Albright to Anchor IGE's 10th Anniversary
By Dr. Chris Seiple on 08 September 2009
September 1 marked the 70th anniversary of the Nazi invasion of Poland. As such we would do well to recall the wisdom of England's Halford Mackinder, who in 1919 tried desperately to explain "neighborliness and fraternal duty" to the victorious allies at Versailles as they wrote the peace treaty with Germany. He offered both prediction and prescription:
[T]he key to the whole situation in East Europe...is the German claim to dominance over the Slav ...If you do not now secure the full results of your victory and close this issue between the German and the Slav, you will leave ill-feeling which will not be based on the fading memory of a defeat, but on the daily irritation of millions of proud people...It is for neighborliness that the world to-day calls aloud... Neighborliness or fraternal duty to those who are our fellow-dwellers, is the only sure foundation of a happy citizenship.1
The World War I allies did the exact opposite of Mackinder's advice, using the Versailles treaty to demand humiliating reparations from the Germans; which, in turn, created the context for the rise of Hitler. Defining itself against the Jews and the Slavs, Nazi Germany was soon, on "behalf" of its citizens, expanding in a most un-neighborly manner—first into Czechoslovakia through the Munich "peace" agreement, then invading Poland, and eventually Russia.
Of Jewish ancestry, Madeleine Albright and her family fled the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia and spent World War II in England (losing most of her Jewish relatives to the Holocaust). They returned to Czechoslovakia after the war, only to flee again in 1948 as the Soviets incorporated the country into its sphere of influence. They ended up in Colorado, where Albright's father—Josef Korbel, a Czech diplomat—taught international relations at the University of Denver. (Among his students was someone who had also had significant experience with prejudice, Condoleezza Rice, who would eventually write her Ph.D. on Czechoslovakia at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies.)
I happened to be in Czechoslovakia's capital, Prague, the night of November 17, 1989, when the "Velvet Revolution" began. It was a powerful experience to walk the streets with Czechs as they peacefully sang their national hymns. Ten days later, under the leadership of Vaclav Havel, Czechoslovakia was free again.
Today, nearly a century after Mackinder's time, Europe is whole and free, a generally neighborly place where the Jew, the German, and the Slav live together, with many other nationalities. While there are of course enduring challenges, the relative stability and vitality of today's Europe has everything to do with the fact that it eventually embraced human dignity and freedom, values Mackinder tried valiantly to impress upon the allies gathered at Versailles:
What does the ordinary man want? ... It is for opportunity to realize what is in him, to live a life of ideas and of action for the realization of those ideas...he wishes for the glow of intelligent life, and incidentally for a recognition of his human dignity... That is precisely what the real freedom of men requires—scope for a full life in their own locality.2
Freedom of conscience is the foundation for a society of "happy citizenship," neighborliness, and human dignity. Where individuals have the freedom to believe or not believe, to make academic inquiry, to publish their thoughts, and to gather freely, there is no opportunity for extremism to take root. In fact, there is every opportunity for prosperity as this foundational value is protected and promoted by a transparent rule-of-law system that also guarantees that business contracts will be honored. It begins with the freedom to agree to disagree, because there is mutual and respectful recognition of the other's human dignity.
In such a society, a refugee professor from Czechoslovakia can not only raise his daughter to believe that she could become the first female U.S. Secretary of State; he can contribute to the life of a minority student from Alabama who, taught the same thing by her parents, would become the second female Secretary of State.
The capacity to not just tolerate but respect the "other," exists in every culture and country. Since our founding on September 1, 2000, the Institute for Global Engagement has used "relational diplomacy" to come alongside and support that local capacity in a manner that honors both society and state. We do so in a complex world where no single state or non-governmental actor can have impact alone; a world, therefore, that demands our partnership with the "other," if we are to address the complex issues that our planet faces.
We are now making plans for our 10th anniversary celebration (18-19 September 2010), and I am pleased and honored to announce that Secretary Madeleine Albright will keynote this gala event, reflecting on the future of relational diplomacy and respect for the other. Please save the date.
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Footnotes
1. Halford John Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press, 1996), 90, 111, 145. In 1996, the National Defense University (NDU) republished several of Halford Mackinder's works as Democratic Ideals and Reality. These works include: "The Scope and Methods of Geography," Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, 9, No. 3 (1887): 141-160; "The Geographical Pivot of History," Geographical Journal 23, No. 4 (1904): 421-444; Democratic Ideals and Reality (London: Henry Holt and Company, Inc., 1919); and "The Round World and Winning the Peace," Foreign Affairs 21, No. 4 (July 1943): 595-605 [back]2. Mackinder, Ideals and Reality, 132-3, 137-8. [back]
Last updated 06 October 2009