On her book The Levant Express: The Arab Uprisings, Human Rights, and the Future of the Middle East
Cover Interview of February 19, 2020
Lastly
This book opens with a poem, “Farewell to Abu
Dhabi,” which I wrote on the plane as I completed my Gulf sojourn and returned
to Denver. Reflecting on the people I was leaving behind, I thought of them as
uncertain travelers like myself, struggling to find their way through
tempestuous times. “I will bring you along to my new refuge,” I wrote, “an
ambassador for dreams yet to bloom.” While I use poetry and creative images to
take readers to the realm of the possible, I advance and document practical
proposals designed to draw the attention of an interested audience, analysts,
and policy-makers.
No one can offer a blueprint for the future,
but I sketch alternatives that are today obscured by sectarian conflict,
religious extremism, and authoritarian repression. I invite others to enter
into this conversation by adding, altering, or proposing different paths. I am
gratified that some of these ideas are making inroads in palaces, parliamentary
offices, businesses, and other audiences. Amidst war fatigue, such proposals,
based on fundamental principles of rights, may present themselves as more
realistic and viable alternatives. Roosevelt reminded us in an even darker time
that “the world will either move forward toward unity and widely shared
prosperity or it will move apart.” I agree, and would add that the stakes are
too high and the world cannot afford to lose.
[T]he Holocaust transformed our whole way of thinking about war and heroism. War is no longer a proving ground for heroism in the same way it used to be. Instead, war now is something that we must avoid at all costs—because genocides often take place under the cover of war. We are no longer all potential soldiers (though we are that too), but we are all potential victims of the traumas war creates. This, at least, is one important development in the way Western populations envision war, even if it does not always predominate in the thinking of our political leaders.Carolyn J. Dean, Interview of February 01, 2011
The dominant premise in evolution and economics is that a person is being loyal to natural law if he or she attends to self’s interest and welfare before being concerned with the needs and demands of family or community. The public does not realize that this statement is not an established scientific principle but an ethical preference. Nonetheless, this belief has created a moral confusion among North Americans and Europeans because the evolution of our species was accompanied by the disposition to worry about kin and the collectives to which one belongs.Jerome Kagan, Interview of September 17, 2009
Lastly
This book opens with a poem, “Farewell to Abu Dhabi,” which I wrote on the plane as I completed my Gulf sojourn and returned to Denver. Reflecting on the people I was leaving behind, I thought of them as uncertain travelers like myself, struggling to find their way through tempestuous times. “I will bring you along to my new refuge,” I wrote, “an ambassador for dreams yet to bloom.” While I use poetry and creative images to take readers to the realm of the possible, I advance and document practical proposals designed to draw the attention of an interested audience, analysts, and policy-makers.
No one can offer a blueprint for the future, but I sketch alternatives that are today obscured by sectarian conflict, religious extremism, and authoritarian repression. I invite others to enter into this conversation by adding, altering, or proposing different paths. I am gratified that some of these ideas are making inroads in palaces, parliamentary offices, businesses, and other audiences. Amidst war fatigue, such proposals, based on fundamental principles of rights, may present themselves as more realistic and viable alternatives. Roosevelt reminded us in an even darker time that “the world will either move forward toward unity and widely shared prosperity or it will move apart.” I agree, and would add that the stakes are too high and the world cannot afford to lose.