Author: Milan

In the spring of 2005, I graduated from the University of British Columbia with a degree in International Relations and a general focus in the area of environmental politics. In the fall of 2005, I began reading for an M.Phil in IR at Wadham College, Oxford. Outside school, I am very interested in photography, writing, and the outdoors. I am writing this blog to keep in touch with friends and family around the world, provide a more personal view of graduate student life in Oxford, and pass on some lessons I've learned here.

Government and secrecy

With increasingly credible revelations about illegal surveillance within the United States, the general concern I’ve felt for years about the present administration is becoming progressively more acute. To be fiscally reckless and socially crusading is one thing. To authorize actions that blatantly violate international law (in the case of torture, rendition, and the indefinite detention of noncombatants) as well as domestic law (by disregarding constitutional safeguards and checks on power) an administration shifts from being simply unappealing to actually being criminal. You can’t just throw away the presumption of innocence and probable cause while maintaining the fiction that the foundational rules upon which a lawful society is based are not being discarded.

Perhaps the most worrisome of all the recent developments are the actions and statements being made against the press. I don’t know if there is any truth to the claim that the phones of ABC reporters are being tapped in hopes of identifying confidential sources, but the general argument that wide-ranging governmental activities must be kept secret for the sake of security is terrifying. If history and the examination of the contemporary world reveal anything, it is that protection from government is at least as important as protection from outside threats. As I wrote in the NASCA report (PDF):

Protection of the individual from unreasonable or arbitrary power – in the hands of government and its agents – is a crucial part of the individual security of all citizens in democratic states. While terrorists have shown themselves to be capable of causing enormous harm with modest resources, the very enormity state power means that it can do great harm through errors or by failing to create and maintain proper checks on authority.

Harm to citizens needn’t occur as the result of malice; the combination of intense secrecy and the inevitability of mistakes ensure that such harm will result. Anyone who doubts the capability of the American government and administration to make mistakes need only think of their own explanations for the Hurricane Katrina response, Abu Ghraib, weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and all the rest.

Three of the NASCA report’s recommendations speak to the issue of secrecy and accountability specifically:

  • Security measures that are put in place should, wherever possible, require public justification and debate.
  • The perspective of security as a trade-off should be pro-actively presented to the public through outreach that emphasizes transparency.
  • With regards to domestic defence planning, military practice reliant upon secrecy should always be subsidiary to civil and legal oversight.

People both inside and outside the United States would be safer if such guidelines were followed. When even Fox News is opening articles with statements such as the one that follows, something has gone badly wrong.

The government has abruptly ended an inquiry into the warrantless eavesdropping program because the National Security Agency refused to grant Justice Department lawyers the necessary security clearance to probe the matter.

A legitimate government cannot operate under a general principle of secrecy. While there are certainly cases where secrecy serves a justifiable purpose – such as concealing the identity of the victim of some forms of crime, or the exact location of certain kinds of military facilities – a democratic government cannot retreat from accountability by its citizens by claiming that oversight creates vulnerability. The lack of oversight creates a much more worrisome vulnerability: worrisome for America, and worrisome for everyone who has faith in the fundamental values of democracy and justice upon which it is ostensibly founded.

Mica’s video in a contest

Many of you will already be familiar with the fact that my brother Mica makes movies. You can see a collection of them on his website, as well as search for them on Google video.

Additionally, he is presently competing in an online film contest. His video for “Walk Idiot Walk” by The Hives is in the rock category of the ‘Google Idol’ competition (not affiliated with Google Inc.). He has already made it into the final eight. Apparently, anyone who wishes to can vote. I very much encourage everyone to have a look; you can also leave him comments.

For those not familiar with any of his videos, I endorse the following particularly:

[Update: 20 May 2006] Mica’s video won the quarter-final round, with 1,061 votes to 234. I can’t find a link to the semi-final round yet, but when I do I will put it here.

General 4th week update

Gate near Holywell Street

Amidst Oxford’s volatile spring weather, most of today was spent reading about the Middle East during the periods of 1945-56, 56-89, and 89-present respectively. With four weeks left in my first academic year – and only two weeks left before the research design paper is due – I am feeling an odd combination of the rush of impending deadlines and the calmness of impending summer. Of course, there remain the serious matters of finding employment, and securing a place to live after September.

Within the program, people seem to have hit a definite stride. Thesis anxieties aside, there is a real sense within the group that we understand the Oxford dynamic and are able to deal with it. Having the thesis as an excuse to do not quite as much reading as we might have in previous terms may also have something to do with that.

Since tomorrow is the big seminar day, and I am meant to serve as respondent to Kate Stinson’s presentation about how regional powers in the Middle East may have manipulated international actors, I should get back to my books and the doing of laundry.

PS. What do fellow Oxford bloggers think about 8:00pm on Wednesday the 31st of May for a third gathering?

Research design essay planning

Having seen the distinction-earning research design essay written by Lee Jones last year, I am now thoroughly fearful about the whole project. The extent of research he seems to have done, and the clarity with which he seems to have understood his question both stand in marked contrast to my present situation.

As such, it is perfectly clear that I really need to get cracking. The essay is due on May 29th.

Research Design Essay Planning

Continue reading “Research design essay planning”

On Canada and peacekeeping

This month’s issue of The Walrus opens with a letter from Major General Lewis Mackenzie (ret.). He was the man in charge of the Canadian peacekeeping force in Sarajevo in 1992, remembered particularly for re-taking and maintaining control of the city’s airport. He’s also a man who I met several times at UBC and whose insight and candour I appreciated.

The letter argues that it is factually incorrect to say that Canada is a peacekeeping nation. Mackenzie doesn’t argue this for the familiar (and true) reason that our outlay on foreign relations of all kinds has been cut in order to maintain the budgetary surplus, but because the kind of operations the Canadian Forces are engaging in no longer have the character of classic inter-positional peacekeeping, as envisioned by Lester Pearson and used with such good effect to end the Suez Crisis. I’ve discussed the composition and present deployments of the Canadian Forces in a previous entry. While I am less sympathetic to his argument that Canada has never been a peacekeeping nation, I think the argument that we no longer play that role is convincing.

The reasons for this are mostly fairly obvious. A line of lightly armed personnel with blue helmets between two armies is no longer the model for military intervention in conflict zones. Given that most wars are now civil wars, the armies may be neither disciplined, organized, nor clearly defined. Chaotic and dangerous places do not lend themselves to soft blue berets, as Mackenzie identifies, but to the flak jackets and “camouflaged Kevlar helmets” that are the kit employed by almost all Canadian Forces members overseas: especially in our largest deployment, in Afghanistan.

Is Mackenzie right to challenge the peacekeeping myth? It’s something Canadians use as a heuristic device for understanding how Canada behaves in the world: out there solving problems and putting out fires where they erupt, as opposed to the more brash and world-changing strategies of our great southern neighbour. Obviously, it’s not an idea that should be perpetuated if it’s blatantly false. I would argue that it is not, but that the gritty details of contemporary peacekeeping, peacemaking, and peace enforcement must be recognized in the public arena.

One of the most regrettable developments in warfare recently has been the progression from a blue helmet or a red cross being a protective symbol to it being irrelevant or even grounds for being targeted. Partly, that has to do with the conflating of war fighting and reconstruction roles to which both the United States and Canada have contributed. When some jeeps have food aid in them and others have ammunition, there is little chance of retaining trust and credibility for those who distribute the first. Likewise, some planes dropping food packets while similar ones drop cluster bombs. When aid providing non-governmental organisations (NGOs) get integrated into war plans, similar problems arise. For that reason, I applaud the way in which Medicins Sans Frontiers, among other groups, have resisted the pressure to become subjugated to the military planning of western states.

The complex nature of modern peacekeeping operations may not be accurately reflected in the media and the opinions of the public at large. I think that Mackenzie is correct to raise the issue, but simply doing so doesn’t offer us a great deal of guidance. It is plausible that the Martin and Harper governments have actively managed the representation of Canadian operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere to heighten the sense that they are similar to the ‘traditional style’ of Canadian peacekeeping. If so, it’s understandable, given how much of an identity issue peacekeeping has become in Canada. To the extent that such idealization helps create support to take the initiative internationally, there is some value. To the extent that they confuse the issue and obscure the real character of our actions, the illusions should be dispelled.

In Memoriam

Karen FurstrandOne year ago, my friend Karen died in a car crash, in Vancouver. I found out the next morning from a newspaper headline, while I was waiting at a bus stop with a packet of photos I had taken of her in and around the Nitobe Gardens at UBC. It all strikes me as having happened a very long time ago: from our last brief conversation to walking twenty kilometres home, along the dark sea front, after her candle light vigil.

A year’s contemplation of life and death have yielded little more certainty about how to feel and respond.

As such a personable and enthusiastic individual, I do not doubt that Karen Furstrand is well and broadly remembered. I hope that those good recollections will temper the grief of friends and family as they think back upon her. In particular, my best wishes and condolences go out to her brother Ian, sister Sonia, and parents Erik and Celia.

Oxford Natural History and Pitt Rivers Museum

Deer skeleton

Happy birthday Jonathan Morissette 

Visiting the Oxford Natural History Museum with someone who shares an active interest in botany, archaeology, palaeontology, genetics, and geology is quite a fascinating experience. As such, doing so this morning with Antonia was both engaging and pleasant. Partly, the visit was motivated by the desire to see the Kakapo parrot but, since she went on a tour with one of the curators quite recently, she told me a lot more about the collection as well.

For the unfamiliar, the Natural History Museum is housed inside an attractive building on Parks Road, north of Wadham. The main hall is the kind of vaulted steel and glass structure that I associate with the great European exhibitions of the early 20th century: with crowds goggling over dinosaur skeletons. The collection is certainly quite good, spanning a respectable section of the animal and mineral variety of the planet. Especially worth seeing: elephant skeletons, some of the wide variety of stuffed raptors, the complete bluefin tuna skeleton, some of the large fossil and mineral samples, and the general architecture of the building itself. Note how every pillar in both the lower and upper galleries is made from a different stone, from a different part of the United Kingdom.

T-Rex foot

Behind the Natural History Museum, and presently under renovation, is the Pitt Rivers museum. A cynic might describe it as an exuberant assembly of the plunder of British aristocrats past. It includes a Haida totem poll, shrunken heads, and innumerable tools, weapons, religious artefacts, articles of clothing, and day-to-day objects from countries around the world. Unusually for a museum, objects are assembled by type, in cases spanning many times and cultures. That allows for an appreciation both of the variety of human creations, and the similar needs and products of diverse cultures. While not large, the place is literally packed, with narrow aisles between well-stuffed display cases. Antonia explained that both the Pitt Rivers and Natural History Museums have far too little space to display their full collections: a partial motivation for the ongoing renovation.

The general lesson – that museums are enormously better in the presence of interested others – is obvious enough. I am delighted that I had the chance to use that insight in practice.

Man of letters

Since I got my fountain pen and pad of brown, lined, recycled paper, I’ve written about thirty letters: ranging from a few short paragraphs to one of several hundred pages. There was a time, about eight years ago, when I wrote a great many handwritten letters: probably more than a hundred in all. In one of the more cruel things ever done to me, a few years ago the recipient demanded to return or destroy them, en masse. I certainly didn’t want them returned, but I really hope they haven’t been destroyed for want of attic space. They were written during an incredibly embryonic time and, idiotic as they doubtless are in the greater part, I think of them as a partially externalized version of myself as I was and wanted to be. I want them out there as a challenge to the blurring of memory in response to time and new events.

Since then, I’ve been both too ashamed of my atrocious handwriting to write many things by hand. I have also been concerned about having information out there of which I have no record to back up recollections that inevitably become hazy with time. The greatest force that has changed my mind recently is the sheer and impossible volume of computer generated text: whether blog, email, or printed letter. In the face of such a flood of information, it is increasingly hard to get anyone (including myself) to pay attention. As a consummate record-keeper, I do have virtually every scrap of electronic information ever sent to me archived and searchable. Even so, I am far more likely to re-read the few letters I have received since arriving here (the rest being safely entombed with photographic negatives back in North Vancouver).

I’ve just finished writing a letter of the sort that you hope will become a bulwark between a past mistake and all the future. As always, there is no certainty that a few flimsy pages can prove so solid, but I shall hope and see.

Warm night

Streetlamp base

Tonight was the first time this year I’ve walked home at night in short sleeves and felt entirely comfortable doing so. Naturally, it reminded me of all the best times when I’ve been able to wander around in cities on bright, cool nights just after the sun has set: after Judo lessons back in North Vancouver, with Alison and Viktoria in Toronto last summer, and during the summer language bursary program in Montreal. In all those and other cases, I remember the incredible sense of ease that accompanies being free and comfortable in uncrowded streets.

The psychological effect of the pleasing climate is enormous, because it changes the way you feel about being in territory that isn’t under your control. During the icy morning in Chichester, frigid walks in Helsinki, or confused meanderings in London during the winter, I was always plotting where I would get some food, where I could get warm, where I could sleep. This leads to calculations of how long you can linger in a Starbucks with or without buying a drink, what time warm open spaces like malls and bookshops close, and how far you have wandered from the nearest place that you have a key or friend that can yet you into.

Wandering on a warm night, by contrast, projects at least the fiction that all the world is reasonably hospitable: that you can wander almost anywhere with few worries and comfort and adventure are simultaneously possible.

Another Oxford bloggers’ gathering?

The first Oxford bloggers’ gathering happened on 29 October 2005.

The second, on 21 February 2006.

If they are to be quarterly, the third is due fairly soon. Provided, of course, people are still interested. I am perfectly willing to shift from the format of meeting in the evening at The Turf, if people prefer something else. Indeed, meeting at The Perch on a sunny afternoon seems much more spring-like.

Remember, those who show up automatically get a spot at the top of my list of Oxford blogs.

[Edited on 15 May 2006 to add] I propose Wednesday of sixth week (the 31st of May) as the date for this event. Additionally, I propose that it take place at The Turf, as in the two prior instances. I’m not sure many people would be willing to make the trek to The Perch, much as I think it would be nicer. How is 8:00pm for a starting time?

[Edited on 17 May 2006 to add] Because The Turf will probably be packed with finalists, we have decided to relocate the gathering to The Bear: south of the High Street and fairly close to Merton College.

PS. On an unrelated but amusing note, thanks to the new Google Trends service, I can prove that more people are searching for love, but there is consistently more news about money.