have been instances of training camps in the Netherlands and online lessons.

Many students often stay for a short period of several months before school begins, while others stay for longer periods and become “professional” jihadists. Fighters who travel to Syria for short durations are able to do so because of the low risk of legal sanctions at home and the ease of travel to the conflict zone.

Western countries have been slow to implement stricter legislation to block FTF

“A more comprehensive strategy to battle the global threat posed by Foreign Terrorist Fighters will, therefore, require more preventive and obstructive measures.” ers with a Salafist-jihadist worldview see toppling the Assad Regime and occupying Northern Iraq as steps towards the realization of an Islamic Caliphate in the Levant, the area from Northern Iraq to the Mediterranean that includes present-day Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine and Israel.

Other religious motivations include the intra-Sunni solidarity norm and the resulting sectarian enmity towards Shiite Muslims and Alawites, fueled by news of massacres perpetrated by the Syrian Alawite regime’s use of chemical weapons against Sunnis.

Another explanation is the wish to die in Syria, because martyrdom in this theologically significant territory entails benefits in the afterlife. Others still are motivated by a desire to overthrow the Assad regime, provide humanitarian assistance to Syrians, or more proximate incentives such as adventurism.

Whatever the means of recruitment or motivations of foreign fighters, a major factor in their commitment to travel to Syria is that it is easier to reach Syria from their countries of origin, usually via Turkey, than to travel to more distant combat arenas such as Afghanistan or Iraq.

In most cases, recruits arrive in Syria without prior military training, although

travel and most current legislation can be circumvented because ISIL controls the Syrian border with Turkey, which allows recruits to travel with little suspicion to Istanbul and then by land to Syria. In this way, the Syrian Civil War has a unique ease of access, unheard of in previous conflicts.

A Strategic Response Any combination of responses must increase the barriers to the recruitment and movement of foreign terrorist fighters both to conflict zones and back to their countries of origin.

The proper strategic response must include a mix of preventive, obstructive and penal measures. Thomas Heghammer at Foreign Policy Magazine describes these measures as follows: “Preventive measures may include information campaigns aimed at families of at-risk youth, targeted outreach to prospective recruits, and the blocking of particularly obvious “travel advice” websites.

Obstructive measures may include requiring parental consent for foreign travel for people under a certain age, or the confiscation of passports of people returning from Syria with documented

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World links to the most radical groups.

Penal measures may include the withholding of social security benefits for people known to have gone to Syria, the prosecution of recruiters and facilitators within supplier countries, and the prosecution of people who return from Syria having committed unlawful acts of violence.”

The Department of Justice has established a largely punitive set of measures to pursue those who seek to become FTFs. Harsh criminal prosecution is meant to serve as a deterrent. These measures include detailed laws against: The ISIL flag, which reads: “There is no god but God, Muhammad is the messenger of God.” Image from Wikimedia Commons.

eign terrorist organization (18 U.S.C. § 2339B).

• Receiving military-type training from a foreign terrorist organization (18 U.S.C. § 2339B).

Across Europe and parts of North Africa, countries have outlawed traveling to a conflict area to fight alongside terrorist organizations. Others have also outlawed planning such travel or even passive participation, which is to say receiving terrorist training in the home country. In each instance, challenges in certifying evidence and due process requirements make prosecution difficult.

A more comprehensive strategy to battle the global threat posed by Foreign Terrorist Fighters will, therefore, require more preventive and obstructive measures. To use a favorite phrase of President Obama, “Just because we have the best hammer, does not mean that every problem is a nail.” The value of these “soft” measures has been recognized by experts, such as the EU Commission-established Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN), which argued in a January 2014 paper that: “Only repression... will not solve the problem. Prevention, signaling and providing programmes to help (potential) foreign fighters to leave the path of violent extremism are necessary as well.”

• Conspiracies within the United States to engage in violence against people or property overseas (18 U.S.C. § 956).

• Acts of terrorism and violence, including use of “destructive devices”, overseas (e.g. 18 U.S.C. § 2332a, 2332b, 2332f).

• Providing material support to commit or prepare for a range of specified violent and terrorist crimes (18 U.S.C. § 2339A).

• Providing material support to a for-

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The report recommends “raising awareness among first line practitioners working with vulnerable individuals or groups at risk of radicalization, supporting family members of [FTFs], engaging and empowering communities at risk in order to establish a trust-based relationship with authorities and to create resilience within communities, [and] establishing exit strategies (de-radicalization and dis­engagement).” In the U.S., where penal measures such as prison are often preferred to treatment or reintegration programs, the development of these types of policies is a difficult but necessary challenge. It will require a paradigm shift in the U.S. approach

to counter-terrorism. However, domestic policy changes alone will not suffice to face the transnational threat of FTFs. Global cooperation is paramount.

Coordinating a global framework of preventive, obstructive and penal measures is the goal of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2178. Presented by the United States and adopted in September, the resolution requires member states to “prevent and suppress the recruiting, organizing, transporting or equipping of [FTFs]… or the providing or receiving of terrorist training, and the financing of their travel and of their activities.” Further, it calls on U.N. Member States to institutionalize domestic legal regimes to prosecute FTFs as well as create “rehabilitation and reintegration strategies for returning foreign fighters.”

The effective implementation of this resolution will require the U.S. to take a leading role. As President Obama told the graduates of West Point in May, “America must always lead on the world stage,” adding that “the U.S. military action cannot be the only, or even primary, component of our leadership in every instance.”

To that end, President Obama must double down his efforts to get U.S. lawmakers to approve the creation of a $5 billion Counterterrorism Partnership Fund he says “will allow us to train, build capacity, and facilitate partner countries on the front lines.”

Through established institutions such as INTERPOL’s fusion center for information on transnational fighters and the U.N. Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED), these funds could contribute to mechanisms of information sharing and border management.

No strategy, however broad, can address all forms of terrorism. However, if President Obama and Congress can come to the common understanding that foreign terrorist fighters pose a fundamental threat to our national security, we can begin to expand and diversify our policy toolbox to better combat the flow of Foreign Terrorist Fighters to and from the battlefields of Iraq and Syria.

Maxime Fischer-Zernin is a Trinity senior.

He is a staff writer for DPR.

United States

“The Spirit of Detroit.”

Photo by Zirotti.

THE HEROES DETROIT DESERVES

By Shaker Samman Detroit is dead. That’s what they say. They say the city is decrepit. That political corruption, and a reliance on a failing industry had doomed it. That the city once revered for its innovation and work ethic had crumbled.

Some beg to differ.

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I

United States n the last sixty years, Detroit’s population has dropped by more than 50%.

Businesses and residents left the city in droves. The city that was once the crown jewel of American industry is instead the poster child for dystopia and hopelessness.

The city encountered challenges in the form of repeated political scandal, economic collapse, and the emotional and mental toll of watching idly as Detroit crumbled from the industrial treasure it once was. The strongest feeling in the metropolis, however, is one of hope.

Against all odds, Detroit has found two men to lead it back into the centerfold of American achievement. The most unlikely of heroes are the ones making the greatest impact. One is a pizza mogul, and the other is an insurance king, but for one reason or another, Mike Ilitch and Dan Gilbert are saving Detroit.

DIGGING A HOLE

For decades, Detroit has been seen as a city in decline. This wasn’t always the case. Once referred to as “the arsenal of democracy” by President Franklin Roosevelt in a radio broadcast in 1940, the city proved to be just that, as when America entered World War II a year later, it was Detroit that contributed the most in regard to tank and weapon manufacturing.

The city’s numerous industrial plants were transformed into war factories, producing the vehicles of freedom to be used in the Pacific and European stages. Rather than pushing out thousands of cars, the auto industry began manufacturing jeeps, tanks, and bombers. By the late stages of the war, a Detroit factory could make one bomber per hour.

Following the manufacturing boom of the second war, Detroit was at its peak. In the 1950s, Detroit was the fourth largest city in America and boasted one of the most successful industries in the country.

Detroit was – for all extensive purposes – a great city. Built on a blue-collar, workhorse mentality, the metropolis fit the “everyman” narrative. The city was filled with regular, hard working individuals who earned their reputation for being gritty and tough. In an interview with Stephen Colbert, the edito-

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rial page editor of the Detroit Free Press, Stephen Henderson, said, “One of the first things they teach you when you’re born in Detroit is how to take a punch, go down, get up, brush yourself off, and say ‘I’m still here. Is that all you got?’” And he was right.

Detroit embraced this attitude, and, as a result, it built an identity that its citizens rallied around.

The Motor City was the home of black culture in America for decades. Motown, started in the late 1950s by Barry Gordy Jr., was a sort of ethnic epiphany. The impact that the record company had on integration in the music industry, as well as in society as a whole, was unprecedented. This beacon of talent and refinement was a sign to the rest of the country that Detroit was to be envied culturally.

Where others diversified, Detroit held on to the one service it had provided since the turn of the century: the production of automobiles.

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For all of Detroit’s peaks, however, there were even deeper valleys. Since 1950, the city’s population has dropped by more than a million. The metropolis struggled with its reliance on a crumbling auto industry, rising racial tensions, and a string of corrupt politicians whose incompetency still casts a shadow over Detroit to this day. The first of these politicians was Coleman A. Young.

Elected in 1974, Young was the city’s first African-American Mayor. His election brought hope to the Motor City, as the selection of a non-white leader seemed to indicate that the city was ready to overcome its deeply rooted racial divides. This vision, however, never reached fruition.

In antithesis to this dream, the city was the scene of one of the most violent race riots in American history. In 1967, the city was the home of an even more violent riot.

Three decades after the first clash, and seven years after the second, deep-seated racial tension stalled Detroit’s societal development.

While some saw Young as a champion for African-American rights, others viewed him as a corrupt official who led Detroit down the road to a dismal future. Though Young was never personally brought up on corruption charges, many of his political allies were found stealing from city funds and were later convicted.

Young was the start of a disturbing trend in Detroit political corruption. From 1987 to 2002, Edward McNamara served as the Wayne County Commissioner. During his tenure, McNamara created a political machine to serve his wishes that stretched as far as the Governor’s mansion. His most notable pupil was now infamous former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.

In 2003, Kilpatrick removed two police officers from their posts for investigating corruption in the Kilpatrick administration, as well as the death of stripper Tamara Greene following her appearance at a still unconfirmed party at the Mayor’s mansion. The ensuing lawsuit revealed text messages sent between Kilpatrick and his Chief of Staff, Christine Beatty, which outlined the pair’s affair, the reasons for the police duo’s firing, and the irresponsible use of city funds for romantic endeavors. Kilpatrick was later sentenced to 28 years in prison on corruption charges.

This amount of corruption alone was enough to bury Detroit, before even touching on the decline of the one harrowed keystone of American industry. The city’s reliance on a single trade undoubtedly led to it failing economically. Where others diversified, Detroit held on to the one service it had provided since the turn of the century: the production of automobiles. Detroit was the home of the Big Three auto companies: Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler. The creation of the Interstate Highway System in the mid-1950s was the lucky turn the city needed. The auto industry flourished at the start, with the Big Three leading the way. However, as time passed, the recurring theme of poor leadership reared its ugly head, and by the new millennium, the clock struck midnight for the industrial giants.

United States

THE LONG ROAD BACK

Poverty-stricken and depleted, Detroit marched on into a new decade – the 2010s – continually bludgeoned by a new foe. The city declared bankruptcy during the summer of 2013. This was the long feared consequence of decades of ugly politics. In spite of this death sentence, the future of Detroit didn’t seem as bleak as it should have. Two men– Mike Ilitch, and Dan Gilbert– were saving the city.

The two billionaires acquired their wealth in different ways. Ilitch, who owns the Detroit Red Wings and the Tigers, was the founder of Little Caesars, while Gilbert, who owns the Cleveland Cavaliers, was the founder of Rock Ventures. While Gilbert is mocked for his vitriol-filled comic sans letter to LeBron James following the superstar’s departure to Miami, and Ilitch’s fiscal irresponsibility in regard to the Tigers is loathed, the pair are revered as heroes in the community.

In 2010, Gilbert moved Quicken Loans from its location in the city’s outskirts to its current downtown home. He followed this move by encouraging his employees to live in the city, rather than in the suburbs to increase cash flow in the metropolis. Gilbert then began to buy up land in the city, block by block. In February, the National Journal stated that Gilbert owned more than three dozen downtown properties, and that his total investments totaled approximately $1.5 billion.

In contrast, Ilitch’s moves to revitalize the city began long before the turn of the century. In the mid 80s, when most businesses were packing up and moving outside of the city, Ilitch relocated his headquarters downtown. He also purchased Fox Theater, a historic city icon, and later moved the Tigers into their new home just a block away.

Ilitch recently announced his plans to relocate the Red Wings into a new downtown location which would serve as the final piece in his “Sports and Entertainment District.”

Though the new stadium comes at a cost of $270 million to the taxpayer, it is expected to create numerous jobs and increase traffic to the area.

While these plans benefit Detroit in various ways, it must be noted that they aren’t out of selflessness alone. Both Ilitch and Gilbert have much to gain from their respective ventures. While not only being recognized as the saviors of the city, they also

stand to earn billions from the return on their investments. If the cumulative plans succeed, both Ilitch and Gilbert could sell their holdings for tenfold what they paid.

But that’s not the point. The point is that they’re investing in the first place.

Detroit is still, to many, the downtrodden wasteland of race wars and crime it was decades ago. In the 1980 comedy, “Airplane,” the main character, when describing a rough bar he was in when he met the love of his life, exclaims, “It was worse than Detroit.” This line received laughs across the board. How could anything be worse than Detroit? The notion that these two men with billions on hand would spend a penny revitalizing their hometown is one that brings optimism to the city’s residents.

There’s a line in the song “Getting Better,”

by The Beatles, that encompasses the general mood in Detroit for the past few years.

“You have to admit it’s getting better. A little better all the time, (It can’t get no worse).”

This idea that the city has a bright future is omnipresent. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, and Ilitch and Gilbert are holding the flashlight, guiding Detroit there.

It’s estimated that over one hundred businesses have moved into the city since Gilbert began recruiting them in 2010.

While the city still relies on the auto industry, there is hope that Detroit can weather

the storm, and find itself at the forefront of American ingenuity and prosperity as it once was. That’s the key word though: hope. The impact that Ilitch and Gilbert are making goes beyond the dollars they invest.

There is a noticeable change in demeanor in the city. People no longer feel that they live in a slum. Instead, they’ve rediscovered their pride for the city, and use the products of change that the duo has created as a beacon for a brighter future. The city maintains its hardworking, blue-collar identity, while giving way for an ensuing decade dictated by inventiveness and imagination.

There is a saying that Detroiters throw around from time to time. Here in Detroit, it’s us vs. everybody.

That’s the way it feels, too. It’s Detroit vs.

Everybody because when the auto industry heads went to Washington begging for help, they were ridiculed and chastised, while banks were cut a blank check. It’s Detroit vs. Everybody because Detroit can’t escape the image of gangs and thugs. It’s Detroit vs. Everybody because everyone is out to get Detroit, and Detroit is up for fighting back.

So Detroit fights back. It fights back with the help of Mike Ilitch and Dan Gilbert.

Because they’re the heroes that Detroit deserves.

Shaker Samman is a Trinity sophomore.

Detroit, in its prime, was the crown jewel of American industry. Photo by Joe Clark.

FALL 2014

DUKE POLITICAL REVIEW

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