Shorenstein APARC's Korean Studies Program, begun in September 2000 and led by Gi-Wook Shin, features weekly luncheon seminars on Korea-related issues, from war reporting to health care to democracy. Heavily attended by students and faculty alike, the series is often standing-room-only.
August was a bloody month. There was barely time to mourn between the exploding bombs: first at the Marriott hotel in Jakarta on Aug. 5, at U.N. headquarters in Baghdad and on a bus in Jerusalem on Aug. 19, then the two in Bombay on Monday. These were the latest sites in a chronology of carnage running from Casablanca through Riyadh and Bali to Manhattan's crumbling towers.
Each atrocity involved local actors and local motives. Each was perceived differently by the local populace, and the local repercussions of each terrorist act varied widely. Yet all were attributed to a single global menace: jihad. For three years now, acts of violence done in Allah's name have made terrorism and Islam almost synonymous, not just in Westerners' vocabularies but around the world.
From this blight, who will rescue Islam?
The nearly reflexive association of Islam and terrorism is not simply the creation of rush-to-judgment pundits and politicians. Not when the terrorists proudly proclaim religious inspiration for their acts. Both Jerry Falwell and Osama bin Laden have maligned Islam. But it is, above all, the jihadists who have distilled their faith to sacred hatred - of Americans, Christians, Jews and the millions upon millions of moderate or secular Muslims who disdain this perversion from within.
Muslims respond in different ways to Islamist violence. In Jakarta a few days after 11 Indonesians and a Dutchman were killed in the blast at the Marriott, I met up with two Muslim friends. They were brimming with conspiracy theories. Why, they asked, had 20 Americans reportedly canceled their reservations before the bomb went off? Could these no-shows have known in advance of the attack? Why was the severed head of the alleged perpetrator later found on the hotel's fifth floor? Had the CIA planted it there? Why were arrests made so soon? Could the U.S., or perhaps the Indonesian military, have staged the event?
Behind their questions lay an unspoken one: How could Muslims have done such a thing?
It would be convenient if my two friends despised Americans and were products of Islamist schools. But both men hold advanced degrees from top universities in the U.S. and exhibit no obvious animosity toward Americans. That two such people could give voice to such dark misgivings about U.S. intentions shows that Islam is not alone in its association with violence.
The flip side of denial is demonization. For some in the West, the enemy is not jihadists but all Islamists. Never mind that the vast majority of Muslims who promote their faith do so peacefully. The PowerPoint charts of counter-terrorism experts that ignore Muslim diversity and feature the evil genius Bin Laden reinforce a distorted, top-down view of Islam.
Al Qaeda's responsibility is all too real. But local context matters. For jihad to succeed, an outside agitator needs inside sympathizers, and their receptivity to recruitment will depend on local circumstances. Recognizing that Muslim societies are autonomous and heterogeneous is a necessary first step to realizing that Bin Laden and his version of Islam aren't absolute control.
Defenders of Islam in the West stress the fact that most of its billion-plus adherents are moderates who reject violence. Such reassurance is far preferable to demonization. But understanding is not served by exaggerations - that Islam or Muslims are always peaceful, or that jihadists entirely lack sympathy in the Muslim world. In Muslim communities, extremist and mainstream views intersect in many places, including schools, mosques and organizations. It is in these myriad local settings that Islam's connection to violence will or won't be broken.
Regrettably, reassurance sometimes lapses into denial. In Indonesia recently, several leading Muslim figures urged journalists to stop using the words "Islam" and "Muslim" in their coverage of the Marriott bombing. I've even heard Muslims object to the phrase "moderate Muslims" because it implies the existence of immoderate ones. Islam will never be rescued by language inspectors who would substitute deflection for introspection.
Can reform rescue Islam? In principle, yes, but in practice, not necessarily. There are at least a few individuals and groups in every Muslim society striving to make the practice of their faith more tolerant of difference and dissent, less restrictive toward women, more compatible with secular democracy and less preoccupied with imposing Islamic law. Liberal American observers tend to celebrate these reformers as rescuers of Islam.
Yet the sheer diversity of Muslim societies suggests that efforts to liberalize Islamic doctrine will face varying prospects of success. Before assuming that liberals and jihadists have nothing in common, one should remember that both advocate far-reaching changes that threaten the conservative views and habits of many mainstream Muslims. Reformers deserve American support. But preventing the status quo from getting worse may be a more realistic goal of such help than winning "hearts and minds" for humanism, let alone making the Muslim world look as secular and democratic as, say, Turkey.
Is America responsible for Islam's predicament? Some U.S. actions have fueled jihad. The American presence in Iraq could become a magnet for holy warriors comparable to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Muslims pressed by Washington to oppose the hijacking of Islam by jihadists may instead decry the hijacking of U.S. foreign policy by hard- liners around President Bush.
But jihadists were fighting enemies long before the United States was born. The drive to create Islamist states is more than an attempt to check American hegemony. Different U.S. policies might shrink Muslim hostility toward U.S. actions. But intransigent theocrats will not be assuaged by the compromises necessary to resolve the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. Nor will either the failure or success of U.S.-led reconstruction of Iraq remove the reasons for Islamist violence in other Muslim societies.
Also shaky is the notion that "they hate us for our values." The democracy Americans espouse remains popular in the Muslim world. American notions of equal treatment for women are less welcome. But a woman's opportunities vary among Muslim-majority countries, including those in Asia that preceded the U.S. in having female heads of state.
Americans are disproportionally responsible for a modern world most Muslims feel they never made. Extremists have used such alienation to justify jihad. But it is not up to Americans to rescue Islam.
Non-Muslims can avoid unnecessary provocations and false reassurances. They can facilitate liberal reform. But it is Muslims, acting in diverse local circumstances, who will or won't break the cycle of jihadist demonization and naive denial that is ruining the image of their religion. Whether to rescue their faith is a choice only they can make.
Philippines Conference Room, Encina Hall, Third Floor, Central Wing
Journalism in Southeast Asia is triply constrained. In a given country, the regime in power may impose censorship or induce self-censorship. Outraged by an article, headline, or photograph, a threatening mob can achieve the same result. Concern for the bottom line may pressure commercial media to avoid "serious" analyses in favor of "lighter" stories with ostensibly greater reader, listener, or viewer appeal. Violence and sex may be featured for the same material reason. What is it like to work under such constraints? What strategies are available to journalists for defeating or deflecting them? How do the news environments in Indonesia and Thailand differ in these respects? What about the prejudices and preferences of journalists themselves? How do all these limits, incentives, and propensities go into the making of the news in Southeast Asia? Yuli Ismartono is uniquely suited to answer these questions. As a correspondent for TEMPO, she covered wars in Cambodia and Sri Lanka, drugs in the Golden Triangle, the student uprising in Burma, the Soviet exit from Afghanistan, Russian elections, the first Gulf War, and events in Pakistan, the Philippines, South Korea, Vietnam, and, of course, Indonesia. For five years while TEMPO was banned, she worked in television and corporate public relations while writing for The Indonesian Observer. Her current responsibilities as executive editor include managing TEMPOInteraktif (online news).
Okimoto Conference Room, Encina Hall, Third Floor, East Wing
Command economies gave Communist-era elites administrative control and material privilege but severely restricted money income and private wealth. Markets and privatization inject new value into public assets and create unprecedented opportunities for elite insiders. These opportunities depend on the extent of regime change and barriers to asset appropriation. Regime change varies from the survival of the entire party hierarchy to its rapid collapse and defeat in competitive elections. Barriers to asset appropriation vary with the extent, pace, and form of privatization, and the concentration and liquidity of assets. Different combinations of such circumstances jointly affect the extent to which elites obtain ownership of control of privatized assets, use political office to extract larger incomes, move into salaried elite occupations, or fall out of the elite altogether. Regime change and barriers to asset appropriation affect change at the national level, but outcomes vary across economic sectors because of characteristics of organizations, elite positions, and assets. This elementary theory serves to integrate varied findings from recent research on Central Europe, China, and Russia, and yields predictions for other regions.
America has called for a multilateral solution to the recent crisis on the Korean Peninsula. As a result, Russia, China and Japan have been asked to play a more active role in contributing to a peaceful resolution. Drawing on years of experience in this region, Ambassador Armacost gives us his insights into this volatile area, including prospects for change. Most recently (1995-2002), Armacost served as president of Washington D.C.'s Brookings Institution, the nation's oldest think tank and a leader in research on politics, government, international affairs, economics, and public policy. Previously, during his twenty-four year government career, Armacost served, among other positions, as undersecretary of state for political affairs and as ambassador to Japan and the Philippines. Registration: 7:30 pm Program: 8:00 pm Students with ID - Free Members of the World Affairs Council - $5 Nonmembers - $8
Stanford Law School Room 180, Stanford Campus
Michael Armacost (April 15, 1937 – March 8, 2025) was a Shorenstein APARC Fellow at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) from 2002 through 2021. In the interval between 1995 and 2002, Armacost served as president of Washington, D.C.'s Brookings Institution, the nation's oldest think tank and a leader in research on politics, government, international affairs, economics, and public policy. Previously, during his twenty-four-year government career, Armacost served, among other positions, as undersecretary of state for political affairs and as ambassador to Japan and the Philippines.
Armacost began his career in academia, as a professor of government at Pomona College. In 1969, he was awarded a White House Fellowship and was assigned to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of State. Following a stint on the State Department's policy planning and coordination staff, he became a special assistant to the U.S. ambassador in Tokyo from 1972 to 74, his first foreign diplomatic post. Thereafter, he held senior Asian affairs and international security posts in the State Department, the Defense Department, and the National Security Council. From 1982 to 1984, he served as U.S. ambassador to the Philippines and was a key force in helping the country undergo a nonviolent transition to democracy. In 1989, President George Bush tapped him to become ambassador to Japan, considered one of the most important and sensitive U.S. diplomatic posts abroad.
Armacost authored four books, including, Friends or Rivals? The Insider's Account of U.S.–Japan Relations (1996), which draws on his tenure as ambassador, and Ballots, Bullets, and Bargains: American Foreign Policy and Presidential Elections (2015). He also co-edited, with Daniel Okimoto, the Future of America's Alliances in Northeast Asia, published in 2004 by Shorenstein APARC. Armacost served on numerous corporate and nonprofit boards, including TRW, AFLAC, Applied Materials, USEC, Inc., Cargill, Inc., and Carleton College, and he currently chairs the board of The Asia Foundation.
A native of Ohio, Armacost graduated from Carleton College and earned his master's and doctorate degrees in public law and government from Columbia University. He received the President's Distinguished Service Award, the Defense Department's Distinguished Civilian Service Award, the Secretary of State's Distinguished Services Award, and the Japanese government’s Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun.
The Korean peninsula has been at the center of Cold War politics ever since its 1945 territorial division, and remains so even after the demise of the Soviet empire. After half a century of intense conflict and tensions -- including a major war -- the leaders of North and South Korea held their first summit in summer 2000, creating hope and enthusiasm for peace and unification on the peninsula. However, the current stalemate in inter-Korean relations and the recent tension over North Korea's nuclear program clearly indicate that a peaceful conflict resolution, let alone unification, will not come easily. The current situation also attests to the urgent need for a new forum that can address various issues related to inter-Korean and North Korea-U.S./Japan relations at the nonofficial, nonpolitical level.
We believe that early 2003 will be a critical moment in inter-Korean and North Korea-U.S./Japan relations. The new South Korean government will take office in late February 2003 and the newly created special economic zone in Shin-ui-ju is expected to be at work in a few months. Also, the recent visit of Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi to North Korea could lead to a new relationship between the two countries, and the Bush administration will be entering the second half of its term in early 2003.
All these developments, along with the recent revelation of North Korea's nuclear program, make the proposed policy conference timely and essential for (re) formulating new North Korean policies by South Korea, Japan, and the United States. The proposed conference will discuss policy issues toward North Korea among scholars and policymakers from the United States, Japan, China, and Russia, as well as South Korea. We seek to produce a policy proposal to be presented to the new South Korean government, as well as to the governments in Tokyo and Washington, D.C.
Bechtel Conference Center, Encina Hall, Central Wing
Dr. Bat Batjargal is visiting scholar at the Center for Russian and East European Studies, Stanford University. He holds a lecturer position at London Business School and is assistant professor in strategy at Beijing University School of Management. His Ph.D. is from the University of Oxford. Previously, he has held visiting appointments at Harvard University, United Nations University in Tokyo, and the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. He is the author of several research articles on entrepreneurship, and the book "Entrepreneurship in the New Russia: The Resource Based View" to be published by Edward Elgar in 2002.
Okimoto Conference Room, Third Floor, Encina Hall, East Wing
How was it that Afghanistan, a country that was often conquered and ruled by outsiders before 1800, became seemingly impossible to conquer and rule in the 19th and 20th centuries? An historical examination of Afghan history reveals that premodern Central Asian rulers looked upon war and conquest as the business of displacing rival elites, a process having little or nothing to do with the inhabitants of the territory. During the 19th century, this pattern began to change in Afghanistan where governments found themselves dependent on raising tribal armies to repel foreign invaders, such as the British, at the cost of sharing power with them in the postwar period. This pattern continued into the 20th century when during each period of state collapse drew an ever-wider part of the population into the political struggle for power. The Soviet invasion drew the widest possible opposition but upon their withdrawal no faction was able to create a stable government. Afghanistan fell into ten years of civil war that opened it up to extreme movements such the Taliban and its exploitation by outsiders such as Osama bin Laden. Since war alone has now proved incapable of solving Afghanistan's problems the current conflict in Afghanistan can only be won by a wider policy that makes Afghanistan's economic and political reconstruction a priority in a way that can end its cycle of anarchy.
Philippines Conference Room, Encina Hall, Third Floor, Central Wing
The terrorist attacks on September 11 threw Afghanistan back into the international spotlight. This time, the events impacted not only Afghanistan's relationship with the United States and Russia, but also its relations with Pakistan. Dr. Amin Tarzi will work to put this change in relations between Afghanistan, her neighbors, the United States, and Russia into a perspective that will allow for a discussion on the current situation in the region and the future geopolitical role of Afghanistan. Amin Tarzi is a U.S. national of Afghan origins. His academic and professional expertise is in the history and politics of the Middle East and Central Asia, with a particular focus on the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, as well as Iran and Afghanistan. Dr. Tarzi has written extensively on topics related to the proliferation and politics of weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems, the politics of oil, the United States vis a vis the Arab world, and current affairs in Egypt, Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan -- including the Taliban and U.S. involvement in Afghanistan.
Daniel and Nancy Okimoto Conference Room
